Stupidest Starfleet crews ever

posted on January 31st, 2009, 8:07 pm

Ok, I'm opening this thread to hear the community's opinion on which were the stupidest Starfleet crews we see in the show. Here are my nominees:

1st place: The crew of the Ent D in Generations. The Duras sisters were pummeling the ship with torps and disruptors coming through the shields but NONE of the bridge crew decided was necessary to change the shield harmonics. A simple adjustment would have left a big FU for the 2 klingon broads but instead they choose to take the pummeling and blow the Ent D up(or at least the stardrive section)

2nd place: The crew of the Odissey and the senior officers on DS9. Why? Prior to going in the Gamma quadrant we hear O'Brien: I've equiped the runabouts with extra banks of photon torpedoes. Yeah, good work there chief, if there was someone to use them, would be even better. I don't remember seeing one torp being fired. They fired only those crappy type 4 phasers that can barely scratch anything. As for the Odissey's crew, they are even more stupid. The Galaxy class has 2 front and 1 aft mounted type 3 torp launchers that can fire 10 torps per burst. That's 20 torps in front and 10 aft. When they saw the 3 fighters coming in attack formation, they could have easily fired a full spread and blow all 3 bugs to atoms. But no, let's let them rip us to shreads with their poleron beams, and then make a run for it. And what's even more hilarious is that the bug that rammed the ship came in front, so they had another chance to blow it to pieces with their torps but they didn't.

I wanna hear other nominees pls

posted on January 31st, 2009, 9:16 pm

The crews of pretty much all the ships envolved in the Dominion war seem to have been quite stupid...
In the great battles in DS9 nearly no ship (wheter it is klingon, romulan, starfleet, or dominion) is shown having a shield effect when its hit. (there are exceptions)
Very many ships received hull damage immediantely and got destroyed by 2 or 3 phaser hits, so probably their crews just somehow forgot to activate the shields...

I know there are explanations like "they put all the energy into their weapons and engines" and such, but I have not yet heard any explanations why they should have done such a thing. (especially in a relatively tight formation where you cant dodge anything)

The second thing is that only few ships in those battles actually used torpedos. (the defiant, dominion battlecruisers and a few akiras were among the only ships that did)
The crews must have been quite stupid not to employ their most powerful weapons more frequently.

Then, there are the drones on the borg probe that got destroyed when Voyager beamed a torpedo aboard... I mean, shouldn't a mighty race like the borg be somehow able to predict such a stupid trick?

posted on January 31st, 2009, 9:54 pm

The generations example gets extra stupid points.  Remember, after the Enterprise-D fought the Borg, the computer was programmed to automatically change harmonics at extreme speed...with a button-push.

And yes, the 'beaming a torp on board' thing...I can kinda see the Borg ignoring beam-ins.  But an antimatter-device?  Um...no, it's just beamed back into space with those fast, effecient Borg transporters.

posted on January 31st, 2009, 11:09 pm

The crew of the Enterprise B deserves more stupid points than all of those combined. Kirk: "Do we have photons?" Captain: "Tuesday." Kirk: "Phasers?" Captain: "Tuesday." Kirk: "Tractor beams? Don't tell me, Tuesday." Come on! A starship should never leave dock without at least phasers! What kind of idiots would allow that?

posted on January 31st, 2009, 11:50 pm

The crew of the Enterprise A were a bit dense, although perhaps I'm not giving them their due credit - at the end of Star Trek 6 The Undiscovered Country, they carried out a little research project into plasma detection in a about 40 seconds (while they were being attacked). Maybe it's Starfleet who were being dumb. They had years to figure this out, but actually, if I had access to holodecks which could recreate kylie minogue, I wouldn't get much work done either. Funny how a few Klingon torpedoes can be a wake up call.

posted on February 1st, 2009, 3:19 am

The crew of the Enterprise B deserves more stupid points than all of those combined. Kirk: "Do we have photons?" Captain: "Tuesday." Kirk: "Phasers?" Captain: "Tuesday." Kirk: "Tractor beams? Don't tell me, Tuesday." Come on! A starship should never leave dock without at least phasers! What kind of idiots would allow that?

You do realise they were going on a test flight, right? They were planning to bring Kirk and his pals on board, leave spacedock, fire up the engines, swing around Pluto, come back again and let the media throng drool over Kirk for a few hours... that was it... It was nothing more than a publicity stunt, no doubt meant to get people used to the idea of an Enterprise without Kirk commanding it (and yes I know the original Enterprise had April and Pike commanding it before Kirk, but that was before the ship became truly famous)...

They had absolutely no way of noing they were going to get thrown into a life-and-death situation and indeed, the related problem of there never being any ships within the vicinity of Earth able to be quickly dispatched to respond to a suddenly crisis was apparently fixed by VOY: Endgame, where the sphere that came through the transwarp conduit was ambushed by an entire fleet...

So yea, the Ent-B nexus incident is hardly an example of stupidity on the part of the Ent-B's crew... More bad luck, really...


No, my vote would have to go with the Ent-Ds crew and their inability to change the shield harmonics when the Klingon weapons started passing right through them... You'd think that'd be the first thing you'd try...

"Sir, the torpedo came right through our shields!"

"What!? Remodulate them!"

That makes sense, right?

Not to mention that they didn't even bother to blow the BoP out of the water with a photon salvo... It's not like the Bird was manuvering... Idiots...

posted on February 1st, 2009, 4:17 am

The other 10 ships after the first 29 were destroyed at Wolf 359.

posted on February 1st, 2009, 10:14 am

Every redshirt crew in Star Trek. Make a list of all unknown crews that did something smart during the show, it'll be shorter.

posted on February 1st, 2009, 12:06 pm

Then, there are the drones on the borg probe that got destroyed when Voyager beamed a torpedo aboard... I mean, shouldn't a mighty race like the borg be somehow able to predict such a stupid trick?

That's one thing about the Borg that ensures they will never attain perfection. Their very way of thinking is flawed in that it doesn't allow for ingenuity. They don't adapt (or predict) because if they did then they would have adapted to Voyagers unorthodox tactic. Instead they assimilate: they acquire knowledge and add it to their collection of knowledge. In essence, everything they assimilate will be no better or worse than it was when still under the control of the host species. Nothing new will be created, only collected from other species. With the Borg, it seems it is much like; "If we haven't encountered it yet then it doesn't exist", as oppose to any other species out there which will be like "ok, that's not a usual tactic. WHY did they do that, what will happen and how can I make it not happen!"

Of course, assuming the probe was transmitting the tactical data of this fight in real time, then it's fair to say that the collective has now "assimilated" the information regarding the beam-in torpedo tactic so it won't work anymore.


As for my nomination, I'd go for a wide sweep of everytime a Star Fleet Captain has had to say "Lock them out!" when told by another officer that an intruder has just accessed the main computer. That situation should never happen! The computer should automatically lock out critical systems to all lifeforms except those than have a need to access it, if not in normal alert then especially during a Red Alert.

posted on February 2nd, 2009, 1:43 pm

but actually, if I had access to holodecks which could recreate kylie minogue, I wouldn't get much work done either.

amen to that. I think that point could be made to explain any "stupid crews" the Federation has.

posted on February 4th, 2009, 12:47 am

The crews of pretty much all the ships envolved in the Dominion war seem to have been quite stupid...
In the great battles in DS9 nearly no ship (wheter it is klingon, romulan, starfleet, or dominion) is shown having a shield effect when its hit. (there are exceptions)
Very many ships received hull damage immediantely and got destroyed by 2 or 3 phaser hits, so probably their crews just somehow forgot to activate the shields...

I know there are explanations like "they put all the energy into their weapons and engines" and such, but I have not yet heard any explanations why they should have done such a thing. (especially in a relatively tight formation where you cant dodge anything)

I guess that was done because they wanted fast action scenes and many explosions. Within Star Trek you could say - they just showed us the important parts, the shields already got disabled due to heavy weapons fire - or something like that.

The photon torpedo thing: I don't know, maybe the CGI artists thought: "Crap, that will take much longer then, won't do it." and nobody really thought about that decision.

You remember the different maneuvers by Dominion or Federation vesels (especially the Defiant)? Sometimes it was just crazy! Easy to hit your own guys.

Torpedos are quite slow, compared to phaser fire. I guess there would have been a lot of friendly fire instead hitting the enemy with the torpedos.

Not the best explanation...but...you know...i tried.

[Tyler]

posted on February 4th, 2009, 12:56 am

Last edited by Tyler on February 4th, 2009, 1:20 am, edited 1 time in total.

Sometimes it was just crazy! Easy to hit your own guys.

Yeah, the Klingons did that. Not really surprising.

The second thing is that only few ships in those battles actually used torpedos. (the defiant, dominion battlecruisers and a few akiras were among the only ships that did)
The crews must have been quite stupid not to employ their most powerful weapons more frequently.

The Sitak & Majestic used them during their only time on-screen.

posted on February 4th, 2009, 9:31 am

they just showed us the important parts, the shields already got disabled due to heavy weapons fire - or something like that.

Have you even watched the film... Right through the battle sequence (even when the Enterprise has turned right around, with its arse then facing the BoP), when ever the Klingon disruptor fire hits the ship, we can see a shield flare quite clearly... The disruptor goes right through, but the shields are quite clearly up during (at least almost) the entire battle...

[Dr. Lazarus]

posted on February 4th, 2009, 11:24 am

Last edited by Dr. Lazarus on February 4th, 2009, 11:27 am, edited 1 time in total.

Yes it's true, the Enterprise's shields were up during the whole thing. Those two cleavagey Klingon women found a way to fire through the shields.  :2guns:

Actually I'm not convinced that Braunbaer was talking about the film, but still.

posted on February 4th, 2009, 4:03 pm

My nominations are the crews of the Starships Lexington, Excalibur, Potemkin and Hood from TOS: The Ultimate Computer. When the M5 controlled Enterprise unleashes full phasers on those unshielded ships...you'd think they would've raised their shields right away...the Lexington I could understand since it was attacked first and couldve sustained damage to its shield generators...but as soon as that happened..the other three ships should've raised their shields and powered their phasers to full as well....