Ok, me and my wife are doing a re watch. I loved TNG and other Star Trek growing up, future is made great through tech, utopia is possible, go humanity, etc.
Wife's watching the series. I dip in from time to time, I know some spoilers and how some characters are, but can't remember a single plot all the way through. We watched the Pegasus (S7E12).
Like, it completely ruined Star Trek. Humanity and the federations before that point are going into all interactions with aliens, and we always assume they're the good guys, always acting on good faith, the frustrations they have with other species is because the other species don't believe how nice they can be, earth has no problems of racism or hunger or fucking whatever.
And then, no, we have clandestine , backstabbing stuff, fully known by the federation, covered up, everyone hushed, the research discontinued, but searched for so it can be dug up again. That research, which was done in direct, knowing violation of a peace treaty they cobbled together with the Romulans, which have been the semi bad guys in various episodes.
Well, if the fucking federation are known, lying backstabbing, black ops using, pride and wrath addled assholes, I also would look at them with distrust. No wonder the Ferengi don't want to join the Federation, of course the Cardassians are attacking on the borders.
Every time they go to a space bar and dig around for information, all the other aliens are wearing some personable clothing with their own customs and history woven into the fabric, when these squares rock up wearing a space potato sack, talking about the greater good. Fuck off you Maoist assholes.
I love the series and the morals, but the worldbuilding is fucking destroyed with this episode. I assume this is what gives way to the section 31 film and all that.
I'd love to hear some counterarguments. I loved seeing Star Trek as a utopia, and with humanity being their best with great leadership. I want to go back to that point of view.
PS : Also, Picard says to decloak right in front of the romulan warbird, then they never show that conversation. I want to know how he talked his way out of that one, and the rammifications. We're about to watch sub rosa, and I am looking forward to the source of all the beverly ghost fucker memes.
I don't think the Pegasus plan involves all levels of Federation leadership. I think it's a conspiracy that, although it does include at least one of the highest-ranking Starfleet officers, doesn't go all the way to the top. From the transcript:
Pressman says that a small number of people are involved. He doesn't mention the Federation president or any Federation officials outside of Starfleet (remember that Starfleet is the military-ish arm of the Federation, it's not the whole organization.) He only mentions one Starfleet officer.
Pressman emphasizes that it's important to keep the secret from getting out. Of course that's partly because he doesn't want the Romulans finding out. But I think it's mainly that the conspirators don't want to be held to account for unauthorized actions.
Later in the episode Pressman tells Picard, "the Chief of Starfleet Intelligence herself is watching this one". I think it's possible that Chief of Security and Chief of Intelligence are titles used interchangeably for the same office. Or it could be a second officer involved in the conspiracy.
There's also this conversation:
The judge advocate on the case is not in on the secret. That doesn't mean it doesn't go higher, but the conversation does imply that whoever was involved had limited authority to, say, prevent that inquiry in the first place, or to instruct the judge advocate to avoid sensitive topics.
Someone did have the authority to classify and bury the report. Maybe that's something the Chief of Intelligence could do unilaterally.
Note that Picard is confident that with the secret exposed the project will be shut down. If it had been authorized at all levels you might expect it to continue, but out in the open.
Now Section 31, that does seem to be institutionalized so that's a different story.
There's a relevant episode if you don't mind DS9 spoilers:
DS9 spoilers
The DS9 episodes Homefront and Paradise Lost feature another conspiracy that looks to me to be similar in scale and position to the Pegasus conspiracy. Those episodes are very explicit about the separation of Starfleet and Federation leadership.