The Worst Decision by a Starfleet Cpt/Cdr.

[TheSubCommander]

Here's my list of top bad decisions:

1. Kirk's decision to leave Khan and the Botany Bay crew on Seti Alpha 6 and never having anyone ever checking on them. All the people who died as a result of Kirk's decision, are Kirk's fault.

2. Kirk not raising shields when Reliant approached. Sure he had no reason at that time to suspect Khan was commanding Reliant, but he could have followed regulations like Saavik recommended. Blood is on Kirk's hands on this one.

3. David Marcus' decision to use proto matter in Genesis. That is a pretty huge f*ck up. Not only did this result in an unstable Genesis device that created a planet that explodes prematurely, it freaks out the Klingons, and could have easily started a war.

4, Janeway never asking Q to return Voyager to the Alpha Quadrant. How many times did Q pop up? Seems to me, by helping Q raise Q jr, if Janeway had asked to return Voyager to Earth, Q would have happily obliged.

5. Picard trusting Ensign Ro. Hell, she should never have been reinstated as a starfleet officer in the first place.

6. Commodore Decker's decision to beam his crew down to the planet, only to have them eaten by the Doomsday machine. Like someone before me stated, if the Constellation were disabled, it was no longer a threat and would have been ignored.

7. Captain Tracey. Basically everything he did in Omega Glory. From not following contamination protocol, to violating the Prime Directive and arming the Kohms and personally slaughtering thousands of Yangs, to just straight up turning evil and betraying Kirk and almost murdering him.

8. Picard not uploading the Borg virus in I, Borg. At that time, there was no reason to believe that the Borg could be reasoned with, and they had tried to invade Earth once already. All the deaths from the Borg in the AQ, and possibly the DQ, were because Picard made the wrong decision.

9. Spock's decision to race off to Romulus, and try to be the Romulan version of Surak, without telling anyone. What a complete screw up that was, which almost gave Sela the means to invade the Federation. And for what? Romulus never even reunified with Vulcan. Sisko had to trick the Romulans into jumping in on the side of the Feds during the Dominion War. In Nemesis, the Romulans and Vulcan had no indication of any attempts at unification. In fact, by Star Trek 2009, little had changed, and Romulus explodes. The End. So, Spock's efforts in Unification are wasted.

10. This is pretty much a catch all for every other Captain or Admiral who went rogue or evil (IE Captain Ransom, Admiral Marcus, Admiral Dougherty, etc).

 

[1001001]

4, Janeway never asking Q to return Voyager to the Alpha Quadrant. How many times did Q pop up? Seems to me, by helping Q raise Q jr, if Janeway had asked to return Voyager to Earth, Q would have happily obliged.

She did, in The Q and the Grey.

He said something to the effect that it would not set a good example for his son if he did all the work for them.

 

[Triskelion]

I don't really think it's an issue, because they don't seem bothered by it. They live at a nice sedate pace, have extremely extended lifespans, and take an age to do anything. Even running for their lives takes a tediously long time. Plenty of creatures have ways of procreating that means a small gene pool is not a problem. In the absence of any evidence to the contrary, I will assume that it is not an issue for this particular species.

In the film the birth rate issue does not come up. We are left only with assumptions. Well, as a writer, I think a "civilization" of 600 deserves some kind of explanation. If your "alien creature" hypothesis is correct - and it could very well be - then at best, their vulnerability comes from external factors rather than biological. At worst, it is the equivalent of saying, "Oh yeah, the human race is down to 600 now. But we're cool, no traffic, man."

But that's not actually supported by the film. They don't seem particularly vulnerable. Their planet is in the middle of the Briar Patch, which is a navigational hazard affording the planet natural protection. We also hear that it's within "Federation space", and therefore protected from other races who might wish to do them harm. As far as we know, Ruafo and his faction were the only people aware of the planet, as they left it in the first place. It was specifically chosen to be a place of sanctuary. Ruafo has known about it and the rings for over a century, had a clear motive, and hasn't been able to touch them. Dougherty suggests this is because the planet is in Federation space, and Starfleet wouldn't normally be very amenable to heavily armed Son'a ships crossing into their territory carrying illegal weapons of mass destruction. They might now become vulnerable if Planet of Immortality becomes widely known, but I would assume Starfleet would keep a tight watch over it, just as they presumably do with the Guardian of Forever.

The Ba'ku live in the Briar Patch, which is a region that may skirt Federation space, but also skirts non-Federation space. They are a stone's throw from such hazardous (proper) civilizations as Cardassians, Breen, Tzenkethi, Tholians and even the Romulans. I would also characterize the Ferengi and the Talarians (remember Picard's howling adolescent ward) among credible threats to the Ba'ku. Failing to recognize these threats is succumbing to the Gambler's Fallacy (that past patterns affect future probabilities - they do not).

The Ba'ku may have lived in perfect isolation up to this point, but they above anyone should realize how exposure would change the very nature of their bucolic existence. (And may I say, some civilization! Not sharing their discoveries with the rest of the civilized worlds. Yes, it's my personal value judgment against their 'virtuous lifestyle" - they needn't feel any connection or reciprocity toward the Federation nor its indirect protections; and, huh huh, they didn't. Nice).

Not everyone would be so complacent with that kind of capability, watching the Federation lose lives by the millions in defense of the entire quadrant in the Dominion War. But they shouldn't feel any obligation that might disturb their peaceful sleep at night. In their defense, maybe they never even heard of the Dominion War - so it must not have been a threat to them).

But again, they've lived there for centuries and seemed to manage. It could just be a planet which is remarkably geostable, has no predators, no illnesses with which they can't cope, and a mild climate. I imagine if they've settled there in an agrarian way of life, they've probably got things covered. As you say, there's only 600 of them, so I doubt they would have survived if the planet was as frightening as you suggest. It's not Earth, it's the Paradise Planet of Eternal Youth. It's just fine, thank you.

Where there's life, there's death. Nothing exaggerated about that. Now I will beg your indulgence to consider only for a moment what may have happened to the entire Ba'ku civilization had Picard not intervened. It's not my interpretation, it is the entire threat on which the film's plot is based.

Also - as a writer, if you show me a world that is somehow free of natural disasters and the universal laws of nature - by goodness you had better explain it. Lacking any such references, audience members can only work with what is given. The ability to slow down the perception of time, and the ability to slow aging, do no shield people from rockslides, floods, tree limbs falling (oh yes, they kill people), weather, wildlife, infection, disease and murder, among many other ecological realities.

If they were immune from all of it then it would be worth an explanation, not only to the audience - but to the Federation, don't you think? Especially those casualties of the Dominion War. No, in the absence of such extraordinary claims, there is no reason to assume that 600 are any better equipped to survive a planet than any alien race.

As for the more general point about pacifism, that's not really dealt with in the film, because it concerns what comes after. I said above I think the Ba'ku will be forced to change the way they deal with their neighbours. They had the luxury of secrecy and tacit protection from Starfleet, but now they'll probably have to sit down with some Federation representatives and work out the next steps.

I agree completely with this. If Starfleet could keep it under wraps, I'm sure they would. But would they be able to? If it happened in normal space, I think not. But in the Badlands, there's still a chance of keeping it contained. But if I were a Son'a - I would seriously consider shaking things up at that point.

Quite a few people in this thread have basically said that the Ba'ku are selfish pricks for sitting on a valuable resource and refusing to share it. But at no point are they actually asked about it. The whole point of the duckblind charade is that Ru'afo is lying to the Federation. They just think it's a pre-warp civilisation, and so they set up the duckblind and come up with a plan to protect them all. It's only once the cover is blown that the truth comes out, and the Federation becomes aware who they really are, and their relationship to Ru'afo's people. The Ba'ku were never asked, because Ru'afo knew the Federation would ask awkward questions, and they'd probably tell him to get lost, destroying his life's work and probably condemning his people to death.

Lies of omission are still lies. You can understand why a commune of 600 doesn't go around advertising their technological prowess; but it was their own obstinance that created the Son'a. Why were they obstinate? Not used to being confronted, I suppose. Or quite possibly, they'd grown aloof, and even delusional. IMO their complacency at 600 suggests the latter. But you are right, no one really put the Son'a and the Ba'ku together until the climax. After all, it's not like the Enterprise had a telepathic psychologist on board.

I think it's almost certain that after Insurrection, the Federation Council made the planet a protected world, and negotiated with the Ba'ku to secure their independence and protection in return for allowing the Federation to put a research station on the other side of the planet, and work out a way to use the properties of the rings in a sustainable way, without burning the planet to a crisp.

Where there's a will there's a way. Since the Prime Directive doesn't apply to a warp-capable "civilization", the Federation need not leave them in peace, but would continue to at least keep channels of communication open. And the Ba'ku need not feel an ounce of obligation or gratitude to the Federation. Again, that's great - for them.

Personally, I think the Ba'ku homeworld would make a nice spot for a Bajoran/Maquis refugee colony. But I don't believe the Ba'ku will win any popularity points with those war-weary combat veterans and labor camp survivors.

 

[BillJ]

1. Kirk's decision to leave Khan and the Botany Bay crew on Seti Alpha 6 and never having anyone ever checking on them. All the people who died as a result of Kirk's decision, are Kirk's fault.

How? Khan was offered a choice, and chose exile. But, when Kirk reported them being stranded, the issue of babysitting them fell to Starfleet.

 

[T'Girl]

I got the impression the Federation team were duped.

I didn't

knew the Ba'ku were technologically advanced, wouldn't they, by your own logic, just do a Journey's End, informing the Ba'ku they were being moved, and continue the operation without the elaborate deception?

I think the Sona were scared of the Baku, the baku were able to force them off the planet years before, as it turned out their fears were unfounded. But that was a piece of the secret move.

Personally, I think Starfleet should have openly approached the Baku leaders and told them to get their things together.

They only bothered to secretly move the Ba'ku because the Federation didn't want to hurt a primitive culture.

The conference between the Admiral and Picard revealed that the Council knew the Baku weren't indiguious.

So why does Geordi still have robot eyes in Nemesis?

My impression is that Geordi has natural eyes in Nmesis.

Why do they all look so old

Couple of possiblities. One, the Admiral said the particle medical technology would have to be developed. Two, at the beginning of TNG Picard was played by a actor who was a decade younger than the character, in Nemesis the opposite was the case.

†

 

[MacLeod]

What difference does it make if the Ba'ku where indigenous or not. We saw at least one transpalnted soceity in TOS "The Paradise Syndrome".

 

[T'Girl]

Instead of who do I think, or who do you think, ask yourself this, who did the Federation Council think had the legal rights to the planet and the rings that orbited it?

Possibilities.

The Council was operating under the assumption that the Federation was in sovereign possession of the whole Brier Patch, and the rings were the Federation's natural resource.

The Council thought the Baku were the sovereign holders of the planet, but the Council wanted the particles and were willing to basically take them.

.

 

[Makarov]

In fairness to the paranoid aliens, their standard procedure was to wipe memories and send people on their way. It was only because Data was unwipeable that it became an issue.

True, but it would only be a matter of time before someone (maybe not federation) stumbles on them and we have seen their backup plan is to kill anyone that can't be mindwiped.

 

[Nyotarules]

So why does Geordi still have robot eyes in Nemesis? Why do they all look so old!?

The fountain of youth failed? If something is too good to be true that's cos it is.

 

[Nyotarules]

Here's my list of top bad decisions:

1. Kirk's decision to leave Khan and the Botany Bay crew on Seti Alpha 6 and never having anyone ever checking on them. All the people who died as a result of Kirk's decision, are Kirk's fault.

2. Kirk not raising shields when Reliant approached. Sure he had no reason at that time to suspect Khan was commanding Reliant, but he could have followed regulations like Saavik recommended. Blood is on Kirk's hands on this one.

3. David Marcus' decision to use proto matter in Genesis. That is a pretty huge f*ck up. Not only did this result in an unstable Genesis device that created a planet that explodes prematurely, it freaks out the Klingons, and could have easily started a war.

4, Janeway never asking Q to return Voyager to the Alpha Quadrant. How many times did Q pop up? Seems to me, by helping Q raise Q jr, if Janeway had asked to return Voyager to Earth, Q would have happily obliged.

5. Picard trusting Ensign Ro. Hell, she should never have been reinstated as a starfleet officer in the first place.

6. Commodore Decker's decision to beam his crew down to the planet, only to have them eaten by the Doomsday machine. Like someone before me stated, if the Constellation were disabled, it was no longer a threat and would have been ignored.

7. Captain Tracey. Basically everything he did in Omega Glory. From not following contamination protocol, to violating the Prime Directive and arming the Kohms and personally slaughtering thousands of Yangs, to just straight up turning evil and betraying Kirk and almost murdering him.

8. Picard not uploading the Borg virus in I, Borg. At that time, there was no reason to believe that the Borg could be reasoned with, and they had tried to invade Earth once already. All the deaths from the Borg in the AQ, and possibly the DQ, were because Picard made the wrong decision.

9. Spock's decision to race off to Romulus, and try to be the Romulan version of Surak, without telling anyone. What a complete screw up that was, which almost gave Sela the means to invade the Federation. And for what? Romulus never even reunified with Vulcan. Sisko had to trick the Romulans into jumping in on the side of the Feds during the Dominion War. In Nemesis, the Romulans and Vulcan had no indication of any attempts at unification. In fact, by Star Trek 2009, little had changed, and Romulus explodes. The End. So, Spock's efforts in Unification are wasted.

10. This is pretty much a catch all for every other Captain or Admiral who went rogue or evil (IE Captain Ransom, Admiral Marcus, Admiral Dougherty, etc).

1. So true, a court martial offence
2. Kirstie was right!
3 Read a fanfic story where there is no Khan and the device is used result billions dead from their brand new planet, David goes to jail for involuntary genocide and commits suicide. Have you read Myriad universe story where the Klingons do go to war over Genesis?
4. Mmm I can see why said no, she did not want to make a deal with the devileand Janeways pov Q is the devil.
5. Ro should have quit Starfleet, but she wanted to impress Papa Picard
6&7 You need mad captains to make Kirk look righteous
8 . Commit genocide to prevent genocide...mmmmm yeah I can go with that
9. Spock tried to be like Kirk led to disaster but then see numbers 1 and 2. Moral - Never try to be like your lover
10. Robocop gone wild!

 

[Drone]

Man, I'm glad Tuvix was finally moved away from!!!! Isn't that going on in the Voyager forum again anyway? For now, I'll only comment on a couple of the ones highlighted here, maybe until my head clears. I forget the earlier comment, but I'm not sure how we can infer that right in the midst of a seemingly existential crisis, Decker could absolutely have known that the log wouldn't have finished the ship off. He clearly couldn't distance it from the log, as Enterprise was able to do to temporarily escape its depredations. An unfortunate decision that Decker would never have recovered from? Sure. But irredeemably flawed from what likely could have been discerned at the moment? No, I don't think so, taking it out of the realm of the thread's indictment.

Tracey? No question. Presumably finding himself in an untenable position, alone on the planet (do we really know how that actually played out?), he decided to sell out everything he had sworn to uphold and kill everyone, that is every Yang, so that he could take the immense universal credit when finally rescued, for retrieving what he thought was a secret formula for vastly prolonged life, from those that were serving him. There were no restraints on the limits of what acts he would commit, once he started going down that road. Someone suggested recently in another thread, that he may have always had the potential, psychologically, for such crimes when presented with a like opportunity, perhaps explaining, but not mitigating, his culpability. But we never saw another front line starship captain in TOS act at odds with not only his training, but the very substantive moral testing that was part of their vetting. Garth was influenced by the circumstances of his injuries and subsequent recovery. In fact, Merrick, was pointed out specifically as not being able to make the grade, because he failed those tests. No, Tracey knew what his inviolate options were and when presented with the means to cover himself with glory, while maybe constructing a plausible scenario that would exculpate him from responsibility for losing his crew, he made an unequivocal choice.

 

[TheSubCommander]

She did, in The Q and the Grey.

He said something to the effect that it would not set a good example for his son if he did all the work for them.

I don't remember that line, but even before that when Q was trying to have sex with Janeway, she should have just done it to get everyone home. How many times did Kirk have sex for his crew?

How? Khan was offered a choice, and chose exile. But, when Kirk reported them being stranded, the issue of babysitting them fell to Starfleet.

The idea of offering exile was a bad decision in the first place. Let's say Seti Alpha 5 hadn't exploded. How was Kirk to know that a couple generations that Khan and/or the augments wouldn't have become a threat down the road. A hand full of them took over a quarter of the Earth. Khan had just tried to take over, the Enterprise. Even in TWOK, we saw how much a thread 30 of them were with the Reliant and capturing Genesis. Khan and his people showed they were a clear threat, if left to their own devices. Kirk should have anticipated this. It literally was like pulling Hitler and the SS out of cryogenic freeze, and handing them a planet.

TNG's Ensigns of Command showed how far a former Federation colony could come in 100 years time. Give Khan's people a planet and a 100 years, you might see an empire that could challenge the Federation. Give them 200 years, they might conquer the Federation altogether.

 

[BillJ]

The idea of offering exile was a bad decision in the first place. Let's say Seti Alpha 5 hadn't exploded. How was Kirk to know that a couple generations that Khan and/or the augments wouldn't have become a threat down the road. A hand full of them took over a quarter of the Earth. Khan had just tried to take over, the Enterprise. Even in TWOK, we saw how much a thread 30 of them were with the Reliant and capturing Genesis. Khan and his people showed they were a clear threat, if left to their own devices. Kirk should have anticipated this.

TNG's Ensigns of Command showed how far a former Federation colony could come in 100 years time. Give Khan's people a planet and a 100 years, you might see an empire that could challenge the Federation. Give them 200 years, they might conquer the Federation altogether.

If the interstellar community couldn't handle Khan and his people, then they deserve to be conquered.

They may have been "supermen" by Earth's standards, but I doubt they'd be a match for the Vulcan and other Federation members.

 

[stardream]

I don't remember that line, but even before that when Q was trying to have sex with Janeway, she should have just done it to get everyone home. How many times did Kirk have sex for his crew?

It wasn't just sex. He wanted to have a child with her. Most people don't make that decision lightly and then what? Was she just supposed to abandon it to the Q? Not to mention the ramifications of a possible half Human/half Q running around in the cosmos. She made the right decision in that case.

 

[Longinus]

It wasn't just sex. He wanted to have a child with her. Most people don't make that decision lightly and then what? Was she just supposed to abandon it to the Q? Not to mention the ramifications of a possible half Human/half Q running around in the cosmos. She made the right decision in that case.

Yet she later decided to completely fuck the timeline to bring back the ship earlier. And I don't think half-Q would have caused much more problems than all the full Qs. I'm sure the Continuum could have handled the kid. Besides, she abandoned her lizard babies too.

 

[stardream]

Yet she later decided to completely fuck the timeline to bring back the ship earlier. And I don't think half-Q would have caused much more problems than all the full Qs. I'm sure the Continuum could have handled the kid. Besides, she abandoned her lizard babies too.

She didn't abandon them. Chakotay and Tuvok made the decision to leave them.

I think the decision to bring the ship home earlier her worst.

 

[Triskelion]

Not sure what was a worse decision - Kirk speaking gangster or Picard speaking American.

 

[fireproof78]

Yet she later decided to completely fuck the timeline to bring back the ship earlier. And I don't think half-Q would have caused much more problems than all the full Qs. I'm sure the Continuum could have handled the kid. Besides, she abandoned her lizard babies too.

The Continuum would probably have just killed the kid, and caused a whole other civil war. I mean, considering their reaction to Amanda Rogers and even Q's own son that seems to be their MO.

 

[TheSubCommander]

But wait a minute. Nu-Khan designed the USS Vengeance, a ship that was far more powerful than the Enterprise, which itself seems roughly equal to the TNG era. What if a whole colony of augments had 100 or 200 years to design their own ships? That would exceed anything the Vulcans, Andorians, or the rest of the Feds could throw at them.

 

[BillJ]

But wait a minute. Nu-Khan designed the USS Vengeance, a ship that was far more powerful than the Enterprise, which itself seems roughly equal to the TNG era.

I doubt he designed the Vengeance. The timing simply doesn't work out. He helped make it better.

What if a whole colony of augments had 100 or 200 years to design their own ships? That would exceed anything the Vulcans, Andorians, or the rest of the Feds could throw at them.

80 Augments? With zero infrastructure? It would take quite a bit longer to exceed anything the Feds have. That also works under the assumption the Feds also aren't improving during that time.