For Dal, I think his rebellious streak and lack of any real usable skills (outside his general courage/daring) may give him a hard time at first. Now he will have to follow orders himself, and not just from VA Janeway but from a long line of officers and others in between.
Dal definitely tried to play "hero of the story" for nearly all of Season 1 and would pay for it several times and have it also pay off several times.
As much as he desperately wants to be an officer or captain of note there's a long streak of episodes of him having to learn and grow about what a captain actually is beyond the shots-caller. The general courage and daring would actually serve him very well in the officer's track in Starfleet training. Pike, Kirk and Picard don't seem to have any "particular" skill outside of their ability to command and trust in their crew.
Janeway and Sisko are the exceptions to this seeming rule as they both had firm backgrounds in Science and Engineering branches, with Sisko being the main engineer designing the Defiant.
If Dal is serious about command, pairing him up with Commander Tysses makes sense to me.
The inclination for unsollicited mind reading may land Zero in hot water at some point, though otherwise Zero would probably do well (maybe not as pilot of the ship though).
People played double-duty on the Protostar because there was no crew. I think pairing Zero up in Medical with Dr Goum would be a good contrasting "odd couple" moment and Zero did seem to have a nack for medicine despite being incorporeal.
Rok has maybe the best tools to make it as a warrant officer, as her intellect and knowledge are nothing short of remarkable in one so young. It remains to be seen though, what her direct Starfleet environment will think of having to work with a young child and with what is basically a toddler. I assume Murf was allowed in mostly because Starfleet wants to study him, and they can keep Rok happy at the same time.
Murf's still kind of the "pet" of the Prodigy kids and having a legitimate child prodigy among them seems to be the best development for Rok herself. Rok asks excitedly what Xenobiology even is at the end of S1 when she's obviously in whatever crash course they're being given so her continuing her study of Murf seems like a really good idea, and plenty of potential plot development to be had there. Maybe she can specialise in it, while also being a genius jack-of-all-trades scientist.
Jankom may have a bit of the same problem as Dal, though at least he has some very usuable skills in the O'Brien tradition. But following standard Starfleet practice and orders in engineering may not be his forte, at first.
Jankom Pogg was also proving himself in front of the engineering cadre that he knew how to fix things with the fun fakeout of going to hit it with his hammer hand.
What I think would be a good early frustration for him would be stuck fixing the food replicators or some other menial engineering task that's still utterly vital for day to day operations/crew comfort. Perhaps sticking him with a vulcan engineer who's perfectly happy with his lot fixing replicators for a living and something going wrong there?
No doubt, they will end up proving themselves in the end, but I expect the road to be full of hiccups at first.
Prodigy runs to the beat of "hiccup and grow" and long may it do so!
Robert Beltran is no fan of the prime directive (
https://www.cnet.com/culture/star-t...-beltran-the-prime-directive-is-fascist-crap/) :
“The idea of leaving any species to die in its own filth when you have the ability to help them, just because you wanna let them get through their normal evolutionary processes is bunk—it's a bunch of fascist crap. I much prefer the Cub Scout motto."
While I don't see the connection to fascism (it's more a non-interventionist POV, perhaps partially designed so the Federation doesn't waste its own resources on multiple interventions), Beltran may have a point that the Prime Directive is not necessarily correct in all circumstances, at least if it is applied in a dogmatic fashion.
If I remember it exists as a general rule of thumb in the galaxy 1) Because it's a holdover from the Vulcan way of doing things and was probably part of what they lobbied for as part of the foundation of the federation. 2) The opening episode of Strange New Worlds writ rather large with flashing lights how big of a screw up even
vaguely revealling technology can do to a society. A whole planet was able to observe an artificially created wormhole and extroplate Warp-tech derived anitmatter bombs from it. The Federation is post-scarcity due to its sheer size, doesn't mean its rescources are infinite.
Now, could we see more limited humanitarian (what would the actual word be when most of your members aren't human?) maybe.
But how is a society going to feel when they're in the middle of a plague, or some other disaster and people materialise from thin air claiming they're here to help? They're going to assume you're there with false intentions and probably put you immediately to the torch. So you move to hiding the cure in foodstuffs, or blend into the population for a short time and that has its own moral implications too.
Also, what's going to happen when a similar incident or disaster happens again and there's no convienient ship of the week in orbit? It'd create an immediate dependancy of "well those guys came before and gave us free stuff, so let's sit back! They'll be back, right?"
And then you have another Terra Nova on your hands.
Hell, I can think of several examples of this very subject happening here on Planet Earth, where "do good" inentions have knock on effects which result in dependancy. African food aid continously stymies agricultural development of an entire continent due to us just dumping excess grown food there for free. Despite the fact Africa holds 50% of the
entire planets arable land, under 5% of it is properly developed because we feel better helping with fixing an immediate need instead of a longer term one.
There's a reason the phrase is "The Road to Hell is paved with good intentions."
