When have you disagreed and thought the captain was wrong?

[Oddish]

Picard also stood by and let the people of Boraal die, while giving some crap about "honoring those we cannot save".

Janeway beats him, given that only three shows in, she's saying to Tom, regarding a soon to be annihilated species: "You're not to warn these people. That's an order."

But of course, Archer did it first, in "Dear Doctor".

Not sure if Sisko did or not.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

Sisko was definitely a 'the Federation would agree that we should save these people' kind of commander.

 

[Farscape One]

To be fair about Picard and "Journey's End", he did express misgivings to Necheyev, but he was overruled and was told either do it or she will have someone else put in command and do it.

Plus, they were Federation citizens and were under their jurisdiction. The Ba'ku were not.

 

[Oddish]

I like to think that if I'd been Picard, I would have packed the Enterprise with as many Boraalans as its life support systems could acommodate, flown them to a new home, assigned a few teams to get them settled, then told Starfleet what I'd done. And if they had a problem with that... well, maybe it was time to give Riker his chance.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

If I was Picard I'd speak with Guinan first to have an epiphany and then come up with a devastating speech to shame the admirals into both supporting my plan and assisting me with it by sending additional ships.

 

[Oddish]

Even better.

 

[MAGolding]

Errand of Mercy.
I love the episode but Kirk disrespected the sovreignty of the Organians. When they told him "no" that should have been it. People who think Starfleet and the UFP are depicted as nefarious NOW have not watched this episode. UFP was going to drag that planet into the war whether the Organians wanted it or not, because they knew the Klingon Empire would otherwise. It was domino theory on the interplanetary stage.

in another thread I wondered whether the Enterprise had some sort of instant starbase or instant Vegan Orbital Fortress aboard which they could have rapidly deployed once the Organians agreed. What Organia needed for defesne against the Klingons was massive phaser banks and many photon topedoes and super strong force shields to hold off Klingon warshps and prevent Klingons beaming down.

When the Klingons ahips arrived arriving Kirk said that the talk with the Organians had made the Klingon occupation inevitable. Kirk seemed to imply that if the Organians had immediately accepted the offer they could have created a suficient defense in the few minutes the discussion lasted, instead of the years which would have been more plausible..

Maybe Starfleet's plan was to teach the Organians guerrrilla warfare tactics and provide portable weapons, etc. to them.

If the Organians were a primitive society instead of superbeings and they tried guerrilla war against the Klingons, what would have happened? The Klingon wanted Organia to remain habitable, so they wouldn't have used a superweapon to kill all life on Organia. Instead they would probably beam a phaser cannon & crew as in "The Cage" down where it had a good view of an Organian village, disintegrate the entire village, beam the cannon & crw up, beam then down to the next village, and repeat. In a few days they probably could have exterminated all villages of organians. With medieval or earlier speed of communication, most Organians would have been dead long before they would have even heard that the Klingons had arrived at Organia.

It certainly seems like Starfleet was willing to risk the total extermination of the Organians just to cause some minor inconvenience to the Klingons for a short period.

 

[dupersuper]

I might also mention Similitude, the ethics of creating a sentient being just as an organ incubator.

Archer's insistence that they need Trip as opposed to Sim was clearly colored by their friendship, as it was Trip's ill advised engine experiment that took him out in the first place.

Doesn't TNG's "The Chase" throw in a curveball when it comes to the understanding of evolution within the Star Trek universe?

According to that episode, evolution IS working towards an end result since the ancient humanoids engineered life on various worlds to work towards a humanoid form. Although, it doesn't save "Dear Doctor" since Phlox would have no way of knowing that at that point.

No, I see that as just introducing a tendency towards the humanoid shape if conditions allow. It's no grand scheme. Though all the ascension into energy beings, on the other hand...

Another reason why the episode would have been better if the Aldeans' condition was incurable. In addition to resolving most of the inconsistencies, the Aldeans would obviously be punished for their crime.

Some old testament style karma? Nah. Save that for the American prison system.

I've disagreed with almost every use of the Prime Directive after TOS. The idea that its better for an entire race/planet/etc to die then to be exposed to aliens "before they are ready" is horrendous. Picard and Janeway both have awful examples of this. At the bare minimum a Natural Disaster killing a species should be prevented to the best of Starfleet's ability, regardless of the technological level of the species that is in danger, and whether or not the aliens could find out about other worlds. Kirk's era knew this part at least, but Captain's like Picard would rather let uncountable sentient people die because apparently seeing a spaceship or alien is worse for a culture then total annihilation.

Picard even has a very peculiar relationship with other parts of the prime directive, like being unwilling to move the B'aku because of it but being more then willing to remove Native American's

I liked this comment for the first paragraph, but I'd hardly say Picard was "more than willing to remove the Native Americans".

 

[Oddish]

Some old testament style karma? Nah. Save that for the American prison system.

Doesn't exist anymore. They send you to a penal colony in gorgeous New Zealand. And since they have non-invasive scanners, no more prison guard with a rubber glove.

More seriously, contradiction alert. I suggest that if the Federation has the means and the willingness to restore the terminally ill Aldeans to full health, restore their planetary ozone layer, and allow them to pop out thousands of their own brats (who probably won't stage a hunger strike)... well, maybe they should just offer to do so. The response I get is no no no, the Aldeans stole children; they deserve to be PUMMELED for that. But as soon as I affirm that, whoops, time to go the other way.

And in any case, it doesn't matter. There are several other reasons why a darker ending would have suited that episode better.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Pike got it right when he said "We don't interfere in their development but we won't just let them die." Much better than Picard and Janeway's warped interpretation.

 

[DonIago]

Hm. How does that square with the Pike in ID who upbraided Kirk for saving the Nibirans?

Or was the idea that Kirk was supposed to have found a way to save the Nibirans without so overtly violating the PD in the process?

Of course, the Pike in ID is a different person and may have had experiences that led to a different perspective on the PD.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

My interpretation of that scene (which is probably stretching it a bit) is that the two things Pike was mostly annoyed about was that Kirk straight up lied to Starfleet about it and that he carelessly put his crew in jeopardy without properly considering the risks.

 

[Farscape One]

That, and he had the Enterprise SUBMERGED in water.

Really, Kirk? REALLY?????

 

[1001001]

That, and he had the Enterprise SUBMERGED in water.

Really, Kirk? REALLY?????

If it’s “space-proof” it should be “water-proof”.

 

[David cgc]

If it’s “space-proof” it should be “water-proof”.

Yeah, there's no way an overnight stay under a tropical beach is more of a strain on the ship than diving into a gas giant, or slingshotting through a sun's corona, or being hit by a photon torpedo.

 

[at Quark's]

Picard also stood by and let the people of Boraal die, while giving some crap about "honoring those we cannot save".

Janeway beats him, given that only three shows in, she's saying to Tom, regarding a soon to be annihilated species: "You're not to warn these people. That's an order."

She does perhaps have an additional argument Picard did not, in that the explosion had already happened from their point of view, so it would not only have been a prime directive violation but also a temporal directive violation, perhaps. But even so, it sounds more like a formal reason than a morally right decision.

 

[Farscape One]

If it’s “space-proof” it should be “water-proof”.

The Enterprise is NOT a hot rod or a submarine!

It's one of the many reasons why ST:ID is such a mess of a movie.

 

[Oddish]

The Enterprise is NOT a hot rod or a submarine!

That's what the Delta Flyer is for.

 

[Kor]

Somebody with more engineering know-how can undoubtedly explain it much better, but there are significant differences in design requirements between a vessel that needs to contain internal atmospheric pressure and keep it from escaping out into the vacuum environment of space, and a vessel that needs to prevent hundreds of atmospheres' worth of external pressure in the deep ocean from crushing it. These are completely distinct and dissimilar conditions.

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Kor

 

[dupersuper]

Hm. How does that square with the Pike in ID who upbraided Kirk for saving the Nibirans?

Or was the idea that Kirk was supposed to have found a way to save the Nibirans without so overtly violating the PD in the process?

Of course, the Pike in ID is a different person and may have had experiences that led to a different perspective on the PD.

Yeah: different universe + Kirk saving them in the dumbest way he could think of + lied on his report = different reaction.