If the Prime Directive were done properly
- Thread starter Gingerbread Demon
- Start date
BTW,
For what it's worth, Picard at least did seem consistent that it was better to save no one than too few people, he felt that way not just about aliens in trouble but also his own crew-he preferred to destroy the Enterprise rather than accept that half the crew be killed so the other half would be spared, and Riker agreed ("Where Silence Las Lease").
For what it's worth, Picard at least did seem consistent that it was better to save no one than too few people, he felt that way not just about aliens in trouble but also his own crew-he preferred to destroy the Enterprise rather than accept that half the crew be killed so the other half would be spared, and Riker agreed ("Where Silence Las Lease").
I don't think it qualifies as a similar thing but even if it does, Picard was just lucky that it wasn't what the alien wanted in the first place. The fact that "reality" agreed with him doesn't mean that he was right to make that decision. Second, I am surprised that a captain could just decide to blow his entire crew up without some urgency and at least consulting the senior staff about that decision. I wonder what Star Fleet regulations say about the conditions in which a captain is entitled to do that.
Say Picard is crazy or under the influence of drugs, alien minds, whatever... Would the crew let him self-destruct for no reason at all?
The thing is that Picard is confronted with some situations that don't have an equivalent in the real world. Usually when someone has a power like the Q, (not identical mind you but overwhelming in its effect) like the Nazis when they invaded France for example, no one opposes them openly without dying immediately and then when they meet an opposition it's usually hidden (like the Maquis). If Q was real/realistic Picard would have been the first one to die. He's just lucky that Q is a powerful being with a sense of humor.
It was a shame that Picard didn't properly adhere to the prime directive in that instance.
If Picard had acted properly, the Edos would have been allowed to lethally inject the dope. Wesley would have been out of Picard's hair (figuratively) forever. "Shut up, Wesley!" indeed. Lethal injection, problem solved. And for viewers, no more annoying boy wonder. Truly, a missed opportunity.
Seriously ... what was peculiar about "Justice" was that, imho, the arguments made in favor of executing Wesley were overwhelmingly more convincing than the arguments for letting Wesley off the hook.
The Edos made extremely persuasive statements about upholding the rule of law. Even Picard admitted to the Edos that saving Wesley would mean that he would be violating his oath of adhering to the prime directive.
I was really surprised that the writers wrote the story the way that they did. The rationale that Picard eventually used for Wesley's "prison break" was rather weak and self-serving. I found it extremely difficult to believe that the Edo overlord would have been convinced by Picard's argument.
I would have respected Picard in this situation if he had simply made a deal with the Edo overlord -- a tradeoff, Wesley's freedom for the removal of the human colonists who were supposedly living in the overlord's territory. It may have been a cynical move, but at least I could respect that.
What happened at the end was kind of vague. In any case, when Picard offered to remove the human colonists, it was after the fact that the overlord had already let Wesley go.
I don't like the way they formulate the prime directive. There's no such thing as "destiny", it's superstitious nonsense. They have no right to do duck-blinds on pre-warp planets as if they were watching animals. I think it's far more disrespectful than a direct confrontation.
Disrespectful in what way?
Just as I said, it's treating people like animals plus it's potentially more traumatizing than meeting people face to face. Accidents happen and when they do you could potentially traumatize an entire culture forever. How would you feel if you discovered that your every move, even intimate ones have been spied on for years and for all you know your entire life? I know that I wouldn't take that very well (which is an understatement).
Do we have any reason to believe that they're spied on for years?
Anyway, isn't it only sensible that an alien civilization would want to gather advance intelligence before announcing their presence? Hell, if aliens announced themselves, might a civilization not already ask the question of whether they were spied on beforehand?
Anyway, isn't it only sensible that an alien civilization would want to gather advance intelligence before announcing their presence? Hell, if aliens announced themselves, might a civilization not already ask the question of whether they were spied on beforehand?
Picard would have let Kelvin Spock die in that volcano..the bastard!
Picard probably wouldn't have permitted Spock to place the "freeze" device in the volcano, Picard would have stopped the mission before it started.
Picard's oath takes precedent over people's lives.
^ Picard: You think we should hide the Enterprise...where?
At least the D is shaped more like a submarine haha...
They hid their ship in the corona of a sun, you'd think an ocean wouldn't be much of a problem...
There's no such thing as a natural course of things when a giant meteor hit the Earth 65 million years ago it caused the extinction of the Dinosaurs and a decimation of everything else. There was nothing natural about it. If the same things were to happen today, the temporary survivors (assuming there would be any) would envy the dead.
Maybe so, but it's still ridiculous to decide to fly a massive starship through the atmosphere into an ocean and then back out to space and somehow expect that to be less intrusive/less likely to cause contamination than just parking it in high orbit or above the poles or behind a moon and sending a shuttle to the surface.
Not to mention, the ship isn't the only thing that could potentially be damaged in this equation. Harming the ocean ecosystem could be just as devastating to the local people as accidentally revealing your presence.
I don't think revealing yourself for a few seconds causes any damage at all. One week from then their priests will see a weirdly shaped cloud and decide to bow to that instead, seeing how quick they were to discard their former object of worship.
BTW, these people have a keen eye if they're capable of drawing a perfectly proportioned vertical projection of the Enterprise from the fisheye perspective they must have seen it when it came up right in front of them from the sea... Everything in that scene is absurd in its simplisticness.
