No Kill I
- Thread starter LMFAOschwarz
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The miners shouldn't have been allowed to stay unless the Federation considered the Horta advanced enough to say join the Federation.It's somewhat surprising that the miners were allowed to stay, given the prime directive. While intelligent, the Hortas are obviously non-technological beings who lack warp drive.
Unless the PD doesn't apply to the miners.
I know that usually means Warp Drive but since the 'contamination' had already happened perhaps exception were allowed, especially when Federation interests were involved.
I think this is it exactly. In a similar case: unless the Capellans were hiding warp-capable ships somewhere, they should probably have been covered by the Prime Directive. But the Federation needed that topaline, so...
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
Then there's the Troyians and the Elasians, who also do not have warp technology. (They merely have a wealth of the rocks needed to focus the antimatter power plants.) They're space-faring, just not warp equipped. I imagine they don't care about Coridan admission, either.
In he Devil in the Dark, the episode begins by hunting a creature that is killing miners on Janus VI. It's all pretty straightforward...but it seems to me that this should have been a game-changer (or at least more so than it was):
At this point, this creature was revealed to be intelligent and communicative. I realize it's a Next Generation term, but shouldn't this have become a first contact situation? They're no longer "hunting a tiger", so to speak. The dimensions and implications of 'No Kill I' speaks to a much more complicated situation. I don't recall that being addressed. Doesn't the Prime Directive forbid informing the indigenous ones of life on other worlds, space travel, etc.?
Why do you pick that moment, the result of limited contact with Spock that already occured, and not an earlier moment, like when Kirk and the Horta were just staring at each other. I still wonder why the Horta removed the pump instead of destroying it. Maybe she felt it necessary fighting a war but not genocide.
Fair question!
I picked it because that's when the communication really began. Sure, Spock had communicated with it, but he's done that with other life forms, but I don't think the humpback whale was about to scrawl readable messages in the dirt, for example. The 'no kill I" is also intriguingly vague, as Kirk more or less said. It wouldn't have been much different than asking if someone means "yes" or "no". Yet...it got the ball rolling.I don't think the Prime Directive applies. I hardly ever does because it's a foolish rule. Otherwise, why bother to seek out new life and new civilizations and strange new worlds, just so you can say, well that's nice, but we can ever talk to them or go there again? No one else follows the prime directive. Hi mr. primitive civilization, we don't want to influence you, but see that Klingon battlecruiser, they have an occupation force and will make you slaves to the Empire, but we won't interfere.
So true. What is the point, when one factors in the Prime Directive? It'd be sort of like taking your kids to a petting zoo...in which no one is allowed to touch the animals!
Wow, I thought everyone would want to rip me a new one for saying the Prime Directive is BS. Well, it's early yet.
I think the "NO KILL I" is interesting because it can be interpreted at least two ways, so it's demonstrating the Horta did pick up some Federation Standard (English?) but it wasn't able to pick up a lot of grammar or syntax. It kept the tension up a bit but still forwarded the story to the point that Spock actually does the mind meld. We really never learn the answer if the Horta was saying "I won't kill you" or "don't kill me."
I think the "NO KILL I" is interesting because it can be interpreted at least two ways, so it's demonstrating the Horta did pick up some Federation Standard (English?) but it wasn't able to pick up a lot of grammar or syntax. It kept the tension up a bit but still forwarded the story to the point that Spock actually does the mind meld. We really never learn the answer if the Horta was saying "I won't kill you" or "don't kill me."
Why would we pelt you with tomatoes if you've got issues with the Prime Directive? It's so vague, it's like Starfleet's equivalent of "Maybe, and that's final!".
Prime (Plot) Directive (Device)
Why would we pelt you with tomatoes if you've got issues with the Prime Directive? It's so vague, it's like Starfleet's equivalent of "Maybe, and that's final!".
The Prime Directive seems to have some flex to it in times of conflict and when dealing with situations were it was broken prior to the current situation.
With the conflict with the Klingons, the Prime Directive is only partly in effect. The needs of the Federation to maintain the balance of power makes it necessary to keep all possible resources in Federation hands, or at least out of Klingon hands. Thus using pre-warp civilizations that have dilithium, or other vital minerals under Starfleet's protection. But when it comes to worlds that don't have resources (or at least not strategically vital resources) then the Prime Directive only bends if it can be proven that the Klingons have gotten involved (arming one primitive race against another, perhaps so they will have a local ally that won't mind they them having a base on the planet that uses local food while observing Starfleet movements). If neither condition is met, that the Prime Directive, normally stands.
Iotians were a case of finding out what happened after the Horizon left, the Prime Directive being broken already and the locals aware of the spaceships already.
The Horta wasn't a Prime Directive issue. It was a creature attacking at first, then a First Contact situation once it was clear that this silicon-based lifeform was intelligent. By that point it was far too late to invoke the Prime Directive, and just been to attempt to co-exist.
That and I like the idea of the Horta's children joining the Federation as members.
With the conflict with the Klingons, the Prime Directive is only partly in effect. The needs of the Federation to maintain the balance of power makes it necessary to keep all possible resources in Federation hands, or at least out of Klingon hands. Thus using pre-warp civilizations that have dilithium, or other vital minerals under Starfleet's protection. But when it comes to worlds that don't have resources (or at least not strategically vital resources) then the Prime Directive only bends if it can be proven that the Klingons have gotten involved (arming one primitive race against another, perhaps so they will have a local ally that won't mind they them having a base on the planet that uses local food while observing Starfleet movements). If neither condition is met, that the Prime Directive, normally stands.
Iotians were a case of finding out what happened after the Horizon left, the Prime Directive being broken already and the locals aware of the spaceships already.
The Horta wasn't a Prime Directive issue. It was a creature attacking at first, then a First Contact situation once it was clear that this silicon-based lifeform was intelligent. By that point it was far too late to invoke the Prime Directive, and just been to attempt to co-exist.
That and I like the idea of the Horta's children joining the Federation as members.
To be honest, I half-expected this thread to be a poll to see which one people thought the Horta meant.
I lean more towards, "don't kill me" - since she'd just been phasered and was in pain.
But back on topic, in the original series and early TNG, if a species seems to be intelligent enough to understand interstellar travel, that there is life on other worlds and is not freaked out by it (which is perhaps the most important factor), it seems that that the Prime Directive need not apply.
What a great idea!
And you can't take it for granite.
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