Never forget Wolf 359...

You thought I was kidding? That show is way
more bananas than you probably remember.

Happy Captain Picard Day everyone! Huh? What's that? You've never heard of Captain Picard Day? Well then, sit back and behold as I let the pedantry fly! So, Captain Picard Day is the day in the far future on which we will celebrate the contributions of Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the Starship Enterprise. Now the word hero gets thrown around a lot these days, but I'd like to think that in the case of Jean-Luc, it's apt. Diplomat. Explorer. 1940's private eye cosplayer. If anyone is deserving of a day to recognize his achievements, it is he.

But I think it's important to keep in mind that no one, not even fictional people, are perfect. So this Captain Picard Day, I'd like to discuss Jean-Luc Picard's less heroic moments.

Above: Captain Jean-Luc Picard himself seen here thwarting space crime
and heroically rocking metallic short shorts all while on vacation.

Space is infinite, yet these people can't
seem to go a week without getting their ship
stuck in an anomy of one kind or another.

Like that time he murdered himself. Yeah. Once, when the Enterprise encountered a temporal anomaly-sorry, that doesn't exactly narrow it down. It's the episode where the crew finds a time-reversed duplicate of Captain Picard in a shuttle craft. It turns out that everyone's trapped in a time-loop that ends in the complete destruction of the ship and crew except for Captain Picard who heroically hops into a shuttle and escapes, starting the loop all over again. Picard Prime realizes that the only way out is to break the cycle by phasering his doppelgänger, so I suppose you can make the needs of the many argument here.

You know, hero stuff.

Fine. But that doesn't excuse the fact that time-displaced Picard, got in the shuttle and escaped the destruction of the ship in the first place. I'm no expert on metaphysics of anything, but the Picard that escaped is arguably the same person as the Picard who saves the day at the end. He's just got a few hours (or days worth, depending on how you look at it) of experiences. Granted, watching his crew explode a few hundred times has got to mess you up but still, Groundhog Day or no, the Captain goes down with the ship.

Yes, worse than Star Trek V:
The One Where Kirk Fights God

And remember that time he went off-roading on a pre-warp planet? Look, Star Trek: Nemesis is bad. And one of the things that makes it so terrible is the impression you get that the writer and director were completely unfamiliar with the characters. The first time we see Jean-Luc he's bragging about how awesome he is at Riker and Troi's wedding. Then he tells Data to shut up. Then, the ship picks up anomalous readings (again, they love anomalies) on a pre-warp planet.

Ten Prime Directive violations
and you get a free sub!

So there's this thing on Star Trek called the Prime Directive. It's like Starfleet's most important rule and it basically means don't interfere with technologically primitive aliens. In fact, don't even reveal your presence to them. Avoid at all costs. So when thirty-year space veteran Jean-Luc Picard suddenly decides that the thing to do would be to investigate the planet full of primitive alien orcs on his dune buggy, and them shoot at them with phasers, we're left to wonder-who is this man, and where is Captain Picard?

Again, like I said, bananas.

And let's not forget that he was Locutus of Borg. Yeah, ok, I know what you're thinking. I mean, the Borg assimilated him, so while he's not technically responsible for the eleven thousand deaths at Wolf 359 including Jennifer Sisko, he did play a part in wiping out Starfleet. Sure, it left him traumatized and emotionally scared, but he didn't like, resign or anything. He just put on those metal bandage things and had a mud-fight with his brother. I don't know, I get that we're supposed to read this as him being a super-strong person, but goddamn.

Pictured: ex-Borg Seven of Nine talking to
some of the many Borg freed from the collective,
probably about how easy it is to get un-Borged.

But then he also gets annoyingly arrogant about his time as Locutus and loves nothing more than to Borg'splain. In First Contact he uses his Borg insight to held Starfleet and that's cool, but later when he sees a member of his crew getting assimilated, he straight up mercy kills him. Shoots his own crew member! Then he does it again on the holodeck when he kills the Borg-ified ensign Lynch. When Lily (played by Alfre Woodard), calls him out on it, he claims that there was no way to save Lynch which is weird coming from a guy who used to be a Borg himself.

I guess what I'm getting at here is no one, no historical figures or...uh...future-ical figure is without flaw. People have nuance and we have to take the good with the bad. Sure, Captain Picard is a shining example of Starfleet leadership and integrity, but he's also a (literally) heartless, mass-murdering ex-cyborg with the blood of thousands of his fellow officers on his hands. So uh, Happy Captain Picard Day!

Our hero everybody...