Fridays' Child and the Prime Directive

[Poltargyst]

It should be noted that TOS was not always consistent about this. In "The Omega Glory," for instance, the Prime Directive is described as being an absolute principle of supreme importance, but, in other eps, it's more "don't play God" as opposed to "hands off!"

I mean, a strict, super-literal interpretation of the PD runs counter to Enterprise's stated mission to seek out new life-forms and explore strange new world and civilizations. The opening spiel doesn't go "to explore only warp-capable worlds and civiilizations."

Poking around and saying hello is one thing. Teaching them to be Nazis or mobsters is another story.

One of the structural problems VOYAGER had was that, thanks to a much broader definition of the PD, their mission was basically to get home while having as little impact on the Delta Quadrant as possible.

Which is laudable in theory, but not exactly primed for drama.

"Tune next week as our heroes try once again not to make any difference wherever they go!"

It was TNG's "Pen Pals" that first turned the Prime Directive into a fanatically strict hands-off rule, to the point of actually requiring that they let a civilization die rather than reveal their existence. I mean, how does that make sense? Let them be destroyed rather than risk damaging them? It made for a nice scene where the characters debated the ethics, but the underlying premise is utterly insane.

The fundamental problem with the 24th-century PD is the assumption that the "natural development" of a culture is one devoid of any outside influence -- that any knowledge not originating locally constitutes "contamination." And that's bull. It's perfectly natural for cultures to interact with one another, to learn from and borrow ideas from one another. The cultures that have the most exposure to outside ideas are generally the most dynamic, innovative, and prosperous. It only becomes a problem if one culture tries to force its beliefs, customs, and laws on another culture. That's what the Prime Directive should forbid. Not any contact at all, just coercive influence or deliberate imposition.

And what you're describing feels more like how the TOS-era PD worked.

 

[Christopher]

And what you're describing feels more like how the TOS-era PD worked.

Basically, yeah. The idea was simply to respect other cultures' ability to make their own decisions, to treat them as adults entitled to choose their own path even if it's different from your own, rather than assuming you had superior wisdom that you were entitled to impose upon them. TNG from "Pen Pals" onward totally missed the point, because they interpreted it as "Oh, the poor primitives are too ignorant and fragile to handle our superior knowledge, so we have to coddle them and protect them from things they can't handle." Which is every bit as condescending and imperious as the White Man's Burden mentality that the original PD was intended to counter.

 

[Anwar]

You want me to bring up the Galactic Nanny State argument again?

 

[Timo]

It was TNG's "Pen Pals" that first turned the Prime Directive into a fanatically strict hands-off rule, to the point of actually requiring that they let a civilization die rather than reveal their existence.

What really happened in that episode was quite different from that...

1) Data makes contact with a native who would never have been able to make such contact without Data's active assistance. That is forbidden procedure.
2) Data reveals this act of insubordination basically in the same sentence where he establishes that his contact is about to die in a geological upheaval.
3) Picard immediately asks for proposals; Data has none; Picard wonders whether the PD would need to be violated in order to save the natives. Data says he hopes not. A conference ensues.
4) In the conference, Picard mentions Data's apparently very serious insubordination but says they have to concentrate on the "dilemma" instead; he again asks for options.
5) Worf says the PD is sacrosanct; in his opinion, this means "there are no options". (Does that mean there is just one course of action, or zero? We don't know yet.)
6) Pulaski takes offense with Worf's "rigidity", but Picard immediately says Pulaski misunderstood Worf. (Which is understandable, as even the audience is left confused.)
7) Riker intervenes with what probably are the textbook arguments on the supposed philosophical dilemma, and LaForge responds with the textbook counterarguments. Troi chimes in, too. But that's just talk, as Data soon points out: the real issue is survival.
8) Yet the discussion briefly continues on a vein that both Picard and Pulaski scorn as sophistry.
9) Picard gets fed up and orders Data to stop his offending act of maintaining contact. Data rebels yet again and turns up the volume.
10) The heroes save the day.

For items 1 through 6, there is no suggestion that the natives ought to be left unsaved. But at item 7, the very concept of PD is challenged on abstract grounds, and Picard feels that item 8 is needed to re-establish that the PD isn't without its uses. That's just lukewarm air about hypothetical scenarios, though, and does not really touch upon whether the natives ought to be saved in this particular and very real situation.

That there exists item 9 before the action jumps to item 10 may be confusing. But it really doesn't appear as if Picard, who makes all the decisions in the end, would have wanted not to help the natives. Only Riker ever raised a contrary point, and only as a mental exercise; he's the appointed contrarian of the ship, after all. (Whatever Worf meant with his PD talk, nobody had patience for, as usual. But even the Klingon never spoke of letting the natives die.)

After "Pen Pals", the use of the PD returns to conventional and not particularly confusing paths. It's only at "Homeward" that the "let them die" idea actually is brought up and even followed through! And that's no continuation of "Pen Pals", but an apparent misunderstanding of the unhurried philosophical discussion in that earlier episode.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[T'Girl]

the situation in "Elaan of Troyius" is similar in that it's pretty clear by comments in the episode that the Federation wouldn't be involved if there wasn't something they wanted there.

The Federation Council might have been well aware of the presence of dilithium crystals.

Kirk might have known as well, just not that they were considered "common."

 

[Timo]

Quite possible. Kirk in the teaser claims he's being kept in the dark about pretty much everything, but he may be lying to Scotty about that, what with not being at liberty to discuss the mission details with his crew.

The star system with the two cultures is already "under Federation control". Is that like the deal with the Ba'ku planet, with the UFP owning the real estate around the system (and the Klingons disputing that) even though the worlds themselves are sovereign? Or are the two cultures some sort of almost-members? The outcome of the local war or peace will affect "Federation planning", while a Klingon presence in the system is not casus belli as such, and an outright Klingon attack can be swept under the carpet as well. I'd say we're facing a much more muddied issue here than in any of the other PD adventures discussed.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Noname Given]

Quite possible. Kirk in the teaser claims he's being kept in the dark about pretty much everything, but he may be lying to Scotty about that, what with not being at liberty to discuss the mission details with his crew.

The star system with the two cultures is already "under Federation control". Is that like the deal with the Ba'ku planet, with the UFP owning the real estate around the system (and the Klingons disputing that) even though the worlds themselves are sovereign? Or are the two cultures some sort of almost-members? The outcome of the local war or peace will affect "Federation planning", while a Klingon presence in the system is not casus belli as such, and an outright Klingon attack can be swept under the carpet as well. I'd say we're facing a much more muddied issue here than in any of the other PD adventures discussed.

Timo Saloniemi

Yep. Also, the main reason I'm saying the PD applies to 'pre-warp' culture is we also have "Patterns of Force" - where the Federation knows Zaion has interplanetary capability; and that the two planets are aware life exists on each other - yet John Gil was sent as a 'cultural observer' (and of course the plot of the episode is he abandoned the Non-Interference edict and caused a mess which Kirk and Co. arrive and clean up; but again, here's an example where we have at least one civilization (on Zaion) with space travel that's also aware of life on other worlds, yet here the Federation is NOT making direct contact (presumably because there's nothing material or otherwise the Federation or Starfleet needs from that star system.

 

[Christopher]

Yep. Also, the main reason I'm saying the PD applies to 'pre-warp' culture is we also have "Patterns of Force" - where the Federation knows Zaion has interplanetary capability; and that the two planets are aware life exists on each other - yet John Gil was sent as a 'cultural observer' (and of course the plot of the episode is he abandoned the Non-Interference edict and caused a mess which Kirk and Co. arrive and clean up; but again, here's an example where we have at least one civilization (on Zaion) with space travel that's also aware of life on other worlds, yet here the Federation is NOT making direct contact (presumably because there's nothing material or otherwise the Federation or Starfleet needs from that star system.

The thing is, that's only one side of the equation. In the absence of an explicit statement (which we never had until TNG: "First Contact"), the only way you'd know that the TOS Prime Directive was meant for "pre-warp" (or pre-spaceflight, to be less anachronistic) civilizations is if we saw an episode explicitly demonstrating that it did not apply to starfaring civilizations. Otherwise you can't be sure what you're seeing isn't just selection bias. And while TOS is unclear on the point, "The Magicks of Megas-Tu" does quite explicitly state that the Prime Directive is meant to apply to any alien civilization.

Yes, you can cherrypick examples to fit a preconceived thesis that the dividing line is warp capability, but that's back-projecting an idea that wasn't invented until 1991. It doesn't reflect the intent of TOS's writers. The actual, onscreen evidence in TOS itself never specifically associates the Prime Directive with warp technology or spaceflight. As conceived in the 1960s, the PD was about whether or not a civilization was free to develop naturally. It was as simple as that, and everything else grew out of that. Prime Directive stories tended to be about less advanced cultures because there was an implicit assumption that they were the ones who were in the most danger of disruptive interference by a technologically superior, colonialist power, but the alternative was never overtly ruled out, just not shown.


Here's what Bjo Trimble's Star Trek Concordance says about the Prime Directive (1976 Ballantine edition, p. 210, and deleting the internal episode references for clarity):

The rule of noninterference, General Order No. 1, a wise but often troublesome rule which prohibits Federation interference with the normal development of alien life and societies. It can be disregarded when absolutely vital to the interests of the entire Federation, but the commander who does violate it had better be ready to present a sound defense of his actions. When a culture has already been tampered with, the Prime Directive permits judicious action to restore balance. Kirk breaks the Prime Directive on Landru's planet, arguing that it applies only to healthy cultures. Kirk gives new knowledge only to Natira, who will not reveal the secret of Yonada to her people and risk changing the original intentions of the Fabrini. Thus, Kirk does not technically violate the directive. The natives of Delta Theta III came under this law, and Kirk told Bem he had no right to try to interfere with them by his unorthodox methods of observing native cultures.

Not one word about warp drive. Just normal development.

(Trimble is wrong about "For the World is Hollow," though; Kirk's answer to the Prime Directive question there is "The people of Yonada may be changed by the knowledge, but it's better than exterminating them." Which concisely sums up why "Pen Pals" and "Homeward" are so insanely wrong in their approach to the PD.)

 

[Ithekro]

Perhaps something happened between the 2260s and the 2360s that shifted the PD to complete non-interference even at the cost of a species survival. Perhaps one of those species Kirk or the like saved came back and bit the Federation hard? Or shifted the balance of power in unforseen ways that caused a backlash from the Federation Council?

 

[Timo]

Which concisely sums up why "Pen Pals" and "Homeward" are so insanely wrong in their approach to the PD

But again, we don't know what the effect of the PD would have been in "Pen Pals". Worf insisted that it be obeyed without exception, but this was not associated with "letting them die". That was rhetoric brought up by LaForge to counter Riker's rather polemic "we can't play god because we aren't omniscient" claim. And when the natives were saved, nobody suggested that this would have been in violation of the PD.

"Saving aliens from themselves" seemed like a big no-no even back in TOS, but "saving aliens from external threats" went to ridiculous lengths, like Kirk trying to stop an asteroid from hitting a planet that is already established to be magically immune to those... Something may have changed between "Paradise Syndrome" and "Pen Pals", both of which featured a starship far, far away from home saving unaware natives from natural disaster. But in both episodes, the natives were saved. It was just a matter of Kirk diving into the challenge without second or even first thought, and Picard asking for opinions!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Christopher]

Perhaps something happened between the 2260s and the 2360s that shifted the PD to complete non-interference even at the cost of a species survival. Perhaps one of those species Kirk or the like saved came back and bit the Federation hard? Or shifted the balance of power in unforseen ways that caused a backlash from the Federation Council?

Maybe it's just a generational shift. Maybe the later generations of decision-makers, like TNG's own writers, lost sight of the reasons behind the Prime Directive (don't be culturally imperialist, don't assume you're smarter than other cultures and entitled to determine their fate for them, respect them as equals rather than treating them as children) and focused only on the surface rules. And so applying the letter of the law without understanding the purpose behind it led it to be applied in a more rigid, arbitrary, and extreme way.

 

[Timo]

Or the opposite may have happened: what sounded like a good idea for the first hundred years proved to do more evil than good in the long term. Humans would be totally lacking in experience in noninterference when they started the star empire business, after all... They would no doubt get many things wrong at first, especially those where they chose to differ from the wisdom of the alien elders.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Perhaps one of those species Kirk or the like saved came back and bit the Federation hard? Or shifted the balance of power in unforseen ways that caused a backlash from the Federation Council?

Yeah, I always thought this was one of the missing pieces of TNG. It would have been nice to have gotten an episode illustrating a case that justified the extreme position of non-interference, before getting to "Pen Pals" and "Homeward." VOY's "Prototype" does a nice job of illustrating the dangers of interference. Unfortunately, I think that the essential point is undermined by the automated personnel units having been artificially created.

 

[BillJ]

Perhaps one of those species Kirk or the like saved came back and bit the Federation hard? Or shifted the balance of power in unforseen ways that caused a backlash from the Federation Council?

Yeah, I always thought this was one of the missing pieces of TNG. It would have been nice to have gotten an episode illustrating a case that justified the extreme position of non-interference, before getting to "Pen Pals" and "Homeward." VOY's "Prototype" does a nice job of illustrating the dangers of interference. Unfortunately, I think that the essential point is undermined by the automated personnel units having been artificially created.

Issue #43-45 of DC's first Star Trek run has Kirk returning to Gamma Trianguli VI ("The Apple") and showing what a mess he made of things there.

 

[Marsden]

Maybe one piece of the puzzle is what actually is in Federation space and what isn't?

I have dated information, undoubtedly this has been reconned/never cannon to begin with but the alliance of 5 nations that became "The United Federation of Planets" (Terra, Alpha Centauri, Tellar, Andor, and Vulcan, and all of their included colonies and bases) that they agreed to a roughly sperical area around them out to a certain distance. So the Federation was this big circle that they didn't really control most of it at the time, but this was their area to develop in the charter. In this area, primitive cultures would be within the Fed's space but not in the Federation. So places like Organia and Capella were inside the "borders" but not really members. Coridan was not yet a member, but they were in that area. I doubt that would carry to TNG at all, but at least some of these places, like Tyree's world, would be almost like a reservation in the nation of the UFP, off limits but known about. That's why it's such a problem when Klingon agents show up, they are destroying what the Federation is trying to preserve.

Sorry I probably haven't cleared anything up at all.

 

[Timo]

I get the idea - but oddly enough, Tyree's world is among those places Starfleet doesn't seem to try and "preserve" at all. That is, young Lieutenant Kirk is allowed to tell Tyree all about space, aliens and rayguns, and we have no evidence he did this while thinking Tyree would then keep it secret from his own people. And places that ought to be within the UFP sphere of influence by astrographical fact, like Capella, get contacted even though the UFP ought to be able to keep them preserved from all external influences if they wanted to - and places that are said to be under UFP influence, like Elaan and Troyius, are likewise openly contacted and their affairs influenced.

Whether worlds in TOS are "far away" or "nearby" is a bit difficult to determine, as the writers in general had no idea about warp speeds, starship operational range or even whether Pollux or Omicron Ceti is farther away from Earth. But PD protection seems to arise as an issue of controversy both on worlds previously visited by at least one Earth/UFP expedition, and on virgin worlds.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[LadyT'Anna]

We seem to have traveled far in this thread. I'm disinclined to think that negotiating mining rights in and of itself constitutes a violation of the PD. Capella has something the Federation wants, certainly, but Kirk et al. are under no obligation to tell the Capellans why they want it. The same logic applies to other planets, whether within or beyond the Federation's sphere of influence.

 

[Greg Cox]

I get the idea - but oddly enough, Tyree's world is among those places Starfleet doesn't seem to try and "preserve" at all. That is, young Lieutenant Kirk is allowed to tell Tyree all about space, aliens and rayguns, and we have no evidence he did this while thinking Tyree would then keep it secret from his own people.

My impression is that it was supposed to be a secret, just between Kirk and Tyree, although Tyree eventually spilled the beans to his wife.

It's equivalent to a time-travel episode where Kirk comes clean to a select few individuals, like Roberta Lincoln or Gillian Armstrong, but doesn't expect them to go running to the newspapers afterwards about the spaceship from the future.

Ditto for Paris

 

[T'Girl]

It's equivalent to a time-travel episode where Kirk comes clean to a select few individuals, like Roberta Lincoln or Gillian Armstrong ...

Gillian Taylor?

 

[Greg Cox]

It's equivalent to a time-travel episode where Kirk comes clean to a select few individuals, like Roberta Lincoln or Gillian Armstrong ...

Gillian Taylor?

Oops. Yes, that's who I meant.

Or Rain Robinson in those Voyager episodes.