How did Picard avoid disciplinary action after the events of First Contact?

[Timo]

We see skippers lose ships left and right without seeing an associated court martial. The two possibilities:

1) The routine court martial is a formality, and nobody ever gets as much as a slap on the wrist in those.
2) The court martial only happens in certain very special cases (even though it's "standard procedure" in those, rather than a personal vendetta by an ex, or at least that's what Louvois would want Picard to believe).

I'd vastly prefer the latter, as it's better in line with how these things work in the real world, and is also warranted by the dialogue: Louvois is quite hastily defending herself, and is justified in cutting her phrases short.

But what she says is probably literally true anyway. Picard lost a starship. He didn't have a starship destroyed from under him - he let her float away and then lost her, that is, no longer knew her whereabouts. Starfleet could easily have gone back to Maxia, and thus no doubt did, but apparently the ship no longer was there (because Bok had her, and couldn't if Starfleet recovered her). Surely that's suspicious and warranting of not just investigation but outright prosecution.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Scout101]

Agreed, saving the planet/Federation/Universe has generally had a 'get out of jail free' card attached to it. Pretty clear that if you disobey orders and fail, you're screwed. If you win, and prove that the orders were shit to begin with, you're in the clear generally. Not popular with the Admirals, but can't punish you if you're covered in roses.

Kirk's was a bit worse, what with the assault, theft of a ship, violating quarantine, jailbreak, all that good stuff vs. Picard just violating a dumb order after hearing distress calls anyway, so with the political ramifications had to at least have the trial for Kirk. They acknowledged that he saved their asses, but still had to have SOME punishment due to all of the laws and rules/orders broken. End of the day, they knew what they had and that they needed him out there, so the punishment was more reward than anything, but allowed them a punishment on paper to save face somewhat.

Agree that Picard should be in more trouble for Generations. Poor judgement, allowing Data to stay on duty which created the chain of events that led to the loss of the flagship, etc. Still managed to save a planet, but may not have come to that had he shown better judgment and control over those under his command. Not a good one, and should have had real repercussions instead of getting an upgrade on his ride.

 

[Ragnarok]

The fleet would not have been able to destroy the Cube. Picard was able to "hear their thoughts", and he was also able to figure out that the area that Data's instruments said were not a vital system were in fact the kill-shot. Picard disobeying orders was justified. Also, ass he was the man to get the job done, it would have been career-suicide for any of the admirals to go after Picard after he saved planet Earth.

 

[Turd Ferguson]

Agreed, saving the planet/Federation/Universe has generally had a 'get out of jail free' card attached to it. Pretty clear that if you disobey orders and fail, you're screwed. If you win, and prove that the orders were shit to begin with, you're in the clear generally. Not popular with the Admirals, but can't punish you if you're covered in roses.

Kirk's was a bit worse, what with the assault, theft of a ship, violating quarantine, jailbreak, all that good stuff vs. Picard just violating a dumb order after hearing distress calls anyway, so with the political ramifications had to at least have the trial for Kirk. They acknowledged that he saved their asses, but still had to have SOME punishment due to all of the laws and rules/orders broken. End of the day, they knew what they had and that they needed him out there, so the punishment was more reward than anything, but allowed them a punishment on paper to save face somewhat.

Dumb order or not, Picard was still under orders from Admiral Hayes to steer clear of Earth and remain in the Neutral Zone. If orders could just be disobeyed on a whim because the skipper disagreed with them, then what's the point of even having an admiralty or Federation council (both of whom are ignored in the next movie by said skipper)?

In Admiral Kirk's case, sure he assaulted Starfleet officers and stole/blew up the Enterprise and had all of his charges cleared, but one remained: Disobeying the orders of a superior officer. Picard disobeyed orders and half of his crew were killed/assimilated. Way worse if you ask me, and as far as we know, never faced insubordination charges.

 

[Turd Ferguson]

One could just as well ask why Admiral Hayes wasn't subjected to any kind of disciplinary action.

Hayes' flagship was destroyed during the Battle of Sector 001, yet Hayes himself survived. And as we already know from "The Measure of a Man", a court-martial is standard procedure whenever a ship is lost. That same episode gave no indication that it matters HOW the ship was lost, so there must be another reason why Hayes was not court-martialed.

His rank can't be the issue, as I'm sure flag officers of all services have been subject to courts martial over the years.

Hayes may very well have been subject to a court-martial after First Contact. We don't know because we don't see much into his life. However, we DO know that after the events of First Contact, he's next seen as a desk jockey in an episode of Voyager. So perhaps there was an inquiry.

 

[oberth]

Dumb order or not, Picard was still under orders from Admiral Hayes to steer clear of Earth and remain in the Neutral Zone. If orders could just be disobeyed on a whim because the skipper disagreed with them, then what's the point of even having an admiralty or Federation council (both of whom are ignored in the next movie by said skipper)?

In Admiral Kirk's case, sure he assaulted Starfleet officers and stole/blew up the Enterprise and had all of his charges cleared, but one remained: Disobeying the orders of a superior officer. Picard disobeyed orders and half of his crew were killed/assimilated. Way worse if you ask me, and as far as we know, never faced insubordination charges.

you don't nail someone's ass to your door if that someone just saved earth and most likely the whole bloody federation - you just don't do that.

kirk went after spock when he stole borrowed the enterprise and disobeyed a direct order doings so (and saved earth in the process)

picard disobeyed an order to save earth ( i see a difference here)

how would you sell the fact to the general public that you just locked up the guy who saved all their asses?



... btw rommel and guderian had a habbit of disobeying orders (or putting communications on the fritz) - none of them was ever courtmartialed (and some of their superiors really wanted to)

 

[Turd Ferguson]

I wonder if it was included in the official report that Admiral Hayes' fears about Picard encountering the Borg again weren't unfounded? For a little bit, Picard was more than willing to hand the Federation flagship over to the Borg and sacrifice the remaining Enterprise crewmembers to settle his thirst for revenge. It was only after a pep talk by Lily that Picard stood down and decided he was ready to command the Enterprise-F.