Ok.
We just completed our game and boy did the players throw me a loop. So I need your help to figure out what to do for the next game. This might be a long thread so sorry ahead of time.
Story
The Captain (A player in our group) commands an Intrepid Class Starship (Voyager) named The Valkyrie. They were on their way to Starbase Sierra 39 (Along the Romulan Neutral Zone) when they received an SoS from a Oberth Class Starship. They answered the call and discovered the Oberth floating near a strange Nebula. Her Warp drive had breached and they had to eject it. The explosion of the core had damaged their Impulse Engines. They were drifting into the Nebula. The Nebula had a strange effect on Starships, it drained their power supply. So the ship was losing power fast. As the Valkyrie pulled close and locked a tractor beam on the ship, the Counselor of the Valkeryie (A Deltan Female) felt an intelligence inside the Nebula. She told the Captain and he told her to keep an eye on it during their rescue operations. As they were freeing the Oberth, the Counselor was taken over by the strange intelligence (The Nebula was actually the conciousness of billions of lifeforms). She collapsed on the bridge. They took her to sickbay. The Valkyrie saved the Oberth and towed it back to the Starbase. The Counselor awoke a few hours later saying that the Nebula had overwhelmed her. But uknown to the crew, she was no longer in control of her actions. The Alien life form had taken her over. A few days later, the crew noticed that the counsilor was acting funny. The Captain discovered that the Counsilor was being controlled by an alien entity. The Entity told the Captain that unless it was allowed to leave, it would use the Counselor's telepathic ability to destroy the ship (Mind Control). Apparently the Entity was a criminal from the nebula that was trying to get away from it and had possessed the Counselor's body. The Nebula consisted of billions of intelligent energy life forms that had the ability to possess others. She was not going to give up the Counselor's body and if they did not let her leave, she would destroy the ship. The Captain allowed her to take a Shuttlecraft. As she was leaving the ship and pulling away, the Captain tried to talk to the Counselor that was trapped in her own body. In an impassioned plea, he begged her to fight the entity. It worked and for a brief moment she was in control. Then he gave the order to destroy the shuttlecraft. So the Security Officer did with a full barrage of Photons and Phasers. The crew was shocked, many (players alike) believing the Captain didn't do enough to try to save the Counselor (The Security Officer had a thing for her and he was the one that fired the Phasers that killed her.).
The Captain's reason was that he felt as soon as the life form was free, it would destroy their ship anyway. Her power could work far enough so that she could have destroyed the ship and got away. He said he saw no other choice.
Now my question.
What would Starfleet do about the Captain?
Was his order justified?
Would he be court martialed?
A Reprimand?
I am planning my story even as we speak. I am going to do a formal hearing at the start of next game. Any idea's u guys throw at me would be appreciated.
I just want to hear what you guys think.
Stule
What would Starfleet do about this?