Section 31 shipyard

posted on September 11th, 2011, 7:20 pm

The fleet that attacked the Dominion was Tal Shiar, rather than Military. They don't have the same 'no warship' limitation of the Obsidion Order.

posted on September 11th, 2011, 7:24 pm

TNG mentioned that Tal'Shiar sometimes take command of romulan vessels out of their regular fleet, however I never heard of dedicated Tal'Shiar-vessels

they do operate a fleet, its possible that the talshiar engineered disappearances of romulan military ships in order to get some ships of their own. i doubt it would be many though, most likely they would commandeer ships as needed. talshiar authority was pretty serious. they would only need a few ships of their own.

talshiar was public knowledge (and fear) so their ability to commandeer military ships is vast. s31 is secret from almost all of starfleet. only a few sympathisers know about it. so they would very likely have little to no ability to have their own starships (anything sabre or bigger).

they have the occasional person like admiral ross on their side, he could probably transfer a s31 goon (posing as a normal starfleet guy) onto a ship under his authority, then order the ship somewhere the s31 guy needs to go. like put sloan and his henchmen on a starship and order that ship to resupply ds9. at that point sloan uses transporters and beams bashir onto the ship's holodeck and does his stuff. the real crew would never have known. if sloan couldnt cover his own tracks then possibly the real captain/first officer/security chief works closely with ross and covers for sloan. thats how i would guess s31 works.

posted on September 11th, 2011, 7:42 pm

talshiar was public knowledge (and fear) so their ability to commandeer military ships is vast. s31 is secret from almost all of starfleet. only a few sympathisers know about it. so they would very likely have little to no ability to have their own starships (anything sabre or bigger).

Not necessarily. Since S31 pretty much has unlimited power they could just come aboard and order the ship wherever and just say they were some SFI officer, than just 'vanish' when the missions done. Id imagine that theyd at least have a few ships, although I agree not many.

posted on September 11th, 2011, 7:48 pm

It would likely backfire; Starfleet isn't usually in the habit of taking control of ships like that, they normally go through official channels. Ships tend to have some advance notice when a real officer is coming, and they'd have nothing to back their claim without a higher up on their side.

they do operate a fleet, its possible that the talshiar engineered disappearances of romulan military ships in order to get some ships of their own. i doubt it would be many though, most likely they would commandeer ships as needed. talshiar authority was pretty serious. they would only need a few ships of their own.

Only a few Tal Shiar ships sounds about right, considering the 'ambush' that crippled them only had about 5 Warbirds.

posted on September 11th, 2011, 7:55 pm

I'm trying to remember how many ships I saw of the Tal Shiar in the DS9 episode that they did a joint "Founder Busting" mission with the Obsidian Order (Nice to see Garak's past shown a little more) that turned out to be a Dominion ambush to cripple both intelligence agencies.

posted on September 11th, 2011, 8:01 pm

Not necessarily. Since S31 pretty much has unlimited power they could just come aboard and order the ship wherever and just say they were some SFI officer, than just 'vanish' when the missions done. Id imagine that theyd at least have a few ships, although I agree not many.

they didnt have unlimited power or the ability to order starfleet officers around like the talshiar. most of starfleet worked behind the scenes. they couldnt just take over ships. the talshiar could because everyone knew they were the boss.

posted on September 11th, 2011, 8:30 pm

It would likely backfire; Starfleet isn't usually in the habit of taking control of ships like that, they normally go through official channels. Ships tend to have some advance notice when a real officer is coming, and they'd have nothing to back their claim without a higher up on their side.

It depends. There were quite a few episodes of TNG where some admiral or IO came aboard and dispatched the Enterprise on some mission or other. It probably wouldn't happen very often since, as shown in DS9, they usually get sympathisers or normal Starfleet officers to do the jobs for them with most of them not ever knowing what happened.

[RedEyedRaven]

posted on September 13th, 2011, 6:02 pm

Last edited by RedEyedRaven on September 13th, 2011, 6:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.

It depends. There were quite a few episodes of TNG where some admiral or IO came aboard and dispatched the Enterprise on some mission or other.

An admiral is an official superior to any starship-captain. Admirals also tend to have the risky hobby of travelling on big starfleet-vessels with most senior-officers knowing.

Section 31 is officially not even existant, even Sloane was disguised as a civilist. To me it seems like section 31 does infiltrate the scenery to gather intelligence or to do some fancy stuff, but totally avoids to draw attention at all.

posted on September 14th, 2011, 8:38 am

yea, imo, if they had ships, they would do something wrong About staying hidden.. They are criminals after all

posted on September 17th, 2011, 12:14 am

Not necessarily. Since S31 pretty much has unlimited power they could just come aboard and order the ship wherever and just say they were some SFI officer, than just 'vanish' when the missions done. Id imagine that theyd at least have a few ships, although I agree not many.

spai: I need ur ship
Captain: wut
spai: i r section 31. I ordah yah 2 gibe me ur ship
Captain: Security, we have a nutjob attempting to commander the ship, please secure him so medical can do a psychological evaluation.
spai: NOOOOO! I R SECTIUN 31 ! YOU CA*sounds of a phaser firing*
Captain: Thank you for stunning him security cheif.
Captain: Computer, analyze bridge security recordings for past five minutes, give all information on key phrase 'section thirty one'
Computer: No record matches specified parameters.
Captain: Either a stupid pirate, or a poor man with mental issues.
Vulcan: It would be logical to include a combination of the two as another possible circumstance captain.

posted on September 17th, 2011, 3:49 am

spai: I need ur ship
Captain: wut
spai: i r section 31. I ordah yah 2 gibe me ur ship
Captain: Security, we have a nutjob attempting to commander the ship, please secure him so medical can do a psychological evaluation.
spai: NOOOOO! I R SECTIUN 31 ! YOU CA*sounds of a phaser firing*
Captain: Thank you for stunning him security cheif.
Captain: Computer, analyze bridge security recordings for past five minutes, give all information on key phrase 'section thirty one'
Computer: No record matches specified parameters.
Captain: Either a stupid pirate, or a poor man with mental issues.
Vulcan: It would be logical to include a combination of the two as another possible circumstance captain.

LOL
Well, I'm not saying that theyd SAY they were S31 if they came aboard claiming to be an intelligence operative on a top-secret mission with all the proper access codes, authorization from an admiral and what-not, etc. then the captain would pretty much HAVE to follow their orders, or get a court-martial. And after the mission was done the agent would just 'disappear'

posted on September 17th, 2011, 10:56 pm

Yeah but they can only pull that trick so much before people figure it out.

I mean hell in the S31 novels they get a little too obvious and get James T. Kirk on their ass....

posted on September 18th, 2011, 12:22 am

Yeah but they can only pull that trick so much before people figure it out.

I mean hell in the S31 novels they get a little too obvious and get James T. Kirk on their ass....

True, but itd probably be pretty rare for them to do this, since most of the time theyre undercover, this would be a bit too obvious

[Tok`ra]

posted on September 18th, 2011, 12:43 am

Last edited by Tok`ra on September 18th, 2011, 12:46 am, edited 1 time in total.

Far more likely is that they'd have a sizable presence inside of Starfleet intelligence in the form of a senior officer and field agents, need to act somewhat overtly, send in those agents as SFI agents.

If S31 gets added at all, I'd say wait til the Feds have at least three avatars, and have one avatar have the OPTION of a tech that unlocks some S31 stuff, but has some penalties (IE: no veteran level ships, costs all your veteran slots to get the research).

edit: Prehaps even give all races a basic intel agency station that has some common features, with the Tal'shiar station and S31 module being the most powerful.

posted on September 18th, 2011, 11:46 am

If you did that, it would probably be the Dominion and Section 31 that're the best.