“We shouldn’t help, if we can avoid it. Our oath is to our TSN and the USFP. And if we help them for any reason than to alleviate some immediately untenable situation, such as the application of fusion warheads to an illegal target, then we abandon that oath to help our baser need to inflict our sensibilities on another sentient life form just because they may, at some point in the future, do something morally objectionable. Because when we are no longer acting in defense of a specific and tangible collection of sentients against a specific illegal act currently underway, then we are committing acts of war which we are not authorized to make.
That bit about fighting with courage? Sometimes it takes courage to do the right thing the right way, rather than trying to just use our might to make the universe into what we think right is. No, Lieutenant Commander, I wholeheartedly disagree. Our legal imperative is making ourselves whole, getting LCDR Mundy and the cadet back, and getting back to our universe.”