In comparison to Captain Kirk, Captain Picard is a superior captain and leader.

Great Points! Much thanks and appreciation to Con for taking this debate, after reading his response, I only regret limiting this to only 3 rounds. I think Con has presented some fantastic arguments, in which I hope to address thoroughly. Win or lose, I am very happy to have found a worthy opponent that loves Star Trek. On tactics, Kirk displays some cleverness at best. I will have to revisit, compare and contrast some battles to better combat this claim, and I promise to do so in the next round. I couldn't't help but heavily discuss Khan and Hugh in this round as I feel they are heavy hitting points that need immediate addressing. Khan: First, I feel it worthy to give the admired Captain Kirk his due respect. He defeated Khan Noonien Singh twice. Khan was a genetically engineer superhuman and is amongst the top ten greatest villains of all time. I agree with my opponent in that it would take an extraordinary tactician and leader to defeat Khan. But in comparison to Picard, this does not make Kirk a superior Captain or Leader. Picard bested the mischievous threatening and seemingly omnipotent being know as "Q". Khan is a more recognized villain, but Q is a superior adversary. In the first confrontation with Khan, Con, conveniently ignores a very important fact. Kirk was faced with certain the loss of his ship to Khan or the loss of his life. The ship's historian rescued him and neutralized Khan's subordinates using a neural gas. In the end it was the consistent emotional irrationality of the Marla McGivers that saved the day. Kirk merely bested Khan in hand combat, gave him a quick hearing, and exiled him to an uninhabited planet. A planet in a system where Kirk failed to do the remedial research needed to determine if the system was indeed hospitable. Interestingly but not surprisingly, this event creates the next confrontation between Khan and Kirk. Khan's planet becomes inhospitable due to explosion of the sixth planet in the system. Khan loses his wife and most of his followers because of this. This leads to a series of exciting battles between Kirk and Khan and ends with the unfortunate but noble sacrifice of Spock. Everyone is left with the reassurance the Kirk remains uncontested in both tactics and execution. Such illusions need to be confronted with reason. Upon re examination of the movie we see that it was indeed Spock that deceived Khan thus creating the opportunity for Kirk to defeat Khan. Plus how can we ignore the glaringly obvious point that Khan had almost zero experience with three-dimensional space combat, no crew and no Star Fleet Academy accreditation. And Khan still almost defeats him! I repeat, the Enterprise is the flag ship of the Federation, with the best crew possible in the federation and Khan despite his deficit in knowledge both technological and crew wise, he still came dangerously close in defeating Kirk. Furthermore, Spock repaired the warp drive that enabled them to escape the nebula. What would Kirk have done if Spock was a being of lesser character and morality or simply just fudged the repairs? The obvious result would have been the mutual destruction of Khan, his ship the Reliant, Kirk, the Enterprise and all of its crew. From this, we surmise that Kirk is the superior Captain to Picard because he was able to defeat someone for which he had a disproportionate advantage to, and to which his success was deemed possible by first emotional irrationality of Khan's love interest, and second the quick wit and self sacrifice of his second officer. These are the actions of a superior tactician…Really? Khan is beloved and idolized because of his Shakespearean demise and because he presented the Star Trek audience with a character embodied the same egotism comparable to only that of Captain Kirk. Is it any surprise that people who love Kirk, love Khan as a nemesis to Kirk? Do not the individual and collective enemies of a man reveal the valor of his character? Is not a man defined by how he overcomes conflict? Perhaps I should recant some of the respect I ceded to Kirk at the start of this argument. Q, on the other hand is a near omnipotent deity. He can stop death, create life, travel through time, stop time, create multiple versions of himself, and create entire worlds. He has every conceivable advantage over Picard. He even plunges Picard into alternate realities. Picard successful beats Q using intellect and calculated thinking. What speaks most to Picard's character is that after the multiple confrontations with Q, Q aides Picard in saving the human race. Picard was able to take an enemy, an enemy that boasted superior power and intellect, and convert him into a welcoming ally. Picard earns the respect of his enemy and nemesis, in contrast to Kirk who elicits only vengeance and wrath from his. Perhaps we can say that Kirk destroyed the big God Head at the edge of the galaxy. But really, he just ordered an orbital bombardment on a big floating head. On this merit alone the debate could end here. Picard and Hugh: I will first argue that Kirk has never encountered an opponent like the Borg. I will also state that Picard survived assimilation into a collective hybrid mind as Locutus. Despite an occasional lapse in emotional and imaginative control, he still maintained his psychological faculties (It says something with a race with a collective hybrid mind gives you an individual name). Furthermore, after experiencing the traumatic event being assimilated, he was still capable of imparting mercy and compassion against his enemy, (a far cry from Kirk). Con cites this as a reason to show inferiority, but he ignores Picard's reasoning, (Which I might add makes Picard so great, he possessed a sense of reasoning that was self evident, no Spock needed). Picard spared Hugh and the Borg because he first realized that Hugh was an individual. But most importantly he understood that genocide was wrong. Con would lead us to believe that Picard lacked superior moral and intellectual reasoning because Picard believes that exterminating an entire race of sentient beings is wrong. Furthermore, Picard is not the only captain to recognize this. Captain Janeway made a similar decision when she saved the Borg from Species 8472. From this we can conclude that either Picard set the moral standard for the Federation or was in coherence with it by virtue of his actions. Picard assisted in making First Contact, thus making the Star Trek universe a reality to begin with. Was it not Picard that ventured into the Nexus to rescue Kirk from a fake reality? I cannot think of a more powerful example of superiority than this. Picard was able to realize the illusion, his reasonable and intellectual capabilities overcame self delusion. Whereas Kirk wanted a continuous existence in dream like reality, this is the mind of superior Captain? How many years was he in the Nexus? Let's compare that to how long it took Picard to snap out of it. I find this not too far from the Kirk when analyzing Kirk's mental landscape, he is a delusional but entertaining Captain. http://en.wikipedia.org... http://en.wikipedia.org... http://memory-alpha.org... http://en.wikipedia.org...(Star_Trek) http://en.wikipedia.org... http://memory-alpha.org...