Star Trek’s Black Ops Organization Explained In New Video

The Star Trek: Section 31 movie is just two months away from release, and Paramount+ is hyping fans up for the first Star Trek movie available exclusively on the streaming service. This week, the studio dropped a new video that takes fans through the history of Section 31, Starfleet’s morally ambiguous Black Ops division.

Paramount+ first announced the Section 31 movie, starring Michelle Yeoh as her Star Trek: Discovery character Phillipa Georgiou, in April 2023. The movie replaced the in-development series that the studio announced shortly after Yeoh left Discovery. Production on the movie finally began in January of this year, and at New York ComicCon in October, the cast finally announced the release date — January 24th 2025. Section 31 will follow a team of operatives, including Yeoh’s Georgiou, as they take on the jobs no one else wants to do to protect the United Federation of Planets and face their past mistakes at the same time.

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The new video is mostly a primer on what Section 31 is, what the organization does, and an overview of the Black Ops organization’s missions that have saved the United Federation of Planets from harm and potential destruction.

Section 31 Throughout Star Trek History

The new video weaves together clips of Section 31’s previous appearances in the Star Trek universe, from Lieutenant Malcolm Reed on the Enterprise-NX01 to Ash Tyler, Georgiou, and Leland on the U.S.S. Discovery to Sloan and his team of operatives on Deep Space Nine. Over the clips, a narrator explains that Section 31 exists to protect the Federation when external, or internal, threats are so extreme that they warrant extreme responses. The narrator also explains that Section 31 is as old as the Starfleet, and it was established by the original Starfleet charter.

Finally, the narrator provides an answer to the question fans have asked themselves since Section 31’s first appearance in the franchise — why does Starfleet need a Black Ops organization? The justification for Section 31 that’s always used in Star Trek canon is that there’s always dirty work to do behind the scenes to maintain peace throughout the galaxy and uphold the Federation’s noble ideals. Regardless of how hard Starfleet and the Federation commit to diplomatic relations and maintaining peace, there will always be some nefarious threat lurking that those organizations can’t deal with outright lest they betray their noble ideals. So, Section 31 is the answer.

What Do Fans Know About the Section 31 Movie?

So far, fans have only gotten one trailer for Section 31. Released at San Diego ComicCon in July, the trailer begins with flashbacks to Georgiou as a young adult, intoning a monologue about the duties of an Emperor as scenes flash of her ascent to the highest position in the Terran Empire. When the trailer flashes back to the present, Alok Sahar (Omari Hardwick), the leader of the Section 31 taskforce Georgiou is on, tells her “the past always catches up with you.” So, fans know the movie has some connection to Georgiou’s horrific past as the Terran Emperor.

Earlier this month, Paramount+ released brief character profiles for each of the Section 31 team members. These revealed that the team consists of a human Mech, a Deltan, a Chameloid, and a Romulan or Vulcan, it’s unclear which, but given his character profile, fans are guessing Romulan. From an interview with two of the movie’s stars earlier this month, fans also learned that two of the movie’s characters are Augments, with ties to the Eugenics War. So, it seems that confronting the past will be a major theme throughout the movie.

Star Trek: Section 31 drops on Friday, January 24th, exclusively on Paramount+.

Release Date

September 24, 2017

Seasons

4

Creator

Bryan Fuller, Alex Kurtzman

Number of Episodes

55

Streaming Service(s)

Paramount+ , Paramount+ with Showtime , fuboTV , Spectrum

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Source: Paramount+