Safest Captain To Serve Under?

[Farscape One]

I don't know if this has ever been done before, but something in another thread made me think of this.

Starfleet duty is dangerous, no doubt about it. Any number of things can get you killed... hand to hand combat with an alien, weapon blast, spatial anomaly, disease, harsh planetary environment, assimilation by the Borg, being a toy for a godlike entity, killed by your parallel universe counterpart, falling between decks because of dark matter... the list is endless.

So which captain lost the most people? And I mean permanent deaths, because we all know it wouldn't be a STAR TREK show if each lead character didn't die AT LEAST once. (Or your ship blows up AT LEAST once.)

Kirk? He's the reason we have the phrase 'redshirt'.

Picard? He had a LOT more crew than the rest of the hero ship shows put together, except of course for the DS9 station, so he certainly has the lowest percentage.

Sisko? Despite him losing only a handful on his own ship/station, the Dominion War likely ups his body count.

Janeway? You're screwed if you are a Maquis. And it's the second season.

Archer? The Xindi arc... he lost more that year than the rest of the series put together. At least twice over.

Not counting DISCOVERY yet, as the series is still going, plus it has already had two captains for that ship.

So what do you all think?

 

[Kilana2]

I voted for Jean-Luc. For the obvious reasons you just named. But that's just for the TNG TV show time. In the Relaunch books even Picard loses many crew members - on the other hand they put the families back on Earth. But Picard did always his best to protect the people he captained, including the families. Despite the fact that he never felt comfortable with families aboard E-D.

 

[MAGolding]

I voted for Jean-Luc. For the obvious reasons you just named. But that's just for the TNG TV show time. In the Relaunch books even Picard loses many crew members - on the other hand they put the families back on Earth. But Picard did always his best to protect the people he captained, including the families. Despite the fact that he never felt comfortable with families aboard E-D.

Picard didn't always do his best to keep the people he captained, including the families safe. Picard did not separate the saucer section and leave it out of potential danger nearly as many times as he should have.

The real world reasons for the lack of separation was the difficulty in filming separation scenes, especially since the model preferred for filming was one piece and unable to separate. But those real world reasons do not change the fact that Picard failed to separate the sections as a precaution as often as he should have.

 

[Kilana2]

All of the Captains had to deal with the situation in which they had to chose between the lives of friends/high ranking officers and the lives of mere crewmen/ensigns/cadets. With almost always the lowly crewman drawing the shit end of the stick. That said, no Captain is really safe to serve under.

 

[seigezunt]

Picard: "Risk ... isn't our business."

 

[USS Firefly]

Sisko

 

[Antonovus]

Lelz. Zero percent for Kirk is about right. If you're a minor character under any command, however, they will make little effort to save you.

 

[Qonundrum]

I voted Janeway...

Then I went to find the YouTube video comparing captains' slaughter counts.

Sadly I could not locate said video.

But that's a lie. I found it:

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That vid may be the most morbid, but it's almost as entertaining as the Voyager torpedo count one...

Spoiler: naturally... :D

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[The Wormhole]

Archer? The Xindi arc... he lost more that year than the rest of the series put together. At least twice over.

Archer lost twenty-seven of his crew over the course of the Xindi arc. I'm pretty sure if you combine the deaths from the other shows, you get significantly more than twenty-seven.

 

[Sir Stewart Wallace]

Sisko, because hopefully you can hang out on the station and transfer off when things get hairy.

 

[Mojochi]

Archer lost twenty-seven of his crew over the course of the Xindi arc. I'm pretty sure if you combine the deaths from the other shows, you get significantly more than twenty-seven.

Yeah, that's on a ship with only 85 people, which amounts to being like a quarter of his crew. It's harder to get people killed when there aren't as many. Picard would have to get 10x as many people killed to match that proportionally... which he didn't do in the entirety of that show

 

[Farscape One]

Archer lost twenty-seven of his crew over the course of the Xindi arc. I'm pretty sure if you combine the deaths from the other shows, you get significantly more than twenty-seven.

I meant the rest of that series, meaning seasons 1, 2, and 4. I think I worded it wrong, so apologies for the confusion.

 

[Vger23]

Safest?? Picard, obviously. Risk aversion to the nth degree.

 

[Nyotarules]

I voted Archer but with the Xindi arc and the Romulan war, I've changed my mind to Picard

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I voted Picard. Yeah, they probably shouldn't be taking families into those situations. But generally there's fewer random casualties despite being much more people on board.

 

[Farscape One]

Honestly, I put Sisko.

Considering the Dominion War, it's astonishing he had very few deaths under his command. He is clearly a good tactician if he can engage in warfare with an enemy that is equal on all fronts and superior in some and usually brings everyone home again. And let's face it... the Defiant was not to be messed with. Let's give credit to her, too.

Archer had more deaths in one year than I think Sisko had in two years of the Dominion War, the most devastating war to happen in the Alpha Quadrant.

I almost voted Picard, but I just couldn't get past the Enterprise blowing up over and over again.

The same with Janeway. Multiple destructions of the ship.

And Kirk was a definite no for me, given his redshirt count. But I will say this about Kirk... he did what no other Starfleet captain could do.

He had surge protectors throughout his ship, preventing life threatening explosions to his crew.

 

[Spot261]

I voted Janeway...

Then I went to find the YouTube video comparing captains' slaughter counts.

Sadly I could not locate said video.

But that's a lie. I found it:

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For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

That vid may be the most morbid, but it's almost as entertaining as the Voyager torpedo count one...

Spoiler: naturally... :D

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For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

Considering she was lost on the other side of the galaxy with no resources, no contact with SF, no diplomatic relations, no map, all in a diddy little ship I'd have to say she has mitigating circumstances, not to mention we have no idea how many the other captains lost off screen. In Janeways' case we know exactly how many she lost because replacements wouldn't have been available.

 

[NewHeavensNewEarth]

Picard, because he always had a way of talking himself out of a fight. When anyone died under his command, a whole episode would usually be devoted to it. Not so with the others generally.

 

[XCV330]

its close between Janeway and Picard but Janeway has it due to her record.
Picard had to abandon two ships and very nearly another. Janeway got em home.

 

[Vger23]

Picard, because he always had a way of talking himself out of a fight. When anyone died under his command, a whole episode would usually be devoted to it. Not so with the others generally.

There's a line in the episode "A Matter of Time" that always made me laugh...

Picard says something like "But...since I've never been one to play it safe...I choose to try."

I always thought that line was unintentionally hilarious because Picard's very core is built around playing it safe. It's honestly one of several data points I lean on when I occasionally argue that Picard had a very inaccurate sense of self and of reality in general.