Prime Directive Influenced by Marvel Comics The Watcher?

[elric428]

Always wondered if Roddenberry's Prime Directive was influenced by Stan Lee's non interference policy of Marvel Comics The Watcher as they are both quite similar ideas. The Watcher was in comic books before the existence of Star Trek so it could be possible.

 

[Neopeius]

Always wondered if Roddenberry's Prime Directive was influenced by Stan Lee's non interference policy of Marvel Comics The Watcher as they are both quite similar ideas. The Watcher was in comic books before the existence of Star Trek so it could be possible.

I doubt it. The Watcher doesn't interfere to protect the sanctity of each timeline. The Prime Directive feels more a natural outgrowth of the decolonization zeitgeist of the time TOS was produced.

 

[Ssosmcin]

Assuming it was Rodenberry who created the concept and if he read Marvel comics. And he'd have to have remembered the issues with the Watcher. Or had actually sat there reading Tales of Suspense. So it's probably a long shot.

 

[mb22]

There was some Trek influence on Fantastic Four as well:

https://web.archive.org/web/20080314154438/http://www.dialbforblog.com/archives/408/

 

[Christopher]

The concept of a non-interference directive in science fiction is older than either Star Trek or Marvel. It goes back at least as far as Olaf Stapledon's Star Maker from 1937, in which an advanced alien race avoided contact with worlds that hadn't yet achieved spaceflight or utopian civilization, so as not to stifle their independence of thought. It's long been a fairly common trope in SF for explaining why, if advanced starfaring aliens exist, they haven't revealed themselves to humanity.

More to the point, the Prime Directive was a response to real-life colonialism, a recognition that the Kiplingesque "Civilising Mission" -- the attempt to force "superior" European values on non-Western cultures "for their own good" -- had only harmed them and provoked violent rebellion. The 1960s were an era when indigenous communities around the world were asserting their independence from Western colonialism and their right to self-determination, and the old notions of benevolent cultural imperialism were being discredited. Hence ST's recognition that an enlightened future civilization would have learned from our mistakes and would respect cultural autonomy instead of trying to force its values on other worlds.

Anyway, I'm not sure a lot of adults would've been reading Marvel Comics in the 1960s. The idea of comics being for adults is a more recent development. Roddenberry's whole goal was ST was to make science fiction for an adult audience, so I doubt he would've been drawing influences from fiction aimed at children. Anyway, the motivation for the Watcher's non-interference was much simpler -- it was to explain why such a powerful being couldn't save the day himself, requiring the Fantastic Four to be the ones to do it.

 

[MarkusTay]

Although Asimov's works didn't have aliens, he had established the scientific principle that "the very act of observing something changes it", which is where we get a lot of our modern scify concepts of 'non-interference'.

It was the whole premise of his Second Foundation - that if people knew it existed, it would change the course of future-history, the very thing they were trying to protect ('causality' and all that). Asimov established a LOT of concepts that appear in a LOT of franchises, including robots, positronic brains, FTL drives, etc. And I think we've seen evidence of his premise in both ST and Marvel's Watchers - whenever the 'watchers' are noticed, it changes events. This was also the main storyline (as it turned out) of the very excellent TV show Fringe. Rodenberry stood on the shoulders of the Science Fiction giants that came before him, and he acknowledged and respected that (unlike George Lucas who came later, who tried to claim - and copyright - concepts that had been around for three quarters of a century). Stan Lee was in the middle - he NEVER liked saying he got ideas from elsewhere, but at least he didn't steal them and then try to legally claim them (all the legal battles between Marvel and DC aside).

I have been a comics fan since forever (I own comics older than me from the 1950's), and I can tell you with a small level of expertise that comics have always been culturally driven, and focus on whatever is popular at the time, which is why we sometimes get ridiculous heroes/villains. Some, like the ones who use rollerskaets or skateboards slip into obscurity, while one in particular still rides his 'Frankie Avalon' surfboard until the ends of time. Mutants (Xmen), BTW, were an allegory for the anti-bigotry sentiments of the 60's. So I would say that both ST and Marvel got their circa 1960's ideas from our culture back then, which was hating on the Vietnam war and anything else that remotely looked liked a form of 'colonialism'.

 

[Christopher]

Asimov established a LOT of concepts that appear in a LOT of franchises, including robots, positronic brains, FTL drives, etc.

Robots and FTL drives were around in fiction while Asimov was still a child. The word "robot" comes from Karel Capek's 1920 play R.U.R., and the concept of mechanical automatons goes back to antiquity. Fiction about FTL drives dates back at least to the 1930s; the first recorded mention of a "warp" or "hyperspace" drive was in John W. Campbell's Islands of Space in 1931.

Campbell was Asimov's main editor and shaped a lot of what Asimov and other writers of that era wrote -- sometimes in a negative way, since he was racist as hell and liked seeing science fiction as allegory for white supremacy, with humans always being superior to aliens. So Asimov tended to write in human-only universes to avoid having to deal with Campbell's racism.

Asimov did coin the term "positronic brain," but it's total nonsense, by his own later admission. He just wanted a term that sounded like "electronic" but was more futuristic, without giving much thought to the complications of building a computer based on antiparticles. He also coined the word "robotics," but only because he didn't know the word "cybernetics" existed. He was a biochemist, after all.

And I think we've seen evidence of his premise in both ST and Marvel's Watchers - whenever the 'watchers' are noticed, it changes events.

That's basically the Uncertainty Principle in quantum physics, that observation is an interaction that changes the thing being observed.

So I would say that both ST and Marvel got their circa 1960's ideas from our culture back then, which was hating on the Vietnam war and anything else that remotely looked liked a form of 'colonialism'.

Yup. Fiction is generally a commentary on real-world things, not just a shallow exercise in cross-referencing other fiction. If contemporary works resemble each other, it's far more likely that they're reflecting the same zeitgeist than that one is directly referencing the other.

 

[MarkusTay]

I know about the uncertainty principle - I was just trying to encapsulate it in regards to science fiction in general. Further, I also know that others came before Asimov, but his popularity made those concepts 'mainstream', so that regular people had heard of them by the 60-70's. The only thing I begrudge Asimov is that he believed we were alone in the universe, but he was a product of his time, and even admits many of his earlier works were rife with scientific errors, because it was all based on 'the science' available. Sadly, so many of those 'old timey' writers believed we'd already have colonies on Mars by now. They didn't realize humans will never stop fighting each other right here on Earth.

Not sure by your post if you are pro/con the whole 'humans are the bestest at everything' trope, but I personally enjoy a good story where we get our butts handed to us (not all the time, but if its well-written, then why not?) The Safehold series - which reads more like an alternate-history series - is all about a human colony world that doesn't even know its a human colony, because Earth and ever other human world got exterminated over a thousand years prior. The stories literally start off with us as losers. Oh, and its very good, although I thought the ending felt rushed (almost anti-climactic). I'd recommend if you are into historic battles (I especially enjoyed the naval stuff). Very little actual scify though, aside from the main character (an R. Daneel Olivaw kind of character). Cheers

 

[Maurice]

Assuming it was Rodenberry who created the concept and if he read Marvel comics. And he'd have to have remembered the issues with the Watcher. Or had actually sat there reading Tales of Suspense. So it's probably a long shot.

It’s there in his May 1965 second pilot “The Omega Glory” script. So maybe it was his or maybe he was influenced by talking to Peeples, who was writing “Where No Man”. Coon didn’t invent it, though maybe he named it (I forget).

 

[Christopher]

The only thing I begrudge Asimov is that he believed we were alone in the universe...

He did not. As I said, he chose to set his John Campbell-edited fiction in human-only universes in order to skirt around Campbell's white supremacy. It was self-censorship to avoid getting into political arguments with his editor. It did not reflect his beliefs about the real universe. He did write fiction about aliens on a number of occasions. He also wrote a wealth of nonfiction articles discussing the possibilities of alien life, among countless other subjects. One of my favorites was this one about the possibilities of alien life based on different chemistries than our own: http://www.bigear.org/CSMO/HTML/CS09/cs09all.htm#cs09p05

Not sure by your post if you are pro/con the whole 'humans are the bestest at everything' trope,

How could you not tell that from the fact that I called it "racist as hell?" I thought I made it pretty obvious that I deplore Campbell's white supremacy and the way he pressured his writers to conform to his politics. (He was also a believer in pseudoscience like psychic phenomena, which is why so much SF of that era and later made such heavy use of the telepathy trope.)

but I personally enjoy a good story where we get our butts handed to us (not all the time, but if its well-written, then why not?)

The first story I ever sold, which I've since expanded into my Arachne duology, involved aliens putting humanity on trial for accidentally destroying an alien space habitat with their starship's asteroid defenses. A few Analog readers wrote angry letters about the verdict in which the humans were held culpable, refusing to believe that humanity could be in the wrong and proposing a sequel where humans came to rescue the starship crew and kick the aliens' asses. My editor Stanley Schmidt suggested that some readers had a hard time letting go of the assumption of humans automatically being in the right, and thus missed the point of my story. I didn't realize it at the time, but he was probably talking about the Campbellian mindset that had been so prevalent in Astounding/Analog when Campbell had edited it.

 

[Kor]

The prevailing views among much of the science fiction readership of the era in question were undoubtedly reflected in DS9's "Far Beyond the Stars." Human protagonists were assumed to be a narrow subset of humanity.

Kor

 

[Christopher]

The prevailing views among much of the science fiction readership of the era in question were undoubtedly reflected in DS9's "Far Beyond the Stars." Human protagonists were assumed to be a narrow subset of humanity.

Much, but not all. There were plenty of Benny Russells in the audience, even if they weren't acknowledged.

I think that, then as now, a lot of SF fans and creators were more open-minded and accepting of diversity than the cultural norm, yet there were also some who held more intolerant, reactionary views.

 

[Neopeius]

I know about the uncertainty principle - I was just trying to encapsulate it in regards to science fiction in general. Further, I also know that others came before Asimov, but his popularity made those concepts 'mainstream', so that regular people had heard of them by the 60-70's. The only thing I begrudge Asimov is that he believed we were alone in the universe

I just gave a talk in which I explained why I believed we were "alone in the universe".

To a room full of exobiologists.

Talk about chutzpah!

 

[Phaser Two]

Although Asimov's works didn't have aliens, he had established the scientific principle that "the very act of observing something changes it", which is where we get a lot of our modern scify concepts of 'non-interference'.

Asimov may have written about these ideas, but he did not make them up. The observer effect in both physics and psychology long predates him.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

Asimov may have written about these ideas, but he did not make them up. The observer effect in both physics and psychology long predates him.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle

 

[Phaser Two]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle

Now look up Observer Effect in both physics and psych.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

Always wondered if Roddenberry's Prime Directive was influenced by Stan Lee's non interference policy of Marvel Comics The Watcher as they are both quite similar ideas. The Watcher was in comic books before the existence of Star Trek so it could be possible.

I'm both a Star Trek fan and a comic book historian, and I have never heard any reference to Gene Roddenberry ever reading comic books, even ST comics. So I doubt it.

If GR ever gave any thoughts to comic books, it was probably just second hand information that Richard Arnold told him when Arnold was the guy in charge of approving DC's ST comics in the 1980s.

 

[Neopeius]

I'm both a Star Trek fan and a comic book historian.

That's pretty cool! What is your focus, and have you written anything? Jason Sacks is a friend and associate of mine -- we used to spar over National vs. Marvel.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

That's pretty cool! What is your focus, and have you written anything?

Thanks! And yep, I have! Like your friend Jason, I write for TwoMorrows Publishing. I've written for BACK ISSUE magazine for about 10 years now, so I mostly focus on Bronze Age comics (the 1970s & '80s, for those who don't know). Among other features, I wrote the cover features for BI #99 (the big oral history of Batman: The Animated Series, and the Harley Quinn history in the same issue) and BI #133 (a big Pro2Pro interview with James Robinson and Tony Harris about their Starman series from the '90s).

 

[Neopeius]

Thanks! And yep, I have! Like your friend Jason, I write for TwoMorrows Publishing. I've written for BACK ISSUE magazine for about 10 years now, so I mostly focus on Bronze Age comics (the 1970s & '80s, for those who don't know). Among other features, I wrote the cover features for BI #99 (the big oral history of Batman: The Animated Series, and the Harley Quinn history in the same issue) and BI #133 (a big Pro2Pro interview with James Robinson and Tony Harris about their Starman series from the '90s).

Super cool! Small world. You might enjoy our comics coverage at the Journey.