PATREON EXCLUSIVE - Was Captain Maxwell Validated?
Comments (29)
Well said, guys
People who are "so close" to the situation can genuinely believe they are completely justified in their actions, whereas outsiders look at them in complete disbelief. Ultimately, you are asked to see Maxwell not as the insane person you believe him to be at the beginning of the episode, but as a capable commander who is "in the thick" of a dangerous situation acting on his gut instincts. Are his instincts colored by the past? Absolutely! Kudos to the presentation of Maxwell as a commander convinced of his actions while not going over-the-top into insanity or something cheap like, "He's just a racist."
Absolutely not. Captain Picard cannot see things that are not there any more than Captain Maxwell can. Perhaps the Cardassians are paranoid and run these subspace shields on anything carrying any personal effects. Maybe they understand that Starfleet spies on everything that goes anywhere near their space, so they wanted to stop that. While I think Captain Maxwell was likely correct in his assumptions, they are all just assumptions; the man was reading tea leaves.
The Federation needs peace with Cardassia right now. They are weakened from the recent Borg attack and have renewed threats from stronger groups like the Romulans as well as the very real fear of another Borg attack. Maxwell might have correctly figured out that the Cardassians were up to something, but it wasn't his place to go rogue and start blowing stuff up. I do want to know why he just didn't give Picard his evidence. Maxwell said he respected Picard and was happy it was him sent to get him. I feel like him sharing some sensor scans and the like might have gone a long way to a better resolution. Either way, Maxwell wasn't in the right, no.
Alot like a current situation the world finds itself in, two wrongs don't make a right
We don't know that the Cardassians were doing anything wrong all we know is they were doing something that made Captain Maxwell and Captain Picard suspicious for Captain Maxwell and Captain Picard to be suspicious isn't the same thing as evidence of anything
Maxwell had no crew because they cost the studio money to hire.
Same for bridges
Maxwell is one of those sympathetic “villains”. Taking the initiative for violence without actual evidence is….yikes. But I felt bad for him. And he was right about one thing: “We do not start wars. We do not butcher women and children in their homes” and then, such a sad moment: “Children…who never had the chance to grow up.” There are hurting families right now because of their beautiful daughters who were murdered by gang members. Those parents will never see them grow up, have a family etc.” I still felt bad for Maxwell. And thats what makes it so compelling a story. He was wrong, but he was also right. What Star Trek does best! Starts a conversation.
My issue with the episode is that they intentionally wrote Maxwell as a strawman for Picard to knockdown. "Where's your evidence?" and Maxwell responds with empty platitudes for Picard to swat down like: "We had to act!" Surely he had evidence. Surely no one (including his crew) believes he acted purely on a knee-jerk hunch. So, here are my records of transports running scramblers over the last several weeks. Here is me tracking their origins, those planets produce weapons not science equipment. Here are scans of the debris. Here are comms from a real science station, the comms from a known military outpost, and here are the comms from the 'science station' I destroyed - see how they better match the military protocol?. Etc etc. His hunch didn't come from nowhere. Maxwell should have had his own speech: "There is no treaty Jean Luc, they tore it up when they violated the arms clause. We have a right to defend ourselves and there are MILLIONS of lives within a few lightyears of that station. The Phoenix's commission is explicitly charged with the defense of this sector and I was duty bound to act, not REACT after Cardassian troops were already on Federation soil pointing phasers at women and children in their homes" Now argue against Maxwell. Sometimes Trek does really good about steel-manning the two sides, but this isn't such a case, and I feel the story is worse for it. I like dilemmas that aren't black and white so I will head canon whatever gives me a proper dilemma. Because Picard, in the face of THAT argument still acting as he did, to preserve the peace, because the admiral he spoke to was desperate "Starfleet is not prepared for another protracted conflict" is a far better story imo. One side being right is boring, both sides being right is compelling. #MaxwellDidNothingWrong #PicardDidNothingWrong
Yeah well if he took his evidence to Starfleet instead of acting like a fool, he'd be fine.
If Picard found himself in Maxwell's shoes, he might not have been able to figure out a way to get a better outcome, but he had an entire crew behind him that would have. I think that's the big difference between the two captains, and it's subtly implied in the episode. Maxwell commands a ton of loyalty, but at the end of the day he's hidding in his ready room scheming while his crew take him on good faith and sit on the bridge in ignorance. Picard would be looping his trusted senior staff in at the earliest opportunity and putting all their combined perspectives and ideas in to a plan that would achieve their goal and not go over the line. They are equally his conscience. Maxwell unintentionally isolated himself and allowed his own perspective to re-affirm his positions at every stage. We see how shocked he is that Picard doesn't get it during their meeting. Maxwell needed a Riker.
But violating the treaty means war, and Picard knows the Federation is not in shape for a sustained conflict with the romulan threat looming, but may be stronger in the neat future.
The borg incident is reason to delay the war. Right now Starfleet is weak, not just from the Borg but from the gillworms weakening it. The federation is dealing with a renewed threat from the Romulans. However, Shelby is in charge to get the fleet back up and shes prepping for a borg invasion. They also mentioned "new weapons systems" that were designed for the Borg but weren't ready. So even if another war with the Cardassians is inevitable, it makes sense t delay it, as the federation is in a weak position now but will be much stronger in the near future. Maybe if Picard had sold it to Maxwell that way, Maxwell would have stood down. But probably not.
Yes to all of this. In the context of the universe, a messy peace with Cardassia is preferable to a draining, pointless war being fought over a few small colonies. I'm not saying it's 100% morally good, but it's certainly understandable.
No, he was not justified.
Validated? No. Vindicated? Incontestably yes.
It was pure luck (and necessary plot progression) that Maxwell was right. It was his Ahab/Kurtz like behavior & actions that was wrong. Picard of course has a "there but the grace of God go I" moment. It's a thoughtful episode, and a fine intro to "The Cardys"
I think The Omega Glory is the other TOS episode you were trying to remember, Josh.
That’s a good example of a captain, but the episode I’m thinking of the captain is a random reveal at the end of the episode. It’s on the enterprise.
Re: captain's going over the edge, we did see that once with Kirk, in Obsession. He almost crosses the line with the vampire cloud, but Spock and Co. hold him back (barely). Granted, at the end, Kirk is proven right, but for most of the episode, everyone is doubting his motives.
One of the other patrons mentioned that this is similar to The Defector last year. It's kind of the inverse. When Admiral Jarok found out that his government was eager for war, he crossed the border and tried to tell the enemy "don't let us get away with this." Here, a Starfleet captain thinks that the enemy might be rearming and wanting to start the war again, so HE crosses the border and starts shooting, risking restarting the war himself, essentially doing exactly what he's accusing the Cardassians of doing!
Picard is above all a diplomat. He would not have made the same choices as Maxwell.
I think we get a good glimpse of how Picard approaches a similar galactic power quandary not too far from now.
Validate his suspicions, yes, but not his killings. I think if Picard were the one sniffing out what the Cardassians were up to, assuming he'd try to do something about it himself, I think they'd set up a way to expose what was going on and then report that to Starfleet once they had good proof.
Maxwell was right, in the sense that the Cardassians were doing things they shouldn't have. He was wrong to cross the border and start shooting. That could have precipitated a full scale wall. Of course it is difficult to comment on this entire topic without going into spoiler territory. "Validated" needs to be more specifically defined. You can be right about something, and still make the wrong choices. He had no authority to do what he did, and thus what he did was immoral. It would be considered murder.
It’s debatable that the Cardassians were doing things they “shouldn’t.” If they had been violating the treaty, then Picard would have said so. But Picard realised that they were hiding _something_worth keeping an eye on, and that’s exactly what he told Gul Macet that the Federation would be doing. That’s what Maxwell should have done—report his suspicions to Starfleet and let them assign Picard or someone else to check it out.
Captain Maxwell was definitely not right. Yes, the Cardassians were being shady, but risking a war over it, especially so soon after the bulk of Starfleet got wrecked by the Borg, was criminally irresponsible. Also, the "what happened to this war" line reveals Maxwell has hardcore PTSD. He needs at least a year of daily therapy, and a teaching job at Starfleet Academy, and to never be in command of a starship again.
The answer to your early question is pretty easy—while Picard might violate Starfleet protocol occasionally when he thinks it is the right thing to do, but he is NOT going to start vaporising base stations, transport ships, and military ships full of people, especially when there is a delicate peace treaty at stake. Remember, the Admiral straight up told him that the Federation is not prepared for another full-scale war at this point. So, when the stakes are this high, Picard has more sense than to start killing scores of people.