Would curing the Phage be a Prime Directive Breach?

[Guy Gardener]

Mr. Laser Beam wrote:

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^ But at the end, "Pen Pals" established that helping an alien race (no matter what its technological level might be) which ASKS for help, is by definition not a Prime Directive violation. Sarjenka's distress call made it legal to help her people. Same thing would apply to the Valakians, and the Vidiians.

You need to watch that episode again.

Picard was guilted into breaking the Prime Directive.

He made a connection with a deadgirl and couldn't let her die because he had feelings.

Saving that planet should have lost him his ship.

Although he saved the world in such a way that his interference was invisible.

Isn't it odd that Nikki Cox was such a beautiful girl in her twenties but as she got older and her plastic surgery addictions ramped up, her choices seemed to turn her back into Sarjenka?

[JirinPanthosa]

I don't think Picard was in any danger of losing his ship, I think the Starfleet Admirals who reviewed the case would have the same reaction we do: "Anyone who thinks the prime directive means you can't save innocent people from certain death because of moral Butterfly Effect anxiety is a moron, case dismissed."

Good interpretation of the prime directive:
Vedek Winn is anti-Federation. Vedek Bareil is pro-Federation. Prime directive says, we do not intervene and try to install Vedek Bareil even though it would be in our political best interest. (In other words, screw you Henry Kissinger you sociopathic war criminal).

Moronic interpretation of the prime directive:
We could save this planet by pressing a button, we choose not to because maybe somebody on it will be the next Hitler.

[Christopher]

teacake wrote:

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So do you (the gentle reader) think that administering the cure into the water system when it had been refused by the government would be bad?

My personal opinion is a different matter from the letter of the law. All I'm saying is that according to Starfleet regulations, they couldn't deliver the cure if the legitimate government refused to accept it. However, as I said, that would not have been the case here, since the Vidiians desperately wanted the cure. I'm not interested in debating counterfactuals.

[Guy Gardener]

What about the massive well armed Viddian fleet of privateers harvesting organs?

If the Vidiians deconstruct that, all the races that they raped, are going to descend on Vidiia, sack that planet and salt the earth.

Meanwhile why would the privateers give up the good life (as gods that arrive on low tech worlds and industrialize organ harvesting to the point of billions of cow like sentient beings standing in queues waiting orderly to be carved up in process lines.) just to join breadlines on Vidiia when they could knock over weak planets and set themselves up as kings?

Hell just because they can't sell organs any more, they're still selling all the starships they "acquire" but now in stead of hanging the crew in meatlockers on hooks they're just flushed into space as superfluous. You would think that they have always made more money from selling Starships than kidneys?

JinPanthosa.

You don't lose your ship automatically. There's a board of inquiry where you have the opportunity to defend yourself, which could then turn into a court-martial where you really have to defend yourself. It was a possibility that he could have lost his ship over that decision, not a certainty.

The Federation Council and your average Federation Citizen isn't bound to the Prime Directive. It's a Starfleet Rule, not a Federation Law. Once the Federation Council opens diplomatic relations with a World/Empire it changes the rules with how Starfleet is allowed to interact with that World/Empire and to what degree the Prime Directive impacts on their relationship.

Besides Picard made it clear that the prime directive is a serious guideline with how they meet new species after the DISASTROUS first contact with the Klingons that kicked off 200 years of war which ran hot and cold... And then 10 years later Berman made broken Bow.

It's not a new Hitler they're worried about more so than a new Klingon Empire.

[Guy Gardener]

Christopher wrote:

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My personal opinion is a different matter from the letter of the law. All I'm saying is that according to Starfleet regulations, they couldn't deliver the cure if the legitimate government refused to accept it. However, as I said, that would not have been the case here, since the Vidiians desperately wanted the cure. I'm not interested in debating counterfactuals.

And what if (It's not the biggist if in the world, ask the rest of Europe what they thought of Germany in 1945.)the 15 empires surrounding Vidiian space who had been picked raw by raiding parties for kidnies and livers said "No Captain Janeway we would rather you didn't "cure" the Vidiians. At this point we're glad they're dying off and we are relishing their final moments."

It's even possible that the Phage was a weapon that was targetted at the Vidiians for a good reason, and whosoever that was might be miffed that Janeway is interferring in their best laid plans.

It's not a question of permission, it's about the balance of power.

[Melakon]

But Voyager never seemed to have a Phage Cure, so the question is purely hypothetical. A more appropriate question would be, should Janeway have given the Vidiians the formula for bubblegum, so they could patch themselves up that way?

[Guy Gardener]

I saw the cure.

Digitize the Vidiian's personalities and live on afterward as immortal holograms.

Worked for the Borg, the Bynars and Barclay well enough.

[Brit]

Except that Starfleet itself had rules in place that superseded "The Prime Directive," we know because "The Omega Directive" was such a rule. General Order Number 1 wasn't a simple black and white rule; it could only be a guideline. Each captain walked that line with their own interpretation and each one crossed that line in someone else’s opinion. We don't see punishment to the various series' captains, so apparently Starfleet didn't see the deviations as problems for those captains in particular.

We do know it was a serious thing, so serious that Admiral Satie tried to blackmail Picard with his deviations. We also see that she didn’t get very far.

[Guy Gardener]

The Omega Directive doesn't exist... To %99.9999999999 of the people in the Federation, and there's a lot more recurring 9s if we want to only talk about how people in Starfleet don't know about the Omega Directive.

The Prime Directive is their highest rule that they're not ashamed of.

General order 12 is to melt the surface of a planet if the Captain doesn't report back to he ship in 24 hours.

General order 12 is fricking Genocide.

How many general order 12s can a ship follow though with, before there's a board on en enquirey?

These are not squeamish people.

Janeway said in Counterpoint that in the case of a Prime Directive board hearing that she can outwit any jury of Admirals becuase everyone in the Admiralty is her best friend and they love her enough to let her get away with murder.

Kathryn is really out of touch with who she is, this captain is not a protected and adored flower who can do no wrong no matter how bloody her cute hands are, this middle aged monster is a furious rancour who scares the willies out of the sternest souls, and if she tries that tact with her bosses, whatever good karma she built up earlier by being the daugter of a good soldier is going to be spent quickly.

The Delta Quadrant changed her.

She has become a savage.

[Udat]

Me eyes hurt from reading Guy`s posts......

I voted no, (Sorry I need to rest after reading Guy`s posts...)

[teacake]

I think it's lovely what he said about her hands.

[Brit]

Guy Gardener wrote:

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The Omega Directive doesn't exist... To %99.9999999999 of the people in the Federation, and there's a lot more recurring 9s if we want to only talk about how people in Starfleet don't know about the Omega Directive.

That isn't the point, it doesn't matter how many people did or did not know about the Omega Directive. The fact that it was in place shows that Starfleet Officers with the rank of Captain and above, knew that there was a directive that superseded The Prime Directive. And that opens the door to individual interpretations of other situations involving The Prime Directive.

[Guy Gardener]

Last week we didn't know that Obama could order indiscriminate drone strikes on American citizens. So now that we know this to be a truth does that mean that last week the US Constitution was still more worth less than toilet paper?

Or how about a couple years ago when George said on TV that they were going to send someone to a secret CIA prison, and then realized halfway through saying that, that he wasn't supposed to mention the secret CIA prisons?

There's the standard law for regular people and then there's made up secret different law for the elite... WHICH IS WRONG!!!! ...Or just an ordinary day in a Dictatorship... Or an Absolute Monarchy.

This...

SEVEN: Those orders were issued as a result of Starfleet's ignorance and fear. I can alleviate your ignorance. As for your fear.

And...

Only starship Captains and Federation Flag Officers have been briefed on the nature of this threat. What you're about to hear will not go beyond these bulkheads, is that clear?

And...

JANEWAY: Omega destroys subspace. A chain reaction involving a handful of molecules could devastate subspace throughout an entire Quadrant. If that were to happen, warp travel would become impossible. Space-faring civilisation as we know it would cease to exist. When Star Fleet realised Omega's power, they suppressed all knowledge of it. .

I'm hearing a lot of talk about Star Fleet, but no one is mentioning the Federation Council, or the Federation President who are representative of the people after a fashion in some as yet indescribable manner...I'm thinking that the Omega Directive is not ratified by the current Federation Council, and perhaps any Federation Council, that this is not a secret law, it's a conspiracy just as illegal and rouge as Section 30 running wanton without civilian oversight, checks or balances.

Sure it may all seem selfless and for the common good... Imagine if the CIA and US Military Intelligence had spent the last 60 years running interference against nuclear proliferation using sabotage and assassination against allies and enemies alike in an effort to preserve the peace? Selflessness is as relative as the common good.

For the last hundred years, Star Fleet has given into fear and cowardice, locking Galileo in his tower, instead of trying to treat science like a bitch and lock it down until it, and by it, I mean Omega, is a beast of burden pulling a cart... Star Fleet Blew up a sector during a secret experiment and rather than take responsibility of the disaster, they brushed everything under the carpet and decided that if a similar situation arouse again that they would blow up planets and commit genocide on unimaginable levels in the name a stable stellar ecology... But consider what happens after a botched cleaning? Star Fleet kills millions to hide the existence of Omega, but the News Service finds out, who then tell the Council who have to admit that they are entirely ignorant, even if they might not be, and the entire Admiralty is court-martialed and the council is lucky if it isn't replaced too for being so ignorant to allow such bollocks to carry on.

Bay of Pigs is not an herbal tea.

The Omega Directive is a criminal conspiracy at odds with the spirit of the law, and only seems to supersede the Prime Directive because no one under its sway has the gumption to notice they have been duped into becoming unwitting criminals because the emperor is not wearing any clothes..

The Omega Directive is more of a suggestion than a directive, but who feels compelled to squash Star Fleet's highest law to follow through on a suggestion?