I know it's not federation yet but that's exactly what Starfleet ops was doing with the Klingons in Enterprise, they kidnapped Phlox and tried to hide it from Starfleet so they could help the Klingons avoid civil war because of the Augment stuff.
Eh with black badges being out in the open on at least the Discovery and her sister ship, it shows Section 31 was intent on making themselves distinct from normal Starfleet. Even if Discovery was sworn to secrecy regarding what was going on there, people will talk and rumors will spread especially about mysterious and eye catching symbology like the black badge. Also its shown at least some of Discovery's crew were scientists and essentially civilians before the war, they might not care as much about operational security as others. Ash could have easily heard about it through the rumor mill on his previous assignment.
Which is something the S31 did in more than one occasion, however it's possible that even when it was known that they do exist a lot of what they did might still have been kept secret even within the federation (as for example Pike might be much more disgusted if he knew what they actually do) and they just posed as espionage and information collection until their more egregious actions are going to get exposed resulting in the S31 getting "disbanded"
If I'm remembering correctly, the old showrunners got booted after episode 5 (this one). Then Kutzman took over.
Ash has both the original Tyler's and Voq's memories. Ash Tyler was a real person and they say that a few times in season 1. So it wasn't Voq pretending to be a starfleet officer the Ash persona is a copy of the real person that existed. So that original Ash could have known about Section 31 and as a result the current Ash would know.
Comicbook.com. Isn't that just a massive click bait machine?
It's possible that the short has nothing to do with the season. It was an interesting episode even if it did never get a follow up.
Thematically they might be on to something.
And possibly to this. We always wondered why Spock would go so far to be court-martialled for Pike in his final TOS appearance. I guess it's loyalty to his old captain for going so far to save him. Starfleet is a promise after all. Even then, Spock didn't break and tell all.
One of the 4 Short Treks that you can only watch legally if you live in the US, because reasons.
Yes, would have been better if saw tillys and sarus before season 2 but ah well
I think right before Season 2 started. Yeah it was dumb but im assuming there was some kind of contractual issue around them. Hopefully it works smoother overseas for the next batch of Short Treks
To the point in 100 years nobody even knows they ever existed? Like I said, it like us forgetting the SS ever existed. Not gonna happen.
Most people probably couldn't name the CIA's predecessor, even though Im sure they were a big deal at the time.
Do we know who actually knows about them at this point? A crew on a highly classified ship, an admiral and now Pike who seemed a little bemused by their existence.
