Take what you will from the following quote, but it doesnt seem to fit with the notion Picard did nothing after the resignation. "Raising awareness of the supernova's lingering impact is work that I am extremely passionate about." - Picard
"Defending" might be a stretch but there are logical reasons for the Federation's reaction on that matter. With the destruction of the Utopia Planitia shipyards, Starfleet's central shipbuilding facility, their ability to build ships was severely crippled, meaning they had to do with what ships they currently had with it being years and perhaps at minimum a decade before new ships would be available. Securing and consolidating the Federation takes priority, humanitarian goodwill missions only make sense when there's a secure enough base to mount them from. And given the Romulan evacuation effort was already a controversial decision to begin with with fourteen Federation member worlds threatening to secede over it, it makes less sense to continue these efforts in such a weakened state. With all this in mind, it becomes very understandable why the Federation chose to abandon the evacuation. Likewise the destruction of the shipyards was caused by a seemingly random revolt inexplicably triggered by their Synth workforce. In addition to the above mentioned loss of the shipyards and the implications that had for Starfleet, there was also a colony on the surface of Mars with a population of thousands of civilians also lost in this attack. With Synths working as laborers all over the Federation, there's the potential out there of this disaster happening again at any moment, making the only logical course of action to discontinue Synth labour immediately. And given it's impossible to study the Synths from Mars to find out what went wrong with them, the next logical step is to end all research into Synths altogether. The Romulans sure felt he did nothing. Including the Qowat Milat who were basically on his side.
The romulans have varying reactions to him. We had the angry Romulan that went on a rant about federation treachery that wasnt true. Then Elnor that seemed more upset that he couldnt visit them more often and still wanted his respect. And then Laris and Zhaban who love the man.
And then there was the Qowat Milat leader who lectured him for walking away and refusing to help some just because he couldn't help all.
Except he says this after sitting around his chateau for a large majority of the intervening 14 years. It's very evident from later episodes that most Romulans feel that Picard abandoned them. Picard doesn't even return to Vashti or even send a message to the Qowat Milat to check in on Elnor. If he couldn't do that what makes you think he would be helping any Romulans except the ones working for him?
I'd be much more willing to forgive Picard if he attempted anything after Starfleet telling him no. He was a personal friend of the late Sarek, but he didn't seek the Vulcans for help. His old tactical officer was the former Federation Ambassador to Qo'noS and a member of the Great House of the Chancellor of the High Council, not to mention Picard himself being an Arbiter of Succession, but he never even tried asking the Klingons. He talked about Dunkirk in the interview but there's no indication that he ever attempted to rally civilians or the merchant fleets to provide their ships for an evacuation. The very least he could've done is to go to Vashti and assist those Romulans he had already evacuated. But instead of any one of these, he just literally rage quit after Starfleet calls him on his bluff and spent the next fourteen years sulking in splendid isolation in his family home. Clancy had every right to refuse to reinstate him. He had completely withdrawn from the galaxy for more than a decade after all. He might have once been the man who saved Earth from the Borg, but he stopped being relevant a long time ago and the world has gone on without him. Just like an actor or a politician hoping to make a big comeback, he had to put something extraordinary on the table to show that he could still make a difference.
He had already assisted them relocate 250,000 refugees and then threw down his badge against Starfleet giving up, and they're gonna guilt trip the guy for not doing more? And withdrawing like that being so out of character for him, maybe they should have checked up on him. Taking the novel into account Clancy I somewhat doubt she would have helped him if he had asked even before the 14 year absence. She didnt want to help romulans in the first place. She is in the room when they are deciding to go forward on the mission and arguing against it.
Yes, I think Picard could have done more. Starfleet could have done more. Lots of wrong to go around here.
For the record, Picard has always been a pompous ass. In The Measure of a Man Picard was reunited with Phillipa Louvois, whom which he hadn't seen since the Stargazer court-martial, and she says to him, "You're still a pompous ass".
The Romulan people are not the Federation's enemy. The ruling class, maybe; not the people. No, he makes a reasonable calculation that between the political capital he is capable of bringing to bear and the existing pressure to save millions of innocent civilians, the Federation government will be unwilling to pay the cost of the negative public reaction to both his resignation and the deaths of millions of people. His calculation turned out not to be correct, but it's not an unreasonable thing to gamble on. Absolutely not. Jean-Luc's behavior in 2385 may well be arrogance. But it is arrogance in the service of millions of innocent people doomed to die if he does not act. It is the arrogance of a man who has lived 80 years in a society that always had the resources to do the right thing, who has forgotten that his own people can be driven to commit terrible sins if their needs are not met, if they feel threatened and frightened and embrace tribalism. Jean-Luc's arrogance is not self-serving arrogance. It is the arrogance of a genuine altruist who does not understand why anyone else doesn't care as much about other people's welfare as he does. Yep. And he deserved it. His moral obligation to help save as many Romulans as possible did not end just because his Starfleet commission did. This assertion is insane. The Vashti refugees are living in absolute squalor. They're barely meeting their own needs; they do not have the resources to look after the welfare of a man light-years away who lives on Paradise and has chosen to abandon them. Why do you center the welfare of a man who has no material needs unmet over the welfare of people on the brink of starvation? *shrugs* The point is not the merits of Jean-Luc's request. The point is that he made the request in an arrogant manner. A real-world example: I have had several occasions when I have boarded a public bus thinking I had money left on my farecard, only to discover that I did not. When this happens, I always report it to the bus driver and offer to get off at the next stop. 99% of the time, because I showed respect for the bus driver's authority, the bus drivers allow me to take the ride for free. About four years ago, I was sitting on a bus that was about to leave the station when a man got on board and loudly declared (as though he had some authority to issue himself an exemption) that he would not be paying for his bus fare because his wallet had been stolen. He did not request, did not ask, did not say, "Hey, I am so sorry, but I'm in a real bind, can you help me out?" He just demanded, just assumed that it was his due. The bus driver did not allow him to get away with it -- because however legitimate his plight, he showed complete disrespect for the bus driver's authority. Jean-Luc was like that guy. Instead of respecting Clancy's authority, he asserted authority over her. Instead of acknowledging that it might be understandable that she's angry at him, he brushes her off and acts like he's entitled to a re-activation and a crew command. He should have said, "Listen. I know we have had our differences. I condemned your choices in very harsh terms; I won't pretend that I don't think the Federation did something very wrong all those years ago, but it is my sincere belief that there is a potential threat to the Federation. Starfleet needs to investigate it, and I believe I can be of service. I've got two eyewitness to the existence of Dahj, her arrival at my residence, and what she told us. I've got an empty apartment, two missing people, and forensic evidence of crime scene tampering. I've got testimony on the feasibility of a synth from Dr. Agnes Jurati of the Daystrom Institute. I respectfully request that you review your sensor logs covering building security at the Starfleet Archive from X Date. I think you will find evidence that something has been altered. When you do, please consider assigning a ship and a crew to investigate this. I stand ready to assist this team in whatever manner I can." Had he done that, I think Clancy might have been more amenable to the idea of setting aside a dedicated crew. She might not have given him command, but she might have assigned him to the team.
I can see a lot of good points made and I can see where you're coming from. I still feel it's worth checking on the guy even though he had more material needs met. All that absolute candor wouldn't they know his spirit would be completely broken by federation ideals falling apart on him? It's as important to him as their beliefs are to them. 14 years they are resourceful enough to send a message. Picard had set them up with resources relative to what their own government did there must have been communication equipment. In general and I think the last I can say about the subject because it's the heart of the matter to me, is that it's really weird to put the guilt on the only guy who was trying to help them. There seems to be no consequence at all with the rest of the characters except Raffi. Everyone else didnt care at all about the romulans and only the characters who helped were damaged by it. Essentially their choice to help those people ruined their lives and the sense I'm getting here in discussion is that they deserve it because they didnt do enough. But doing some should be better than nothing. If everyone else had done some too, like Picard and Raffi had already done, the situation would have been drastically different. Riker seems to have been right about staying out of it so the moral becomes "just stay out of it if you cant do it 100%, everyone would be happier" instead of "do the best you can, try to make some difference, no one is perfect." It's not a very human thing to not allow some failures in a person's attempt at doing good.
Let's be fair here. TNG did "lead character has sex with a ghost living in a candle." TNG does not always do things well, much less better.
^^ Yeah, basically. All this hate for the guy who at least tried. But he didn’t continue to after he was broken, therefore fuck him and all the Romulans everyone else has “reasonable” excuses for not helping. Obviously they made Picard more fallible in this series (his first conversation with Clancy @Sci notes how it could have gone better from his end as well) but, hi, if you’re not giving the same amount of hate or more to those who were responsible for the abandonment of the Romulans after Picard was outmaneuvered, you need to re-examine what’s going on on your end.
Was there communication equipment? I honestly can't remember, but I seem to recall that Jean-Luc waited until he reached Vashti to actually contact them. I'm not putting all the guilt on Jean-Luc. I'm just insisting that his guilt not be overlooked because of other people's sins. And I have also made strong arguments in plenty of threads that Jean-Luc in PIC is a strong character who leads the Federation back into decency by refusing to give up on Dahj and Soji, even when Soji has herself done something terribly wrong. I mean, in the same post where I said Jean-Luc betrayed his moral obligations to the Romulan refugees by giving up, I also defended him very vociferously from someone who claimed he was engaging in "self-serving arrogance." Ultimately, the reason people are posting a lot about Jean-Luc's flaws is as a reaction to both the narrative of TNG and the narrative advanced by many Trek fans, wherein Jean-Luc is presupposed to be this "more evolved" human being who always does the right thing in the end. It's not hate for Jean-Luc -- I love the guy! But it is a matter of trying to break through this presupposition that "Jean-Luc Knows Best." Why do we not post as much about the abandonment of the Romulans by the Federation? Well, two reasons: There is already a strong consensus that they were in the wrong to do what they did to the Romulans. We don't actually know who made the decision. We infer that Fleet Admiral Clancy may have been one of them, but that's it. And it's entirely possible that Clancy was not the Starfleet Commanding General at that time. We don't know who the Federation President was in 2385, nor which key Federation Councillors were behind the decision to withdraw assistance. It's hard to advance an argument against someone if you don't even know who they are.
They ARE more evolved than us. That some take that to be perfect, that’s another matter. I don’t know that there is a consensus. There should be, but I don’t know if the numbers reflect that here. Again, whether Clancy was in the room or not, she’s making the argument now. People are more titillated by her language than outraged by the organization(s) she represents. “Perfect” Picard is being held to a much higher standard than the most powerful organizations in this half the galaxy.
Exactly. I recall a lot of people saying the same thing about TNG (a lot more vociferously too) back in the day. We've all heard this "this is not Star Trek" nonsense before. It's nothing new.