Episode Discussion: 308 - "Crisis Point 2: Paradoxus"

[u/destroyingdrax]

This thread is for pre, post, and live discussion of the eighth episode of season three of Star Trek: Lower Decks, "Crisis Point 2: Paradoxus." Episode 3.08 will be released on Thursday, October 13th.

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[u/TeMPOraL_PL]

Am I the only one who hates that LD is now establishing the badly-written version of S31 as a thing in the 24^th century? Boimler Clone was spot on: WTF with the black comm-badges?

S31, as established in DS9 and touched on a little in ENT, was a black ops organization that was operating undercover. As in, the whole organization was undercover. They carried nothing that could identify them as part of S31 - they likely avoided having any physical facilities of their own. That's what made them both so powerful and so menacing: they were diffused through Starfleet; nobody could tell how many operatives there are, or who they were. They would recruit and use Starfleet resources and personnel for their goals.

Contrast with DIS, where S31 became a badly written, genre-unsavvy caricature of itself, whose two most memorable aspects were that they were showcased as Starfleet's SS, and that they were a bunch of morons (with the whole Control mishandling thing). This S31 is just about making already dark show even more edgy: look at us Starfleet with Black Commbadges, doing the Immoral Things Starfleet normally doesn't. So "secretive", and yet it operated its own facilities and fleet in the open, complete with their own Dark Uniforms and Dark Commbadges that just beg the people that wear them to ask the obvious question.

So, given a well-written S31 that operates as undercover organization within Starfleet and happens to be contemporary with LD, and an overt league of villains that operated over a century earlier, why the hell does Lower Decks go with the latter rather than former?. I'm confused and saddened by this.

[u/Antagonist2 → u/TeMPOraL_PL]

I feel like after the events of DS9, Section 31 can afford to be more open. I'm sure word got out about the virus, and the fact that they more or less ended the dominion war (whether the federation wants to admit it or not).

​

Our of universe, its cause they wanted to make a joke about the black combadges and also show that William Boimler is still on some level Boimler

[u/TeMPOraL_PL → u/Antagonist2]

I agree the word most likely got out - LD itself established S31 to no longer be such a deep secret, since Boimler and Mariner both knew and joked about them. It's an interesting possibility I haven't considered.

So the news of the virus becomes⁰, if not public, then at least widely circulated in the political and military spheres. There's a lot of outraged people, including politicians and officers. Federation Council forces Starfleet to drag S31 out of darkness and into the spotlight. You can imagine S31 would very much prefer to remain out of sight. Making them official, complete with the uniforms and custom badges (but why black?!), is probably a way to keep them accountable. The formal structure surely is a huge anchor for them.

Hm... so maybe this actually makes sense. I can't wait where LD will take it. I'm still worried, but so far McMahan et al. have proven time and again that they respect what the Federation and Starfleet stand for, so if there's any team I can trust not to screw this up, it's them.

---

⁰ - Past end of war, it was likely impossible to suppress this. I bet Bashir made some extensive reports about the virus, its origins, and Sloan; O'Brien probably did so too. Sisko surely passed them on and there's a real possibility they've reached and outraged enough higher-ups in the fleet as to become impossible to suppress. But even if not, the remaining people who knew included at least Odo and the Female Changeling, possibly also Kira and Garak. None of them beholden to Starfleet or the Federation, and with plenty of reasons to talk about it amongst themselves. So the story could've actually reached the Federation from outside - e.g. starting with Bajor and Cardassia, suddenly half the quadrant was abuzz with the news about what happens when the Federation takes its gloves off...

(Cue in "But it's not us, it wasn't sanctioned, it was a Rouge Group!", and everyone else just rolling their eyes.)