Or people who have had to live with the consequences of breaking the PD and are gun-shy.
How Messed Up is the Prime Directive?
- Thread starter Tallguy
- Start date
Bureaucrats are still around in the future.
Exactly. But the writers and fans don't want change
Picard to Liko (in Who Watches the Watchers:)
It is our highest law that we shall not interfere with other cultures.
<beat>
Well, except when you discover that one very specific substance not even my crew knows about. In that case I guess it's completely OK for us to screw you guys over big time.
It is our highest law that we shall not interfere with other cultures.
<beat>
Well, except when you discover that one very specific substance not even my crew knows about. In that case I guess it's completely OK for us to screw you guys over big time.
You forgot, it gives us the power to swim around in your head and delete what we like.
It's a plot device to challenge our heroes and create drama. That will not change.
I just wish, even in TOS (where it probably makes as much sense as it ever will), it made a bit more sense.
I'm very well aware of that. It's just a plot device that I do not like.
A relic of colonialism.
I wouldn't use those words
Then what words would you use? Might as well spit them out...
Well it veers from making our heroes "morally superior" to looking like heartless assholes depending on the the circumstances. Plus speechifying, Star Trek at it's core.
TOS could be very colonial. "The Great Human Savior".
It is funny, I'm struggling to remember when the Prime Directive actually made our heroes look like assholes in TOS. That is an invention of TNG.
Not really a TOS thing. Kirk was more likely to break it and explain later. It was pretty much the point of the episodes. TNG really warped things into sit back and let them die. (Until they suddenly grew a conscience and interfered)
The prime directive is an idealized version of our present day morals & international rules as already applied in real life:
It stops the US from waltzing into France and remove their president because he disagrees on policy. In return we expect Russia NOT to meddle in the US' domestic elections.
We give our best to let uncontacted tribes live their current way of life, despite it being morally questionable to let them suffer treatable illnesses as well as misogynistic gender roles.
Countries with nuclear weapons are treated differently, because they wield undescribable power & we must trust they act as rational actors to protect themselves.
We do trade & interactions only with countries that conform to our understanding of a fair and balanced world order, and only on a voluntary basis. We do not punish different systems, except for ignorance.
When that international rule system is broken, and one side imposes their will on others, even (especially!) based on moralistic arguments (Iraq, Ukraine, South America) - it leads to unmitigated disasters.
It stops the US from waltzing into France and remove their president because he disagrees on policy. In return we expect Russia NOT to meddle in the US' domestic elections.
We give our best to let uncontacted tribes live their current way of life, despite it being morally questionable to let them suffer treatable illnesses as well as misogynistic gender roles.
Countries with nuclear weapons are treated differently, because they wield undescribable power & we must trust they act as rational actors to protect themselves.
We do trade & interactions only with countries that conform to our understanding of a fair and balanced world order, and only on a voluntary basis. We do not punish different systems, except for ignorance.
When that international rule system is broken, and one side imposes their will on others, even (especially!) based on moralistic arguments (Iraq, Ukraine, South America) - it leads to unmitigated disasters.
Did that ever happen? The ones I remember someone (Data for example) tipped their hands or made them have to deal with someone face to face.
The prime directive is not just a bullwark against colonialism, savages with nukes, political interference, an answer to the "dark forest" theory, the Fermi paradoxon.
It is "live and let live" in an interstellar scale.
It's the only way to make cohabitation with different species possible. The only alternative is an intergalactic mono-culture (like in Star Wars, or Stargate).
...
It is however not a good story tool for writers - as it would need to tell systemic stories, about societies & systems, like an Asimov novel. Not relatable adventures Scott characters.
It is "live and let live" in an interstellar scale.
It's the only way to make cohabitation with different species possible. The only alternative is an intergalactic mono-culture (like in Star Wars, or Stargate).
...
It is however not a good story tool for writers - as it would need to tell systemic stories, about societies & systems, like an Asimov novel. Not relatable adventures Scott characters.
That's what I mean. A character creates a situation where interference has to occur.
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