Captain Christopher Richard Pike

"Everyone poses a threat," Jim replied significantly. "The matter at hand is whether it is immediate. And it is less wanting him to live... and more not believing the decision to kill him is ours to make unless that threat is direct. What may be difficult to understand is that I have no personal investment in Nero's life. I hate him, to the extent I feel I can hate anyone. I hate what he did to Jim, to George, to Vulcan. It's difficult for me to attach much value to his life in the individual sense. But if I abandon my principles, I am less than myself. My concern is general until the specific threat outweighs it. If he had died in our rescue attempt, I would have regretted it less than perhaps my vehemence now might suggest. But he lived. As did Ayel, and the ship, and the two Kirks. And the situation we must deal with now deserves careful thought."