Risk was the threat or chance of something bad happening.
In the 23rd century, starship captains could decide which mission was too risky or wasn't. This responsibility was one of the factors which led to Captain Christopher Pike's fatigue. (TOS: "The Cage")
In 2364, Commander William T. Riker stated that Captain Paul Rice was someone who was confident to the point of arrogance, but that he carried it well because he was usually right and was a risk taker. When Captain Jean-Luc Picard seemed surprised by this, Riker detailed how Rice had once rejected the provided options on a Starfleet Academy exam and instead offered one of his own, which Picard agreed was a risk. Riker told him that it had paid off, as he had gotten the top grade. (TNG: "The Arsenal of Freedom")
That same year, when Captain Walker Keel used a Code 47 to contact Captain Jean-Luc Picard, Picard asked him he had done so. Keel told him that he felt it was worth the risk. When Picard queried just what this risk was, he told him it was about something about Starfleet that they had never thought possible. Shortly following this, Counselor Deanna Troi noted the fact that Picard was putting his career at risk based on his trust in Keel, despite Keel having violated regulations. To this, Picard expressed his opinion that friendship must dare to risk, or it was not friendship. (TNG: "Conspiracy")
In 2370, Martus Mazur claimed that prospecting could be risky. (DS9: "Rivals")
After time traveling from 2373 to 1996 Earth, Tuvok refused to take off his shirt and risk dermal dysplasia due to thermal and ultraviolet radiation being at hazardous levels. (VOY: "Future's End")
In 2375, suffering mentally after having learned the previous year of the death of a large number of her Maquis comrades, B'Elanna Torres began engaging in a series of extremely dangerous holographic programs with the safety protocols disabled, which the main computer of the USS Voyager described as posing an extreme risk of injury. (VOY: "Extreme Risk")
In 2377, when the USS Voyager was split into thirty-seven timeframes, Seven of Nine devised a plan to put the vessel back into sync with the original timeframe at the time when the split occurred. However, Captain Kathryn Janeway, having originated from the timeframe just before Voyager became stranded in the Delta Quadrant, expressed to Commander Chakotay the desire to modify the plan so that Voyager would be placed in sync with her timeframe, such that she could avoid the original incident resulting in the stranding in the first place. Chakotay, however, argued that Seven of Nine's plan was already dangerous as it was and that trying to alter it would be too risky. Janeway countered that it was worth the risk, that the Delta Quadrant was a death-trap, but Chakotay told her she wasn't seeing the whole picture and that she was being presumptuous to think she had the right to change everyone's future. (VOY: "Shattered")
See also
- Security risk