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Why wasn't Cadet Shepard et al charged with Treason?

T

Tropical_Night

Lieutenant Junior Grade
Red Shirt
Participating in a conspiracy to overthrow the government has no consequences?

I know the Federations laws are a bit weak (In Voyager murder gets you confined to quarters..) but seriously?

It wouldn't have prevented the amazing Valiant episode they could have just had some Red Squad members participate and be charged. It just seems odd that they walked away scott free then got sent on a bad ass cruise on a state of the art warship.
 
I wouldn't say that he wasn't punished. Remember that he was only a cadet, and based on the fact he was still a cadet in "Valiant," he probably was a 4th or 3rd class cadet--essentially a freshman or sophomore in college. He was doing what he had been taught to do up to that point, that is, follow the orders of his superiors. The Academy probably was lenient on Red Squad because of their inexperience.
 
I thought The Cadet's involved believed they were on a training excercise and weren't conciously comitting treason...
 
Dumb question time. Were those cadets in "Valiant" indeed the exact same Red Squad cadets that were part of the attempted coup? Was this a different "class" of cadets?

That said, I do not understand why Red Squad wasn't disbanded immediately after the coup, because clearly the mentality it fostered was a bad idea.
 
Nerys Ghemor said:
Dumb question time. Were those cadets in "Valiant" indeed the exact same Red Squad cadets that were part of the attempted coup? Was this a different "class" of cadets?
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I think it was the same class. 'Homefront/Paradise Lost' made it clear that Red Squad was an elite group - to have more than one would have taken away from that. And Admiral Leyton also said that they were gone after Sisko discovered their involvment.

So, Red Squad did what Leyton needed 'em to do, and then he sent 'em off on the Valiant to keep 'em out of reach. Valiant got cut off behind enemy lines, and so they didn't come back into Federation territory for judgement.

And since only one cadet survived, what would be the point of levelin' all the chargest against her when they still had Leyton to and his co-conspirators to charge?
 
Yeah, it's still the same organization, but didn't the cadets who were part of the attempted coup presumably graduate the Academy and move on (or get kicked out), and get replaced by underclassmen who were chosen for Red Squad? I mean, didn't a few years pass between that and "Valiant"?

That's why I don't get that some of you are talking about this being the exact same class.

BUT, I still think Red Squad should've been disbanded immediately after the coup, because it's obviously nothing but trouble. Same thing with Nova Squadron, too. Really, I think there's a pretty strong case that elite units among the student body at Starfleet Academy should not be.
 
^

That's kind of the point - the Valiant was gone on a really big outer rim or whatever tour. Lots of time passed, but it was still the same group. That the one Red Squad cadet we see in 'Homefront/Paradise Lost' is also on the Valiant backs up the idea that it was the same group.
 
Nobody actually stated that up front in the OP, that Shepard was actually seen in both episodes, on camera, and that this was more than an assumption. If you haven't seen the episode in awhile (or deliberately tried to forget "Valiant"), then it's not something that would be immediately recognizable except as a possibility.
 
od0_ital said:
^

That's kind of the point - the Valiant was gone on a really big outer rim or whatever tour. Lots of time passed, but it was still the same group. That the one Red Squad cadet we see in 'Homefront/Paradise Lost' is also on the Valiant backs up the idea that it was the same group.
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It is debatable whether Leyton's training exercise was the same as the Valiant mission. The latter was only three months long and even if you put the war starting right at the end of the cruise that is still over a year between the start of the cruise and the events of the attempted coup. Plus there would have been no problem with Starfleet Command getting in touch with the crew of the Valiant and ordering it back to starbase in the year or so before it even started its mission.

I thought The Cadet's involved believed they were on a training excercise and weren't conciously comitting treason...
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I don't remember Shepard ever making that claim. In fact he mentions that records of their actions would be destroyed and their role would be uncredited for the time being. You could read that as Red Squad (or at least Shepard) knowing some of the truth of what they were doing. If they did then they should have faced some sort of punishment. Plus just because we saw Shepard a year later doesn't mean he (or others) didn't get punished, it just means it was less than expulsion.

As for getting a cruise later on, maybe not all of Red Squad was involved. Leyton and Co might have just picked a few with the right skills and who were nice little sheep people, so the bulk of Red Squad might have been innocent of any wrong doing.

Why they were involved I don't know. The couper...coupsmen...those guys behind the attempted coup already had someone in the power distribution centre, he met Red Squad and gave them codes and whatnot. Why not use him/her to plant the virus? It would seem much simpler plus you limit the number of people involved and make the conspiracy easier to conceal. Given that it was the records of Red Squad's transportation that gave the game away it would seem a silly move on Leyton's part.
 
^

Wasn't there a line in 'Valiant' about maintainin' radio silence? If the senior officers (possible co-conspirators, as well) got orders to return, they could have simply ignored it. And when the cadets took control, they just kept the radio turned off & kept on flyin'.
 
Walters's line makes it clear that the Valiant only went under radio silence after the war began, which given what else he tells Nog and Jake is likely in response to the fact that the Valiant accidentally got caught on the wrong side of the front lines when the sector they were in fell to the Dominion in the first day of the war.

Even if he did say they maintain radio silence of the entire 3 month cruise there is still over a year's worth of time for Starfleet to call in the members of Red Squad involved in disabling Earth's power grid for a few choice words.
 
^ He could be. The only thing is what would that lie accomplish? For the purposes of his tale in taking command whether they were in radio silence from the start or after the war began doesn't really matter. As he just needs it as an excuse as to why he is still in command.

Or do you mean he be lying about the length of the cruise? Possible, 18+ months to tour around the Federation seems like a more appropriate time frame given the supposed size of the Federation. But if they had been on a secret mission for 18 months prior to the war you would think that Red Squad brown-noser Nog would have mentioned them being missing for such a long time. An entire group of the people everyone wants to be disappearing would likely be the talk of the campus back at the Academy.
 
Did Federation citezens find out about the attempted coup? If not its something the Federation would want to keep quite and so no trials.
 
Kieran1701 said:
I wouldn't say that he wasn't punished. Remember that he was only a cadet, and based on the fact he was still a cadet in "Valiant," he probably was a 4th or 3rd class cadet--essentially a freshman or sophomore in college. He was doing what he had been taught to do up to that point, that is, follow the orders of his superiors. The Academy probably was lenient on Red Squad because of their inexperience.
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You'd think by the 24th century we'd have gotten away from the Nuremberg defence though.

That's why I don't get that some of you are talking about this being the exact same class.
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Because Shepard, same name, same actor, is right there with them.

G2309 said:
Did Federation citezens find out about the attempted coup? If not its something the Federation would want to keep quite and so no trials.
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I think some of the Books addressed this, I'm not sure though.



I just think it was a bit of a drop the ball on the writers behalf, to actively participate in stabotage of a civilian installation as part of a millitary coup...and get rewarded?
 
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