TrekMovie: Early Thoughts On ‘Star Trek: Section 31’

TrekCore: Star Trek: Section 31 Is a Dreary, Unfortunate Misfire

io9: Section 31 Is a Mediocre Action Movie, and an Even Worse Star Trek One

The Federation didn’t need 31 to win the war

Do we know that for certain? The cure to the virus was actually pretty fundamental to the Female Changeling ordering the Jem’Hadar to stand down. She refused to surrender until Odo linked with her and cured her.

I completely agree.

I’ve often thought that there must have been plenty of Section 31 operations that didn’t rise to the level of, you know, genocide, and that those operations were likely more ambiguous.

I’m hoping that whatever they’re up to in this movie is more in that vein - almost certainly illegal, but probably more ethically murky?

They were definitely villains in the series…but I don’t think DS9 ever made a strong case that they weren’t necessary (nor do I think they were trying to).

Right up until the end, the morphogenic virus was critical to the end of the war.

It’s quite difficult to describe the character of Fuzz. This is a species that we have never seen before.

…Huh. So neither Vulcan nor Romulan, apparently. It’s been a while since the word “Vulcanoid” has been on my mind.

So could any given episode of “My Little Pony” - in fact, the number of things that could say “Star Wars” on it is literally endless!

Tractor beams and force fields are actually both supposed to be applications of graviton technology, so…kinda?

But no, I don’t think that bit of the Technical Manual is very consistent with how we saw the holodecks actually being used.

It thankfully stops short of “meat”:

Such animated characters are composed of solid matter arranged by transporter-based replicators and manipulated by highly articulated computer-driven tractor beams. The results are exceptionally realistic “puppets,” which exhibit behaviors almost exactly like those of living beings, depending on software limits.

Objects created on the Holodeck that are pure holographic images cannot be removed from the Holodeck, even if they appear to possess physical reality because of the focused forcebeam imagery. Objects created by replicator matter conversion do have physical reality and can indeed be removed from the Holodeck, even though they will no longer be under computer control.

Obviously, there is an inconsistency here, as we saw that later holographic characters could not be removed from the holodeck, and therefore must not have been replicated.

I don’t think so - I’ve never been able to find it.

That isn’t actually stated anywhere, but…it kind of has to be true in order for latinum to work.

The Technical Manual explanation is not that replicators create matter out of pure energy - they are a type of transporter that dematerializes raw material and rematerializes it to match a molecular pattern. They are “matter-energy converters” only in the sense that the stream of particles during the materialization process could be called an energy stream.

These replicator system headends are located on Deck 12 in the Saucer Module [of the Enterprise-D] and on Deck 34 in the Engineering Section. These systems operate by using a phase-transition coil chamber in which a measured quantity of raw material is dematerialized in a manner similar to that of a standard transporter.

Instead of using a molecular imaging scanner to determine the patterns of the raw stock, however, a quantum geometry transformational matrix field is used to modify the matter stream to conform to a digitally stored molecular pattern matrix. The matter stream is then routed through a network of waveguide conduits that direct the signal to a replicator terminal at which the desired article is materialized within another phase transition chamber.

Yeah…I think a lot of that will depend on what the actual plot of the thing is, and they’ve been keeping a surprisingly tight lid on that.

The covert mission to destroy Cardassian weapons that Starfleet Intelligence sent Picard, Crusher, and Worf on in “Chain of Command” was probably illegal, but I never hear people complaining about it.

Yeah, I only really thought of them because (a) the Memory Alpha page for “Exoskeleton” mentioned them, and (b) people have been comparing Zeph here to the Borg since images first came out.

Disregarding the Borg, I can’t think of any others.

Zeph has moved into my head, and he’s not moving out.

Star Trek has certainly never shied away from “fun and silly” before. I think it’s good to have different flavours available.

As long as I enjoy this thing, it should be enough for me.

I don’t want to get too excited in this time of contraction in the entertainment industry, but it’s exciting that they’re opening the door to this era.

The presence of a young Rachel Garrett seems to suggest it (she was likely born around 2300, so the movie could take place around 2330).

I don’t know if we’ll see any actual maroons, though - I think they’re operating outside of the Federation.

quick get Sam Witwer on the phone

the Discovery-era

Well, this seems poised to be set sometime after “The Undiscovered Country,” which is actually one of the more interesting aspects for me.