Why did Picard Violate the Prime Directive in Nemesis??

Why did Picard violate the Prime Directive in Nemesis? At the beginning of the movie, he takes a shuttle down to Kolarus III, where he, Worf and Data drive around in a dune buggy and start gunning down the locals. I know plot radiation prevented them from using the transporters to obtain the android parts scattered across the planet, but why didn't Picard wait till night fall, then send teams under cover of darkness to obtain the pieces, without alerting the locals? A little stealth would have went a long way.

Heck if Shinzon needed the Enterprise crew to find B4, why did he hide in pieces on a planet full of hostile natives, instead of putting B-4 in an easier place to get to?

 

Bad writing and poor understanding of Trek?

 

Because having an Action Buggy scene with guns and a daring jump through the shuttle hatch required a flimsy story excuse?

 

Does the Prime Directive even apply? Just because they're pre warp doesn't mean they aren't frequently visited by non-Federation warp-capable species, or are perhaps even allied with one hostile to Starfleet.

They look a lot like Keenser.

 

It appears obvious to me that it was all arranged by Shinzon, including drafting the natives to harass Picard.

LaForge carefully mapped the positions of the known settlements of the natives before the heroes landed on the planet. Supposedly, there was little or no risk of encounters there. Yet somehow these heavily armed folks did appear, right after Picard had picked up the final piece of B-4 - not a minute earlier, not a minute later.

It's pretty obvious why Shinzon would want this very thing to happen: Picard was already convinced that "something is wrong", and mustn't be given time to think about it. So our favorite not-quite-Reman digs up a (fake?) Soongian android from some junk heap of Tal'Shiar or whoever it was that helped him succeed in his little Spartacus rebellion; plants this on a planet that will lure Picard away from his well-published route from Earth to the Betazed wedding, and to a location closer to the Romulan Neutral Zone; and then bribes the locals to pretend that they want to kill Picard, so that there would be no chance of the Captain figuring out the forensic details of the planting. After the locals signal Shinzon that Picard took the bait, Shinzon sends the call for negotiations, knowing Picard is now the skipper closest to the Romulan homeworld.

At least that's what Shinzon ought to have done...

As for breaking the Prime Directive, our heroes are always surveying primitive species - that's an important part of the whole PD thing. They just take care not to be seen. And landing in the middle of a desert far away from known settlements sounds like a routine maneuver... One that is best conducted in broad daylight, when a minimum number of people are likely to be traipsing in a desert!

Timo Saloniemi

 

The explanation that B4 might have been created by someone else - perhaps, as you sort of suggested here, the Romulans attempting to roll their own Data - rather than actually being created by Soong had frankly never occurred to me. But I like it. And I'm going to blame not wanting to think about Nemesis, period, for not having thought of it.

 

Because Patrick Stewart wanted to drive dune buggies.

 

This. Oh so very much. Completely.

It was, quite simply, pandering to the self-indulgent interests of the lead actor. Nothing more, nothing less. That it violates the rules of the franchise, let alone the well established personal principals of the character that said actor had been playing for something like 15 years by that point and who he should've known back-to-front, didn't even enter into the equation when the scene was proposed.

One would hope that Sir Patrick would've had the dignity to see his character's motivations beyond those of his own personal interests in off-road racing. But, alas....

 

I think there's some evidence that the Kolarus residents were already aware of the existence of dune buggies and guns.

 

The only reason the Prime Directive exists is so that it can be ignored when convenient for the plot.

 

As for why they didn't wait until nightfall, maybe the planet rotates slowly and its "day" is several Earth days long.

As for the rest, the area was believed to be deserted, so they didn't expect to encounter any locals. And once they did, I think Picard's actions did more to protect the Prime Directive than to violate it. Think about it. If they'd hidden their advanced weapons and shuttlecraft and been captured, then the Kolarans would've had proof of alien life and technology, and that would've had a major impact on their society. But because they fled and flew away, all the Kolarans have is an unconfirmed UFO sighting, which in the absence of physical evidence is probably not going to have much effect.

 

I agree with Christopher, the discover of an alien technology would have had a stronger impact than a simple story about a Close encounter of the Third kind.

 

Well, assuming it wasn't the first UFO sighting in Kolaran history. Kenneth Arnold's "flying disc" sighting in 1947 triggered a nationwide frenzy of sightings and ongoing military investigations for many years thereafter. Although maybe that was just a side effect of Cold War hypervigilance combined with the nascent space age, priming people to think they were seeing such things.

 

That's not the impression I got. Those natives were shooting at them! And it didn't look like blanks. Any one of those shots could have potentially killed Picard. So either Shinzon recruited the dumbest natives imaginable, or they were really trying to kill them.

And really, that's the most ridiculous plan ever. If Shinzon had access to an actual Soong android, and he was now the new Praetor, why didn't he just contact the Federation, tell them what he had, and specifically ask for the Enterprise to come to Romulus to get it? That way he'd have Picard and a way to get B4 onto the Enterprise, without resorting to wasting time on Kolarus.

On second thought, why even bother with B4? If Shinzon needed Picard's blood to survive, why didn't he just contact Picard and tell him this? Starfleet Medical would probably have found a way to help Shinzon without him trying to kidnap and kill Picard.

 

Better to leave the Kolarans with a mystery than a working android.

 

^A working android that couldn't find its way out of a paper bag.

 

I don't think its intelligence would be an issue. It's all the advanced circuitry on the inside. The Kolarans may have been to the point where they could understand some of it.

 

True! Look what the Terminator's arm and brain circuitry led to.

 

Yeah, collecting the parts is on some level justified in the script. Isn't there dialogue specifying that the Kolarans are at an 'industrial age' level of development? Certainly they've got land vehicles figured out, so leaving B-4 there for them to uncover could result in them accumulating technological advancement centuries ahead of their time. I think what rankles with me about the sequence isn't so much Picard acting so out-of-character in wanting to trawl over the surface of a planet in a Jeep in the first place, but more the scenes where they open fire on the Kolarans that are attacking them. Sure they're under attack, sure maybe Worf went for non-lethal takedowns or something, but it's just like..... that's what makes it such a violation of the Prime Directive. What if they *did* kill some of them? Even by accident?

To be honest I think I'd have found the entire scene more acceptable if the action sequence was excised. Keep Picard, Data and Worf looking for parts down on the planet in their little dune buggy, but cut the following scene where they get into a fire-fight with the locals.

 

I'm confused why they didn't just beam the components up?