Star Trek: 10 Best Captain Picard Speeches
5. The First Duty
The Next Generation: The First Duty (Season 5, Episode 19)
There is one thing to be said for the anger that Picard felt towards the Borg. They had, of course, captured and transformed him beyond his control. There was a sense of deep personal violation – his feelings in First Contact, while they threatened to overwhelm him, were certainly understandable.
The First Duty offers something different. This is Picard at his most disappointed, with Wesley Crusher being the culprit. The scene in the Ready Room, with Picard confronting Crusher with the truth, is written and filmed as a mentor giving his student the dressing down of a lifetime.
‘The First Duty of every Starfleet officer is to the truth, whether it's scientific truth, or historical truth, or personal truth. it is the guiding principal on which Starfleet is based. Now if you can't find it within yourself to stand up and tell the truth about what happened, you don't deserve to wear that uniform.'
Crusher’s actions in performing the Kolvoord Starburst maneuver were one thing, but it was his part in covering up the death of Joshua Albert that stings Picard the most. Thematically, the fact that Wesley – a character who famously uttered the lie ‘Starfleet doesn’t lie’ – is caught in a cover-up hits even more.
Rarely had Picard spoken with so much direct anger toward another person, so to have it directed at the stand-in son figure hits all the right notes.