Headscratchers / Star Trek: The Next Generation S3E22 "The Most Toys"

• Fajo calls Starfleet a military. This is after the Early-Installment Weirdness of "Peak Performance," where Picard specifically and firmly states that Starfleet is not a military.
  • Fajo may not know that. Or he doesn't care.
  • I assume you’re referring to the line “What a marvellous contradiction. A military pacifist. Tell me, whose dreadful decision was it to enlist you in Starfleet to begin with?” and contrasting this to the line in “Peak Performance” “Starfleet is not a military organization. Our purpose is exploration.” I don’t think the Peak Performance line ever implied that Starfleet had no military function, rather that it was not their primary purpose (in the same way that some modern militaries can have roles such as internal security). They are an exploratory organisation who, due to their design, also serves a secondary function as a military. Similarly, I don't think Fajo's line actually implies Starfleet to be a military (he doesn't actually call it one), rather just to have a military function. Since Starfleet could still take a military role if necessary, and that was never denied, Fajo’s line would seem consistent with what has been stated earlier.
• Out of habit, Picard accidentally calls for Data to initiate a scan after Worf has replaced him. But we've seen that the Ops position is rotating, given that someone needs to be manning it 24 hours a day. Wouldn't Picard be accustomed to a variety of people being at the station?
  • If it's alpha-shift, Picard would be accustomed to Data being on duty at that time.
• Data seems to believe that the only way to be free of captivity is to break out. This is in spite of his early threat that the Enterprise will eventually find him. Why does he make no attempt to convince someone to get word to the Enterprise about his whereabouts? Surely he could tell Varria or Fajo's guests that the Federation would be very grateful to them for passing along his location.
  • Data and Varria only have two scenes alone together. In the first of these scenes, he does try to talk Varria into helping him (even if not specifically suggesting contracting the Federation) and she’s unwilling. To contact the Federation would be dangerous (Does she sneak on to the bridge to send a message? Does she try to escape from the ship, which she’s trapped on, to get a message to them?) Even assuming she managed to get the message to them somehow, if the Federation did show up, for her to get any sort of reward assumes that Fajo doesn't guess she was the one who sent the message and kill her first (and considering she was the only member of his crew who interacted with Data, he probably would guess it was her). The next time Varria and Data are alone, she helps him escape so he has no reason to try to convince her to send a message at this stage. As to Fajo’s guests, the only guest I recall is Palor Toff. He’s very wealthy (so unlikely to be motivated by the reward the Federation could offer) probably engaged in criminal activity (so unlikely to want to deal with the Federation) and the only chance Data had to talk with him was when Fajo was present (so he’d know if the Federation found out, Fajo would blame him).