General Order Number One

[hux]

^

PICARD: I understand. Perhaps your system of law and punishment is better than any system we once had. But we do now have a law I must obey. And part of it says I must protect my people from harm.
LIATOR: We did not ask you to come here.

 

[Kor]

Perhaps it's better to disregard this episode altogether.

It also gave us the famous line "I'm with Starfleet; we don't lie."

Also, Riker and other officers learned about the death penalty and the punishment zones while conversing with the Edo leaders. On realizing the gravity of possible inadvertent rule-breaking, they realized they should go find Wesley before he got himself in trouble. But they were too late.

Apparently, as soon as Wesley was apprehended, the area was no longer a punishment zone. That's why none of our other heroes got the death penalty for coming to Wesley's aid and manhandling the mediators. One of the mediators says, "And if this Zone were still in effect, you would all deserve death."

Kor

 

[Anwar]

So they basically jumped the gun on contact.

 

[Drone]

If conflict does arise, there's actually very little chance that the heroes would agree to be punished by local rules! That is, they may pay fines, but if one of them gets sentenced to ten years in jail, they simply say "No can do, how about we give you two tons of diamonds and agree not to come here again?". And if the answer is "No, absolutely not! Respect our laws!", they say "Too bad, no diamonds for you. Chief, beam our friend up!"; after all, that's what actually happened in the episode.

Timo Saloniemi

There seemed to be less inclination to brook the local legal procedure in Ex Post Facto and Random Thoughts, at least as we saw, until Janeway sanguinely allowed the judicial proceedings to take their course. If their disposition had gone south, well I guess we can't be sure what the next act would have been.

 

[hux]

I don't think it's realistic for Starfleet to do a background check on every planet they encounter. They're exploring unknown space so it just isn't applicable. I was however, one of those people who did assume that they would not visit pre-warp civilisations as part of the Prime Directive but that appears to be incorrect and it only seems to mean non-interference. But surely visiting these people is a form of inevitable interference.

The weird thing about the Edo episode is that they're colonising a nearby planet... yet have absolutely no intel about that area of space (or in this case, the unhappy Edo God just down the road).

We really don't seem to have come very far at all, do we?. We just turn up and say... "mine" then send our annoying children to planets with weird rules we know nothing about.

It also gave us the famous line "I'm with Starfleet; we don't lie."

If only they'd allowed him to be executed.

 

[T'Girl]

The weird thing about the Edo episode is that they're colonising a nearby planet...

Well, it's a planet in a adjacent star system, so there was light years of distance.

 

[hux]

In the warp era, I would still class that as nearby.

The Edo God certainly thinks so.

 

[Anwar]

In the warp era, I would still class that as nearby.

The Edo God certainly thinks so.

TOS did the same thing with Cestus III, apparently it was Gorn space but they had no clue there were any intelligent aliens around.

 

[Vanyel]

What happens to a society that does have FTL, but not necessarily warp drive FTL? What if a scientist on some planet learned how to make the same kind of device like the Iconians used? These people are clearly capable of traveling to other worlds at speeds much faster than warp. If these people do have space ships that are sub-light, but they have these Iconian like ways to travel, what then?

 

[at Quark's]

What happens to a society that does have FTL, but not necessarily warp drive FTL? What if a scientist on some planet learned how to make the same kind of device like the Iconians used? These people are clearly capable of traveling to other worlds at speeds much faster than warp. If these people do have space ships that are sub-light, but they have these Iconian like ways to travel, what then?

I don't think warp drive is a hard criterion in itself. It's just that after obtaining warp drive, contact with aliens usually becomes inevitable, and said species learns about the existence of the 'interstellar community'- if they hadn't learned about that before inventing warp drive already. Assuming that Iconian-style gateways would have the same effect, I'd think the Federation would proceed along the same lines as if that society discovered warp.

Well, perhaps not quite the same lines.... they would probably include a handsome bargaining offer too, in order to get their hands on that gateway technology... And make sure as hell they make first contact before the Romulans or any such species do

 

[Makarov]

The prime directive should really just be a guideline anyway. I'd make it "Try not to interfere, but if lives are on the line or you can make a positive impact, then do it." It's pretty much how our heroes act anyway, and it would remove their hesitance to help people. Of course breaking a rigid rule to help people makes for better TV.

Then Starfleet can make a new division for straightening out prime directive mishaps or working with prewarp civilizations after they've made contact.

 

[Kor]

I've said it before... the Prime Directive, as it is usually stated, sounds pretty straightforward and simple. But I would imagine that captains have to take some pretty in-depth coursework in command school specifically dealing with all aspects of the Prime Directive; case studies, hypothetical scenarios, etc., etc., etc.

Kor

 

[Drone]

I've said it before... the Prime Directive, as it is usually stated, sounds pretty straightforward and simple. But I would imagine that captains have to take some pretty in-depth coursework in command school specifically dealing with all aspects of the Prime Directive; case studies, hypothetical scenarios, etc., etc., etc.

Kor

Maybe in part what you're referring to at the end would take the form of the Kobayashi Maru, but reworked for the older, and presumably wiser, set.

 

[T'Girl]

... the Prime Directive, as it is usually stated, sounds pretty straightforward and simple.

 

[Drone]

That chart is more than interesting. Aside from the appealing color scheme, shapes, and spacing, I find that I would like to be able to read the text, which unless my dodgy eyesight is deceiving me, is upside down within all the boxes. Maybe its provenance is well known around these parts, but nonetheless would you kindly tell me the source?

 

[FormerLurker]

It looks like it got flipped top to bottom at some point. The 'bottom' line in the green box on the lower left begins with START, as though that is where the reading of the chart is to begin. As stated, all the writing in the boxes is upside down, and printed backward, as though the chart were flipped top to bottom.

I, too, would like to read the chart at a legible size. As Drone said, do you know the source?

 

[Jetboogieman]

Ah... what?

 

[T'Girl]

I grabbed a flow chart at random off the internet and added a few things, it's partially a joke, but also a statement that in application the PD would be complex (probably more so than what I posted).

Given some time I could make a "real" one.

 

[Captain Rob]

That would explain why it was unreadable.
I should think that General Order Number One should be "Don't piss in other people's pools."
Legally and diplomatically worded of course.

 

[Kor]

In some Trek parody novels, the Prime Directive was something like "always put everything back exactly the way you found it." Maybe that would make more sense than what has been depicted on screen.

Kor