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Mikey wrote:"His nature" has to be subordinate to the dictates of the position of captaincy. It doesn't matter if he's a scientist or a fireman; if you are the captain of a vessel, you must do the things that captains are supposed to do.

Well, he put his men's lives ahead of preventing the capture of an outdated science ship and I would have done the same thing.

people's lives > scuttling an antique ship

Blackstar the Chakat wrote:

Mikey wrote:"His nature" has to be subordinate to the dictates of the position of captaincy. It doesn't matter if he's a scientist or a fireman; if you are the captain of a vessel, you must do the things that captains are supposed to do.

Well, he put his men's lives ahead of preventing the capture of an outdated science ship and I would have done the same thing.

people's lives > scuttling an antique ship

Where did you get the idea that he had to make that choice? Self-destructs have timers; many explosives (as Janeway forgot) can be equipped with them - even a phaser on overload gives one enough time to beam to a lifeboat, and everybody else can be evac'd by the time you set one.

Mikey wrote:

Blackstar the Chakat wrote:

Mikey wrote:"His nature" has to be subordinate to the dictates of the position of captaincy. It doesn't matter if he's a scientist or a fireman; if you are the captain of a vessel, you must do the things that captains are supposed to do.

Well, he put his men's lives ahead of preventing the capture of an outdated science ship and I would have done the same thing.

people's lives > scuttling an antique ship

Where did you get the idea that he had to make that choice? Self-destructs have timers; many explosives (as Janeway forgot) can be equipped with them - even a phaser on overload gives one enough time to beam to a lifeboat, and everybody else can be evac'd by the time you set one.

Or, straif the ship with the shuttles phasers. With no protection on an already damaged ship, in a couple of minutes the ship could have been destroyed.

Mark wrote:

Mikey wrote: Where did you get the idea that he had to make that choice? Self-destructs have timers; many explosives (as Janeway forgot) can be equipped with them - even a phaser on overload gives one enough time to beam to a lifeboat, and everybody else can be evac'd by the time you set one.

Or, straif the ship with the shuttles phasers. With no protection on an already damaged ship, in a couple of minutes the ship could have been destroyed.

Except that he had no idea if there were more unknown enemy's in the area. Do you really want to be around trying to destroy your own ship when they show up and blast your shuttle and take the Stargazer as a prize anyway? The idea was probably to haul ass before more enemy ships showed up.

If they really wanted the survivors, how far could a shuttle have gotten at low warp in the couple of minutes it would have taken to breach the core with sustained phaser fire?

Mark wrote:If they really wanted the survivors, how far could a shuttle have gotten at low warp in the couple of minutes it would have taken to breach the core with sustained phaser fire?

Well, there always seems to be a convinent hiding place just around the corner in every episode they're in a shuttle and aren't supposed to be captured for plot purposes. So who knows? I think I'd rather increase my chances by running then stay behind to scuttle the ship.

What is a Captain's first duty? To the Ship or to the Crew?

Mark wrote:What is a Captain's first duty? To the Ship or to the Crew?

crew, it's his job to get them home alive. Ships are replacable, lives are not.

Blackstar the Chakat wrote:

Mark wrote:What is a Captain's first duty? To the Ship or to the Crew?

crew, it's his job to get them home alive. Ships are replacable, lives are not.

Yet when Troi was taking the bridge officers test, Riker flat out told her, "My first duty is to this Ship." That's when she figured out she had to order holo geordi to his death. For the ship.

Don't forget the Captain's duty to Starfleet. Because of his negligence, the Ferengi captured a Starship. That isn't a commen event. I'm not sure if any other ships have been captured by hostile powers, but in RL today, that would be a HUGE deal.

Even Janeway was willing to sacrifice the lives of all of her crew when she ordered the destruction of Voyager when the Vidiians boarded in that episode where eveyone got doubled, or some such. And again when the Kazon were taking over Voyager, she tried to engage the auto destruct sequence, but it was off line and she didn't have time to scuttle the ship any other way. The whole reason that a ship has a self destruct system is to prevent it's capture. If that system goes off line, it's a Captains responsability to make sure that his ship cannot be captured.

But your right in that a Captain has a duty to his crew as well. And Picard already had the survivors safely away. But by leaving Stargazer how he did, he put more lives than those of his crew potentially in danger.

Is there any canon evidence of some sort of device that wouldn't blow up the ship, but destroy the computer core?

Bryan Moore wrote:Is there any canon evidence of some sort of device that wouldn't blow up the ship, but destroy the computer core?

Aside from a hand phaser?

Well it makes perfect sense. Have a destruct sequence that can destroy all the computer terminals (like thats hard to do) and disable all functions except for life support.

Other then taking a phaser to it? A program was specially created to do something like that as the Dominion took DS9.

I think some of the problem in this argument is differeng view of the Captains job. Blackstar believes his priority is to the crew. Others believe it is to the ship. Who can truelly say? Riker said it was to the ship. How can we tell that his view wasnt his opinion and not starfleet order? as far as i am aware, it isnt starfleet protocol to blow a ship up. Nor is it to protect your crew at all costs. I think it depends solely on the captain. Personally, i would save the crew. I could not live with the loss of life that could have been commited because i have an extremely strong moral centre. For me, the ship is secondary concern, be it an aging obsolete patrol cruiser, or a top of the line dreadnaught. Obviously i would attempt to cripple the systems or rig the systems for timed detonation (hopefully after they boarded ), but my priority is to my officers IMO.

Reliant121 wrote:I think some of the problem in this argument is differeng view of the Captains job. Blackstar believes his priority is to the crew. Others believe it is to the ship. Who can truelly say? Riker said it was to the ship. How can we tell that his view wasnt his opinion and not starfleet order? as far as i am aware, it isnt starfleet protocol to blow a ship up. Nor is it to protect your crew at all costs. I think it depends solely on the captain. Personally, i would save the crew. I could not live with the loss of life that could have been commited because i have an extremely strong moral centre. For me, the ship is secondary concern, be it an aging obsolete patrol cruiser, or a top of the line dreadnaught. Obviously i would attempt to cripple the systems or rig the systems for timed detonation (hopefully after they boarded ), but my priority is to my officers IMO.

Well, it's nice to see I'm not the only one with some sort of moral center