10 Worst Ever Captains In Star Trek

10. Captain Benjamin Maxwell - USS Phoenix

While there is an undeniable element of tragedy to his story, as well as a certain degree of thematic vindication that came later on, the irrefutable fact is that Captain Benjamin Maxwell took a Starfleet ship and waged a one-man war. His actions were not simply anaethema to Gene Roddenberry's tenets for Star Trek, but ran the risk of plunging the Alpha Quadrant into a preemptive, bloody struggle.

His justification for his actions was weak. Claiming that 'information came [my] way', he attempted to sway Picard to his way of thinking. The Cardassians, he believed, were absolutely getting ready for a new offensive against the Federation. There was simply no other way of looking at it.

While he may very well have been correct, and the events the followed Dukat's negotiations with the Dominion certainly seemed to prove him right, Maxwell took matters into his own hands. Without any formal declarations, he ordered the Phoenix into Cardassian territory, attacking depots and ships, killing hundreds of Cardassians. This, added with his own personal trauma left over from the massacre at Setlik III, confirmed that, while there may be romanticised songs about the hero who tried to stop a war by fighting one, Maxwell misunderstood what it meant to be a captain in Starfleet.