(Passes more ammunition.) Those first two are pretty easy to take down as it is. If those are his greatest PD violations, I guess his worst would be the time he sneezed on the half-naked queen of outerspace on Zeta Ophiuchi X. 
TMP Seems more "Futuristic" Then "Star Trek '09"
- Thread starter darkshadow0001
- Start date
It's pretty clear to me that the original Kirk knew how to follow orders even if he didn't respect authority. Intentionally or not, Trek 2009 establishes that this new Kirk not only has little respect for authority, but also has trouble following orders he doesn't agree with. He's less disciplined and more of a 'cowboy'.
Personally, I prefer the original as a hero/role-model/etc., but the new version will be great for action-adventure movies.
Personally, I prefer the original as a hero/role-model/etc., but the new version will be great for action-adventure movies.
(Passes more ammunition.) Those first two are pretty easy to take down as it is. If those are his greatest PD violations, I guess his worst would be the time he sneezed on the half-naked queen of outerspace on Zeta Ophiuchi X.
Heck... Memory Alpha only lists nine possible violations of the Prime Directive in all of The Original Series.
http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Prime_Directive
Only four of which Kirk could have been considered to have instigated...
The Return of the Archons - That (the Prime Directive) refers to a living, growing culture. Do you think this one is?.
The Apple - See The Return of the Archons. As an aside, do you allow Hillbillys to shoot at passerby's riding those new fangled motorized horses?
Mirror, Mirror - Is freedom that alien of a concept in the Mirror Universe? Never understood how this is listed as a Prime Directive violation.
Friday's Child - You allow Eleen to die, you essentially cede Capella to the Klingons. Which is a definite no-no in the 23rd century. Never understood how this is listed as a Prime Directive violation either.
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I imagine you don't get promoted to commanding officer of an aircraft carrier if you don't know how to follow orders.
Ok once again...this is NOT the exact same Kirk, but he is a character with flaws and room to grow. He's IS younger and more brash even than the Kirk from the 60s. While this is distasteful to some of the purists...I believe it is one of the central reasons the movie was successful, and critics and fans alike enjoyed the new portrayals of old favorites on screen.
I imagine you don't get promoted to commanding officer of an aircraft carrier if you don't know how to follow orders.
This means nothing...the point isn't that he didn't follow orders, he certainly did much of the time. Its that he also didn't follow them, or modified them often enough to get a reputation. I believe Dr Marcus said it best when she said Kirk was never a boy scout.
(Passes more ammunition.) Those first two are pretty easy to take down as it is. If those are his greatest PD violations, I guess his worst would be the time he sneezed on the half-naked queen of outerspace on Zeta Ophiuchi X.
Heck... Memory Alpha only lists nine possible violations of the Prime Directive in all of The Original Series.
http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Prime_Directive
Only four of which Kirk could have been considered to have instigated...
The Return of the Archons - That (the Prime Directive) refers to a living, growing culture. Do you think this one is?.
The Apple - See The Return of the Archons. As an aside, do you allow Hillbillys to shoot at passerby's riding those new fangled motorized horses?
Mirror, Mirror - Is freedom that alien of a concept in the Mirror Universe? Never understood how this is listed as a Prime Directive violation.
Friday's Child - You allow Eleen to die, you essentially cede Capella to the Klingons. Which is a definite no-no in the 23rd century. Never understood how this is listed as a Prime Directive violation either.
I didn't look at it, but what's the difference? 9 times?? 17 temporal prime directive violations. Even one of those cases would have been enough for a court martial.
The Prime Directive functions in two main ways: stopping the meaningful or accidental subjugation of other worlds which might lead to a runaway "butterfly" type effect of cultural changes. What if the hillbilly you shot on a bike was eventually going to be the president of the USA?? (not so far fetched, George W?) Even small events may lead to unintended harsh consequences. It also limits the imperialistic effect of an advancing, growing organization like the UFP in regards to more contemporary cultures..
RAMA
You're right... you didn't look at it. Starting to question if you've even seen The Original Series at this point. If you look at how the Prime Directive is defined in the time of TOS, you'd know not one of those instances is a cut-and-dry violation.
Seventeen temporal violations is pretty impressive considering the TV series only had four true time travel episodes and one movie.
Jim Kirk and the Prime Directive
I count fifteen episodes (six more than Memory Alpha) where the Prime Directive would be in effect by 23rd century standards.
Miri
Tomorrow is Yesterday
The Return of the Archons
Errand of Mercy
The City on the Edge of Forever
The Apple
Bread and Circuses
A Private Little War
A Piece of the Action
Patterns of Force
The Omega Glory
Assignment: Earth
The Paradise Syndrome
For the World is Hollow…
All Our Yesterdays
I’m including time travel episodes into the mix and they’re also the first I’m eliminating as violations. Due to the fact that the universe is as it should be upon the return of the Enterprise to the 23rd Century.
So that knocks us down to eleven potential violations…
Next we eliminate episodes where the Enterprise is dealing with what is termed as an arrested society…
Miri - Planet where the children die at puberty due to a devastating outbreak three hundred years past.
The Return of the Archons - Computer has controlled life for nearly six thousand years.
The Apple - Computer has so controlled life that the few people living don’t even know what sex is.
For the World is Hollow… - Corrupted computer has worldship on collision course with populated world. Life has been unchanged for 10,000 years.
Seven potential violations left…
Now we deal with episodes that violations have occurred prior to the Enterprise arrival (not fair to tag Kirk with someone else‘s violation)
Bread and Circuses - SS Beagle crash landed years earlier, Captain became first citizen.
The Omega Glory - Ron Tracey protected Kohms from Yangs with phaser.
A Private Little War - Klingons arrived early and began arming villagers with flintlocks.
Patterns of Force - John Gill headed Nazi regime.
A Piece of the Action - Horizon arrived hundred years earlier and left techinal/cultural books behind.
Now we’re down to two potential violations…
Errand of Mercy - This is one can’t be pinned on Kirk. He is sent there to arm the Organians in advance of a potential war with the Klingons.
The Paradise Syndrome - Spock and McCoy beam down in front of the Native Americans, in full uniform to boot. Not sure you can exactly pin that one on Kirk either.
So… Kirk didn’t have one cut-and-dry violation of the Prime Directive. At least not by 23rd century standards.
I count fifteen episodes (six more than Memory Alpha) where the Prime Directive would be in effect by 23rd century standards.
Miri
Tomorrow is Yesterday
The Return of the Archons
Errand of Mercy
The City on the Edge of Forever
The Apple
Bread and Circuses
A Private Little War
A Piece of the Action
Patterns of Force
The Omega Glory
Assignment: Earth
The Paradise Syndrome
For the World is Hollow…
All Our Yesterdays
I’m including time travel episodes into the mix and they’re also the first I’m eliminating as violations. Due to the fact that the universe is as it should be upon the return of the Enterprise to the 23rd Century.
So that knocks us down to eleven potential violations…
Next we eliminate episodes where the Enterprise is dealing with what is termed as an arrested society…
Miri - Planet where the children die at puberty due to a devastating outbreak three hundred years past.
The Return of the Archons - Computer has controlled life for nearly six thousand years.
The Apple - Computer has so controlled life that the few people living don’t even know what sex is.
For the World is Hollow… - Corrupted computer has worldship on collision course with populated world. Life has been unchanged for 10,000 years.
Seven potential violations left…
Now we deal with episodes that violations have occurred prior to the Enterprise arrival (not fair to tag Kirk with someone else‘s violation)
Bread and Circuses - SS Beagle crash landed years earlier, Captain became first citizen.
The Omega Glory - Ron Tracey protected Kohms from Yangs with phaser.
A Private Little War - Klingons arrived early and began arming villagers with flintlocks.
Patterns of Force - John Gill headed Nazi regime.
A Piece of the Action - Horizon arrived hundred years earlier and left techinal/cultural books behind.
Now we’re down to two potential violations…
Errand of Mercy - This is one can’t be pinned on Kirk. He is sent there to arm the Organians in advance of a potential war with the Klingons.
The Paradise Syndrome - Spock and McCoy beam down in front of the Native Americans, in full uniform to boot. Not sure you can exactly pin that one on Kirk either.
So… Kirk didn’t have one cut-and-dry violation of the Prime Directive. At least not by 23rd century standards.
So there should have been a court-martial for each of the nine times Picard violated the Prime Directive since he took command of the Enterprise, as mentioned in The Drumhead.
Or do we work under the assumption that many of the issues weren't created by him?
How do you prosecute someone for something that wasn't even a crime at that point?
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No, of course not. But has basic human nature changed in the last 2000 years? Have the basic things that drive us changed? Have our basic strengths and weaknesses changed? I don't think so. Over time, we have acquired more knowledge, we've invented more things. But that's very different from humanity really changing in its essence.
A wise man -- or some egomaniacal superman, I can't recall
-- once said:
If a rule paralyzes your organization (which the Prime Directive would if you court-martial everyone everytime they make a decision) then it isn't a good rule.
Its a great rule, evidenced by the fact if it didn't exist and YOU were a Starfleet captain would be using any excuse to interfere in other planet's rights, even involving military action (which I believe poster Captain Robert April happily and obliviously suggested--if he really were a captain it would be scary). In Pen Pals, it hardly paralyzed the Starship, it would have been easy to ignore..something made it personal.
I personally do not feel the rule is an absolute...perhaps the greatest statement of this was by Picard in the otherwise unremarkable "Justice". However, Picard and STNG tread far more carefully, create far fewer worlds to tear down to make a point. TOS is simply way too quick on the draw to not follow the rules...in fact, the only timesthe Directive is mentioned is when its broken!
RAMA
With a Prime Directive all the Native American tribes would still be alive and kicking, for example. No colonization of Africa, no evangelization of the people there, no foreign intrusion into their politics --> no fuckups in Lybia, Syria, Iraq, etc... today. The Prime Directive is a good rule.
You just have a difficult time admitting that the Prime Directive created by Gene Coon in 1966 is far different than the Prime Directive as executed by Gene Roddenberry in 1987.
This is from Wikipedia.
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Prime_Directive
A couple of points...
* Who is determining what the 'normal and healthy' cultural evolution of a world/species is?
* How many accidental/early contamination scenarios does Kirk have to deal with in TOS?
Why don't we just go all the way back to the beginning and just keep flinging poo at each other?
You think what was done in the past was a good thing? Ignore the outcome of all of it for a second, before you answer that question. What it boils down to is simply "Would you do it today?" Force your religion onto a native tribe. Relocate them. Force them to live your way. Kill them because you want the ressources they are sitting on. All that stuff. Would you do it?
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You can't erase what is done and no one said growing up is easy. You also can't view the world of hundreds and thousands of years ago through the lens of today's moral parameters.
So the Prime Directive isn't a good thing... because you'd obviously go back and change things you felt weren't right.
Ignoring my question. Would you do the same things today?
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Like any question... you don't really know until you face the situation and know the details. No one does.
