"Better the devil you know," as the saying goes for many people.
How Messed Up is the Prime Directive?
- Thread starter Tallguy
- Start date
I think we can safely say that you are not most peopleNah. I'm ready for the devil I don't know.
Keep the Prime Directive, but ditch the whole "letting species go extinct due to natural disasters" interpretation.
Which is what modern ST productions have done, I should add. "Children of the Comet" had a very different spin on the Prime Directive than "Homeward" or "Pen Pals."
Which is what modern ST productions have done, I should add. "Children of the Comet" had a very different spin on the Prime Directive than "Homeward" or "Pen Pals."
The often overlooked aspect of the PD is the part where alongside of trying to prevent or minimize their effects on other cultures, it's at least equally in place to protect the Federation as well, in that interference is an exhaustively compounding, potentially exponential endless burden, that can do as much harm upon the interferer as the interfered. In essence, it's at least partly a selfish edict, which is how we end up stumbling into absurd extremes on TNG, where they so fear being involved, that they'd let an intelligent race die entirely off instead.
That nonsense flies in the face of the whole point of seeking out new life & new civilizations altogether. Clearly their principal mission statement is one that values initiating interaction with all the intelligent life out there, & if you have a noninterference clause, it logically has to become null in the face of a result that sees that life extinguished. WTF are you even out there for, if you don't already have a stake in valuing intelligent life existing?
This is where we come back to the PD being mostly about safeguarding UFP interests, where it's a handy blindfold for not getting involved with bad actors everywhere you look... & it's a short trip from turning a blind eye to that, to turning a blind eye to anything, like extinction events. Neutrality is a double-edged sword.
That nonsense flies in the face of the whole point of seeking out new life & new civilizations altogether. Clearly their principal mission statement is one that values initiating interaction with all the intelligent life out there, & if you have a noninterference clause, it logically has to become null in the face of a result that sees that life extinguished. WTF are you even out there for, if you don't already have a stake in valuing intelligent life existing?
Other interstellar interference. It's a slippery slope, but if you know that other equivalently developed groups are interfering with lesser developed peoples, in ways you would prohibit yourself from doing, then if you truly condemn that damage/perversion being done, enough to not be doing it yourself, you kind of have a responsibility to act in prevention of it also. Now, you're into your Private Little War quagmire, or even worse, you're policing anyone who would interfere in any world you deem worthy of noninterference, & you have no excuse to not step in & stop Cardassians conquering worlds like Bajor for example.
This is where we come back to the PD being mostly about safeguarding UFP interests, where it's a handy blindfold for not getting involved with bad actors everywhere you look... & it's a short trip from turning a blind eye to that, to turning a blind eye to anything, like extinction events. Neutrality is a double-edged sword.
If they stop using the minimum level of technology, are we obliged to cut contact with them?
Indeed. Some might argue it makes them more (potentially) dangerous, not less.
As applied in "Homeward", the PD is seriously-ed up. I wanted to SMACK Deanna when she self righteously said it was intended to ensure non-interference.
I'm not even sure I would would call it anything. In my eyes it's literally only a tautology that explains nothing.
'The directive of non-interference was intended to ensure non-interference'. Wow Deanna, really? And you came to that conclusion just using sheer power of deduction?
In other words, we had to make a rule about it in order to emphasize its importance. We couldn't just leave it as an unwritten rule.
If it had been an isolated remark, I could have bought that as a valid interpretation. (And I'll admit I hadn't thought of that one).
However, the remark is made as a reply:
NIKOLAI: Isn't that what the Prime Directive was truly intended to do... allow cultures to survive and grow naturally?
TROI Not entirely. The Prime Directive was designed to ensure non-interference.
In other words, Nikolai asks for the 'ultimate reason' of the prime directive being in place. Which is a perfectly valid question in itself. Troi doesn't even deign to give such a reason and basically says: "it's there because it's there."
She may have been annoyed with him, perhaps because he asked a question (for rhetorical purposes) that every first-year Starfleet cadet (and perhaps every Federation citizen) would have known the answer to, but still.
However, the remark is made as a reply:
NIKOLAI: Isn't that what the Prime Directive was truly intended to do... allow cultures to survive and grow naturally?
TROI Not entirely. The Prime Directive was designed to ensure non-interference.
In other words, Nikolai asks for the 'ultimate reason' of the prime directive being in place. Which is a perfectly valid question in itself. Troi doesn't even deign to give such a reason and basically says: "it's there because it's there."
She may have been annoyed with him, perhaps because he asked a question (for rhetorical purposes) that every first-year Starfleet cadet (and perhaps every Federation citizen) would have known the answer to, but still.
It wasn't designed with a specific good end in mind; it was designed to stop people from getting involved in something which would cause bureaucratic, sociological, philosophical etc nightmares for everyone, however you might tout the benefits of not getting involved.
The ultimate reason is to preclude the kind of conversation they were having - "this subject is closed".
The ultimate reason is to preclude the kind of conversation they were having - "this subject is closed".
Usually, things that are would be common sense actions or measures only get a rule put in place, that literally states the ridiculously obvious, when someone(s) have gone ahead and made it necessary through catastrophic stupidity, which I call the "Coffee is hot & can burn you" notice.
Huh? That’s not what happened, if you’re talking about “A Private Little War”. Kirk decides that to counter the advances the Klingons are giving one side, the Federation has to offer exactly-equal advances to the other side. Not a great solution, but neither is it leaving Neural to the Klingons’ mercy.
It's not what happened. Because it was TOS. But it's also held up as an example of "The Prime Directive meant nothing to James T. Kirk, renegade and terrorist."
Even so, I'm curious what solution Picard would have come up with in the Neural situation, given his interpretation of the PD.
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I'm actually quite pro-Prime Directive, but it's annoyed me over the years how shows utilize it so inconsistently. It's one thing to have a non-intervention policy, another to have a Prime Directive policy, but many episodes conflate the two. Take TNG Symbiosis for example, which is maybe its first Prime Directive episode. If they really wanted to obey the Prime Directive, they never should have acknowledged the shuttle hail in the first place. Later on, Picard uses it as an excuse to not get involved in their fight, which is fine if you don't want to interfere, but you didn't seem too worried about it being a Prime Directive issue until then.
Honestly, I think it took them until Discovery to finally get the PD right. Don’t interfere that they can see, at least if you can help it, but don’t let them fry either — just make it look like nature did it.
EDIT: Plus, remember that SNW shows that the PD is a very recent guideline; it’s not a nominally strict rule until a few years later in TOS, and I guess it’s reasonable to assume a century or so of wrangling back and forth as to what it actually means — hence both Kirk shenanigans and Picard ruthlessness.
EDIT: Plus, remember that SNW shows that the PD is a very recent guideline; it’s not a nominally strict rule until a few years later in TOS, and I guess it’s reasonable to assume a century or so of wrangling back and forth as to what it actually means — hence both Kirk shenanigans and Picard ruthlessness.
I agree to an extent. It's been a while since I watched "Symbiosis" but I think they were broadcasting a distress signal. I would guess the Federation has something equivalent of the "Laws of the Sea" as policy, where they may have to respond to distress calls and offer assistance.
That's why I always felt the debate in "Pen Pals" was interesting, and a good scene, but ultimately kind of dumb when you think about the situation.
Pulaski is absolutely right that they're all dancing on the head of a pin trying to overcomplicate the entire thing.
Sarjenka is requesting assistance. At that point, the Prime Directive shouldn't apply since someone from the culture is actively asking for them to intervene and reaching out into space to make contact. It is no longer the Federation choosing to "contaminate" their culture. It's that culture taking on the risk of whatever might happen by the Federation intervening. Also, it would be no different than a ship adrift in space from a species that's never made contact with the Federation sending out a distress call. I'm gonna guess the fact that they're unaware of the existence of the Federation would be irrelevant to whether a Federation starship would offer aid if they were within range.
About a decade ago, there was an article in The Huffington Post where the author argued the Federation would intervene if it happened upon a planet with an analogous situation to the Syrian Civil War, and debated whether Captain Kirk would do something.
The main thrust of the argument within the article implies the Prime Directive exists within Star Trek as an impediment to be worked around in order to exhibit the show's true ethos.
"Kirk was a man of action. If there was something wrong with the universe, his instinct was to fix it, even if he had to cheat as in the Kobayashi Maru incident ... But he would do something, because the ethos of Star Trek is that to be human in the fullest potential of the word means to do more than mind your own business."
Reading that, I want to agree with it. And when I watch a Star Trek series where the captain slyly finds a loophole to intervene, I smile and nod and love it. But I also know that here in the real world these sorts of things are much more complex and not as simple and clean as Trek sometimes makes it out to be.
We don't see what happens two weeks after the Enterprise leaves and the aftermath and consequences.
Yeah the two levels of the Prime Directive do make things slightly confusing. In Symbiosis they are already aware of the existence of other alien life, so no issues with making contact or rescuing them. Then the second part of The PD comes into play later. But both are kinds of interference, so I don't see any real issue putting them both under the PD.
If they are in interstellar space, then they will come into contact with other life inevitably, so contact is permitted, even if they aren't aware of other life just yet.
This is the real thing here. Are there any episodes where non-interference is the actual course of action?
It's there for the drama and the excitement and maybe so they can have the occasional navel gaze like in Pen Pals. But the final answer is never "Well, our hands are tied. We'll remember them and that will have to be enough."
There is the argument for Worf's approach. It is what it is. It's a good idea even when it hurts. As someone said upthread "We do not have a responsibility to every society that gets into trouble because where would it end?"
OTOH, what then is the responsibility to the post-warp societies that get into those same kind of troubles? Someone jumps in a warp capable shuttle and shows up on Earth and says "Without your help we're doooooomed! And we have warp drive so you can interfere all the live long day!"
It's interesting. At the end of the Homeward episode we have this dialog snippet:
BEVERLY: Are you saying you're sorry we saved the Boraalans?
PICARD: No, of course not. Our plan worked out well for them.
Which gives me the impression Picard being so strict early on in the episode was a plot addition, only brought in to heighten the conflict situation (which was really supposed to be between Worf and Nicolai) a bit further, but wasn't really integrated well with the rest of the story.
So, my headcanon is Picard desparately wanted to help the Boraalans but couldn't find a justifiable loophole for some reason, Nikolai's actions being the excuse he needed. Though I myself would have thought the extinction of said species would have been more than enough reason.
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