The Cloud Minders & The Federation

[Qonundrum]

I thought I heard the Federation had some kind of directive about not interfering in other people's cultures.

Except Kirk does that almost every week. Especially when a computer is controlling everything, regardless of where the computer came from or why or how. Often not being bothered to tell the newly "freed" cultures that the computer was controlling them and they need to do things for themselves and then disappearing with glitter. "The Apple" is the worst offender for any number of reasons but for once I'll focus (drat!) and just say that the hapless inhabitants clearly had no drugs to treat or cure STDs with since Kirk's actually telling them to get busy and "entertain" each other and the lead two look at each other and grin rather disturbingly... I'll excerpt the following, grossly oversimplified exchange:

KIRK: You'll learn to care for yourselves, with our help. And there's no trick to putting fruit on trees. You might enjoy it. You'll learn to build for yourselves, think for yourselves, work for yourselves, and what you create is yours. That's what we call freedom. You'll like it, a lot. And you'll learn something about men and women, the way they're supposed to be. Caring for each other, being happy with each other, being good to each other. That's what we call love. You'll like that, too, a lot. You and your children.
SAYANA: What are children?
KIRK: The little ones...? And look like you...? (she and Akuta turn and give googgly eyes) Erm, just go on the way you're going. You'll find out.

(followed by the next scene where there's no hint of elapsed time of Kirk showing them personally how to make children (must have been several months because we all know Kirk's a real stud), or anything else that scene or episode uses sledgehammer tactics with...)

 

[Christopher]

I thought I heard the Federation had some kind of directive about not interfering in other people's cultures.

The point is, Stratos is said to be a Federation member. The question isn't about Kirk's interference, it's about why the Federation would've allowed a culture with such blatant inequality to join in the first place.

 

[Marsden]

Ok, I'll say this in another way.

The Federation doesn't feel the need to force it's (Terran mostly in later works) beliefs on every other culture it meets.

The situation on Ardana comes naturally to the people of Ardana and it's not the Federation's place to dictate how they live. Especially if anything said in Errand of Mercy, Friday's Child, A Private Little War, A Piece of the Action, Patterns of Force, Journey to Babel, or several others when it comes to how the Federation regards other cultures.

 

[Christopher]

The Federation doesn't feel the need to force it's (Terran mostly in later works) beliefs on every other culture it meets.

Up to a point, yes. But it still demands certain minimal ethical standards for membership, like having equal rights and not practicing slavery. The point is to protect everyone's rights and freedoms by not imposing a single set of values on them, so obviously it would not mean allowing members to violate their people's rights and freedoms by enslaving or oppressing them. There's no way the UFP would've admitted Ardana if they'd known how they oppressed the Troglytes. The only explanation is that it was hidden from them, that they didn't look closely enough before accepting Ardana as a member.

 

[Henoch]

The Troglytes are not slaves. A caste or class system, yes. Slavery, no. No worse than forced marriages (i.e Vulcans, Troyius, etc.) The "ethical" standards are fairly low, rather, the non-interference of the independent planet's cultures is a higher standard.

 

[Christopher]

The Troglytes are not slaves. A caste or class system, yes. Slavery, no. No worse than forced marriages (i.e Vulcans, Troyius, etc.) The "ethical" standards are fairly low, rather, the non-interference of the independent planet's cultures is a higher standard.

The point is, the society does not extend equal rights to all its citizens, so it falls short of the standards for UFP membership as defined in the TNG era.

And Vulcan arranged marriages are not "forced." They're not compulsory; T'Pol was able to refuse to marry Koss, and though she changed her mind, they annulled the marriage not long after. True, "Amok Time" says that T'Pring could only break the marriage through kal-if-fee, but ENT seems to have retconned that. And hey, at least there was an option for divorce built into the laws.

Meanwhile, Elaan's marriage was a political arrangement by the ruling councils of Elas and Troyius to avert a war. One can't assume it represents a routine cultural practice. Also, the Tellun star system was only "under Federation control," suggesting it's a protectorate, not a member. If it were a member, surely the abundance of dilithium on Elas would've been discovered much earlier.

 

[Greg Cox]

In his book The World of Star Trek, David Gerrold writes about the (to his mind) unfortunate rewrites his script underwent on the way to screen. The original plan was to end the episode on much more downbeat, ambiguous note, but that got softened in the rewrites.

As for Ardana's membership in the Federation, I suspect that nowadays the story would go that Ardana was simply a valued trading partner and not an actual member of the Federation, but this this was still early days and the notion that the Federation had universal standards for membership and First Contact and such was, as Christopher observed, not really developed until the TNG era.

In any event, the assumption seems to be that nobody was looking too closely at the situation on Ardana and just accepted the elites' rosy picture of their planet.

"Oh, our labor force is perfectly happy and productive. Now then, allow me to offer you a tour of our art galleries and museums . . . ."

 

[CorporalCaptain]

I think the Federation is very obviously allegorical of the self-created myth of mid-20th century USA.

Consider the nomenclature: ships are USS this and that, the Federation is the United FP. Starfleet officer ranks are directly US Navy ranks.

Then there's recurring specific interest in American history, both real and fictionalized, in "City on the Edge of Forever," "Spectre of the Gun," "The Savage Curtain," "A Piece of the Action," "Assignment: Earth," "Tomorrow Is Yesterday."

On top of that there is the cold war allegory involving the Federation and the Klingon Empire, beginning in "Errand of Mercy" and extending through "A Private Little War," "Tribbles," and "Friday's Child" and on into the third season in "Elaan."

In "Balance of Terror" the Enterprise takes the US destroyer's role while the Romulans play the German U-boat.

Then there's "The Omega Glory."

You could argue that this is all just an artifact of it being a TV show of the 1960s made by Americans for Americans, but that really just reinforces the idea, because who else are the good guys going to be in such a case but a reflection of ourselves?

 

[johnnybear]

I thought I heard the Federation had some kind of directive about not interfering in other people's cultures.

It's a matter of interpretation I believe!
JB

 

[johnnybear]

The Tellun star system must have been close to the Klingon border as Kirk mentioned that the Klingons also claimed jurisdiction of the area!
JB

 

[FormerLurker]

"The Apple" is the worst offender for any number of reasons but for once I'll focus (drat!) and just say that the hapless inhabitants clearly had no drugs to treat or cure STDs with since Kirk's actually telling them to get busy and "entertain" each other and the lead two look at each other and grin rather disturbingly...

Where, exactly, are they supposed to be getting these STDs from? It's known that many of the STDs we have here on Earth are a result of humans mating with non-humans (like sheep!). Genital flora in the wrong environment running wild, and that sort of thing. Are there even other animals on that planet? Or did the poison dart plants and exploding rocks kill them all?

 

[Christopher]

At the end of "The Apple," Kirk said "You'll learn to care for yourselves, with our help." I take that to mean that, as in "The Return of the Archons," they left a team of experts behind to do the Peace Corps thing and teach the basics of civilization and self-sufficiency, and that the Federation would send in more advisors as needed until the natives were ready to be left to their own devices. I think a lot of this was probably clearer to audiences back in the late '60s when the Peace Corps was still relatively new and at the largest size in its history.

 

[Phaser Two]

The Apple is not the egregious violation of the Prime Directive that some people think it is.

 

[Christopher]

The Apple is not the egregious violation of the Prime Directive that some people think it is.

People today make the mistake of back-projecting TNG's stricter version of the PD onto TOS. In TOS, the core principle was that Starfleet captains had a responsibility to protect cultures from any interference in their natural development, not just their own. So if a culture's development was interfered with by Klingon infiltrators or a renegade professor or an ancient computer god, then they had to be freed from that interference. So most of the cases where people today think Kirk was "violating" the PD were actually cases where he was obeying it, as it was defined at the time.

Although, to repeat an analysis I offered in another thread: I've realized that TOS often fell back on the excuse of putting the Enterprise in danger in order to force Kirk to tear down the social order despite the PD -- see "Return of the Archons," "A Taste of Armageddon," "The Apple," and "The Gamesters of Triskelion." Contrary to popular belief, Kirk wasn't specifically acting with the primary goal of changing those cultures -- he was trying to save his ship, and destroying the oppressive foundations of those cultures just happened to be the necessary way to do that. The first edition of the TNG series bible actually codifies this recurring trope, saying that the PD allows exceptions when the survival of the ship or crew is at risk (although TNG ended up going a different route later on).

Both the TOS and TNG bibles allow exceptions to the PD for vital Federation interests, which probably explains it being suspended on Organia in "Errand of Mercy."

The other main reason Kirk interfered was to counter others' interference -- the Klingons in "Friday's Child" and "The Apple," or the Federation/humanity itself in "A Piece of the Action," "Bread and Circuses," "Patterns of Force," and "The Omega Glory" (wow, late season 2 was jam-packed with these).

"Spock's Brain" is a hard case to classify, and it's odd that nobody ever seems to talk about it in PD terms. Maybe it's because the Eymorgs are both primitive and hyper-advanced depending on how you look at it. And Kirk was just rescuing Spock('s brain) from their abduction, so they were the aggressors. Still, it's the one "forcibly tear down the social order" episode that doesn't have a threat to the entire Enterprise crew to justify it.

("The Mark of Gideon" is an interesting case, in that Kirk doesn't overthrow the Gideonite leaders or subvert their plans. He saves Odona, but then she takes his place as the disease carrier so the plan can go forward. So that's an unusual aversion of the trope of tearing down a society in the name of saving the crew.)

 

[Phaser Two]

People today make the mistake of back-projecting TNG's stricter version of the PD onto TOS. In TOS, the core principle was that Starfleet captains had a responsibility to protect cultures from any interference in their natural development, not just their own. So if a culture's development was interfered with by Klingon infiltrators or a renegade professor or an ancient computer god, then they had to be freed from that interference. So most of the cases where people today think Kirk was "violating" the PD were actually cases where he was obeying it, as it was defined at the time.

Although, to repeat an analysis I offered in another thread: I've realized that TOS often fell back on the excuse of putting the Enterprise in danger in order to force Kirk to tear down the social order despite the PD -- see "Return of the Archons," "A Taste of Armageddon," "The Apple," and "The Gamesters of Triskelion." Contrary to popular belief, Kirk wasn't specifically acting with the primary goal of changing those cultures -- he was trying to save his ship, and destroying the oppressive foundations of those cultures just happened to be the necessary way to do that. The first edition of the TNG series bible actually codifies this recurring trope, saying that the PD allows exceptions when the survival of the ship or crew is at risk (although TNG ended up going a different route later on).

Both the TOS and TNG bibles allow exceptions to the PD for vital Federation interests, which probably explains it being suspended on Organia in "Errand of Mercy."

The other main reason Kirk interfered was to counter others' interference -- the Klingons in "Friday's Child" and "The Apple," or the Federation/humanity itself in "A Piece of the Action," "Bread and Circuses," "Patterns of Force," and "The Omega Glory" (wow, late season 2 was jam-packed with these).

"Spock's Brain" is a hard case to classify, and it's odd that nobody ever seems to talk about it in PD terms. Maybe it's because the Eymorgs are both primitive and hyper-advanced depending on how you look at it. And Kirk was just rescuing Spock('s brain) from their abduction, so they were the aggressors. Still, it's the one "forcibly tear down the social order" episode that doesn't have a threat to the entire Enterprise crew to justify it.

("The Mark of Gideon" is an interesting case, in that Kirk doesn't overthrow the Gideonite leaders or subvert their plans. He saves Odona, but then she takes his place as the disease carrier so the plan can go forward. So that's an unusual aversion of the trope of tearing down a society in the name of saving the crew.)

Well-reasoned and I agree. Kirk even says that the PD only applies to growing cultures. And yes, both Mark of Gideon and Wink of an Eye supply interesting examples of the Federation keeping to itself.

However, I don't think there's any mention of Klingons in The Apple.

 

[Timo]

"Omega Glory" radically undermines the concept of Kirk getting excused for acting in self-defense by stating that Starfleet employees are in fact expected to commit suicide when their continuing survival would involve interfering with the local culture!

What reason do we have to believe in "minimal ethical standards for membership"? There are none to be observed in TOS. Should we really be projecting TNG ideas back to TOS against all the evidence of e.g. slavery and ritual duels to death being okay?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Christopher]

However, I don't think there's any mention of Klingons in The Apple.

Oh, I misspoke. I meant to say the Klingons or other aliens. After all, there was no indication in "The Apple" that the natives had regressed from a more advanced culture, so it seems likely that Vaal was built by aliens.

 

[Timo]

Or then Vaal built itself, and/or arrived whole, which is just a nuance to the argument.

A slightly more significant nuance might be to consider Vaal a lifeform. Its machine nature was never more than speculation, and probably irrelevant anyway.

Is Vaal foreign to the planet, though? Or are the antennaheads? Both exist in lower numbers than "natural evolution" would ever allow for, meaning something did happen in the past. Did a beast descend from the heavens and decimate and then tame the local humanoids? Or did colonists from outer space disturb the peace of Vaal to their own peril? The episode never tells, and indeed the heroes would have no real way of knowing. Whichever way, Kirk sides with one entity against another, and is naturally predisposed to bipeds, regardless of their choice of apparel. Change is the result, even though "Omega Glory" says that massacring one side to protect the other is not a valid approach to self-defense.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Nyotarules]

So... I struggle with the planet actually being a Federation member....

The TOS UFP was Earth plus everybody else, perhaps the UFP rules were corrupt during the same period and let anyone join

The point is, Stratos is said to be a Federation member. The question isn't about Kirk's interference, it's about why the Federation would've allowed a culture with such blatant inequality to join in the first place.

The same reason why the UFP has a founding member where its legal to murder your opponent in your marriage ceremony.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

The same reason why the UFP has a founding member where its legal to murder your opponent in your marriage ceremony.

Yeppers.