Headscratchers / Star Trek: Picard S3E01 "The Next Generation"

• Does nobody in Starfleet have any concept of opsec? Picard has Riker meet him to discuss Beverly's "trust no one" message in a busy bar, rather than, say, asking him to beam over to his sprawling private château, which Riker could have done just as easily. (Sure enough, at least one shady character is giving them the eye.) Then just a few minutes later, Musiker messages her handler aloud in the street in the middle of a Wretched Hive, announcing herself by her full name and Starfleet Intelligence title, rather than sending them a text message, or returning to her ship or wherever she's sleeping to message them privately.
  • Rule of Drama applies here.
    • Not in the second case (nobody appears to be listening to her, not that she could know that), and in the first case it's not crucial that someone overhear them in the bar, since Beverly has already alluded to her enemies having eyes and ears all over. Having the conversation in the open just makes them look foolish.
• Beverly specifically tells Picard, "No Starfleet." Who's the first person he turns to? Currently serving Captain Riker.^note While, incidentally, right in the bar owned by the one civilian he would probably trust the most. All right, fine, surely Beverly didn't mean their old Enterprise shipmates (though she hasn't spoken to Will in 20 years either). But what's Will's bright idea? Immediately head for spacedock, swan conspicuously onto a Starfleet ship in active service (where it's implied that they get spotted by still more moles), and try to persuade the current captain of his old command, who he doesn't even like, to help them out. And sure enough, he turns them down flat. Sure, they don't tell him the real reason, but they hardly have to if they're going to run around acting that suspiciously.
  • That said, it's a good thing Picard ignores Beverly's warning and loops Will in, since for some reason she decides to encode the coordinates using a reference Picard wouldn't get, since he was assimilated at the time.
• Who in Starfleet authorised a phaser rifle that audibly declares to anyone in earshot that it is out of ammunition? That's a quick way to get people killed - and it got Beverly shot. (There's not even a good Doylist reason for it either — they could have just as easily had a half-second close-up on a display panel on the rifle showing the same message, or on a gauge showing empty, or played a worrying but subtle clicking noise, or...)
  • Either Rule of Drama, Rule of Funny, or that rifle is a civilian version with that feature baked in. Or perhaps it's a feature that can be toggled on and off for training exercises that wasn't turned back off.
• How does a random street level drug dealer know any details about a planned terrorist attack?

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