Poll of the Week: It’s Been a Long Road...

[Laria Herren]

Of all the famous Starfleet captains, there are few who have made as many controversial decisions as Captain Jonathan Archer of the NX-01. Archer’s Enterprise was the first Warp Five starship built by Humans. It was Earth’s first deep space explorer, and Starfleet itself was still a fairly new and inexperienced organization. Captain Archer did not have any of the benefits that future Starfleet captains enjoyed. He had access to less data, was a member of Starfleet when the organization was relatively weak, and didn’t have the experience of previous Starfleet captains to call on as he was the first to go out into the unexplored reaches of space. Archer would eventually serve as a role model for his successors, teaching them both what to do and what not to do.

Mistakes, even major mistakes, have happened with every captain. Some have even acted in a criminal manner. Some of Captain Archer’s decisions do make some sense given the lack of precedent and his limited experience. However, there are some decisions that seem to indicate a simple lack of good command skills. The use of an airlock to torture a prisoner is just one example. We’d like to know what you think of the command decisions of one of Starfleet’s earliest captains. What do you think is the worst thing that Captain Archer did?

[Blaidd Vescori]

For me without a doubt withholding a cure for that scientifically unfounded interpretation of what 'evolution' is. Many of his other missteps can be forgiven or at the very least you know and believe that he is trying to do the right thing. But dreaming up that evolution as an entity has selected someone to die out and it would be his job to deny them medical help when they ask for it is something I can't excuse.

Compared to that, 'A night in sickbay' is harmless. 😉

[Jona ch'Ranni]

Had to go with the option: Mistrust of T'Pol and Vulcans in general. Archer let his specist preconceptions about an entire race cloud his judgement. He imposed his human thinking and viewpoints on them. Who is to say that their ways of logic are not better? They are at least as valid as his more impassioned human thinking. That is one precept of the Vulcan concept of Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations (IDIC). There are many ways of perceiving a situation and reacting to it. All of these methods of thinking should be valued and accepted as alternate paths, each with their own positives and negatives. Cultures should not be blanket judged as a whole.

[Carmen Tis]

I had to go with withholding the cure too.
Genetics or not, no matter the species, if you can stop extinction & you know it....do it!