S31 conspiracy ideas needed

[First of Two]

Hey, I'm back.

Okay, so I'm in a new game finally, and I have a general plot idea involving one of my players, but now I'm kinda stuck on specifics...

One of my crew is an experienced former Section 31 "operative" who turned on the group and is now part of another, equally-secret conspiracy to find 31's operations and thwart/expose them when possible.

We're on the verge of beginning to expose this fact to the rest of the crew. Been leading up to it (during a recent mission, this charater took a "moral dilemma" out of the newly-minted (novice player) Captain's hands by acting on his own, because his higher-up friends could protect him, but not the Captain - I should have explained why better.

Now I need a 31 plot to drag the rest of the crew in, but I'm coming up empty of ideas that a small crew (4 PC's) could thwart

Let's hear what you got!

I'll use the one I like most, and the rest will probably end up as part of a The Reason You Suck Speech.

[Aldaron]

This is assuming a post-Dominion War setting, and that the ex-S31 character's name is "Bob".

Bob is contacted via an old S31 frequency by M, his old "handler". M is on the run, having learned something huge that is threatening S31.

[insert some adventures to get to M's location here]

On arrival, M is dead. However, he/she has left a cryptic message of some kind. On following it up, Bob discovers that S31 is trying to hide something about the Breen and their involvement in the Dominion War. The next clue is on DS9, in the medical database.

[insert some adventures to get to DS9]

If Bob and Crew openly try to get into the medical database on DS9, they will get a "visit" from S31 pretty soon. However, they discover that the medical database files regarding the Breen have been wiped.

From here, I'm not sure where you'd take it specifically, except to point to the "end game": the Breen are not what everyone assumes. They are not "cold-based aliens". They are, in fact, 100% human. Moreover, they show a remarkable lack of genetic problems/diseases/deficiencies.

In fact, the Breen are the descendants of the surviving human Augments who decided the best way to survive was to impersonate an enigmatic alien species. More importantly, they figured the best way to protect themselves was to infiltrate S31. Section 31 is, in fact, now being run by Augment agents, whose job it is to deflect interest and investigation into the Breen - either subtley, or by eliminating those who get too close to the truth...which now includes the PCs.

Pretty sketchy, I know, but it's something I've been toying with for a while and hopefully it might get some ideas flowing with you!

[The Tatterdemalion King]

Ever read Foucault's Pendulum?

[Owen E Oulton]

In my current campaign I have a Section 31 plant in the crew. Lt. P'reen is there to keep tabs on Cdr. M'Rel. She also has a personal bone to pick with him as he rebuffed her attempts to seduce him early on. Being a Caitian, she's naturally a bit "catty".

[The Tatterdemalion King]

The main problem with any conspiracy is that in order to create a group, the group's existence has to be recognized by its participants–and for a conspiracy to be a conspiracy, that recognition has be compartmentalized or even false. Koval's speech to the Continuing Committee about Section 31 being a false front by Sloan might actually be true; it might be that he created a group based on a rumour that existed in the SI community already, or that he was part of an 'official' S31 that reported to the Minister for Defense and broke off himself. Or it might be that S31 is a series of small-scale conspiracies by like-minded officers in and out of SI that keep using the same name, much like the plethora of 'Rosicrucian' groups in the last four centuries. There may be multiple, official Section 31s, each reporting to different sections of Starfleet, the Federation Council, or even some sort of shadow cabinet of influencial Federation citizens. It might be the last vestiges of the alien parasite conspiracy, or a Tal Shiar plot, or a Tal Shiar splinter group descended from the remainder of the Vulcan High Command, or a secret community of Augments manipulating events behind the scene–or any of those might use Section 31 as a front when dealing with Starfleet officers, cloaking themselves in hush-hush business and playing on their loyalties.

As for plots, I'd try to get another Section 31 officer* to try and recruit another player as a Section 31 asset, and feeding them information that suggests the first S31 PC is a dangerous alien agent, part of the Tal Shiar, a Founder, some other shape-shifting hostile species, an android duplicate, or brainwashed, and planning to assassinate an important figure during an upcoming conference.

*If I were running it, I'd make the recruiter a clone of the S31 PCs contact to mess with everyone. Or a clone of the S31 PC... or their original.

This might be hard if your group has a hard time separating player and character knowledge. I, personally, love dramatic irony in RPGs, but your mileage may vary. : )

[Cpt. Lundgren]

Wreaking the career of someone with the "wrong opinion" is something I would assume S31 would spent time on. When the characters tries to save the targets reputation and career, they becomes targets themselves and have to save their own reputation ("Of course they try to produce false evidence that he is innocent. We have strong indications that they are in league with him. Also, they are under investigation due to connections to a drug smuggling organization.")

And of course S31 doesn't really exist. Such organizations never exists in something that would be the equivalent of the most open democracies today.

[The Tatterdemalion King]

And of course S31 doesn't really exist. Such organizations never exists in something that would be the equivalent of the most open democracies today.

Invisible conspiracies have all the same fundamental organization issues that anarchist groups have; whereas anarchist groups renounce the officialdom and hierarchization that most people rely upon to confirm social realities, complex, transmitted covert conspiracies require that those tools of officialdom and hierarchization–tools for the dissemination of information–not reference its existence, otherwise it will cease to be covert. Being able to act in secret is presumably the primary defense mechanism of S31; but making all actions secret removes the ability of people to identify actual actions that S31 has done. The effectiveness of their agents precludes effective self-policing.

Given the implied cultural mores of the Federation, S31 is probably closer to DG in structure than MJ-12, unless it's funded by one particular planetary government (Earth?).

[BouncyCaitian]

S31, being a cell based conspiracy, but more than healthy paranoid given what's out there I'm guessing has worked it's way into the Federation communications network and has 'monitors' everywhere that examine data and run threat assessments much like regular SI....except they also tend to work in a coldy pragmatic way when assessing existential threats to the federation (the Borg, The Vedians, The Undine) and will look to prepare by hook (planting an idea in the right admirals or researchers head) or by crook (cultivating the less ethically restrained will bea bit ofa hobby for them) defenses or Weapons intended to eliminate existential threats to the Federation.

They are also probably VERY good at playing the other powers intel services for fools by arranging patsys to be thrown while they run a misdirection campaign to get what they want. The Founder viron was a good example of this. And they are proably pleased with Sisko's "flexability" from the "Pale Moonlight" incident.

S31 should be used very lightly in ST and most char;s should not have a idea what they are dealing with.

Post dominion War Era stuff could be dealing with Jem'Hadar Raiders, Borg incursions, or a lot fo the nasty underbelly of the federation.

but I ramble

[The Tatterdemalion King]

S31, being a cell based conspiracy, but more than healthy paranoid given what's out there I'm guessing has worked it's way into the Federation communications network and has 'monitors' everywhere that examine data and run threat assessments much like regular SI....

There's an example of where to start breaking it down. Who gets the infodumps? Do they have automated expert programs analyzing it, or is the collation done by individuals? What do they think about what they're doing? Do they identify themselves or their contacts as S31? What do they believe about their handler, versus what do they know?