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The only one I'd be willing to concede Picard to is Kirk, just because of his awesomeness. But I can't stand it if people say Janeway is better. The most inept captain in starfleet gets admiral.

Personally I like to believe that Janeway was kicked upstairs to get her out of the way. An Admiral shuffling papers and relaying orders is a lot less dangerous than a Captain stranding starships on the other side of the Galaxy, starting wars with half a quadrent, saving the Federation's most dangrous enemy from destruction and trying to murder people in pursuit of her personal vendetta.

Picard's got some songs in the humor section of the forums.

I mean a real, commercially released, record, by a real, non-themed band. Moon Ska NYC is a now-defunct label, but see if you can find it:
"William Shatner" by the Scofflaws.

Mikey wrote:

Picard's got some songs in the humor section of the forums.

I mean a real, commercially released, record, by a real, non-themed band. Moon Ska NYC is a now-defunct label, but see if you can find it:
"William Shatner" by the Scofflaws.

Well, old man, that only means he's uber cool. Which I'm more than willing to accept. But it doesn't make him a better captain than Picard.

No, he's not a better captain. All I'm saying is that you'd understand what I meant by the term "Kirk-ness" than by the term "Picard-ability."

The mask in Halloween is Kirk's face turned inside out. Talk about scary!

Still I think Picard gets points for a having a thread about his mistakes only be able to come up with a couple calls you disagree with. And in those cases it seems that starfleet would back up Picard.

As for pen pals vs Homeward in the later they didn't have a way to just fix things stealthily, remotley, and without impact. Their first option was to make a pretty obvious energy shield and the second was relocation. That sounds all well and good. But maybe now Vacca VI is screwed. Maybe there would have been sentient species that would have risen up but that are now about to go the way of the Dodo. And since you messed with them there is a chance the, I guess they're Vaccans now, will get pissy if they find out. Like maybe they'll later blame the Federation for not expending massive resources ahead of time to save their homeworld, since there was probably something we could do if a whole fleet of starships and starbases was present, and will start trying to "Pay us back". You can't deny that in a large population some of them would think that if they found out.

I think if there is one thing that we can learn from earths history on this matter it's that after a hundred years or so a nation that you did something to can still be pissed at you, no matter whether your intention was good or not, but they will never, ever, be grateful. Heck it's a lot to ask for countries/peoples to be grateful for more than a year.

What's your point? That Picard was right to leave an entire species to die bcause there wasn't a perfect solution to the problem? There's never a perfect solution, but the course that does the least harm is still the best to follow. As for the comment about a possible future species that might be rendered extinct, so what? There's an existing species in immediate danger of extinction, and existing facts count for a lot more than ifs, buts and maybes.

I think its that starfleet looks a "the big picture" which is fairly harsh.

I mean what would you have done if you were the president of starfleet? Pulled the fleet off the Romulan and Klingon boarders plus calling in some science and exploration ships to stop the disapation?

Pulled in the explorers covering dozens of sectors to shuffle select groups of them via holodecks to another planet? Just fully brought them into the warp community so they can really fill up ships?

And again there is Vacca VI to contend with. Granted you don't know what that could result in. But that's the point. Especially in the Trek world especially where races have weird relations to certain planets and devices of unspeakable power are just lying around. Any writer could come up with a whole season of scenarios where that comes around to bit us in short order.

Finally, from starfleets POV what good has come of it? There is a new threat race that won't be grateful and might well resent us. At the least there is now one less planet open for colonization.

I guess I'm saying that things are different when you switch from indaviduals to entire cultures. And that "the least harm" from Starfleets POV is the prime directive. I'm guessing that's why they have it (aside from a plot device), because otherwise captains would routinely get involved with all sorts of stuff that would totally paralyze the fleet trying to do all the "right things" and probably would make hundreds of enemies while at it.

Thorin wrote:The only one I'd be willing to concede Picard to is Kirk, just because of his awesomeness. But I can't stand it if people say Janeway is better. The most inept captain in starfleet gets admiral.

John Harriman became an admiral???

Harriman > Janeway

Just Harriman was a bit poor on his first command (I'd assume?) stood next to someone like Kirk.

For the record if you put me in Picards postion I'd certainly want to interced and would probably just beam everyone I could up and then try to shield others etc etc. Again I'm guessing that's why the prime directive exists. Because people want to do what is "right" not "what is a good idea" and it sounds like Starfleet got bit pretty hard more than a few times with that.

Personally I like to believe that Janeway was kicked upstairs to get her out of the way. An Admiral shuffling papers and relaying orders is a lot less dangerous than a Captain stranding starships on the other side of the Galaxy, starting wars with half a quadrent, saving the Federation's most dangrous enemy from destruction and trying to murder people in pursuit of her personal vendetta.

I think they may have done it for PR. She just got a ship back under impossible cercumstances. And they were apparently rather famous I imagin the public would have wanted here honoured.

Perhaps a combination of both?
They probably couldn't throw her out of Starfleet, due to the fact that she was probably famous when she got back. So they decided to simply 'promote' her to a desk job, to keep her away from the captains chair.

1. When the Federation can stealthily save civilizations it does. Refer to "The Paradise Syndrome". "Homeward" involved no such capability, though I concur that refusing to save any of them is perhaps a bit rude.

2. Referring back to the thread topic, Picard made what would seem to be a mistake (saved from being so only by luck) in "The Enemy"[TNG3]. Quoting a blog post of mine on the topic:

Picard needed the Enterprise to remain at Galorndon Core in order to rescue Geordi, whenever one of the brief atmospheric windows of the planet allowed. He also needed to deliver an injured Romulan to Tomalak's warbird in the nearby Neutral Zone. Picard chose to take a hardline approach, remaining at Galorndon Core even knowing that Crusher could not treat the Romulan as well as Romulan doctors. (And, of course, he refused to order Worf to donate whatever blood product it was the Romulan needed to live (though the Romulan soon refused any treatment using Worf's blood, rendering the point moot).) Picard also threatened Tomalak with severe penalties if he crossed into Federation space to retrieve the officer himself. Tomalak soon crosses over anyway, but the Romulan dies while he is en route.

Upon Tomalak's arrival at Galorndon Core, Picard narrowly averts a battle . . . one which he seems to want to avoid. It was sheer dumb luck that Picard was able to do so . . . the window to Geordi opened up and there just so happened to be a second Romulan survivor with him.

My point here is not to question Picard's hardline approach to the Romulans, or his willingness to let the Romulan die instead of leaving Geordi behind on a world that would slowly kill him. The latter was just fine though the combo wasn't quite in character, but whatever. However, the simple fact is that Picard forgot something.

The Enterprise-D had separation capability. This means the saucer section could have remained behind at Galorndon Core, while the stardrive section and the dying Romulan could have travelled to the Neutral Zone to challenge Tomalak.

I don't see any way to avoid the conclusion that this was a big ole plot hole. In-universe, of course, this would've simply been a questionable choice on Picard's part . . . one which almost resulted in a shooting war with the Romulan Empire.

In short, Picard lucked out.