The Federation Prime Directive; Non Interfere Policy
- Thread starter Brainsucker
- Start date
Yeah, the Vulcans should have done nothing and just left Earth as a radioactive helhole...
Given how Archer and Tucker were a tad racist (Or just Vulcanist), I'm willing to say they're exaggerating a bit.
Which is fine, do you actually have anything from the shows that would contradict their statements? One can be racist and still be right sometimes.
They (which is to say their government) would have been able to do that whether Picard said anything to them at all. Talking it over with their president and discussing the matter rationally is just good diplomacy.
Picard did nothing to influence their choice, only gave his opinion when asked for it and left the planet alone, also, when asked to do so.
This is, again, in contrast with the alternative, which would see Picard issuing veiled threats of invasion by non-Federation powers or suggesting that not being friendly enough to the Federation would have negative consequences. Even then, the officials he's talking to might ignore him or not take him seriously... unless, of course, he started spreading that information around the population, or created and then supported a pro-Federation political bloc within the population and/or the legislature.
The right of self-determination is not hard to grasp. Nobody expects decisions to be made in a vacuum but the prime directive respects the right of non-Federation members to make those decisions on their own.
Then ask him to leave. That's what the Malcorians did.
They're not putting pressure on a "civilization" at all. Perhaps a half dozen people on the entire planet even know they made first contact and one of them just explicitly told Picard to take a hike. That's not "pressure." That's not really even "diplomatic contact."
Apparently because you do not understand the difference between "interference" and "contact."
Actually it was a matter of Nikolai not adequately explaining the plan to Picard or going through proper channels to present that explanation TO him. As it stands, Nikolai's plan was actually kind of stupid and only worked because LaForge is REALLY good at his job, but had the Enterprise crew not managed to pull six rabbits and a minor deity out of their hats, the result could just as easily have been a roomful of terrified and thoroughly traumatized refugees with no home to go back to.
Which the Starfleet is now responsible for. They have to find a home for them, they have to check on them regularly, and they have to make sure the refugees don't go crazy and start murdering each other and/or their immediate neighbors. Which is exactly the position the Federation is NOT supposed to be in.
I like to assume that the real tragedy of "Homeward" is that the holoship that was supposed to transplant the population simply couldn't get there in time so Nikolai got the Enterprise to do the work instead.
Which would still have been vastly preferable to them all dying instead.
Tough. Sometimes saving lives is hard. It is still the right thing to do.
But, by the same token, Starfleet isn't a baby sitter.
It's terrible diplomacy. Look at what directly happened because of the interference. The government instantly made a decision to slow things down and end their space program. The federation's involvement had a massive impact on this culture.
Simply being there influenced their choice. How are you not grasping that? They fundamentally impacted upon this culture.
How is the alternative of interference... invasion? The alternative to interference is non-interference. Leaving the fuckers alone.
Yeah, after... fucking with their heads, influencing the course of their space program (and therefore their civilisation) and taking one of their best scientists with them.
Those half dozen people happened to be very influential people. People who could then influence the rest of the planet. There's no such thing as a small amount of interference. Its effects go beyond that. As someone who is defending the PD, you really ought to know that.
When contact impacts the course of history for that society and influences their opinion on the direction they should go in... then it would seem that you are the one who does not understand the difference.
Well, dumping them on a habitable planet with some supplies would probably have sufficed. Rozhenko could have stayed with them to help to deal with the culture shock.
This kinda reminds me of all those pro-life/pro-choice arguments. It's easy to talk about "saving lives" but if you then leave the people you saved to languish in a life of strife and misery with no support for them, you may not actually be doing them any favors. Much less whatever society in which they happen to take residence, which now has to either deal with the consequences of having a destitute underclass living among them or spend the resources needed to uplift them to an minimum standard of living.
The question is, can the Federation afford to take in, feed cloth and shelter the refugees of every ecological disaster they discover all over the universe? Can they afford to take responsibility for all of the billions of lives that might be threatened by circumstances, civil war, foreign invasion, diseases, sabotage or semi-omnipotent energy beings? The galaxy being as big as it is, the answer is clearly "no."
If you want to save lives all over the galaxy, you have to take responsibility for those lives after you've saved them. The Prime Directive allows for quick fixes to short-term problems if the native population can survive on their own afterwards, but it doesn't allow for a more permanent intervention.
Yes, they MADE A DECISION that they had every right to make, based on the information available to them at the time. The only one in the room who doesn't have the right to decide what they do or don't do, what they tell or don't tell the public, is Jean Luc Picard.
I can influence you to cross the street just by standing here and minding me own business. That doesn't constitute "interference" with your life unless I actually prevent you from traveling on the path you would have chosen if I wasn't there.
And again, the Prime Directive doesn't say Starfleet can't TALK to people in primitive cultures (they have literally never refrained from doing this in Trek history). It just says they can't do things that would interfere with the normal development of their society. What those things actually are really depends on the society in question.
Interestingly enough, the Prime Directive doesn't prevent them from fucking with people's heads either, just as long as said head-fucking doesn't interfere with the natural development of their society (Kirk did exactly this on Sigma Iota II).
Moreover, it is assumed -- and it is a pretty safe assumption -- that a society that is capable of actually making contact with alien civilizations should be treated as if they are ready to initiate interplanetary relations. Picard and his crew did exactly this, and then the locals decided that they would rather not have those relations after all because their people are a little bit crazy.
But that's not interference, that's influence. Jean Luc Picard explicitly told Ben Sisko "Your orders are to do everything short of violate the prime directive" to make sure Bajor was ready to join the Federation. In other words, explicitly, "Try to convince them to join the Federation" doesn't actually violate the Prime Directive.
Influence and interference are two different things. You can choose to accept another's influence or choose to reject it. You cannot choose whether or not to be interfered with. This is a very important distinction, since it means that Starfleet is bound by the Prime Directive to stop talking to members of those societies if the governments of those societies tell them not to.
A decision influenced by Federation interference.
How can you influence me to cross the road if you're minding your own business?
Talking to them... is interfering. If aliens arrived tomorrow, it would utterly change our societies. I'm surprised you're making the argument that saying hello isn't interfering. Clearly a contradiction otherwise, why were the Federation hiding from them, from the Baku etc?
But that's exactly what fucking with their heads will do. It will influence their culture. Krola (an influential religious anbd political leader) has had his world turned upside down. This will no doubt impact upon how he uses his position of influence. Whether that results in something positive or negative is irrelevant. The fact is, the Federation were an integral part of that influence.
Says who? The Federation?
If the Malcorians were left to pursue their space program and meet aliens in the course of doing so... THAT would have been allowing their civilisation to naturally develop.
Bajor is aware of the Federation. Aware of other alien life in the galaxy. The Malcorians are an entirely different kettle of fish. Their exposure to the Federation has impacted upon their society in a way that WAS NOT naturally occurring. The Malcorian government are now forced to engage in a planet-wide conspiracy about alien life. Had they been allowed to fumble out into space of their own accord, this would not be the case.
Their space program, their religious views, the direction their government is going in, the disappearance of one of their best scientists, their entire culture... All influenced by the presence of Enterprise.
I would describe this first contact as being as catastrophic as first contact with the Klingons (which Picard actually cites as a justification for their hide and spy policy).
Why not just leave the fucking Malcorians alone?
What? You mean like the Malcorians chose for the Federation to turn up and spy on them?
But they're not stopped by the PD from talking to them even though that WILL influence and yes, interfere with the natural development of their societies. It's the fundamental flaw in the PD. "We won't interfere with cultures but we will stumble about the galaxy and arrive on your planets without any particular concern for how that might affect your civilisation."
This contradiction is regularly ignored.
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To be sure, influenced primarily by several long conversations with Picard and the earlier (accidental) violation of the Prime Directive. The only interference in this case was the shitstorm around Riker when he got caught on his surveillance mission; Picard's diplomacy (more or less) put things back on track.
That sorta depends on the business...
... and whether or not you want to be in the middle of it.
No, talking is communications. It only becomes interference if you refuse to stop when they ask you to.
But instead they arrived yesterday and didn't tell anyone but me about it, so it didn't change a thing.
Because it's not. In interpersonal or intercultural communications, "interference" is a form of exchange of information, power or ideas that one side or the other does not fully consent to. An introduction only counts as such for a person or a society that is explicitly isolationist and makes their isolationism known to others. The Malcorians didn't do this until AFTER their president realized his people were a bunch of crazy assholes, and the Mintakans didn't realize there was anyone out there to be isolationist FROM.
Yes. The trick is to do it in such a way that they don't KNOW you're doing it, because if they find out they will probably ask you to stop. The standoff on Neural is a good example of this: Tyree never did figure out exactly who Kirk really was or where he came from, he only understood that Kirk would able to get him the guns he needed to keep the Hill People from getting massacred by their rivals. From Kirk's point of view, he can answer this request without violating the Prime Directive because doing so would offset Klingon influence and allow a shaky peace to be restored.
The same thing happens on Sigma Iota, in the most ironic way possible: all the local mob bosses want Kirk to take their side in the latest turf war, and Kirk flips the script and basically declares himself ruler of the planet (city?). It never occurs to the Iotians to simply TELL KIRK TO STAY OUT OF IT. They clearly want to be involved with the Federation (somehow) but can't come to terms on what sort of involvement they prefer. Kirk's solution is summarized thusly: "If you want to business with the Federation, you have to stop all the fighting and unite under one leader. And that leader is... (picks one at random)... er... that guy over there."
McCoy's communicator might constitute interference in this context... but only if it turns out the Iotians DIDN'T want access to advanced technology and wouldn't have simply bought some communicators from the next trade ship that blundered into orbit. The Horizon leaving its book on the surface qualifies, but only because the Iotians weren't in a position to take "The Book" in its proper context and mistakenly interpreted it as a blueprint for an advanced civilization.
Yes. The Federation. Who's spent two hundred years dealing with these kinds of situations and is probably in a much better position to judge that than you are.
Yes, and they would have made first contact with the Federation in deep space instead of on their own planet. The resulting social crisis as well as the political decision to curb the space program to give their people more time to prepare would still have happened, just with a different group of people getting caught up in the panic.
Picard's conversations with their government didn't interfere in their society; Riker getting injured and discovered to be an alien almost did.
Not anymore they're not. They're jus a lot less comfortable with the idea than Bajor is. So they made a different decision. Which, again, they have every right to do so.
The Prime Directive doesn't actually determine how a society has to have gained access to the information it needs to make informed decisions; if they're judged to be mature enough to deal with it, Starfleet can communicate with them OPENLY (e.g. the Capellans, the Iotians, the Halkans, the Organians, etc). Not every species reacts to news of alien life with "ZOMG we're not alone! Run for the hills!" Some, apparently, just assume that to be the case anyway and aren't surprised when they get visitors, while others are situated in busy neighborhoods and get alien visitors all the time.
Because they're developing warp travel now; contact with aliens is inevitable.
The common denominator in all cases of Prime Directive restrictions is self-determination. Starfleet cannot make choices on behalf of those societies that affect their long-term development, especially in cases when those societies are not capable of making that choice on their own. They can and do encourage those societies to make the most productive choice possible, usually by helping them become aware of their various options. The Malcorians, for example, did not know that "avoid contacting alien life until we're ready" was even an option, since they don't know that aliens exist. Being made aware of this option, they chose to exercise it.
They could have just as easily gone the other way and announced both the existence of the Federation and opening of diplomatic relations in a massive press conference the very next day, consequences be damned. Again, it's not for Picard to decide how they react to this or to deliberately force their hand one way or the other.
Riker, on the other hand, should probably be demoted for incompetence.
Spying doesn't violate the Prime Directive. Just GETTING CAUGHT. Therein lies the difference between "interference" and "observation."
No, because again, interference is a form of UNWANTED influence. A rational person can chose to reject outside influence and take the course of action dictated by internal forces alone. An irrational person cannot.
You really don't know that? For all you know, the outbreak of Zika virus* could somehow be related to their arrival. Just because they are quiet doesn't mean they aren't causing changes.
*Just an example, I don't believe the Zika virus is caused by aliens.
Take Data's crash landing on Barkon IV in "Thine Own Self". His actions were causing illness, neither he nor the inhabitants were aware of at first.
Why would the government have the power to decide who the population can and can't talk to? And why would Starfleet observe such a attempted restriction?
Huh?
If Kirk is typical, Starfleet officers explicitly don't work under the assumption that inhabitants need to be controlled.
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