What if Picard was never Captain of the Enterprise?

[MurphyCooper]

This is an in Universe Question, if Picard never saught/became Captain of the Enterprise D, who would have filled that role, and how would that have affected the various score of events? Would anyone else have even come close to filling his role in the timeline, would Q be interested in said Captain, etc?

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Thomas Halloway, to hear Q tell it.

Thomas Halloway

Captain Thomas Halloway was commander of the USS Enterprise-D in an alternate timeline seen by Jean-Luc Picard, created when Q allowed him to prevent a fight with several Nausicaans in 2327 which led to the implantation of an artificial heart. In the 2369 of that timeline, a confused Picard had...

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[MikeS]

Yeah, Thomas Halloway. Punched Q on the nose on the way to Farpoint and so Q was never heard from again, uttered the line 'I'm not Picard' and noone knew what he was talking about. The Borg were never encountered nor did they assimilate the captain of the Enterprise, so Janeway had one hell of a fright at the end of season 3 VOY.

He was a pretty boring captain tbh, so they never made a TV show about him and Star Trek remained a niche show from the sixties.

 

[Starflight]

Tryla Scott seems like she was the Kirk of her era, so might have been on track to command the flagship at some point. Or at least she would, if she existed outside the sole context of a batshit episode about little plastic alien worms taking over people's bodies.

 

[DarKush]

I like the Tryla Scott suggestion. I could also see Keel, Varley, or DeSoto getting the nod. Maybe Silva La Forge, Jellico, Rice, or Rixx.