Headscratchers / Star Trek The Next Generation Characters

Characters:

Captain Jean-Luc Picard

Picard the Celebrity?

• How well-known and recognizable is Picard? As captain of the flagship, he is surely a public figure of sorts, and I find it hard to believe that "The Best of Both Worlds" could have gone on without his face being plastered over whatever passes for media in the 24th century. Yet in "Gambit," he goes undercover and, luckily, nobody (even the Vulcan operative!) has a clue who he is.
  • Well, if Captain Owen Honors of the USS Enterprise (CVN-65) sat down in a bar would you recognize him? It's the flagship of the US Navy and he was in the news for a scandal (admittedly far less dramatic than something like Wolf 359) and I don't think he'd draw any attention from the average passer-by.^note In case you're wondering, this◊ is what he looks like... Just because we watch Star Trek doesn't mean the "little people" in Star Trek know and care about the characters like we do.
    • The minute Captain Honors comes within a hair's breadth of destroying human civilization, this will be a good analogy.
    • It all depends on how much information the public is given about what happened. Even Jean-Luc's brother didn't seem to know the full story, thinking he was just captured and tortured by the Borg. It's not like Picard was responsible for Wolf 359, any more than any assimilated drone is personally responsible for what it does. The only people who suggest otherwise are Admiral Satie, who is paranoid and is trying to provoke Picard, and Ben Sisko, who was still grieving for his wife who died in that battle. So no, simply being captain of the flagship doesn't make you famous; the only way I think he would get the kind of media exposure you're suggesting is if he were portrayed as a traitor instead of a POW. Also remember that Wolf 359 happened in 2367 and "Gambit" took place in 2370. Picard was surely in the news, but not long enough for people to remember him from the headlines 3 years ago.
    • It seemed to be fairly common knowledge by 2370, at least among Starfleet officers, that the Borg forcibly assimilate individuals against their will. The crew of Voyager are fully aware of the Borg's capabilities even before they re-establish contact with Starfleet.
    • I don't think one would need to think of Picard as a traitor to be aware of his face and name after the Borg incident... after all, you'd need to know who he is to have an opinion about him either way. Who wouldn't remember the name and face of the guy who was (under compulsion or otherwise) coming to destroy your civilization? No matter how you slice it, "Gambit" doesn't make a ton of sense, especially that a Vulcan wouldn't see through him — a Vulcan! They should remember ever face they ever see.
    • Captain Honors had a distinguished career; one that deserved attention. He's an accomplished Navy Top Gun pilot who earned the Bronze Star, and before he was relieved, the Navy intended him to be the final captain of the Enterprise. Sure, the CCTV scandal got a lot of attention, but it was incredibly minor compared to other military scandals at the time. That doesn't really compare to Picard, though, because by season 7, every major event in recent Federation history involved him in some way. Let's go down the list of things Picard should be famous for prior to "Gambit" (not counting his stint as Locutus): First contact with the Q and the Ferengi? Picard was there. Invented a tactic on the fly that Starfleet cadets are actually required to study? They even named it after him. First encounter with the Romulan Star Empire in nearly a century? That was all Picard. Arthropods from beyond the stars infiltrate and compromise the highest levels of Starfleet Command? Picard cleared that right up (saving the entire Federation in the process). Found the home world of an ancient civilization that once ruled the galaxy? Okay, technically that was Captain Varley, but Picard led the away team. Civil War in the Klingon Empire? Picard's there every step of the way. Thwarting a Romulan invasion of Vulcan? Mostly Data and Spock, but Picard helped. Discovered that all humanoid life in the galaxy is descended from a single race? Jean-Luc again. Neutralized a group of rogue Borg drones terrorizing Federation colonies? It was a group effort, but Picard was part of the group. Any of those alone should be enough to make Picard ridiculously famous.
  • Basically this is analogous to the headscratcher over on the Superman page where someone kept insisting and insisting that everyone who saw Clark Kent should immediately go "Oh my god, it's Superman!" The first part of the mistake here is that you assume since you know Picard and what he's done, every individual in the galaxy knows Picard and what he's done, on sight, as opposed to, say, seeing "Captain Jean Luc Picard assimilated by Borg, almost destroys Earth" along with a couple of stock photos of him in the news feeds, maybe a couple of times, years ago. The second is that most people don't immediately recognize famous celebrities unless the celebrity is very distinctive-looking, because really a lot of celebrities just look like everybody else. That's not even tossing in race/species "All of you look the same" recognition bias in. Picard basically looks like just another bald, pale-skinned human, probably even among other humans, let alone among aliens who aren't used to picking out the nuances of human facial features.
    • But unlike Clark Kent, there's a reasonable argument to be made that Picard should be one of the most recognizable humans alive.
    • Except not for all the reasons just listed.
    • If one is actually convinced by the argument that Picard can simultaneously be the literal face of an existential threat to the Federation, a storied officer involved in numerous recent events of huge consequence, and personally obscure, that is one's own business.
    • If one is actually convinced they are smarter than someone else because of their opinion on a fictional character's in-universe celebrity that is also one's own business.
    • The Paper-Thin Disguise that Superman/Clark Kent puts on has become a Running Gag at this point. Besides, this same scenario happens in "Starship Mine". You're infiltrating a ship and you don't know what the captain looks like. Seriously?
    • There wouldn't be any reason to know any of the crew as the ship was supposed to be deserted when they arrived. They weren't infiltrating, they were break-and-entering.
  • All the reasons listed above sound like good reasons for humans or Federation citizens to recognize Picard (at the very least his name if not face). The random mercs he was with in Gambit could have easily avoided anything passing for Federation news and popular culture during their lifetimes. And the captain of the merc ship was an uncultured idiot.
    • Minor thing but recall that one of them is a Vulcan agent, and though she figures out that "Galen" isn't what he seems fairly quickly, she clearly doesn't recognize him on sight.
  • I don’t think you’re meant to take it that seriously. Deanna Troi was kidnapped, made up to look like a Romulan and deposited on a Romulan ship. Is it really plausible the crew would be convinced? However the universal translator works, she’s still obviously be speaking in a different language and it’s 100% certain her behavior would be alien.

Picard's a Lousy Listener

• In "The Best of Both Worlds" Part II, Guinan tells Riker her relationship with Picard goes "beyond friendship, beyond family", but Picard often says there's little to nothing known about Guinan and her people. What sort of friend does this make Picard?
  • Just one who has an El-Aurian for a friend: their particular hat is listening, which probably makes them very good at subtly deflecting any question about themselves.
  • The love she feels for him is akin to what one might feel for a soul mate, but without any sexual or romantic feelings. Basically, they're friendship soulmates (or whatever you want to call it). Pardon the corniness.
    • Also given that her people are so very rare he may consider the details of her life and her people no one's damn business but her own. He's simply being confidential and protecting the privacy of his friend.
  • Considering that the El-Aurians were all but exterminated by the Borg, and that their long lifespans would not be conducive to normal relationships outside their own species, it's likely that he simply meant that, although he and Guinan are close, there is almost no information in databases and such about the El-Aurians because of the above factors.
• In Ensign Ro, the mistrustful titular Bajoran is ready to confide mission-critical information to Picard, but Picard, who already has reason to suspect that there is more going on than he knows, shouts her down and confines her to quarters. Only through Guinan's intervention does Ro actually get to tell Picard what he needs to know.
  • Picard frequently struggles with various prejudices throughout his time as captain of Enterprise, and while we see him overcome one specific bigotry or another now and again, he never really seems to grasp the pattern. It's curious that he's drawn this way, even the very early episodes of TNG when he was still being overtly portrayed as the paragon of Roddenberry's utopia, but the fact that he actually has human flaws does make him a much more compelling character.
  • Also, Ro's fresh out of a prison sentence that she repeatedly gives the impression she'd rather go back to than remain on the Enterprise, having a second chance, a shot at redemption. Then, behind his back, she seeks out the terrorist that they were looking for. The reason that didn't blow up in her face was largely because he was being set up by the Cardassians. Picard's a bit pissed about his authority being flaunted by someone who has shown she'd sooner be in prison than the flagship of the fleet.

The bestseller that never was

• At the end of "The Inner Light," Picard/Kamin is told that he was giving these memories of Kataan for the following reason: "We hoped our probe would encounter someone in the future. Someone who could be a teacher. Someone who could tell the others about us." So shouldn't Picard busy himself writing "Memories of Kataan" to let everyone about all things Kataanian? Or is he saving this project for his retirement?
  • And here in lies the problem with the Kataan's whole strategy in that there is no guarantee that you will A) get someone that gives a damn about you or your problems, B) find someone who is willing/able to help if you do, and C) that the person in question wouldn't be so pissed off by the whole thing that they don't just ignore you out of spite (imagine if Picard was a Klingon or a cardassian and you'll see the problem). Picard is the captain of the Federation flagship, the idea that he would have the time to sit down and write a concise non-fiction book using nothing but the contents of his memory is absurd. They are lucky that he continued playing his flute.
  • Considering how important family is for Klingons and how they like to write poetry and songs, I think quite the opposite: A Klingon could be better for this situation than a human. Cardassians also have a deep regard for family and history. But yes, what if it was a Borg? Or a Ferengi? The plan could not work depending on the species.
    • Ironically, both races you mentioned would probably carry out that plan in some form or another. The Borg would add the knowledge to the Collective, and the Ferengi would find a way to make money from it
    • Well, true, the Ferengi would see it as a business opportunity. Probably would make it into a popular Holo Deck ride.
  • And as we see in "Liaisons," Picard, a private person by nature, shares his "Inner Light" experience only with people he trusts fully.
    • It's almost certain that Picard did share his experiences, at the very least in a thorough report to Starfleet, but yes he probably wrote a rather more personal treatise as well... but he may have done it anonymously, or using a pseudonym. Picard reveals what the experience meant to him only to those he's very close to. As to the ways the strategy could have failed, the whole point of the probe was that it was a last-ditch effort to be remembered, and the only thing more pointless than trying it and it failing because it found an unsuitable recipient would have been to say "Wait, this could fail, let's not even bother."
    • It's peculiar to call something "almost certain" when it's not represented onscreen in any fashion.
    • "Almost certain" may be pushing it, but it's well-established that Picard has an intense interest in archeology—to the point that he nearly pursued it as a career—and scientific discovery in general. It would be tremendously out of character for Picard, who describes himself first and foremost as an explorer, to keep the discovery of a heretofore unknown civilization and its culture to himself. If he were inclined to do so, why would Starfleet put him in command of a ship whose express, stated mission is to "...Explore strange new worlds, [and] to seek out new life and new civilizations...," if he's just going to keep it to himself every time a mission affects him personally in any way? The question then becomes, did Picard fulfill his duty to report the experiences to Starfleet and to the scientific community in accordance with the Enterprise's mission—a mission that is so important, he recites it in the opening narration of every single episode—or did he keep it to himself?
    • It's also peculiar to expect every episode to be twice as long to follow up on everything a fan could possibly want followed up on.
    • Nobody here actually asked "did he report it to Starfleet?" — it's quite evident that he did, since he seems to be open with Riker about his experiences at the end of the episode. It's to what degree did he disseminate the information beyond that, or feel that he has an ethical obligation to do so? He is extremely guarded with his own experience, only confiding to Nella Darren about it after they've reached a certain point of emotional intimacy. But imagining that he "wrote a rather more personal treatise as well" is just plain old fanfic... you can guess all day long, you can describe it as in character even, but the default position should be "if it's not seen or talked about on the show, it didn't happen." To this above post immediately above (also describing something nobody actually asked for), the counter-statement would be, do fans really need to concoct excuses to cover the show's missed dramatic opportunities?
    • But there was an episode about Picard writing a book.
    • What episode is that? In Picard we learn that he's written history books after his retirement, but none about his personal experiences.
    • Season four, episode twenty-eight, "Picard Writes a Book".

Saving the House of Mogh

• Okay so Worf isn't operating a peak efficancy because he's worried about his family's honor. Picard tells him to restore his family's honor. Worf is cool with this and asks for the Federation's data on the incident that will clear his family's name. Picard says no, citing the Prime Directive that doesn't allow in the interefence of other culture's politics. The thing is, the Federation is the only group that has the legitimate data that will clear Worf's family. The Klingons have already altered the data to support Duras. Where was Picard expecting Worf to find unbiased data that would help him?
  • That would be Worf's problem to solve, wouldn't it?

Picard's artificial heart

• Two things get me about this heart. 1) When he was assimilated as Locutus, what happened to it? Did he keep it or was it replaced by a new one? And if so, what happened to that? Seems unlikely to me that the Borg would want a piece of primitive human tech within their new asset. 2) The metaphasic radiation in Star Trek Insurrection was powerful enough to give Geordi a new pair of eyes but not enough to give Picard a new heart? What are the limits of this radiation exactly if it can heal your eyes, repair your skin, grant perpetual youth, put a Klingon back through puberty and firm up your boobs, but leaves your most important organ untouched. And considering the whole point of this mission (as far as the Federation is concerned) was a miracle cure, this seems like a very serious thing to ask of the whole endeavour. Was the miracle radiation of the Ba'Ku planet actually not all that impressive in hindsight?
  • I don't have a good answer to the second question, but for the first: the Borg seem to take a pragmatic approach to assimilation, not replacing body parts unless doing so confers some advantage. They probably thought Picard's artificial heart was good enough for the job and let it be, rather than spend the time and resources to replace it.
  • Geordi's eyes could be repaired/regrown without interfering with anything, and really only matter when they work. For Picard's heart: it would have to regenerate in the same space as the artificial one, and if Picard's body trys to use it "too soon", Picard dies. I assume that for something to be repaired, it's better if it's already in place... like Geordi's eyes (or someone's skin).
  • Star Trek: Picard establishes that as of 2399, Picard still has that duranium heart — though after dying and coming back in an organo-synth body, that may no longer apply.
    • He now has an artificial everything else to match the heart.

Commander William Riker

You get promoted only for escaping

• In "Second Chances", Lt. William Riker (who later becomes "Thomas") mentions to Troi that "our" Will Riker got promoted for "exceptional valor during the evacuation of the research station on Nervala IV". Ergo, Thomas completed that mission as well, and the fact of the accidental doubling was the only reason he even existed. Since Thomas was found on Nervala IV, why didn't he get an immediate promotion to lieutenant commander? He hadn't even gotten that promotion on the Gandhi by the time he joined the Maquis.
  • Is it any wonder he went rogue? Tom Riker was egregiously mistreated by all involved. It becomes glaring when you think of him as the equivalent of an officer who spent eight years in a prison camp. He was doing his Starfleet duty to the best of his abilities all of those years and should not only be due to for that promotion but probably several others, not to mention a boatload of back leave, back pay (or the Starfleet equivalent thereof) and the like (Phil Farrand notes as much in his books). It's so bizarre that they think he can just be tossed back into the officer pool: at very least he will need some retraining since his training is almost a decade out of date, and after all those years of solitude anyone, even one of Starfleet's Teflon officers, would need protracted psychological examination.
    • And you would think that upon rejoining Starfleet, they'd require him to adjust his biometrics so that the computer can no longer be fooled into thinking he's Commander William Riker! New fingerprints, or something. Or have Will do that upon Thomas leaving. It's no wonder Dukat believed that the Central Command would think Starfleet wanted Thomas to have the Defiant.
    • There's also the last scene when Will gives Tom his trombone, noting that his quarters are full of things that belong to them both. No kidding! Shouldn't Tom get half of his stuff? Maybe even get a say in what he wants and what he doesn't?
    • Maybe, except for Riker not being the sort of jerkass that would say "You're damn right the trombone is mine, give me half the rest of it too ya bastard!"
    • Got to disagree with you there. Season 1 Riker (whom Tom Riker is meant to be similar to) was a man designed to be The Ace, but frequently came off as self-righteous, judgmental, headstrong, and highly-ambitious. This is even a plot point in The Best of Both Worlds when post Growing the Beard Will and Troi are discussing Lt Shelby. He wouldn't have used those exact words, but season 1 Riker would have worked out some way to do it.
    • Isn't it just as jerky on the part of Will Riker not to extend an offer?
    • Nope.
  • The second post answered itself. Thomas Riker had been equally as capable as William Riker when they were split, but that was years ago. He was out of touch with protocols, out of practice with command, possibly psychologically damaged. He would need to confirm that he still had the qualifications for being promoted, lest they find he couldn't handle the responsibility. Throwing him back in the officer pool would be one way to reacclimate him - have him do familiar tasks, learn to interact with people again. If he was equally capable, he'd rise the ranks again.
    • In a real military, rank isn't directly determined by suitability or capability, though position sure is; simple seniority, time in service, is often enough to move up the ranks, and an officer who doesn't receive the usual promotions at the usual intervals tends to be regarded as having done something to earn such disregard. Starfleet could hypothetically retire Tom or desk him, or even put him in a position below what his earned rank would usually entail, but they surely should not deny him promotions that he earned. As noted, the episode is specific about the fact that Will Riker was promoted for duties accomplished before he was split into Tom and Will, so Tom should share the rewards, being equally responsible for achieving that promotion. Denying it to him is tantamount to demotion.
    • What was Starfleet thinking letting him return to active duty as soon as they did? They almost guaranteed that Thomas Riker would have problems adjusting, so Starfleet really only has itself to blame for his going off the deep end. He spent eight year completely isolated, so maybe an extended debriefing followed by counseling and a psychological evaluation. After that, if he's fit for duty and feels ready, maybe some sort of orientation to today's Starfleet and then find him a field post.
    • It would have been prudent for Will to mention in a report that Thomas' isolation gave him an independent streak that might need some work.
    • Remember Lieutenant Picard from "Tapestry"? He apparently didn't do anything wrong, he just didn't do anything to prove he should be promoted. Actually, the US military's system is relatively new; promotions used to be based on merit, at least in theory. I guess maybe they decided it was too subject to favoritism. Starfleet doesn't seem to have a system like that. If up-or-out were in place, Lieutenant Picard would have been discharged for failure to be promoted.
    • Starfleet considers Deanna Troi a top-notch counselor! The science of psychology seems to have undergone severe regression over the centuries! (Which is a shame, because that should've been just about enough time for psychology to become a science in the first place.) They were completely blindsided by how many officers decided to run off to join the Maquis for example, and in general by the entirety of the depressing, shameful, and trivially predictable events surrounding the Cardassian treaty and those Federation citizens living in the disputed zone.
  • Starfleet has a history of screwing people over when it comes to promotions. For example Harry Kim spent seven years as an Ensign despite being a senior bridge officer, having saved the ship multiple times, frequently commanding the night shift and working closely with the Captain and the XO. Paris on the other hand gets an immediate promotion to Lieutenant after a day despite having a record of insubordination which led to the deaths of several people, later on gets reduced in rank back to Ensign for trying to commit a terrorist action only to have Janeway promote him back to Lieutenant again a few episodes later despite doing nothing more remarkable than Kim did in that time. Then there is Hoshi Sato who spent ten years as an Ensign on the most important and acclaimed ship in the fleet despite being a senior officer and revolutionizing inter-species communication by inventing the basis of the Universal Translator. Tom is joining a long list of people the supposedly fair and just Federation have just flat out ignored in favor of someone else for no justifiable reason.
    • Paris was a lieutenant before his court-martial. Since Janeway has reinstated his rank, he simply picks up where he left off. He wasn't "promoted" to lieutenant; he already was one. The second point makes more sense; he really gave no reason that he should be promoted again after his actions in "Thirty Days", but his promotion was not "a few episodes later" but almost two seasons later. (On the other hand, after having been busted back to ensign, he's lucky to have been promoted again ever, and almost certainly owes it to the highly unusual circumstances of a ship trapped in the Delta Quadrant. Absent that, and given his record, he might very well have been cashiered or sentenced to another long bid in Starfleet prison.)
    • In less Watsonian terms, this is a particular kind of bad writing that comes up again and again in the franchise. After all, I can't recall any character other than Harry ever noting that he or she was being passed up for promotion. This suggests to me that this is something the writers simply aren't paying attention to, rather than something they're intentionally depicting as a problem with Starfleet itself. (While several of the TOS screenwriters had military experience and thus at least some idea of how to depict a plausible military organization, few if any of TNG's writers are so well equipped, and it really, really shows.)
    • Harry not getting promoted is actually about what you might expect. A starship has an established command structure, which calls for a certain number of people of each rank. In the Alpha Quadrant, if he were promoted, he'd probably be transferred to another ship that needs a lieutenant, or a lieutenant on Voyager would be transferred or promoted to make room for him. With Voyager stuck in the Delta Quadrant and no way of knowing when they'd reach home, it makes sense to mostly keep the command structure in place, lest they find themselves with a senior staff composed entirely of commanders and lieutenant commanders. One thing in-universe supports my contention; in one episode, Harry says that if they were back home, he'd be a lieutenant by now, maybe even a lieutenant commander, making clear that his lack of advancement is in fact due to their unique circumstances. I imagine once they got home, he was moved up the ranks pretty quickly.
    • “it makes sense to mostly keep the command structure in place, lest they find themselves with a senior staff composed entirely of commanders and lieutenant commanders” - What, like the Enterprise-D in Generations!?
    • Enterprise-A was even worse, with three captains (Kirk, Spock, and Scotty).
    • “Harry says that if they were back home, he'd be a lieutenant by now, maybe even a lieutenant commander, making clear that his lack of advancement is in fact due to their unique circumstances” - Yet Voyager has lost higher ranking crew members than Harry, Durst and Carey for example, making room for his promotion in a way. Okay, Carey was Engineering and Durst was... Security? but there is room for advancement on Voyager. Harry could have transferred to one of their positions, and filling Ops can’t be that hard if he held the position as a fresh new Ensign.
    • But it really doesn't make sense why Harry can't get promoted, because there were several people with the rank of lieutenant who got killed over the course of the show. Why can't he just fill their vacancies?
• I'm still irked that Tom Riker was wearing a yellow uniform. It's been pretty well established that Will was always command track. It's like the yellow uniform was purely for the viewer's benefit, so people could tell them apart without looking at their pips or the shape of their beards. I'd almost have preferred they put Tom in one of the older movie-style uniforms, and imply that the current jumpsuits were brand-new at the Enterprise-D launch, to celebrate the dawn of the new era of peace and exploration.
  • Putting Tom in the "monster maroon" would go against the flashback to Beverly being taken by Picard to see Jack's body in "Violations", where Picard was wearing the first-season uniform in 2354, years before Riker's visit to Nervala IV. The "Violations" scene also backs up Picard's imagining of the Stargazer crew under the influence of Bok's thought-maker in "The Battle", as he was imagining/remembering them as they were in 2355. As for the gold uniform, changing departments is not unheard of (Worf went from red to gold, and back to red on DS9; Data went to red when Jellico made him first officer, though he returned to gold after Riker got the position back).
  • Red doesn't signify command track, it's Tactical. Riker could have been on the command track but serving it through Operations up to a certain point, as a security officer. Security would give him a much better opportunity to gain away mission experience, after all. After the promotion to Commander he may have requested a transfer to Tactical, which would have put him on a more direct path to commanding his own ship, making him eligible for First Officer positions. Or he could have moved back and forth between the two as his mentors over the years advised him. Considering his experience as an ensign (helping thwart a mutiny against a captain he quickly realized was corrupt and immoral), he may have transferred out of Tactical and into Operations for awhile specifically to get away from the man and his associates.
    • Memory Alpha says you're wrong. Red is the command division, yellow is the operations division, and blue is the sciences division.
    • Why are you quoting the Star Wars wiki I just looked up Chewbacca there earlier. See?
    • It's well established that Riker spent some time in Tactical/Security during his lieutenant years. That's actually how he met Troi; he was part of a Starfleet security detail on her planet.

Promotion, no-motion

• I'm curious, especially for those with knowledge of real life militaries, how plausible Riker's serial declining of promotions is. We know that he turned down the U.S.S. Drake, Aries, and Melbourne, and "Death Wish" implies he might have turned down the 'Voyager' too. Isn't there a point where Starfleet is just apt to say, "No more! You clearly want to be an X.O. forever, so that's what you'll be"? Conversely, you can wonder why during the Dominion War Riker (to say nothing of Geordi, maybe Data too) weren't fast-tracked to captaincies when so many officers were dying.
  • I kind of get the impression that Starfleet did give up. All of those commands were offered in the first three seasons. After that, the next command we know of (barring Voyager as it may be one of Q's jokes) came in Nemesis which is more than a decade later in-universe. This is of course the whole point behind the Riker V Shelby rivalry, because ultimately, it was a contest between the former golden boy of Starfleet and the new kid on the block that was essentially a female version of pre-beard Riker. And let us not forget Captain Jellico, who was deemed a better choice to command the Enterprise over the man who helped save the Federation from the Borg. If that doesn't demonstrate just how far he had fallen out of favour, nothing does.
    • In Jellico's case, one can rationalize that his specialized experience with the Cardassians weighed in Starfleet's decision to place him in command of the Enterprise, rather than any intrinsic objection to Riker. After all, Riker is not shown stewing about the fact that he was passed over for promotion in "Chain of Command" — his personality clash with Jellico is the issue, not jealousy over a more experienced officer getting the job.
    • In hindsight it might have been interesting to show Riker realizing that he was so attached to the Enterprise that he was content running out his career there even as a second banana, but of course the writers wanted to keep the option of him becoming captain on the table (delivering on it only at the last possible moment).
  • Regardless of what Starfleet Command thinks of officers who turn down promotions, you'd think the guy who saved the entire Federation from the Borg would get a lot of slack. Not to mention everything else he's accomplished as X.O. of the Enterprise. I imagine he spent those extra years learning quite a lot from Picard; it isn't as if he was holding still, doing nothing and adding no value to himself as an officer. I mean, I doubt that would fly in today's militaries, but then I don't think it would be optional. "You're a captain now. Get your ass over to your new ship."
  • Given how long people live in this universe and that there doesn't appear to be a mandatory retirement age, perhaps Starfleet's idea of how a career should/could play out allows for these kinds of decisions.
  • As for Data, I do wonder how much anti-AI sentiment there still is in the Federation. We saw in Redemption that there are people on other ships that don't trust him. Pulaski certainly didn't think of him as alive even if she did warm up by the end. Starfleet was very quick to try and lay claim to Lal. No one thought twice about dismantling Lore even though that is the equivalent of a death sentence (in a society that we know doesn't have one by the 24th century for flesh and blood people). And then we of course get into the whole issue of holograms over on Voyager and how the Doctor really isn't really that much different to Data in sapience. As noted many times, the Federation's liberal and progressive values really do not stand up to the level of scrutiny that we would perhaps like them to.
    • Conversely, one can suggest that Data simply isn't very career driven... effectively immortal, he would see no reason to climb the ranks in a hurry.
    • Maybe he doesn't aspire to command at all? His interests are fairly science-oriented. Some officers do stay in the operations division permanently, you know. Same for Geordi. Scotty was promoted to captain, but never commanded a ship.
    • He does seem put out that he isn't granted a command at first in "Redemption, Part II," for whatever that's worth. Geordi commands a ship in a future seen in Voyager, so he must at least have some ambitions along those lines.
  • Personally, I got the impression that Data was bothered not because he wanted his own command in general, but because being short on captains, Picard was assigning every other command-level officer he could scrounge up as captains and first officers, yet overlooking Data, who was senior to Geordi.
    • One need not rule out the other, but it seems to me that Data wouldn't push for a captaincy purely as an "android rights" gesture or out of petulance, but because it's something he wanted on its own terms. One could frame it less as career ambition than curiosity as to how he'd fare as captain.
    • Or just the logical observation of "everyone's a captain this week but me. I should ask about that."
  • I'm rewatching "The Best of Both Worlds", and realized this oft-repeated "fact" about Riker isn't true: That he turned down command of the Melbourne. He definitely was hesitant, but if you follow the sequence of events, he never gets the chance to turn it down, or even says that he intends to. He was given command of the Enterprise when Picard was assimilated, and then the Melbourne was destroyed.
    • This is strictly true, but Hansen's line "This is the third time we've pulled out the captain's chair for Riker. He just won't sit down" seems to presuppose that his non-response equates him turning down the Melbourne, which of course makes sense because In-Universe everyone in Starfleet in the higher ranks constantly tells Picard to never leave the captain's chair, while multiple characters lower in the ranks aspire to it, such as Eddington, who laments to Sisko about how no-one in a Gold uniform is ever given it.
    • Another less forgiving Admiral may have forced Riker's hand by offering him a choice of leaving the Enterprise as a Captain of a Starship or being Reassigned to Antarctica & permanently taken off Starship duty, if only because Riker had learned all he could under Picard and it was time for a new First Officer to learn from the Captain of the Federation Flagship.
  • I'm more confused about why, after "The Best of Both Worlds", Riker no longer holds the rank of Captain (separate from being the commanding officer of the Enterprise). He wasn't merely "Acting Captain" in Picard's absence, he was given a proper promotion by Admiral Hanson and wore the fourth rank pip for the remainder of the two-part episode. Why would that promotion be revoked simply because Picard was able to be rescued from Borg assimilation? Especially seeing as Riker just saved the entire Federation from the Borg invasion. Even if Riker willingly stepped back and gave the captain's chair back to Picard (who obviously didn't deserve to be stripped of command simply for being captured by the enemy), there's no reason he'd need to revert to a lower rank. We know for a fact that Starfleet has no rule against the captain and first officer of a ship holding the same rank (the ending of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, released 4 years prior to "The Best of Both Worlds, Part II" airing, had Kirk reduced in rank to Captain and given command of the Enterprise-A, with Captain Spock as his first officer). Picard had held the rank of Captain for 25 years at this point (22 on Stargazer, 3 on Enterprise-D) so he would still have seniority over Riker, meaning there would be nothing too odd about one Captain being in command of another. Or if Starfleet (or the writing staff) for some reason didn't like that idea, just stick a fifth pip on Picard's collar and make him a Commodore. He'd presumably still be called "Captain Picard" generally, since the convention is that a ship's commanding officer is addressed as such regardles of actual rank.
  • It’s possible that that was a field promotion that wasn’t made permanent following the crisis. During real life wars, there have been cases when officers received temporary promotions to higher ranks and after the conflict subsided, they reverted to their previous lower ranks.
    • It's acutally explicit. Hanson says, "Commander Riker, I hereby promote you to the field commission of Captain."

Growing the exact same beard

• In "Second Chances", it seems to be awfully coincidental that pre-beard Riker got stuck on a planet, and independently, while living alone, chose to grow the exact same beard, groomed the exact same way.
  • Definitely an example of real-life considerations getting in the way. In a perfect world, it might've been good to have Lt. Riker beardless to resemble his Season 1 look.
  • Maybe they both patterned it after their beloved grandfather.
  • The fact is, it isn't the exact same beard. It's close, but Thomas, when first found, has a ragged, unkempt beard that seems to be little more than his own neglecting to shave after all that isolation. Later, after he's had time to clean up, he does keep the beard, cutting it shorter, but leaves more hair on his lower cheeks◊, which, to be fair, is only obvious when he's standing right next to his other self.
    • Later, in "Defiant," Tom Riker pulls off fake sideburns. If Frakes's sideburns were fake the whole time, perhaps they prepared slightly different ones to distinguish the Rikers in "Second Chances."

Counselor Deanna Troi

A psychology degree does not a starship captain make

• In "Disaster", Counselor Troi takes command on the bridge, and it's pretty obvious she's completely overwhelmed. Why the heck is she commanding in this situation, and not O'Brien? It's true that O'Brien (as either a lieutenant or a chief petty officer— God knows which) is lower-ranked than Troi, but so was redshirt Lieutenant Monroe, and she was acting captain on the bridge before being killed. Ensign Ro's incredulous reaction when O'Brien tells her that Troi's the ranking officer around says it all, really. O'Brien is clearly far more qualified to make command decisions than Troi, who hadn't even taken the bridge officers' test yet at this point in the series.
  • Yup. Completely inexplicable. It sure doesn't help that Troi is made extra stupid in the aptly-named "Disaster," too, even infamously asking what a core breach is.
    • She's not stupid; she's just not an engineer.
    • I wouldn't say "stupid," the script did her a huge disservice by having her ask what an antimatter containment breach would mean. That's a fundamental part of starship operations in the Star Trek universe that everybody aboard Enterprise — and that includes all but the youngest children — should understand. It's like how you don't have to be a nuclear technician aboard an aircraft carrier to understand the implications of the word "meltdown." And this is, in fact, worse, because some of the effects of a nuclear fuel meltdown can potentially be contained, so Troi's question would actually make sense in that context. There are no scenarios in which losing antimatter containment would mean anything but the instant and total destruction of the Enterprise, and that's something that even a ship's counselor would know.
    • Furthermore, Troi had been in the room when core breaches were discussed in the past.
  • It leads to a nice bit of Character Development when she later decides to take the command exam in "Thine Own Self", but that just emphasizes that she shouldn't have been in command at the time!
  • Enlisted men (and this is after "Family," so O'Brien is unquestionably an NCO) don't give orders to officers, and generally don't possess the same degree of command training (qualifications aside, Troi is an Academy graduate).
    • Setting aside the overall oddities about O'Brien's rank (those conspicuous Lt. insignia on his uniform, and the fact that he was directly addressed as "Lieutenant" on one or two occasions), his bridge officer credentials are well established — he served as Ben Maxwell's tactical officer, after all. Even ignoring this, it's not like O'Brien and Troi were the only people on the bridge. Ro and other officers were there. Even if, for some bizarre reason, she is not obligated to do so, Troi should have voluntarily relieved herself for the good of the ship.
    • It is a senior NCO's job to guide junior officers in making the right decisions. While Ensign Ro, as the senior line officer present, should have had command, she would have been wise to rely on the chief's decades of experience. It would be in poor taste—and potentially dangerous—for an ensign to countermand or ignore the judgement of a chief petty officer. Senior officers know this and tend to side with the senior NCOs after the fact.
  • The simple answer is that they were praying for a Good Troi Episode.
  • Phil Farrand makes this point really well in the Nitpicker's Guide. Command should go to the highest ranked and most qualified person for the situation they are taking command of, and to prove by example, let's say there's an emergency in sickbay and the only people who aren't incapacitated are Ogawa, Barclay, and La Forge - does La Forge make the medical decisions because he has the highest rank? No, Ogawa does.
  • A possible reason why Ro didn't take command may have been due to her having just been released from prison. Picard was already on shaky ground when he allowed her to remain an officer; it is unlikely she would ever be placed in line for command.
    • If this were the case, I'd assume she wouldn't wear a red uniform, which is established in DS9's Rules of Engagement, and ''Trials and Tribble-ations to be the color worn by command-track officers. The TNG-era, a red uniform seems to be the equivalent to the star device that identifies unrestricted line officers—that is to say, officers who are eligible for operational command—in the US Navy. Such distinction is necessary so that everyone knows who to listen to in a crisis; and if Ro isn't the person they should have been listening to, she shouldn't have been wearing something that said she was. There is precedent for helmsmen wearing other department colors: Travis Mayweather wore a operations/security uniform, Valeris wore both cadet red and science grey, Nog wore gold, Jadzia Dax wore science blue.
    • Travis didn't wear operations gold. He wore command gold, as was customary during the ENT/TOS time, so it was correct for his era.
    • Also, Nog was in the operations department as helmsman at the time, so gold was correct for that era; he stayed gold when moving to the engineering section, still a subset of operations.
    • Pilots in TNG always wore red.
    • The mistake here if there is one is the wardrobe department's limited coloring scheme. Science/medical blue is a reasonable one to group together perhaps, but command/operations? security/engineering? These are completely separate fields. A fourth or even fifth color or shade is desperately needed here. The red uniform featured in films 2 through 7 due to having markedly different insignia and palette depending on department is currently the only uniform that would make any real world sense.
  • Starfleet uses a military command structure. In an emergency situation, the highest ranked person there is in command. It doesn't matter what the situation is or who is more qualified. And all officers outrank enlisted. Now, like any leadership situation, that doesn't mean you are the most knowledgeable; you are just the one making the decisions. Geordi could be the highest ranked person in a medical emergency, but that doesn't mean he isn't going to ask the most qualified medical personnel for their expertise or try and dictate medical protocol. He would simply ask what their opinion is and make the determination if that advice is sound given their situation to authorize it. For instance, a medical enlisted personnel might advise that a person could die from the stress of being moved. The officer could ignore that advice if staying would put the entire group at risk.
    • Actually no, real militaries have rules in place precisely to prevent these situations from happening. You can't have the ship's psychiatrist in command over bridge officers and personnel just because they have a higher rank for admin purposes. In fact, the other ensign on the bridge should be in command (everyone forgets there was a fourth person on the bridge but he was there) as he outranks O'Brien and would have seniority over Ro with his presumably earlier commission and no criminal record.
    • This actually does happen early in the series. First season episode "The Arsenal of Freedom" has Geordi, a bridge officer being in command of the ship while the captain and commander are stuck on the planet. The chief of engineering requesting that Geordi, a lieutenant J.G., relinquish command to him as a lieutenant commander but not being able to take it by issuing a direct order.
    • That wasn't a matter of command automatically devolving to Geordi; Picard specifically left him in charge.
  • And, in general, this is another of those endearing little quirks that only makes sense when you understand that, when it came to portraying anything that even vaguely resembled a plausible military organization, TNG-era writers mostly had absolutely no idea what they were doing. (In fairness to them, cranking out an episode a week without fail is hard and dicey work, much more so than Monday-morning quarterbacking the results. Given Roddenberry's own preference on the matter, it's no surprise this is one of the areas in which they put verisimilitude on the back burner.)
• I always presumed that her rank was simply honorary (Riker did ask Data for that possibility in the pilot).
  • Why not? Is it intrinsically stranger than the CMO holding the rank of Commander? In fact, oughtn't the person in charge of the mental well being of the flagship's crew be a decorated specialist — surely, the best available? It's just that, due to massive writing failures, Troi was not depicted as having the qualities to make it likely that said person was her.
  • Uh, what qualifies Ro to take command? She's a freaking pilot. How is does that translate to command authority any more than counselor does? You all seem to be looking at the red uniform as proof she's in the normal chain of command. Does that mean Wesley could have commanded the Enterprise if he'd been there instead of Ro?
    • The red uniform is pretty much a signal that she's part of the command track. She'd be VERY far down the command list (which might not necessarily line up with what real world military hierarchy would say), but if she's the only one in red on the bridge (say, if something exploded on the bridge and incapacitated Riker and Picard), she's temporarily the ranking officer and thus until relieved is in command of the ship. Wesley was never a commissioned officer (being referred to as an Acting Ensign and later as a cadet once he attends the academy), so his position is unclear. Basically, Ro could be in command of the Enterprise until another line officer reached the bridge. Troi, at least until she takes the command test (whether or not she should be qualified to take it in a more realistic setup is another matter) is not qualified to command anything for even five seconds if she got her commission directly as a specialist officer (can happen for medical officers in real life) rather than going through the academy or the Starfleet version of OCS (I can't remember whether she went to the academy or not).
    • You're mistaken about Wesley; before becoming a cadet, he was given a commission as a real ensign with a red uniform. And you're assuming a lot here. Red doesn't necessarily mean she's on the command track. Geordi had a red uniform in the first season, and he seems pretty much married to engineering.
    • In the first season, Geordi had a red uniform because he was the pilot of the ship and had nothing to do with Engineering until Season 2. Why Picard would promote a pilot who seemingly had little to no knowledge or interest in Engineering to chief engineer over any of the actual engineers is a better question!
    • In "The Next Phase", Picard tells a story of when La Forge was his shuttlecraft pilot and, after Picard made an offhand remark about the engines' performance, stayed up all night working on them. Besides that, Starfleet officers seem to learn a fair bit of engineering regardless of their specialty. Picard, for example, has been known to MacGyver stuff from time to time.

What are your qualifications again?

• Deanna holds an astonishingly high rank for somebody with her extremely narrow set of skills. What's more, her actual qualifications in her alleged areas of expertise are highly suspect. How did she get this posting?
  • Psychology: Deanna supposedly studied psychology at both the University of Betazed and Starfleet Academy (and it should be noted that despite many years of study, she does not hold a doctorate). But it is a running gag that she is simply awful as a practicing psychologist and half the time it seems like people are giving her advice!
  • Sociology: Deanna often provides exposition about the species of the week. But it is generally at best a quick summary that anyone could deliver (and indeed Data sometimes does, albeit in a more verbose manner). When it comes to in-depth knowledge of alien civilizations she is often rushing to catch up just like everyone else.
  • Parapsychology: Aside from being one of the galaxy's worst empaths, Deanna does not seem very knowledgeable about psychic phenomena. In particular, she appears to put absolutely no effort into further training her own abilities. Her mother criticizes her for it and she defensively insists that it is because it is easier for her to not hear actual thoughts, especially of non-Betazoids whose thoughts are often less coherent. But this is a key part of why she has her job! She's essentially stating that she refuses to perfect a talent that is crucial to her core function because she finds it personally unsettling! Contrast this to Vulcans such as Spock and Tuvok, neither of whose telepathic abilities are considered crucial to their positions, but who nonetheless train those abilities extensively.
    • There might be a little logic leap here, but the ranks in Starfleet seem to be similar to those of the U.S. military (the Navy, specifically). I believe that if you have the qualifications to be a counselor (such as a Master's degree in Social Work or counseling) and you join the military as a counselor, you start out at an officer's rank (lieutenant, not ensign, as part of the Medical Service Corps). Deanna could have been promoted from there. Addendum: If The Other Wiki is correct, she's been out of the academy about five years as of the start of the series. Maybe she got her promotion from Lieutenant to Lt-Commander as of her assignment to the ship.
    • The question being: why? People on other career paths have taken much longer to achieve that rank (Data at one point states that he has been in Starfleet for 26 years!). It could leave one wondering why every ambitious officer doesn't choose Counselor as a starting point for their careers if they can expect such a rapid advancement through the ranks. However, Ezri Dax (also a counselor) started out as an ensign, and was promoted to lieutenant junior grade when she joined DS9. She apparently was not made a lieutenant automatically upon graduation from the Academy. At no point is it indicated that Deanna had a long and distinguished career behind her that would explain why she would possibly hold a rank higher than lieutenant, much less lieutenant-commander, after so short a time! The breadth of her skill set often seems awfully narrow and specialized as compared to the other main characters.
    • Ezri was introduced as a Counselor's Assistant. Contemporary psychologists have an intern period before they are licensed. If her title is analogous to that, it would mean her training wasn't complete when she came on the scene and therefore not worthy of higher rank.
    • Maybe her mom pulled some strings. As she likes to remind people, she does hold several ill-defined but important-sounding titles on Betazed.
    • Becoming a counselor likely isn't the kind of thing one just goes into for fun and transfers out. If it's like the military, there is pretty much no profession that one can just get into and then transfer on to something else as a stepping stone. The is criteria to meet just to be trained in that field, and you have to get approval from superior officers to cross train. Even then, you have to apply for those positions; and you likely aren't going to be looked upon favorably when you don't have applicable qualifications or job hoping.
    • But, going back to the earlier point, Deanna didn't have to switch career tracks to achieve the rank of Lieutenant-Commander and qualify for bridge command duty. In practical terms, she now holds the same effective rank as Data, despite being ridiculously under-qualified in comparison! O'Brien had to try to explain in small words the cosmic phenomenon that damaged the Enterprise in "Disaster" because Deanna's knowledge of astrophysics is negligible! Yet she's allowed to sit in the Captain's chair and run the ship when Picard, Riker and Data are not around! What's she going to do during a Negative Space Wedgie? Talk to herself about how she's not sensing any emotions from it? "Disaster" was embarrassing enough given that she apparently couldn't tell how many people were still alive on the ship because of all the emotional noise that (the obviously large number of) people were putting out!
    • Eye Candy. That's about it. Once the show Grew the Beard, her day-to-day work role was pretty much confined to warbling "Captain! I sense Dayn-Ger!" and wearing nice outfits on the bridge. Ironically, as stated in the folder above, her lack of knowledge about pretty much everything shouldn't have been a drawback - as long as she was trained and competent to make command decisions in the event that all the other Bridge staff were incapacitated. But she clearly wasn't, which means she should never have been allowed on the bridge in the first place - rank and position are not the same thing at all. Commander La Forge was higher ranked than some of the bridge crew, but he was based in engineering, where he could be of most use. He just didn't look as good in a clinging, V-necked one-piece.
    • Or another case of the writers having no idea how to portray a military organization. Being attached to the medical department, Troi is a staff, not a line, officer, and would therefore never legitimately wind up in command; any circumstance in which she did would, like the loss of a ship, result in a court-martial, not necessarily from an assumption of wrongdoing but because anything that far outside the normal limes needs to be examined by a panel of senior officers in case anybody did screw up, and if no one did, to document that fact against the automatic assumption of everyone who ever hears about it afterward.
      In the case of a staff officer assuming command, though, there'd have to be some seriously special circumstances to justify the action. The situation portrayed in "Disaster" doesn't come anywhere close. Sure, Ro was an ensign and Troi a lieutenant commander. But that doesn't matter. Ro was a line officer and Troi wasn't. That's what matters. Troi could've been a full admiral and it wouldn't matter; she's outside the line of command, period.
      On the other hand, Ro was a line officer who was highly uncertain of her position and not really all that comfortable with the idea of exercising authority, especially in a crisis, and O'Brien, as a long-serving and very senior NCO known and relied upon by everyone on the senior staff, exerted a moral authority disproportionate to his grade. His diffidence in pointing out Troi's senior rank suggests he knew he was going far outside regulation to do so, and he was careful not to suggest anything actually be done with that information, leaving the suggestion that Troi take command entirely implicit. Had Ro slapped that suggestion down as peremptorily as it deserved, O'Brien might well have gone along — but she didn't, and a totally unqualified staff officer, with no authority to command, ended up doing so.
      Sure, everything worked out in the end, and the ship didn't blow up. In a real military organization, though, all three of them would've faced court-martial, and all three of them probably would've been found guilty of malfeasance — Troi for taking command as a staff officer, Ro for failing to take command as the senior line officer present, and O'Brien for his role in making things come out that way. Given the extenuating circumstance that their actions did result in the Starfleet flagship not blowing up, the penalty might have been somewhat attenuated, but the best they could hope for would be severely truncated career prospects.
    • And to think, this all could've been avoided by putting Ro in command, and thirty seconds later giving O'Brien an offhand line about how the saucer separation system was too badly damaged to use, and Ro's "let's separate the saucer and wish everyone in the stardrive section the best of luck" plan was a non-starter. Or, even better, leave the option open — and write a Really Good Troi Episode in which, with the help of O'Brien the sturdy reliable NCO, she uses her empathy and insight into people to subtly guide a young, inexperienced, frankly terrified junior officer, whose first instinct is to abandon half the crew in order to save her own skin, into making the right decision to save everyone, and learning a major lesson about what it really takes to bear the burden of command.
      After all, the whole point of ensigns is that they're baby officers, and the rank essentially serves as a post-academy finishing school; the whole point of long-service NCOs is to serve as a repository for exactly the kind of institutional knowledge baby officers need, and as instructors and mentors to help those baby officers grow up right; and the whole point of staff officers is that they specialize in support roles, part of which is supplying line officers with the information they need to do their job right. It would've been a great way to develop all three characters, an opportunity to build some genuine tension that didn't rely on a lot of painfully obvious contrivances, and it would've made a perfect excuse to lop off that tiresome Ten Forward C-plot time-filler in favor of something actually worthwhile. Ah, What Could Have Been...
    • In the US military, licensed medical professionals hold officer rank because they hold advanced degrees worthy of the appropriate rank/title/pay. They continue to receive promotions based on seniority, skill set, and the need to command others within their field. They are not expected, required, or trained to command non-medical troops. The primary care doctor you see for a broken foot is probably a Captain/Navy Lieutenant. The officer in charge of the whole hospital is a Colonel/Navy Captain.
  • Some of the novels seem to take the idea that Deanna is also trained as a First Contact specialist, someone who studies and interacts with new species when the ship opens official channels with them and makes an effort to avoid major diplomatic faux pas, both to justify her position at Picard's right hand on the bridge and her frequent coaching of Picard during certain diplomatic ventures with unknown or reclusive species (see "The Big Goodbye," "Ensigns of Command," "First Contact," even Star Trek: Insurrection.) This skill alone would help to justify her rank of Lieutenant Commander and being seated beside the Captain of the Enterprise.

Troi's lost powers

• So what happened to Troi and Riker's telepathic link from Encounter at Farpoint? I can think of a dozen times off the top of my head when that would have come in useful.
  • For that matter, what happens to her empathic powers in the later seasons? They're rarely mentioned, except in contexts like "Eye of the Beholder" where they cause problems.
    • It seems to been a general trend in the show not just with Troi. There was more focus on characters' "extraordinary" abilities when the show started out. Early episodes made more use of Geordi's VISOR (even at one point having him be sent to look at something out of a window), Data's android abilities (the very first episode had him working as a tape recorder), Wesley's mathematical genius nature and Troi's empathy. While most of these things remained around, the writers realized that they weren't really needed and so they used them sparingly. Geordi became the chief engineer and his being blind was much less necessary. While Data was still an android and we'd still get the occasional gag, he could still function just as the brilliant science officer. Most people preferred Wesley just being an ordinary kid who helped out in engineering and didn't say much rather than a super genius. Troi however suffered more than the other characters, since her abilities were the main thing that justified her being on the bridge. When she started out, her abilities could have been genuinely useful and she could have been a genuinely functional part of the bridge crew. In the later years, it became less and less justified for the ship's counsellor not to simply be spending her days counseling people instead.
  • Early-Installment Weirdness more than anything, most likely, much like her reference to Riker as "Bill" in "The Naked Now," the first non-pilot episode. They hadn't settled on what abilities Troi had or the limitations on them during the pilot. In universe, it could have been a connection that still lingered from their time on Betazed, when they became imzadi, and as they worked together as colleagues and friends instead of lovers, the connection diminished.

It's a Boy and He's Just Like His Mom

• In "The Child", the alien impregnating Deanna and becoming her "son" got all his DNA from her... so where'd he get his Y chromosome from?!
  • For that matter, how it get any DNA separate to Deanna's? Shouldn't she be bearing her own clone (or perhaps a girl as genetically different as a sister)?
  • Well, the alien spark did hover over a very hairy chested sleeping man before it found Deanna.

Did Reg Really Need Troi?

• Geordi insists Reg see Troi despite him feeling uncomfortable (because he has a crush on her). However, Dr. Crusher says there are many therapists onboard, so why would Reg need to see Troi?
  • Because Marina Sirtis was already paid for.
  • In-universe, Troi is the counsellor that Geordi uses. We've seen him go to sessions with her, and also she is the one he comes into contact with most at staff meetings. It is probable that Geordi was meaning a counsellor in general and just automatically used Troi as a placeholder name for ship's counselling staff. Just a bit of sloppy language on Geordi's part, but that Reg took too literally. Maybe Geordi even meant go see Troi as head of counselling and have her schedule an appointment with a counsellor, again just imprecise language to a guy that is a little too literal and highly strung to read between the lines.

Reading minds over large distances

• So how does that work? She can magically sense thoughts over communications? Does the subspace beam act as a full conduit? I guess we classify this with "the ship's sensors can accurately scan stuff that's a few thousand light years away"...
  • Spock has a history of making telepathic contact at distances on the order of lightyears independently of sensors and subspace communications (V'Ger and the crew of the Intrepid). In "Tin Man," however, Troi flat-out says that this should be impossible, implying that Batazoid telepathy works differently, somehow. Tam Elbrun, another Betazoid, is in telepathic contact with the eponymous creature over such a distance at the time, but he seems to be fairly sure that this is Tin Man's doing, not his own. As odd as it seems, that implies that subspace radio does somehow facilitate long-range Batazoid telepathy.

Is Troi one of many counselors or the sole counselor?

• The headscratcher just before this one mentions that at some point Crusher says there are many therapists on board. How come Picard is always saying she's the ship's counselor? He uses singular.
  • Same reason Dr. Crusher is called the "ship's doctor" when there's more than one.

Lieutenant Commander Data

Contacting Sarjenka

• The Prime Directive, at least in the 24th century, seems pretty clear about contact with pre-warp civilizations: don't do it if you can possibly avoid it. Every Starfleet officer and every Federation citizen working in proximity to such societies has taken that vow: you will die before initiating contact with a prewarp society. So why did Data initiate a dialogue with Sarjenka in the first place? He's supposed to be emotionless and perfectly logical. It's a simple matter of "don't pick up the phone!"
  • The Memory Alpha page on the episode tries to argue that he's so childlike that he would blindly answer any question asked of him without thinking. Yeah, no. Sarjenka was sending a message out to nobody in particular, and he would know that it wasn't a question aimed directly at him.
  • Well, now we get into a popular Alternate Character Interpretation concerning Data's emotions. Namely that he has them, they are just suppressed or take on a different form to ours and that the emotion chip was merely an update or a patch that allowed him to use them properly as opposed to being a full upload. It is clear that Data does not experience immediate emotional states (fear, anger, sadness etc.) like we do. But he does appear to have traits that many of us would argue go far beyond an emotionless and perfectly logical state of being: he has a need for companionship (Tasha, Geordi, Spot), a need to live up to an ideal (humanity), self-preservation (the Maddox trial), curiosity etc. He has an appreciation for art, music, theater, reading. He has gender and sexual identity. He has the need to procreate. He experiences a sense of loss on some level as we saw with Tasha. And, most importantly for this discussion, he believes in the sanctity and preservation of life. Given all of these things, I don't think it's out of character that when a distressed little girl asked for help that he responded. Also just a little note on the Prime Directive - its inconsistent as hell. A season beforehand in Justice, the crew beamed down to a pre-industrial planet to have sex with the natives. You can argue Early-Installment Weirdness, but it's still canon.
  • If the message came in via subspace radio, which it appears to have done since the Enterprise was not very close to the planet, then Data would have had no reason to make the assumption that the sender's civilization did not possess warp drive space travel. It just turns out that they didn't. Not all species are big space explorers. It doesn't make them primitive.
    • Exactly why it's important to check its source out before just replying. It's hard to see Data's response as anything other than an impulsive, borderline reckless one (which is good, characterization-speaking!). Indeed, that's sort of the crew's reaction: as much as it's created a crisis, they sort of admire the fact that Data has done something irresponsible for once.

What is this "idiom" you speak of?

• A recurring theme, especially in the earlier seasons, was Data's unfamiliarity with concepts like sarcasm and idiom. He was often confused by figures of speech, requiring someone (usually Geordi or Wesley) to explain it to him. Fair enough - it's a common enough idea in science fiction. The thing is, he'd been a Starfleet officer for over twenty years by Encounter at Farpoint, and had attended the Academy for four years before that. In all that time, with all that education and experience, had he really never had it explained to him that (for example) "a watched pot never boils" isn't a literal statement? And if he had, why didn't it seem to stick?
  • Yeah, I always thought that was a bit overdone. That he might not be able to naturally use such idioms is reasonable (his awkward "Nothing to write home about" in "The Last Outpost"... not too bad), but his outright not knowing what "The cat's out of the bag" in "In Theory" or "proverbial lemon" in "The Price" means? Shouldn't he have some database he can consult in a fraction of a second? (a lot faster than it takes to say "Accessing... accessing...")
    • It's unlikely that any database he was programmed to access includes information on things like idioms. There's also the possibility that he didn't encounter many idioms in his previous assignments, or that any questions he had about them were simply brushed off because "he's just an android."
    • I'm not sure if I accept this explanation. Such a database would be on the order of a few megabytes, while Data's memory capacity (per "The Measure of a Man") is around 100 petabytes. Between that and the fact that 24th-century computers offer plain-language programming and a huge amount of automation, it would have been utterly trivial for Dr. Soong, an adviser at the Academy, or even Data himself to include it in his education just by asking for it. As for being dismissed as "just an android," that would require literally everybody he interacted with for more than 20 years to have that attitude. Considering how quickly the Enterprise crew accepted him as a peer, I don't think that's likely.
    • Depends on his assignment - in the novel The Buried Age, set over the course of about the decade immediately prior to Encounter At Farpoint, Data's earliest assignment had been at a backwater facility as its record keeper, a position offering little interaction with others, and Data, not realizing the necessity of speaking up his own opinions, in the same manner of "my responsibility is to follow the orders I have been given regardless of if I wish to follow them" we see him struggle with even by "The Measure Of A Man" when his life was on the line, simply accepted the position. It was only through Picard recruiting him for a mission and coaching him over the course of several years that he had the drive that led to him attaining the rank of Lieutenant Commander.
    • And given the swiftness of the anti-synthetic life attitudes we see in Star Trek: Picard, it seems more likely that it was Picard giving him a position of authority on the Enterprise as second officer and Picard's open acceptance that led to "setting the tone" aboard the ship that Data was to be respected enough to be treated as more than a piece of technology - we see as much with Pulaski when she comes aboard, she initially dismisses Data as a tool until both Data and Picard set her straight, followed shortly thereafter by Maddox disregarding Data's ability to decide for himself. These come together and make it seem that Data's acceptance on the Enterprise was a cultivated attitude by Picard setting an example and demanding the crew follow suit more than Starfleet/the Federation in general just accepting him as a peer right off.

Data Before Data

• Related to the above: I've always been struck by the fact that Data has so little backstory, at least as concerns his early years in Starfleet. We know that after his discovery on Omicron Theta, he had a difficult process in the immediate aftermath (discussed in both "Rightful Heir" and "Eye of the Beholder"), but those issues were likely resolved by the time he entered the Academy. After that — he didn't like the Sadie Hawkins Dance and he once went through a wormhole aboard the USS Trieste. Very few details about his earlier years in Starfleet, and in general early TNG depicts him like he's interacting with other people for the first time. Did he not have friends from earlier assignments? Was he not exposed to lots of facets of humanity before he had Picard and others to guide him through them? Perhaps the idea is that he was mostly mechanical at first — carrying out duties by the letter but not particularly capable of human interactions peripheral to them. And near the beginning of TNG, Data had reached a sort of threshold in his development that now allowed a wider range of potential actions to explore and critically, a desire to do so that might not have previously existed. But this is merely speculation because the show doesn't say as much.
  • As far as season 1 Data goes, you have to remember that it was loaded with Early-Installment Weirdness to the point that I would argue he is a different character. Not only is he very much implied to be a cyborg given how he bleeds and catches disease (which we know to be retconned later on as he is just a sheathe of bloodless fake skin over an entirely metal body) but he has a far greater range of emotions then he later would. He also states to Riker in Encounter at Farpoint to have graduated in the class of '78 - which given how season 1 is set 2364, that would have made him nearly a hundred years old. It is not unreasonable to Broad Strokes his entire backstory prior to season 2, meaning that we probably know even less about him then we already do. I honestly do suspect that he really didn't have that many friends or social outlets before he boarded the Enterprise given how many people simply did not see him as anything more than a toaster as evidenced by Measure of a Man. He probably spent much of his youth and preceding junior days alone.
  • One element of Data's characterization that stayed consistent from the beginning was his desire to be [more] human. I wonder: how long has he felt that way? Is it baked into him on the level of programming — maybe a consequence, deliberately or not, of the "ethical subroutines" that Lore lacks? Or did he "imprint" upon his Starfleet rescuers and try to emulate them ("Brothers" hints that this might be the reason he entered Starfleet)? Or is it a more recent development, a consequence of his immersion in largely-human work environments through Stafleet? Again, we can only speculate.
  • Maybe he recently experienced a personal revelation and realized that the central itch of his being (we all have one, whether we know what it is or not) was to be more human. As for Data having graduated the same year The Motion Picture took place, why not? It doesn't bother me. Starfleet seems tolerant of a lot of different career paths. Data may have been indispensable as a lower-ranking science officer and worked his way up the ranks very slowly due to his lack of actively pursuing promotion. Now, yes, they did retcon the "class of '78" thing, and then they retconned the retcon, according to Memory Alpha. But continuity in Star Trek, especially in the first two shows, is such a slippery issue that I just headcanon the things I like and don't worry about the rest.
    • I don't know what you mean by "retconned the retcon" here. Data once refers to himself as being chronologically not much older than Wesley (in "The Schizoid Man") and the file visible in "Conundrum" identifies him as having graduated the Academy in 2345. Data is quite plainly not the better part of a century old and was never intended to be. The "class of '78" thing is a scrap of Early-Installment Weirdness related to the fact that they would not establish the year when the show took place until "The Neutral Zone." The series Bible says that the show takes place in the early 24th century, which would jibe better with '78.
    • I mean that they changed the year he graduated twice in subsequent episodes: first to like 2338 and then to 2339.
    • Please explain. "Conundrum" gives his "activation date" as "February 2, 2338," not his graduation, and gives his years at the Academy as 2341-5.
    • Misread Memory Alpha, I guess.

Fajo's Plan

• When Fajo wants to capture Data for his collection, he creates a problem by poisoning a planet's water supply in a way where the Enterprise has to buy hytritium from him in order to counteract it. And hytritium can only be transported ship-to-ship by shuttlecraft. So Fajo arranged things in such a way that he knew somebody from the Enterprise would need to fly a shuttle over to his ship and make himself vulnerable. But how did Fajo know that Data would be assigned to fly the shuttlecraft? Without that tremendous stroke of luck, wouldn't all of his effort have been for nothing?
  • Because Data was the most qualified in handling the shuttlecraft in such situations. He could ensure the shuttle stayed on course and not be scared of transporting the volatile material needed for the job. Fajo knew the crew wouldn't want to risk human error in a situation that delicate, especially when they had a much better alternative available in the form of Data.

Settled law?

• The otherwise excellent "Measure Of A Man" has one particular sticking point. If Data's very personhood is being called into question enough that it requires a legal hearing, why is this not something that was addressed with Data signing up for Starfleet in the first place? To serve with them at all must mean that he was enough of a person to make the choice, and someone considered him enough of a person to admit him. The fact that this hearing happened after the fact; well, that really doesn't say a lot for Starfleet, does it? Good thing Data's captain was Picard.
  • It was addressed, it just apparently wasn't fully settled. There's a couple of lines of easily-missed dialogue on the subject.
    Maddox: Yes, I evaluated Data when it [sic] first applied to the Academy.
    Data: And was the sole member of the committee to oppose my entrance on the grounds that I was not a sentient being.
  • Still, it's a bad look, and I feel like Picard should have brought this up: Starfleet was fine treating Data as a sentient being, letting him join, promoting him, giving him medals, and so forth...until it became convenient for him to not be a person. Suddenly, he's property.
    • Which meant Starfleet was cool with a piece of property giving life or death orders to real people for a couple decades. The fact that he had an officer's commission in the first place should have been enough to tell Maddox to pound sand.
• I kind of wondered if Starfleet let Data join simply because they wanted to keep him and that Maddox was a clueless computer nerd that he didn’t understand what was really going on.

"Multiple techniques"

• In "The Naked Now", Data establishes that he is versed in sexuality multiple techniques and a wide variety of pleasuring. It's an early episode with lots of Early-Installment Weirdness but the stuff with Data and Tasha is referenced several times throughout the series and even gets a callback in eighth movie. So how come in "Angel One", this living supercomputer with vast repositories of knowledge in his head doesn't know what the word aphrodisiac means?
  • Well, given that he's well-versed in multiple techniques, why would he need to use an aphrodisiac to enhance the sexual act for his partner? The guy's a machine!
  • "Versed in sexuality multiple techniques and a wide variety of pleasuring" doesn't necessarily mean "I know literally everything there is to know about sex and sexuality."
  • I'm more confused about him not knowing the word due to him having a whole dictionary in his brain, not the fully-functional part.

Loose lips sunk the ship

• In "Cause and Effect", the whole thing could have been avoided. It ended up with Data, using information from previous loops, deciding Riker had the right idea of decompressing the main shuttle bay to push themselves out of the way. But using the tractor beam, they nearly manage to push the other ship off course without hitting them. They would certainly have succeeded if Data hadn't taken so many words to suggest it.
  • But he did take so many words to suggest it by the point that he has that realization, so that's sort of irrelevant, isn't it?

I Have Several Questions, "Includaling" This One

• Why did Data mispronounce "including" as "includaling" that one time? He's programmed to speak properly! Did he malfunction?
  • Yes.

Getting Sherlock Holmes' outfit wrong

• In the episodes "Elementary, Dear Data" and "Ship in a Bottle", Data roleplays as Sherlock Holmes and Geordie plays Dr. Watson. Common Knowledge issues with the character aside, why would an android who has memorized ALL of Arthur Conan Doyle's original stories get Holmes' outfit wrong?
  • Data could probably point out dozens of other inaccuracies and anachronisms that the holodeck program developers got wrong in every scene, as well- but the value of the experience isn't about historical accuracy or faithfulness to the stories he could recite. Data is roleplaying as the Common Knowledge version of a human character he can relate to- a figure whose eccentricities do not prevent him from being respected and valued both for his abilities and as a person.

Starfleet doesn't know what to do with Data

• His capabilities are wildly misused! For one thing, why is Data not head of security? He is far superior to Worf and every other crewmember in all physical aspects, probably already knows every martial art and how to perfectly use every weapon ever invented (and if he doesn't, he can learn easily), he has unlimited endurance and can sustain much more damage than a human, and his lack of emotion makes him perfect in a fight. He will never get emotional and make mistakes like Worf does all the time. We see Data chokeslamming a Borg to death, bending bars of super space alloy effortlessly, pinching a gun barrel off like Bugs Bunny and even DODGING PHASERS. When the crew has someone like Data, it's basically negligent to send the weak, soft, meatbeings off to get hurt and killed when they have the ultimate fighting machine just sitting aboard the ship.
  • Who ever said Starfleet never offered Data such a position, only for him to turn it down? Data has the potential to fulfill any role on a starship, and chose one that would permit him to pursue his individual objectives of learning and developing a human(-ish) persona. Plus, he may have deemed it imprudent to work in security specifically, because it would set the unwise precedent of the Federation treating androids as weapons: something Starfleet's own military ethicists probably also had reservations about.

Lieutenant Commander Geordi La Forge

I see engineer people

• How does Geordi know what Dr. Brahms looks like? His holodeck recreation of her is accurate to a T (physically, at least), yet it's established in "Hide and Q" that he didn't know what Tasha looked like.
  • Geordi had never seen Tasha with normal human eyes before, he had only seen her with his VISOR. That's what he was referring to. He probably can tell a hologram from a real person, but is able to tell who the hologram is supposed to represent and hence is able to know the real Dr. Brahms based off her holoimage.
    • His line is "You're as beautiful as I imagined, and more." It's a qualitative description — it's not that he flat out couldn't recognize her.
  • It's worth noting that there has been some inconsistency as to how much information Geordi's VISOR gives him. He's a Living Lie Detector in Up the Long Ladder, but people have lied to him since without him realizing it. He sees most, if not all, of the EM spectrum, but Doctor Crusher has to tell him that a bulkhead is so hot that it indicates an incipient plasma breach in Disaster.
    • Possibly explained by the huge amount of information Geordi receives through the VISOR. He can detect lies if he's looking for them or if he happens to notice the signs, but otherwise he's got so much to pay attention to that the little heartbeat bump or whatnot that comes with lying might go unnoticed otherwise. As for the heat thing... well, maybe that was one of the days he was having migraines and he just wasn't parsing things very well. Anyway, Geordi can clearly recognize people from pictures and holos, so presumably he receives some sort of imagery on the VISOR that he can compare to an actual person. It might be like a sighted person recognizing a real person after having seen a painting or charcoal sketch of them.
  • Doesn't the computer create her physical form? Why does it matter if Geordi knows what she looks like or not?

Geordi's rank

• According to the timeline, at the beginning of the series, Riker and Geordi are both 29, but Riker is a commander, while Geordi is a lieutenant, junior grade. While it makes sense that Riker would be promoted rapidly through the ranks given how good he's said to be, Geordi is shown to be an expert in his field, so why does he have such a low rank? And afterwards why does he get promoted two ranks in the course of three seasons?
  • Geordi isn't an expert in his field until Season 2. He started off as a helm officer, a more general position, before eventually specializing in engineering in Season 2 and being promoted into the vacant Chief Engineer's role with a promotion. Once he found his niche he got promoted more quickly, but it is clear it just took him a little while to find the role that suit him best. Riker knew what role he wanted right from the start, so he moved up more quickly.
  • Weird. Memory Alpha says they graduated the same year, but they never mention being at the Academy together. And I always had the impression of Geordi being a fair bit younger. But the writers are really lousy about consistency and timelining.
    • In "The Next Phase," Picard mentions that Riker knew Geordi longer than anyone else on the ship. But just because they were attending at the same time, that doesn't mean that they were acquainted — how many graduates must Starfleet Academy produce in a year?
    • Well, that line doesn't necessarily refer to being at the Academy together — they served together on the USS Hood.
    • Was Geordi crew on the Hood? True he arrived at Farpoint on the Hood but so did Beverly and she clearly wasn't part of its crew. Usually the Victory is spoken of a Geordi's "old ship." Have I forgotten something?
  • Geordi mentioned to Jellico that he used to be a shuttle pilot in the Sol system. It's possible his career simply started out on the slow path.

• How did Troi make lieutenant commander before Geordi even made full lieutenant?
  • Presumably it's just easier for someone to move up the ranks as a counselor. In the same way that Starfleet doctors only really need medical knowledge and to be in charge of other doctors, counselors presumably only really need to be in charge of other counselors (though if she has assistant counselors, they certainly wouldn't be as many as other departments). Wesley Crusher and Harry Kim both more frequently ran away missions on their own as Ensigns than Troi did as a Lt. Commander. Whereas Worf is in security and has a good knowledge of systems and Geordi is an engineer who can still handle a phaser, Troi didn't need the range of skills (indeed when she wanted to get promoted to a commander, which I'm still frankly annoyed about the fact that she was able to get promoted ahead of Data who definitely deserved it more, she showed that she struggled with things most people on the ship would not).
    • In the US military, medical professionals and chaplains are promoted on a separate list than regular officers because of their unique professions. They don't compete with each other. Starfleet may operate the same way. Which makes Troi's and Geordi's promotion timelines not comparable.

Geordi's VISOR Headaches

• We're told that Geordi has a headache almost all of the time. We're also told that he sees practically the entire EM spectrum basically all of the time. Would it have been possible to give the VISOR a "visible light only" mode and filter out the extraneous, pain-causing wavelengths (at least filter out most of the pain), perhaps with a temple button to toggle between the two modes?
  • Didn't he refuse several such options because he found all that extra information useful?
  • Was it the extra information he was being fed, or just the fact that he had devices implanted in his temples? It's also funny to note that LeVar Burton's eyepiece was actually screwed to his temples which caused him actual pain. Adhesives or straps wouldn't work, somehow.
    • The impression I always had was that Geordi's headaches wasn't caused just the kind of information being passed through his VISOR to his brain, but were an unavoidable side effect of the interface itself. That the simple act of information being passed through a device into receivers hardwired directly into his brain caused him discomfort because the information couldn't be translated completely without some kind of feedback or pain-inducing static. He's mentioned as having visited Sickbay many times for issues relating to his VISOR, so it is possible that the VISOR itself is a device needing constant adjustments and tuning to keep a clean signal and that without them, the pain would be even worse. It would be like wearing a pair of glasses with a bad prescription for a long period of time; eventually, having your eyes constantly focused in a way they're not accustomed to would cause a migraine.
  • Also worth noting that those with chochlear implants experience some of the same problems Geordi describes- the human body is a hostile environment to delicate circuitry, and even simple things like an electrode shifting place slightly in the brain can result in symptoms like tinnitis and dizziness as the brain re-learns the location of the input.

Was it really Geordi's fault?

• In the episode "Elementary, Dear Data", it is made abundantly explicit that it was Geordi's poor choice of phrasing that caused the computer to augment the AI Moriarty to full sapience (so as to be a match for Data). However, watch the relevant scene again; the Moriarty bot is lurking nearby when Geordi first summons the computer arch, and the bot notices this even before Geordi inputs his poorly-worded instructions. To the best of my recollection, no other holodeck character has ever taken the slightest notice of anything "meta" going on in the holodeck such as the arch or doors appearing (certainly, none of the other characters in the street in this particular case seem to notice anything. This moment would have made more sense if the insert shot of Moriarty taking note of the arch had been spliced in after Geordi had inputted his instructions to the computer.
  • I wonder if this was the result of the computer trying to keep Moriarty in-character. He's one of the three most perceptive characters in the Sherlock Holmes canon, after all; and since that canon includes both Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes, that's really saying something. None of the other holodeck characters notice the arch because none of the other characters are Professor James Moriarty. My personal pet theory is that Geordi's phrasing just made Moriarty capable of coming to the correct conclusions about what he was seeing, instead of folding it into a more contextually appropriate theory.
  • There are possible explanations, but really it feels like an editing mistake. It’s still not Geordi’s fault, because the holodeck shouldn’t casually create a character capable of taking over the ship based on an imprecise language request. Of the computer actually believed he was asking for that, it should have asked for verification and security codes.

Doctor Katherine Pulaski

Pulaski Spazzing Out

• In "Where Silence Has Lease," a godlike being mentions noticing a difference between males and females. And Pulaski freaks out. WTF? Is she some kind of super-prude?
  • You mean this exchange?
  PULASKI: Yes, well, there are minor differences. I'm what we call a female.
  NAGILUM [on view screen]: I understand. The masculine and the feminine.
  PICARD: It is the way in which we propagate our species.
  NAGILUM [on view screen]: Please, demonstrate how this is accomplished.
  PULASKI: Not likely.
  • Where's the freaking out part?
  • Watch it. After "feminine", she gets this panicked look and jerks around, like Nagilum was looking up her hoo-ha.
    • No doubt she was imagining what the fanfic reworking of "Where Silence Has Lease" would be like.
  • Nagilum was supposed to be taking control of her and making her move around like that.

Just a little racist?

• Pulaski's first impression on the audience and the crew was to not only call Data an "it" to Picard with Data sitting right there, but to do it in such a way that she saw him as just a machine with arms and legs. For all Maddox's faults he at least held a professional conversation with Data before implying he might be just a machine. Pulaski even mocked him for the possibility that his name has a correct pronunciation. Perhaps Data's personnel file wasn't yet updated to say "sentient species, show some respect?"
  • It's like a textbook way of setting up a character to be hated by the audience, which is curious since it's a character who's supposed to be one of the "good guys." My big question about Pulaski has always been, did the writers deliberately set her up to fail?
  • Miscalculation from the writers, overall - Pulaski was almost a direct copy and paste of McCoy, which meant that she was given Data to act as a foil to. The problem being, however, while Bones and Spock had a back and forth dynamic of bickering because they were the opposing ends of "heart and head" with Kirk in the middle, there was no "big three" dynamic between the characters of this show, and Data was not antagonistic towards her in return. It came across poorly, as her picking on him while he was doing nothing to deserve it. The writers clearly tried to back peddle some on it as the season went on, actually getting development that gave them the opportunity to have her trust him and mellow out, but the damage had been done in the eyes of the audience and that is the impression that ended up sticking for the audience.
    • There's also the fact that while Spock is proud (in a Vulcan way) of his Vulcan heritage and culture, McCoy finds it at best incomprehensible, at worst disturbing, and is so challenging Spock's Vulcan emotional reserve, and when Spock aptly defends himself and his people, McCoy learns to respect him. Data is unique, even among Dr. Soong's other creations, and Data is not supressing his natural emotions, he has no emotions to supress. What in TOS came across as an emotional vs. intellectual lively debate in TNG comes across as Pulaski making fun of resident handicapped weirdo.
  • Is there any reason she should show him respect? Normally, it's a good idea to treat people with respect, because we don't want to hurt their feelings. But Data will be the first one to tell you that he doesn't have any feelings to hurt. So what's the harm?
    • Other than basic manners, she is addressing Enterprise's second officer. She's being appallingly unprofessional. And as a department head herself, she actually undermines Data's authority with the rest of the crew when she doesn't show him respect. Data's the third most senior line officer on the ship; to be frank, she should call him whatever he tells her to call him.
    • In addition, while Data does not have emotions, as SF Debris points out, he can have preferences. If you push Data out of a chair he's sitting in, he won't get angry like a human would, but it would still find it less preferable to not being pushed out of his chair. He won't be emotionally wounded by the ship's doctor insulting him, but it would be preferable to have a fellow senior officer who does not insult or look down on him, so that he can have a more positive and efficient working and personal relationship.
  • In "Elementary, Dear Data," Pulaski is convinced that Data could never solve a mystery that he hasn't read the answer to already. She says he's only able to store and regurgitate information. But surely she couldn't possibly think that. Data would be incapable of functioning as a Star Fleet officer if he couldn't analyze and react to new stimuli. Pulaski may not believe that he's a living being, but even the ship's computer is sophisticated enough to draw conclusions.
    • The ship's computer can certainly analyze data and draw conclusions, but it cannot decide on a conclusion. It can offer probabilities, but it's ultimately up to the human crew to decide if those probabilities are right or wrong, if the computer is missing something and something else entirely is going on. Pulaski thinks Data is like that: he can analyze and react to a situation, but he cannot realize that the highest probability solution is not always the correct one. She is, of course, wrong, and Data is far more able to problem and mystery solve then she gives him credit for.

Lieutenant Worf

Worf's job in season 1

• What exactly was Worf's job before becoming security chief? He wore a command division uniform, but often was working technical jobs on the bridge. Plus, despite not being a department head or other senior officer, he still hung out with the senior staff at meetings and personal issues. Did they just like him that much that they invited him to hang out with them over the scores of other low-ranking officers, especially considering that there wasn't a consistent chief engineer to be part of the main staff?
  • For what it's worth, the Star Trek: The Lost Era novel "Buried Age" has a scene where Picard is reviewing candidates for his new senior staff, and he refers to Worf's position as the "bridge duty officer," a sort of generalist who's able to step into any bridge post when necessary—and considering how often bridge officers leave their station to attend a staff meeting, join an away team, or because they've been maimed by an exploding console, it does sort of make sense to have someone on-hand who can competently take over in a pinch. As for why he spends so much time with the senior staff, and even occasionally attends senior staff meetings; I always got the impression that Picard saw Worf as a very promising junior officer, and was grooming him to eventually become a department head. In fact, "Lonely Among Us" has a scene that really implies that Picard was subtly mentoring Worf in early season 1:
  La Forge: So, Worf, why the interest in this? It's just routine maintenance on the sensor assemblies.
  Worf: Simple, Geordi. Our captain wants his junior officers to learn, learn, learn.
  • I have always found it strange that there seems to be a lot of random lieutenants on the ship, but none of them are ever considered senior officers.

Worf's baldric

• So we've seen several times in Star Trek that Starfleet is quite strict with its uniform code; Riker tells Ro to lose the Bajoran earring in "Ensign Ro", Tuvok tells Gerren the same in "Learning Curve", plus Chell with his necklace and Henley's headband. Captain Jellico even has Troi put on a proper uniform in "Chain of Command" instead of those god-awful leotards she had. Yet Worf... always gets to wear the massive and very noticeable gold and later silver baldric. Why? I know starship uniform code is down to the captain, and Picard never seemed that bothered (see "Generations" for an example) by neither Sisko or even Jellico (or whoever Worf served for before the Enterprise, if there was one) had a problem with it. You'd think something that big and bulky would be more of a problem than an earring or a headband (and let's not forget that Nog even got to wear one of those Ferengi headdresses as both a cadet and an officer. In fact it caused confusion in "Conundrum" as Worf thought he was the captain as he was more elaborately dressed than everyone else. Either lose the baldric, or let the poor Bajoran wear their earrings!
  • On the other hand both Ro in Ensign Ro and Gerren, Chell and Henley in Learning Curve were seen as troublemakers or worse, and Troi wearing the leotards was apparently in line with something of a tradition of permissibility for officers in specialized positions non-specific to Picard, suggesting that Starfleet might actually generally be fairly relaxed with its uniform code (after all, while they very, very rarely were actually seen the Federation does include some members that would have problems physically complying with the code) — when Worf meets Jellico he has years of service as an able, for the most part loyal officer. Sure, there was his reprimand for killing Duras, but otherwise he has a stellar record. Ro and Gerren... don't (and you'll notice that once she has proved herself as having potential over the course of Ensign Ro, Picard does agree to let her wear the earring). There's also that Worf's duties more than once involved interacting with Klingons, for which the baldric served as a useful visual marker that despite the Starfleet uniform Worf still remembers his Klingon heritage.
  • From what we saw in DS9, wearing the Bajoran earring is not an absolutely necessary part of their religion. It's not like they'll be excommunicated or damned in the eyes of the Prophets if they take them off for long enough to be on duty. However, it's quite possibly part of Worf's culture that he will be dishonored and unworthy and possibly never get into Sto-vo-Kor if he doesn't wear his sash when he's serving his ship, so they let him wear it. It's the difference between "My religion would reeeeally like it if I wore this" and "My religion says I have to wear this."
    • The fact that Ro wears her earring on the wrong ear also suggests she doesn't wear it for religious reasons. The only other Bajorans we've seen who wear the earring on the left ear instead of the right are the Cult of the Pah-wraiths, and they of course only do so in private so as to maintain secrecy. While the novels are non-canon, their interpretation that she's an atheist who sees the Prophets are mere aliens and not divine seems to fit just fine with Ro's on-screen character. So if she's not religious in the first place, certainly she couldn't argue to Riker that he's violating her freedom of religious expression. Something that I would expect the very argumentative Ro to have brought up if she could have.
  • Ro was the only time Picard or Riker made an issue of uniform variations. It was specifically Riker who ordered her to take off the earring, and my sense was that he was acting more out of dislike for her than anything.
    • During an episode of Voyager, Tuvok also insists that a Bajoran Maquis crewman that he's giving extra training to remove his earring. It's pretty clearly part of the uniform code. Now, Riker may be choosing to be more heavyhanded with enforcing it because of his dislike, but it was definitely in there, and enforcing it may be more of a "You can't just get away with doing whatever you want" thing than bullying.
  • Riker immediately expressed a dislike of Ro by reputation and Tuvok was in a version of Drill Sergeant Nasty mode with the Maquis. They may have been quoting regulations for no other reason than to put the screws to them.
• There is a rough analogy here to be made with religious groups like Sikhs and Muslims being allowed exemptions to military dress codes for religious reasons. It's peculiar that Starfleet wouldn't have an explicit policy on such matters, one way or another, since it's not like this is a new issue.
  • Other episodes and expanded universe materials deal with this a few times (and with varying degrees of grace on the part of the characters). Janeway at one point tells B'Elanna that she can't do a Klingon ritual because it would place her life in unnecessary risk; similarly, one of the Starfleet Academy novels has a pair of characters, including an Andorian, being informed that they're not allowed to approach too close to the caldera of an active volcano because it's too dangerous even though the Andorian cites something like "the rite of flames" as being part of his culture that he's supposed to do. So obviously there is some leeway but it has limits.
• Worf never served with Jellico (one wonders how it would have gone!).
  • If Jellico was fine with it, it would have lent itself to the "Worf has to wear it as opposed to just should wear it", since Jellico clearly educates himself in the aspects of cultures he has to do hardline negotiations with. Plus as opposed to Troi's not-uniform uniform, Worf's baldric largely blends in with the overall style of the Starfleet uniforms and thus still looks relatively "professional" as opposed to the overly casual (and cleavage-showing) jumpsuits.
• It could be practicality. The Bajoran earring serves no real purpose and in a fight, can be something for the opponent to grab on to. Worf's baldric can be the same but at least it can be used to hide a weapon or be used, if removed, to strangle an opponent.
• I had always assumed the baldric was recognized as a part of Worf's uniform by the Federation. Remember Worf is not just a Starfleet officer, he's also an heir to the House of Mogh, which gives him a certain amount of standing in both Klingon military and government. This is different from religious or cultural ornaments as it actually represents something. Its a bit like astronauts on the ISS wearing their countries flag but a similar uniform. It represents "I am part of this team, but I am also this".
• Worf is pretty high in the hierarchy, all the other examples mentioned are of ensigns. In Lower Decks the Cerritos has a Bajoran chief of security and he uses the earings, so is likely just one of the things that come with officer status.
• Maybe Worf was granted a dispensation to wear the thing in recognition of some commendable thing he'd done early in his Starfleet career. Or maybe the first member of a species to join Starfleet is automatically granted such a dispensation for a single culture-specific piece of adornment, as a pro-diversity gesture on Starfleet's part; this would account for both Worf's baldric and Nog's headwear. Ro's earring didn't pass, because she wasn't their first Bajoran recruit.
  • No, but the Bajorans were relatively new on the galactic scene. It might simply be that the regs hadn't caught up with addition of another new culture, especially one that isn't actually a member of the Federation. It could also be a sort of division between species where are Federation members and those which are not: if you're a Federation member you have special dispensations for cultural observances that mostly trump Starfleet regulations; if you are not a Federation member regulations trump culture. This would put Worf in the same boat as Ro, since the Klingon Empire is not a member of the UFP, but they are allies and the Klingon Empire is a prominent galactic superpower, this could entitle Worf to an exception other non-Federation members do not receive.
  • It's also worth noting that the Federation & Starfleet treated the Bajorans like crap. They didn't care that the planet was occupied by a dictatorship for 50 years because it wasn't "their" problem. When the Cardassians leave, they offer basic help to Bajor but seem to be doing it more as a gesture to show off to the rest of the quadrant as it's pretty minimal. Their "respect other cultures" mantra only seems to go so far as Starfleet Bajorans get their religion spat on by not wearing earrings(while Tuvok justified it as part of the dress code, he was occasionally called out by other characters for being a jerk throughout Voyager). Sisko is the first one to really start caring after he becomes their prophet, of which Starfleet even openly dislikes. Then after this minimal effort to help the people they start demanding Bajor join the Federation for some reason, likely to expand(one wonders if Eddington comparing them to the Borg was appropriate). They get livid when Sisko prevents it, but don't punish him solely because he's the prophet & it would royally piss off the Bajorans. If not for Sisko telling Bajor to sign a non-aggression treaty with the Dominion they probably would have been conquered.

Not telling K'Ehleyr the details of his discommendation

• As his mate (or at least the mother of his child) doesn't she have the right to know about his enemies in the Empire? You'd think merely being the Federation Ambassador to the Klingon Empire would entitle her to get a briefing from Picard on the subject. If Worf or Picard had told her, she wouldn't have requested information from the Empire, and therefore Duras wouldn't have a reason to kill her.
  • Worf knows K'Ehleyr, and knows that she 1) has poor impulse control and 2) no tolerance for "Klingon nonsense", which means that not only would she not have respected his decision to bear his shame quietly and privately, she might have done something stupid like go charging right at the Chancellor to demand an explanation.
  • He also was, at the time, refusing to formally acknowledge their relationship - if they were to take the oath and acknowledge Alexander as his son, Alexander would bear the same discommendation and dishonor as Worf, and it would probably also damage her standing as the Federation ambassador. The whole point of Worf accepting discommendation was to prevent airing the dirty laundry of the House of Duras publicly and splitting the Empire into civil war, so telling the Federation ambassador (let alone K'Ehleyr as an individual) would have only brought one more person into the secret, making the risk of it coming out and causing civil war more likely. At this point, that was still the driving motivation for Picard and Worf, to keep the Empire intact.
  • It could be as simple as that he hoped to have a face to face conversation about it and the opportunity hadn't yet arrived.
  • Also, her knowing sooner probably would have led to the same result. It was her poking around the Khitomer files got her killed. She didn't even need to confront anybody. Duras sought her out.

Killing Duras

• Is there really any reason for Picard being pissed off at Worf for killing Duras, other than his very human discomfort with how Klingons settle their problems? It's not like it caused a diplomatic incident — as Worf says, he acted according to Klingon law and tradition, and Picard concedes that the High Council agrees and considers the matter closed.
  The Federation is necessarily based on respect for other cultures. Given that, the central question should be, "Does this hurt anyone other than the two meatheads dueling to the death, or damage Federation interests?"
  • If you look at it from an big-picture perspective including later events, you start to see how Worf's actions caused huge problems for the Federation. First off, Worf is a Starfleet officer- and one thing both Klingon and Federation culture is that this means his actions are Starfleet's actions. That makes it look like the Federation was acting in bad faith, and that Starfleet had assassinated their least favorite candidate, calling Gowron's legitimacy into question. Careful spinning of the narrative by the council mitigated immediate fallout in the Empire, but an argument could be made that Worf killing Duras was the exact moment that the Klingon Civil War became inevitable. Finally, Worf was absent without leave.
  • The Klingons saw Worf's killing of Duras as justified within the bounds of their society's rules. Lursa and Bhetor could have easily twisted into looking like a political assassination. Why Starfleet didn't lock up Worf for committing straight up murder is a headscratcher.
  • While it was above board with Klingon law, Worf still violated general Starfleet regs about killing whoever and whenever you feel like it. As Picard points out in his dressing-down speech, Starfleet has multiple species and cultures working as an integrated unit; giving up certain cultural elements (like the Right of Vengeance) is one of the things requires to have that cohesion. As for the Picard/Sisko divide, this event didn't occur during a time of active war, and unlike Sisko, Picard hadn't already crossed the line by engaging in perfidious fabrication of political info (and being an accessory to an assassination) and considered the act an unpleasant but necessary evil. As for why it was only a reprimand, that can be put down to the fact that the High Council didn't raise a big stink about it, Worf's exemplary conduct to this point, and some degree of empathy towards Worf for having his baby mama killed. He still has to point out "Not cool, bro" to him in some way, though.
  • The entire event was also a personal insult and betrayal to Picard on multiple levels, even, or perhaps especially, by the standards of Klingon culture. Given the status of Worf's family house, and Picard being one of the few non-Klingons with esteem and standing in the Empire, there is an unspoken perception that Worf is acting not only as a representative of Starfleet, but as an agent of "House Picard". Worf proceeded to place his personal vendetta over both his duties and Picard's authority, damaging Picard's reputation as an effective commander with the Empire and placing him in a position of personal responsibility for Worf's actions, a violation of his professed neutrality regarding Klingon politics. Above all, however, is that beyond legal, ethical, and political factors, Worf violated the trust Picard had in him- a dishonor by any standard.

Alt Worf promoted ahead of Alt Data?

• In "Parallels", Worf ends up in a timeline where he is First Officer and Data is still Ops Officer. How did that happen? Data has a higher rank than Worf.
  • In the real timeline, even Troi gets promoted above Data. Either Data is just not ambitious enough to put himself forward for promotion, or that Starfleet still has some lingering robophobia.
    • Troi getting promoted to Commander in the first place, let alone rising to the rank before Data, Worf and La Forge is one of the biggest oh come the fuck on moments in the entire franchise. And frankly that is a provable fact considering this promotion eventually ends up with her destroying half of the Enterprise by aiming the saucer section directly into the path of a planet instead of flying up, down, left or right to easily escape the exploding secondary hull.
    • Troi's Bridge-Commander test does contain some hilarious foreshadowing for Star Trek: Generations though, when in all her attempts prior to Riker dropping some pretty big hints on how to pass, she does destroy the Enterprise.
    • This is a variation of the Affirmative Action Girl trope. A long-standing issue with Trek was the tendency of command officers to be male. The trio on the Enterprise was Picard, then Riker, then Data, the latter two having been proven in action to be qualified for command (and Riker having turned down repeated offers of a captaincy). But this resulted in the female characters occupying stereotypical gender roles (Crusher and Troi) or having low rank or no rank (Ro Laren, Guinan and Keiko O'Brien). Thus there was a sense that things needed to be better balanced. Unfortunately, Troi had been written very poorly for so long that it simply stretched credibility. Especially since the test was being administered by her ex-boyfriend. Given the obvious favoritism that such a situation makes possible, it was ridiculous that Starfleet would consider the test results valid. Also, Troi had been written as a semi-civilian for most of the series run, not even wearing a uniform. It would have been better if they had written her as a civilian psychologist/sociologist working on the Enterprise as a representative of the Federation (and not just Starfleet). At the very least, the writers got better with writing credible Action Girls in future series, with Kira Nerys and Jadzia Dax in Deep Space Nine, and Janeway (and to a lesser extent B'Elanna) in Voyager.
  • It could be that Data rose quickly through the ranks and got to Lt. Commander quickly (look how quickly Geordi managed this), and from there was relatively happy with where he was. Data is not one for ambition for its own sake, after all.
    • For the record, Data graduated the academy in 2345 and then became a Lt. Commander by 2360. He still held the same rank by 2379. Troi graduated the academy in 2359. In 2370 she became a Commander. So, even if we ignore the 19 years of Data at the same rank, it took Troi less time to make Commander than it did for Data to make Lt. Commander.
  • Considering that Data needed a judicial ruling regarding his ability to resign his commission, it's entirely plausible that there's some anti-android bias in play with Data's career - One of the novels (The Buried Age) suggested that he spent several years effectively as a filing clerk (if not a filing cabinet, so far as his superiors were concerned), purely because he displayed no ambition, simply agreeing to follow the orders given and did not ask for a more challenging assignment, while his superiors were uncomfortable with the android, and wanted him shoved out of the way where he'd be useful but not involved in anything more strenuous than paperwork. With no advancement opportunities being given to him, and not recognizing that displaying ambition would advance his career, a career that he effectively took on because it could realistically be said to be the least anti-android career option for him, his career stalled for a good number of years.
  • General robophobia in Starfleet aside, you'd think Picard has some say in whether his officers merit promotion.
  • We don’t know what other differences there were in this universe. Yes in the main timeline Data came on board the ship outranking Worf, but no reason to assume it was the same in the alternate universe. It seems the Enterprise had roughly similar adventures despite the loss of Picard but the Bajorans conquering the Cardassians would cause a huge ripple effect. Maybe Worf was able to distinguish himself in battle against the Bajorans early in his career meaning he came on board the Enterprise as a Lieutenant Commander and was security chief instead of Tasha and Data came on board as a Lieutenant and was promoted only when Worf became first officer.
  • This particular alternate universe had a much more military oriented Star Fleet. Worf's aggressive suggestions are more appropriate, and Picard is no longer around to shoot down every single one them. There have been more than a few episodes where Worf's desire to raise shields and fire phasers would cut right through the plot problems without anyone the wiser that a more optimal solution might have been had.

Klingon Measles

• If only Klingons can catch Klingon Measles, and Worf is the only one onboard, how did he catch it?
  • A non-Klingon crewmember might have been an asymptomatic carrier. Or the germs were on some object that Worf encountered. Or he did meet some Klingons recently, offscreen. Or the disease has a long incubation period. Or maybe Worf had it as a child and this is a recurrence, sort of a relatively benign analogue to post-polio syndrome.

Lieutenant Natasha "Tasha" Yar

Try a divorce before a death match?

• In "Code of Honor", why didn't Tasha just agree to be the second wife of the savage, then wriggle out of it later? It could have saved the trouble of the whole "battle to the death" with the leader's wife.
  • Having already tested her martial skills against other Ligonians and knowing enough about Starfleet medicine (she'd at least know that Starfleet can deal with primitive poisons as a security officer) it was probably her first instinct to do what she knew she could accomplish as opposed to try to tackle the unknowns of seeking a divorce or annulment in a culture she's not fully familiar with. She could just as easily be entangling the Enterprise or all of Starfleet in the affair for all she knows if she agrees to become Lutan's second.
  • Actually, Lutan specifically said "First One", meaning she'd become his First Wife, not chronologically, but politically. Basically, Lutan was saying Yar would be his favorite wife, which was the real reason that woman flipped out and immediately declared a deathmatch.

Wot no Tasha Yar in Parallels?

• Given Denise Crosby has returned to make guest appearances as Tasha on at least two occasions (as an alternate universe version of her in "Yesterday's Enterprise" and as her in the past before she died in "All Good Things..." given the fact "Parallels" seems to play on minor differences in the TNG timeline, couldn't they have her make a cameo in which she hasn't died? Did the actress not agree to take part at that point? Or with her being the old security officer, would it perhaps have made things too awkward/noticeable for Worf? Or what?
  • The people in charge said that they decided against bringing Tasha back for "Parallels" as it was too reminiscent of "Yesterday's Enterprise".
  • They did try to make up for it by bringing back Wil Wheaton instead.

Ensign Wesley Crusher

To boldly sit at the helm and do nothing

• OK, to define Wesley's role as "boldly sitting at the helm and doing nothing" is overstating the case a little, as he also helped out in engineering. But why was Wesley on so few Away Team missions? I can honestly remember only two— "Justice" and "Final Mission". (I wouldn't mind hearing the "real" reason, either).
  • This is probably the result of Wesley's scrappydom, people have the tendency to conveniently forget all the good and worthwhile things Wesley DOES end up doing due to the often irrational and baseless hatred that people have for him. He doesn't do any less or screw up any more than any other member of the crew does, impressive considering he's a kid.
  • Beverly objected and/or the crew found it ethically wrong to allow him to be sent on potentially life-threatening missions? He's still just a kid, genius or not.
    • And yet, as mentioned above, Wesley's allowed to play with anti-matter unsupervised.
    • That, you could argue, is at the very least under strict, controlled conditions, with Wesley having relatively firm control over what is happening and what he is doing. It's not quite comparable to a potential life or death situation seen in, say, The Arsenal of Freedom.
  • Wesley has repeatedly demonstrated that he can put the Enterprise in danger of destruction just by working on school projects! Picard doubtless prefers to have Wesley safely seated where he, Riker, Troi, Data and Worf all have an unobstructed line of sight towards him and can watch his every move. It is frankly amazing that Wesley is allowed to go to the bathroom without a security detail holding phasers drawn and set to kill if he touches anything without permission from the Captain. Actually letting Wesley go down to a planet and start poking around was likely to set off a Butterfly Effect resulting in the destruction of the entire galaxy! Picard is genre savvy enough to realize this.
  • Perhaps the events in Justice are specifically the reason for this. Keep in mind that this was in the early first season, the Enterprise-D has just started her mission. The away team took along Wesley to the Edo planet - and he promptly got himself into a situation that would have resulted in his execution, if Picard didn't intervene by breaking the Prime Directive and possibly screwing up future diplomatic relationships between the Federation and the Edo. And Beverly was probably having the worst shock since the death of her husband. (And what if Wesley, an underage civilian ^note Although this may depend on the issue if an "acting ensign" really counts as a civilian or not., indeed had been dead in the end? Hell, this whole affair could even have put and end to Picard's and Riker's careers! ^note It was Picard's idea to send down Wesley in the first place, while Riker, as the one in charge of the away mission, was responsible for keeping an eye on him.) So is it any wonder that Picard as well as Wesley's mother won't allow Wesley to participate in any other away team mission for a long time, in order to prevent something like this to happen again?
  • It's probably as simple as him having ship-based duties, flying the ship or spitballing ideas in engineering, were still him in a relatively controlled environment - if things got dangerous, he could be sent away with a commissioned officer taking over. (This actually happens once where Picard takes the helm to perform a dangerous maneuver so that Wesley won't have to shoulder the responsibility if it goes wrong.) Remember, Wesley only turned sixteen near the end of the first season, so he was eighteen when he was given the red uniform and the official officer's rank rather than being an 'acting ensign.' It's one thing to put the kid at the helm when there are a dozen officers there on the bridge who can take over if needed, it's another thing to send the kid down to a planet possibly filled with hostiles and put him in a combat situation.

Congratulations! You're Being Demoted!

• No Wesley jokes, please: I know the fans all hated him, but in-universe Picard thought highly of him most of the time, and in "Final Mission" certainly meant it as a favor when he arranged for Wesley to enter the Academy after several hundred failures to gain admittance. But whereas in the past Wesley needed to get into the Academy because "Acting Ensign" seemed to offer no career path without the Academy as the next step, once Wesley became a full Ensign and got his red shirt . . . Why would he want to go to the Academy then? Cadets are junior to ensigns. In "Tapestry" and many another, we saw that being promoted to ensign is what happens after you finish the Academy, and even if you don't finish, ensign is still a promotion: Look at what happened to Nog, for instance. So Wesley—who could never get into the Academy when he wanted/needed to but can now that it's become a hindrance to his career path—is going to be reduced in rank, spend years in the Academy, and then be told "Congratulations, Ensign! Now you're back to where you were before you entered the Academy!" No wonder he eventually said "Fuck that noise" and went off to other dimensions instead. But at the time, why would anyone think that demoting him to cadet was a good thing? It seems like something they'd do after he fucked up royally and they had to say "That's it, you're not cut out for commissioned officer duties. Go back to the Academy and learn how to avoid that sort of thing."
  • Actually, from what I understand about Starfleet, Wesley can be a cadet and still hold his Ensign rank. Kirk graduated from Starfleet Academy with the rank of Lieutenant, so it is likely that if Wesley had hung around, he might have been promoted to at least a Lieutenant junior grade when he graduated.
  • Even when he was given his official red shirt, it can be assumed that he was still only acting as an officer with the captain's permission. Maybe the distinction was made that as an "acting" ensign, he was still only doing his duties part-time as long as they didn't interfere with his regular schooling, while as a Red Shirt ensign, it basically became his full-time job until he punches the Academy ticket. Regardless, without an official commission, Wesley's career prospects are at a dead end. As an ensign, he can stand watches at the helm and/or help Data or Geordi out with their special projects du jour, but no one is going to promote a provisional officer over those who've gone through the official career path. So he goes to the Academy, probably with a binder full of glowing letters of recommendation from most of the senior staff, does his four years (which, with his years of hands-on experience, will probably be a breeze), and graduates. Once he does, Picard all but flat out said that he'd request him for a posting on the Enterprise, where he'd probably be in the job he was at before, but on the short list for promotion as soon as humanly feasible. As for his rank while at the Academy, it's likely that his being an ensign wouldn't be recognized outside of the Enterprise, though him being thought highly enough of to have been granted it would surely be worth a few bonus points at the Academy.
  • Nog's promotion to Ensign happened during wartime, which is perfectly understandable. Wesley was only allowed to put on a uniform and pretend to be an Ensign because Picard liked him. But the uniform and the "unofficially official" promotion were just gifts from Picard, in no way an official promotion, as just "being really smart" is not, and shouldn't be, a basis for giving a teenaged civilian a field "promotion", or in this case, a field induction, since "promotion" implies he's a real Starfleet officer. He isn't, and never becomes one.
    • Wrong, wrong, super wrong. The entire point of Wesley being made a full ensign is that he absolutely was a real officer. Before that, he wasn't, hence the "acting" part of his rank. And at that point he has like two years of hands-on experience, which is a higher bar than just "being really smart" as you so snidely put it.
    • The issue is a good deal less cut and dried than either of you have put it. Wesley's promotion to full ensign was definitely Picard pulling strings, and there was very much an implication that his promotion was pursuant to his serving on the Enterprise under Picard. While not directly stated, it does seem to be a rule at the time that only Academy graduates could be considered full officers, and that Wesley's rank had gone from "acting" to "provisional" only. However, one could argue that Picard could have gone before a Starfleet Command panel and made the argument that Wesley's extensive field experience combined with his high IQ and innate understanding of Starfleet technology, practices, procedures and protocol equal the experience he would gain at the Academy and that his performance and conduct are already at officer-level. He does not do this, and a likely answer is that Wesley does not want to take such a path and would prefer to be able to call himself an Academy graduate.
  • Janeway made a very good point to Chakotay in an early episode of Voyager when they were deciding on what jobs the Maquis crew members should fill on board ship: How can we expect seasoned Starfleet officers to take orders from someone who did not even go to the academy? And you know what? she is absolutely correct; only their desperate situation made allowances understandable. If I spent years training to earn my uniform and commission and then some kid comes along who had seemingly everything handed to him for free, I know I would resent that person. And if even a single one of those resentful people learn of Picard's relationship with Dr Crusher, good job deflecting the mass nepotism claims.
  • Where is it ever stated in canon that Wesley isn't actually an officer? In the US military, it's called a direct appointment. It's temporary—one has to attend OCS to keep the commission—but it's real.
  • In the Heinlein novel Starship Troopers there was such a thing as battlefield commission and it was legitimate, but that officer topped out as a captain/Navy lieutenant unless they gave up the rank and went back for the formal education. Maybe Starfleet operates on a similar principle?
  • I kind of assumed once he became a real ensign he could go to the Academy pretty much any time he wanted and that further, he decided to do so when he almost killed his mother while playing with the warp drive in "Remember Me".
    • For whatever reason it seems there is very limited space at the Star Fleet Academy. In ‘Coming of Age’ they take four genius’ pit them against each other and say “any one of you would be a fine officer, but this blue dude won so go better yourself somewhere else, bye”. Then in ‘Ménage à Troi’ Wesley doesn’t make a ship transfer to Earth by a few minutes because he’s busy saving the lives of First Officer Riker, Counsellor Troi and Emissary Troi (daughter of the Fifth House, holder of the Sacred Chalice of Rixx, heir to the Holy Rings of Betazed). Context doesn’t matter apparently, you miss your window and your position is filled. The only reason he got into the Academy is that somebody dropped out of the course and Picard stated Wesley would be able to catch up, and this is after ~11,000 people where just killed by the Borg so you can imagine they’re being a bit more flexible. So I think it is inaccurate (at least in TNG) to say you can just decide to join the academy whenever you want no matter who your recommendations are.