Headscratchers / Star Trek: The Next Generation S2E21 "Peak Performance"

• Worf has the codes to the Enterprise's defense computer due to his position as its tactical officer, which allows him to hack into it and program a phantom Romulan warbird. But he has no special access to the Ferengi vessel, which leaves his ability to program a phantom ship into their sensors unexplained.
  • The defence capabilities of potentially hostile nations, and the state of their ships, seems like the sort of thing that Starfleet Intelligence ought to be keeping track on. Presumably there was some sort of monthly bulletin to all heads of starship security which Worf got.
    • If Starfleet ships have the ability to hack into enemy spacecrafts' sensors at will, you'd think they would acknowledge that in the show and that it would come up again at some point.
  • Alternatively, what the Ferengi crew "saw" on their sensors was just the Hathaway coming out of warp, and with the vessel seemingly destroyed, they simply assumed it was some other Starfleet vessel arriving as reinforcements.
• The Ferengi are aware the Enterprise is battling a grossly inferior ship. Why does Picard not simply explain the situation as the wargame it is?
  • He presumably didn't want to let the Ferengi know that all of their weapons were disarmed.
  • Despite not being a top-secret operation, it would have been very risky to disclose that information. The Ferengi could have gathered a lot of tactical data by monitoring subsequent Starfleet wargames.
• Picard saw the wargame as irrelevant because "Starfleet is not a military organisation" but changed his mind because of the Borg threat. However, the Ferengi attack is during the wargame is a quite standard scenario that justifies keeping a good tactical level. A third party agressor could show as well during a non-military asignment. Disabled weaponry could be required for a science experiment or be caused by a space anomaly.