[Mack]

I mean, as much as its obvious, I welcome them to explore Section 31.

They've never been fully explored or explained in either Star Trek series. I think S31 has some form of "formal operational branch" within Starfleet under Starfleet Intelligence, hence the badges. They would need some way of freely accessing and roaming around Starfleet after all.

I'm assuming this is another reason they perhaps removed the clip - confirming the badge signifies S31. The writers need to get their s*** together in all honesty though.

[Vox]

Section 31 were explored a bit in DS9 and a bit in Enterprise, Reed was a former member for example and they tried to recruit Bashir in DS9. They were "Officially Non-Existent." but were most likely a part of Starfleet Intelligence, only that very few people knew about them. Only the really high ups in Starfleet Command knew of their existence, they would go undercover and appear as regular starfleet officers otherwise but it always felt like they were like Tom Cruise's character Ethan Hunt from Mission Impossible in terms of the whole if you are captured or killed we'll deny any and all knowledge of your existence deals.

[Mack]

It's really not known if even Starfleet Command knew of them - but from DS9 even they were informed on a need-to-know basis. Perhaps Federation Executive Office did, who knows.

They've been showcased at best case scenario with these little instances, but never fully explored. Which is a good thing for Discovery since they essentially get to build up to a point where all these things add up towards their organization. I'm interested to see what they make off S31 via Discovery, but the writers will have to be very careful.

[Vox]

Agreed they will have to tow the line when doing them. Although depending on how you view the novels, Section 31 were covered quite a bit in the Section 31 series of books.

[Morris]

From what I've read, this scene was suppose to be the ending scene for Season 1, but got ditched for the Enterprise fan service hero shot ending instead. I wasn't a huge fan of the ending for Season 1, but after seeing this cut scene, I'm glad that things went down the way that they did! I'm sorry for the whole Star Trek franchise, but this writing team is just bad! Everything is telegraphed, then the poor actors have to act like idiots that just cannot understand what's going on, until it hits them in the face. Like I've said before, I just have to turn my brain off, hope that the writing gets better, and enjoy the fact that it's Star Trek on TV!

[Arno12]

I kinda wish they made another go at an animated series, in a fashion similar to netflix voltron, particularly set in the Kelvin Timeline, say what you want about abrams trek but at least its blank slate begging for stories to be told not hamstrung by already established lore.

[Rellimie]

For what it’s worth, because the scene was cut, nothing in that clip is Canon. It’s possible they change direction with the character and never revisit the black badges again.

[Shadowmeph]

For those in areas the above link doesn't work.... here's one that does. https://trekmovie.com/2018/03/24/wat...or-season-two/

yes of course it doesn't work for me either lol

[Scarlett]

S31 is one of those unexplored areas on TV, so I can see some appeal to make stories about it. They have been all sneaky-sneaky and make the Federation/Starfleet ambiguous from Roddenberry's vision. For some people that is clearly appealing. For other people, this show has been too much of a departure from reasonable expectations.

In my book, touching S31 is verboten. Not talking about it keeps the mystery it needs for storytelling. The more one talks about it, the more rules make walls around them, thus less options for story later.

But there is wiggle room: Babylon 5's "Psi-Corp" got a lot of treatment and maintained the behind-the-scenes shadow guard they needed to be.

[Sythe]

I could just imagine now a storyline where they finally come to the realization that wearing a black badge that identifies them as Section 31 may not be such a great idea after all.

[Morris]

https://trekmovie.com/2018/03/31/ala...very-season-2/


Just throwing this out there. It's more detail on the bonus/cut scene.

[ForTheGamer]

I'm betting Section 31 is actually part of the time travel agency that does everything it can to protect the timeline to the 31st century. I just have this feeling that being part of the time travel group would explain how come they have such broad scopes and nearly everything they do has a tendency to deal with a major incident to keeping the timeline in tact.