WARNING: Contains SPOILERS for Star Trek: Lower Decks' season 4 finale!
Summary
- Both Nova Squadron and Red Squad were elite groups of Starfleet Academy students, but Red Squad's actions were more egregious, resulting in a higher body count.
- Nova Squadron, led by Nick Locarno, made a fatal mistake during a maneuver, but ultimately took responsibility and protected their team. Red Squad, under the leadership of Tim Watters, made reckless decisions that got their crew killed.
- While Nova Squadron's mistake was dangerous, Red Squad's decision to engage a Jem'Hadar battleship during the Dominion War was far riskier and resulted in a larger loss of life.
Both Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine introduced their own elite groups of Starfleet Academy students – Nova Squadron and Red Squad – but one team's crimes were worse than the others. An elite flight team, Nova Squadron comprised Starfleet Academy's best pilots who would perform various impressive displays of their piloting abilities. Sadly, a fatal accident during flight training would sully the name of Nova Squadron in a formative moment for Starfleet Academy Cadet Wesley Crusher (Wil Wheaton).
As Wesley Crusher's surprise successor, Cadet Nog (Aaron Eisenberg) also ended up associating with an elite group of Starfleet Academy students. Nog's ambitions were later fulfilled when he and Jake Sisko (Cirroc Lofton) ended up aboard the USS Valiant, where the Ferengi was inducted into the elite squad. However, the actions of Red Squad a year or two earlier during the Changeling incursion on Earth should really have given Nog some pause for thought. Both Nova Squadron and Red Squad were led by egotistical young men, eager to make a name for themselves. Tragically, both Nicholas Locarno (Robert Duncan McNeill) and Cadet Tim Watters (Paul Popowich) made their names at the expense of the lives of others.
