This Star Trek article contains spoilers for Section 31. Like the Bell Riots of Deep Space Nine, the movie Star Trek: Section 31 is such a disaster for Trekkies that weve stopped our petty debates about Janeway killing Tuvix, or Kirks captaincy compared to Picards, and have finally come together.As much as Section 31 deserves the drubbing its getting, the first duty of every Star Trek fan is still to the truth, and the truth is that the movie does get one thing right about Star Trek. Section 31 is fundamentally an ensemble story about people with vast differences coming together. Does it interpret coming together to mean arguing about who is the dumbest? Yes.But thats still a coming together and that communal spirit is at the heart of Star Treks ethos.Going Boldly as OneOn paper, the movie Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home departs from the standard Star Trek model. Sure, it continues the story began in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. And sure, its bookended by a plot about communicating with a strange probe from deep space. But at its heart, The Voyage Home is a comedy set in 1986. Director Leonard Nimoy also gives his castmates more attention than theyve ever received before.The Voyage Home works for several reasons, including the fact that its really funny, but also because it understands something underscoring all of the previous movies and episodes: that the series appeal goes beyond main character Jim Kirk and primary supporting characters Spock and McCoy. Viewers care about the entire crew and their interactions with one another. The Voyage Home taps into a key truth about the franchise: Star Trek works best as an ensemble.Its no surprise then that The Next Generation, which got a green light in large part because of the success of The Voyage Home (and because Shatner and Nimoy kept raising their fees), quickly adopted an ensemble approach. In the place of Kirk deliberating with Spock on one shoulder and Bones on the other, TNG introduced the Ready Room, where Picard discusses problems with his senior staff. Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise continued in this tradition (although, as a starbase, DS9 employed an office instead of a Ready Room).More than a storytelling convention, these sequences signal to the audience that all of characters matter, not just the captain and his best friends. With this acknowledgment, its easier for audiences to accept that the chief engineer and the helmsman can carry their own episodes, not just get a weird subplot where they giggle at a harem or do shirtless swashbuckling.So engrained into Trek is this ensemble approach that fans reject modern series that focus more on a single protagonist. Yes, Picard gave Jean-Luc a new crew with Raffi, Rios, and Jurati, and yes Discovery did give us episodes that fleshed out Owosekun and Airiam. But outside of the most minor details, these supporting members are relegated to a distant back seat to Picard and Burnham. As a result, fans complained about the lack of attention to the bridge crew more than any other element of those series.Conversely, fans embrace Lower Decks and Strange New Worlds in part because they have such vibrant casts. Okay, we still know next to nothing about Ortegas (she flies the ship), but we know that Laan struggles with her infamous last name, that Number One doesnt let her Augment status keep her out of Starfleet, and that George Kirk is more than just Jim but with a mustache. We know that Ransom likes working out, that Shaxs saw bad things in the Cardassian War, and that Dr. Migleemo is a foodie.While none of these characters supplant Pike and Spock or the five Lower Deckers as the protagonists of their respective shows, they all make the world richer and add more variety to the storytelling. They also embody Treks values.Join our mailing listGet the best of Den of Geek delivered right to your inbox!Infinite Diversity in Infinite CombinationsEven more than good storytelling, the ensemble approach underscores a fundamental vision of Star Trek. Although we can and should critique The Original Series for its one-dimensional approach to race and nationality, the very fact that the Enterprise bridge featured a Russian, a man of Asian descent, and a Black woman was radical for its time. Inspired by Kennedy-era optimism, creator Gene Roddenberry wanted to imagine a future in which race, gender, and nationality were no longer barriers, that people of radically different backgrounds could work with one another.Star Trek expresses this perspective with the central tenet of Vulcan philosophy: IDIC or Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations. The glory of creation is in its infinite diversity, psychologist Miranda Jones tells Spock in the TOS season three episode Is There in Truth No Beauty?, which introduced IDIC. Spock answers, And the ways our differences combine to create meaning and beauty.Time and again, Star Trek comes back to this principle. Sometimes, Starfleet personnel must remind one another of the concept, as when Kirk tells a paranoid crewman, Leave your bigotry in your quarters, there is no room for it on the bridge in Balance of Terror. But it remains a fundamental idea, proof that humanity has emerged from its infancy to become worthy of joining the rest of the cosmos.When Star Trek entries move their focus from a single character and show how vastly different creatures interact, they show us the power of the ideal.To be clear, none of the characters in Section 31 are interesting. Fuzz outdoes Neelix (creepy season one version) and Malcolm Reed as the most irritating character in Trek history. The mech-suit wearing Zeph could be plucked out of the movie and dropped into a nondescript Halo sequel without changing anything. Omari Hardwick does his best to bring gravitas to Aloks Augment backstory, but even that feels half-baked.Yet, the very fact that Section 31 devotes so much time to these characters proves that it understands the power of an ensemble for Star Trek. Nothing better captures our hope for the future like seeing a diverse community. And, on that note (and possibly only that note), Section 31 succeeds.Star Trek: Section 31 is now streaming on Paramount+.