I have made a reply with each Captain’s name. This is not a popularity contest. This is a Leadership contest. Who is/was the best captain?
Upvote your choice(s). Comment on your choices if you like, explaining your rational… or don’t comment if you don’t like.
PLEASE, do not comment negatively on any captain. Let the love flow for these captains. Positivity please.
Lastly, if you know a captain I missed and you want to add them, feel free! There are a lot I didn’t include because I just tried to hit the major franchises, but there are certainly some worth mentioning.
P.S. I’m not a student of Trek or even that smart, just a fan trying something, so if I screw it up please forgive.
Picard
Picard is the best, most well-rounded captain. He can do diplomacy. He can do science. He can run a starship. He can fight…
All the others aren’t shown to be as flexible or as widely capable. I still find Janeway to be my favorite though. I like my heroes to have flaws like normal people. Picard is damn near flawless, like Superman.
And when he isn’t (e.g. dislike of children) he has the strongest will to overcome his inadequacies. I wonder: was there an instance in which he didn’t win? (In TNG, never liked the ‘Picard’ show.)
So yeah, he wins this contest easy. As to who I like the most: Sisko.
Don’t sleep on his sexual charisma, his flute skills, and his fluency in history, philosophy, and literature.
I vote Picard for one main reason - we’ve seen him in far more different situations than any of the others thanks to the spread out period of TNG in series and movies. Other captains tend to have a more constrained image due to the plot they’re in. Riker would be best second in command for the same reason.
Sisko
He turned out to actually be the Bjoran emissary.
Chessmate.It hurts me not to vote for Janeway, who is an absolute badass that I love, but I think Sisko would be the best boss
Pike
I love Pike’s command style. No ego or pretence. If you’re on his bridge it’s because he trusts you, and he’ll never give you a reason to think otherwise.
Picard is a wonderful character, but it took him seven years to join his officers for a game of poker. Pike’s cooking dinner with them week one. If you want my best work, that’s how you get it.
Picard is a captain first and friend second (even then, not until the situation is unofficial). It’s part of what makes him the best captain, but an otherwise solitary person.
The reason I vote Pike is because to me he’s able to blend both of those where Picard couldn’t or wouldn’t. It’s likely just a different philosophy but I like both sides of that coin. Just happens to be the warmer one gets my tick. That and the psychotic level of self sacrifice he has thrown around so far
Janeway
I don’t know that me upvoting all of them would accomplish anything.
With ranked approval voting, we can still do the right thing and up vote all except for Archer. Heh.
Archer was a great captain when he needed to be. They all were.
Also, Jellico is not one of the options and I couldn’t vote for him the necessary one billion times, so this is all bogus.
Archer was a great captain when he needed to be.
True! Archer was absolutely a great captain on many occasions.
But I still think he’s still objectively the worst. He did it first…and worst.
Even with having that stupid dog reconned into being teleported into atoms, I’m still mad about his dog going on away missions.
Archer
I don’t generally Downvote on this platform, but I seriously considered making an exception for Captain “took my dog on away missions” Archer…
Kirk
Jellico!
This option isn’t fair because, as I already said, I can’t vote for him the necessary one billion times.
The man defeated the Cardassian military single handed with one ship just by being a hardass.
Everything else is a vote for second place.
Man just wanted some efficency and didn’t have time for niceties. Of course he’s rough around the edges after heavy negotiations with the cardassians.
Emergency Command Hologram aka EMH Mark 1
Saru
“Sorry, sir. I’m- I’m talking because I’m scared.” “I know. Keep talking, ensign.”
Freeman
Worf
Harry Kim finally gets promoted to Captain of the USS Rhode Island and still no respect. :)
I mean he did allow his former captain get away and go onto violate the temporal prime directive.
True. Though Harry also broke the prime directive in Timeless (S5E06) when he sent a message to the past.
Riker
Kangaroo