“If it would work to have the people stay on the planet just under Cardassian control, don’t you think the finest diplomatic minds in the Federation would have thought of that? This only makes sense if you assume that everyone in the Federation not on the Enterprise is too much of an idiot to put their pants on right in the morning.”

While I agree the “solution” was pretty obviously foolish on its face, I’d have to say the blame for all their deaths in the subsequent failed Maquis rebellion rests squarely on those colonists themselves rather than Picard; they really were that stupid. As with California or New York or any deep blue state the Democrats are currently running into the ground, it’s easy to blame the elected officials since theirs are the most visible names and faces in the media and they’re technically the ones in charge, but the vast majority of the blame for their ruining of those states necessarily rests with the Democrat voters who’ve been putting and keeping them in power for decade after decade. Those officials are just giving those voters exactly what they voted to get, good, hard, and with considerable enthusiasm.

In Picard’s case, all he actually did was give those stupid colonists their way, and only very reluctantly at that. I’d be willing to bet he and those “finest diplomatic minds” of the Federation (whoever they might be) agreed that those colonists were making a terrible mistake, but it was one they had the right to make. I’d also note the Federation doesn’t seem to have any policy compelling it to take back any of its wayward former citizens; you’ll notice it never sent any armies to retake its failed colony on Turkana IV (as seen in the episode “Legacy”) from what were basically the two secessionist factions ruling it. It probably wouldn’t have bothered to do anything about the Maquis either if they hadn’t stolen some of the Federation’s property and stirred up so much trouble in that politically sensitive Neutral Zone between it and the Cardassian Union.

“The supposed ‘bad guys’ here are right, and those supposed ‘good guys’ are dolts for rejecting their generous offer to move their colonies to some other habitable planet(s) out of harm’s way.”

I’m with you, except that I would add that in my initial viewing of the episode, I was frustrated at the obviousness of the solution. I was shouting at the TV, “If it would work to have the people stay on the planet just under Cardassian control, don’t you think the finest diplomatic minds in the Federation would have thought of that? This only makes sense if you assume that everyone in the Federation not on the Enterprise is too much of an idiot to put their pants on right in the morning.”

And of course it never could have worked because:

(a) The Cardassians would never treat non-Cardassians as the equal of their own people, and

(b) Even if they would, the space-Natives wouldn’t like being treated as Cardassians. “Preserving their culture” probably doesn’t mean, “Surrendering to a police state where sentence is first, trial is later.”

It must have required a remarkable amount of self-delusion and wishful thinking on Picard’s part for him to believe that this was a workable alternative. As far as I’m concerned, much of the blame for all the deaths in the later Maquis conflict should be on his head.

If any insty-evolution Star Trek episode in the franchise deserved to get the “Spock’s Brain” award for promoting hilariously pseudoscientific nonsense, it’s “Threshold” from Voyager, in which some of that insty-evolution nonsense turns Tom Paris and Kathryn Janeway into giant salamanders; the writers have never yet lived that down.

Even after all these years, I remember ranting LOUDLY at the TV when I watched that one.

As with that “Outcast” episode, of course, this is another case of “Y’know, that shoe-horned-in moral metaphor doesn’t really stand up very well to scrutiny.”

Yes, but you know as well as I do that modern ethics are all governed by the feelz.

I don’t care that this episode won the “Spock’s Brain” award; it may not be deep or scientifically accurate, but it’s fun.

If any insty-evolution Star Trek episode in the franchise deserved to get the “Spock’s Brain” award for promoting hilariously pseudoscientific nonsense, it’s “Threshold” from Voyager, in which some of that insty-evolution nonsense turns Tom Paris and Kathryn Janeway into giant salamanders; the writers have never yet lived that down. As for “Genesis” from The Next Generation, the “science” is every bit as lousy, but the story is as amusing as you say. I remember a television station rerunning this as a “horror” episode for Halloween one year in the early aughts; which I guess would probably be a pretty accurate designation from Picard’s point of view.

Of course, Troi is half Betazoid and half-human, so I’m thinking the implications of her turning into something aquatic are supposed to be “Well, supposing an ape were to boink a dolphin and they somehow could have offspring…”

Meanwhile, thanks to ongoing negotiations with Cardassians, a demilitarized zone is being established by treaty; unfortunately, a Federation colony of Native American descent has ended up in which will now be Cardassian space. And despite the personal qualms of both Captain Picard and Admiral Nechayev (who really looks like she went to bat to prevent it), the Federation citizens are to be removed from the planet, peacefully or otherwise. It’s the Trail of Tears all over again!

As with that “Outcast” episode, of course, this is another case of “Y’know, that shoe-horned-in moral metaphor doesn’t really stand up very well to scrutiny.” As shown in Deep Space Nine, the Federation was trying to relocate those natives (who were full-fledged Federation citizens) elsewhere within its borders to protect them from the Cardassian Union’s brutal oppression; not steal a bunch of non-citizens’ ancestral homelands out from under them to give them to its own citizens, as with the Trail of Tears. Here again, I’d have to say “The supposed ‘bad guys’ here are right, and those supposed ‘good guys’ are dolts for rejecting their generous offer to move their colonies to some other habitable planet(s) out of harm’s way.”