Prime Directive in Trek Nemesmess
- Thread starter mahler5
- Start date
Nemesmess?
I'm willing to argue against them violating it. From watching the show, I've gleamed two different uses for the Directive. The first is that they may not make contact with, or advance, any race that has not acheived warp drive. They didn't go down there and initiate direct contact with the people. Through out the chase, I doubt they ever got close enough to realise Picard & co. were aliens. The only thing that would have led the Kolaris to question was their shuttle, however, that likely wasn't enough to have a major effect on them.
The second use for the P.D. that I've noticed is that they may not meddle in the affairs of other races. I wouldn't call what they did meddling.
The second use for the P.D. that I've noticed is that they may not meddle in the affairs of other races. I wouldn't call what they did meddling.
Yeah, they broke it...
Subject to interpretaion, but they broke it.
They did, yes.
Been broken many, many times before though. Pretty much all of TOS and most of early TNG. Until the 4th Season TNG episode "First Contact", we never really saw the first contact procedure in action. More often or not they just bowled down to a planet without seeming to care whether they had warp drive or not.
Didnt seem to matter.
Check out "Justice", "Angel One" & "Symbiosis" (TNG).
Been broken many, many times before though. Pretty much all of TOS and most of early TNG. Until the 4th Season TNG episode "First Contact", we never really saw the first contact procedure in action. More often or not they just bowled down to a planet without seeming to care whether they had warp drive or not.
Didnt seem to matter.
Check out "Justice", "Angel One" & "Symbiosis" (TNG).
Justice... I'll have to grab my DVD and check the reasoning.
Angel One... I think they had to go through the government to get Fed. citizens back.
Symbiosis... Wasn't that the druggie episode?
Angel One... I think they had to go through the government to get Fed. citizens back.
Symbiosis... Wasn't that the druggie episode?
I'd say landing a spacecraft on their planet, racing around in a futuristic dune-buggy and then firing at them with advanced weaponry (and then flying around their spaceship) would constitute breaking the prime directive.
...Not necessarily. We have every reason to think that they scanned their landing area for lifeforms and found none. Indeed, who would dwell in the middle of a desert, especially in a technological prewarp civilization that has no need to trek across such deserts for purposes of trade? This would be a very different situation from "Justice" where the heroes deliberately contacted the natives. (In turn, both "Angel One" and "Symbiosis" feature civilizations that are perfectly aware of interstellar life, even if their warp fleets aren't all that impressive; the PD wouldn't apply as regards contact with them, even though it would still apply as regards interfering with their internal affairs.)
How come there were natives in that desert of Kolarus III after all, then? The whole issue is so contrived that I can't help but see a deliberate, sinister plan there. Shinzon must have hired those stooges specifically to harass Picard, so that he would rapidly depart the planet and not think through the incredible coincidence, or try and find out more about the origins of B-4.
Timo Saloniemi
How come there were natives in that desert of Kolarus III after all, then? The whole issue is so contrived that I can't help but see a deliberate, sinister plan there. Shinzon must have hired those stooges specifically to harass Picard, so that he would rapidly depart the planet and not think through the incredible coincidence, or try and find out more about the origins of B-4.
Timo Saloniemi
^ Yes.
My point is that in TOS and early TNG they just beamed down. Turned up to a planet and beamed down. Worried about the consequences later.
Although they still often upheld (sort of) the Prime Directive, by the definition laid out in later years (that you have to wait for warp drive first) they could be in violation every week.
Of course, if you did that the episodes would be pretty short. And dull.
Back in the old days, Kirk and his boys were out exploring. Although they claimed to not interfere with the planet and its inhabitants - they pretty much did it every week. They magically "beamed down" to planets, and used their phasers and communicators. Yes, they occasionally addressed the perils and pitfalls ( A Private Little War), but on the whole they didnt seem to have a big problem showing off their technology to others.
First Season of TNG was just like this too. And although I enjoyed the later years of Trek, I miss the days when people used to beam down just for shits and giggles.
"Mr Spock, contact Dr McCoy and get him to meet us in the transporter room. We're beaming down. Oh, and we better take a security guard too..."
Seriously, though, it is extremely rarely in modern Trek that our heroes would hesitate to approach a primitive species and cite the Prime Directive as the reason. That is, unless the species really is caveman primitive, as in "Who Watches" or "Homeward". And in such a case, not even Kirk would beam down and alarm the natives with his witchcraft.
The TNG episode "First Contact" shows that the Feds like to take a clandestine approach when making first contact with an advanced civilization that doesn't yet know of the interstellar community (that is, doesn't have warp yet). But even this episode doesn't really claim that the Prime Directive forbids contact with warpless civilizations. In fact, we hear this:
So the PD (as per the TNG interpretation) does not mean noncontact. Explicitly, it means noninterference with natural development. And it's something that Picard apparently thinks he is upholding even when deliberately contacting this prewarp civilization.
Only ENT shows the Prime Directive (or its primitive predecessor) as a paranoid noncontact rule, something Archer inherited from the Vulcans. By the time of TOS, the Feds have apparently learned better.
Timo Saloniemi
The TNG episode "First Contact" shows that the Feds like to take a clandestine approach when making first contact with an advanced civilization that doesn't yet know of the interstellar community (that is, doesn't have warp yet). But even this episode doesn't really claim that the Prime Directive forbids contact with warpless civilizations. In fact, we hear this:
So the PD (as per the TNG interpretation) does not mean noncontact. Explicitly, it means noninterference with natural development. And it's something that Picard apparently thinks he is upholding even when deliberately contacting this prewarp civilization.
Only ENT shows the Prime Directive (or its primitive predecessor) as a paranoid noncontact rule, something Archer inherited from the Vulcans. By the time of TOS, the Feds have apparently learned better.
Timo Saloniemi
I think we're losing sight of things here. The prime directive, roughly speaking, is ``don't screw up the course of the locals' history''. What's going to happen on Kolarus as a result of this intrusion?
Well, a couple guys are going to come back from their hunting weekend in the desert saying, ``We saw some of those nuts who sanded their foreheads down to nothing, and they started shooting at us! And they had this flying saucer they got away from us in!'' And their wives will nod, and say to one another that they understand their husbands have to get away from it all but they do wish they'd avoid getting intoxicated on the high-sugar drinks they always bring along on these things.
It'll go down as a weird little UFO sighting, and while a couple of people may obsess over its details, it's going to have about as much effect on the planet's history as any UFO sighting on Earth has: it gives average people something specific to snicker about.
Well, a couple guys are going to come back from their hunting weekend in the desert saying, ``We saw some of those nuts who sanded their foreheads down to nothing, and they started shooting at us! And they had this flying saucer they got away from us in!'' And their wives will nod, and say to one another that they understand their husbands have to get away from it all but they do wish they'd avoid getting intoxicated on the high-sugar drinks they always bring along on these things.
It'll go down as a weird little UFO sighting, and while a couple of people may obsess over its details, it's going to have about as much effect on the planet's history as any UFO sighting on Earth has: it gives average people something specific to snicker about.
I don't think it was necessarily a violation of the PD. But the dune buggy chase scene was still a rather gratuitous scene. I think TPTB just wanted an excuse to do an exciting "car chase" scene.
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