Dear everyone It happens now and then in Star Trek that a commanding officer gives orders which violate a Starfleet law, regulation or a higher superior’s order. To me it is not clear what one as a subordinate should do in such a situation in order to avoid any negative consequences. Blindly following orders could give you trouble. One example is the Pegasus incident. Riker followed Pressman’s command when dealing with the illegal cloaking device, and he could have been court-martialed. Another example is what happened on the Equinox. Janeway wanted to put the Equinox crew under arrest for murdering the aliens, and she said that following Ransom’s orders was “their mistake”. On the other hand, disobeying your superior’s orders can also give you trouble. So, what would be the right course of action? I could think of the following two. 1) Following his orders, but insisting on a log entry in which the explicit protest is recorded One example might be First Contact when Picard decides to join the fleet against the Borg. He even asks the other bridge officers to raise any objections so they can be noted in the log. 2) Asking to be temporarily relieved of duty or simply for leave of absence, until the situation is over What do you think?
I'm sure there's a form pinned to the wall in the staff room with the numbers of Admirals to call if your captain has gone insane. It happened so often in TOS they must have contingencies.
I would refuse to follow an illegal order. At worst, I'd end up in the brig. It would be better than ending up in prison, afterwards. In real life, if I have a problem with a job, I won't stay there because I won't do something I have a problem with. That's why I'm a freelancer and a contractor. I have the power to turn things down.
Disobeying orders is the risk every Starfleet Captain has to take. You'll never know if your orders are from Fleet Brass (Admirals) who suffer from alien possession, PTSD or corruption or megalomania. Either you are a hero and receive commendation or you are court-martialed.
1) Obeying an order that you know is unlawful, even if you logged your objection, would probably make it worse than if you didn’t log it. At least you could argue that you didn’t know it was an unlawful order if you didn’t log an objection. 2) I doubt a superior would let you sit out the situation if he’s giving you an order to do something. That would set a precedent that everyone could just sit out every situation that they didn’t feel comfortable with. You could refuse to obey the unlawful order and face being arrested for insubordination and wait for a court martial. You then better hope Starfleet agrees with your decisison and sets you free.
Well in the case of Picard "disobeying orders" in STFC, saving the day goes a long way to smoothing over any issues with disobeying orders and secondly you could argue that he was responding to a call for help from the fleet as you can hear a call for reinforcements. Kirk was demoted for disobeying orders in what was in essence a non-punishment. It gave Kirk what he wanted, put Kirk in a position to best serve the UFP/Starfleet and the UFP/Starfleet could point to Kirks demotion as an example to interested parties be they foreign or domestic that we do punish officers who violate regulations, though I suspect on the later point not many people would buy it in this instance. But there is likely very little a single officer can do but refuse to carryout the order which would likely lead to their removal from their post and more willing person to take their place. If the officer acted correctly they would be cleared by any inquiry.
I wonder at what point would Starfleet require that a crew mutiny against its captain and hold them responsible if they didn’t. We repeatedly see captains violate the Prime Directive with no punishment nor anyone actually trying to relieve them before they do it, and the Prime Directive is supposed to be the highest principle in Starfleet. I suppose many people would draw the line if their captain was about to commit genocide or something on that order.
Real militaries don't really have a problem with this. It's pretty clear-cut: if you get given an illegal order, UCMJ specifies both that refusal to obey does not amount to insubordination, and that it is your duty to point out the illegality of the order given; obeying the order makes you complicit in the crime, even though an illegal order that is never acted upon may end up being no crime at all. And odd orders are illegal more often than not, because the range of legal orders doesn't include many odd ones. Trek doesn't have it that easy, though, because superior officers in Starfleet often do give orders that appear devoid of sense. That's not necessarily illegal even though it's questionable; you may ask questions up to a point, but it's unlikely you would have the competence to outright decide an order is so wacky that your superior isn't legally entitled to giving it. But Starfleet officers seldom respond badly to being talked back at, and making an odd order understandable is often a worthwhile goal for both parties involved (not least of all because the audience needs to understand it, too!). Timo Saloniemi
Thank you all for your thoughts. It seems that one's options as subordinate are quite limited. The best would be to disobey an unlawful order and see this insubordination as lesser evil, hoping that in a subsequent court martial they will judge in your favor.
If "unlawful" can be established, then the underling is on a firm footing, as charges of insubordination won't stick (the term is quite carefully and narrowly defined). An actual court martial would be unlikely, then. But establishing "unlawful" is carefully defined, too... Many a mutiny movie describes how the process does not proceed. Timo Saloniemi
If an order is against the law, refusing to obey isn't insubordination because the law itself supersedes the commanding officer's authority.