The Daystrom Institute Technical Library has recently taken a survey of the worst command decisions of the five Star Trek captains. I was wondering what everyone else thought.
Though I agree with them that Archer shouldn't have condemned an entire race to death, I'd have to say their other conclusions were fairly suspect.
Picard's humanitarian decision to not use Hugh as a weapon was morally correct. Given the limited understanding of the Borg at that time, it was not truly possible to tell if Geordi's logic puzzle concept would even work.
Hands down, the worst decision Picard ever made was charging off with Beverly and Worf on a covert operation (TNG: "Chain of Command"). It wasn't the type of mission he should have volunteered for - a younger, faster operative would have been able to get the hell out of there before the Cardassian trap snapped. Even if the whole point of sending Picard away was just to have Jellico sneer at the Cardies for a week, Picard would have gotten a lot more out of a peaceful book read on a garden planet.
Dating Nella Daren deserves a dishonourable mention - it was so unprofessional I can hardly believe Picard could possibly have done such a thing.
Janeway's decision to destroy the Caretaker's Array (VOY: "Caretaker") might have been a strategic blunder, but was tactically reasonable, given that she was outgunned by the Kazon and didn't have the time to unlock the weapons on the Array - weapons the Kazon clearly wanted for themselves.
What bothers me more is how the Ocampa were basically left to die -- "safe" for a few more years underground, but slowly and assuredly to be yet another Kazon war prize. By the time Voyager was blasting its way home, whoever survived the resource crash was probably enslaved by the Ogla. Funny Kes didn't take issue with that in "Fury".
That Sisko was forced to drop the bomb on a Maquis settlement (DS9:"For the Uniform") was an unfortunate but necessary consequence of Eddington's similar poisoning of a Cardassian planet -- anything else would have meant war with Cardassia. Indeed, nothing on DITL's list for Sisko is all that questionable - taking on the role of the Emissary was worth it just to save Bajor from a second occupation (DS9: "Rapture"). It may have been unprofessional to become a religious leader, but then Sisko. Is. Not. Picard. Plus, does it really count as a *command* decision?
More questionable was Sisko's consent to Miles O'Brien being set off on Intelligence missions to god-knows-where all the damn time. I'd have done more to protect my chief engineer.
And I'm not sure Kirk ever made a command decision that rose to the level of "good".
