the Prime DIrective and the rules for it. how i feel about the whole thing

[urrutiap]

There were times in Next Generation where they had to bring up the stupid Prime Directive when Picard and gang or whoever were on planets with "primitive cultures" and they were held back on helping them due to the prime directive rules.

Stuff like that were a hinderance and pretty damn annoying.

at least with Deep Space Nine and Voyager, Sisko and Janeway didnt have to deal with that crap most of the time because they were in situations that got crazy at times

 

[Nerys Myk]

Needs of the plot.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

Needs of the plot.

The needs of the plot outweigh the needs of the ideology.

 

[The Wormhole]

at least with Deep Space Nine and Voyager, Sisko and Janeway didnt have to deal with that crap most of the time because they were in situations that got crazy at times

Eh? Voyager at least dealt with Prime Directive issues all the time.

 

[at Quark's]

The Prime Directive started out sensible in TOS, the idea being that you can never know what harm you could inflict on a 'primitive' civilization even if you had the best of intentions. Better to let them find their own way, until contact is inevitable (e.g. by them discovering warp drive).

TNG went overboard with it, in some episodes extinction of a species apparently being preferable to 'cultural contamination'. But yeah, in most cases 'the needs of the plot'.

 

[Victoria]

Originally, the Prime Directive was a recognition of how much damage had been done by on Earth by technologically "superior" cultures to technologically "inferior" cultures. Even when contact was intended to be benign, it usually ended up destroying the "inferior" culture. That is still happening today and it's a complicated issue.

The real problem with TNG and thereafter is that the PD was suddenly being treated as though the Universe has some overriding "plan" with which it would be dangerous to interfere. (The Romans had the same kind of idea about "fate": Aeneas "had" to desert Dido as he was required by "fate" to go on and become the ancestor of Rome). What is weird is that, in a programme that avoided religious belief, the PD became very close to an acknowledgement that there was a Supreme something out there directing operations and that it was not up to us to question, know or attempt to change it/their intentions.

 

[Oddish]

I remember wanting to smack Deanna in "Homeward" when this exchange occurs...

NIKOLAI: "Captain, the Boraalans have a rich and beautiful culture, a deep spiritual life. They deserve the chance to survive. And isn't that what the Prime Directive was truly intended to do, to allow cultures to survive and grow naturally?"
TROI: "Not entirely. The Prime Directive was designed to ensure non-interference."

Troi is dead wrong. The Prime Directive was intended for the purpose Nikolai said. Non-interference was a means to that end, and most of the time the best means to that end, but Troi made it an end in itself. The Boraalans were a classic exception to the rule.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

I would argue that what constitutes "interference" is something along the lines of sabotage, contamination, destroying, and eliminating, however unintentional or well-meaning it might be.

Actually, the Prime Directive was designed to ensure conflict - between the heroes and the aliens of the week, between warring alien races, between fellow crew members, and internal conflict for characters and viewers alike.

"Why can't we ____?" "Because reasons/plot."

 

[FredH]

I remember wanting to smack Deanna in "Homeward" when this exchange occurs...

NIKOLAI: "Captain, the Boraalans have a rich and beautiful culture, a deep spiritual life. They deserve the chance to survive. And isn't that what the Prime Directive was truly intended to do, to allow cultures to survive and grow naturally?"
TROI: "Not entirely. The Prime Directive was designed to ensure non-interference."

Troi is dead wrong. The Prime Directive was intended for the purpose Nikolai said. Non-interference was a means to that end, and most of the time the best means to that end, but Troi made it an end in itself. The Boraalans were a classic exception to the rule.

One of the things I like about Discovery (and Strange New Worlds, iirc) is how thoroughly they’ve repudiated “Homeward”’s position on the PD.

 

[Shawnster]

The original description of the Prime Directive from Bread and Circuses


KIRK: The SS Beagle was the first ship to make a survey of this star sector when it disappeared.
SPOCK: Then the Prime Directive is in full force, Captain?
KIRK: No identification of self or mission. No interference with the social development of said planet.
MCCOY: No references to space, or the fact that there are other worlds, or more advanced civilisations.
KIRK: Let's go.


That's it. The PD did not prohibit interference. It prohibited the identification that the Starfleet officers were extraterrestrials, aliens from another planet or civilization. They could interfere so long as they kept heir alien nature secret. The interference had appear natural or at least originating internally.

So, diverting an asteroid before it hits a planet full of pre-industrial inhabitants is acceptable. Having your holographic observation post malfunction and revealed to those same inhabitants is objectionable.

I just don't know how to save the Boraalans without revealing Starfleet's true nature.

 

[Oddish]

I just don't know how to save the Boraalans without revealing Starfleet's true nature.

You can't save the tens of millions of them on the planet without a fleet of high-capacity colony ships the size of the Death Star. But you can save hundreds of times more than Nikolai did.

1. Select a new home from available planets in the vicinity.
2. Flood as much of the Enterprise D as possible with anesthezine.
3. Beam up as many sleeping Boraalans as life support can care for over short term. Don't stop until the ship reaches capacity, or the atmosphere dissipates and there's no one left to save.
4. Warp the ship to the new home as fast as you can do while maintaining maxed life support, and the anesthetic gas.
5. Beam the Boraalans down to their new home, where they will awaken naturally.

 

[Citiprime]

To play Devil's Advocate ... I can definitely see an argument for the policy in "Homeward." Think about it in terms of what Colin Powell once called the Pottery Barn rule: if you break it, you own it.

From the point Starfleet revealed the existence of aliens and the larger galaxy to the Boraalans, the Federation would feel responsibility for their development. And since the precedent would be set of Federation intervention for the betterment of their existence, where does that end? Every time a large-scale calamity occurred from that moment forward, the Boraalans would ask for assistance. If a Boraalan leader came to power and started committing atrocities, would the Federation be expected to put boots-on-the-ground to stop it, since we helped perpetuate their society? Do you try to "push" the Boraalans towards democracy, civil rights, scientific development, etc.? If 200 years down the road, the Boraalans attacked their neighbors in an adjacent star system, would the Federation be indirectly responsible for it and bear the responsibility for resolving it?

Speaking as an American, our country has spent the past 60 years wrestling with these sorts of questions while doing foreign interventions for both arguably understandable reasons and not-so-good reasons. There are people who feel the United States wasted lives and resources spending 2 decades in Afghanistan, and there are people who feel we should still have thousands of members of the US military in Afghanistan doing "nation-building" in order to protect women and children from the Taliban.

I can see how the Federation decided to sidestep all of these problems from get-go and not mire themselves in messes. Also, think about it from the perspective of us as the human race. If aliens had made first contact in the Middle Ages, the effect on human culture would have been immense. Our accomplishments as a species would not be our own, but be a stunted growth given to us by alien benefactors. Every time there was a threat of global pandemic or a World War, we would have asked for their help ... and been dependent like children for their guidance.

 

[FredH]

The original description of the Prime Directive from Bread and Circuses


KIRK: The SS Beagle was the first ship to make a survey of this star sector when it disappeared.
SPOCK: Then the Prime Directive is in full force, Captain?
KIRK: No identification of self or mission. No interference with the social development of said planet.
MCCOY: No references to space, or the fact that there are other worlds, or more advanced civilisations.
KIRK: Let's go.


That's it. The PD did not prohibit interference. It prohibited the identification that the Starfleet officers were extraterrestrials, aliens from another planet or civilization. They could interfere so long as they kept heir alien nature secret. The interference had appear natural or at least originating internally.
.

? No interference with the social development of said planet. You just quoted it directly, above. The “no references to space” element also quoted is an additional point, not a qualifier. It doesn’t mean interference is fine if they don’t know you’re aliens.

 

[at Quark's]

The original description of the Prime Directive from Bread and Circuses


KIRK: The SS Beagle was the first ship to make a survey of this star sector when it disappeared.
SPOCK: Then the Prime Directive is in full force, Captain?
KIRK: No identification of self or mission. No interference with the social development of said planet.
MCCOY: No references to space, or the fact that there are other worlds, or more advanced civilisations.
KIRK: Let's go.


That's it. The PD did not prohibit interference. It prohibited the identification that the Starfleet officers were extraterrestrials, aliens from another planet or civilization. They could interfere so long as they kept heir alien nature secret. The interference had appear natural or at least originating internally.

So, diverting an asteroid before it hits a planet full of pre-industrial inhabitants is acceptable. Having your holographic observation post malfunction and revealed to those same inhabitants is objectionable.

I just don't know how to save the Boraalans without revealing Starfleet's true nature.

That's the Prime Directive in Kirk's time, yes. It isn't inconceivable that it had become a lot stricter and more fleshed out with specific details by Picard's time as regulations often do (the earliest regulations targeted at saving the environment or ensuring privacy, or ensuring proper administration of certain processes weren't nearly as strict as some we have today in that field) -even if I don't see eyye to eye with his rigid interpretation of it in Homeward.

 

[Oddish]

Speaking as an American, our country has spent the past 60 years wrestling with these sorts of questions while doing foreign interventions for both arguably understandable reasons and not-so-good reasons. There are people who feel the United States wasted lives and resources spending 2 decades in Afghanistan, and there are people who feel we should still have thousands of members of the US military in Afghanistan doing "nation-building" in order to protect women and children from the Taliban.

I consider Afghanistan an exception to the usual rule, not because the Talibun is a direct threat to us (they merely torture their own citizens, especially female ones), but because they give sanctuary to threats: Bin Laden was not Talibun, he was given sanctuary by them, and I expect there will be another organization with similar intent, heading for the safety of the Talibun's territory. I would not be surprised if we find ourselves there again in my lifetime, after 9/11 2.0 occurs.

From the point Starfleet revealed the existence of aliens and the larger galaxy to the Boraalans, the Federation would feel responsibility for their development. And since the precedent would be set of Federation intervention for the betterment of their existence, where does that end?

That's why my proposal was carefully worked out so that the Boraalans would remain unconscious for their entire journey. They never see or speak to their rescuers.

 

[Shawnster]

? No interference with the social development of said planet. You just quoted it directly, above. The “no references to space” element also quoted is an additional point, not a qualifier. It doesn’t mean interference is fine if they don’t know you’re aliens.

Guess "interference" is open to interpretation. One could say beaming down anywhere is interference. In said episode the crew resorted to measures that could be explained away naturally, without the locals suspecting alien interference. Yet, the Enterprise crew still interfered.

No interference with the social development of said planet. Here's the rub. They can interfere, so long as such interference does not alter the social development of said planet. Again, we can take this to an extreme and say saving Drema IV from extinction is interfering with their social development, but extinction also interferes with social development.

I'd argue saving people without their knowledge of outside help does not count as social interference.

 

[Richard S. Ta]

The original description of the Prime Directive from Bread and Circuses


KIRK: The SS Beagle was the first ship to make a survey of this star sector when it disappeared.
SPOCK: Then the Prime Directive is in full force, Captain?
KIRK: No identification of self or mission. No interference with the social development of said planet.
MCCOY: No references to space, or the fact that there are other worlds, or more advanced civilisations.
KIRK: Let's go.


That's it. The PD did not prohibit interference. It prohibited the identification that the Starfleet officers were extraterrestrials, aliens from another planet or civilization. They could interfere so long as they kept heir alien nature secret. The interference had appear natural or at least originating internally.

So, diverting an asteroid before it hits a planet full of pre-industrial inhabitants is acceptable. Having your holographic observation post malfunction and revealed to those same inhabitants is objectionable.

I just don't know how to save the Boraalans without revealing Starfleet's true nature.

The dialogue you quoted directly says they can’t interfere, so I really don’t understand how you came to the conclusion that the PD allows interference.

No interference that might affect their social development… that covers a LOT of situations.

Edit - plus I don’t really swallow your ‘explanation’ above? For a start, in ENT there was no PD.

 

[Shawnster]

The dialogue you quoted directly says they can’t interfere, so I really don’t understand how you came to the conclusion that the PD allows interference.

So, then, your position is that Kirk and the crew violated the Prime Directive during their mission to planet 892-IV? Such a violation would be ironic since they clearly stated the Prime Directive when they beamed down and explicitly stated that it was in full force.

 

[Rahul]

I like the prime directive.

It is the ethical result of at humanity's own colonization.

It is also logical: A species that manages to break the warp barrier, has the technology to destroy itself a thousand times, but decided not to. Meaning they can also be trusted to have the self-control to meet aliens and not immediately start a war of extinction with them.

It is also a great answer to the Fermi paradox - why does it seem we are alone in the universe? Because the aliens are hiding to leave us alone until we get our shit together.

It is also unique to Star Trek.

As with every great story idea in Star Trek - there's also a shit-ton of instances were it was misunderstood, ignored, wrongly utilised, or straight up butchered.

But in the end it's one of the core foundations of Star Trek's ideology and it's world building. Without it, no uncontacted pre-warp civilisations.

 

[C.E. Evans]

I think the Prime Directive has probably done far more good than harm. But it sure as hell isn't perfect, and when there are times it totally sucks, it's only natural to question its entire validity.