Should Picard Have Been Retired After BoBW?

[Cpl Kendall]

Simply put should Picard have been retired after Best of Both Worlds? In ST:FC we see he still has lingering effects from his assimilation, possibly some brain damage. And he is clearly not in his right frame of mind when dealing with the Borg IE: refusing to blow up the ship when it becomes clear that they have the upper hand.

So should he have been forced to retire? Possibly becoming an expert on the Borg for Starfleet and reappearing as a guest star occasionaly and allowing Riker to continue as Captain. Lets leave Rikers obvious failings as an officer aside for the moment.

[Batman]

Undecided due to controversial evidence.
IF FC had immediately followed BobW I'd likely say yes. He clearly had issues with the Borg to the point were it negatively influenced his decision-making capabilities something fierce and he would have been better of in some advisory capacity or other.
Alas, it didn't. And Picard showed no ill effects from assimilation throughout all of post-BobW TNG.
There should have been a period of observation but as he DIDN'T show any ill effects (until FC that is) I fail to see how forced retirement would have been justified.

[Something Awesome]

Dr. Crusher and Troi helped him deal with it, and they didn't seem to think he should be retired. They are, after all, medical professionals, and I think I would trust in their judgement, since I'm no psychologist.

Family took place only a few weeks after BoBW, and he was pretty troubled then, but the show moved on after that without much of a mention in the following episodes. I think realistically, he would have needed more than just a few weeks, and he should have been relieved of duty for a while, but I don't think retirement would be necessary. But again, I'm no psychologist.

[LadyTevar]

TNG never really dealt fully with the matter.

[Cpl Kendall]

Dr. Crusher and Troi helped him deal with it, and they didn't seem to think he should be retired. They are, after all, medical professionals, and I think I would trust in their judgement, since I'm no psychologist.

Family took place only a few weeks after BoBW, and he was pretty troubled then, but the show moved on after that without much of a mention in the following episodes. I think realistically, he would have needed more than just a few weeks, and he should have been relieved of duty for a while, but I don't think retirement would be necessary. But again, I'm no psychologist.

Think of how much better the show could have been if his recovery was made a long term plot point rather than a one episode joke. You could have him rendered unfit for duty for an episode or crisis because it's time in his recovery to remove a Borg implant. So Riker and Data have to deal with the latest Romulan plot or alien of the week or what have you. Make his on-going pscyiatrict treatment a recurring theme. Nobody goes through trauma like that and is recovered in a few weeks. At least throw us a bone and show him seeing Troi once a week for a couple weeks. He did after all oversea the destruction of 39 friendly ships, thats got to leave some guilt.

[Cpl Kendall]

TNG never really dealt fully with the matter.

Thats my complaint with TNG and the rest of the latter series in general. They didn't take the ideas to any kind of conclusion, everything was wrapped up by the end of the episode or at the most by the next. Why wasn't Riker court martialled for losing the Enterprise to a handful of Ferengi for example? That would have made an excellent followup to the episode. But I'm hijacking my own thread.

[Batman]

Long-term plot points and realism in TNG. Like that was ever gonna happen.
And you CAN'T hijack your own thread, Cpl. Especially not when you refuse to take it off-topic. A hijack is when somebody else takes your thread in a direction that has nothing whatsoever to do with whatever the thread was about.

[Something Awesome]

Think of how much better the show could have been if his recovery was made a long term plot point rather than a one episode joke. You could have him rendered unfit for duty for an episode or crisis because it's time in his recovery to remove a Borg implant. So Riker and Data have to deal with the latest Romulan plot or alien of the week or what have you. Make his on-going pscyiatrict treatment a recurring theme. Nobody goes through trauma like that and is recovered in a few weeks. At least throw us a bone and show him seeing Troi once a week for a couple weeks. He did after all oversea the destruction of 39 friendly ships, thats got to leave some guilt.

I completely agree with you. There are so many possibilities they could have taken with it. It would have been much more believable to have his recovery last longer. In fact, same thing with being tortured in Chain of Command. There's a talk at the end with Troi, and he reveals he almost broke, but then that's it.

Should he have been retired, though, as per your original post, I'm not sure if it would have been necessary in-universe, and out-of-universe, it would probably have hurt the show. I'd rather see Patrick Stewart play the troubled Captain than to not see him at all save for special occasions. Maybe a season with him recovering on Earth, but not the rest of the show.

[Josh]

Either retired or reassigned to Starfleet Command as their resident Borg expert. It's demonstrable that his inside knowledge gave him an edge against the Borg, which is something that should have been proliferated to the entire fleet. His value to the entire fleet outweighed his value as a ship captain, and even if Starfleet isn't precisely a military institution, both he and his superiors should've realized how many lives he could save in a staff position.

Furthermore, if he was not to be trusted in all circumstances in command, he shouldn't have been in command, let alone in command of the flagship and a vital combat vessel.

That's one of the areas where STNG really shows its age, due to the fact that they kept the episodic format. Almost nothing could have permanent consequences in the show, even when in cases like Picard's, they should have.

[Stofsk]

Or, here's a shocking thought: keep him as Locutus. The assimilation process is irreversible.

Throughout the rest of the show you have him be the enemy.

[frigidmagi]

Part of the problem I think is politics. A federation fleet was destoryed, the inner defenses of the Federation penerated so easily it was near bad comedy and Terra herself was at risk of conquest by an alien empire.

Who did all of this via one ship.

Tell me the populace wouldn't be hovering near panic. Tell the Federation Counsil wouldn't be desperate to avoid being lynched by a public that is now demanding to know why the mighty Starfleet couldn't stop one ship. One Ship. They would be looking to pawn the blame on someone, and to give the public a hero to moon over and distract them.

Picard from what I understand is already semi-famous.

Meanwhile Starfleet Command doesn't want to be hung either. It just got hurt and hurt bad from what I could tell... By One Ship. It needs to regain cred right fucking now and cash in on this oppurity to demand the kind of funding they need to keep this from happening again. Hey... A bright shiney star ship Captain who managed to strike at the enemy despite being in their demonic cluthes!

I'm willing to bet money that the average Feddie wasn't told everything that happen to Picard. I'm willing to bet the story was spun, doctored and twisted around beyond anything you could get away with today in an attempt to keep the folks who almost became the newiest model of drone from panicing and at the same time make them scared enough not to ask their government any questions when it starts pumping cash and resources into military expansion and rearmament.

[B4UTRUST]

Correct me if I'm wrong Frigid, but wasn't the federation a cashless society? I believe it was mentioned a time or two in the series(noteably I believe in the episodes where they retrieved a group of cryogenically frozen people and the first contact movie itself where Picard was explaining the federation to the girl[Lily?]).

[Destructionator XV]

*snip*.

They must have money. They might not call it money, but they have people's time, raw materials, etc which are in limited supply and demand for stuff to be done with that time / materials, which is the basis of an economy. Maybe the individuals don't need to worry about it (which also seems unlikely to me, even Soviet Russia had money for the little people), but on the national level, there is no avoiding the concept of money.

[frigidmagi]

Not to mention they have to trade with the Klingons, Ferengi and etc. Those folks won't take promises and good will.

[Josh]

Picard did out and out state that they'd eliminated the concept of 'money', so much so that investment was a foreign concept to them when they revived those sleepers from the past.

That aside, the PR angle doesn't wash so much. Why not have Picard there on Earth, shaking hands and assuring everyone that this enemy could be beaten?

And honestly, after the second time a cube came rolling through and bashed them down to the ground, only to have the Enterprise bail them out, you'd think heads would roll.

[frigidmagi]

A Starship Captain isn't very reassuring without a Starship and Picard doesn't handle matters of trade. Not to mention we see in certain episodes that Earth is a snakepit in matters politic, do you really want the upright man of the Federation getting close to that?

[Josh]

A Starship Captain isn't very reassuring without a Starship and Picard doesn't handle matters of trade. Not to mention we see in certain episodes that Earth is a snakepit in matters politic, do you really want the upright man of the Federation getting close to that?

I want him at the Academy or the Starfleet equivalent of the War College teaching everyone how to blow the fuck out of Borg cubes and attending the christening of warships designed to blow the fuck out of Borg cubes, myself.

[Rogue 9]

The Federation doesn't have an internal money system; they must use latinum when trading with other nations. But regardless of whether they use cash internally or not, they have to pour resources into any given military expansion even if it isn't technically cash.