As a Star Trek fan from way back, I have Strong Ideas about what Starfleet Officers I would want in my personal crew. I totally need Lieutenant Uhura and the engineering brilliance of Geordi LaForge (Scotty’s penchant for drink and getting accused of murder is kind of problematic) but it’s a hard call on other stations. Worf? Spock? Tuvok? Churlimince? (One of those may not be Star Trek crew members, now that I think of it.) Given my deep love of DS9 and the Original Series, 70% of Next Generation, a couple of the movies and that one time where 7 of 9 fought The Rock, it makes for some long deliberations, leading to today’s futuristic query…
The MS-QOTD (pronounced, as always, “misquoted”) is even willing to re-evaluate the entire history of Voyager (with the exception of that execrable ‘Threshold’ episode, because even forgiveness has its limits) asking: Which single crew-member is the most valuable of all, the tops in Starfleet?
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O’Brien is the most important on two fronts: 1) He is there to keep Starfleet from getting too stuffed shirt (more prevalent in TNG, but I digress.) 2) The man kept a bunch of Cardassian/Bajoran tech operational with Starfleet’s there’s no way any of the other engineers could have kept Deep Space Nine running for as long as it did.
Gotta go with Spock. Not only in universe context but overall. Spock is the face of Star Trek, everybody recognizes him and think of him first when you mention Star Trek.
Data. Could go into situations no one else could. TNG’s answer to Spock but in reverse.
Odo. Because all you’d need is for him to give a dirty look and even the naughtiest Q will slink off with his tail between his legs.
From an in-universe perspective easily Picard.
Old school for me always Spock, or any TOS member or the Andorian first officer in the animated series. I was and still am underwhelmed by TNG.
This is rough.
Are we going from an in-universe perspective? If so, then arguments can be made for Data (first synthetic lifeform recognized by the Federation), Worf (first Klingon in Starfleet), or any of the captains (each had huge effects in their own ways).
If I’m going with personal, I’d have to go with Data or Picard. I grew up on TNG, and those two were always my touchstones of what it was to be a good person. Picard by just being one, and Data by striving every day to become more human.