The Prime Directive on this show

[Tenacity]

I have my doubts whether the PD of Kirk's era would have prevented Starfleet involvement in the Klingon Civil War for instance...

TOS Starfleet probably would have reinforced the border and let the Klingons kill each other.

i think humans realized it made sense because of the disasters on Earth with less advanced cultures.

Like when the Arabs gave the Europeans mathematics, silly idea.

It's a question of do you accept that there will be bad mixed in with the good, or do you withhold the good to prevent the inclusion of the bad.

I mean once they got their asses kicked they should have cut their losses and got the hell out of there

If you remember the episode, when Kirk did try to do exactly what you're suggesting, Vaal wouldn't allow the landing party to beam up.

 

[locutus101]

...If you remember the episode, when Kirk did try to do exactly what you're suggesting, Vaal wouldn't allow the landing party to beam up.

Well, then maybe he shouldn't have gone down there to begin with.

 

[BillJ]

Well, then maybe he shouldn't have gone down there to begin with.

He had orders to investigate.

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

TOS Starfleet probably would have reinforced the border and let the Klingons kill each other.

True, a better comparision would be the post-Praxis/pre-Tomed era Starfleet which IMO would probably have sided with the Klingons (lead by Azetbur) against a pro-Romulan faction (possibly lead by Kerla?).

 

[Captain of the USS Averof]

Like when the Arabs gave the Europeans mathematics, silly idea.

You mean the mathematics that the Arabs themselves got from the Greeks, who, last time I checked, are Europeans?

 

[locutus101]

He had orders to investigate.

What about the prime directive? There were people down there.

 

[locutus101]

You mean the mathematics that the Arabs themselves got from the Greeks, who, last time I checked, are Europeans?

They didn't get them from the Greeks but from the Indians.

 

[BillJ]

What about the prime directive? There were people down there.

Obviously, the scientific curiosity of Starfleet overrode the Prime Directive. But, it is obvious the Prime Directive in practical application was quite different than the text, and its application during Picard's time.

 

[locutus101]

Obviously, the scientific curiosity of Starfleet overrode the Prime Directive. But, it is obvious the Prime Directive in practical application was quite different than the text, and its application during Picard's time.

I mean if we sum it up. Starfleet overrode the prime directive and asked Kirk to go down there and it resulted in the destruction of a culture that was bothering no one or asking for nothing.

 

[BillJ]

I mean if we sum it up. Starfleet overrode the prime directive and asked Kirk to go down there and it resulted in the destruction of a culture that was bothering no one or asking for nothing.

But, the flip side, is that the area may be getting more traveled and Vaal, in the long run, could represent a hazard to ships in the area. There is no perfect solution many times. Though I'm with Kirk where Vaal is concerned. What kind of life is it to just mindlessly collect energy for a giant dinosaur head?

The Return of the Serpent is an interesting look at the world twenty years later. DC Comics, first run issues #43-45.

 

[locutus101]

But, the flip side, is that the area may be getting more traveled and Vaal, in the long run, could represent a hazard to ships in the area. There is no perfect solution many times. Though I'm with Kirk where Vaal is concerned. What kind of life is it to just mindlessly collect energy for a giant dinosaur head?

The Return of the Serpent is an interesting look at the world twenty years later. DC Comics, first run issues #43-45.

I'll say two things.

1) The people were happy and immortal and they had an easy life. I mean feeding Vaal wasn't such a chore.

2) The people weren't asking for help.

If there is a case when Starfleet SHOULDN'T meddle, this is it.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Kirk was just trying to leave?

Obeying the Prime Directive would have left him stranded on the planet.

Only by killing their god could his normal life resume regularity.

The pleasant cohesiveness of their society mattered squat compared to Kirk's happiness.

 

[locutus101]

Kirk was just trying to leave?

Obeying the Prime Directive would have left him stranded on the planet.

Only by killing their god could his normal life resume regularity.

The pleasant cohesiveness of their society mattered squat compared to Kirk's happiness.

Whatever happened to "A captain should sooner die than to break the prime directive." ?

 

[BillJ]

The pleasant cohesiveness of their society mattered squat compared to Kirk's happiness.

Kirk's happiness and the 430 people killed when the Enterprise comes crashing down.

Whatever happened to "A captain should sooner die than to break the prime directive." ?

It was incredibly stupid, and doesn't take into account all the possible scenarios one may face when dealing with lesser cultures.

Should Kirk have ordered all 430 people into disintegration chambers in "A Taste of Armageddon"?

 

[Captain of the USS Averof]

They didn't get them from the Greeks but from the Indians.

They got it from Indian mathematicians AND the Greeks:

"The history of mathematics during the Golden Age of Islam, especially during the 9th and 10th centuries, built on Greek mathematics (Euclid, Archimedes, Apollonius) and Indian mathematics (Aryabhata, Brahmagupta)."

More on the subject here: Mathematics in medieval Islam.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Kirk argued that the Prime Directive could suck it because he had to protect 430 people.

Captain Ransom thought that the Prime Directive would suck it to protect 30 people, and after most of those dirty pirates had been murdered, "Captain" Burke was still willing to keep using living thinking, angry space dolphins as super gasoline, to protect him and one other dude.

 

[TRON JA307020]

How should the Prime Directive be handled in this show?

I hope the PD comes off as more reasonable then it was presented in TNG era. I don't want there ever to be a episode where a civilization is about to be destroyed by natural disaster and the captain uses the PD as an excuse to do nothing and let them die. Do more episodes that show why the PD is a good thing, Who Watches the Watchers and Patterns of Force are good examples. Make the PD moral debates interesting and don't make the people supporting it seem either callous or stupid.

Yeah TNG sometimes went to far with the directive. I mean they weren't going to help a alien civilization survive but they go out of their way to watch them die and supposedly honor them. Stupid.

 

[Guy Gardener]

The aboriginals on a planet die, due to stupidity or natural causes.

In 10 thousand years, different dudes strip mine that planet, because it's empty and no one lives there, so it's conflict free.

So um, what if Starfleet had saved the people on that planet 10,000 years earlier?

Would the strip miners have gone to a less populated world, or would they have murdered/enslaved the people thinking they owned the resources the strip miners needed?



It's actually good for everyone else in the glaxay if not every one makes it into space, or lives.

 

[TRON JA307020]

The aboriginals on a planet die, due to stupidity or natural causes.

In 10 thousand years, different dudes strip mine that planet, because it's empty and no one lives there, so it's conflict free.

So um, what if Starfleet had saved the people on that planet 10,000 years earlier?

Would the strip miners have gone to a less populated world, or would they have murdered/enslaved the people thinking they owned the resources the strip miners needed?



It's actually good for everyone else in the glaxay if not every one makes it into space, or lives.

Well the point I was making is if Starfleet isn't going to help why stand and watch?

 

[Guy Gardener]

History.

Comparative XenoAnthropolgy.

Or maybe the resource hungry species that wants to strip mine my hypothetical planet isn't ten thousand years away, it's the Federation in three years after the planet killing sunspots simmer down.