A Lesson in Ethics is a short Star Trek Fleet Command mission that drops you into Balrosh with orders to get clear of Starfleet. It runs four objectives, two of which are fights against Starfleet ships sitting at roughly 356,000 strength, and it asks for warp 22 before you can finish. The payout is 230 Klingonisch Credits and 230 Romulan Credits.
A Lesson in Ethics objectives
Every field objective happens in one system, so there is no hopping between locations once you arrive.
- Defeat the Starfleet Officer in Balrosh. The target sits at around 356,340 strength.
- Help evacuate the soldiers, also in Balrosh. This step is not a fight.
- Defeat the Starfleet Commander in Balrosh, again at roughly 356,340 strength.
- Return to your station to close the mission out.
The two fights bookend the evacuation, so the middle step gives you a natural moment to check your hull before the second engagement instead of rolling straight from one Starfleet ship into the next.
Wo und welcher Warp
Pickup costs warp 1, which means you can accept it from close to home and worry about the travel later. Finishing is the part that actually gates you: Balrosh sits at warp 22, and three of the four objectives happen there. If your ship cannot make warp 22 yet, the mission will sit in your log until it can.
Since the whole thing lives in a single system, one trip out and one trip back covers all the travel. There is no back-and-forth between systems built into the objective order.
A Lesson in Ethics rewards
Completing the mission pays 230 Klingon Credits and 230 Romulanisch Credits. Pulling two different faction currencies out of one mission is worth knowing about if you are pushing reputation on both sides at the same time. Finishing it also opens the next mission in the story line.
Tips
Both Starfleet targets carry the same strength number, so the first fight tells you everything about the second. If your ship clears the Starfleet Officer without much trouble, the Starfleet Commander will go the same way. If the first one goes badly, there is no softer alternative later in the mission; bring a stronger ship rather than trying to scrape through on repairs.
Check your warp range before you accept the mission, not after. Starting at warp 1 and completing at warp 22 is a wide gap, and it is easy to pick this one up early and then find the objectives out of reach for a while.
The evacuation objective between the two fights has no enemy attached to it, so it costs nothing but the few seconds to run it. Do not stage for a third fight that is not coming.
If you have other business out in Balrosh, handle it on the same trip. The warp cost to get there is the same whether you complete one objective or all of them, and this mission already keeps you parked in the system for three of its four steps.
The final step is a plain return to your station, so nothing about the mission ends the moment the second Starfleet ship goes down. Fly home before you queue up anything else, or the credits will sit unclaimed while you are off doing something in another system.
Warp 22 is the honest requirement for this one. Recall range and repair costs both climb the further out you sit, so if you are close to that warp threshold rather than comfortably past it, run the mission when you can give it an uninterrupted stretch instead of leaving a damaged ship parked in Balrosh.
