• marcos@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    The movie implied that she was simply an avatar for the Collective

    She says that. And then she dies and the Borg are defeated.

    On the other hand, on VOY, she says the same, and then proceeds to create a Fascist organization clearly against the goals of the drones. But at least when she dies, the Collective creates a new queen.

    About Section 31, my understanding is that it was once official. And then it was disbanded with prejudice, but the high powers don’t really want it gone, so S31 has authority even on DS9 and LWD times.

    • VindictiveJudge@startrek.website
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      8 months ago

      Been a while since I watched First Contact, but I thought they did more than just kill the Queen. Could be wrong, though.

      On Section 31, that’s the current story, but DS9 had their existence so secret that it’s implausible in combination with how open they are in DSC. It’d be like the US disbanding the marine corps and then trying to pretend they never had one. ENT’s bit where they quoted the charter also has them pretty clearly deliberately misinterpreting what Article 14, Section 31 actually says.

      Harris: “Re-read the charter: Article 14, Section 31. There are a few lines that make allowances for bending the rules during times of extraordinary threat.”

      Archer: “What threat?”

      Harris: “Take your pick. Earth’s got a lot of enemies.”

      That sounds like it’s intended to be meant to cover the wacky reality destroying shenanigans that Starfleet crews tend to get mixed up in. Breaking time travel laws to retrieve whales from the past so that Earth doesn’t get wiped off the map, for instance would be covered under art. XIV, §31. Or interfering with the internal politics of the Q Continuum because they’re blowing up random stars. Or landing a strike team on a pre-warp planet because they’re messing around with Omega Particles. Messing with Romulan internal politics because they hate us doesn’t qualify because the Romulans aren’t about to wipe anyone out. Romulans are an ordinary threat, not an extraordinary one. That’s just Tuesday in the Federation. Harris’ quote also doesn’t imply that the charter actually calls for the creation of an entire branch of Starfleet to handle such threats.

      Before DSC gave them badges, the logical conclusion was that S31 in the prime timeline was an illegal conspiracy among Starfleet officers, not an official organization in any way. Even Into Darkness’ portrayal could potentially be interpreted as a S31 conspirator in that timeline getting high enough ranked to move lots of resources on the sly, though I’ll admit that’s stretching things.

      • marcos@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Oh, it has been a while since I watched it too. I could easily be wrong.

        On S31, there is more than a century between those. It’s like the US disbanding some intelligence agency by the time of their civil war, and people today not knowing about it. It’s not the worst case of document loses on those series.