Did Picard ever have a foe worthy of him?

Sad Professor

The Borg? In the series they were more Riker's foe than Picard's. And in First Contact, Moore had to do quite a bit of retconning to emotionally compromise Picard and make him vulnerable to them. Once Picard recovers from his Ahab phase, they don't pose the same threat anymore. Though for all of that film's flaws, the Borg in FC were probably the greatest challenge ever faced by Picard.

Shinzon? As a villain he had a lot of potential, but Picard is acting so totally out of character in this film that he can scarcely be considered Picard at all.

Gul Lemec? Once again it involves Picard being compromised, in this case mentally and physically. Lemec is torturing him. But even in his terrible state, Picard doesn't give in. As Picard is being led out at the end, Lemec seems small.

Lore? More Date's foe than Picard's.

Sela? What a wasted opportunity.

Q? And this is where we come to whole problem with the Picard character and why the TNG films had so many problems. Picard's intellectual equal was a omnipotent super being. To describe Q as a God would be an understatement. Yet he was seemingly the only one who really gave Picard a run for his money. But I'm not sure he was a foe at all. More often than not he helped Picard.

Am I missing anyone? Was Picard ever fundamentally challenged in the way that Kirk was in the Meyer/Bennet films? It seems like most of the time the only way the writers were able to challenge him was to incapacitate him in such a way as to make him susceptible to the threats posed by a series of fairly mediocre villains.

nyarlothothep

Maybe Starfleet bureaucracy? He saved humanity twice irc, the Borg and the temporal paradox, and yet still remained a captain while Janeway got her crew lost, made several ethically bad decisions and generally her solution to every problem was to use brute force. Furthermore Picard often had conflicts with the admiralty and while he was victorious usually it didn't seem like he was on top of things with them because they were idiots. The borg were more like a traumatic experience. Disregarding the retconning of the films his intellect allowed him to put aside his grievances when he realised that committing genocide by using Hugh to spread the virus was completely wrong. This is why Q saw potential in him. Picard didn't had an intellect equal to Qs but he had a mind more open and imaginative that allowed him to solve things like the temporal paradox, and to ask for Q's help when they were being chased by the borg. It was this same disposition that enabled him not to do what many others would do in his position, wipe out an entire race, completely alien in outlook, based on a terrible experience and an understandable need for revenge. So I think it was basically the backward nature of the admiralty and officials that were his chief foes, eg Measure of a Man, he nearly lost the case for Data's individual rights to a trumped up official. His greatest strength, namely the fact that he was an innovator was his greatest weakness when he encountered a certain type of individual.

Also I might add Data was instrumental in defeating the borg, he was future technology essentially in their time period, comparable to Michio Kaku's statement that string theory is like 21st century science that was discovered in the 20th century. Ok retrieving Picard was an unorthodox strategy, not sure if it was motivated out of a sense of loyalty on the crew's part or whether Riker's intention was to hack into the borg net using Picard, but it was Data who was advanced enough to challenge the borg and defeat them, and they were way in advance of humanity too.

Cookie_Monster

nyarlothothep wrote: »

Maybe Starfleet bureaucracy? He saved humanity twice irc, the Borg and the temporal paradox, and yet still remained a captain while Janeway got her crew lost, made several ethically bad decisions and generally her solution to every problem was to use brute force.

He remained captain because he wanted to, not because he wasn't offered. Jim makes it clear to him in generations not to be that stupid.

Pride Fighter

Commander Tomolok is probably his most worthy adversary IMO. Although he never did get to show a piece of the Enterprises hull in the Romulan capital.

IvySlayer

Lwaxana Troi certainly had him running scared!

nyarlothothep

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

He remained captain because he wanted to, not because he wasn't offered. Jim makes it clear to him in generations not to be that stupid.

Well they could have invented a special rank, like field admiral

Myrddin

nyarlothothep wrote: »

Well they could have invented a special rank, like field admiral

What would be the point? A field admiral I would assume is in overall command of a small fleet of ships or a sector of space. Picard is adept at diplomacy, & out on the front line is where he belonged.

As for a worthy foe...I'd say his only weakness was his isloation/distance he kept himself from the crew. In his own words, "I should have done this a long time ago..."

nyarlothothep

EnterNow wrote: »

What would be the point? A field admiral I would assume is in overall command of a small fleet of ships or a sector of space. Picard is adept at diplomacy, & out on the front line is where he belonged.

As for a worthy foe...I'd say his only weakness was his isloation/distance he kept himself from the crew. In his own words, "I should have done this a long time ago..."

So he wouldn't have to take orders from admirals and as a small token for saving humanity on numerous occassions. There should have been some perks to saving the galaxy.

Myrddin

nyarlothothep wrote: »

So he wouldn't have to take orders from admirals and as a small token for saving humanity on numerous occassions. There should have been some perks to saving the galaxy.

The perk is remaining in the very seat he saved the Galaxy from...the Captains chair.

Taking orders from Admirals is just the chain of command, you get assigned a mission & you carry it out. The mission is ultimately controlled by the Captain though, & thats where Picard is most valuable...not behind a desk issuing fleet movements etc

GreenWolfe

From a non-action-oriented point of view, I'd say Admiral Satie from The Drumhead.

nyarlothothep

EnterNow wrote: »

The perk is remaining in the very seat he saved the Galaxy from...the Captains chair.

Taking orders from Admirals is just the chain of command, you get assigned a mission & you carry it out. The mission is ultimately controlled by the Captain though, & thats where Picard is most valuable...not behind a desk issuing fleet movements etc

That's like saying virtue is its own reward, which it is to an extent but material bonuses are also welcome. The problem with Picard taking orders from the admiralty is that their orders/mission objectives were often silly. Didn't he even have to convince that admiral that genocide against the borg was inhumane? From her perspective of course, wiping out the borg was the mission objective and a necessary one, but Picard was demonstrating higher principles that Q would regard as distinguishing humanity, just about, from a savage race. Therefore, Picard should have been made field admiral so that he could come up with mission objectives on the fly without taking orders from anyone else as he had proven himself more than competent in saving humanity on numerous occassions, winning courtroom battles and generally being better than everyone else.

Myrddin

nyarlothothep wrote: »

That's like saying virtue is its own reward, which it is to an extent but material bonuses are also welcome. The problem with Picard taking orders from the admiralty is that their orders/mission objectives were often silly. Didn't he even have to convince that admiral that genocide against the borg was inhumane? From her perspective of course, wiping out the borg was the mission objective and a necessary one, but Picard was demonstrating higher principles that Q would regard as distinguishing humanity, just about, from a savage race. Therefore, Picard should have been made field admiral so that he could come up with mission objectives on the fly without taking orders from anyone else as he had proven himself more than competent in saving humanity on numerous occassions, winning courtroom battles and generally being better than everyone else.

I still say he would prefer to be on the bridge of a ship rather than behind a desk.

Sad Professor

Tomolok and Satie are the two best suggestions so far. Though I don't think either of them were given a chance to really challenge Picard. In both cases Picard was able to outwit them without breaking a sweat.

Picard's experience, level-headless and natural leadership ability were essential components of his character, but when it came to the films they became barriers to creating interesting drama. Or were the writers just crap?

nyarlothothep

Sad Professor wrote: »

Tomolok and Satie are the two best suggestions so far. Though I don't think either of them were given a chance to really challenge Picard. In both cases Picard was able to outwit them without breaking a sweat.

Picard's experience, level-headless and natural leadership ability were essential components of his character, but when it came to the films they became barriers to creating interesting drama. Or were the writers just crap?

The writers were just crap. And making big budget sci fi films creates certain impositions because you want to appeal to the widest audience possible which blandifies everything to an extent, as with public broadcasters. Although in fairness the TNG movies were mid range budget films, so I don't see why they couldn't have taken some risks in writing ambitious, deeply rewarding narratives with 3 dimensional characters.

goose2005

Male patterned baldness?

listen_lady

Admiral Bitchayev. Oh, I'm sorry, I meant "Nechayev".

Or Gul Madred.

helimachoptor

Him and Tomolok (sorry i'm really on a love buzz for him lately)

But honestly no.

I think the best Captain/Foe was Sisko and Dukat, the relationship ebbed and flowed excellently through out 7 seasons.

Kiith

Dukat is probably the best...i don't want to say villian, but you know what i mean...in the entire Star Trek run imo. Certainly the most developed. He's a fantastic character, and his relationships with Sisko, Kira and Garak are brilliant.

It's a shame TNG never had anyone like him. Tomalak was great, in his limited screen time, but he's no Dukat. (although he was a fantastic G'Kar in B5)