How Messed Up is the Prime Directive?

[Gingerbread Demon]

I love Into Darkness!

If you mean the movie, yes it isn't all bad

 

[at Quark's]

I'm not sure where the idea that warp-capable was the cutoff for tech development. Is that actually in an episode somewhere? It's never seemed quite right to me. "No reference to space, other worlds, or advanced civilizations" always seemed to refer to a pre-industrial era to me and to a culture that had not been contacted by any other world yet.

I've never interpreted that as an absolute rule, simply as the latest cutoff point after which contact can usually no longer be avoided - and in those cases it's smarter to make first contact in a Federation-controlled way than a 'random encounter in space' as First Contact (the season 4 episode, not the movie) says. I also believe that episode might have reinforced the idea that warp capability is the decisive point (even though it says nowhere that this is a rule cast in iron without any exceptions or modifiers, simply that 'When a society reaches your level of technology and is clearly about to initiate warp travel, we believe it is time to make first contact.').

After all, this is a society such that according to the reconnaissance teams 'everything our observers reported suggested the people of this world would almost certainly react negatively to our arrival' so it would make sense to postpone first contact to the last possible 'reasonable' moment. A more receptive society perhaps might be ready earlier, even without warp travel. For instance, in Justice it appears to be no problem, and they can't have done reconnaissance for long, because those planets were just discovered according to the Captain's log at the beginning of that episode. (Even though the real world reason probably was that the writers didn't want the PD involved in the story.)

 

[Guy Gardener]

Or any example of colonialism.

Really any time one civilization imposed it's rule, culture or values on another.

Vietnam is a good example because, not only were their weapons and equipment not as technologically advanced as the US, but it was the socio-political hot potato topic of the TOS era.

10s of Thousands of crates, loaded to the gills with millions of Russian made ak47s fell from the sky towards agrarian 15th century like bucolic villages, from the past. Notes stapled to the side of each crate explained "Round eyed yankee doodle demons are coming to eat your children. Kill, kill, kill!"

 

[Tallguy]

Oy. I take one day off... OK, first thing in the morning and in a kind of a hurry.

"Any hat." What more do you need to know?

C'mon people. Tasha had the best line in season one!

I don't know, I think might have more to do with the words you are choosing to describe the concept rather than any inherent bias in the concept itself. While "primitive" is often seen to have a pejorative connotation, it really is a purely relative term. It doesn't actually describe anything about Society A, other than that Society B has already experienced that stage, and is now doing something different. This is possible because we have recognized a predictable path human civilizations follow, and there aren't any odd outliers (Capitalism Vs Communism is the biggest split so far). The only reason the West describes themselves as "advanced" or "mature" is that we have no other civilizations further along to compare to.

Thanks to Prodigy we actually have the first written documentation of the PD and words "primitive" and "immature" don't appear in it.

I have to say I have a problem with the Prodigy document just because we're talking about TOS and TNG eras (mainly) from a production point of view and this is VERY after the fact. Did I read someplace that this actually came from one of the FASA games? Can someone confirm or deny? (Which would actually put it pre-TNG, but still.)

I want to see the floor of the UN where someone denies aid on the grounds that a culture is "too primitive" and see what the reaction is.

So, they're not to interfere in a living, growing culture. Patterns of Force shows why. Gill derailed the natural development of the planets both by introducing Nazism and by giving them advanced tech.

I'm going from memory: Didn't they already have contact between two neighboring planets? It wasn't the tech it was the National Socialism. Maybe the Narzi's weren't as advanced as the Space Jews? (I mean... That tracks, right?)

I remember taking a really wild anthropology class in college (early 1980s)

Speaking of Prodigies...

that made me look hard at the use of the word "primitive". It does and did imply a level of judgement that made it seem like colonization and all that comes with it were Good Things ("The White Man's Burden"). Further study showed that many (most?) of those "primitive" peoples had incredibly sophisticated cultures. This was being questioned in academia in the 50s and 60s, so I think that had an effect on the creation of the PD. So I think part of the confusion is the language we use to talk about it. (I disagree about the "predictable path civilizations follow" but we can get into that another time. )

@UssGlenn thank you for posting the text from Prodigy! It's always best to agree on terms when discussing something like this. However, since it was originally referred to in Return of the Archons, we also need to see what's was originally said there.

SPOCK: Captain, our Prime Directive of non-interference.
KIRK: That refers to a living, growing culture. Do you think this one is?

I agree it has a lot to do with colonialism and the growing reevaluation of it at that time. I disagree that it was about Vietnam (though A Private Little War is!). Within recent history, India and other nations had won or were fighting for their independence. I think that had a huge effect, especially given the ages of Gene Coon and many of the writers. Additionally, it's been noted many times that a difference in technology level often led to colonialism, slavery, and genocide.

It seems this was still the way the PD was looked at in first season TNG. In Symbiosis, Picard says, "The Prime Directive is not just a set of rules; it is a philosophy... and a very correct one. History has proven again and again that whenever mankind interferes with a less developed civilization, no matter how well-intentioned that interference may be, the results are invariably disastrous."

IMO, later writers took this to extremes, leading to the problems of Homeward and Pen Pals.

I'm not sure where the idea that warp-capable was the cutoff for tech development. Is that actually in an episode somewhere? It's never seemed quite right to me. "No reference to space, other worlds, or advanced civilizations" always seemed to refer to a pre-industrial era to me and to a culture that had not been contacted by any other world yet.

The first time I recall warp drive being a tipping point was TNG's episode First Contact. (EDIT: Already answered.)

"I disagree that it was about Vietnam" - I think Coon (who I repeat - to myself - did NOT write A Private Little War) has said that it was. But that might be faulty memory.

It's interesting that many of the PD depictions (including the Orville apparently?) are "If we give them tech before they are ready they will KILL EVERYBODY." Because from what I'm seeing of a natural evolving culture (us) is that as we evolve we take the tech and KILL EVERYBODY. And we... Learn from this? And then we meet the Vulcans?

We never see the planet where someone gave them really nice farming equipment. (I mean, I guess there were forms of martial arts that developed from being able to use the farming equipment as weapons at hand. But never mind that now.)

"History has proven again and again that whenever mankind interferes with a less developed civilization, no matter how well-intentioned that interference may be, the results are invariably disastrous."

And this is made up. It has never happened. Unless it's a metaphor (which obviously it is). But in Star Trek it is never (except for Insurrection) shown as "Hey, let's take over this place and exploit its resources and all of us move in, yeah?" Because it's the Federation and why do they need to? (Unless of course Ambassador Fox REEEEEEEEALLY needs that treaty. And I don't think the PD was mentioned in that episode.)

Going back to the original TNG-centric point of the thread: There is no real world scenario where any developed (or even less developed) nation has said "Hey, we can't help you because you are not advanced enough and rebuilding your village and feeding you after the typhoon would wreck your natural development." Maybe "We can't afford it" or certainly "We don't like you." Never "It's for your own good and you need to learn something."

You know what episode (other than Private Little War) sounds more like this? Journey to Babel. Coridon is asking to be admitted to the Federation and apparently some members of the Fed find this disadvantageous. (Not the tall suave pointy eared people, the little runty ones who literally look like pigs! Jankum Pog is offended!) THAT sounds like an analogy for the 20th / 21st century.

I've never interpreted that as an absolute rule, simply as the latest cutoff point after which contact can usually no longer be avoided - and in those cases it's smarter to make first contact in a Federation-controlled way than a 'random encounter in space' as First Contact (the season 4 episode, not the movie) says. I also believe that episode might have reinforced the idea that warp capability is the decisive point (even though it says nowhere that this is a rule cast in iron without any exceptions or modifiers, simply that 'When a society reaches your level of technology and is clearly about to initiate warp travel, we believe it is time to make first contact.').

After all, this is a society such that according to the reconnaissance teams 'everything our observers reported suggested the people of this world would almost certainly react negatively to our arrival' so it would make sense to postpone first contact to the last possible 'reasonable' moment. A more receptive society perhaps might be ready earlier, even without warp travel. For instance, in Justice it appears to be no problem, and they can't have done reconnaissance for long, because those planets were just discovered according to the Captain's log at the beginning of that episode. (Even though the real world reason probably was that the writers didn't want the PD involved in the story.)

Yup, First Contact (episode). That's my memory of it anyway. Interesting take on it being a preventative measure.

Also, let's not conflate the Prime Directive with Joining the Federation. We have seen planets capable of space travel denied entry into the Federation but we have never seen (since TOS and early TNG) pre-space capable civs reached out to. (Seriously why COULD they hang about on the Justice planet making nice nice with the natives but poor Data's Pen Pal had to die?)

The Bajorans being let into the Fed was not a matter of if they were under the PD. (And their admission / non admission was as political as it was cultural.) And we certainly had contact with them. Heck, some of them served in Starfleet.

I've wondered elsewhere what do you do when your perfectly fine technologically advanced society with a cultural cornerstone of a strictly defined eugenic culling develops warp drive and you find yourself surrounded on all sides by Federation member worlds who won't let you into the club. Are you allowed to traverse their space to trade with the Ferengi? And what if they say "no"? I know space is big, but there can certainly be a world in the "middle" of the Federation. Plus the Federation is still pretty new, right? Newer than the United States is now.

I think someone upthread posted something along the lines of "Does the Federation have to be responsible for every natural disaster it notices?" I suppose the answer is no. However in all of the examples we see in TNG the depiction is "Well gosh, this is a tragedy and we feel really bad and we WOULD do something but we're not supposed to." Poor Beverly practically get the vapors that they may have irreparably damaged these people who were supposed to be dead.

Going on a BIT of a tangent: You would think that the Federation would be studying the daylights out of these planets that were "tainted" like the Volcano Planet from Into Darkness. "Oh. Well that wasn't so bad after all."

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

I have to say I have a problem with the Prodigy document just because we're talking about TOS and TNG eras (mainly) from a production point of view and this is VERY after the fact. Did I read someplace that this actually came from one of the FASA games? Can someone confirm or deny? (Which would actually put it pre-TNG, but still.)

All I know is Section 1 was pretty much said verbatim in the episode Bread and Circuses.

 

[Tallguy]

All I know is Section 1 was pretty much said verbatim in the episode Bread and Circuses.

So it is! Huh. Also I said FASA, according to Memory Alpha it's from Star Trek: Federation – The First 150 Years.

 

[UssGlenn]

It's interesting that many of the PD depictions (including the Orville apparently?) are "If we give them tech before they are ready they will KILL EVERYBODY." Because from what I'm seeing of a natural evolving culture (us) is that as we evolve we take the tech and KILL EVERYBODY.

Well, think about Africa, guns and automatic weapons were introduced to the Continent from outside. I think it's safe to assume the various civil wars and genocides since then are worse than they would have been otherwise.

"History has proven again and again that whenever mankind interferes with a less developed civilization, no matter how well-intentioned that interference may be, the results are invariably disastrous."

And this is made up. It has never happened. Unless it's a metaphor (which obviously it is). But in Star Trek it is never (except for Insurrection) shown as "Hey, let's take over this place and exploit its resources and all of us move in, yeah?"

Prime Directive violations are almost never to the scale of taking over the planet, they are always smaller.
"Too Short a Season", an episode originally conceived as a sequel to "A Private Little War", shows a Captain giving advanced weapons to both sides of a conflict, emboldening both sides and causing 40 years of Civil War.

Going back to the original TNG-centric point of the thread: There is no real world scenario where any developed (or even less developed) nation has said "Hey, we can't help you because you are not advanced enough and rebuilding your village and feeding you after the typhoon would wreck your natural development." Maybe "We can't afford it" or certainly "We don't like you." Never "It's for your own good and you need to learn something."

The "evolved sensibility" works under the assumption that we help these people because not doing so makes us "feel bad" and under a truly objective dispassionate analysis, we would come to a different conclusion. Look at the way clothing donations to Africa have destroyed the local textile industries. But we are "helping". Or how about removing wolves from an area so all the deer survive, thus causing the ecosystem to collapse via over grazing and all the deer starve. There is also the metaphor about the man who helps a butterfly out of a cocoon only to find out doing so means the butterfly wings are never able to unfold properly, due to not having to squeeze out the cocoon hole.

(Seriously why COULD they hang about on the Justice planet making nice nice with the natives but poor Data's Pen Pal had to die?)

We have to assume because some other civilization in the past had already made contact and so they already knew aliens existed. That sort of info would be easy to find taping into Edopedia before making contact.

 

[Commander Troi]

I've never interpreted that as an absolute rule, simply as the latest cutoff point after which contact can usually no longer be avoided - and in those cases it's smarter to make first contact in a Federation-controlled way than a 'random encounter in space' as First Contact (the season 4 episode, not the movie) says.

Thank you! I found the exact quote:

PICARD: We've been monitoring your progress toward warp-drive capability. When a society reaches your level of technology and is clearly about to initiate warp travel, we feel the time is right for first contact. We prefer meeting like this, rather than a random confrontation in deep space.

Didn't they already have contact between two neighboring planets? It wasn't the tech it was the National Socialism. Maybe the Narzi's weren't as advanced as the Space Jews? (I mean... That tracks, right?)

Yes. It was definitely Gill interfering culturally. But it was also the tech.

SPOCK: Yes, but it must be a Zeon ship. Zeons do have a crude interplanetary capability. Reaction powered. A small rocket. It is on an intercept course. That would mean it has sophisticated detection devices which neither Zeon nor Ekos should have.

SPOCK: Fascinating. A thermonuclear warhead.
MCCOY: That's generations ahead of where these people should be technically. How'd they manage that?
KIRK: Maybe they had help.

SPOCK: According to our records, the Ekosians are a primitive, warlike people in a state of anarchy. The other planet, Zeon, has a relatively high technology, and its people are peaceful.

Speaking of Prodigies...

We never see the planet where someone gave them really nice farming equipment.

LOL! In the first Lower Decks episode, Mariner was sneaking farm equipment.

You know what episode (other than Private Little War) sounds more like this? Journey to Babel. Coridon is asking to be admitted to the Federation and apparently some members of the Fed find this disadvantageous. (Not the tall suave pointy eared people, the little runty ones who literally look like pigs! Jankum Pog is offended!) THAT sounds like an analogy for the 20th / 21st century.

Huh. I never thought of that before.

I've wondered elsewhere what do you do when your perfectly fine technologically advanced society with a cultural cornerstone of a strictly defined eugenic culling develops warp drive and you find yourself surrounded on all sides by Federation member worlds who won't let you into the club.

Hmm... interesting story idea...

However in all of the examples we see in TNG the depiction is "Well gosh, this is a tragedy and we feel really bad and we WOULD do something but we're not supposed to." Poor Beverly practically get the vapors that they may have irreparably damaged these people who were supposed to be dead.

I always bloody hated that.

The "evolved sensibility" works under the assumption that we help these people because not doing so makes us "feel bad" and under a truly objective dispassionate analysis, we would come to a different conclusion. Look at the way clothing donations to Africa have destroyed the local textile industries. But we are "helping". Or how about removing wolves from an area so all the deer survive, thus causing the ecosystem to collapse via overgrazing and all the deer starve. There is also the metaphor about the man who helps a butterfly out of a cocoon only to find out doing so means the butterfly wings are never able to unfold properly, due to not having to squeeze out the cocoon hole.

Those are good examples of Unintended Consequences, but "evolved sensibility" also assumes we can know those things ahead of time. Sometimes we do, sometimes we don't. Sometimes we (or the TNG Fed) are just being arrogant ("We Know Better").

 

[fireproof78]

LOL! In the first Lower Decks episode, Mariner was sneaking farm equipment.

I knew I liked Mariner for a reason.

That first episode really cemented that.