You can think what you like about Sloan but, on the subject of continuity it's fine. DS9 introduces us to the concept of Section 31 by way of Bashir's unsuccesful recruitment by said organisation. The recruitment process for such an organisation would be, quite naturally, risky but I share the common fan sentiment that they "did their research".Yukaphile wrote: ↑Fri Apr 12, 2019 9:44 pm @Simplicius And yet, to play devil's advocate, they revealed themselves during the worst war in galactic history. Why? I see no benefit, even to recruit a promising agent. I'm sure S31 has some genetically engineered officers in their ranks, gotta, at least in DS9's era. So that was a horrible breach of security. So it's not without precedent. At the same time, you can take "open secrets" too far, and doing so a century beforehand still seems like a bad idea. I think everyone in the fandom is just sick of prequels. As I've said elsewhere, it's been prequels, prequels, prequels for 18 years, since 9/11, the length of time we've been at war in the Middle East. It's just unreal.
They appeal, unsuccessfully to Bashir's romaniticism and, once they get a better reading of him, use him quite skillfully. Bashir made a stink about S31 to Starfleet and to the Tal Shiar and, yet, it worked out fine for them and Koval was put in place, all according to plan.
Compare; partially revealling yourself to execute an ingenious double bluff and place an asset in the centre of a foreign power's government versus giddily blabbing to all and sundry that your organisation is the official intelligence arm of your government. It doesn't compare in the slightest.
The crew of the Discovery is many and varied and it has since been commanded by Christopher Pike (who also knew of Section 31 without a preexisting connection to the Discovery project). Section 31 is not in the business of building anything because they are not a part of the Starfleet command structure and never have been. Starfleet Intelligence can build experimental ships and there's no reason for Section 31 to reveal its existence for the purpose of ... what? Helping them run the ship? They could pose as intelligence officers, or even the rank and file?Actarus wrote: ↑Fri Apr 12, 2019 9:46 pm The Discovery is linked to S31 since the beginning of the show. In the very first episode, when Burnham gets on the Discovery, a prisoner notices the black badges, wondering what they meant. We now know that they were S31 badges. Discovery being an experimental ship, that is not surprising, and its crew must know about S31. It seems to me that the common citizens and maybe ordinary officers, don't even know what S31 is. They describe S31 as an obscure division of Starfleet Intelligence. If S31 disappears by the end of the season and all records of it are erased from Starfleet data banks, then a hundred years later no one would even know that such an organisation ever existed.
Three possibilities exist:
1. They existed as an official branch of Starfleet from the beginning (breaking continuity with ENT explicitly and DS9 implicitly but remaining in continuity with STID). This is considered a none option by most.
2. They were an off-the-books organisation, effectively gone rogue, that decided to integrate into the Starfleet command structure and reveal themselves to a large number of people (with varying lifepsans, loyalties and futures) before returning to the shadows. This is highly implausible to the extent that it renders the events pointless - they're effectively omnipotent, the stakes are totally flat, and so on and so forth.
3. The writers don't care about continuity. Section 31 was just an idea they misunderstand or disliked but it served as a convenient reference designed to peak fan interest.
