All that said. Its your game. So if you want to ignore any sense of reality in favour of letting your players lead the way (and in an RPG thats the way it should be, almost like writing a TV show... odd that)... but anyway if you want to create a situation where your players are the semi-masters of their own destiny then the TV series shows that any-old half-arsed excuse is good enough.
Of course a decent GM might save the repercussions of this until later and make an episode out of it.
It would actually work quite well if (as Sarek shows) someone has opinions on the issue, but while a little tension in character is good dont let it get out of character and beware letting it bog the plot down...
Good luck...