I don't see why people being assigned to a science station must constitute a "flaw or failing".
I didn't say it
must constitute a flaw or a failing. I simply stated that the premise of my hypothetical scenario was that
these officers had been placed on a duty which required less responsibility or social interaction from them because something about them made them less efficient or less capable in higher responsibility, higher pressure settings such as on many starships or starbases.
I wasn't asking for reasons they
must have flaws under these circumstances. I was asking for what flaws
might exist to justify
someone being put into that position
for that reason.
Some people aren't 'people persons', or are introverts, or want to help 'the cause' but aren't looking for the life of adventure that a starship is more likely to offer.
All true, and none of which do I disagree with in my premise. If a character
requested to be placed in such a position because it's what they wanted to do and they really dislike starship life, that is certainly a viable reason. I never suggested otherwise. I simply asked for alternate explanations that fit within a specific parameter - in this case that the character has some sort of personality quirk (if you prefer the word quirk to flaw; perhaps it is more accurate) that was responsible for that duty posting.
Introversion is also a flaw when it extends beyond certain limits, and there have been multiple characters who struggled with this throughout
The Next Generation era
Star Trek, among them Reginald Barclay. An officer needs enough extroversion to assert themselves when necessary, to communicate their ideas with others, and so on. While you may not consider introversion a flaw, it does make one a flawed
Starfleet officer if it is not kept in check.
If you want good officers who will do good work, shouldn't the most important criteria be what their strengths are and what kind of work will make them reasonably happy?
If you want good officers, yes, you do need to pay attention to what their strengths are as well as what their interests are. Who said otherwise?
You seem to have misunderstood my intentions somewhat. My entire premise is
literally built upon the fact that these people were placed on this survey station because that is where
their strengths would
do the most good and
their flaws would
do the least harm, both of which are
critical to having a functioning Starfleet.
A couple of my teammates, on the other hand, get the tech but aren't great with the people-side of things and it's unclear whether they want to be better. They're possibly more suited to be Systems Analysts, but that's not a flaw or failing on their part, it's a recognizance of what they're good at and want to do.
It would, however, be a failing if they wanted to do what you do and weren't good enough to do it, which is a part of my premise. Again, I never stated wanting to do one thing over another
made people flawed, but asked what flaws
could make people bad at one thing and thus get them placed in a career position where they were dealing with the other.
Further, I never stated that having flaws or failings means something negative about a person as an individual. It doesn't inherently mean anything about a person except that some of us are one way and others another. I want the individuals in question to be generally likable. They're the protagonists of our scenario after all. I was just exploring what flaws they might have as individuals that would impact their abilities and could be responsible for them being assigned to a less high pressure duty, which is after all the premise I am working with.
To put it another way, if I asked "what tragedy could a hero have suffered to inspire them to become a hero?" that wouldn't mean I was saying "All heroes must have suffered a tragedy in order to be inspired to become heroes." It would mean I wanted
this hero to have suffered a tragedy and I was looking for examples that might serve that purpose.
Alt-Picard in "Tapestries" apparently suffered a permanent career setback because his superiors perceived him as having a lack of ambition, but we have no idea how he actually felt about that, because we only ever saw our Picard in Alt-Picard's shoes. And if not him, maybe another person would have been happy enough to do what he was doing without any significant expectation of advancement.
Someone may have been. There are certainly individuals who lack a desire for advancement. That isn't inherently a bad thing. In an organization like Starfleet, though, it means that other people
may be prioritized for more high profile or prestigious duties.
