Star Trek morality test - best and worst episodes

I'd also add The Offspring for TNG. About the morality of forcibly stripping away someone's child, when he's been a perfectly model parent. And about an android's rights: do they have the right to create a child. Excellent outing

 

the TOS PD was much more flexible and defensible a concept than the TNG PD. The TNG PD became fundamentalist nonsense, that if applied literally, would mean that the Federation would have to be isolationist to adhere to it.

 

The PD applies to unwarranted or unwanted intervention. If Starfleet is dragged into situations against their will by the locals, or if they are asked formally for aid, then the PD no longer applies.

 

Uhhh...no. Kirk and company were dragged in chains in Bread and Circuses and it still applied. Just because 400 people are threatened doesn't give Kirk the right to change the status quo between billions of people. Not to mention Kirk was warned off. Just because Ambassador Ironside tells him to proceed doesn't justify bringing two planets to Defcon 1.

 

And of course no freedom of speech, no free press, no fair legal system, and such.

 

I think someone mentioned "Devil in the Dark", but I'd like to agree with that one.

 

Not really. Gowron requested aid during the civil war, under the terms of the alliance, and still Starfleet refused, citing the PD.

Of course, Picard has a notoriously broad view of what the PD forbids him to do.

 

Am I missing something? I just viewed the section in which Gowron's ship is attacked in orbit, and Picard makes no reference to the Prime Directive. He only states non-involvement in internal affairs. I thought that the Prime Directive referred only to primitive (pre-warp) societies. The question of Federation involvement in the domestic affairs of other governments need no be reflected in it. Was something retconned?

 

Gowron was not recognized by everyone in the empire as the legitimate leader of the Klingon Empire. Yes, Picard arbitrated for him but that Duras had enough supporters to challenge him in such a way shows that this wasn't what all the Klingons thought. If the Feds helped out someone who was not recognized at the legitimate leader by the people and more or less "installed" him it would ultimately damage Gowron's position and be seen as the Feds interfering in an internal dispute that the Klingon people did not wholly want them interfering in.

 

Like I said, the Cardassians thought they were the smart ones until they were ordered to die by the millions.

 

Earlier I blasted Kirk for violating the PD in "A Taste of Armageddon"...I just reread the teaser transcript, and Ambassador Fox doesn't 'lightly suggest he has command of this mission'...he drags Kirk kicking and screaming into the situation. Fox says 'thousands of lives have been lost on this route in the last 20 years*,lives that could have been saved if we had a treaty port**...and we mean to have it"

It's Starfleet that is blasting away the Prime Directive, all Kirk is doing giving Starfleet what they wanted.

*Who knows why. Orion Pirates, dangerous anomalies.

** F**k those natives, right Starfleet?

 

They hadn't won yet.

 

And that's totally not like slavery.

 

Yea.

I think it says something about how little we value freedom people need to equivocate my post with why that's bad.



It's a totalitarian government. The fact it makes really good ice cream and won't go on random massacres is not a reason to like it.

 

No, oppression and slavery are different. Slaves can't speak freely, but they also can't determine their own movements or dispose of their own labor. Unless you can show that subjects of the dominion could not do these things, their enslavement was more euphamism. If there is any way it could be said that the dominiom practiced slavery, it was with the Jemhadar, who resemble Wolof slaves.

 

When the government is the slavemasters, it's serfdom.

 

In serfdom, the peasant is tied to the land or to the lord via the manor house. The government's role is secondary.

 

That is true, but sometimes the whole thing seems unfair and uneven. If I'm not mistaken, Sisko went out of his way to contact Cardassia first, then reacted when Dukat asked for help.

They engaged the Klingons with force, sent ships, everything.

And Cardassia and the Federation had a pretty shaky relationship with Cardassia's plots and violating treaties between them.

When Gowron requested help from Picard based on their treaty, he flat out refused, (based on the internal affairs doctrine) but later he and Starfleet gave indirect military assistance.

The Bajorans were brutally oppressed by the Cardassians. One refugee said he resented the Federation because they stood by as innocent bystanders were massacred, knowing full well what was happening.

One real life example may be why the U.S or U.N will intervene in some affairs, but not take any action in others for examples like Darfar, Croatia, Libya or Syria.

What makes The Fed (or even US) decide to intervene militarily in some affairs, yet ignore or do little in others?

 

No, the lord IS the government. Which is that you are the property thereof.

 

Don't have a great answer to that question. In the end, the Prime Directive seems like it's not any different from other rules in that it's open to interpretation. Every officer must decide how and when it actually applies, knowing that it's often easier to ask forgiveness than permission. Sisko's actions could have been interpreted as a violation of the PD: OTOH, the Klingons were stationed at DS9 just before they went into Cardassian space, so Sisko could have argued that they'd already dragged (albeit indirectly) Starfleet into the situation.

The discussion in the ward room is interesting. Dax doesn't say that they're violating the PD by warning Cardassia. She says, "The Klingons are still our allies. If we warned the Cardassians, we'd be betraying them."

O'Brien follows that with a comment about the Klingons being right. Whether that's because he actually believed it or because of his own hatred of Cardassians is something I don't know the answer to. Regardless, it's clear that no one sees helping Dukat as a violation of Federation rules. Like anything else in fiction, the PD is probably just another plot-device used to advance the story rather than being an actual rule.

--Sran