'Section 31' and the existential despair of the Star Trek fan

The Star Trek fandom has long been a fascinating one for me. "Trekkies" were the original shorthand for nerds and pop culture fanatics, and that reputation was gained during a period of time when they were all chasing the high of a long-canceled television series and a stop-and-start film franchise.

Ever since Star Trek: The Next Generation dropped, the Star Trek superfan has gone through decades of nearly nonstop crises of faith, whether it be grumbling at Voyager losing the plot, grousing at Enterprise not delivering what they wanted from the franchise, lamenting that the franchise was dead or on life support after Enterprise went off the air, rankling at the JJ Abrams/Chris Pine movies, and so on.

In the era of Paramount+, we at one point hit a moment where there were (I believe) six concurrent Star Trek series in production, but apart from the seemingly universally-loved Lower Decks, this wasn't the golden era that one might imagine. The modern state of Trek seems to have sent its longest-tenured (living) fans into a spiral they're unable to pull out of. Star Trek superfans these days have trouble agreeing what exactly they do want out of the franchise, but they seem to universally agree that whatever it is, it isn't anything that's currently being presented to them.

(For the record, I genuinely adore Strange New Worlds, and while it isn't perfect, it's pretty much exactly what I personally want from Star Trek. I also really, really love all three of the JJ Abrams movies. But then again, I've never been a superfan.)

In contrast to Star Wars fans, who lash out at anything and everything around them because the most recent movies and television shows have the audacity to foreground women and people of color, and who shriek with entitlement until they browbeat a concession of some sort out of whoever is in charge at Star Wars Incorporated (a division of Star Wars LLC), Star Trek fans seem to just suffer loudly from soul-crushing depression over their beloved space show.

(By the way, my wife co-hosts the best Star Trek podcast around, and you should listen to it.)

Okay, I've put it off long enough: I need to talk about Section 31.