Star Trek: The Next Generation
WARNING : contain SPOILERS for Star Trek : Lower Decksseason 4 !
Summary
Star Trek : Starfleet Academywill focus on the titular educational establishment , which could have its very own 32nd century version ofStar Trek : The Next Generation ’s Nova Squadron - but should it?Star Trek : Lower Decksrecently revisit the elite Starfleet Academy flight team by fetch back their disgraced squadron leader , Nicholas Locarno ( Robert Duncan McNeill ) as season 4 ’s big bad . It was down to the reckless actions of Nick Locarno that Nova Squadron was disbanded , subsequently being replaced byStar Trek : Deep Space Nine ’s equally problematic Red Squad .
WithStar Trek : Starfleet Academyset to focus on the growing pains of a various cast of plebe , it ’s entirely possible that an elite group like Nova Squadron or Red Squad could be an alluring opportunity for some of the characters . There ’s plenty of spectacular potential in the estimation of the lead role competing for a stain on an elect squad . However , it ’s debatable whether such elitism is in keeping with Starfleet ’s core ethos . The doubt of whether a group like Nova Squadron should appear inStar Trek ’s Starfleet Academy showis therefore a complex one .
Wesley Crusher never aspired to be a pilot on Star Trek : The Next Generation , so why was he a appendage of Starfleet Academy ’s elite Nova Squadron ?
Why Star Trek: Starfleet Academy Shouldn’t Have A Nova Squadron
There was nothing intrinsically spoiled about Starfleet Academy have a highly - skilled flight team to perform at graduation exercise ceremonies and other prestigious events . Star Trek ’s cadets go to the Academy to learn how to become specialiser in their chosen field of battle , so it makes sentience to have a flight team comprised of its best pilot burner . The only stumbling cube is how those cadets respond to their heightened profile and the potential for career advancement . Robert Duncan McNeill ’s Nick Locarnosaw Nova Squadron as his chance to graduate Starfleet Academy as a living fable , a luck that would let him to have his plectrum of spaceship grant .
In world , Nick ’s ego and ambitiousness resulted in the last of Cadet Joshua Albert , and the subsequent cover - up . Having such an elite police squad at Starfleet Academy runs the hazard of bringing out such potentially fatal competitiveness . In such a purportedly egalitarian organization like Starfleet , it feel hypocritical to single out the very good of the best . That ’s whyStar Trek : Starfleet Academyshouldn’t have a Nova Squadron , because it risks fostering a horse sense of ego and arrogance that can leaven deadly when serving aboard an active starship . One only necessitate to look at what chance toStar Trek : Deep Space Nine ’s Red Squad to see this .
The Complicated Legacy Of Starfleet Academy’s Nova Squadron & Red Squad
Both Nick Locarno and Red Squad drawing card Cadet Tim Watters ( Paul Popowich ) have problematicStar Treklegacies that contamination both elite Starfleet Academy mathematical group . While in command of the USS Valiant , Watters led a doomed commission to attack a Jem’Hadar battleship , getting his full bunch kill in the procedure . This , aggregate with Nick Locarno ’s own black mistake , does suggest that Starfleet Academy cadet are under an extraordinary amount of pressure to perform . Watters and Locarno had their good point , but there was nobody to rein in their more impulsive itch , which is precisely why they result such a tragic legacy .
Both ofStar Trek ’s elite Starfleet Academy groupshave left a lead of stagnant behind them , from Josh Albert to the USS Valiant . Nova Squadron members like Sito Jaxa ( Shannon Fill ) and Wesley Crusher ( Wil Wheaton ) went on to greater heights , but their durability of character was what got them there . The Nova Squadron chance event was n’t a gravid teaching here and now , it was a tragedy that could have been quash if Locarno had n’t been turn over gratis rein to attempt an illegal maneuver . Hopefully , 900 eld subsequently , any potential elite grouping inStar Trek : Starfleet Academyhas some more inadvertence from its didactics stave .
All episode ofStar Trek : Lower Decksseason 4 are stream now on Paramount+ .
