I think the underpinning of requiring a species to have warp drive before you contact them/make them aware of other species is that with them having that capability you won't be able to bully them nearly as much as if they didn't, they were stuck on the planet and totally dependent on you for the possibility of space travel and other interactions with all other species/the whole rest of the galaxy, I think that makes sense.
If the Prime Directive were done properly
- Thread starter Gingerbread Demon
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I think the underpinning of requiring a species to have warp drive before you contact them/make them aware of other species is that with them having that capability you won't be able to bully them nearly as much as if they didn't, they were stuck on the planet and totally dependent on you for the possibility of space travel and other interactions with all other species/the whole rest of the galaxy, I think that makes sense.
Of course, in "Homeward" a member of that species proved unable to adapt and opted to commit suicide instead.
But I can't exactly fault the Federation for not wanting to assume responsibility for the actions of those they could potentially take under their wing either.
Yes, and in a way he suffered a crueler fate than if they had never intervened. Still, it could not have been predicted and at least he was given some degree of choice.
And even if it could have been predicted to some extent …. suppose they would have had statistical estimates from somewhat similar situations that about 15% (just making a percentage up here, of course) of the people they rescued would not be able to cope.... I still say 85% survival is a heck of a lot better than 0% survival. But I'll admit these are very difficult questions.
He was presented with the options (IIRC) of lying for the rest of hs life to hs own people, or beng permanetly separated from them. A third option of simply telling the truth wasn't on the table.
Not being "able to adapt" wasn't a contributing factor in the suicide.
^He was explicitly presented with that third option by Picard, but he realised, himself, that it wasn't feasible. Though I suppose that you could read some manipulation of Picard into it.
The Prime Directive becomes almost a religion starting with TNG. In much the way I think Roddenberry seemed to make ST itself a religion after letting the supposed praise from critics, social commentators and fans get to his head.
In TOS I think it was usually referenced as a simple matter of fact. In that it "made sense" that a space-traveling society "would" have rules of conduct. I think in one episode (perhaps it was 'Bread and Circuses') the PD was used as an alternative to the "They've clunked us over the head and now we can't get our communicator's back" plot device.
On TNG and continuing through ENT, it often seemed to be a hypothetical exercise in pseudo-intellectualism, wherein the writers could seemingly flip a coin to determine how the PD "might" interpret that particular exorcise so that Patrick Stewart or Kate Mulgrew could then step in and spend the next 46 minutes lecturing about it vehemently.
(I usually get in over my head with this discussion though, because my general exhaustion with the Berman Trek era in its latter installments means I'm often hard-pressed to back up my overall impression with these types of stories with specific instances.)
In TOS I think it was usually referenced as a simple matter of fact. In that it "made sense" that a space-traveling society "would" have rules of conduct. I think in one episode (perhaps it was 'Bread and Circuses') the PD was used as an alternative to the "They've clunked us over the head and now we can't get our communicator's back" plot device.
On TNG and continuing through ENT, it often seemed to be a hypothetical exercise in pseudo-intellectualism, wherein the writers could seemingly flip a coin to determine how the PD "might" interpret that particular exorcise so that Patrick Stewart or Kate Mulgrew could then step in and spend the next 46 minutes lecturing about it vehemently.
(I usually get in over my head with this discussion though, because my general exhaustion with the Berman Trek era in its latter installments means I'm often hard-pressed to back up my overall impression with these types of stories with specific instances.)
Cool, another "let's shit on TNG and glorify TOS" thread. At least Pen Pals had the crew arguing about the PD. Spocks Brain just made the civilization revert to the stone age and they went on their merry way.
"TNG has too much technobabble!"
"TNG should use technobabble to save everyone!"
"TNG has too much technobabble!"
"TNG should use technobabble to save everyone!"
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The PD's treatment in the First Contact episode was reasonable.
Don't interfere with a planet's politics. Don't give an immature species advanced tech. These make sense.
Whilst Starfleet shouldn't be burdened with being the galaxy's repairman, giving a threatening asteroid a nudge to save an unknowing species shouldn't be beyond them.
Do you save a primitive world if revealing yourself and your tech is required to save that world? I dunno. You might become a god and create a new religion. Not something Picard was too happy about when it happened to him.
Don't interfere with a planet's politics. Don't give an immature species advanced tech. These make sense.
Whilst Starfleet shouldn't be burdened with being the galaxy's repairman, giving a threatening asteroid a nudge to save an unknowing species shouldn't be beyond them.
Do you save a primitive world if revealing yourself and your tech is required to save that world? I dunno. You might become a god and create a new religion. Not something Picard was too happy about when it happened to him.
I'm not sure Vorin's emergence from the holodeck was that well written. Whilst he's depressed, resentful, he's still composed and articulate. You'd think someone from that level of technology would be more bowled over finding himself in space. Of course, Picard then has him alone in his dreary quarters.
I appologize I did not mean this to be a TOS bashing thread, that was not at all my intention.
Well Picard was pretty reverential toward it but the show also had characters including at times Riker, Crusher and Data feeling it was overly restrictive and shouldn't always be completely adhered to.
I'm with sfdebris (he has a 15-minute video on the topic on his site that's worth checking out) when it comes to the Prime Directive: it seems to me to be more moral, and make more sense, as it's applied in TOS. (Or, at least, as it's supposed to be applied in TOS, Kirk being fairly notorious for treating it as the Prime Suggestion!)
In TOS, it seems fairly clear that it's intended as a barrier to cultural imperialism; i.e., our heroes can't/shouldn't alter a culture to make them more like us, or more like what we find acceptable. In TNG and the other sequel series, it's presented as prohibiting any interference, no matter how covert or benign, and no matter the nature of the situation. That's harder to defend.
The "grand plan of the universe" is even more easily refuted. As Troi said in "Pen Pals," if there is a cosmic plan (which strikes me as a bizarre concept for a secular society anyhow), how do our heroes know that they're not part of it? I'm fond of a joke where a man, trapped in/on his house because of a flood, turns down rescue from, in turn, a rowboat, a motorboat, and a helicopter. He says God will save him. When he drowns and dies, he confronts God in heaven, demanding, "Why didn't you save me?" Says God, "I sent you a rowboat, a motorboat, and a helicopter!"
In TOS, it seems fairly clear that it's intended as a barrier to cultural imperialism; i.e., our heroes can't/shouldn't alter a culture to make them more like us, or more like what we find acceptable. In TNG and the other sequel series, it's presented as prohibiting any interference, no matter how covert or benign, and no matter the nature of the situation. That's harder to defend.
If they're all dead, preserving their culture is a moot point.
Misinterpretation indeed. The "next Hitler anxiety" is bizarre. Real-world analogy: there's a car accident on Main Street, and an EMT rescues a child from the wreckage. The child grows up to be a mass shooter. Does anyone -- should anyone -- blame that emergency worker for rescuing the kid in the first place? No. They might say, too bad the kid was rescued, but they wouldn't blame the EMT, because that's not a consequence the EMT could reasonably be expected to foresee. OTOH, if at that same accident the EMT refused to rescue the child because the kid might become a mass shooter, would we be okay with that? Of course not.
The "grand plan of the universe" is even more easily refuted. As Troi said in "Pen Pals," if there is a cosmic plan (which strikes me as a bizarre concept for a secular society anyhow), how do our heroes know that they're not part of it? I'm fond of a joke where a man, trapped in/on his house because of a flood, turns down rescue from, in turn, a rowboat, a motorboat, and a helicopter. He says God will save him. When he drowns and dies, he confronts God in heaven, demanding, "Why didn't you save me?" Says God, "I sent you a rowboat, a motorboat, and a helicopter!"
Serve him right, IMO.
Picard: I implore the people of the First Federation to help us against the borg! If you do not help us today, it could be your fate tomorrow.
First Federation ambassador: Why would the borg be a threat? Yes they are a minor pest but an application of the sktack principle is the obvious answer.
Picard: I am afraid I don't know what the sktack principle is.
First Federation ambassador: Well it's been lovely just lovely speaking to you and I look forward to doing this again in about ten thousand years. Goodbye.
First Federation ambassador: Why would the borg be a threat? Yes they are a minor pest but an application of the sktack principle is the obvious answer.
Picard: I am afraid I don't know what the sktack principle is.
First Federation ambassador: Well it's been lovely just lovely speaking to you and I look forward to doing this again in about ten thousand years. Goodbye.
Well it is that person's job to rescue people in medical emergencies. Analogies should at least account for that, if we compare to two people, the two people are from different societies and in some scenarios don't even know each other prior to the question of should one help the other. But in most cases the Prime Directive isn't should you save a species, it's should you help one faction within a species against another faction, including should you save the whole at the detriment to a faction within it.
Oh... And by the by, if anyone asks, we never had this conversation
If I rescue the kid (I'm a supermarket clerk, so rescuing kids is not in my job description) and he later goes on to become a criminal, am I in the wrong? If I don't know the kid and rescue him anyway, am I in the wrong? If I don't know the kid, and he's from another culture or country, and I still rescue him, am I in the wrong? We wouldn't normally think so.
It's applied (or at least invoked) across the board, even when the existence of an entire species is at stake. The TNG examples that immediately leap to mind are "Pen Pals" and "Homeward."
What would happen in that case? I don't know about you, but at that point I would immediately conclude that our heroes were raging jerks, or maybe sociopaths, and find some other program to watch.
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The people who were later victimized by him probably would think you had been in the wrong ...
It's up to you but if he goes on to harm others, let alone if he already was and continued to be a mass shooter, yes people will probably resent you for doing so, for not knowing more of the context and through your actions indirectly causing the harm to continue.
I'm pretty sure the Prime Directive does allow you to help other species in preventing a natural catastrophe if they are already aware of aliens and ask for the help, that happened in "Final Mission". The crew wasn't supposed to help in "Pen Pals" and "Homeward" as that wasn't the case initially in the former and at all in the latter, then the former became an ambiguous case (there was asking for help, although just from a single individual, even though she and no one else knew about aliens) and with that Picard chose to prevent the catastrophe without otherwise changing the species.
And yet, Picard would typically go on to insist, in long-winded fashion, that the PD was right and "should" be adhered to. And he was Almost Always Right in doing so. When just the fact that you have characters like Crusher and Data (and even Worf) expressing doubt about how the PD is interpreted illustrates the show has a problem in pseudo-intellectualizing about hypothetical absolutes rather than recognizing or acknowledging them as more basic humanitarian issues.
I think 'Who Watches the Watchers' may be TNG's one convincingly-portrayed PD-themed story.
For rescuing a child? It's possible; people don't always think rationally. But it's not justifiable. All I know of the kid is that he's a kid. He might grow up to kill someone; he might grow up to cure cancer; he will probably just be an ordinary person. And if I'm in that situation, I hope I'll rescue him if I can. But I have no moral responsibility for what he makes of his life.
And if I leave him in the car, when it's in my power to save him, people would certainly think I had been in the wrong. It might even be a criminal act on my part: negligent homicide.
I think making the kid into somebody who's already a mass shooter rather changes the nature of the question, don't you?
Well I think it's questionable to compare a species to a child just because the species is technologically limited but you did seem to present the scenario as an absolute, if you have the ability to rescue then you should rescue, not be restrained by considering the possible negative consequences. Children are reasonably, justifiably presumed to be innocent but with an adult or group of people (who I think are more analogous to a species) it's more reasonable to consider they may do bad later (and may even, though you don't know it, be doing bad already).
