@Futur Dracula Yes, excellent analogy.
If the Prime Directive were done properly
- Thread starter Gingerbread Demon
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First of all, I don't think it's legitimate to use seemingly undecidable cases as a pretext not to solve the obvious ones. IOW, it would be like a doctor refusing to treat a fairly common illness under the excuse that someday you could get an incurable disease!
Second, In case of non-natural disasters as you say, if the case is not clear, as when a fully armed and belligerent regime attacks unarmed and peaceful people (which happens very often), then you can have a committee of elected people (always better to have people represented on a large scale rather than people put there because "they got the diplomas" and most likely because they know influential people) and that committee can then make an informed decision that will then be executed by the captain(s) of the ship(s).
Re the bolded: have you not seen the havok perpetrated by elected judges and DAs (just to name a simple example)? Democratic elections do not automatically produce even remotely acceptable results, especially in regards to highly complicated and debatable subjects like this. Nepotism is a big problem in appointing people to such positions, but it's by no means any worse than bad elections and uninformed voters. It's just a different way of arriving at the same human imperfections.
As I see it, interacting with "the natives" would be in violation of the Prime Directive, even if you didn't tell everyone that "hey, I'm from a starship and another planet".
If a Federation officer stops a local from a more primitive culture, has a chat with him and little later because of that the local walks into busy traffic and dies, wouldn't that be interfering with Prime Directive in a way? Who knows, he might have been local Cochrane and would have invented warp drive. Little things can have massive repercussions.
I don't think there's difference between a small talk with a local or telling everyone that we're here in orbit. Things can go in many ways.
I'm not clear as to whether you're saying that I'm doing what you say in the first paragraph, as I only raised an actual case with regards to a non-natural disaster...
With regards to the second paragraph, is it not entirely possible that this is exactly what's led to the manners in which Picard has applied the PD to begin with? It's easy to trash Picard's decisions, but he's (presumably) following broader policy.
Not the Prime Directive, but rather a good example of the Butterfly Effect.
No, I am not incriminating Picard in the least, apparently he has very little leeway in what he's allowed to do and ignoring this would likely result in his losing the captaincy if not worse.
No, what I am saying is that the prime directive is stupid and intervention (or not) should be decided on a case by case basis, (in case of non-natural disasters, in case of natural disasters then it's a simple case of humanity, watch people die without doing anything to help them is just monstrous), which is pretty much what is done in the real world.
The prime directive is something idiotic and necessarily harmful, plus it's based on a superstition, that there is some kind of destiny with which we shouldn't interfere. I never believed that and I don't know anyone (among my friends) who believes such a thing. So it's a bit grating to hear it in different forms in a show that is otherwise entertaining and more often than not interesting.
In any case, wouldn't the Prime Directive have been broken? No matter how small or big the interference is.
My suggestion, wait for other cultures to find their way into space, then make the first contact. Before that, stay in orbit.
To what avail?
Does there need to be something to gain from a first contact?
Let people live their lives, get to know them when you meet them in space.
And in the meantime you let them go extinct without lifting a finger?
That's the big question.
As we saw in 'Homeward' it might not be a simple matter.
It makes more sense to help but.. I don't have the answer to that question.
Someone earlier mentioned 'who watches the watchers'. In this episode, Picard gives full disclosure after considering the alternative to be worse and not being capable of memory-wiping everyone. So apparently, he can decide something like this (or provisions for cases like these must have been built into the PD).
This is after involuntary partial exposure already had happened, which hasn't happened in the Boraalan's case (at least, if you don't count Nikolai being undercover there). Still.. it's a weird contrast: in one episode 'sending them back into the dark ages of superstition' is a sufficiently bad consequence for Picard to reveal themselves, in the other not even extinction is sufficient reason to try to rescue them.
This is after involuntary partial exposure already had happened, which hasn't happened in the Boraalan's case (at least, if you don't count Nikolai being undercover there). Still.. it's a weird contrast: in one episode 'sending them back into the dark ages of superstition' is a sufficiently bad consequence for Picard to reveal themselves, in the other not even extinction is sufficient reason to try to rescue them.
I would say WWTW is less a case of the Prime Directive 'allowing exceptions' and more a case of Captains having some leeway in terms of how to minimize the damage when a prime directive violation has already occurred. Interference in the Mintakan society wasn't intended to 'keep them on an enlightened path' or prevent them being 'sent back into the dark ages'. It was to keep their society on the same path it was already on, rather than be responsible for a huge shift in their history because of a simple accident. If their society had already been filled with violent superstition, I expect Picard would have rescued his people as inobtrusively as possible and left them to make up whatever stories about gods or demons they wanted to, since that was their way anyway.
When it comes to the Prime Directive, whether the line has already been crossed or not would seem to make all the difference.
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Yes, it's like according assistance to someone who bruised his knee and refusing it to one that broke his skull...
It's been a while, but I'm sure that Picard was winging it, and would have gotten into trouble at some point if, the Federation still didn't owe him for saving the day for 7 seasons.
The most PD and least harmful thing to do would have been a full spread of torpedoes on that tavern and the surrounding town, to end the Picard Myth before it really got legs.
A few hundred are sacrificed to save an enlightened world from backsliding into the Dark Ages.
Not a terrible trade off?
One must remember the differences between 'Who Watches The Watchers' and 'Homeward'.
In the other episode all life on the planet was about to be destroyed by natural phenomena, on the other life was about to continue with the fear that they would believe Picard is a god.
In the other episode all life on the planet was about to be destroyed by natural phenomena, on the other life was about to continue with the fear that they would believe Picard is a god.
The unscrupulous probably wouldn't be stopped by a simple directive. What with them being unscrupulous and all.
The PD is clearly aimed at protecting people from the well-meaning interventionists who might screw everything up by accident. And, probably, also a little at preserving the Federation's own high-minded sense of self: ie 'We're so considerate of lesser cultures', etc.
The thing is that it then allows people like Kirk and his crew to intervene, just as when there is a law that forbids you to do something if you do it anyway then the police can arrest you...
That's what laws are for.
That's precisely what it is: A failure.
When a well-meaning organization doesn't do what it is supposed to do then it definitely is a failure. The confederation is a vast congregation of wealth and technology, it's (moral) duty is to help the less fortunate, just as it is ours (wealthy countries) to help the people in distress around the world.
