Mutiny

Mutiny is defined as a group of people rebelling against an authority that the group is legally obligated to obey. It is most often used to refer to members of a military organization rebelling against their superiors, and illegally seizing control of a vessel.

One of the most infamous mutinies in Earth history took place on April 28, 1789, when the British Royal Navy vessel Bounty was seized by a number of members of her crew led by Fletcher Christian. Nearly 500 years later, Doctor Leonard McCoy used this as an inspiration when naming the Klingon Bird of Prey the crew of the late USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) had captured the HMS.

In the United Federation of Planets Starfleet, mutiny is a particularly severe and heinous crime. Even though outside General Order 7 the death penalty is nonexistent, the punishment for mutiny is quite severe. In Starfleet history, the act of mutiny has been quite rare. The Federation does provide legal methods to remove a commanding officer from his or her post by subordinate officers - such as the first officer or chief medical officer - in the event that the commanding officer becomes physically or mentally disabled, endangers the crew without good cause, or otherwise violates the law or regulations. If upheld by Starfleet, this is not considered mutiny.

Acts of mutiny in present day Starfleet were considered nearly unimaginable and extremely rare.

Garth of Izar
Fleet Captain Garth of Izar told Captain Kirk that following his learning of the techniques of cellular metamorphosis on Antos IV, the crew of the starship he commanded mutinied against him. Garth, who had gone insane, ordered the destruction of Antos IV, but the crew did not carry out his orders and relieved him of command. Garth was committed to a Federation rehabilitation colony on Elba II.

''Given Garth's mental state at the time he made this claim to Kirk, it's possible that Garth's assertion of an outright mutiny by his crew was grossly exaggerated. At that point in time, there had been no records of a starship mutiny in Starfleet history, according to Spock and Chekov in The Tholian Web.''

The Pegasus incident
In 2358, the USS Pegasus, under the command of Erik Pressman, had been testing a phasing cloaking device. This highly secretive project was in violation of the Treaty of Algeron and was extremely dangerous to the ship's crew.

This dangerous situation came to a head following an explosion in main engineering with several casualties, after with most of the Pegasus officers, including the first officer and chief engineer, held a mutiny against Pressman. William T. Riker was the only bridge officer to defend the captain; however, a few other crew members joined Riker and Pressman from various sections of the ship. Outnumbered, Pressman, along with Riker and seven other crew members who sided with him, fled the ship in an escape pod. The Pegasus seemed to explode moments after. The mutineers went down with the ship.

The Starfleet Judge Advocate General later investigated the Pegasus incident, but the survivors withheld all information about the phasing cloaking device. The Starfleet Judge Advocate General was only able to conclude that there had been a mutiny aboard the Pegasus prior to its destruction and that it was likely the survivors were not telling the complete truth. It was recommended that there be a further investigation; however, due to the sensitive nature of the phasing cloaking device experimentation, Starfleet Intelligence quickly classified the report and no follow-up was ever conducted.

It was not until 2370, when the wreck of the still-intact Pegasus, along with the cloaking device, was discovered, that the truth was discovered. Riker confessed the truth, and Pressman was arrested for violation of the treaty.

The Telepathic Archive
The newly discovered Bajoran wormhole, which provided instant access to and from the Gamma Quadrant, inspired many exploration missions, but one Klingon expedition ended in tragic mutiny. Upon returning from the Gamma Quadrant, the cruiser was badly damaged and only its first officer survived. He was beamed aboard Deep Space 9 shortly before his ship exploded, and although he [died within moments, he managed to utter one word: "Victory."

Unknown to both the Klingons and the crew of Deep Space 9, the cruiser had discovered a telepathic log from a long-dead civilization, and when the first officer was beamed aboard the station, he brought it with him. The same mutiny which had destroyed his ship became to manifest itself aboard the station as tensions between Major Kira Nerys and Commander Benjamin Sisko escalated to unusually high levels. Loyalties were split primarily along Federation and Bajoran lines, with Chief O'Brien being Sisko's closest ally but Lieutenant Dax siding with Kira. The only members of the senior staff not involved were Constable Odo and Doctor Bashir; while Odo was unaffected by the telepathic field, Bashir appeared to have been affected by someone who had been neutral or otherwise more interested in his own well being in the ancient civilization.

As Odo realized what was going on and both Kira and O'Brien courted him for his loyalty, he began to discover the cause of the mutiny as he pieced together damaged log entries from the Klingon ship. He and Bashir came up with a plan to remove the telepathic field, although Bashir was more interested in gaining a personal advantage than saving the other crew members. Odo used his favorable position among both sides to lure them both into a cargo bay, where he activated the program to remove the field. Everyone but Odo, including Bashir, appeared to suffer a massive headache when it was activated, and a purple energy field was released from their bodies. None of them remembered what had happened. Telling them to grab hold of something secure, Odo opened the cargo bay door enough to allow the field to be blown into the vacuum of space, saving the station and its crew.

The Maquis and the USS Voyager
When the Maquis crew of the Val Jean and the Starfleet crew of the USS Voyager (NCC-74656) merged to create one crew in the Delta Quadrant, thoughts of a Maquis mutiny were constant initially.

When B'Elanna Torres attacked Joseph Carey in 2371, a number of Maquis crewmembers, including Seska and Jarvin, were in support of a mutiny if Chakotay was to perform one. This did not go forth.

Vedek Teero Anaydis
In 2377, Teero Anaydis, a radical Bajoran Vedek who was determined to fight the Cardassians, engineered a plan to cause a Maquis mutiny on the USS Voyager. Teero Anaydis had been kicked out of the Maquis earlier for experimenting with mind control as a means of getting new agents. Afterward, the Dominion crushed the Maquis resistance in the Alpha Quadrant so Teero Anaydis turned his attention to the Delta Quadrant and the stranded Starfleet vessel whose crew, many of whom were Maquis, had contact with the Federation.

In 2370, he had implanted suppressed memory commands into Tuvok at a colony near the Badlands. These commands would activate when Tuvok heard a certain Bajoran chant. Teero Anaydis triggered the suppressed commands in Tuvok in 2377 by embedding a subliminal message consisting of the chant into a letter to Tuvok from his son Sek. Tuvok then used Vulcan mind melds to implant these commands into the other Maquis members of the crew. Voyager was almost taken by Teero Anaydis and his new 'recruits', however Tuvok managed to reclaim control of his mind and used the mind meld technique to stop the mutiny by returning the minds of the other Maquis crew members to normal.

USS Equinox
In 2376, Maxwell Burke, first officer of the USS Equinox (NCC-72381), mutinied against Captain Rudolph Ransom after Ransom had ordered the remnants of his crew to surrender to the USS Voyager. Burke wished to continue killing nucleogenic lifeforms to fuel the Equinox's enhanced warp drive, an action which Ransom initially supported, but later realized was against both Starfleet principles and his conscience. While Burke asked Ensign Marla Gilmore to take Ransom to the brig, she instead escorted him to engineering and informed him she was still on his side. Ransom arranged to beam Gilmore along with other crew members not in shielded areas to Voyager. Burke and others with him on the bridge were killed by the nucleogenic lifeforms while attempting to reach the Equinox's shuttlebay. Ransom went down with his ship.

Terra Nova incident
In 2381, during the Borg invasion Vice Admiral Helena Cain ordered Captain Typhuss James Kira to remove the colonists on Terra Nova by force but Typhuss refused the order saying he wasn't going to point phasers at their heads. Admiral Cain gave Commander Jonathan Ellis temporary command of the Intrepid and ordered him to get the Terra Nova colonists off the planet by any means. Commander Ellis lead a mutiny against Captain Kira and removed him from command. Typhuss and the others were taken to cargo bay 2. The Intrepid set a course for Terra Nova. Later the Intrepid engaged the Enterprise in obrit of Terra Nova. Typhuss along with Colonel Samantha Carter and Major Sascha Money escaped from cargo bay 2. Typhuss and Lieutenant Curtis took back control of the bridge and stunned Commander Ellis. The Intrepid powered down its weapons and stop attacking the Enterprise. John Martin and Typhuss got the colonists off Terra Nova without using force. Later Typhuss made Colonel Carter acting first officer after the incident.

The mirror universe


Mutiny was a common sight in the mirror universe throughout the 22nd and 23rd centuries. Mutiny usually involved members of the crew assassinating a superior officer as a means of advancing in rank. Such officers who carried out these assassinations tended to rely on bodyguards and surprise.

In 2155, Commander $𝜇$, first officer of the Imperial Flagship staged the first recorded mutiny aboard in Starfleet history, by wresting control from Captain Maximilian Forrest. By rallying the support of Major $𝜇$ and Sergeant $𝜇$, Archer was able to detain Forrest and bring Enterprise into Tholian space to pilfer the USS Defiant (NCC-1764), a Federation starship brought across an interphasic rift from 2268.

Shortly after these events, the now first officer $𝜇$ waged a second mutiny, using Vulcan crewmen to extradite rightful Captain Forrest from the brig. The command crew was able to detain Archer, who was entitled to a record ten hours in the agony booth, developed by Major Reed and Doctor $𝜇$.

After Archer was able to successfully attain command of the Defiant and escape from Tholian space, his mutinous actions were far from over. Leaving Captain Forrest to die with Enterprise, he then brought Defiant to the front lines of the Rebellion the Empire was losing badly. With the advanced Starfleet weaponry, the 22nd century vessels were easy targets for the Defiant's phaser and photon torpedo banks.

After successfully destroying a Rebel attack force, Archers' plans doubled yet again. It was now that the former Enterprise first officer began sowing the seeds of his own ascent to the role of emperor by challenging Fleet Admiral Gardner. His downfall, however, was his Vulcan first officer, who saw that it would make things even worse for her people. She used the completely non-Human crew of the to sabotage the Defiant's power grid and attack. However, the quick actions of Chief Engineer $𝜇$ allowed Defiant to raise her shields and destroy the Avenger.

When celebrating his victory with $𝜇$, whom he trusted implicitly, Archer found his champagne poisoned. Sato then rewarded his personal guard, Mayweather for his treachery and the former comm officer took over the late Commander Archer's plans to overthrow the Empire with the Defiant at her disposal. This cutthroat, cloak and dagger means of assassination paved the way for the Imperial crews in future years.

In 2267, $𝜇$ was a cunning schemer with designs on overthrowing $𝜇$ as captain, to which end he enlisted several other crew members in his mutiny. By the time Chekov carried it out, the mirror Kirk had been replaced with a parallel universe duplicate who was able to defeat him. Chekov was punished with a trip to the agony booth.

Alternate reality
In the alternate reality, James T. Kirk attempted a mutiny against Spock when he disagreed with Spock's decision to take the USS Enterprise (alternate reality) to the Laurentian system rather than go after the Narada and Nero. His mutiny failed and Spock marooned him on Delta Vega, but he returned to the Enterprise with the help of Spock Prime and Montgomery Scott. Once there, he successfully took command of the ship by forcing Spock to prove that he was emotionally compromised, following directions from Spock Prime. As Kirk had been made acting first officer, when Spock resigned he automatically became acting captain. After Spock regained control of his emotions, he returned but deferred to Kirk's command and seemed to function as his first officer. Kirk seemed to suffer no reprisals from his mutiny and is later given official command of the ship.