Originally posted by Parrylakks
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I haven't actually watched Picard, so maybe you can let me know if this perception is accurate. It seems like the corruption here is much more...effective, let's say...than in previous instances. It has a much larger effect on the actions of Starfleet as a whole, and on the ethics of various Federation actions over a period of years. Previously it has felt like (with the notable exception of Section 31's existence) a corrupt Starfleet or Federation official is revealed, and dealt with by our heroes, in fairly short order, with their plans being foiled before they have much of a lasting effect.
It seems to me to be a notably darker take to allow the corruption to have such a large effect on the course of Federation history. The Admiral in Insurrection was thwarted in short order. The assassins in Star Trek 6, while they did kill Gorkon, were stopped from killing the Federation President, and their aim of disrupting the peace talks failed. The Admiral who tried to stage something of a military coup because he thought the fight against the Dominion warranted it was also thwarted before any serious damage was done.
Section 31 was a different case, of course, (though largely because their early operations were simply retconned in) but from the time they were first revealed the heroes were opposing them, and in the end things didn't really go according to their plans.
In Picard, I get the impression that the corruption went undetected for a long while, and had a large, adverse effect on the Federation, even if it ended up being exposed years after the fact, and thwarted in its current goal, during the Picard series. That, to me, paints a much darker vision than any of the previous instances of corruption I can recall.
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