Note two scenes early he had this exchange with Satin.Darth Wedgius wrote: ↑Fri Jul 06, 2018 9:30 pm It could be that the implication was that that the initial fraud would not have been enough to ruin Tarses, but it does contradict the literal interpretation. Picard's speechifying, not writing a computer program, so you can consider a bunch of things are being left unspoken.
I actually looked that up before I responded to you earlier. So Satin knows that Picard has admitted the guys guilt of the falsifying his application charge, the later Picard speech has to be understood in light of that earlier admission.TNG wrote: SATIE: And how, may I ask, have you managed to determine that?
PICARD: I've talked with him.
SATIE: I see. And he told you he was a victim of circumstance, blameless and pure.
PICARD: No, he admits his mistake in falsifying his application. That does not make him a traitor.
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In terms of the the Marquis I always figured that the tactical and strategic situation at the point where the Feds and the Cardassians came to their agreement was something like this. There were lots of small Federation small colonies on the border (emphasis on the small most of the colonies we see seem to consist of like a dozen people). The Cardassians could and probably did at times wipe out these colonies with one photon torpedo, and the Federation had only limited ability to prevent that. So the longer the war/border skirmish went on the more colonies would be wiped out. If the fighting continued the Federation probably could have eventually achieved a sufficiently decisive position to get their claim on all the colony systems recognized but by that point most of the actual colonists would have been dead or displaced so kind of a hollow victory. So my read of the Marquis was always that they wanted to end the peace treaty that might well be the only thing keeping the colonists alive (even if under threat from Cardassian skulduggery). At least it seemed to me that was the kind of real politik that we were supposed to read in to the situation painted in DS9 episodes etc. based on historical analogies etc. This tempered my sympathy for their cause, so I could understand the characters lack of sympathy.
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Note that on the issue of the sexual conflicts of interest etc. it is hardly just the contemporary military that has lots of rules about this, for example spouses etc. of doctors in remote communities have to deal with the fact that usual medical ethics is that you don't sleep with your patients but in remote communities the only doctor is going to be the spouse, so it is not going to be logistically possible so at least in some jurisdictions need the spouse to sign a waiver or the like. The thing with Lessons is less that they have no rules compared to current military fraternization rules, its that they have no rules compared to civilian workplaces and institutions of our times.
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On the theme of confused morals and odd institutional structures compared to our own time: I remembered while pondering this was that when the most competent and beloved member of Voyager's crew, Reg Barclay, was introduced the doctor explains "I took the liberty of reviewing his personnel file. He's had a rather colourful career, not to mention an unusual medical history. He's recovered from a variety of maladies, including transporter phobia and holo-addiction. " So he's discussing Barclay's medical history in public in particular potentially embarrassing diagnosis like holo-addiction. Either the doctor's ethics protocols are on the fritz (again) or by the 24th century has done away with our primitive notions of privacy. Perhaps they also do daily announcements of who has been diagnosed with what STDs (maybe this is how Riker keeps score)...
