Taelon

How do you organize an outer space party? You planet.

“So that's the way you scientific detectives work. My god! For a fat, middle-aged, hard-boiled, pig-headed guy, you've got the vaguest way of doing things I ever heard of.” ― Dashiell Hammett, Red Harvest

Section 31 bothers me for a number of reasons but I'll sum it up as: Section 31 is, effectively, something like a mythical 'KGB' - it exists not to 'protect', but to force things to go the way of the Federation government. Its very existence in the recent films and DS9 is not only incredibly unrealistic, but it goes against the basic outline of the Federation's morals and Roddenberry's vision. While Gene's vision was sometimes a bit...odd (to say the least) it's one thing to say the Federation is willing to use their Intelligence agents in wet work, and quite another to say they're fine with overriding individual rights and lives at the discretion of their agents. The Federation is supposed to be an enlightened government who actually rules with their citizen's best interests in mind, and I do not feel that Section 31 fits into that at all. (Also, to be realistic? If you want some opposing leader killed, it's far better to encourage their own government's dissidents to do the job for you and deny any involvement, than it is to send in fanciful 'James Bond' types.)

I mean, if the guy's agreed to it with full knowledge and acceptance of what's going to happen....I dunno. It's his life. If he's gonna choose to end it that way that's sort of his choice, ultimately. Given the situation outlined though, I think I'd opt to have him step away from the situation for long enough that he has time to think it over - separately from his fiance. If he still wants to do it after that, well, godspeed.

TBH while it would make in-story sense for Voyager to want to land, I don't think Starfleet ships of the line are (or should) be designed to do so. The strains of gravity and travelling through an atmosphere are considerable, and honestly, even as a small child my eyebrows went up when Voyager managed it. Basically: From a design standpoint, ships being able to land places a much higher limit on development, without adding a balanced benefit in a universe where shuttles, transporters and other forms of surface-to-orbit travel exist. It just doesn't make sense to me to try to land the capital ships when smaller craft exist.

Taelon keeps....well, robots, I guess, but I think he bonds to all his robots big or small - so he'd consider things from small Robo-puppies to an AT-AT walker as his 'pet'. I don't think he's really able to keep a living pet at the moment, seeing that he spends very little time in his quarters. Ruwon likes animals but doesn't keep any. His daughter Ditala keeps bugs, however, and currently is raising stag beetles for a school project. If Ruwon had to choose he'd probably like a cat the most, but wouldn't be so keen to get the hair off his uniforms.....

I'm sad this MSNPC is gone 'cause a great follow up to that title would have been "A Fish Named Wannis"

I laughed a little too hard at that. just a bit

$5 says he smells like sweat, whiskey and grease. And Axe, knowing Mirra's luck.

I'd bet $50 that our true motto is "We'd all be fine if our writers weren't jerks to us." (I'm not the only one who enjoys emotionally scarring my character, right? ...right?)

Answering IC for the fun of it: For Lt Taelon, the answer would be a difficult maybe - is it the knowledge itself that causes the death? Is it investigating the station on foot that causes the issue? He would be intrigued by the mystery and drawn to knowledge that might be forbidden. If it is indeed the knowledge that causes the issue...is it knowledge worth dying for? Could it save people (or indeed entire worlds) in the future? If so, it's worth one life - however painful that decision might be. For Counselor Ruwon, it's a little clearer cut - the timeline should be stable, whatever its outcome. Casualty demands that the default timeline should be the ones less interfered with; if everyone came back in time to stop their loved ones from dying, life would be nothing but a series of interruptions. (And in a cold way - his entire capitol planet is gone. What's one life, weighed against that? Where are the time travelers hoping to save the billions killed there?) I think the both of them would want more information before deciding, but ultimately their similar backgrounds would demand they side towards keeping the timeline as-is...even if neither of them likes having to make that call.

Shoving our problems out the airlock might solve most of Op's issues, come to think of it...