Spoilers [Season 1] The morality of the Federation's decision

If you mean he woke up and saw that the Federation he represented wasn't what he thought it was and wasn't afraid to let people know it, and wouldn't be a lapdog for Starfleet Command's terrible decisions, then I agree.

I re-watched all of TNG and all four TNG Movies before PIC, and Picard was on this path the whole time. If Starfleet did something he disagreed with, he wasn't afraid to voice it. It's just that this time it was taken to an extreme that it wasn't before. But he was on this path the whole time.

And, in fact, the PIC Starfleet was really just the DS9 Starfleet plus 20 years. So, in effect: Picard vs. The Federation is basically one big Internet TNG vs. DS9 Debate put up on the TV Screen.

 

That's not victim blaming, though. At worst, one could say he was being insensitive to the Federation's collective grief. I can't really fault him on that beat, though, if his focus was on saving lives. The Mars attack was tragic, but the victims were already dead. The Romulans were still staring down the barrel of a horrific cataclysm. Even if the Federation only had the ability to help thousands instead of millions after the attack by employing old freighters and the like to ferry refugees, his view was that even a scaled down effort was better than leaving them to die.

 

No, I didn't mean it that way. In the one scene in the past where he threatened with this resignation, he showed integrity and that's good. And that he then actually resigned also is understandable - one does not threaten with something, if one is not prepared to do it.

But then he just gave up - even as a civilian he still had other relations that he could at least have tried to use. But he was so shocked and offended by Starfleet letting him go, that he just went to his chateau and buried himself for 14 years. Here, I see a big loss of integrity.
Also, the whole mission of season 1, Picard is very clearly considering as a suicide mission, but he does not tell the others that he considers it a suicide mission. I think if you hire people for a suicide mission, you should tell them that it is a suicide mission. But here we have something like "I will die, but I need company when I die. Well, I won't ask Beverly and Will or Laris and Zhaban, because I like them and don't want them to die, too. So, who is totally broke? Let's get Raffi on board to die and this one Romulan child I once abandoned!" ... It came off really creepy.

 

I cut Picard some slack here because I assume that he, too, traumatized by events. The destruction of Mars and all of the deaths there had to be an enormous weight. Yes, he made a mistake and we know he did it but I think it's important to also acknowledge Picard screwed up and realizes he screwed up. If he'd stayed a member of Starfleet, he would have been able to maybe do SOMETHING but he fell into the resignation trap.

I don't think it's a suicide mission, at least in the context that Picard knows he's going to die on this mission but that's not going to affect everyone else. He does think it will be dangerous and doesn't want to endanger any of his other friends (apparently Data dying in Nemesis had a more profound effect on him than we realized) but the goal was mostly just to get Bruce Maddox and see if they could help Soji avoid assassins.

I don't think Picard realized it would turn into a massive conflict with an ancient cult.

 

I don't think Picard lacked integrity. I think it's made clear that he buried himself in a deep depression and while that can negatively impact decisions and actions, it doesn't point towards a lack of integrity. If anything it was Picard's own integrity opposed to his perceived personal failure to carry that out that caused his depression in the first place.

 

It's actually somewhat relevant to recent years that many noble men who resigned found out they'd left their jobs to people much-much worse than themselves.

 

Well, the designated goal was to save Soji from a secret Romulan assassin squad. Picard saw how Dahj was murdered by this squad. Laris and he found that the Romulan squad had the ability to change Federation surveillance recordings to cover up their attack. Laris even told him about the Zhat Vash.
Picard had all these information before recruiting for the mission.

Getting to Bruce Maddox was only a means to the end of finding Soji.

 

It's clearly allegorical as well. Stewart spoke about wanting to reflect upon the times we are in and he's been off-handedly critical of Boris Johnson and Donald Trump. Picard is a show that reflects our world in that at some point Starfleet clearly started some bad leadership decisions and went astray.

I often hear the tone of Picard (Season 1) described as dystopic, but I don't see it. I think it humanises Starfleet and it's easy to imagine that this kind of thing happens periodically. Starfleet has it's ups and downs like any long-term organisation does and Season 1 to me seems to plot a course for Starfleet out of the abyss. The story starts in a dark place, but it ends in a much brighter one.

I'm sort of happy Season 2 starts 'some time later'. I like that finally TNG will be bookended by three tonally different miniseries instead of a sucky movie.