It's not an opinion, it's literal objective fact. Go back and watch TOS, DS9 and TNG please and actually watch them this time. How can anyone with eyes possibly think that the characters in Star Trek don't break the rules routinely wtf lol.
The entire 700+ episode and 13 movie package of Star Trek is too much to get into at 12:30 at night, my time, but it's a mix of different things. Bending, following, breaking, but it all came down to doing what the characters thought was right. That was the common denominator in the vast majority of situations.
As far as how the philosophies of the Captains in the previous series:
In TNG, Picard reprimands Worf in "Reunion" for killing Duras even though the Klingons culture viewed Worf's killing as legal. Worf represented Starfleet. In "Journey's End", once again, Picard has to lay down the facts to Wesley that he made a tense situation worse with the Native Americans on Dorvan V who they had to relocate. Picard was bounded to evacuate them from land the Cardassians claimed but then the colonists renounced their Federation citizenship and agreed to live in what was now Cardassian Space so they wouldn't have to relocate. And speaking of Wesley, I don't need to tell you about "The First Duty" where Wesley has to decide between loyalty to Red Squad and coming clean about what Locarno is pressuring him to cover up. Granted, Picard had to nudge Wesley into it by saying either Wesley would tell the court what happened or he would. And that's TNG.
Getting into TOS, Kirk was not as much of a rule-breaker as fan propaganda would have you believe. He outright disobeyed orders in "Amok Time" to rescue Spock. Spock disobeyed orders in "The Menagerie", obviously. And then that's it until
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, when Kirk and crew steal the Enterprise. That's where the image of Kirk being a rule-breaker really comes from. And then it stuck, to the point where Chang argued it in
Star Trek VI, but the number of times Kirk disobeyed orders has been hideously exaggerated over the years.
In
Voyager, Janeway frequently gives lectures to crew members who disobeyed orders. She doesn't approve of their actions. Tuvok in "Prime Factors", Paris in "30 Days", Kim in "The Disease" (which was a
horrible episode), Seven in "Prey" when she let the 8472 escape, and Chakotay in "Maneuvers" when Seska manipulates him are the examples that come immediately to mind to me. The crew steps out of line sometimes, but Janeway is strictly by the book and usually doesn't approve. In "Equinox", when Captain Ransom asks Janeway how often she's broken the Prime Directive and she says she's bent it but never broken it, and uses the qualifier that even bending it was a difficult choice, that's when Ransom knows that Janeway is far too by-the-book to let her know what he's been doing on the Equinox. It becomes a major part of the plot.
On DS9, Sisko was
generally by the book, most of the time, or as by the book as he could be given that he was a Starfleet Officer commanding a Bajor space station with incoming and outgoing traffic that wasn't part of the Federation. Odo had a distinct philosophy from Sisko's believing in justice more than Starfleet Regulations but he followed his sense of justice to the letter. When Starfleet Command wanted Odo to work in conjunction with Edditington in "The Search", and Sisko and Kira argue about Starfleet's decision, Sisko says, and I quote, "Starfleet likes team players, Starfleet likes the chain of command, and so do I." The only time I can think of when Sisko outright disobeyed orders was in "The Die Is Cast" when he takes the Defiant into the Gamma Quadrant against an Admiral's orders. He's more lax as he lets more slide from his officers. He let O'Brien help Tosk escape in "Captive Pursuit" and used technicalities like evacuating
everything on the station as an excuse to stay on DS9 when he stopped the Circle's coup in "The Siege". Sisko's most controversial episode, "In the Pale Moonlight", had him carrying out Garak's idea with Starfleet's blessing. He was doing something immoral and yet still following orders. That's the exception to doing what's right. He was doing what was necessary for the Federation's survival instead, and with Starfleet Command's approval.
I'm not a fan of ENT, I'm not familiar enough with it to use examples from there.
BUT. Star Trek is not always about characters breaking the rules. Thinking their way out of situations? Yes. But that doesn't automatically mean breaking rules.
If you want to counter where I'm wrong, you'll have to point out why it is instead of just saying it is, and provide examples to back up your claim. Otherwise, it's all talk to dismiss whatever anyone who defends
Discovery says out of hand. In the meantime, it's late. So any replies on my end would have to wait until at some point tomorrow.
