Actions by the crew that go overlooked?

Conduct unbecoming, if nothing else. It may not be a prison worthy offense given the cultural extenuating circumstances, but it's clear that regardless of the internal policies of some UFP member worlds, Starfleet itself does not condone dueling to the death, as evidenced by Spock's expectation to be penalized for the events of Amok Time. That didn't happen, but much of that seems to be a result of the leniency & understanding of the commanding officer. Picard himself even finds a way around the death duel in Code of Honor

Similarly, I'd suspect that Picard is sympathetic to Worf's cause, because let's face it, Duras got nothing short of everything he deserved, but moreover, I suspect Picard specifically is sympathetic to Klingon values, on the whole, choosing to act on his behalf in a matter of his father's house , & even surprisingly falling in on the supportive side of his ritualistic suicide in Ethics.

So, by my reckoning, Worf gets over because of who his commanding officer is, & even then, he makes it clear that no such similar actions are acceptable, and by Worf acquiescing with his admission of not wanting to resign, he reaffirms that doing so is not an acceptable action by Starfleet officers

Some other captain might have thrown the book at him, with a court martial or even drumming him out of the service altogether imho

 

The whole blood transfusion refusal forever coloured my perception of Worf.
I have a deep and abiding hatred of the character ever since and the idea that he would someday advance to a Starfleet captaincy is anathema to me.

 

I have a hard time taking seriously someone who once attempted to shoot a viewscreen.

 

So...

In Descent, Data inexplicably has an emotional response to an event that sends him into a personal crisis, where he has to suss out what's going on, & in order to do that, he pushes the holodeck safeties to their limits, & then in a very telling moment, he asks his friend Geordi to help him by co-authorizing the holodeck safety removal, because he can't do it without him, but it could potentially put Data's life in jeopardy,

And Geordi refuses

Not long after, Geordi has his own personal crisis revolving around what happened to his mother, where he is trying to use technology to suss out what's going on, & in a very telling moment, he asks his friend Data to help him by assisting with a dangerous experiment, which he can't do without him, but could potentially put Geordi's life in jeopardy

And Data helps him

So are we going to ignore the fact that Data is the more reliable friend in this relationship, or what?

 

What exactly is a reliable friend? One that helps you (possibly) kill yourself or one that refuses to do so? I had a friend (he's dead now, unfortunately) who was an alcoholic, I wasn't one of his "friends" who drank with him in bars, I was the one who helped him recover from it. He did recover and for a while, he was much better but then he went away and (apparently) his life took a really shitty turn and he killed himself.

 

I think there's a large disparity between encouraging dangerous or detrimental behavior that serves no purpose, like alcoholism, versus a dangerous choice that is a critical need to a friend. Donating a kidney is dangerous & detrimental, but if my friend needed one, I'd give it. If my friend was terminally ill, & bedridden & leaving his bed might kill him, I'd still help him get out of bed, if he chose to not die there. I'm am in essence supporting his choice to do something he knows isn't in his best interest, but it IS his will

Both of these events of Geordi's & Data's fall into that latter category. Geordi is willing to endanger himself to know his mother's fate. It means that much to him. It has purpose, & Data, even in his limited understanding of humans, gets that, & takes the leap to support his friend in that time of need

Data's crisis of having had an emotion he can't explain is no less integral to him as Geordi's crisis was, more so maybe & yet Geordi refuses

 

Interesting how holodeck safeties in later episodes don't need two senior officers to turn it off...

 

I think they only needed it for that one episode lol

 

And FIRST CONTACT when he shot the Borg in the holodeck.

Granted, it's the captain, but still...

 

The problem is that the deck is stacked in that kind of fiction because we know that no matter what Data decides no matter how dangerous Geordi will recover and that they'll be no long term effects. Now what if Data had helped Geordi do this foolish thing and Geordi had died or even worse had remained handicapped for the rest of his life with no memory of the incident (as it often happens in these cases) how would Data or someone with feelings (that's another thing that I don't buy about Data. If you don't have feelings, you don't act as if you had them, that's absurd and in total disaccord with what happens in real life.) feel for the rest of his life for having been the determining cause of that??? I'd rather be "less of a friend" and not being responsible for my friend being badly hurt than the opposite, IE be a "great friend" that has to witness the horror he's caused for the rest of his life!!

But to each their own, as they say.

 

And how would someone feel if that person had gone ahead & done the objectionable thing on their own, as Geordi was going to do anyhow, & as I'm sure Data probably could've figured out how to do on his own as well, because he's... well... Data. Then they got hurt, but might not have, if their close friend had been there to support them? Then you'd have your negative result, as well as the added stain of having also abandoned them in their time of need

Life is not without risk. I could encourage a friend to become a pilot, & they die in a plane crash. You don't judge your influence & friendship based on the negative. You judge it based on its meaning to that other person imho

 

In which case, the Enterprise should be docked along with every other ship.

Data is something of a special case, but even the incorporeal baddies do try to find the senior staff first.

Asimov's laws only work if they're programmed into the robot and to the point the robot doesn't develop sentience and then goes to do DIY heart surgery in rewriting its own uEFI.

 

It’s just silly to limit the entire Federation’s potential based on whether someone is smarter or faster than the average human. Putting aside the android analogy, what if there were an entire alien species that wanted to join the Federation. Would they be banned if they were smarter or faster, or treated as second class citizens, or would they be welcomed for the incredible contributions they would make?

Second class citizens are usually regarded as inferior, but it would be ironic if the more limited humans were doing it because they felt the aliens were superior.

 

I think it all rests on whether you believe that an android is really analogous to any sentient being. Let's not forget that on Discovery an evolved, initially innocuous, artificial intelligence wipes out all sentient life in the galaxy. come to think of it, it's kinda close to the plot of Terminator. The point being that before we trust our lives to a machine, we had better make sure that that machine can't be turned against humankind... by a... malfunction. Think of Hal who kills the whole crew in 2001 a space odyssey!

 

I honestly don't think he represents any bigger a risk than having Troi on board, or any telepath for that matter. They are always seemingly more susceptible to outwardly influence, because of their special properties

For all the times someone was able to use Data... or Troi's special properties to do harm, there are other times when without those special properties, they almost certainly all would've died. You take the bad with the good, & besides that, it's the morally right choice to not discriminate against them for what they are anyhow.

Again, you can't always weigh everything against the negative. You short change us all

 

Well, it's fiction, after all, their rules are not the ones you'd apply in real life. Not without added nuances at any rate. In real life, if you can make one Data, you can make a billion of them. You may as well, fill your ships, factories and whatever with Data duplicates and the real people will stay at home getting fat and stupid until they go extinct...

 

^Ideally, that wouldn't happen to them, as they've had a shift of motivation. By their account, they don't work or explore or what have you because they have to. They do it because they want to & can. So no matter how much they have of automation or androids or whatever, it wouldn't result in lessening of their involvement because they won't want it to

 

A realistic/darker plot with Data would take the Maxwell thing to a greater extreme, we would find out not only does Starfleet not consider him a person but an entire department of engineers has been spying on Data 24/7 and the only reason the federation allows him to serve is because section 31 wants to figure out how to make more of him. Then we'd find out Geordie is on the payroll and their whole friendship is a setup

 

This is part of a larger point: Picard, over the course of his captaincy, suffered a hell of a lot of psychological trauma: being hijacked by the Borg, the whole "Inner Light" day trip he took, his torture by the Cardassians... am I missing anything?...

His psychological well-being should be called into question, at the very least, and probably he shouldn't be in the Captain's chair or even a high ranking Starfleet officer anymore.

Yes, I know: he had a good cry when he got back home to his brother, but really...

 

I agree with that, but on the other hand... wouldn't the same basically be true for every main cast member? They all have been de-evolved into animals, exposed to unknown radiation and/or diseases, time loops, have their ship (or bodies) eaten away under them by invisible parasites only being able to save it/those in the nick of time, resisted Borg attacks where they've seen their fellow officers die or being assimilated, etc and that's not even counting all the nasties that happened to particular crewmembers such as being posessed by alien entities, suffering transporter accidents and what-have-you ...