Academic

How incompetent was Capt. Picard, anyway?

By Tung Yin

Last night, while watching the preposterous but nevertheless entertaining "Star Trek: Next Gen" episode where a rampant virus makes everyone on the Enterprise "devolve" into giant spiders, lemurs, and other creatures, I had an insight.  This is yet another episode where if it weren't for the fact that the Enterprise happened to be fortunate enough to have had Data on board, it would have been destroyed or lost.  (Don't even get me started on the times Wesley Crusher saved the ship!)

Yet, we know that Data is the only sentient android serving in Starfleet.  That means no other Starfleet vessel has a Data-like being on-board.

We don't hear about tons of Starfleet vessels being lost.  Does that mean that Captain Picard is incompetent, failing to protect his ship where other captains do?

Of course, the Enterprise is the flagship of the fleet, so perhaps it's put in dangerous situations more than other ships are.  That might absolve Picard of blame for the near-destruction of the ship in highly hazardous situations like the Borg episodes.  But in the devolving virus episode, there was no special danger; and in the "Die Hard on the Enterprise" episode, where the ship is almost hijacked by terrorists during Barion radiation cleaning, it's just routine maintenance taking place.

I used to think that Picard was more competent than Kirk, but now I'm not so sure.

Full post as published by The Yin Blog on November 19, 2009 (boomark / email).