Starfleet's biggest jerks?

[Kirby]

I agree Styles was the biggest jerk, almost jerk for jerks sake. Also, Captain Keough(?) of the Odyssey in DS9, he was bad too. Jellico however, was not a jerk, he was a leader that wanted things done his way and I think he deserved respect. I've know a few 'Jellicos' in the corporate world and have a tremenous amount of respect for them, and they have always held develop their people. I found it interesting that Jellico usually referred to his subordinates by their first names and was such an authoritarian, while Picard used ranks and Mister.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

George Primmin from DS9 - definitely a jerk (at least to Odo)

Shelby was not normally a jerk, except whenever she was around Riker. At that point she became a smug jackass whose ego trumped everything. She enjoyed making Riker twitch.

 

[Xhiandra]

Nechayev: I liked her, actually. Yes, she made some decisions one might not agree with and she was oft distanced from the events she statuted upon, but those are both artifacts of being a flag officer.
No, I say if you want to nominate an admiral from the TNG/DS9/VOY era (on top of vice admiral Leyton), it'd have to be admiral Ross.
His actions in Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges pretty thoroughly violate federation values.

Jellico: Well, there were some rough edges to him.
But, and IIRC the episode made note of it at the end, much of the tensions were due to the crew.
Some of them had legitimate grievances, but Riker in particular didn't seem to give Jellico any chance.
And well, there's the teething problems; had he remained in command of the Enterprise longer, much of the problems (and probably his attitude) would've smoothed out with time.
Still, as has been mentionned, his unflinching nature could've been problematic in some events: Picard's trust of his senior staff did save the vessel and all aboard on several occasions, Hero Worship is one of those: Data tells him to drop the shields, no explanation given, and he does.

Harkins: You've got to keep in mind he's Barclay's boss, and apparently has been for quite some time. In fact, he seems to be a friend of his.
And Barclay does suffer from some sort of cognitive disorder (hard to pinpoint which as it depends on writer), so Harkins is merely acting out of concern for his friend.
Patronising, maybe, but still concerned.
Aside: I've always found it a depressing failing of the Federation that in all that time, although medical science has made enormous progress in the treatment of physical illnesses, it doesn't seem to have made any in the treatment of mental illnesses.

Maddox: well, yeah, that's the whole point of his presence in the show.
He is indeed smug as smug can be, but deep down, even he isn't a bad guy; and he did demonstrate an ability rarely found in jerks: that of changing his mind.


The article notably forgets:
- Admiral Satie. Like Maddox, she's written just to provide antagonism, so it's entirely intentional, obviously.
- Commander/Captain Sisko. "In the Pale Moonlight"... need I say more?

 

[Drago-Kazov]

I vote Finnegan, Kirk's tormentor at the academy.

He looks like my middle school bully.

 

[Genesis]

I'm surprised no-one has mentioned Captain Phillipa Louvois, the JAG officer from Measure of a Man, who said she would summarily rule against Data if Riker didn't act as prosecutor in her sham trial. So if Riker screws up or wimps out Data suffers? In what universe is that fair?

On the other hand, I loved Shelby and wished she'd been in more episodes. She had great chemistry with Riker and gave him a taste of his own attitude. They were entertaining together.

I agree that Jellico wasn't really a terrible captain, but he was doomed to be hated by most fans simply because Picard is loved, so anyone who tried to replace him was going to be hated, whether they were really a jerk or not. And Riker and Jellico were a bad pairing for leads, at least on any kind of long-term basis.

The biggest jerk in TNG was Dr. Polaski, though. Her disrespect for Data was the most painfully obvious, but she was patronizing and disrespectful to everyone, and downright rude to her own nurses and assistants in several episodes. And, unlike Maddox, she never seemed to learn that she was being a closed-minded, prejudiced jerk. Ugh. She actually rendered several episodes unwatchable for me, because I'm so busy hating her I can't focus on the plot.

I'm not sure Maddox should've been counted as a jerk, because he's an antagonist, the character intended by the writers to be the driving force of conflict in the episode. If we're going to count Maddox as a jerk, then we need to count every villain from every episode, and it's going to become a very long list indeed. I usually reserve jerk status for the characters the writers cast as protagonists who I none-the-less wanted to see murdered horribly by the end of the show.

 

[horatio83]

What's jerkish about telling a fellow officer that he should do his job well and not be influenced by a friendship?

 

[DonIago]

That kind of makes me think of the missed opportunities of Voyager, if Chakotay and Janeway had been a bit more adversarial

 

[Drago-Kazov]

Steve Martin's acting debut.

You fooled me there.

 

[Vito Corleone]

Jellico is not a jerk either, he is merely an incompetent captain who lacks leadership skills and in an ideal world should have never risen beyond the rank of Lt.Cmdr.

So incompetent that he headed off a war, saved Picard from Starfleet ineptitude and made the Cardassians look silly.

Why do people keep confusing leadership skills with coddling?

Like I said, more of a Soldier than an Explorer.

 

[Vito Corleone]

I vote Finnegan, Kirk's tormentor at the academy.

He looks like my middle school bully.

Looks like the kind of punk I would have beat up in Middle School just to make an example out of him...

 

[R. Star]

That list really doesn't make any sense, but I'll bite.

10) Marrow- So he's a jerk for saying no when Kirk asked to go back to Genesis to retrieve Spock's corpse so they can use magic to revive him during the middle of an Interstellar crisis? Keep in mind Kirk just got back from getting his ship blasted to pieces with it's shields down, losing dozens of cadets, letting Genesis fall into the hands of a madman then losing it, and destroying Reliant. So no... Marrow's not a jerk, he's doing his job.

9) Ronald Tracey- Yeah I'll agree he has to make the list. A guy who screws up can be forgiven... a guy who doesn't acknowledge he screwed up and continues making the same mistake again and again can't. Especially when he's looking out for number one the whole time.

8) Alynna Nechayev- Ah, admiral ballbuster... yeah I'd have to agree she makes the list. Don't get me wrong, she's not a bad person and she's very good at what she does. She just has zero tolerance for bs, it's her way and you'll learn to like it. It's good to see a strong and dominant female in the mostly male dominated world of Trek. Picard does manage to get her to reveal a soft side by blatantly sucking up to her.

7) Peter Harkins- No. The guy who put him on this list must be a huge Barclay fan or something because there's zero reason to put him on there. The guy went out of his way to be nice to Barclay, to be his friend and invited him into his home and even let him date his sister. He only came down on Barclay when he was obviously suffering from his holoaddiction again and was blatantly disobeying orders. This guy was the epitome of patience in dealing with Barclay's eccentric personality. A jerk? Hardly.

6) Commander Shelby- A jerk? Sure... you are a class one jerk when you come in blatantly gunning for another's job, going out of your way to make him look bad, and disregarding the chain of command whenever it suited you. That doesn't excuse Riker for falling to her level and getting his panties in a knot whenever she was around. He's supposed to be the senior man setting an example in the face of stupidity. Shelby's a jerk, but a minor one and only to Riker. Another strong female character that isn't an inevitable love interest. I would have liked to see her around again after BoBW.

5) Admiral Leyton- Well for a guy who tried to overthrow his government he was actually pretty nice and amiable. Really he's more an example of the road to hell starting with good intentions than a jerk. A solid anti-hero and an example of what happens when you go down the wrong bath, but he wasn't mean spirited, just made some bad choices.

4) Admiral Cartwright- Yeah, I can see him making the list. He was flat out racist against Klingons and was willing to stab his government in the back. A great antagonist though and he added a lot to the Trek movie verse.

3) Ferris- What? A guy who's deeply concerned about the well being of other people makes this list? I suspect the author of that list just personally dislikes him more than has any evidence that this guy is a jerk.

2) Edward Jellico- Sure, he's a jerk. But he's good at what he does. Yeah he's more of a soldier and not an explorer... which is exactly what was needed in that Cardassian mission. It's not like he was mean just for the sake of being mean. He had a reason for every thing he did, and was even nice to Riker until he just didn't obey orders and started making excuses.

1) Bruce Maddox- Yeah, he'd top my list too. Though I think the greatest thing about his character is how Data pretty much forgave him and never held a grudge. He even corresponded with him regularly and helped him with his robotics research afterward.

People who should have made the list:

Captain Phillipa Louvoix- She was a jerk and reveled in it. She was arrogant and condescending and just plain mean at times to Picard.

Commander William Riker- Yeah, I'll step on toes with this one but he makes my list. For a guy who's supposedly easy going and nice, he's mean spirited at times. Look at the way he treated Ro for example(makes a big deal about her earring then seats her between Worf and his shoulder sash and Troi and her catsuit five minutes later), his childish bickering with Shelby, his childish bickering with Pulaski and his dad. He's really just mean to any outsider of the main cast.

Norah Satie- She's literally a Gestapo agent. How can she not make the list?

Kathryn Janeway- More toes stepped upon. Murdering Tuvix, empowering mind rape, her insane behavior in Equinox are just a few of the things. She has zero consistency and is willing to toss rules and regulations aside one episode and beat you over the head with them the next whenever it suits her. The facts don't matter she's right, you're wrong, end of discussion.

Benjamin Maxwell- A guy who goes nuts and start randomly killing Cardassians makes most lists. Though it made perfect sense when it dawned upon me he was the same actor as Warden Norton. :P

I might think of some more later.

 

[EmperorTiberius]

I agree Styles was the biggest jerk, almost jerk for jerks sake. Also, Captain Keough(?) of the Odyssey in DS9, he was bad too. Jellico however, was not a jerk, he was a leader that wanted things done his way and I think he deserved respect. I've know a few 'Jellicos' in the corporate world and have a tremenous amount of respect for them, and they have always held develop their people. I found it interesting that Jellico usually referred to his subordinates by their first names and was such an authoritarian, while Picard used ranks and Mister.

I never met anyone who liked Jellicos of the coroporate world. They are usually the most hated people in the company.

PS. Nechayev looked a lot like Jeri Taylor years ago. I wonder if the writers wanted to send a message across?

 

[R. Star]

What did Keogh do that made him a jerk? The only reference to that is Dax making a comment before we even meet him describing him as arrogant. I didn't see any evidence of it in the scenes, save by presuming to come in and take charge of the heroes... how presumptuous of a captain to do that.

 

[DonIago]

I agree. If anything, what we saw of Keogh made me curious to know more about him. I thought he was one of the more compelling non-recurring characters to show up on DS9, certainly to that point.

 

[t_smitts]

There seems to be a bit of a blurring of the lines between officers who were simply difficult, unreasonable, or arrogant, and those who were outright corrupt or breaking rules.

The latter category might include Nechayev, Jellico, Hobson, Hilliard from "When it Rains...", Stiles from "Balance of Terror", ANYONE from ST III, Haftel from "The Offspring", Maddox, Kozinski, Barnaby, Baxter, Mortimer Harren, and Captain Solok. Even Picard and Janeway could fit in this category in First Contact and "Equinox", respectively.

The latter would be Ronald Tracey, the conspirators in ST6, Pressman, Kennely, Leyton, Maxwell, Dougherty, Ransom, Satie, and Marla McGivers

Captain Waters straddles the line somewhat as the episode "Valiant" subtly suggests he intentionally interpreted his orders as being to stay out of contact with Starfleet (knowing that they'd probably be ordered back and he'd go back to being a cadet).

In recent years, I've gained an appreciation for Jellico. The writers have stressed that he wasn't meant to be a bad or incompetent captain (he wasn't), but simply a different captain than Picard. He's more direct, more formal, and less tolerant of delays.

They also used him to get rid of a couple of elements on the show they didn't like: The fish in Picard's ready room that Patrick didn't want (He thought Picard keeping a captive animal was inappropriate) and made Troi wear a uniform because they thought the "bunny" outfit was also inappropriate (If they'd kept her in the skirt from "Encounter at Farpoint", that wouldn't have been an issue. ).

At the end of the episode, it was suggested that a few of Jellico's changes did make some things more efficient.

 

[R. Star]

There seems to be a bit of a blurring of the lines between officers who were simply difficult, unreasonable, or arrogant, and those who were outright corrupt or breaking rules.

The latter category might include Nechayev, Jellico, Hobson, Hilliard from "When it Rains...", Stiles from "Balance of Terror", ANYONE from ST III, Haftel from "The Offspring", Maddox, Kozinski, Barnaby, Baxter, Mortimer Harren, and Captain Solok. Even Picard and Janeway could fit in this category in First Contact and "Equinox", respectively.

The latter would be Ronald Tracey, the conspirators in ST6, Pressman, Kennely, Leyton, Maxwell, Dougherty, Ransom, Satie, and Marla McGivers

Captain Waters straddles the line somewhat as the episode "Valiant" subtly suggests he intentionally interpreted his orders as being to stay out of contact with Starfleet (knowing that they'd probably be ordered back and he'd go back to being a cadet).

In recent years, I've gained an appreciation for Jellico. The writers have stressed that he wasn't meant to be a bad or incompetent captain (he wasn't), but simply a different captain than Picard. He's more direct, more formal, and less tolerant of delays.

They also used him to get rid of a couple of elements on the show they didn't like: The fish in Picard's ready room that Patrick didn't want (He thought Picard keeping a captive animal was inappropriate) and made Troi wear a uniform because they thought the "bunny" outfit was also inappropriate (If they'd kept her in the skirt from "Encounter at Farpoint", that wouldn't have been an issue. ).

At the end of the episode, it was suggested that a few of Jellico's changes did make some things more efficient.

Jellico was one of my favorite Trek characters. I never once thought he was a bad captain or incompetent. A hardass? Most definitely, but one that gets the job done.

I loved the "get that fish out of my ready room" line and his basically telling Troi to put some clothes on.

 

[The Wormhole]

They also used him to get rid of a couple of elements on the show they didn't like: The fish in Picard's ready room that Patrick didn't want (He thought Picard keeping a captive animal was inappropriate)

Actually, the fish was still in the ready room for the rest of the series after Chain of Command. In Genesis, Caveman Riker can be seen beating on the auquarium. Indeed, we even see the empty aquarium in the wreckage in Generations, suggesting Livingston didn't make it.

In regards ot Jellico, I wonder if maybe the resaon so much of fandom is so hard on him is because Ronny Cox has been typecast as spineless bastard (most notably with his role of Senator Kinsey in Stargate) and when people see Jellico they involuntarily see the other roles he's noted for?

 

[Ghrakh]

I vote Finnegan, Kirk's tormentor at the academy.

He looks like my middle school bully.

Yes. Probably the only one mentioned who I wanted to see have the crap beat of them.

___________

The others don't seem to fit the definition of "jerk"...more like "starfleet personnel who created friction because they were in a position of authority or had agendas".

 

[JiNX-01]

I may have missed this one while skimming the comments, but I thought Adm. Pressman in The Pegasus was a total jackass.

 

[TiberiusMaximus]

It's because the episode made it clear that Tuvix was a brand-new lifeform with a unique personality. He wasn't just Tuvok + Neelix, he was more than the sum of his parts. Restoring Tuvok and Neelix meant killing Tuvix, who was definitively established as a sentient, sapient, unique being who did not want to die.

Also, the way the episode portrays things makes it seem like Janeway killed Tuvix as some kind of punishment for "killing" Tuvok and Neelix when it was not in any way Tuvix's fault.

You know who should be on the list? Solok. He's a blatantly racist jerk who thinks Vulcans are better than everyone else. Oh, and he's a total hypocrite when it comes to emotional outbursts.

Most of the others on the list simply happen to be Designated Villains. They aren't really bad people, they just happen to be on the opposite side of our favorite characters. The only reason they don't feel sympathetic is because as the audience, we know that our "heroes" are right and these people are wrong. We have a hard time reconciling our knowledge of what's really going on with their actions, and so we tend to label them jerks, even though they really aren't.

Basically, they disagree with Captain Kirk, therefore they must be terrible people. That's how the logic goes...it's (obviously) inaccurate, though.