Star Trek’s Stupidest Retcon Actually Makes Perfect Sense

To understand this argument about the Dominion War, it’s important to revisit a brief but crucial bit of Insurrection dialogue. Riker reports to a frustrated Picard that the ship will have to put off an archeological expedition because “The Diplomatic Corps is busy with Dominion negotiations,” resulting in Picard grumbling about how the ship needs “to put out one more brush fire.” The short scene ends with Picard rhetorically asking, “Anyone remember when we used to be explorers?”

Now, aside from mentioning the negotiations, what does this scene have to do with the Dominion War? In short, that conflict broke out after the release of First Contact, a film that introduced the Enterprise-E as a replacement for the destroyed Federation flagship, the Enterprise-D. Because the latest Enterprise held its own against the Borg, the Federation’s most fearsome enemy, fans were constantly asking why we never heard about Picard’s ship on Deep Space Nine during updates about the Dominion, so this line of dialogue in Insurrection seemed like a retcon.

From a strict fan perspective, that retcon seemed disappointing to many. Due to the exploits of the previous ship and the legendary current command crew, it’s fair to say that the Enterprise-E would have been one of the most (if not the most) important ships in the fleet. Therefore, it sucked to hear that the ship was held up doing diplomatic busywork during the Dominion War that even our favorite character thought was completely stupid and beneath them.

However, the blunt truth is that the Federation did the smart thing by keeping the Enterprise out of the war, and we were only surprised because Star Trek: The Next Generation got us used to the Federation flagship constantly risking death and danger each week. He may be disappointed at the archeological delays, but sending Picard out on diplomatic missions makes perfect sense because he’s an expert diplomat. Starfleet has plenty of captains whose ships can go pew pew during wartime, but not nearly as many capable of mediating some of the nastiest disputes in the galaxy.

Additionally, while Star Trek rarely acknowledges this point, the command crew of the Enterprise-E are all celebrities in their own right, and it would be a PR nightmare for the Federation if they all died during the Dominion War. For example, the Strange New Worlds episode “Those Old Scientists” revealed that Starfleet used Una Chin Riley on recruitment posters in order to entice young nerds like Boimler into service. The sudden death of Picard and any of his crew could have a devastating effect on future Starfleet recruitment efforts, so it is only logical they were utilized for generally safer missions.

In addition to the importance of the command crew, the Enterprise-E herself obviously has great symbolic importance to the Federation and its citizens. The Enterprise-D was the Federation flagship, and while the replacement’s flagship status was never confirmed, everyone knows that Picard and his vessel are responsible for representing Starfleet values throughout the galaxy. At the end of the day, the ship and its famous crew are ultimately so important that it only makes sense for the Federation to keep them safe at all costs.

At any rate, this Dominion War retcon didn’t matter in the long run…as early as the next movie, this crew was back at the heart of the latest major conflict (this time with the Romulans), and in Picard, the old gang got together to save the entire galaxy once more. Obviously, they weren’t stuck putting out diplomatic brushfires indefinitely. But as for Picard duking it out with Dominion heavies like Weyoun, you’ll never experience such cool clashes for yourself unless you set course to a completely new heading: fanfiction.