Picard's Worst Command Decisions

[Granitehewer]

lol i miss the real deep, not this civil mild mannered filing clerk of an imposter :-p

Say something stupid and I'll kick your ass back to the stone age.

YESSS!!! i was beginning to think that someone was infected by the ''conspiracy'' parasites!

[Coalition]

This intrigued the Borg, so they sent another probe. This probe was destroyed by a program flaw, so the Borg refitted their ships, and sent a second, with a Queen assigned to it.

That's some probe.

It was a relatively long-range mission, plus it was likely building the conduit as it traveled. You want a good-sized ship for that, and a Cube is relatively self-contained for such a mission.

[Deepcrush]

lol i miss the real deep, not this civil mild mannered filing clerk of an imposter :-p

Say something stupid and I'll kick your ass back to the stone age.

YESSS!!! i was beginning to think that someone was infected by the ''conspiracy'' parasites!

If you missed it to much, go over to the DS9 thread "Sisko's Worst Command Decisions".

[Tyyr]

4) Returning Jeremiah Rosa to the Talarians ("Suddenly Human")

Agreed. The kid had been abducted and Picard was under orders. Speaking of which, how did he disobey orders so many times and not seem to get his ass handed to him? I guess you might point out his length of captaincy without advancing to the admiralty but still.

6) Not releasing Hugh with the anti-Borg virus ("I, Borg")

That one was absolutely unforgivable. How many trillions of people have been assimilated so Picard could have a clean conscious?

8) Not deleting Moriarty ("Elementary Dear Data")

Seriously.

10) Meddling in the Ba'ku removal ("Insurrection")

Agreed, though this time it was likely only billions who had to suffer so Picard could sleep soundly.

[Mikey]

I'm curious why people think Picard caused people to suffer by his actions in INS. If the UFP never received the possible benefits of the peculiar radiation, they would have been no worse than where they had been previously. If, for example, someone told me that there was a cure for diabetes, but I couldn't have it because it involved murdering someone, then that person wouldn't have caused me any additional suffering.

[Granitehewer]

true is perhaps more a case of allowing rather than causing suffering.
by the way if anyone here has any model ds9's, you can actually make a pretty good son'a battleship from cannibalising the spikey things

[Tyyr]

I disagree with that and I'd even go so far as to say the legal system does as well. If someone is dying or crippled or even sick and you have the capability to treat them but refuse to you can claim you haven't made them worse but I don't think that rationale holds up. You had the ability to aid them, but withheld it. The least offensive thing I could call that is negligence, what I really call it is being a hateful prick.

If you walk by a man in an alley who got knifed and is bleeding out and you don't even so much as call 911 you can certainly claim the man is no worse off than if you hadn't come by but you had the capability to aid him and chose not to you're guilt of negligence at a bare minimum. The courts have decided that fact, refusing to render aid when you could have done so is a legally punishable offense.

In your diabetes example, well first I'd remove the murder thing, this isn't a case of someone denying a criminal a medical treatment. This is like denying kids with cancer a cure for their disease when you damn well have one. In these cases you might claim that the person withholding aid is doing no harm. I'd argue that every bit of suffering the person in distress suffers from the point you chose to withhold aid until the distressed person dies is on your conscience.

[Mikey]

If you walk by a man in an alley who got knifed and is bleeding out and you don't even so much as call 911 you can certainly claim the man is no worse off than if you hadn't come by but you had the capability to aid him and chose not to you're guilt of negligence at a bare minimum. The courts have decided that fact, refusing to render aid when you could have done so is a legally punishable offense.

That's a mismatched analogy. In your example, there is an actual condition wh ich requires aid - the knife wound. In INS, the "condition" which the radiation was hypothesized to treat was mortality. I'd hardly consider the basic fact of life - the fact that people age and die eventually - to be an acute condition.

well first I'd remove the murder thing

Of course, because then it's easier to make the case. However, I put that in specifically so my example is analogous to INS. Take it out, and it's not germane to this topic at all. As far as your "kids with cancer" example - similarly, to be a useful example for the INS discussion, that cure would have to murder someone for every 100 people it cured... or 1,000, or whatever. In addition, as I stated above, you'd have to equate the fact of human mortality with an actual lethal disease.

[Tyyr]

That's a mismatched analogy. In your example, there is an actual condition wh ich requires aid - the knife wound. In INS, the "condition" which the radiation was hypothesized to treat was mortality. I'd hardly consider the basic fact of life - the fact that people age and die eventually - to be an acute condition.

And it was never framed as being a fountain of youth for the Federation. It was promoted as being useful for curing diseases and helping people like Geordi, who even Federation medical tech is limited in how much it can help them. The Baku were using it as a fountain of youth because they were bathed in it. Removing the radiation and using it help people in small doses wouldn't give them eternal youth but it could have aided them. Coming out of a major war with the Dominion it's hard not to imagine the Federation having quite a few people who need the aid.

Of course, because then it's easier to make the case.

Because it's utterly irrelevant. Picard didn't refuse to carry out his orders because the people the radiation would have been used to help were convicted murderers. He refused to do it for the very reason you seem to think isn't harmful, because yanking the radiation would force the Baku to live out their normal life spans instead of hoarding it to keep them eternally young.

However, I put that in specifically so my example is analogous to INS. Take it out, and it's not germane to this topic at all. As far as your "kids with cancer" example - similarly, to be a useful example for the INS discussion, that cure would have to murder someone for every 100 people it cured... or 1,000, or whatever. In addition, as I stated above, you'd have to equate the fact of human mortality with an actual lethal disease.

No one was going to be killed. The Baku were going to be moved to another planet and allowed to live out their natural Luddite lives in peace which you yourself say isn't a crime to allow people to age naturally. The Federation wasn't looking for a fountain of youth, it was looking for a new kind of medicine with huge potential benefits to billions.

[Mikey]

Why are you talking about using anything to help convicted murderers? That's not what I said. Rather, what I said was that applying the "cure" from either of our examples would require a murder. However, you're right - nobody was going to kill the Ba'ku, although shortening their lengthened lifespans isn't quite equivalent to denying the same to UFP citizens as the Ba'ku had come to adopt such as part of their native environment. Be that as it may, I'll go along with what you say on this point; so let's replace "murder" with "forced relocation of an entire population." Although, I tend to think that the Cherokee might dispute the dividing line.

As to how the radiation was to be used to treat medical conditions - yes, Geordi's eyes grew back after environemental exposure. I don't recall ever hearing that such things were definitely - or even probably - reproducible. The only other effects I saw were the lengthening of lifespans and providing environmental breast lifts.

[Tyyr]

You're actually quite correct. I misread your initial post as "Denied because you murdered someone," not "denied because the obtaining the cure would murder someone." My apologies.

I do see the point about forced relocation in relation to what happened to the American Indians. I'd still say they're not entirely comparable because the American Indians were displaced simply to satisfy the greed of a few along with a healthy dose of racial prejudice. Given the scales this would be more along the lines of forcing one man to move now a days in order to access a cure for every kind of cancer known to man.

Ugh, you're making me want to rewatch that abortion to get all the pertinent details. I believe it was stated in the film that this world was not the Ba'ku homeworld, but that they'd moved there. Ah, yes they did. The Ba'ku are only a small contingent of their race that fled their homeworld to live like space Amish. They found this world and settled on it. So it's not part of the Ba'ku's natural environment so much as it was a resource they located and decided to camp out on.

Now, I'm not going to say that anyone was really right in this situation. This is a case where everyone involved is pretty much just a shithead. However the Ba'ku's assholishness is only going to benefit themselves. The Federation's assholishness could benefit billions. They're all pricks, but I'd have to side with the Federation on this one.

[Mikey]

I do see the point about forced relocation in relation to what happened to the American Indians. I'd still say they're not entirely comparable because the American Indians were displaced simply to satisfy the greed of a few along with a healthy dose of racial prejudice. Given the scales this would be more along the lines of forcing one man to move now a days in order to access a cure for every kind of cancer known to man.

Not to sound like a Tau, but the excuse given for the relocation of Native Americans was often "the greater good (of white folks.)"

Ugh, you're making me want to rewatch that abortion

Please, I have no desire to make you do anything so foolish.

I believe it was stated in the film that this world was not the Ba'ku homeworld, but that they'd moved there. Ah, yes they did. The Ba'ku are only a small contingent of their race that fled their homeworld to live like space Amish. They found this world and settled on it. So it's not part of the Ba'ku's natural environment so much as it was a resource they located and decided to camp out on.

Indeed. I used the term "native" to separate how the Ba'ku glean benefits from the radiation - as a natural, innate part of their current and established environment - rather than robbing it.

[Tyyr]

Not to sound like a Tau, but the excuse given for the relocation of Native Americans was often "the greater good (of white folks.)"

This is true but the benefit of hindsight shows it to have not really been for that so much as it was just racism and a land grab. And again I have to harp on the scale being off.

Please, I have no desire to make you do anything so foolish.

Mostly its just to make sure I've got the stated motivations of the Federation right. I remember "amazing super duper cure all for what ails us," but I want to make sure its not, "I wanna live forever!"

Indeed. I used the term "native" to separate how the Ba'ku glean benefits from the radiation - as a natural, innate part of their current and established environment - rather than robbing it.

True. I still think it comes down to the fact that a few hundred Luddites didn't want to face their own mortality and were willing to let billions suffer so they could stay young-ish, and pretty. Then Picard preached about how this was morally right and we as the viewers had his righteousness crammed down our throats. In all we were told that hoarding things that could help countless people was perfectly fine in the Federation.

[Granitehewer]

you two have really raised some pertinent issues here, has been entertaining and informative

[stitch626]

The interesting thing is they had no way of knowing if the Sona's method would work. They were just taking their word for it. All the Sona had was a guess.