Trollheart

Well, the poor Bajorans would never stand a chance against those arses!
Thinking about it though, who would you rather have sitting on your face, Gul Ducat or Kim Kardashian?

This of course opens up the possibility of a new reality show, where various Guls compete to try to win a date with Kira: "Keeping up with the Cardassians" could be a real hit!

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Title: Fascination
Series: DS9
Season: Three
Writer(s): Ira Steven Behr/ James Crocker and Philip Lazebnik
Main character(s): Lwaxxana Troi
Plot: Oh god! There is none. Deanna’s mother is in heat due to something called Zanthi fever and her telepathic powers allow her to unconsciously transfer her feelings to anyone within range so that everyone starts hitting on everyone else. That’s it. Honestly.

Jesus Christ in a platinum-lined bucket covered in velvet! This has to rank as one of the worst episodes, not only of Deep Space 9, but of Star Trek in general. It’s just garbage; no, that’s being unfair to garbage. How this got to the editing room is beyond me. There’s not even a subplot. Everyone just starts falling in love with anyone they see, leading to some --- ho ho ho --- hilarious situations when old friends profess love for each other and boyfriends desert girl --- look, I can’t go on. It’s fucking awful. How this took three writers is a mystery: a dead rock could have come up with a better storyline. It’s worse than Benny Hill meets Star Trek. Just dire. And to top it all off, Lwaxanna gets to lord it over everyone for the entire fucking episode! God I hate that woman! Never EVER EVER watch! You have been warned!

Rating: (and that’s only because I can’t give it a higher rating!)

Title: Masks
Series: TNG
Season: Seven
Writer(s): Joe Menosky
Main character(s): Data
Plot: The Enterprise comes across a comet in which is an ancient temple (no, really!) and thereafter for some reason Data takes on multiple personalities while the ship begins to be transformed into a jungle???

It's ludicrous. How in the name of the good god Fuck Almighty can anything --- never mind a bloody temple! --- exist at the heart of a comet? But even putting that to one side, why suddenly do all these so-called gods start invading Data's program and trying to play out their lives through him? It makes no sense. It's also a completely stupid and cack-handed resolution at the end. Being a season seven episode it doesn't get a pass; at this point, though they may have been running out of ideas, there is no excuse for this claptrap. The only possible good thing about this is that it gives Brent Spiner a chance to shine, portraying all the different characters and he does this very well. But even his phenomenal acting can't save this from the lowest (or highest, if you prefer, higher being worse) Wesley rating.

Rating:

Title: Angel One
Series: TNG
Season: One
Writer(s): Patrick Barry
Main character(s): Riker, Data, Crusher
Plot: Attempting perhaps to reverse twenty-odd years of Gene Roddenberry's thinly-veiled misogynism in the original series, the writers come up with the idea of a planet ruled by women, making the men subservient. All well and good, until the story is skewed by putting the women in the wrong; they intend to execute the men who have dared to disobey them, and in the end the men are set free and the woman in charge sort of huffily tosses her head and sulks off to the hairdresser. Jesus!

Perhaps one of the most embarrassing aspects of this episode was seeing Riker being made serve Beata, the woman in charge, and kind of like it. Deanna had a good laugh at him, but hers is the only laugh in the episode. It's heavy-handed, badly written, and if, as Wiki says, it's supposed to reflect Apartheid, well all I can say is it failed miserably. Even the prospect of the Enterprise crew catching a nasty virus and a visit to the Neutral Zone can't lift this turd out of the toilet.

Rating:

Title: The 37s
Series: VOY
Season: Two
Writer(s): Jeri Taylor, Brannon Braga
Main character(s): Janeway, Chakotay
Plot: Amelia Earhart did not disappear on her solo flight in 1937: she was abducted by aliens!

Honestly, how could two of the principal writers for Voyager ever write this nonsense? When everyone was returned at the end of Close Encounters we kind of accepted it; maybe aliens had abducted Glenn Miller, Buddy Holly, a whole squadron of F4U Corsairs from the US Navy. But this? Janeway and her crew pick up an SOS and find Earhart and her navigator alive and well on the planet, demanding to speak to J. Edgar Hoover! Listen buddy, so would I. Maybe he could have made sense of this. Ridiculously, Janeway is torn at the end at the decision as to whether she “condemns all her crew to a seventy-year journey home” and allows them the choice to remain on the planet (which none of them do): hasn't she already made this decision for them by blowing up the Caretaker's array in episode one? Why is she agonising about it now?

Rating:

Title: Who mourns for Adonais?
Series: TOS
Season: Two
Writer(s): Gilbert Ralston, Gene L. Coon
Main character(s): Kirk, Spock
Plot: The Enterprise crew meet the god Apollo.

Speaking of things lost, or thought lost, who should the Enterprise bump into one fine day than jolly old Apollo himself, son of Zeus? He of course wants the crew to stay and worship him, and falls in love with a young crew woman, but Kirk has other ideas and as usual spoils the party. Hey, if his female crewmembers are gonna worship anyone, it had better be him!

Rating:

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Trollheart

Picard lets it slip about the illegal rave being held after hours on the Enterprise...

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Unknown Soldier

Jeez I've just managed to more or less read all your Trek entries, it was like running a marathon without a water bottle

The one thing Trek always did really well was an analogy with Earth history and that is littered all across Trek in general, especially TOS.

Klingons- Soviets, Romulans-Romans and Cardassians-Nazis and sure I'd agree that the Cardassians are the most evil, but I think all three races are pretty unique in the own way, even though I think the Klingons are probably the least interesting of the three.

Glad to see you included "Devil in the Dark" such a great episode.

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

Trollheart

Getting back to our countdown of my ten favourite Trek themes, in at number

we have one of the most maligned and least liked of the Star Trek movies, although I certainly enjoyed it a lot more than bloody Insurrection, that's for sure!

As for the theme, I like the sort of hint of darkness, the militaristic line that runs through it. It's not so upbeat and chest-beating as most of the themes, and it's brooding and just a little sinister in a way that prepares you for a movie that is certainly atypical of the franchise; indeed, there hadn't been as dark a movie since First Contact. Given that this then was the last of the original "proper" Star Trek movies I think it got something of a bum rap, but whether you agree or not, the theme certainly stands out.

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Captain Kathryn Janeway, played by Kate Mulgrew

The first and to date I believe only female starship captain, Janeway was in pursuit of a ship full of Maquis rebels when she ordered her then-experimental USS Voyager into the area known as The Badlands, and they were all transported seventy thousand light years by the creature known as The Caretaker, thus beginning the fourth series in the franchise. Janeway is the archetypal strong female character: she does not like being addressed as ma’am but frowns on the traditional navy affectation of calling all crew by “mister”, and so she will not accept being called “Sir” either. She says “Captain” is fine.

She is certainly not a weak woman, but in ways her single-mindedness and refusal to bend often lead her into difficult and dangerous situations, like when she makes an alliance with the Federation’s traditional enemy the Borg, or when she makes the decision to strand Voyager and its crew in the Delta Quadrant. Not a woman used to having her orders questioned, she demands unswerving obedience and expects everyone to fall in line. She has a husband back in the Alpha Quadrant, of whom we only hear once, in the pilot episode, and while away her main confidantes are Tuvok and Chakotay. When Voyager rescues the Borg drone Seven of Nine, she becomes a sort of surrogate daughter for Janeway, who tries to show her how to remember to be human again. Janeway constantly battles with the ship’s doctor, who, though a hologram, is as opinionated as any crew member --- perhaps moreso ---- and is one of the few who will openly challenge her orders, perhaps because as CMO he is the only one who has the authority to relieve her of command, should the occasion arise.

Janeway’s morals are very fluid. On one level she is the quintessential Starfleet officer, sticking rigidly to its codes of conduct and hiding behind the Prime Directive, while on other occasions, when it suits her, she will flout these very rules and make often bad and ill-informed decisions. When Neelix and Tuvok become merged as one (god help the poor Vulcan!) she makes the decision to separate them, acknowledging uncomfortably the resultant new lifeform’s accusation that she is “murdering one person to save two”, perhaps another example of Spock’s “the needs of the few” logic. When everyone is against her making a deal with the Borg she goes ahead and does so, and then sulks when the alliance falls apart and she is seen to have been duped. She constantly shoots down suggestions from officers she should trust, and despite a pretty shining career refuses to promote Harry Kim in seven years.

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From the very moment Star Trek: The Next Generation hit our screens the new captain was compared to the old. I did it myself ---- “Kirk would never have done that” etc., and it was probably obvious to Patrick Stewart that he would have to live up to, and if possible equal or exceed the memory of the first captain of the starship Enterprise. But as time went on and the series found its feet, becoming in some ways more popular than the original, and certainly lasting longer, Captain Jean-Luc Picard has for some fans become the captain of choice, eclipsing his predecesor. For others, of course, only one man is fit to be in command of Starfleet's flagship.

So, the question has boiled and raged across decades, as people on internet forums, fansites, in fan fiction and at conventions, even at workplaces debate the dilemma that has haunted man ever since we first heard those immortal words --- “Broadcast this on all channels and in all languages: we surrender.” Words we had never expected to hear Kirk say, but which were uttered on his very first day out by the new captain, and which instantly, in my eyes anyway and surely in that of other diehard Trekkers, reduced the man and set him forever in the shadow of the greater captain. But as I mentioned, we came to find that Picard was a different kind of captain. Where Kirk would break the Prime Directive three times before breakfast, Picard would protect it with his life and those of his crew. Kirk flouted regulations with a cheeky grin, while his successor was grim and stuffy in his slavish devotion to the rules. Kirk wooed women from one end of the cosmos to the other, Picard rarely if ever even had a fling.

And yet, it is Picard who has survived and taken the name of Star Trek to the minds and hearts of a younger generation, as his older counterpart endeavoured to solidify and maintain his legacy via the big screen, later followed by the man who was walking in his footsteps. Kirk is gone now (though rumours abound that he may guest in the third of the rebooted movies next year) and so is Picard, as both shows have ended and the movies starring both have changed hands, as a younger, more hip and happening (!) crew take the new Enterprise where no-one has gone before. So as the lights dim and the dust settles, we ask the burning question of our time: who is the better captain?


Obviously, there's no way to answer that definitively, since it's as much a matter of taste and perspective as it is of facts and figures. But science has helped me work out which was the better of the two movies about Christ's life, which album of Black Sabbath's was better and recently, which veriosn of “A Christmas carol” deserved the title of Best Ever Scrooge. So, as I'm sure at least Picard would approve, and Urban shakes his head in despair, we're heading into Trollheart's Laboratory once again, to check out each captain in various categories, compare them and see who comes out on top.

And where else would be begin than with the early years of both at Starfleet Academy?

Academic Career

Kirk: Commended for his “creative” solution to the no-win Kobyashi Maru test, seems to have taken to the Academy like a proto-duck to quantum water.

Picard: Failed his first attempt, and had to be coached by Boothby the gardener, though he did go on to win the Academy Marathon, the first ever freshman to do so.

Nonetheless, in terms of their academic career I would have to award this to Kirk. 1-0 to him.


Command: How did each attain their first captaincy?

Kirk: Although he distinguished himself while still a lieutenant serving aboard the USS Farragut, it seems Kirk earned the command of the Enterprise in the usual way, without any real heroics or incident while

Picard: Took control of the USS Stargazer when its captain was killed, which gives him the edge. Rather than be given command, he took it (albeit temporarily and in the utmost necessity) and was thereafter given command of the Enterprise.

So we have to give this round to Picard. Score is now 1-1.

What about service time? Well, Let’s see.

Kirk: Served as captain of the Enterprise for three years (the mission is described as a five-year one, and may have been, but we can only count the timeline we witnessed), from 1966-69, after which the crew appeared in six movies from 1979 to 1991, so that makes 3+11=14 years.

Picard: Captained NCC-1701D through seven seasons from 1987-94, and then four films from 1994-2002. That’s a total of 7+7=14 years. Hey! Exactly the same!

Now, let’s take into account Kirk’s guesting in “Generations” (1994). Does that change things? Well not really as Kirk was retired --- indeed, presumed dead in his timeline --- at teh time, and brought forward to Picard’s time, so the timelines are getting a little messy here. It’s the same as if he does reprise his role in the new Star Trek reboot movie: I just think it confuses things too much. So this is a draw then, and the scores remain at 1-1.

Ships destroyed? Each captain has wrecked his own ship, so where does that leave us? Let’s look into this in a bit more detail. What? Yes, we must.

Kirk: Destroyed the original Enterprise in order to stop her from falling into Klingon hands and also to take out almost all of his enemies at the time. Plus the ship was in a bad way and would not have lasted any protracted battle. The Klingon ship was damaged too, but not as badly as Enterprise, so it seems to have been the correct decision.

Picard: Allowed a woman to drive in Generations and paid the price! Seriously, the stardrive section was destroyed by a warp core breach initiated by the Duras Sisters and the saucer section was hit by the shockwave and crashed. So ended NCC-1701D.

Technically, though, it could be argued that he destroyed NCC-1701C too, when he ordered it back through the rift in “Yesterday’s Enterprise”. Yeah, but then what about the million other versions of the ship that appeared through the rent in space/time? No, I don’t think we can count that, plus Picard was not in charge of that ship, so it was really up to her own captain as to whether he wished to go back and set history straight.

So we have two ships, each destroyed, one by the captain’s hand as a final “fuck you” to the Klingons, and one destroyed by a combination of the Klingons and Deanna’s woeful driving. Think on balance, Kirk gets this one. NCC-1701 was destroyed intentionally, and with a clear purpose and a sense of sacrifice, while NCC-1701D was really just taken down in battle. Have to give this one to Kirk.

2-1 to Kirk then.

How about personality?
Kirk: Had an easygoing, friendly way of commanding; friends with his crew, approachable, would go drinkign with them as we saw in “Wolf in the fold”, where other such “nights out with the boys” were alluded to. Smiled a lot. Took discipline seriously but often did so with a heavy heart. Although everyone respected Kirk, he seems like the kind of guy you’d enjoy sharing a beer with, and wouldn’t be so stuck up that he would only mix with his officers.

Picard: Very aloof and generally unsmiling, rigid and uptight. Never joined in on the poker sessions on the ship, not until the finale, and indeed the final scene of that. Can’t recall him ever going for a drink (other than once, in “Allegiances”, but that time it wasn’t him but an alien taking his form). Did attend recitals and concerts on the ship but more as a matter of protocol and duty than actual enjoyment. Those who are close to him know and trust him, but I get the feeling that most of the rest of the crew hardly know him at all, and I doubt he makes it his business to even know their names. Then again, he does allow “Captain Picard Day” although he doesn’t get on with children, but that’s again more a matter of doing something because he has to than that he wants to.

If you’re looking for a captain who’s just one of the guys but still has the air of command about him and knows how to lead, and inspire loyalty, I think that has to be Kirk.

So that’s 3-1 to Kirk.

Stickler for the rules?

Kirk has been known to break the rules on plenty of occasions, when the situaton warranted it, and though Picard has taken part in covert operations (as has Kirk) he generally tends to stick fairly rigidly to the regulations, quoting article this and directive that, so it would certainly seem that Kirk is the one more ready to bend or even break the rules if needed.

But before we award this round to him, let’s consider if this is a good thing. If you’re prepared to break the rules once, you’re certainly going to do it twice, and where then do you draw the line? Do regulations after a while just become something you need to find a way around, at which point they cease being regulations at all? And as for Picard, if you refuse to break the rules on any grounds --- even personal --- does that make you a better or worse captain?

I’d have to say that I would prefer a captain who would be willing to think on his feet and assess the situation as it developed, without having to be bound by the strictures of the regulations all the time. So again I feel Kirk wins this round.

4-1 to Kirk.

Romance?

Kirk’s ladyfriends are spread (sorry) far and wide across the galaxy, some from his past, some picked up on missions, some used to get an advantage over an enemy. Kirk is not at all averse to using a woman to get what he wants, and has the charm and good looks to make that happen. He’s also very persuasive, and women of course are drawn to power. Picard? He’s had the odd romantic fling but never anything serious, unless you count his feelings for Beverly Crusher, but then he never acted on those. Or did he? In the final episode of TNG we see a future wherein he has married her. But is this an actual future or a possible one? I think we can take it that it is the actual one, so there’s some romance there. Kirk never gets married, not even in the movies, though he does have a son, as we see in “The Wrath of Khan”.

Kirk is the adventurer, the action man, the romantic and the smoothy when he needs to be, whereas Picard is more intellectual, preferring women who he can relate to on his own level, thoguh Vash is certainly a woman Kirk might have been expected to pursue. In many ways, she’s the perfect mate for Picard, but she doesn’t want to settle down and can’t stand the discipline of the ship so their relationship, were there to be one, is doomed from the start. When he is in fact matched with his perfect mate, in the episode of the same name, Picard’s honour and sense of duty and responsibility, to say nothing of his moral code, will not allow him to be with the woman he is clearly meant to be with, as she is promised to another.

And yet, both men put their career above thier love lives. Kirk left Carol Marcus because he wanted to be in command of the Enterprise, while Picard seems married to his ship. In terms of being a “galactic lothario” though, we think more in the direction of Kirk than Picard, so once again he gets the round.

5-1 to Kirk.

Picard had better up his game, and soon!

Adventurer

Probably due to the nature of the show and his being the star of it, I don’t think there’s one episode of TOS that doesn’t have Kirk in it, and whenever there’s a planet to be explored he’ll be leading the landing party. By contrast, Picard is often content or impressed upon to be left behind, Riker tellign him they can’t risk putting the captain in danger. Pah! Kirk laughs at danger, and drops ice cubes down the vest of fear! Nobody’s saying Picard is not brave, or willing to beam down or over when the occasion warrants it, but Kirk never stays back at the barn, no matter what. Kirk again.

6-1 to Kirk.

Turncoat?

Has either captain ever fought against, or been forced to fight against, his own people?

Picard is the obvious example here, when he is assimilated by the Borg and turned into Locutus of Borg, forced to direct the battle of Wolf 359, a massive defeat for Starfleet. He also takes up arms against Starfleet in Insurrection, the ninth Trek movie, for a cause he believes in.

Kirk takes the Enterprise, against Starfleet orders, in The search for Spock, in order to try to help his best friend find peace, and for his actions is busted down from admiral to captain.

But I think Picard aces this one; so for once the round is his.

6-2 to Kirk.

Back from the dead?

Kirk died, Picard did not, but being assimilated by the Borg is a kind of living death. The memories, the free will, the emotions all slowly die to be replaced by automatic mechanical and computer responses as the individual becomes part of the hive mind. Picard is to date the only human, bar Seven of Nine, to reverse that process and become “human again”. Kirk got lost in “The Tholain Web” and also in “The immunity syndrome”, but I don’t think that even comes close to coming back from the Borg, as it were. So again Picard gets this round.

6-3 to Kirk, as Picard begins to fight back.

Crew under his commmand

This is a simple, if unfair one. NCC-1701 carried about 400-odd crew, NCC-1701D over a thousand. More people equals more responsiblity so Picard get this round too.

6-4 to Kirk. They thought it was all over…


Decorations

No, not those things you just got through taking off your Christmas tree two months ago! I’m talking about medals here, citations, commendations. Which of our captains has won the most honours during his career?

Kirk: Starfleet Silver Palm, Starfleet Medal of Honour, Starfleet Citation for Conspicuous Gallantry, Starfleet Award for Valour, Prentares Ribbon of Commendation, Palm Leaf of Axanar Peace Mission, Karagite Order of Heroism, Grankite Order of Tactics. That makes seven.

Picard: I've looked, and I'm sure he has been decorated, but you know, I can't find a record of a single one. So we have to award this to the ribbons-and-discs heavy Kirk.

7-4 to Kirk

Loss of command?

Did either captain ever lose, have taken or wrested away, their captaincy?

Kirk was replaced by the M5 computer in “The Ultimate Computer”, but that was only temporary and did not reflect on his ability to command, so let’s forget that one. He was again relieved in “The deadly years”, when the ageing virus made him too old to be fit for command. Janis Lester took control of the ship while in his body, and the aliens from Andromeda in “By any other name” took the ship over totally. Again, the ship was taken over by the space hippies in “The way to Eden”, but perhaps the worst blow was the decommissioning of the Enterprise in The search for Spock.

Picard’s authority was challenged and rescinded in “Allegiances”, but again that was not him. He certainly lost command of the Enterprise when he was assimilated, and when he was on covert operations on Cardassia in “Chain of command”. But overall I think it was Kirk who was more often relieved of command in one way or the other, so Picard takes this round too.

7-5 to Kirk.

Yeah, but do you have your own office?

Well, Kirk and Picard spend most of their time on the bridge, naturally, but when he wants to relax Kirk goes to his quarters, which are seldom seen and really nothing more or less any different than other crewmembers. Few people visit him here, unlike Picard, who has the Ready Room just off the bridge, where he can conduct business that is not for general bridge consumption, chew officers out, give secret orders or whatever he wants to do in private. He also has his own quarters, so Picard wins this one by a country mile.

7-6 to Kirk

Wounded in battle?

Though Kirk took many a knock, and did eventually die helping Picard in Generations, he never to my knowledge received any life-threatening wound. He seemed to almost lead a charmed life. Picard, on the other hand, was mortally wounded in a fight with Nausicans the night before he shipped out on the Stargazer, and had to have an artifcial heart implanted, something which later led to his almost dying. Have to give the bragging rights to Picard here, which levels the score at

7-7

The next category could be crucial!

Willingness to put his people in harm’s way

One of the many traits required of a commander is that he should not shirk from the hard decisions. If someone is to go into battle and it’s pretty clear they will not come back, the captain should be able to order them to do so, or take a request from them to do so without comment. Kirk, to my knowledge, never lost any of his people (other than redhirts!) whereas Picard approved (through Worf) the assigning of a yougn Bajoran ensign to a covert operation from which she did not return. He’s the harder captain here, and he pulls into the lead as the score tilts in his favour

8-7 to Picard

Personal tragedy

It happens to everyone at some point in their life. You lose someone dear, a marriage breaks up, there’s a rift in the family. Kirk loses his brother Sam in “Operation: annihilate!” and later his son in The search for Spock. Picard loses his best friend, Jack Crusher, but it’s hardly on a par with losing your child, so you’d have to say Kirk aces this round, and brings the scores back level.

8-8

Diplomatic skill

Any captain has to have a mix of soldier and bureaucrat in his makeup, so who is the better politician? Kirk always goes mostly headfirst into any situation, all guns metaphorically (sometimes) blazing; gunboat diplomacy at its best. Picard is more the thinker, prepared to talk things through and try to find a solution through dialogue. He’s definitely the better diplomat, better suited for negotiations and mediation, whereas Kirk’s backside gets itchy if it’s stuck in a conference chair for too long. Both can play teh statesman when required, but Picard is definitely better at it. He wins this round easily.

9-8 to Picard

Battles lost

Just as important as battles won are those where, with the odds stacked against him, a canny captain can see the value in retreat or regrouping. Certainly the biggest and most public defeat Starfleet ever suffered was at Wolf 359, but Picard was not working for them at the time. In fact, technically he won that engagement for the Borg, though of course he would rather not claim that particular own goal. He did surrender on the Enterprise’s maiden voyage though, and when they originally encountered the Borg in “Hide and Q” he had to go running to Q to save them, so that’s certainly a battle lost.

Kirk lost the battle against Khan and the Reliant initially, but he gave his opponent a bloody nose before he had to retreat, and in the rematch although Enterprise was badly damaged he came out victorious. Not so when he went up against Kruge: he was defeated then, though turned it into a kind of pyrrhic victory by using his dying ship as a weapon against the victorious Klingons.

I think in this case Picard seems to have lost more battles so Kirk takes this round, and again it’s all square.

9-9

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Character growth

Obviously, a great leader does not stay the same as the day he took command; people grow and develop, and it is in the evolution of the character that the persona of what could grow to be a truly great captain is demonstrated. Everyone from Janeway to Sisko have gone through experiences that have changed them, not always for the better but always adding to the sum of their knowledge and to their lives, and which inform the development of their character.

Picard of course went through one of the most life-changing --- literally --- experiences one can go through when he was assimilated and used as a general against his own race by the Borg, but then Kirk lost his son to the Klingons. Both of these are of course likely to either strengthen or destroy resolve, and as you might expect, in each case the captain used his tragedy to make him a better person. Kirk was demoted at the end of The voyage home, something that never happened to Picard, though the latter was tortured by his enemy while Kirk never was, not really. Though he was imprisoned by them, in a penal colony in The Undiscovered Country. Plenty of character building there. I think in fairness this has to be called a draw, which leaves us with the scores still tied at 9-9.

Hand-to--hand

Anyone can use a phaser, but sometimes the true measure of a man, and this goes doubly for a captain, is when he can defend himself without weapons. Kirk has certainly had his share of fisticuffs fights (The Gorn in “Arena” springs to mind) but I can’t recall Picard every going mano a mano with anyone. I could be wrong here, but I just don’t remember him punching out anyone or fighting without his weapon. If he didn’t, then Kirk has to take this round as the man’s man, and so we have a slight lead for him as the scores now stand at

10-9 to Kirk

Alien Nemesis

Every captain, like every superhero, needs an arch-enemy to keep him on his toes and at the top of his game. Kirk doesn’t have one (who said Harry Mudd??) but Picard does: his name is Q. Picard wins this easily, which gets us back to a draw situation.

10-10

Let’s stop here for a moment and look at how this battle has developed. For the first six or so categories Kirk was well on top, kicking the competition into the unrealistic sand and pulling way ahead. It seemed he would never be caught and victory was a foregone conclusion, open and shut case, Picard knocked out by the seventh round. But then suddenly the French captain started to drag himself up off the ground and began to fight back, till they were evenly matched. Then he even started to pull away a little before Kirk came back off the ropes, and since then the two have been pretty evenly matched. It's gonna take something special to separate these two titans of Trek!

How about Friends in High Places?

It always helps to have contacts back at Starfleet, for those moments when you need a word in the right ear. For the greater part of their career both are captains, so we’ll focus on that. While in command of the original Enterprise, Kirk knew of course other captains, but seemed to mostly kow-tow to admirals and other higher-ups. Picard seems to move in different circles; while he of course respects and obeys the chain of command, he is often more on first-name terms with some of the “brass” in Starfleet. This could be seen as a result of his having had a different education perhaps than Kirk, of moving in different, maybe higher social circles or simply through taking the time to make contacts (Picard is, for instance, a lot more likely to have gone to the opera or theatre and there met an admiral or two, the “meeting on the golf course” idea, than we would expect Kirk to). It could also be that Picard is seen as more the diplomat whereas Kirk, as we have already established, prefers to be the soldier, and diplomats, even part-time ones tend to mix in better company and get the opportunities to rub shoulders with their superiors.

So in terms of people in authority he can call on, or favours he can call in, Picard would appear to win this one.

11-10 to Picard

Education and upbringing

While there’s nothing that says you have to be a bookworm or a university graduate to captain a starship, the gulf between the two men in terms of how well they were educated seems to be quite large. Picard, as you would expect from his character, reads heavily, is into poetry, philosophy, history, art and music, whereas Kirk has never given any evidence of pursuing any of these subjects. He’s a rough-and-ready, kick-in-the-balls guy whereas Picard is a more talk to them and try to find common ground person. Left alone with a well-read ambassador, for instance, Picard could most likely hold forth on many weighty topics and hold his own, whereas Kirk would probably be glancing around looking for star babes he could seduce. Well, maybe not that bad, but you can’t really see him discussing the virtues of Plato vs Marx, or the works of Caravaggio as an example of man’s quest to become immortal by transcending his human limitations, now can you? Debatewise, bookswise and in general level of education, Picard has to win this one.

12-10 to Picard

Children

No, neither has any children, but how do they relate to the little bast -- ah, cherubs? Well Picard makes it clear from the very beginning that he does not do well with kids, evidenced fairly quickly in his reaction to Wesley Crusher, and his subsequent dealings with the little folk. He does however redeem himself slightly during the episode “Disaster”, where he manages to keep all the children trapped in the turbolift with him calm, and saves them all. Mind you, he goes about this by essentially applying adult attitudes to them, so is it that big an achievement? Still, eh tries so he have to give him that. Kirk, on the other hand, seems quite comfortable with children, as we see in "Miri", "And the children shall lead" and other episodes. This may be because his brother has children, so he is obviously Uncle Jim, or perhaps more pointedly because he does not have to deal with them on the ship. In fairness, neither does Picard: the odd time he might come across one playing in the corridors but it’s not like they’ve a nursery on the bridge or anything.

No, I think all in all this one has to go to Kirk, definitely the less scary and more approachable and human of the two father figures we know as captains of two very different Enterprises.

12-11 to Kirk

Physical shape?

Of course a captain needs to be in good, if not totally tip-top shape and whereas we’ve seen Kirk’s manly chest more than a few times as he attends a physical in sickbay and pumps those weird pedals on the wall (what the hell are they for anyway?), not to mention that we’ve never heard of him suffering from any longterm illness or ailment, we're back to that artificial heart that was installed to save Picard's life after he was stabbed by an alien. That in itself, while making something of a badass of the good captain, does detract from his physical fitness score and leads almost to his death when it malfunctions in “Tapestry”, and therefore has to count against him. So Kirk wins this round to, levelling the score again.

12-12

And I’ve run out of categories and criteria under which to compare the two. Although initially Kirk ran away with the contest, Picard rallied and they were soon neck and neck. Despite the odd time when one or the other got the upper hand, I find at the end I really can’t separate them, and so the final verdict: is Kirk or Picard the better captain? I don’t know. They’re evenly matched and I’d have to call this the first draw in any of my showdowns.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

The Batlord

If by "science" you mean arbitrary, unnuanced, and nonsensical criteria, then yes, it is very scientific. I shall now show to all why you are an absurd little man.

You're giving the same weight to Kirk's appearances in the movies as Picard's appearances on the show? How many more hours of screen time did Picard have?

So you're going to count the time that Picard's Enterprise was destroyed while he was not in command against him? That's bull****.

Just because Picard was more professional he was a worse captain? Perhaps he just understood that no matter how close the commander is with his crew, he is still their commander and not "one of the boys". And assuming that he doesn't care to know his crew's names is just unfair speculation.

Not to mention that your assertion that Picard doesn't inspire loyalty is clearly erroneous. Consider First Contact, when Warf -- a ****ing Klingon -- allowed Picard to disrespect him in a moment of stress. "Were you any other man I would kill you where you stand!" Any captain who can inspire that kind of loyalty in a Klingon is worthy of respect of the highest order.

I won't even dignify implying that Picard can't or won't "think on his feet" with a response.

Irrelevant nonsense. What do their sex lives have to do with their abilities as captains. If anything this again speaks to Picard's professionalism. I would much rather serve under a captain who wasn't constantly thinking with his dick.

It's idiotic to have a captain needlessly endanger himself when he can delegate the task to more qualified men. It's absurd to think that Kirk would be more capable of dealing with a ground mission than a specially trained unit dedicated to away team missions.

What does all of this bull**** even mean?

More irrelevant nonsense.

To my knowledge, both were captains of the biggest and most advanced ships of their time. Clearly both were considered to be the most capable men for the job, so comparing crew numbers when a ship the size of Picard's Enterprise didn't even exist in Kirk's time is bull****.

WTF is this ****? You're giving Kirk a win when you don't even know how many awards the other has? Clearly this category should be considered inconclusive.

And the irrelevant nonsense train keeps a-rollin'.

I might give it to Kirk, but I think you're misreading here. Picard got hurt in a bar fight, which is awesome, whereas Kirk got a bridge dropped on him. One of the most iconic fictional characters in history died because of rickety bridge + gravity. Lame.

Red shirts count. Kirk's constant loss of men can be seen as incompetence.

What on Vulcan does this have to do with either of their abilities as captains?

Garbage. Picard was put in an unwinnable situation by an omnipotent being. That doesn't count as he could have done nothing to alter the outcome. And don't bring up the Kobayashi Maru thing, because Kirk cheated.

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The Batlord

They're captains. It's not their job to fight Gorns. Irrelevant nonsense yet again.

What? What does this have to do with anything? Besides, just because Kahn wasn't an actual alien shouldn't disqualify him from being a nemesis. And Q was more annoyance than nemesis.

This might be your most arbitrary criteria of all. The Grand Magus of irrelevant nonsense.

While I would agree that a captain's appearance can inspire confidence, there isn't enough of a difference for it to be relevant.


And so, I believe I have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that Trollheart is goofy and full of crap.

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