How should Voyager have gotten home?

[Guy Gardener]

When did Janeway ever use the Prime Directive as a reason to let a civilization die with the exception of when the Omega Directive said that it was alright? Are you thinking about Picard in Pen Pals, even though he wimped out at the last minute?

She seems really invested in the Prime Directive during Time and Again, since this is before the phrase Temporal Prime Directive was coined in Futures End. An episode written by Michael Piller who was involved in the script and production of Caretaker...

"Sigh"

 

[Anwar]

How does that negate the Prime Directive?

Because they aren't interfering with another civilization's internal development, the Caretaker brought them there of his own choice and forced them into the situation. They aren't interfering, they're the ones being tampered with.

 

[The Overlord]

When did Janeway ever use the Prime Directive as a reason to let a civilization die with the exception of when the Omega Directive said that it was alright? Are you thinking about Picard in Pen Pals, even though he wimped out at the last minute?

She seems really invested in the Prime Directive during Time and Again, since this is before the phrase Temporal Prime Directive was coined in Futures End. An episode written by Michael Piller who was involved in the script and production of Caretaker...

"Sigh"

I was talking about Time and Again, where for a large part of the episode she seemed to think that preventing an explosion that would have destroyed that planet was a bad thing, anyone with any common sense would have said, that saving billions of people from a fiery death is more important then PD. The PD is a good rule in general, but every rule has exceptions and if I was on a ship stuck 70,000 light years from home, I would be more willing to bend it.

Plus Janeway just looks like a hypocrite when being dogmatic about the PD in one episode, then throwing it out in another.

How does that negate the Prime Directive?

Because they aren't interfering with another civilization's internal development, the Caretaker brought them there of his own choice and forced them into the situation. They aren't interfering, they're the ones being tampered with.

Except there have been several times where just because others are interfering in a situation, doesn't mean the Federation does. Like the Klingon Civil War, the PD prevented them from getting involved directly, despite the fact the Romulans were involved and if the Duras family won then it would have had a grave impact on the Federation. Picard had to get the Federation involved indirectly to get around the PD.

It seems like PD would say in that situation with Caretaker, the crew should limit exposure to the natives as possible and then should leave as soon as possible, regards of the situation the Caretaker put them in.

 

[Anwar]

In the Klingon War, no Fed crews were abducted by the Romulans or Klingons for experimentation purposes. What happened in VOY was unlawful abduction, experimentation, etc. I don't see how it's a PD situation especially since the Ocampa are already a tampered species and haven't been in control of their own development for millennia.

 

[Guy Gardener]

You can't fix rape with more rape.

If the non interference directive and, if it isn't the same thing, the Prime Directive applies to the Klingons, an ally and trading partner who the Federation spent 200 years at cold war with, exactly how does Janeway think that the Ocampa are exempt?

Their natural development is always developing, their recovery, restoration and reconstruction after Caretaker fucked off could have unfolded in many different ways, that in a dozen generations that these peoples descendants would have been assholes or saints, depending on the nature of their environment and resources. Were the kazon going to have godlike Caretaker powers, or were they going to be Feudal scum BBQing Ocampa sausages on Sundays getting pissed with their pals? Were the Ocampa going to be a slave race to the kazon for food, or were the Kazon going to ignore the muchkin shortlifers until they all starved to death... Or did Janeway leave them weapons or show them how to turn the Caretaker technology threaded through their city into powerful weapons that the Ocampa became a spcies of despotic warlords conquering known space under an iron heel?

The Prime Dirctive absolves the Federation from the resposibility of creating assholes and victims.

Yes Overlord, the flip flopping. Sorry, you were right of course.

However in the case of Time and Again all Janeway did was stop Tuvok's rescue attempt which was was going to blow up the planet. It's been a while, but you're right that she would have already have had to have gone ballsdeep against the grain of the Prime Directive to figure that out, but considering her own Security Officer destroyed that world, and not the aliens themselves... If it wasn't for the timetravel component she would have been in the right to save them from her own command (That's Dukat! "I am a good man who deserves "thanks" an statues because I didn't kill all the Bajorans when I had the chance!"), external influence socially, but internal influence temporally, (time trumps space?) because these aliens could go on to innocently sell this armaggeddony technology to a thousand worlds who all blow up in the next decade, so it was a boon to the neighbourhood that they got turned to ash (Similar to how the Federation gave that toxic tech to aliens in Friendship One.).

This was exactly the same as Caretaker (She sad that the kazon could have the Array after they had finished with it and that she had no claim on the technology and that she was neutral but the kazon didn't believe her, so they fired on Voayger) Kathryn tried to follow the Prime Directive until she felt guilty and complicit. Janeway didn't start out in each of these episodes thinking that the Prime Directive was stupid, she just gradually came to the conclusion.