Female Starfleet Captains and why Michael Burnham’s the worst

(Originally posted to RedshirtsAlwaysDie.com)

For as interesting as her rise to Captain on Star Trek: Discovery has been, Michael Burnham is the weakest written female Captain in Star Trek history.

In Star Trek’s over 50 year history, we’ve had a number of female Starfleet Captains, and most of them have benefitted from a writing staff who cared deeply to make them strong characters. Even during the 90s, when women like Jeri Ryan were mostly objectified and used as sex symbols to get viewership numbers up, the female Captains were generally treated differently.

Going all the way back to The Next Generation episode, “Yesterday’s Enterprise”, we’re introduced to Rachel Garrett, Captain of the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-C). As her story goes, she responded to a distress call from a Klingon Outpost at Narendra III, who were under attack by a squadron of Romulan Warbirds during a time when the Federation and the Klingon Empire weren’t exactly as friendly as they later would come to be.

Even after being sucked into a temporal rift which sends her ship 22 years into the future, she understands her place in time and decides to return to her proper time in hopes to better the future. But it’s her call to duty and dedication to the Federation’s morals to attempt to give aid when requested, that her and her crew’s ultimate deaths are viewed as honorable by the Klingons, which sows the seeds for the eventual Khitomer Accords peace treaty between the United Federation of Planets and the Klingon Empire. We may not have known her for long, but what we do know of her are her extreme heroics in the face of adversity.

August 6, 2023 0

Trekology: Voyager & The Redemption of Thomas Eugene Paris/Nick Locarno

It’s really no secret, Robert Duncan McNeill’s character on Voyager is directly tied to his appearance as Cadet Nicholas Locarno on The Next Generation’s “The First Duty” Season 5, Episode 19. The premise of the episode is that Starfleet Cadet, Wesley Crusher is involved in an accident that claimed one of his fellow cadet’s lives when their squadron decided to go against Starfleet rules and attempt a banned formation in flight school. The squad’s leader, Cadet Nicholas Locarno is the one behind all this, and after the loss of a fellow cadet, Nick instructs his team to lie to the inquiry panel to save their own tails and put all the blame on their deceased friend.

Wesley, having the generally good moral compass he does, isn’t keen on lying to the panel of Starfleet Admirals, however he is also pressured by Locarno into believing that the team must stick together. It’s not until Captain Picard figures out what the squad was attempting, and threatens to out the cadets to the inquiry panel, that Wesley ultimately does come clean about the whole ordeal. In the final scene of the episode, we’re told that Locarno ended up taking all the blame for the incident and the brunt of the punishment as he continues to believe that the team comes first…before the truth.

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June 9, 2023 0

It’s really no secret, Robert Duncan McNeill’s character on Voyager is directly tied to his appearance as Cadet Nicholas Locarno on The Next Generation’s “The First Duty” Season 5, Episode 19. The premise of the episode is that Starfleet Cadet, Wesley Crusher is involved in an accident that claimed the life of one of his fellow cadet’s when their squadron decided to go against Starfleet rules and attempt a banned formation in a flight demonstration. The squad’s leader, Cadet Nicholas Locarno is the one behind all this, and after the loss of a fellow cadet, Nick instructs his team to lie to the inquiry panel to save their own tails and put all the blame on their deceased friend.

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Trekology: Voyager & The Redemption of Thomas Eugene Paris/Nick Locarno

August 25, 2022 0