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Why are so many senior Starfleet officers corrupt and/or insane?

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The United Federation of Planets is our future in the Star Trek universe. It’s a utopia in which money is a forgotten relic, and the human race lives in near-harmony with their alien friends.

The Federation Starfleet explores the boundaries of time and space, and protects the peace. Their elite ranks are accessible only to the very best – the highly competitive entry exam tests everything from Hyperspace Physics, to forcing potential recruits into surprising situations to watch their reactions. The Psych Test forces a candidate into a situation in which their greatest fear is made manifest, and a passing mark is only awarded to those that overcome the trauma with their sanity intact. Of hundreds of candidates in each exam, only one is given entry.

As they progress through the ranks, the new recruit learns the careful essentials of space diplomacy, while gaining the knowledge and experience to prepare them for command. After decades they are finally ready to assume captaincy of a Starship, and eventually join the sage ranks of the Admiralty.

As soon as they receive their pips, they then turn into insane, corrupt, and deranged megalomaniacs, whose crimes range from starting wars, attempted genocide, and overthrowing the Earth.

Here’s the hall of fame:

Admiral Cartwright

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Arranged the murder of the benevolent Klingon Chancellor Gorkon, and framed Captain Kirk and Doctor McCoy for it, resulting in the two innocent officers being sentenced to life imprisonment at a harsh penal colony. Arranged a (failed) assassination of the new Chancellor, in a scheme designed to provoke a war that he was certain the Klingons would lose.

Insanity rating: ***


Admiral Dougherty

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Formed an alliance with an alien race of drug dealers – who supplied combat narcotics to the Federation’s enemies – in order to remove an innocent race from their home. The Admiral hoped to harvest the exotic matter of the innocent race’s home to grant himself and others immortality. He was willing to sacrifice the lives of many to get this, and idiotically trusted the lead drug dealer who was an unstable sadistic lunatic.

Insanity rating: ***


Admiral Forrest

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A race called the Xindi had just launched a devastating attack on Earth that killed millions. To track the Xindi down and either defeat them – or broker peace – the Admiral gave the job to the insanely incompetent Captain Archer – a man so terrible at diplomacy that he allowed his dog to piss all over the sacred statues of a race he needed to impress.

Insanity rating: *


Admiral Haftel

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Develops an obsession with acquiring Data’s only daughter, who was barely a few weeks old at the time. His quest to take her from her father causes the child to die in fear during an emotional nervous breakdown. The admiral destroyed his obsession and robbed Data of his only offspring.

Insanity rating: **


Admiral Janeway

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Executed Tuvix – the only Talaxian/Human hybrid in the universe; supplied bioweapons to The Borg; made the violent and unstable B’Ellana Torres the Chief Engineer of Voyager over the calm, experienced and trained Joseph Carey; refused to use Warp 10 technology to get her crew home despite having a flawless cure for any side effects; falls in love with a holodeck Irishman then deletes his wife from existence; is tormented by a psychic torture probe, then repairs it so that it can go on to torment others; employees Neelix of all people as her ship’s Ambassador; and many many other examples – just watch SFDebris.

Insanity rating: *** (and she got promoted before Picard and Sisko)


Admiral Leyton

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Sabotaged Earth’s power grid, used technobabble to open and close the Bajoran Wormhole at random intervals to scare the Federation into thinking cloaked ships were coming through, framed Ben “Don’t Fuck With The” Sisko as being a Changeling, and eventually tried to take over the Earth in a military coup.

Insanity rating: ***


Admiral Nakamura

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Allowed the inexperienced scientist Maddox permission to disassemble Data, with the intention of eventually creating an Android slave race for the Federation.

Insanity Rating: *


Admiral Nechayev

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Chastised Captain Picard for not using a Borg child to commit genocide. Was one of the founders of the Cardassian-Federation treaty that traded human worlds to a warmongering race of conquerors for a very shortlived peace. The result was the Marquis rebellion, and the deaths of many hundreds of thousands.

Insanity Rating: **


Admiral Ross

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Sanctioned a Section 31 Plan to destroy the life and career of an innocent Romulan woman, so that a Starfleet Intelligence stooge could be installed in her place.

Insanity Rating: (half a star)


Admiral Pressman

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Attempted to use an illegal experimental weapon on his ship, causing a mutiny and the deaths of most of the crew. Put the crew of the Enterprise D at risk in his attempts to retrieve the weapon.

Insanity Rating: ***


Captain Braxton

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Insane future time-travelling Captain, who develops an obsession and sadistic pleasure with killing the crew of Voyager again and again and again, Suffering a future condition called Temporal Psychosis.

Insanity rating: ****


Admiral Satie

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A paranoid McCarthyist who took great pleasure in using conjecture and circumstance to destroy the careers of good and innocent men. Led a long and pointless witchhunt that destroyed the reputations of anyone she saw as an interesting target.

Insanity rating: ****


Admiral Jameson

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Supplied weapons to terrorists and covered it up. He later took two vials of reverse ageing drugs, and degenerated into youth and insanity.

Insanity rating: ****


Commodore Decker

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Went mad after an encounter with The Planet Killer and crashed his own ship into it in a futile attempt at revenge.

Insanity rating: ***


Commodore Stocker

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Decided to violate intergalactic law by using The Neutral Zone as a shortcut to reach a starbase. Nearly started war with this idiotic act.

Insanity rating: * (Idiocy rating: ****)


SPOILERS FOR STAR TREK XII

Admiral Marcus

Woke Khan, and held his crew hostage to force the megalomaniac to work for him. Created himself a colossal warship, and tried to sacrifice the crew of the Enterprise in an attempt to provoke a huge war with the Klingon Empire. Attempted to murder the entire crew of the USS Enterprise.

Insanity rating: ****


Captain Garth

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Once a hero of the Federation, he suffered from a diseased mind and became a criminal lunatic, who took over his own asylum. Attempted to lead a crew of insane inmates to conquer the Enterprise.

Insanity rating: ****


Captain Maxwell

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Led a one-ship war into Cardassian space, killing many people with little evidence.

Insanity rating: **


Captain Ransom

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Enslaved an alien race and burned them alive for ship fuel, removed the moral subroutines from his ship’s holographic surgeon to turn him into a torturer.

Insanity rating: ****


Captain Tracey

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Trapped on an alien planet (having inadvertently killed his own crew by exposing them to a lethan virus), Captain Tracey armed one of the planet’s factions with Phasers, allowing them to massacre thousands in another faction.

Insanity rating: ****

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There are loads more too.

Why are they all nuts?
 
All those people are human. Out of billions of us, a few, even in a utopian like future for earth, there are bound to be a few to get through the ranks of the federation and become either nuts, power hungry, or paranoid.

The Federation should have gone ahead with the phase cloak tech. Shit like that would have ended the dominion war in a quarter of the time. Large dominion fleet? Phase cloak a bunch if super high yield torpedo warheads into the middle of their fleet, push button, dead dominions. Same with the borg. They could end any borg threat with the simple phase cloaking of weapons into their ships, and be home in time for dinner.
 

BorkBork

The Legend of BorkBork: BorkBorkity Borking
From the lens of TNG, here's a great piece on how Picard and the Federation have fallen out of step:

http://wrongquestions.blogspot.ca/2011/04/lets-see-whats-out-there-part-iv-keep.html

There's a compelling reading of late Next Generation in which Picard is regarded by his fellow officers and the Federation's top brass as an increasingly out of touch throwback, a moralist who won't recognize the difficult realities of the political situation in the quadrant, and who insists on clinging to his ideals come hell of high water, and regardless of what his principled actions, such as exposing the forbidden cloaked ship to the Romulans at the end of "The Pegasus," cost the Federation. (Insurrection, in which the Federation council is so shattered by the Dominion war that they conspire with a race of arms dealers and bioweapon manufacturers to displace an entire people, only for Picard to commit mutiny against them, really only makes sense if you apply this reading to the show.)
 

BigDes

Member
Not the point.
You can probably find a madman or two in any group, but that's a lot of madmen for a rather small group (admiralty consists only the top, meaning they number very few).

Isn't that list of people stretching out over 100 years though?

I mean I have no idea of when and where the various series interconnect but I'm sure that taken over a century or so it actually isn't all that many people?
 

BocoDragon

or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
Because in fiction, there's nothing more compelling than an evil superior.
 

sangreal

Member
I don't have an answer, but great OP. You left out Sisko though. His plot to bring the Romulans into the Dominion War is just as bad as any of the other crazy admirals except it was successful
 
"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men."

- John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton, first Baron Acton (1834–1902)
 

Ovek

7Member7
Some of them are just misguided attempts at improving/helping the Federation. Anyway you don't get to be an Admiral/Captin by not taking any risks after all.
 

Woorloog

Banned
Isn't that list of people stretching out over 100 years though?

I mean I have no idea of when and where the various series interconnect but I'm sure that taken over a century or so it actually isn't all that many people?

How long does an admiral serve? And then we must remember that people in ST world probably live longer than they do now... I mean, you probably don't have but a ten or so admirals in a hundred years.

OTOH; i think i figured out the problem:
The Psych Test forces a candidate into a situation in which their greatest fear is made manifest, and a passing mark is only awarded to those that overcome the trauma with their sanity intact. Of hundreds of candidates in each exam, only one is given entry.

They ain't actually sane, it is just a delayed reaction...
 
I dunno, the timespan you're covering is centuries, so I'd say that seems like a pretty good track record?
Isn't that list of people stretching out over 100 years though?
It goes from Enterprise to Voyager so that's over 200 years.
 

BigDes

Member
All I know is that if I was sitting on a ship capable of reducing planets to ashen wastelands then I would be itching to use them on anyone that looked at me crosswise
 

JSoup

Banned
Power has become the new money, makes sense that people would start throwing their weight around as soon as they get it.
 
Not the point.
You can probably find a madman or two in any group, but that's a lot of madmen for a rather small group (admiralty consists only the top, meaning they number very few).

I think it's a fair point; you can find some amount of corruption and ineptitude at every level of power these days, it isn't that much of a stretch to assume that a lot of people in power in this fictional future still have very human failings.
 
How long does an admiral serve? And then we must remember that people in ST world probably live longer than they do now....

I'm thinking they do. Bones was 137 years old when he was on TNG in the first season, and he seemed to be doing just fine memory wise, and he was walking around like an old man walks around. Given that Deforest Kelly never appeared on TNG again and no info was given in what year his character died, he could very well lived to the age of 150 or greater. Since the oldest person we know of these days lived to be 120, you would be right in assuming people in TNG Trek live longer.
 

Woorloog

Banned
I think it's a fair point; you can find some amount of corruption and ineptitude at every level of power these days, it isn't that much of a stretch to assume that a lot of people in power in this fictional future still have very human failings.

Ah but you don't find that much ineptitude and madness in today's top positions. Well, certainly not within ONE (military) organization.
Current-day people are seemingly savvier than Star Trek folks about this.
 
OP is amazing

Braxton was berserk, but there was something about Nechayev that makes my skin crawl. The Search pt. 1 and 2 are so much better by having her around.
 

xandaca

Member
Socialism.

But seriously, I sort of love how Starfleet is all morally high and mighty when I can't remember a single admiral (apart from promoted recurring characters) who hasn't been hopelessly naive and all too willing to sell out every one of Starfleet's principles and values on an ill-considered whim.

Edit: And the OP is wonderful.
 
Ah but you don't find that much ineptitude and madness in today's top positions. Well, certainly not within ONE (military) organization.
Current-day people are seemingly savvier than Star Trek folks about this.

None that you or I are a aware of, at least, but perhaps I have a far lower view of the morality and mental stability of people in power than you.
 
In regards to the OP didn't picard turn down admiralty before Janeway got back?

Also Starfleet is crazy yo. Section 31 who? Fuck that Federation top brass knew exactly what was happening.
 

Woorloog

Banned
None that you or I are a aware of, at least, but perhaps I have a far lower view of the morality and mental stability of people in power than you.

Morals are difficult to measure. A selfish individual may still want to do his or her best to serve his/her nation, though probably in way that doesn't involve asking others opinion first... Is wanting to serve bad?
Of course they might just want to affect things because they can, or change things to be more beneficial for themselves. But then many people want that, regardless of their position in social ladder.
Also, do you think people who have opposed beliefs/politics (or same ones for that matter) really don't do what they think is right?
I do believe the best of most people, ultimately, but there are rotten people too.

Mental stability? As in mental illnesses? Are odd beliefs, fanaticism a sign of mental instability?
How do you define this?
 
Some of them I actually agreed with to some degree.

Like the admiral from Insurrection. So there's this radiation that's surrounding a planet which by harvesting it we can save and extend the lives of billions of people on numerous worlds. All we have to do is move 500 people who aren't even indigenous to the planet. Yeah, I think that is more than worth it.

Or the guy who was working on the cloaking system. While he went about it the wrong way and was an asshole, he had the right idea. How many lives could have been saved during the Dominion War alone if they had cloaking technology?

Also the Section 31 guy. There's no way the Federation would survive this whole time without something like Section 31.
 

XiaNaphryz

LATIN, MATRIPEDICABUS, DO YOU SPEAK IT
I wouldn't list Captains as senior officers - should be Rear Admirals and higher only.

Here's a challenge: how about listing all the senior officers who weren't crazy/insane/mad with power?
 
Not everyone in power or more importantly, people who want power are necessarily insane/bad

Buttttt Faction infighting makes a more interesting story, and it is topical usually.
 

foxtrot3d

Banned
I laughed pretty good and Janeway and Forrest.

The real answer is to obviously make the series Captain look good and moral in comparison to his superiors.

But seriously though how did Janeway and Archer ever become Captains? They are just terrible at their jobs.
 

Woorloog

Banned
Buttttt Faction infighting makes a more interesting story, and it is topical usually.

Out of universe explanations are damn boring.
In universe explanations can make good stories (why did this happen?), or they highlight how hilariously badly written something was.
 
Geek mode on
Tuvix: Talaxian-Vulcan Hybrid, not Talaxian-Human.
Geek mode off

Great list. Obviously, insanity lends itself to dramatic tension.
 
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