TNG s7e12 “The Pegasus”
On prevailing theory about the large number of badmirals in TNG era is because the bluegills (parasites from Conspiracy) had infiltrated so many in key positions that when they were wiped out it left big vacuum in admiralty that needed to be filled. So at this point they weren’t able to promote the best and brightest, but instead throw in warm bodies. This lead to people who weren’t qualified and anyone who may have been mildly power hungry…which lead to needing to over promote roles into the vacated captaincy. And not long after that came Wolf359 which needed them to hastily rebuild and restaff those slots.
I like that notion, highlighting the pitfalls of pragmatism. Seems that’ll be the only real sequel we’ll get to the conspiracy bugs.
Does Commodore Matt Decker (TOS: The Doomsday Machine) count?
The first Crookmiral. What a guy.
Absolutely. Took control of the Enterprise under rough circumstances, if only briefly. Couldn’t keep his shit together.
I’d argue Commodore Decker was the prototype badmiral.
Followed shortly by Merik in “Bread and Circuses” as a wayward captain.
Was he the one that started arming prewarp civilizations?
He crash landed in a Roman society and became its figurehead, whilst much of his crew died in the “games” for entertainment of the populace.
Fun idea: Let’s put someone in command of a ship that takes them to edge of reality. Let them experience the horrors of war, constant life and death situations, alternate lifetimes, temporal incursions, alien grudges, and occasionally get turned into a salamander. If they survive, lets ignore all that psychological damage and put them in charge of large swaths of space.
Lorca has entered the chat…
Jfc. That literally explains so much. You want an Admiral to be an administrator, not someone given PTSD by celestial beings.
That dude screwed up Riker so much he had to roleplay the Enterprise finale.
That holodeck experience was just a fever dream and in no way related to canon. Not at all.
Computer, erase that entire holo log.
The one in Insurrection who gets his head ripped apart by that device. I appreciate when the Badmiral gets their comeuppance.
Yeah, the needs of the many do not justify genocide.
Even during the dominion war?
Sisko’s gonna Sisko. What can ya do?
Replace him with someone else, book him for not following orders and misusing federation resources, send him to new Zealand for a bit.
I actually was alluding to the 200 people that Admiral Dougherty was displacing for harvesting those regenerative particles while on the other edge of UFP space the dominion war was happening yet Picard was holier than though giving the Admiral a lecture.
Strange that there should be more than one example of such behavior during that period being enacted by the supposed “good guys” of the story.
That guy that got his head blown up.
They were under the influence of the Bluegills so that doesn’t really count
Only a Lieutenant Commander, but still counts.
Edit: black pip next to the other 2, so Lt. Commander
Yeah, the Admiral from this episode who kicks Riker in the head, though. That’s my guy.
“Vitamins. They do wonders for the body.”
Lt. Commander in Starfleet, but admiral in Creepy Gutbug Hierarchy.
I dunno if this counts but Captain Benjamin Maxwell. He was right, but the way he went about it was horribly wrong. War and PTSD sucks.
He was right, but if he didn’t do what he did the Cardies could have reignited the war.
Most certainly. But his actions, if left unchecked would have reignited the war anyway. Recall, the Cardassians came in guns blazing on the Enterprise. The Federation was also in no state to fight a war, especially with the losses after the Borg.
Maxwell’s actions did, however, do two invaluable things. First, it blew up the Cardassian timetable and second, it forced the Federation to pay attention.
So you could say that Maxwell did indeed save the Federation (and to a lesse extent the Cardassian Empire) from all our war. And all it cost was several hundred Cardassian lives and the career of one Starfleet officer. I don’t know about you, but I’d call that a bargain.
I’ve argued it before and I’ll argue it to the bitter end, but the Cardassians were never a major power, despite how much they like to brag they were. The breadth of the Federation Cardassian War was never outright explained but it’s been suggested it was mostly border wars and skirmishes with the occasional outbreak (Setlik III). It’s been outright stated that Cardassia is a very resource-poor planet, where they had to plunder their own museums to pay for the war effort, and they have to occupy and strip-mine peaceful planets like Bajor. In one of the alternate timelines from Parallels there was a scenario where the Bajorans were able to completely overthrow the Cardassian Empire leading to its collapse and them joining the Federation.
When the Klingons were duped into attacking them as a precursor to the Dominion War, the Cardies had to hide behind the Federation for protection. Then when they turned coat and joined the Dominion they were used merely as cannon fodder.
Back to my point, they were trying to goad the Federation back into the war but likely to get Starfleet to throw the first punch. This would have made them not appear as the aggressors and paint the federation as the villains to either damage their reputation and/or draw other groups to their side. Even during the first war, Starfleet was likely pulling their punches just to avoid political backlash and fallout, and likely why they were a little too accommodating with the treaty and DMZ.
