Star Trek: 10 Starfleet Decisions With The Most Devastating Consequences

Starfleet has not always managed to get things right. Who paid the biggest price?

Defiant Destroyed
Paramount

This article owes thanks and inspiration to @SimonPoulterRM. Sometimes, it's easy enough to see that a decision can have certain consequences. Other times, there are unforeseen afterimages down the line, rippling along history with threads of I told you so and ooh, should have seen that coming. Either way, it's not always possible to get it right all of the time, no matter how experienced the decision-making team is.

Starfleet has a wobbly reputation when it comes to being a force for good in the Alpha Quadrant. While it's safe to say that they generally aim for the best, there is little doubt that some of their actions have led to truly awful outcomes. The Dominion War, for example, resulted in many millions of dead. Sure, Starfleet may not have been the instigators, but they certainly lit the fuse. Likewise, other large conflicts have stemmed from Starfleet's decision-making process - whether it's the decision to act or the decision to do nothing.

Here are ten of the furthest reaching decisions in Starfleet's history. A small note - the launch of Friendship One is not included here, as it predates the establishment of Starfleet itself. So in that case, it was simply the residents of Earth that were responsible for millions of deaths.

10. The Second Battle Of Chin'toka

Defiant Destroyed
Paramount

The Dominion War was a brutal, drawn-out campaign that saw hundreds of millions of lives lost in the name of saving, or annexing, the Alpha Quadrant. While there were many individual battles in the course of the conflict, the Second Battle of Chin'toka was one of the most costly days in Starfleet's history.

While the Federation-Klingon-Romulan Alliance had seen several victories against the Dominion forces, they were ill-prepared to face off against the newest opponents - the Breen. While these secretive aliens had long been known to the Alpha Quadrant forces, the true extent of their technology had remained a mystery. That is until Captain Sisko led the task force that attempted to re-take the Chin'toka system - Starfleet's only foothold in Dominion territory.

Expecting a strong fleet to fight, the Allies were totally blindsided by the Breen's energy-dampening weapon. This directly led to the almost total destruction of their fleet, including the USS Defiant. Only a single Klingon Bird-of-Prey survived the encounter, which was left to accompany the hundreds of Federation escape pods, filled with demoralized troops, on the long trip back to their own territories.

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Writer. Reader. Host. I'm Seán, I live in Ireland and I'm the poster child for dangerous obsessions with Star Trek. Check me out on Twitter @seanferrick