Deep Space Understands the Fantasy of Nine Spies and Their Reality

In less than a week, the next Star Trek project is coming form Section 31Starring Michelle Yeoh, the film delves into the titular black ops organization – focusing on the glitz and glamor of secret agent work, at least in all the footage we’ve seen so far. There is action, there are dazzling costumeseven, perhaps most surprisingly, there’s direct Federation control in the context of all of this, like a co-worker who’s up his ass, stopping you from having fun here.

Not surprisingly, some Star Trek What worries fans only Section 31 really thinks it’s his namesake, and maybe some of his co-stars are worried about it. “I’m afraid of how it’s going to be received, because it’s not Track people want. The Track what people want Track All we want is just 1000 more episodes TNG”, said Rob Kazinski, who played the cybernetically enhanced Zef in the film recently SFX magazine. “Everyone is always angry because they can’t get more TNGat the same time, when TNG came out, everyone hated it. So this will come and feel like nothing Track that they have ever seen.”

But when it comes down to it Star Trek what people want – especially a Star Trek Struggling with the idea of ​​Section 31 is his main focus – perhaps The Next Generation should not be the example we are referring to. To gain true perspective Role of section 31 in Star Trekand its paradoxical existence as a “necessary evil.” destroys his utopiawe just need to look at the show that gave it to us in the first place: Deep Space Nine. Importantly, in this pre-login setup, DS9 The character who got us and his arc with Section 31, Dr. Julian took Bashir on another journey in Our Man Bashir. this a James Bond pastiche It puts Bashir at the center of a brilliant, glamorous and altogether kitschy love letter to classic spies.

Espionage in Our Man Bashir is sexy, elegant and full of action. Bashir becomes the intrepid hero of his holosuit program – flamboyant retro suits, casinos and glamour, outspoken villains with comically daring plans to take over the world. Even if it’s Garak, the actual ex-spy that Bashir is always keeping his secrets from, joining Bashir’s adventure is an episode that celebrates cinematic espionage as we know it, as opposed to the actual espionage of it all. i love Even with the dramatic challenges he plays (it’s a classic). Track trope, a holodeck-error scenario with an element of “die in the game, die in real life”), this is an episode that pretty much validates Bashir’s completely romantic dream of being a spy even when he has to save. losing the real day in fantasy.

Two seasons later, DS9 In the sixth season of Inquisition, when Bashir was targeted by the organization as a potential recruit, it introduced Chapter 31, which plunges the galaxy into chaos as it begins. The Dominion War. At this point, the show has done a lot to penetrate the harsh reality of Captain Sisko once described early in DS9A time when it’s easy to “become a saint in heaven,” exploring how Starfleet and the Federation respond when faced with interstellar conflict on an unprecedented scale. If “Our Man Bashir” treated Garak’s blandishments about the reality of espionage as a joke for Bashir to ignore, “Inquisition” makes them the essence of its text: from the first moment, Section 31 is presented as the antithesis. everything Bashir and the rest DS9‘s staff cherish.

What Agent Sloane does, even to the lengths she goes to try and recruit Bashir, is invasive and callous. Sloane herself, the epitome of Section 31 as we know it, is charged with a sense of paranoia that defies anything we’d expect from a Starfleet official, black ops or otherwise. Bashir isn’t excited to discover the existence of Unit 31, but is absolutely horrified – and his immediate response, like the rest of the crew, is to try to either expose it to light or, as Sisko eventually suggests, destroy it entirely. Working on axing him from within at the end of the episode. During the rest of the speeches of Section 31 DS9— the direct follow-up to “Inquisition,” the show-deepening “Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges” in Bashir and Section 31, and the trippier “Contingency Measures” — Sloane presents the organization as a necessary argument. Evil is never considered a viable outcome, neither by the show nor by our protagonists. If anything, Section 31 becomes as seemingly antagonistic to the Dominion themselves, an existential threat to its moral fiber. Star Trek.

This is explained, perhaps not in later episodes of Section 31, but in the episode that aired directly after its introduction: the iconic “In the Pale Moonlight”creating a killer one-two punch. If “Inquisition” introduced the idea of ​​a formal apparatus for espionage within the Federation, “In the Pale Moonlight” is about the act of espionage itself – the conspiracy, conspiracy, subterfuge inherent in its grim reality. Again, this does not sound like romance DS9 The genre-defying road to hell in Our Man Bashir , Captain Sisko walks with Garek in Pale Moonlight , is constantly shown to us as repulsive, not just because of these actions, but morally. work Sisko moving on rotten and Star Trek himself. The horror of In the Pale Moonlight isn’t that Sisko is complicit in a conspiracy that leads the Romulans to war against the Dominion, guaranteeing the deaths of millions. The potential defeat of the Federation. He can live with the cost of his soul, as he bitterly tells the camera recording the personal journal he knows he’s about to delete. The episode ends with the Romulans officially declaring war on the Dominion, which is what Sisko wants, but he never thinks it’s a victory within the narrative: the true reality of espionage outside of the fantasy of the holoprogram doesn’t have a good ending. .

Deep Space Nine By giving us the existence of Section 31, he may have dropped a bombshell in the first place, but he first understood the dangers of using such a weapon – because he had already revealed such a fantasy to his audience and his characters as well. is a top secret spy organization Star Trekthe universe was nothing more than that, and its reality was something much uglier than understanding. If Section 31 The film wants to avoid the fear of being seen as something it is not Track If people want it, they need to understand it. Otherwise, unlike Sisko, he cannot learn to live by presenting an empty fantasy, nothing else.

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