The uber-cadet group Red Squad gets to go on a training mission in a spiffy new Defiant-class vessel. Halfway through, a Dominion attack kills all the senior staff, so the cadets are all that's left. You'd expect: They fly home. They were not sent out as a warship. They're on a training mission. It's obviously over. They don't even have the expertise to make the ship work to its full potential. Instead: The head cadet, having been made acting captain before the last senior officer died, refuses to come home. Instead, he starts running missions against the Dominion, getting the orders from people who think the qualified officers are still running the show. To his credit, he manages to live a while, but eventually gets almost all of them killed in a David Versus Goliath scenario.
The above leads into a smaller What An Idiot moment for Nog, who finds himself aboard this very ship. Nog joined Starfleet. Unlike these idiot cadets, he's actually made it through the academy and outranks them all. Moreover, he's got a civilian dependent (his best friend Jake) to look after. On top of that, he has proof the "captain" isn't fit to command despite all the other reasons he shouldn't be flying the ship (see above). You'd expect: Nog put his freaking foot down and make these people go home. He's got Jake to look out for and his own missions to deal with. Instead: He gets drafted, more or less, and ends up a part of said mission which sees everyone else killed. Jake was even imprisoned during the whole affair. Nog barely makes it out with Jake and a random cadet. Hindsight is 20/20 as he acknowledges that the lead cadet was a bad captain, which he had already seen signs of well before putting himself in the situation.
In "One Little Ship", a new generation of Jem'Hadar soldiers, the Alphas, manage to take the Defiant. One of the older, Gamma quadrant soldiers serving as Second suggests they put the crew to death immediately, lest they try to take the ship back. You'd Expect: The Alpha First listen. After all, the Gamma has probably done this before. Instead: The First not only ignores his Second's suggestions, but pretty much lets the crew work on their own schedule. The Second makes every effort to cover for his superior's idiocy, but ultimately fails. If not for a timely rescue by Dax in a miniaturized runabout, the ship would have blown up the second it went to warp because the crew sabotaged it.
The only problem I have with these two examples is that I thought this trope was supposed to be about idiocy that came about because of bad writing. I don't argue that in both of these examples, the characters involved were acting like idiots, but in both examples, it was plot-related. In the episode with Red Squad, the whole point was that they were making stupid and rash decisions because they wanted to prove themselves. The idiocy of it is commented in-universe. Similar with "One Little Ship", Sisko used the Alpha Jem'Hadar's pride and ego to get him to make stupid decisions. Again, it's a plot point and commented on in-universe.
You'd expect: They fly home. They were not sent out as a warship. They're on a training mission. It's obviously over. They don't even have the expertise to make the ship work to its full potential.
Instead: The head cadet, having been made acting captain before the last senior officer died, refuses to come home. Instead, he starts running missions against the Dominion, getting the orders from people who think the qualified officers are still running the show. To his credit, he manages to live a while, but eventually gets almost all of them killed in a David Versus Goliath scenario.
You'd expect: Nog put his freaking foot down and make these people go home. He's got Jake to look out for and his own missions to deal with.
Instead: He gets drafted, more or less, and ends up a part of said mission which sees everyone else killed. Jake was even imprisoned during the whole affair. Nog barely makes it out with Jake and a random cadet. Hindsight is 20/20 as he acknowledges that the lead cadet was a bad captain, which he had already seen signs of well before putting himself in the situation.
You'd Expect: The Alpha First listen. After all, the Gamma has probably done this before.
Instead: The First not only ignores his Second's suggestions, but pretty much lets the crew work on their own schedule. The Second makes every effort to cover for his superior's idiocy, but ultimately fails. If not for a timely rescue by Dax in a miniaturized runabout, the ship would have blown up the second it went to warp because the crew sabotaged it.
The only problem I have with these two examples is that I thought this trope was supposed to be about idiocy that came about because of bad writing. I don't argue that in both of these examples, the characters involved were acting like idiots, but in both examples, it was plot-related. In the episode with Red Squad, the whole point was that they were making stupid and rash decisions because they wanted to prove themselves. The idiocy of it is commented in-universe. Similar with "One Little Ship", Sisko used the Alpha Jem'Hadar's pride and ego to get him to make stupid decisions. Again, it's a plot point and commented on in-universe.