Prime Directive violation? [Spoilers?]

Re: Prime Directive violation?

Maybe the writers saw the fan reaction to how the PD is and made it what it actually should be rather than the literal interpretation, not to mention sfdebris and his break down of it a while back. TNG did a good job with the PD at times, then AWFUL especially that one in season 2 with Data and the little girl. I'm glad the writers are fixing that part of the PD.

It's also possibly that the volcano is some kind of super volcano that could possibly be about to erupt and wipe out every living thing on the planet? I doubt the Enterprise would pick it up otherwise, unless they had an outpost monitoring the culture on the planet like in WWTW.

 

Re: Prime Directive violation?

Next thing you know, the Enterprise will be saving a planet from an asteroid collision.

 

Re: Prime Directive violation?

Of course not. He should refrain from telling them anything!

People die all the time, everywhere. What would be the point of spending valuable starship time in saving some from a volcano? The very act might mean that a larger number of people die elsewhere for lack of starship support. Should Kirk next try and give mouth-to-mouth to all the drowning children on the planet? Act as bodyguard to all the women walking in a fog? Stand by to talk down any doctors wanting to pull the plug on their fathers' life support machinery?

At least the devastation in "Paradise Syndrome" and "Pen Pals" was to be total, potentially warranting starship intervention.

I guess so, but that would invalidate the bit where

Spoiler: 9-min preview plot revelation

Kirk and McCoy steal a holy scroll or idol or whatnot to lure the local community out of the harm's way

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Timo Saloniemi

 

Re: Prime Directive violation?

What valuable starship time? What else do they have to do that's more important?
Their job is to explorer and seek out new life. They found life that is in danger and they can help. That's what they do.

Nothing is invalidated.
The scroll luring (if that's what it actually is) is a temporary measure so that they don't get incinerated by the lava rain and until Spock can permanently solve the big problem.

 

Re: Prime Directive violation?

It could be part of a bigger eruption, I dunno.

 

Re: Prime Directive violation?

If the Enterprise is quick enough, gathering that much water on take off, it may still be covered in sheets of water as it moves over land to beam Spock out of the volcano and leave.

Which would not reveal the existance of aliens or starships to the natives. On the other hand, it may look to them that some sort of sea god rose up and quelled the volcano...

 

Re: Prime Directive violation?

The Prime Directive is all well and good until your on the end being refused help by more advanced powers which could easily get you out of a jam but refuse to...as illustrated time and time again on Stargate with the Asgard, Ancients and Tollan.

Im not an advocate for Starfleet to go around literally putting out bush fires on a daily basis but the whole not interfering with a less developed world when you can help is a little inhuman.

The same argument could be had with under developed countries today going through a drought, famine or natural disaster.

Could you imagine the reaction if the world had said "sorry about your tsunami but your less developed than us so we cant help you"

 

Re: Prime Directive violation?

Imagine after a few thousand years when these guys get television:

 

Re: Prime Directive violation?

Kirk violated the Prime Directive pretty much any time he felt like it.

Frankly, if there are aliens out there watching this planet I hope they have a Prime Directive - all of us here might not agree with their definitions of "offering help," after all.

 

Re: Prime Directive violation?

NuSpock here believes that it is better to die a potentially horrible death than allow these scroll worshipping white folk to even glimpse the Enterprise. Why? Because something might happen. We don't know what it is, but we do know that something *might* happen so every Starfleet officer must choose suicide no matter what.

Oh, Prime Directive. If you're not justifying our heroes into letting an entire species go extinct, you're justifying our heroes into killing themselves over something that cannot be proven. This is Dogma.

 

Re: Prime Directive violation?

I don't know, but I get the impression that part of the movie is gonna be Kirk + crew being reprimanded for violating the prime directive, which is why the Enterprise is back on Earth. Sounds like a good idea you have there too. I was reading Orci was a big fan of the TOS book Prime Directive which had a story about that.

 

Re: Prime Directive violation?

Yeah, isn't the point of bringing it up usually just to break it? I suppose the Malcorians are an exception, coincidentally.

 

Re: Prime Directive violation?

I would think that non interference might be more related to introducing new facts about the universe, new technology and the like into a race not quite ready for them. That would radically alter the evolution of those people.

I would like to think that an attempted uncover operation to save a culture from extinction would be okay under the PD.

 

Re: Prime Directive violation?

Not in the 24th century, see the TNG episodes Pen Pals and Homeward.

 

Re: Prime Directive violation?

I'd say even the Malcorians would constitute a Prime Directive violation. Riker had sex with one of the females. Who knows what he could've introduced to the biosphere by committing that act? Plus they removed what could have been a disruptive and evolutionary element by allowing Minister Yale to leave the planet. They eliminated an element that may have spurred the Malcorians onto the next step in their social/technological evolution.

 

Re: Prime Directive violation?

We do know that covert operations are allowed, and that trying to hide them as best as possible is usually the case. Once contamination has already accidentally occurred, it's up to the crew to try and limit that contamination, and the PD no longer applies to that specific contamination.

More so what I meant was that whenever they bring up the Prime Directive, they intend to bring it up so that they can willfully disobey it. Like the aforementioned "Pen Pals." There was no way they were going to have a story where the crew didn't save the planet. The directive was put there so that they could have some sort of moral debate where the outcome was easily understood. It was nothing more than a device to make that happen, so that's probably why it doesn't make practical sense.

 

Re: Prime Directive violation?

Yeah, but this is the 23rd century. The PD is different.

The PD as defined in TOS is:
"No identification of self or mission. No interference with the social development of said planet. No references to space or the fact that there are other worlds or civilizations."

The is no mention of letting a race die just because saving them would be interference. In fact, in the definition of the PD as stated above, the Federation could in fact save a peoples from destruction as long as the true identity people doing the "saving" (i.e., Federation space travelers) is kept a secret from the primitive race, and the social development of a planet is not affected. Saving a planet from destruction is not necessarily "interfering with the social development of said planet". It could be done so without interfering with social development.interference.

It seems that the 23rd century PD allows for such a mission of mercy, especially if the race of people don't really know they were saved by people from another world. If Kirk, et al go in, save the planet, and leave without raising a ruckus (or too much of one), then all is Kosher with the PD.

 

Re: Prime Directive violation?

The Prime Directive is made to be broken, especially where Kirk is involved!

And I'm sure the people on Miramanee's planet appreciate that! Not to mention the planets freed from Landru, Vaal, the Oracle of Yonada, etc.

 

Re: Prime Directive violation?

I must have watched a different preview or something.

In the one I saw, Spock clearly says "if this volcano erupts, the planet dies." It also shows Kirk and McCoy causing a distraction in order to keep the natives from seeing the shuttle craft flying into the volcano; the fact that they had the entire village hunting them down like dogs was wholly unexpected. Both Kirk and McCoy were totally surprised by the reaction. The natives that were chasing them being saved from the minor eruption was pure happenstance.

And that's why Spock was so upset and bitching about the plan to expose the Enterprise. It would defeat everything they had just done, namely keeping themselves from being revealed to the natives. It certainly didn't have anything to do with Kirk trying to save the natives; that's what Spock was risking his life for! Kirk was just going to disregard the Prime Directive in order to try and save Spock, too.

It was pretty straight forward. I'm not entirely sure how so many people were unable to keep up with it...

 

Re: Prime Directive violation?

This.