ISB vs Section 31 & Ship Counselors

[Baffalo]

My thinking tends to drift to rather odd topics at times, and my ideas drifted off to the differences and similarities between the Imperial Security Bureau and Section 31, and then just for good measure I also tossed in the role of ship counselor. Right away, some of you are wondering why the hell I tossed in counselors amongst spies and state sanctioned terrorists, and that'll be discussed in detail.

The Imperial Security Bureau serves the role of morale officer, political officer, spies and state-sanctioned terrorists. They have agents on every ship with the sole task of keeping an eye on everyone and eliminating anyone who shows signs of possibly becoming a rebel. Given the fascist nature of the Galactic Empire, the ISB can best be compared to the Nazi SS, and we can clearly understand their role. After all, Ysanne Isard commanded Lusankya, a god-damned SSD buried under Coruscant! I don't care who you are, anyone who has the balls to bury an SSD under a planet just to squirrel away political prisoners and also be the Emperor's ride out is damned good.

Now I know someone's going to comment that Isard was Imperial Intelligence, not ISB. ISB is one of those organizations it's hard to tell where they begin and end. Some refer to Imperial Intelligence and the ISB separately, others treat them as one and the same, so for the purposes of this argument I'm lumping them together. Especially given that Isard killed her own father, a tactic that probably has undertones of ISB in it than anything else, and since most of the threats to the Empire were internal, not external.

Section 31, on the other hand, operates on a more covert level. Section 31 seems to function in the same capacity as the ISB in that it eliminates threats to the Federation, though given that the Federation has both internal and external threats, some of these actions take place against non-Federation members. They seem to also have a myriad of agents in several levels of Starfleet, including Admiral Ross. This grants them the power to pull strings and maintain their actions without any oversight. Given that Bashir was unaware of the group's existence, it's probable that only a handful of people beyond the organization know it exists at all.

However, Section 31 doesn't have agents everywhere, a fact proven by how secretive they are and their reliance on special agents and those in high positions of power. On a more local level, most officers in Starfleet deal with a ship's counselor and ship security. Naturally, law and order for the most part is maintained by security, but a ship's counselor has the ability to remove someone from a command position based on their emotional state. Combined with their inclusion to all senior staff meetings and their ability to advise the captain on first contact missions, means that the counselor serves a role not too dissimilar to that of the ISB, as political officers. They are always there, always watching, ready to step in if necessary. They won't actively execute those in command, but they can take them out of harms way if necessary (if by harm we mean a harm to the party's agenda).

So I believe, in conclusion, both governments have elements designed to maintain stability even if it violates the laws and rights of its citizens. So much for Picard's evolved sensibilities.

[Norade]

If you had an opening statement the in conclusion might have worked a bit better.

However on to your point, I don't think that Starfleet actually has the tools in place to prevent losing ships to rebellion in the event that a rebellion on the scale of the one in Star Wars was. They lost a ship equipped with phase cloak to mutiny and that, one would assume, would have had the crew thoroughly screened. Ergo, their section 31 and counselors are doing a less than bang up job.

Of course the rebellion also claimed entire ships, but that was usually by getting a commanding officer or even a fleet officer involved with them and having him maneuver the crews of his fleet so that he would end up with as many sympathizers as possible.

[Junghalli]

However on to your point, I don't think that Starfleet actually has the tools in place to prevent losing ships to rebellion in the event that a rebellion on the scale of the one in Star Wars was. They lost a ship equipped with phase cloak to mutiny and that, one would assume, would have had the crew thoroughly screened. Ergo, their section 31 and counselors are doing a less than bang up job.

By way of comparison how much does, say, the US Navy worry about ships spontaneously going rogue and what safeguards are in place to prevent it?

[Norade]

However on to your point, I don't think that Starfleet actually has the tools in place to prevent losing ships to rebellion in the event that a rebellion on the scale of the one in Star Wars was. They lost a ship equipped with phase cloak to mutiny and that, one would assume, would have had the crew thoroughly screened. Ergo, their section 31 and counselors are doing a less than bang up job.

By way of comparison how much does, say, the US Navy worry about ships spontaneously going rogue and what safeguards are in place to prevent it?

There has never once been a mutiny aboard a US ship resulting in that vessel no longer being under the command of an Officer of the USN. The same cannot be said for the Federation.

[Big Phil]

The Federation has far more in common with the Soviet Union and its navy (reactor accidents, mutinies, disregard for safety, repatriating people by force, etc.) than the US Navy.

[Norade]

Doctor McCoy one time removed someone from command for being psychologically unfit and regularly sat in on command meetings and advised the captain. I guess he's a nazi political officer too.

More like a Commisar Chaplin. Officers in the modern armed forces can also be removed for medical reasons as well.

[Bakustra]

Doctor McCoy one time removed someone from command for being psychologically unfit and regularly sat in on command meetings and advised the captain. I guess he's a nazi political officer too.

More like a Commisar Chaplin. Officers in the modern armed forces can also be removed for medical reasons as well.

A Commissar-Chaplain? He's a doctor for chrissakes! He can remove people for medical reasons because he's in charge of the well-being of the crew. He can sit in on command meetings in all likelihood because he's one of the senior officers aboard the Enterprise (there are a number of military organizations in which the formal title of a medical officer is Doctor rather than the rank, and many more which have it as an informal title) as the head of the medical section, not because he's the politico on board.

Assuming the Federation to be Stalinist is one of the things that I will never understand the logic behind. There's no ideology, no Revolution, no Party mentioned. Curious if they are a Stalinistic state. While I actually like the idea that the Federation is a relatively Marxist society, there is a difference between an interesting interpretation and simply making things up. Ship's counselors provide psychological assistance to crewers. Well, chaplains do that nowadays. Are chaplains people's commissars ready to report unsuspecting Marines for "counter-American attitudes"? If anything, counselors are secularized chaplains with greater authority. Still significantly distant from the NKVD.

Meanwhile, with regards to the distinction between Imperial Intelligence and the ISB: the ISB is the SS mixed with the NKVD, Imperial Intelligence is the Gestapo mixed with other intelligence services. The ISB was mostly ignored by EU writers because they didn't concern themselves overmuch with situations in which it would appear, but the Timothy Zahn novel Allegiance mentions that even stormtroopers answer to ISB political officers.

[K. A. Pital]

Assuming the Federation to be Stalinist is one of the things that I will never understand the logic behind. There's no ideology, no Revolution, no Party mentioned.

Stalinism does not require a revolution, but it does require a party, a Stalin "great leader" and a secret police to enforce order and remove by executing or locking up any and all political opposition.

While I actually like the idea that the Federation is a relatively Marxist society, there is a difference between an interesting interpretation and simply making things up.

The Federation is Marxist as far as their economic system goes, but there's a wide gap between being economically Marxist and politically Stalinist.

If anything, counselors are secularized chaplains with greater authority. Still significantly distant from the NKVD.

Political officers were actually part of the army, they did not need to be part of a special ministry. So Star Trek's system could be similar to the Soviet one - except it is not so, of course. Because psychological fitness is not a matter of political allegiance to Star Trek's Federation order. In fact, in Star Trek the Starfleet officers seem to be unquestionably loyal to Star Trek's version of communism. How this is enforced or how they are conditioned is not really elaborated well enough. One could assume there is a soft cultural conditioning system at the lower levels. Because sure as hell I haven't seen political officers in ST ships bossing everyone around.

[Shroom Man 777]

Doctor McCoy one time removed someone from command for being psychologically unfit and regularly sat in on command meetings and advised the captain. I guess he's a nazi political officer too.

Nope if he was a Nazi political officer he would've holocausted an entire planet full of people with some huge planet-busting wundernapkinwaffen before executing subordinates around him for the slightest offenses, torturing captured politicians and prisoners of war.

Because sure as hell I haven't seen political officers in ST ships bossing everyone around.

Not to the extent of strangulating subordinates with gnarly psychic powers, no.

If the Federation is Marxist or "Stalinist", then the Galactic Empire would be the fucking Imperium of Man, genociding and sacrificing people and waving banners on spiked skulls on topped of spiked banner skulls featuring skull banner spikes.

Why do we scour for the slightest things to make the Federation look like commies or Stalins or whatever, as though this is so outrageous, when the Galactic Empire's atrocities are there for all to see and nobody bats an eye (and, in fact, some people even make lame ass justifications to justify the genocide of Alderaan)?

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

It's actually quite easy to tell the diference between the ISB and the Ubiqtorate; they're as distinct as the NSA and the FBI, as different as the Cheka and Bletchley Park. The Ubiqtorate is basically the State intelligence agency, formed out of the remains of the intelligence apparatus of the Republic, and its' responsibilities cover information and disinformation; almost all SIGINT and cryptanalysis is in the hands of the Ubiqtorate, as well as open source cultural and economic analysis, cultural- influence and, generally, black ops. The Ubiqtorate are professionals, even if the lignyots don't look it, and nothing they do is unclassified.

The ISB are basically the Party security agency, and quite a lot of what they do is for open public display. They're the guys with the notebooks taking notes on people in open public view, the beings organising the rallies, the visible arm of the party; and while they would love to be able to arrange things so that 'party' and 'state' were synonymous, it just isn't so. They would like to share the responsibilities and remit of the Ubiqtorate, but this has, as of RotJ, failed to happen.

The Ubiqtorate's responsibility in a situation like this would be to monitor the duty logs and support directorates of the Starfleet, to pick up on something like a captain shuffling assignments, but putting this into practical effect- figuring out how this differs from the normal run of naval influence and jobbery- is not easy, not least because the Starfleet probably resents the interference.


As far as the Federation goes, precisely because it is corny I am going to open with that classic line "as clearly shown in my fanfiction";

'Your recent war- the Eugenics War I think you called it- has left you in a state of moral elevation; purged clean, and renewed in righteousness. You can do things like recite the articles of federation with a straight face, and put your heart behind every word. We- we had the war, but not the purge.

You would probably say that the forces of evil won. We would call you terribly, terribly innocent. I would advise you to beware of us; arm against us, even. Considering the other civilisations you aren't aware of yet, I'd say you'd be as well doing it anyway.

There is one other caution I would give you; it's not going to last. Pride is going to set in before long- and pride in being morally superior is one of those giant glowing warning signs that a civilisation needs to have a very large hammer dropped on it.'

I think this is where Star Trek's communism, or possibly communitarianism, comes from- from having lived through and overcome terrible, terrible experiences in the recent past, and having consciously turned away from them. It became a cultural norm during the process of federation, and was effectively sealed under glass by the articles thereof.

There is precedent, though- there is a lot of precedent- for the use of medicine in suppression of dissent. Soviet- era psychiatric hospitals were notorious for this, sectioning people who held opinions the state did not approve of, treating dissidence as a form of illness; a ships' counselor would seem to be in a perfect position to do exactly that, there is no contradiction at all there, unfortunately.

Perhaps the confidence and energy of the system had simply started to wear thin by the 2360's? Running low on external threats to make such self- discipline necessary, cultural memories of the formation of the federation fading, some kind of political representative system evolving from the centre outwards? The true believers, the New Federal Beings (as descended from the New Soviet Man), would of course need less supervision- and it is exactly the true believers who would be chosen for jobs like service on a starship.

Shroom, you're confusing Leonid Brezhnev and Genghis Khan again. An easy mistake to make, they were both, um, humans (damn' if I can think of much else they would have had in common). Stagnation, probably officially decribed as stability, is more likely.

[Azron_Stoma]

Why do we scour for the slightest things to make the Federation look like commies or Stalins or whatever, as though this is so outrageous, when the Galactic Empire's atrocities are there for all to see and nobody bats an eye (and, in fact, some people even make lame ass justifications to justify the genocide of Alderaan)?

While I can`t speak for everyone, I think it has to do with the fact that Star Wars never makes the claims of moral superiority for the Empire that Star Trek makes for the Federation (duh, the Empire are supposed to be the Bad guys after all while the Feddies are supposed to be good guys) so the Federation is under much more scrutiny to abide by those morals in universe as they are supposed to good from an out of universe perspective as well.

While I have never seriously defended the destruction of Alderaan, it`s not like the Federation or their predecessors have never caused genocide while patting themselves on the back for their enlightened decision.

[Simon_Jester]

Shroom, you're confusing Leonid Brezhnev and Genghis Khan again. An easy mistake to make, they were both, um, humans (damn' if I can think of much else they would have had in common). Stagnation, probably officially decribed as stability, is more likely.

No, you misunderstood his point.

If the Federation is "Stalinist," with sinister political officers watching your every move and active suppression of dissent to the point where people watch what they say at all times... then the Galactic Empire is, well, the Imperium of Man- the most oppressive imaginable government.

In short, the apparatus of state oppression is vastly more powerful, more aggressive, more overt, and more thoroughly protected by the aegis of state approval in the Star Wars Empire than in the Star Trek Federation. And that's even assuming there is an apparatus of state oppression, which is by no means self-evident in my opinion.

[Big Phil]

I'm not sure descriptions of the Federation as Stalinist are exactly accurate. The Federation seems to use brainwashing, behavior modification, and positive/negative reinforcement to get its officers to do what it wants rather than harsh punishment and big brother type counselors. In other words, the counselor is there to remind the commanders how they should behave, rather than to punish them when they misbehave. Because let's face it, Starfleet officers are almost never heard questioning Federation policies. The officers would turn in their fellow before he had a chance to act; the political officer as a check on correct behavior isn't usually necessary.

I wonder, however, what happens on ships that do mutiny. Is the counselor killed? Does he/she go along with the mutiny? Makes you wonder

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Except that that flies directly in the face of the later historical course and character of Soviet Communism; I didn't bring up Brezhnev by accident.

If there ever was a genuinely totalitarian period in the federation, labour camps, state terrorism, the personality cult, it's long gone before TOS- the technical ability to make one certainly exists, damn can't remember the name of the episode; the prison-planet episode, van Gelder, mind control, the one a lot of the arguments about planetary shielding involve.

On the other hand, what actually happens? The heroic captain of one of the most powerful starships in the fleet, a man who should have been a prime instrument of state terrorism if ever there was one, investigates the situation and comes down fairly decisively on the side of Truth, Justice and the Federation Way.

The right and possibly only time for something like the Cheka would have been during the first Romulan war, primitive and desperate battle against a half-seen enemy of unknown but clearly sinister intent; it needs pretty existential external conditions to produce internal political effects like that. And who can be sure, maybe Space Stalinism would have been a lot more fun than what was served up as the first three seasons of Enterprise.

They would have had their metaphorical Twentieth Party Congress long before Kirk's time, enough time for a new orthodoxy to settle. The terrible and the heroic age of the Federation, if there was one, is basically over by then, the personality cults are gone and what is left is a government of laws, not of men, trying to keep the dream alive and to discover and practise something resembling normality.

Shroom's brain defaulted to the Yezhovschina and the Great Patriotic War, to the moments of highest drama; add twenty, twenty-five years to that and you get to the period I think makes a much better analogy, although it still only really counts as a hypothesis to play with. There is a bureaucracy behind Kirk, clearly- although he's lucky enough to be out and away from it most of the time.

Cut a hundred years ahead to Picard; he just looks like a being who has to do paperwork. Grey quotidian bureaucracy has landed on him with a sickening thud. With him, the system has caught up.

(missed Sanchez' post- add more later.)

[Simon_Jester]

Hmm. OK, ECR, I understand now. Shroom is still right to point out that the Federation isn't Stalin and calling it Stalinist is absurd, but this looks more like a case of SDN-style violent agreement than anything else as far as I'm concerned.

If there ever was a genuinely totalitarian period in the federation, labour camps, state terrorism, the personality cult, it's long gone before TOS- the technical ability to make one certainly exists, damn can't remember the name of the episode; the prison-planet episode, van Gelder, mind control, the one a lot of the arguments about planetary shielding involve.

Dagger of the Mind, I believe, but I can't speak to it involving planetary shielding.

They would have had their metaphorical Twentieth Party Congress long before Kirk's time, enough time for a new orthodoxy to settle. The terrible and the heroic age of the Federation, if there was one, is basically over by then, the personality cults are gone and what is left is a government of laws, not of men, trying to keep the dream alive and to discover and practise something resembling normality.

Hmmm. Good point, interesting, I like it.

Some friends of mine speculated that the reverse happened- that a more social-democratic Federation of Kirk's time devolved into something more oppressive after the time of the TOS-based movies, economic dislocations caused by the invention of the replicator being the catalyst. In that case, though, it would be an instance of "Go to Brezhnev, go directly to Brezhnev, do not pass go, do not collect two hundred credits."

Cut a hundred years ahead to Picard; he just looks like a being who has to do paperwork. Grey quotidian bureaucracy has landed on him with a sickening thud. With him, the system has caught up.

Ahhh, now that I can see. No wonder he lost all his hair.

But yes, it would help to explain the difference in character between two of the Federation's greatest captains- Picard is a much better specimen of the New Federation Man, but in quite a few ways a lesser specimen of Generalized Man, for it.

[speculation]

Thinking about it, it's interesting that Kirk encounters a number of 'precursor' or 'enlightened' civilizations; cultures with extremely sophisticated mental abilities or technology (the First Federation, or the... Organians, I think?) Perhaps the Federation of Picard's time took a little too much of their rhetoric about 'evolving beyond' this, that, and the other thing too seriously, and wound up trying to ape their "betters" in terms of socioeconomic structure.

Except, of course, that this meant trying to emulate a social model that wasn't human, with predictable results that affect the TNG era.

[end of speculation]

[Darth Hoth]

Why do we scour for the slightest things to make the Federation look like commies or Stalins or whatever, as though this is so outrageous, when the Galactic Empire's atrocities are there for all to see and nobody bats an eye (and, in fact, some people even make lame ass justifications to justify the genocide of Alderaan)?

Someone called for me?

Well, I cannot answer for anyone else but myself, but I (who actually and truthfully reached the conclusion independently of SDN, long before I found this place) came to think of the Federation as authoritarian and conformist simply because of its unrealistic portrayal of human beings. (In TNG, in particular.) Human nature does not change . . . unless someone forces it to. The Empire, while being shown as more overtly oppressive (although not extremely much so, in the films), has people acting more like . . . Well, people. They still use money, own property, and so on, which heavily implies a society rather more close to our own than utopian pseudo-Communism. I suppose that people here thought the same - and were perhaps influenced by Versus Debate mentality, also.

But then, I am pro-Empire (and the apparently sole remnant of the once-powerful pro-Imperial sentiment on this board), so I may not be a typical case.

[Simon_Jester]

Heh.

Well, it's not hard to get people to acknowledge the sleeping demons and poorly-hidden vices and weaknesses of American culture around here. But at the same time, anyone with more than a smidgen of historical literacy knows that all cultures have their flaws. It's only natural for people to start wondering what those flaws might be.

[Darth Hoth]

It seems to me that people are just arrogant pessimists. Star Trek's vision must have some evil downside! After all, today's America is the apex of possible civilization, and this is different, therefore it must be bad.

No, the apex was America a hundred years ago, back when we still had sound Christian family values!

However, to me, at least, sci-fi societies should be plausible. Not necessarily in terms of technology, of course, but preferably in psychology and sociology. Or more briefly, magic replicators are OK, human nature being magicked away so that everyone is the politically correct flavour of mindlessly idealistic and fights for the greater good and betterment of all expecting nothing in return . . . not so much. The latter was a major trope in sci-fiback in '50s already, if not before, and it did not work even back then. It is simply horribly unrealistic and implausible, and besides, it tends to generate unsympathetic characters (who become either bland or faultlessly perfect Mary Sues).

Compare the Culture. I do not like that universe all that well, but they give a much more realistic portrayal of what society would probably be like if it had Star Trek-esque magitech taken to its logical conclusion ("post-scarcity") and little to no "correcting" of people's minds otherwise. Or, widespread apathy and decadence, once personal survival/affluence is guaranteed no matter what and no more personal effort is required of anyone.

[Purple]

The role of ship Counselor can seem to be that of a mild mannered well meaning political officer. It all depends on the point of view.

The difficulty is that since it is not the kind of commissar you see in the movies that shoots their men for retreating so we can't just go ahead and proclaim them as such.

Instead, what we get is an individual that approaches those that are troubled with the system and talks to them, befriends them and eventually shows them just how wrong they were to ever doubt the glory and progress of the federation. An individual that works to show them just how misguided their unhappiness was, how perfect the system is and how wrong all those doubters are.

The problem with this is telling if the individual is doing this to help the person live a good and fulfilled life or to help them remain loyal to the federation cause. And since the federation is actually described like an utopian society those two are often to little apart to tell. I mean, in the world of holodecs and replicators who can say that the ones who do dislike the system are not simply loonies starved for attention.

[Purple]

It was an extrapolation based off the fact that they do that to any person that feels troubled at all about anything.

[Junghalli]

Edited for redundancy:

It was an extrapolation based off the fact that they do that to any person that feels troubled at all about anything.

You went beyond that though, you claimed that they "[approach] those that are troubled with the system and talks to them, befriends them and eventually shows them just how wrong they were to ever doubt the glory and progress of the federation ... just how misguided their unhappiness was, how perfect the system is and how wrong all those doubters are." This is a claim independent of "they talk to people who are troubled and try to make them not troubled anymore", which is sort of a psychiatrist's job IIRC. You're implicitly claiming they treat disagreement with the system as a kind of psychological pathology. What evidence do you have for this?

[Purple]

Perhaps you failed to read my post to it's ending. If I may quote:

And since the federation is actually described like an utopian society those two are often to little apart to tell. I mean, in the world of holodecs and replicators who can say that the ones who do dislike the system are not simply loonies starved for attention.

In other words, I am saying that most people who are unhappy with the federation (those border terrorists whose name eludes me right now excluded) seem to actual just be loonies. Like for example that guy in DS9 who wanted to ruin Risa or that Engineer in voyager that became so obsessed about not being appreciated by his superiors that he started living in a holodec fantasy world. Since the way the federation is described to us there is nothing really to complain about.

So yes I am actually saying that disagreement with a system designed by authors intent to be an utopian society is indeed a psychological pathology.


And we have seen that for those that do have a valid reason to complain about (those terrorist guys), they have prisons and not counselors.

[Junghalli]

<snip>

Perhaps I misunderstood, it sounded like the usual "hurr hurr Federation is actually some kind of oppressive dystopia" crap, perhaps I was too quick to jump on you as I've come to find that extremely tiresome. At this point I have to admit I'm somewhat confused as to what exactly you're trying to say.

[Purple]

I am saying that since the Federation is described as an Utopian society anyone disagreeing with it can be categorized into two groups. A) The terrorists who hate the federation because it has wronged them directly and B) the raving nut cases like those guys in DS9 I mentioned who do it because they are raving nut cases.

Now we know that for group A they have prisons. But what of group B? If we assume those get rehabilitation via Counselor than the Counselor is de facto rehabilitating people for being insubordinate. But they are most likely just doing it for their own good and not the greater good of the federation. However it might seem otherwise.


In other words, my entire point is that Political Officers in the sense we refer to them can only exist in a society that is fundamentally flawed. Since that kind of society is one that will incite people to rebel with good reason and thus require Political Officers to control them.

If we have a society that is utopian as in perfect, and the federation is supposed to be rather good as far societies go (at least if what the show tells us is right, and they keep rambling about the beautiful and high and mighty federation) than there is no need for such officers because there is no need to be insubordinate in the first place. And anyone that is must be (well, not must but at least is liable to be) insane, starved for attention etc. (the stuff that psychiatrists help with)

So by relation any person that is tasked with tending for such people might look like a political officer when looked at from the outside by a person that is already hell bent on finding signs of Stalinism.

[Junghalli]

Ah. I don't necessarily agree with that (for one thing, I think people can legitimately disagree on whether a given society is a utopia or not) but it is an interesting perspective.