Star trek glaring inconsistencies/hypocrisy

Post Reply New Topic

In Season 2 Q Who (One where Q orchestrates the crew's first encounter with the borg) I found it quite absurd that Picard chose to succumb to curiosity and investigate the ,then unknown, race Guinan specifically warned him to avoid. Given the fact that the Enterprise is in part a civilian transport one would expect the "Noble captain" to do everything he could to keep them out of harm's way. The end consequence has repercussions that run right the way through to Voyager i.e. humanity appearing on the Borg's list of races to assimilate.

The second absurdity occurs in S3 episode 4 where the Mintakans (Proto Vulcanoid Bronze age race) are being monitored through a concelaed observatory. Considering the inexplicable dogmatism with which Picard and the Federation uphold the Prime Directive it makes no sense that they'd station an observatory on the planet. It turns out that the station malfunctions and all hell breaks loose i.e. Picard is finally elevated to godhood.

I can only comment on your first point.

The Enterprise is an exploration ship, that is it's purpose. To boldly go ect. While there are many civilians and children on board, the ship regularly goes into dangerous situations. I don't see this as a contradiction.

To be honest it makes no sense that a ship that is regularly called to the front lines of battle should be populated with anyone other than serving officers. However Picard's philosophy is at odds with his decision - he placed curiosity above the lives of the civilians

Blame Gene Roddenberry for making the writers work around an untenable premise: an action sci-fi series with families in tow. Captain Picard was gathering data in an unexplored area of space, which is his job AND is just the thing he loves to do. In the second example, the Prime Directive was not violated as long as the observers stayed hidden. You can argue that risking detection was stupid and a de facto violation for taking such a risk, but a scientific agency making a bad decision isn't exactly unheard of.

Based on the thread title I was expecting more talk of holodeck shenanigans here... though I suppose technically those are probably more just ridiculous/nonsensical than inconsistent/hypocritical.