Explain the Turkana IV reference to Article 31

warning: This article contains Mild spoilers For “Star Trek: Section 31.”

At the end of Olatunde Osunsanmi’s new TV movie “Star Trek: Section 31,” a group of criminals, mercenaries, and promiscuous people have gone through their central adventure, and they’ve recreated a bar/casino drinking arena to their success. They barely escape their mission, but are happy to bond over their mutual danger. He established that the survivors of the adventure, led by Empress Philippa Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh), will now become a permanent fixture within Section 31, Starfleet’s Black-OPS organization. “Section 31” isn’t a pilot episode, but it ends as if it were, establishing a new group of characters, their home base, and what a potential TV series might look like. At least, the filmmakers are teasing a sequel.

While sipping strong spirits and flirting with each other, the film’s anti-combatants receive a call from Control (Jamie Lee Curtis), their new boss. Control says its better judgment cautioned it against assigning new assignments, but its “better judgment” should be ignored in this case. She then asks if any of the Section 31 crew has been to a planet called Turkana IV.

This name will activate Trekkies. Turkana IV was the planet where Tasha Yar (Dennis Crosby) grew up. Of course, Tasha Yar was the chief security officer aboard the Enterprise-D during the first season of “Star Trek: The Next Generation.” The character was killed with a tar monster Early in the series, Crosby also felt that she was not given enough work to do, and wanted to pursue films instead.

Yar spoke frequently about Turkana IV, and how terrible he was. The Turkana IV appears to have been a failed colonization experiment of sorts that eventually turned into a criminal jailscape.

It’s endless language, but Tasha Yar notes that the Turkana IV outran “rape gangs,” who stalked the colony looking for victims to assault. A few flashbacks in the episode “Where No Man Has Gone Before” display Turkana IV as crumbling, dark, and creepy. It looks like a haunted house. After Turkana IV was intended to be an Earth-like colony with its own large-scale government. However, the planet has quickly devolved into a civil war between two factions. The two sides were called the Alliance and the Alliance, leaving the fans with no sense as to who their superior spirit might be. Yar said that both factions declared the colony independent of the Federation, and the entire planet descended into chaos.

This was a stark contrast to Gene Roddenberry’s optimism. It seems that even the Federation colonies could fall. Money wasn’t part of “Star Trek’s” future, but money — and its fraternal poverty — seems to have stuck with it. Yar talks about how people use drugs frequently, even though in the institution, they barely know about substance addiction. And yes, the sex bands roam free.

Starfleet sent ships to Turkana IV to try to re-establish order, but Starfleet personnel were not allowed to land. It was like a prison from “Escape from New York” to get there, and no official communication was made. In the Next Generation episode “Legacy” (October 29, 1990), the Enterprise-D visited Turkana IV to rescue a small escape pod that had been reanimated there. “Legacy” established that the cities on the planet’s surface have been destroyed and the criminal gangs have all moved underground. There has been no mention of Turkana IV since that episode, and the Federation seems powerless to prevent his continued descent into violence and criminality.

At least, we know that escape from Turkana IV is possible. Tasha Yar escaped the colony at the age of fifteen, found her way back to civilization, and eventually became a Starfleet officer. Tragically, she was killed in the line of duty.

Of course, “Section 31” takes place in the late 2250s or early 2260s, before the events of the original “Star Trek,” and about a century after the events of “Star Trek: The Next Generation.” If this was the case, Turkana IV had not yet fallen, and was still in perfect place (Yar stated that the colony’s government did not begin to crumble in earnest until 2330). Because Turkana IV was still in good condition (supposedly) during the events of “Section 31”, there is every reason to believe that Empress Georgiou and her sister-in-law of the Ne’er-do-wells went there and did something evil to the local government.

Given that the final line of dialogue in “Star Trek: Section 31” teased that a potential sequel would take place on Turkana IV, there is every reason to believe that Section 31 will be actively responsible for the colony’s downfall. It may take several decades of decomposition to get to what Trekkies saw in Tasha Yar’s memories, but the impact of Section 31 will certainly provide the catalyst. This cement is extra Section 31 as an evil organizationAnd those that don’t mind killing people and deliberately corrupting governments for their own ends.

“Section 31 Part II,” then, is well poised to tell a timely and poignant story of the corruption of an otherwise perfect republic, and of how a retreat into tyranny is all too easy in the hands of demagogues. Section 31 is perhaps the reason why Roddenberry’s utopia is not possible in every colony. It’s sure to make a poignant story.