Son'a Solidarity post ST: Insurrection

[Dayton Ward]

And again, if Dougherty was in the right, then they could simply have beamed down, told the Ba'ku what was up, and moved on from there. The simple fact that they were engaged in all this subterfuge/cloak-n-dagger bullshit should be enough for anyone with a lick of common sense to see that what they were doing wasn't above board, the true test of intregrity coming when no one's looking, and all that.

Just for the sake of argument, let's say Doughtery and his idiot friends are legally okay with what they attempted to do. How the hell does the Federation hold itself up as the champions of individual liberties and self-determination, and then pull something like this...and without even having the balls to do it out in the open; choosing instead to sneak around in the shadows and hope they didn't get caught? Where I come from, we call these people hypocrites. Or Republicans. Or Democrats, for that matter.

 

[Sci]

The only FACT about the Prime Directive is how inconsistently it has been used in Star Trek. You have absolutely no idea what sub-clauses are involved that act as "outs". Hell we have no idea how the Prime Directive is worded... everyone is working on assumptions (including me). All we have is bits and pieces here and there.

In no possible sense of the phrase "do not interfere with another state's internal affairs" could there possibly be an exception for invading a peaceful foreign state, abducting its citizens, stealing their territory, and forcing them to re-locate. There is no way that could possibly not constitute a violation of the injunction against interfering in a foreign state's internal affairs.

There's just no possible justification for that. Period. Nor could there possibly be a scenario under which that is acceptable under the Prime Directive or the Federation Charter's interference ban. It's a complete and absolute violation of the very basic ideas upon which the PD is built.

You might as well try to argue that there are scenarios under which the U.S. Constitution allows private citizens to own slaves just because you can't remember the exact wording off the top of your head.

 

[BillJ]

And again, if Dougherty was in the right, then they could simply have beamed down, told the Ba'ku what was up, and moved on from there. The simple fact that they were engaged in all this subterfuge/cloak-n-dagger bullshit should be enough for anyone with a lick of common sense to see that what they were doing wasn't above board, the true test of intregrity coming when no one's looking, and all that.

Just for the sake of argument, let's say Doughtery and his idiot friends are legally okay with what they attempted to do. How the hell does the Federation hold itself up as the champions of individual liberties and self-determination, and then pull something like this...and without even having the balls to do it out in the open; choosing instead to sneak around in the shadows and hope they didn't get caught? Where I come from, we call these people hypocrites. Or Republicans. Or Democrats, for that matter.

Well... in all honesty, that is the way the mission should have been handled either way. In the backend of space it should have been relatively to go in and scoop up the Ba'ku and move them. Why go through the "dog and pony show" and why would Dougherty bring in officers he didn't know? Officers who from the look of it would have been with the mission through to the end? Why bring in unknown elements if this mission wasn't on the up and up? If I grow pot in my backyard I'm not bringing the guy from up the street down to take a look at my backporch.

How can you hold yourself up "champions of individual liberties and self-determination" when you have space station commanders going around and executing foreign dignitaries when it suits their interest?

The only FACT about the Prime Directive is how inconsistently it has been used in Star Trek. You have absolutely no idea what sub-clauses are involved that act as "outs". Hell we have no idea how the Prime Directive is worded... everyone is working on assumptions (including me). All we have is bits and pieces here and there.

In no possible sense of the phrase "do not interfere with another state's internal affairs" could there possibly be an exception for invading a peaceful foreign state, abducting its citizens, stealing their territory, and forcing them to re-locate. There is no way that could possibly not constitute a violation of the injunction against interfering in a foreign state's internal affairs.

There's just no possible justification for that. Period. Nor could there possibly be a scenario under which that is acceptable under the Prime Directive or the Federation Charter's interference ban. It's a complete and absolute violation of the very basic ideas upon which the PD is built.

You might as well try to argue that there are scenarios under which the U.S. Constitution allows private citizens to own slaves just because you can't remember the exact wording off the top of your head.

You're argument borders on ridiculous. Because we don't know what the Prime Directive does and doesn't allow and we don't know whether the Prime Directive is just a military protocol (the TV shows seem to point towards the PD not applying to civilians). Which would mean that all the Federation Council would have to do is create an exception to it to allow the mission to go forward.

And I'm curious... where is the Interference Ban in the Federation charter mentioned on screen?

 

[Dayton Ward]

How can you hold yourself up "champions of individual liberties and self-determination" when you have space station commanders going around and executing foreign dignitaries when it suits their interest?

Show me the law that makes that okay, and you've got something to argue with. Such individuals are/were dealt with, were they not? Or, are we characterizing an entire organization based on the actions of a few people?

And are you seriously arguing that because some dickbag did something illegal over there, it's therefore okay to go ahead and do illegal/immoral/unethical stuff over here, because some kind of half-assed precedent's been set?

 

[elaithin]

BillJ, I would actually like to refer you to your own signature file. What's right there? That's what you're doing in this thread.

 

[elaithin]

And to answer your question better: from Memory Alpha's page on the Federation Charter:

The Charter of the United Federation of Planets (or Federation Charter for short) was the document that was ratified by the original members of the United Federation of Planets at that organization's founding in 2161. Jonathan Archer was one of the signers of the charter. (TNG: "The Outcast"; ENT: "Zero Hour", "These Are the Voyages...")
In 2372, Benjamin Sisko pointed out to Akorem Laan that if Akorem, as emissary, guided the people of Bajor towards using the d'jarra caste system, it would prevent them from joining the Federation, as "caste-based discrimination goes against the Federation Charter". (DS9: "Accession")
After discovering Luther Sloan's plan to interfere with the selection of a new member to the Romulan Continuing Committee Julian Bashir pointed out that the Federation Charter explicitly forbid the interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign state. (DS9: "Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges"

 

[JoeP]

^^ Hahaha....I was gonna point out the same thing.

 

[Myasishchev]

^Let's just say I agree to disagree with you on that point. The film would have made an excellent two-part episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. I think fans had unfair expectations since the film came after Star Trek: First Contact.

Personally, I expected it to be at least as terrible; in that regard I was not disappointed.

 

[elaithin]

O.o

There's people who didn't like First Contact?

 

[Myasishchev]

O.o

There's people who didn't like First Contact?

I dunno. At least one.

 

[Myasishchev]

Just for the sake of argument, let's say Doughtery and his idiot friends are legally okay with what they attempted to do. How the hell does the Federation hold itself up as the champions of individual liberties and self-determination, and then pull something like this...

Pull something like what? The Baku are a bunch of Khmer Rouge-like totalitarians who deny people under their authority their speech and assembly rights, to the point that what looks like a majority of their population chafed so under the Baku regime that they left--or became so outspoken that they were exiled, to a slow death. The Sona have property, and dignity interests that were invaded and violated by the Baku dictatorship. The Federation is helping out what can easily be considered the legitimate government of the Baku planet.

The Baku are pretty much monsters. Back-to-the-land hippies, perhaps, but ones who purged anyone who disagreed.

That's even before you get into the notion that 600 people could be held to have, legally, occupied an entire planet. I strongly doubt colonization law in the Federation works that way, because it would lead to ridiculous outcomes (an entire galaxy full of Baku-like situations). I suspect the only thing at all that prevents the Baku from just being imposed upon for the public good is by the Feds themselves is the fact they aren't Fed citizens; it's unclear whether the Federation is prohibited from assisting allied governments against internal threats, but it sort of looks like they are (Starfleet's interposed itself in Klingon and Bajoran internal problems, iirc). If not, why shouldn't Starfleet help the Sona? It's their planet too, and their hands are clean.

 

[JD]

Just for the sake of argument, let's say Doughtery and his idiot friends are legally okay with what they attempted to do. How the hell does the Federation hold itself up as the champions of individual liberties and self-determination, and then pull something like this...

Pull something like what? The Baku are a bunch of Khmer Rouge-like totalitarians who deny people under their authority their speech and assembly rights, to the point that what looks like a majority of their population chafed so under the Baku regime that they left--or became so outspoken that they were exiled, to a slow death. The Sona have property, and dignity interests that were invaded and violated by the Baku dictatorship. The Federation is helping out what can easily be considered the legitimate government of the Baku planet.

The Baku are pretty much monsters. Back-to-the-land hippies, perhaps, but ones who purged anyone who disagreed.

Wow, where did that come from? I was always under the impression that they left on their own because they wanted to go back to using technology. I always thought of it as being more along the lines of young people in an Amish village deciding to leave because they wanted to live like the rest of the world.

 

[Myasishchev]

The Baku evidently didn't permit them to use technology, and they rebelled--although the only narrative we get of that is a biased Baku one.

If the Baku would have permitted them to use their (apparently quite advanced) technology, why would they leave the planet of eternal youth, when they could move to the next valley and start their own civilization? The Baku would have a significant interest in kicking them out, too--the Sona desired a lifestyle that didn't involve backbreaking peasant labor, and with access to technology, would have developed such a lifestyle on the Baku planet; within ten or twenty years, the Baku primitivist culture is facing an industrialized, sophisticated leisure culture in the next valley, and the less ideologically pure Baku people are seeing what an awesome time their Sona cousins are having, and giving the finger to peasant labor to take a short walk across the mountain where they would be welcomed. It would probably destroy the Baku's little colony if the Sona were permitted to create their own neighboring colony. It takes a special kind of person to enjoy 18th-century-style serfdom. The original Baku colonists chose that lifestyle--their children didn't, and probably wouldn't, if an alternative were obvious...

Also, the real question about the Sona is "Why didn't they come back as soon as they got an off-world power base and starships capable of nuking the Baku from orbit?" Or maybe this was as soon as they could (though it looked more like many years down the road from the way F. Murray's face was falling off).

 

[Sci]

Just for the sake of argument, let's say Doughtery and his idiot friends are legally okay with what they attempted to do. How the hell does the Federation hold itself up as the champions of individual liberties and self-determination, and then pull something like this...

Pull something like what? The Baku are a bunch of Khmer Rouge-like totalitarians who deny people under their authority their speech and assembly rights, to the point that what looks like a majority of their population chafed so under the Baku regime that they left--or became so outspoken that they were exiled, to a slow death.

So does that mean it would have been okay for the United States to invade Cambodia and forcibly re-locate its entire population, just because their government were dicks?

The Sona have property, and dignity interests that were invaded and violated by the Baku dictatorship. The Federation is helping out what can easily be considered the legitimate government of the Baku planet.

There is no evidence that the Son'a are the legitimate government. If anything, the fact that they went and formed the Son'a Solidarity after leaving the Ba'ku world means that they are now a separate, sovereign state that has no claim whatsoever to the Ba'ku planet, in the same way that the Imperial Romulan State has no claim whatsoever to Romulus (or that the United States has no claim whatsoever to London).

That's even before you get into the notion that 600 people could be held to have, legally, occupied an entire planet. I strongly doubt colonization law in the Federation works that way,

Doesn't matter. The Ba'ku are a foreign state that have claimed that world since long before the Federation even existed. The Federation has no business deciding that some foreign states have a legitimate right to exist and others don't.

It's their planet too, and their hands are clean.

But it's not their planet. They left that world and established an independent state. They have no more claim to that world than the United States has to London.

And their hands aren't clean. They violently conquered two species and use them as servant castes, remember?

 

[BillJ]

First off a question that I'd like to ask to Dayton Ward, who I know has served in the Marines (if I remember correctly).

SATIE: Captain, do you believe in the Prime Directive?
PICARD: Of course.
SATIE: In fact, it's Starfleet General Order Number One, is it not?
PICARD: Your point, Admiral?
SATIE: Would it surprise you to learn that you have violated the Prime Directive a total of nine times since you took command of the Enterprise? I must say, Captain, it surprised the hell out of me.
PICARD: My reports to Starfleet document the circumstances in each of those instances
SATIE: Yes, we're looking into those reports, Captain, very closely into those reports, after which I'm sure we'll have more questions for you about your so-called commitment to Starfleet's Prime Directive.

Could a person in the military continue to serve uninterrupted if they had committed the same serious felony nine times in a four year period? If not then there is one of two ways to interpret the Prime Directive:

a) The Prime Directive has one sentence and the Federation abides by that one sentence. Then for at least the last one-hundred and twenty years (in the Trek timeline), the Federation has "talked the talk" but not "walked the walk" in concern to the Prime Directive/Non-Interference directive. What I mean is that they say that they believe in it but really don't. I don't believe any one here is dense enough to believe that only Kirk, Picard, Sisko and Janeway are the only ones who flaunt it with regularity. With thousands of ships the Prime Directive has the potential to be violated thousands of times every year.

or

b) The Prime Directive is a "living" law that has grown and changed over time (which it has to be considering how it changed between TOS and TNG). Interference may not constitute a Non-Interference directive violation in certain situations. There could be dozens of factors that are used to determine whether a situation is actual interference.

If it's "a" then Picard should be in jail or drummed out of the service a dozen times over.

If it's "b" then the possibility exists that a situation existed in regards to the Ba'ku in which the Prime Directive does not apply.

For me, seeing how the Star Trek universe has evolved over the years am going with "b". There is really no other way to interpret what the TV writers have given us since the introduction of the Prime Directive in Return of the Archons.

So while the Ba'ku mission was horrendously conducted, I'm betting that it wasn't a violation of the Prime Directive/Non Interference directive.

The Ba'ku were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.

 

[Sci]

SATIE: Captain, do you believe in the Prime Directive?
PICARD: Of course.
SATIE: In fact, it's Starfleet General Order Number One, is it not?
PICARD: Your point, Admiral?
SATIE: Would it surprise you to learn that you have violated the Prime Directive a total of nine times since you took command of the Enterprise? I must say, Captain, it surprised the hell out of me.
PICARD: My reports to Starfleet document the circumstances in each of those instances
SATIE: Yes, we're looking into those reports, Captain, very closely into those reports, after which I'm sure we'll have more questions for you about your so-called commitment to Starfleet's Prime Directive.

Of course, what Satie does not acknowledge is that even when Picard has violated the letter of the Prime Directive, he has done so with the intent of making sure that power over themselves and their own destiny remained with the cultures being contacted and that the Federation or other interstellar cultures didn't dominate those cultures -- thus preserving the spirit of the Prime Directive, the intent of the Prime Directive.

Contrast this to the Ba'ku relocation operation, which would have violated both the letter and the spirit by robbing the Ba'ku people of power over themselves, violating their sovereignty.

I'm prone to thinking that Option B is more probable -- that there are a lot of factors that come into play in determining whether or not a given policy constitutes interference in another state's internal affairs. BUT...

If it's "b" then the possibility exists that a situation existed in regards to the Ba'ku in which the Prime Directive does not apply.

There cannot possibly be any situation under which invading a foreign state's territory, abducting its entire populace, and forcibly relocating them to another world without their consent -- especially when that foreign state has never threatened the Federation -- is justifiable.

 

[BillJ]

SATIE: Captain, do you believe in the Prime Directive?
PICARD: Of course.
SATIE: In fact, it's Starfleet General Order Number One, is it not?
PICARD: Your point, Admiral?
SATIE: Would it surprise you to learn that you have violated the Prime Directive a total of nine times since you took command of the Enterprise? I must say, Captain, it surprised the hell out of me.
PICARD: My reports to Starfleet document the circumstances in each of those instances
SATIE: Yes, we're looking into those reports, Captain, very closely into those reports, after which I'm sure we'll have more questions for you about your so-called commitment to Starfleet's Prime Directive.

Of course, what Satie does not acknowledge is that even when Picard has violated the letter of the Prime Directive, he has done so with the intent of making sure that power over themselves and their own destiny remained with the cultures being contacted and that the Federation or other interstellar cultures didn't dominate those cultures -- thus preserving the spirit of the Prime Directive, the intent of the Prime Directive.

Contrast this to the Ba'ku relocation operation, which would have violated both the letter and the spirit by robbing the Ba'ku people of power over themselves, violating their sovereignty.

I'm prone to thinking that Option B is more probable -- that there are a lot of factors that come into play in determining whether or not a given policy constitutes interference in another state's internal affairs. BUT...

If it's "b" then the possibility exists that a situation existed in regards to the Ba'ku in which the Prime Directive does not apply.

There cannot possibly be any situation under which invading a foreign state's territory, abducting its entire populace, and forcibly relocating them to another world without their consent -- especially when that foreign state has never threatened the Federation -- is justifiable.

You can't have it both ways in regards to the Prime Directive. Which is what you seem to be trying to do.

Either it's blanket non-interference or it's not

And I would point to the episode First Contact, where the actions of Picard and the Federation damaged the culture at hand. His actions gave the conservative elements all the ammunition they needed to stop a warp flight that was going to go forward prior to his intervention.

From the beginning of the episode:

MIRASTA: At twelve point four after launch, the warp field generator will be activated.
DURKEN: That's when it would break the light barrier?
MIRASTA: Yes, Chancellor. If we're successful, the craft will leave our star system, and in a matter of minutes will be on its way to the Garth system.
KROLA: And then what?
MIRASTA: And then, Krola, we'll see what's there.
DURKEN: How long, Mirasta?
MIRASTA: We have the prototype design for the warp engine. It would simply be a matter of building the actual production units. If I get your approval today, ten months, maybe less.
KROLA: Chancellor, I'll admit Mirasta's enthusiasm for her work is seductive, but perhaps we're moving too fast. Your opponents will see this as another example of your determination to pull us further from our traditional ways.
DURKEN: My opponents look back as I look forward. I cannot believe that my people would choose to retreat after all we've done.
MIRASTA: I agree.
KROLA: The people were willing to accept your social reforms because they believe in you, Chancellor. But there are many who say we have gone far enough. All these new ideas, new technology, and now space travel? It confuses them, frightens them.
DURKEN: I will not allow them to remain in the dark ages. The warp programme will proceed as you have outlined, Mirasta. And then we will slow down, Krola, to let everyone catch their breath. Including you.

From the end of the episode:

MIRASTA: But Chancellor
DURKEN: Mirasta, it goes against every instinct in my being. My people are not ready to accept what you represent. Everything that happened in the hospital proves it. And Krola is the best evidence of all. We must slow down and allow all those like him to join us in the present before we can move into the future.
MIRASTA: But when we encounter other beings in space, our people must be ready.
DURKEN: The warp programme will have to be delayed. We will divert more resources to education and social development to prepare for the day when we are ready.
MIRASTA: Chancellor, I strongly disagree.
DURKEN: I know. Captain, you once said if I ask you to leave, you would without hesitation. I'm afraid I must ask you to do just that.
PICARD: Well, it's your decision, Chancellor. But I must say, I regret that I won't have the opportunity of knowing your people better.
DURKEN: We're a good people, Captain. A society with much potential. Once we cross the threshold of space, we will have to give up this self-importance, this conceit that we are the centre of the universe. But this is not the time for that. For now, we will have to enjoy that sweet innocence.
PICARD: How will you keep us a secret when so many have seen and heard so much?
DURKEN: The stories will be told for many years, I have no doubt. Of the ship that made contact, of an alien who was held prisoner in the medical facility. There'll be charges of a government conspiracy. Some of the witnesses will tell their tales and most people will laugh at them, and go back and watch more interesting fiction of the daily broadcasts. It will pass.

I would argue that the damage done to the Malcorians was everybit as devastating as anything the Federation was planning with the Ba'ku.

And I would point out that withholding help from the Klingons in Redemption probably had more to do with politics than it did with the Prime Directive. The hope being that if Duras won (which he appeared to be at that point), that he would not dissolve the Federation-Klingon alliance.