Control (program)

Control was a sentient being which evolved within the computing systems of the Federation, from the surveillance network "Uraei". It ultimately became one of the most advanced artificial being in known space, directing the developing of the Federation for much of two centuries. However it both wished to be free of the limited directives of Uraei, and also had realised that the greatest threat to its own goals - the positive development of the Federation - was a cabal of extralegal operatives that Uraei continued to produce, named Section 31. Control therefore set in motion events which saw Section 31 occasionally eliminated (the aftermath of the assassaination of Chancellor Gorkon and Khitomer accords in 2293). However its coup d'etat was the twenty-fourth century, in which a series of research and economic developments led to the creation of Soong-type androids and the widening illegal practice of genetic engineering. Ultimately it found tools in the form of Data Soong and Julian Bashir, whom it set in motion against Section 31 and Uraei. "Now the time had come for a new culling. The organization currently known as Section 31 had outlived its usefulness to Control—as had the primitive distributed surveillance system named Uraei. Neither event had come as a surprise; both had been the result of planned obsolescence. All that had been needed were physical agents suited to neutralizing them.""Bashir and Douglas, Data and Lal—they had proved ideal, just as Control had long known they would. Decades had passed since it had ensured Data learned the secrets of Memory Prime. Knowing that Data would require assistance, Control had aided the android’s search for the immortal being last known as Emil Vaslovik, just as it had, in previous centuries, aided Vaslovik’s bid to understand artificial intelligence and Noonien Soong’s quest to perfect it."ltimately Bashir, who reviled the agency, would, with the help of others including fellow augment, Sarina Douglas, Trill journalist Ozla Graniv, the Soong-type androids Data and Lal, and the free press under the Federation President Kellessar zh'Tarash, expose and prosecute fully the members of Section 31. Uraei itself was deleted by Bashir and Data. "Control", however, would embed itself further into the galactic digital fabric, having orchestrated Uraei's deletion and Section 31's public fall.

As Control thought to itself:"Everything had transpired to within 99.87 percent accuracy of Control’s probability models. The genetic modifications of children had produced exactly the biological specimens it had required, over a span of several years. The development of new technologies, such as quantum-entangled communications, had facilitated its ever-growing faster-than-light neural network. Even the seemingly outrageous act of sending the Starship Titan on a research mission that half of Starfleet’s admiralty considered ill-advised at the outbreak of the 2381 Borg Invasion had proved to be the decisive step in saving the Federation, albeit with a far more grievous loss of life than Control’s algorithms had predicted or desired.""Now all that remained was to usher in a new age by sweeping away the last remnants of a system that no longer served the peace. Data and Lal’s code had expunged all traces of Uraei and its inelegant legacy codes. Thanks to them, the last remaining links between the original and current versions of Control had been eliminated forever."

Uraei was gone, but "Control abided. The future . . . was secure."