Prime Directive: Pen Pals & WWTW

In Pen Pals, the PD means we cannot let these people know they were saved by people from another planet with advanced technology. We must allow them to believe they were saved by gods.

In WWTW, the PD means we cannot allow these people to believe they were visited by gods. We must let them know it was people from another planet with advanced technology.

Is there any Watsonian way to reconcile these, or do we just go with the Doyleist explanation that the PD means different things to different writers?

 

I don’t recall it being said that the Dremans thought the gods saved them




As for WWTW, they tried to avoid that...

 

It doesn’t have to be said, it’s inevitable. If science can’t explain how the crisis suddenly abated, people are going to come up with their own explanations. Gods, ETs, whatever.

From their perspective, a miracle has saved them all. That’s going to affect them.

 

As opposed to dying to the last person? If they misinterpret events, well they're alive to do so.

And natural disastors do end on their own, earthquakes, floods, landslides at some point they come to a stop.

Perhaps that will be their conclusion?

 

I guess that depends how you define hinted at. It’s true that the writers don’t directly address the question of how the Dremans are going to process what just happened, but intentionally or otherwise, they do invite the viewer to consider that question.

 

Nor do they indirectly address it either. The idea that they believe they were saved by gods sounds like a good enough premise for a fan fiction story, though.

 

Or the Prime Directive means different things in different situations.

 

^This.

If we want to look at it from a in-universe POV a important concept like the Prime Directive likely is a very, very, very long document with clauses and precedence cases and guidelines over guidelines relating to different situations.

The Mintakans were already contaminated and were in the process of creating a religion based on said contamination so that needed to be quelled that's why they needed to reveal themselves as the space travelers they were.

 

Picard doesn't want to impersonate a deity.

Which is very different from, "Well, the world didn't blow up. That's good."

 

I remember somewhere in Voyager, Janeway said there were 47 sub-sections in the Prime Directive.

EDIT: It was Naomi Wildman.

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

 

37 relating to James T. Kirk and, "Don't do what he did."

The shortest clause is, "Don't make a Nazi planet. Not even once."

I can't help but think that's the entire Federation's lowest point.

 

To be fair to Kirk, a lot of those violations were in the duty of cleaning up earlier messes.

 

Very true. As stated above, John Gill kind of will hang over all of them for, "Federation citizen sets himself up as god of low-tech planet."

"Technically, it was Fuhrer."

"Which is even worse."

I imagine whatever Kirk did there to improve the situation couldn't make it worse.

 

Creators of Discovery and Picard, "hold my beer".

 

I confess, that joke doesn't quite land because I really-really like Picard and Disco both.

Ensign Tilly and giving Seven of Nine actual clothes are enough to justify their existence.



If you mean the Federation's lowest point, I admit, genocidal Skynet computer is a bad mistake. If only Michael hadn't destroyed it by asking it questions.

 

The Federation abandoning the Romulan relocation after the Mars attack comes pretty close in my book.

 

I actually don't have much of a problem with that because it's not the Federation refusing to help. It's the Federation stopping a project after one of their own planets has been destroyed and all of its efforts so far (which were massive) were destroyed.

I suppose I see a difference between a man leaving a man dying on the road versus going to help and getting stabbed.

TNG federation could have cited the Prime Directive and would have gone, "Tsk tsk, Romulan internal matter."

 

It is the Federation refusing to help. They still had resources they could've pulled to help the Romulans in a scaled-back relief effort. "Sorry, we got a bloody nose. So now you all are going to die.", doesn't really cut it in my book.

The Federation has to have a trillion citizens at that point and all kinds of public and private craft outside of Starfleet that could've been drafted into service of the Romulan relocation. They didn't even try.

 

100,000 dead is a helluva bloody nose.

Yes, it's the wrong decision but they have their own evacuation of a planet to deal with. But, like I said, I see a fundamental difference between trying to help and getting burned versus not trying at all.

Also, I really do think the Federation did one better than they would have in TNG. They didn't exactly help Bajor after all.