I really don't think so. Genetically, we've been the same for at least several dozen millennia. Everything else is learned behavior, i.e., culture.
Typhon Pact..Do tell?
- Thread starter BryanSorensen
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I really don't think so. Genetically, we've been the same for at least several dozen millennia. Everything else is learned behavior, i.e., culture.
I wasn't around for WW2, but I was for the Cold War. My fear of al Qaeda is nothing compared to my fear seeing the world nuked during those years. Waking up every day knowing Soviet missiles were already targeted at your city, and that only the rationality of a very, very few people kept them from being launched, was for me stunningly more frightening than the prospect of being caught up in terror.
Terrorists threaten the lives of individuals, sometime many individuals, but not the existence of entire cultures. The U.S., the Russians, and others, have taken each other off their target lists, but retargeting a missile doesn't take long at all.
Actually, human evolution has sped up in the past 40,000 years. Civilization has introduced new environmental factors we've needed to adjust to (the best-known example is the emergence of adult lactose tolerance as a response to the herding of milk-producing animals), and has also led to enormous population increase and thus an increased introduction rate for new genetic traits.
But these are minor tweaks, not wholesale behavioral changes, so you're right about that. And it's been over tens of millennia. Humanity certainly hasn't changed in mere centuries except in culture.
Although those cultural changes have been profound -- the emergence of the ideas of individual rights and democracy, near-universal literacy and greatly increased access to education -- things that have altered society in wholly novel ways. But if anything, that makes it even more likely that we could cope well with alien contact, because of that more educated and cosmopolitan worldview, that exposure to a broader range of ideas.
Certainly there would be groups that wouldn't react well -- but if the reality of the aliens didn't fit their worldview, they wouldn't become insane or suicidal as a result; they'd just dismiss the aliens as a hoax, the way creationists do with the truths they find too threatening to their worldview.
Yes; yes; twice; probably, though I can't think of any examples offhand; sure; no; not since I mastered solid foods.
That's all anecdotal, of course; the truth of the matter is that the majority of the species does not live in liberal, peaceful democracies. And I needn't tell you that merely living in such societies doesn't immunize populations (or, I should rather say, majorities of said populations) from fear, ignorance, superstition, belligerance, xenophobia, chauvinisms of various sorts and so on. I do not wish to deny that slow but marked improvements have been made over the last few millenia, but they remain markedly insufficient. Or, to put it another way, what good we have achieved does not, from where I stand, outweight the bad, to ourselves and the world around us; and I am not of the opinion that stating such is an obstacle to further progress (indeed, I think it is a spur), or that, if it is a melancholy view (certainly I've never been accused of undue optimism), it is also an irrational one.
Yes, of course, because there was absolutely no way of resolving that conflict without mass slaughter and/or war crimes.
Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman
One of my pet peeves is the habit of a lot of people to imagine we are better -- more intelligent, more capable -- than our ancestors of 10 or 20 or whatever thousand years ago. We see conjectured images of neolithic people dressed in skins starting fires with pieces of rocks and we assume they are more primitive, that they aren't clever enough to do anything else. However, the only reason we don't need to resort to sparking a fire with flint and dressing in skins is because we stand on a legacy of accumulated technology, learning, and culture. If dumped into the neolithic past, or an earlier era, with our memories wiped of modern learning and tools, we wouldn't suddenly invent central heating and microwave ovens. We'd be sparking fires with flint, too.
To bring this back to the PD, perhaps an argument can be made that Starfleet and the Federation should avoid contact with cultures that do not appear ready to accept the existence of aliens as real. If a culture seems likely to deal with the arrival of a Starfleet crew by describing them as gods or devils, and their arrival as an act of magic, then don't make the contact. If a culture has an awareness of the true nature of the universe (at least understands what the lights in the sky are) then a decision on contact would depend on other criteria.
That's quite true. If anything, our ancestors were probably smarter and more capable than we are, because they didn't have technology that could do stuff for them. The human memory has gotten much worse since the invention of writing, since we haven't needed to remember as much. The average person's ability to do math has plummeted since the calculator was introduced. And we don't have to be as clever about solving problems as our "primitive" ancestors were because we have powerful machines that make it easy to solve them.
This is why many people today assume that the ancients needed alien help to build the Pyramids or Stonehenge -- because we'd be dependent on technology to do those things, and so we assume it's impossible without high technology. In fact, it just required more ingenuity, dedication, and hard work.
But how do you define readiness? It's a contradictory premise -- how can you judge how prepared a society is for something that hasn't happened yet? A society that initially seems afraid of the idea of alien life may readily let go of that fear when they see that the reality doesn't conform to their imaginings. Conversely, a society that's aware of the possibility of life on other planets might feel even more threatened when aliens arrive, because they'd have a scientific understanding of just how much power it took to get to their world from yours. (Any propulsion system powerful enough for interstellar travel is automatically a weapon of mass destruction.)
And seeing aliens/foreigners as gods or magical beings isn't necessarily a bad thing. Our culture defines "god" in a certain way -- a being of absolute power who is to be submitted to and worshipped absolutely -- but that's a consequence of our monarchical history. Different cultures see their gods in very different ways. Many Native American and Polynesian cultures perceived European explorers and colonists as divine beings, but contrary to European expectations, that didn't mean they bowed down in absolute submission. They were animists, so to them, divinity could be found on every level in nature. There were animals they considered divine but still hunted and killed. There were fellow people in their own communities, such as shamans, whom they considered divine. Interpreting Europeans as gods wasn't about surrendering or submitting to them; on the contrary, it was about taking something alien and strange and incorporating it into their existing worldview, redefining it as something they understood and knew how to cope with. It was a way of getting the foreigners under their control, in a sense.
And when the foreigners didn't behave according to the culturally defined rules for a god, then it went badly for them. The classic example is Captain Cook in Hawai'i. His crew arrived at just the right time to be assimilated into the ritual role of gods in an annual celebration, and they were received accordingly. But when they came back later at a time that was ritually inappropriate, they were slaughtered for failing to play by the rules.
So if anything, the reason for aliens to avoid playing god is more to protect themselves than to protect the natives from exploitation. It can be dangerous to pretend to be a god if you don't understand the rules a god is expected to follow, because many cultures are very unforgiving when their gods don't act as they're supposed to.
And it's the same with magic. It's a double standard for a policy that's supposed to be about respect for other cultures' autonomy to refuse to deal with any culture that doesn't define reality in our own secular terms. If anything, allowing an indigenous culture to interpret you as magical or divine is the best way to avoid "contaminating" their culture. Because then they're fitting the contact into their own pre-existing context of belief, giving it a meaning that works within their culture and doesn't disrupt their worldview. As long as you don't try to use that as a platform for exploiting them, as long as you defer to their lead and respect their right to approach and define the contact however they see fit, then it doesn't damage them (although it could damage you if you're not careful).
The important thing is to remember that neither party is passive in the interaction. It's not just about whether they're ready to deal with your existence. It's about whether you're willing to defer to their lead and let them decide what the contact means. Saying that a less advanced culture is "unready" or "too primitive" to deal with a contact without automatically being damaged is just a way of weaseling out of your own responsibility. The myth is that the indigenous cultures contacted by Europeans were damaged or destroyed because they were "unready" for contact, but the fact is that they were damaged or destroyed because the Europeans actively tried to destroy or transform them. It takes two to make an interaction, and both parties' decisions play a role in what happens.
This is what people in the 24th century have forgotten. The Prime Directive isn't just about other cultures' readiness for contact. It's about the Federation's own readiness to engage in contact responsibly. It's about cautioning explorers against overconfidence, against arrogance, against the belief that they're entitled to impose their values on other cultures. The underlying message isn't "Those aliens are too immature to handle contact with us," it's "We can't assume we're mature enough to handle contact with them." The crucial "readiness" is our own.
Yes, of course, because there was absolutely no way of resolving that conflict without mass slaughter and/or war crimes.
There is a school of thought that says just that: That the Japanese government at that time was unwilling to allow the conflict to end unless their enemy had demonstrated an absolute military victory over them, and that therefore they would only surrender after being defeated in an invasion or after seeing how incredibly powerful the atom bomb was.
I leave it to someone more familiar with Japanese history and culture to judge if that's accurate or not. But I do think we should at least consider that that is what the American government believed to be true about the Japanese government: That they would continue the war unless they were unequivocally defeated in what would have, no matter what, been a mass slaughter.
I guess I don't. I am, though, suggesting that a culture that doesn't recognize its sun and the stars for what they are but sees them as gods or manifestations of gods, that sees a need to placate and worship its gods to ensure the sun comes up, and that otherwise sees itself as the total extent of the universe, is likely to deal with the arrival of aliens on a starship by incorporating them into their pantheon of deities or devils. So, I'd give them a pass. Not necessarily because of the potential to damage that culture, though.
Both statements are true, but they assume that a society recognizes the alien visitors as alien visitors. I'm thinking in terms of a society that lacks the framework to even conceive of alien life.
Yes.
I'm not sure the Federation has a responsibility to make contact with every culture it comes across. Its own self-interest is a legitimate factor in making those decisions. While its easy to conjure up reasons to make contact with one of these "magic" cultures -- availability of raw materials, strategic military location, etc., -- in their absence I'm hard put to see the Federation's interest in dealing with a society that treats them as something they are not. The anthropologists would be disappointed, though.
But, if that decision is made, I've no reason to disagree with our approach.
See Max Hasting's recent and excellent study of the final year of the war in the Pacific, "Retribution". Also, Richard Frank's "Downfall".
Personally, I think the Japanese would not have surrendered until convinced they were incapable of offering meaningful resistance. We need to distinguish that from a willingness to resist. In the late summer of 1945, the U.S. had a choice of using the bomb, invading Japan, or blockading Japan. I doubt a blockade would have convinced Japan it was incapable of resisting, so the bomb and/or the invasion had to be chosen. The bomb was the shortcut to convincing the army and the emperor that resistance was, umm, pointless.
Well, maybe if they did encounter a culture like you describe, but that's kind of a straw man. That's hardly the only possible form that a religiously oriented society can take. And it's a prejudice of our own largely secular culture to assume that religious belief is incompatible with scientific understanding. The earliest astronomers were also astrologers. Johannes Kepler studied the heavens in order to gain a greater understanding of God. Not all spirituality is superstition.
And as I said, incorporating aliens into an existing pantheon is actually a healthy way to respond to contact. It enables a society to adjust to the contact on its own terms, to ascribe its own meaning to the event, and that minimizes the disruption. If the contact is brief, then it merely becomes part of their mythology, no harm done. If the contact is prolonged, then they can gradually adjust to the objective truth at their own pace, analogously to the way indigenous cultures have historically assimilated new religions when allowed to do so without coercion: first blending elements of them with their own traditional beliefs (a process called syncretism), then later learning more about the orthodoxy of their new faith and instituting reform movements to bring that "truth" to their people. Since it's gradual and initiated within the culture itself, it's part of their natural process of development. (Although it can be turbulent; those reform movements are often fundamentalist and hostile to the syncretic forms that precede them.)
Besides, as I said, not every religion is structured like Western religions. "God" doesn't universally mean "absolute monarch." In an animist faith, where everything from a tree to a stream to a rock is presumed to have a spirit or deity occupying it, is it really so horrible to ascribe spiritual significance to an alien? Essentially that means treating the aliens the same way as everything else is treated.
Literally, "alien" just means "other." We sometimes use "alien" to mean "person from another country," as in "illegal alien" or "resident alien." My former example applies merely to any society that seems threatened by the unfamiliar. And the latter implicitly would recognize alien visitors (in the outer-space sense) as such, because that's part of the premise.
That's a spurious notion. When faced with the new, a society will fit new ideas into its own framework, defining them by analogy. That's what we all do, regardless of our society. If you or I encountered aliens, we'd interpret them by analogy with the aliens in science fiction, or by analogy with animals they resembled, or by analogy with nations or factions we're familiar with. Those analogies would not be accurate, but they'd be first approximations that we could use to get a handle on the new input, and we'd gradually refine them as we got to know the aliens better. That's simply how the mind works in any situation, how it deals with any new input -- first match it to an existing analogy, then refine that analogy to become closer to the reality. There is no such thing as "lacking the framework to even conceive" of anything. The existing framework of experience and analogy serves to start with, and a new, better framework can then be built through experience.
I wasn't saying it did. I was saying that if contact brings damage, then the society making contact is usually at least partly responsible for that -- that blaming the damage solely on the contacted society's weakness is a way of dodging culpability.
I didn't mean to suggest it was. I also don't mean to lean heavily on the religious thing, just the absence of a realistic view of the cosmos. It seems to me, though, that at some point in its development, a culture is very likely not even going to take cognizance of the possibility of alien (human) life. Then, someone pops up over the hill and they have to deal with it. As you say, they'd also deal with alien (outer space) life when it arrived. Whether that would be to the benefit of the visited or the visitors, i.e., the Federation, is another question.
Absolutely. But, I do think the odds of something going awry increase when the visited culture does not, for whatever reason, recognize the aliens for what they really are. If nothing else, it forces the visitors into playing their expected role, which, as you've pointed out, can be problematic. And there's the chance of "Why didn't you tell us?" blowback when the local folks figure it out.
See, that's still making a value judgment -- assuming that another culture should be judged by your own standards. And that's just the kind of ethnocentrism the Prime Directive is supposed to be guarding against. Does it matter if their worldview is "realistic" by your standards so long as it works for them? The key question isn't whether their beliefs conform to yours. It's whether you're willing to respect their right to believe what they wish rather than trying to impose your own values and expectations. And refusing to contact a culture -- and thereby denying them access to medicines, improved agriculture, and other lifesaving techniques -- just because they don't share your worldview is just as arrogant and self-serving as taking them over and forcing them to abandon their beliefs.
History is full of interactions between cultures with radically different worldviews. Heck, those go on within a single society -- just look at any debate between scientists and Creationists. Different worldviews don't preclude interaction. As long as each side respects the other's right to its own beliefs and practices, there's no trouble.
Didn't I already address this? For most of history, people considered the world to be a mostly unknown place. They had no idea what kind of strange peoples might exist beyond the horizon or across the sea, and many of their speculations were no less bizarre than our imaginings about aliens today. And Victorian-era Westerners took it for granted that the Moon, Venus, and Mars would surely be populated with strange inhabitants. Most cultures have always been open to the possibility of alien life, if not extraterrestrial life. The Other is the Other, regardless of its place of origin.
Coming at it in cultural-anthropology terms, "what they really are" is a subjective concept. What they really are to one culture is different from what they really are to another culture. Every contact means something different to each different party, and both views need to be respected, because each side interprets the contact in the way that works best for it. Who's to say that what I think I am is what I really am, in terms of the effect I have on others? I probably have my own illusions about myself, just as others have their illusions about me. Both sides in a contact are going to be defining themselves, as well as each other, in somewhat subjective ways. For instance, the imperial British defined themselves as saviors and liberators bringing peace and enlightenment to the world. Surely you can't deny that was an illusion.
Again, the critical mistake in evaluating the Prime Directive is to focus solely on the other guy's illusions and conceptual difficulties instead of considering your own. Doing the right thing starts with getting your own house in order.
all i asked were details on the typhon pact!
Making an accurate statement about a culture's understanding of their world and the universe isn't tantamount to making a value judgment. A culture either recognizes the stars for what they are or they don't. Humanity did not for most of our history. Acknowledging that is not a value judgment.
It's a matter of knowing. A culture either knows that the stars are objects just like their sun, or they believe they are something else. What I suggested, a while back, is that the Federation might want to consider that before making contact. To me, it represents a more appropriate guideline than the warp-drive threshold, which is an unnecessarily high standard. (Assuming that the PD will remain in some form and won't be turned on its head to direct involvement with every newly found culture.) Whether their worldview works for them shouldn't be part of the equation under this approach, just as it doesn't seem to have been under the current PD.
Yes, but my conjecture is about a culture that has yet to even conceive of the possibility of others.
Of course, but knowing that the guys in the spaceship that just landed in the park are beings from another planet is not a subjective matter. It's a very objective matter. You either know what they are -- aliens from outer space -- or you're wrong.
In the context of a cross-cultural interaction, it is. That's what we're talking about: whether or not a contact would be harmful to their culture. What matters in that sense isn't whether they have as much book-learning as you. What matters is whether you are willing to respect their right to their own beliefs rather than forcing your own on them. It doesn't matter whether they know what the stars really are, not for the purposes of what we're talking about. If they can't understand where you're really from, they'll invent an explanation that works for them, that makes sense in their terms. And as long as you don't try to take advantage of that situation to mislead or exploit them, that won't be harmful to them, because it means their perception of the contact will be compatible with their existing worldview.
The myth is that the harm comes from the less advanced culture's ignorance. The reality is that the harm comes from the more advanced culture's imposition of its own values and agendas, its attempt to "cure" them of that ignorance.
Again, missing the point. It's not about them; it's about you. That's where your focus needs to lie. Regardless of what the culture believes, what matters is what approach you choose to take in interacting with them. There's no absolute benchmark for when a culture is "ready." The success or failure of the contact isn't going to ride on anything as simplistic as whether they know what the stars are. If they don't know that, they can learn easily enough, and if they're not culturally prepared to accept it, they'll just humor you when you explain it, then laugh at you behind your back and go on believing whatever they want. The success of the contact depends on whether you let them do that, whether you let them absorb and experience the contact in a way that fits comfortably into their view of the universe.
That's the most contradictory statement I've ever heard. Their worldview is absolutely crucial to the equation. That's what it's all about. This is how cultural interaction works. Each culture has a different worldview that it brings to the contact. Each defines the events and participants of the contact in a different way, one compatible with its view of the world. As long as both sides are free to do that, there's no interference, no disruption, no damage -- just two entities sharing an interaction and taking away from it what they're comfortable with. Disruption happens when one side tries to impose its worldview on the other, to force them to adopt a worldview that they don't want.
The whole point of the Prime Directive is about protecting other cultures' right to their own worldviews, about forbidding the Federation from trying to pressure them to change those worldviews. The mistake of most interpretations of the PD is the assumption that any contact with an outside worldview would automatically jeopardize the indigenous worldview. I've tried to explain that real-life history and cultural anthropology demonstrate that this is a lie -- that cultural worldviews are robust and adaptable and will not be disrupted by a contact unless the contacting power tries to impose its worldview coercively.
Another straw man. Never going to happen. No planet is monocultural. Every culture has a history of meeting and interacting with other populations. At the very least, every culture has interaction with other species of animal, and it's quite routine for people to imagine those animals as sentient or possessed of supernatural spirits.
Heck, anyone who doesn't live in absolute isolation is aware of the existence of others -- other people in their own community or family. Neurologically speaking, the perception of the interaction between oneself and other individuals is the template for the perceptions of other interactions. We're hardwired to look at other people and imagine what they might be thinking or feeling, and it's therefore automatic for us to do the same when we look at other animals. We're also hardwired to be aware of the continued existence of people who aren't in our immediate surroundings at the moment, so it's automatic for us to contemplate the existence and actions of thinking beings beyond what we can perceive. From the dawn of time, humans have recognized the possibility of others, have imagined the existence of nonhuman spirits and consciousnesses. It's a natural outgrowth of the way our brains work. And any other sapient, communicative species would be hardwired the same way, out of necessity.
And from TrekMovie.com, here is what we know.
The 24th century starts to come together
In 2009 Pocket has nine novels set in the 24th century covering all three series (Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and Voyager) as well as ‘Titan’ and ‘New Frontier’ novel-series. All of the books carry on the recent trend of moving the stories forward beyond the series finales. Clark says they have listened to the fans, and the fans "want to know what happens next." In fact, not only do the stories continue in progression, but they are also coming into alignment. 2008 ended with David Mack’s excellent Destiny Trilogy which brought together TNG, Titan and an element of DS9 (the USS Aventine captained by Ezri Dax), all into the same timeframe. In 2009 Pocket will keep these series in sync and bring the Voyager book series into alignment as well. The DS9 books will remain a few years behind (for now), and Peter David’s ‘New Frontier’ will continue to do its own thing. Even though there is a new emphasis on continuity throughout the 24th century novels (within series and between series), Clark emphasized that the books are still ’stand along’ and do not require you to have read the others, however if you do you have a whole new layer of enjoyment.
Post Destiny & TNG (and how other 24th century books tie together)
David Mack’s Destiny trilogy really shook things up in the 24th Century, and in this case there is no big reset button. Instead Pocket is carrying on the story, starting off in late January with "Singular Destiny," by Keith R.A. DeCandido. This book will be more of a political story akin to DeCandido’s "Articles of the Federation," with a focus on the aftermath of Destiny and Federation President Nanietta Bacco. In July with "TNG: Losing the Peace," by William Leisner, Captain Picard and his crew on the Enterprise E will pick up the post-Destiny thread, while he also tries to balance his new family life with Beverly and their expected child. Added on top of this will be a new ‘meta story,’ Clark explains how this this all ties together:
"The repercussions of what has happened to the Federation after the Borg invasion [in Destiny], and right now the books in 2009 are just starting to deal with them. In "Singular Destiny" the President [of the UFP] sends out the Aventine to find out if the things she is hearing about regarding this new alien threat are true. In "TNG: Losing the Peace" we see Picard trying to deal with the vast array of civilian casualties and how the Federation deals the want and need…this is something we have never seen in the 24th Century…But the Federation is still committed to exploration which the President does action so Starfleet Command sends out both the Voyager and the Titan to explore, to continue boldly going."
I disagree. Recognizing whether or not an individual or a culture knows the truth about something is not a value judgment. Pointing out that I can't speak French is not a value judgment, it's a recognition of reality.
I don't disagree with your arguments, but they aren't necessarily relevant to the decision-making process that I see happening.
I've not been talking about whether or not contact would harm a culture. I've been talking about the reasons why contact would or would not be made. I'm assuming the Federation's self-interest plays a legitimate role in that decision, along with a desire to avoid harm. In some cases, contact would be legitimate even if harmful.
We began by saying that the warp-drive threshold was unsatisfactory. That said, the available options are to have no threshold and contact everyone, to contact no one, or to contact some cultures based on some other threshold. I don't think the first option is necessarily in the Federation's best interests, and the second option is untenable for a space-faring culture. That leaves the last option. My choice for a threshold would be that the culture has an accurate awareness of the reality of the stars. (And, of course, the threshold is a guideline, not a dictate.)
For me, their beliefs, etc., don't factor into this because the Federation has no right to impose its values and beliefs on a society. So, whether a culture explains the lights in the sky by resort to religion, mythology, or magic, or doesn't even bother with an explanation, shouldn't play into it. The only thing that matters is that they have the wrong understanding of the lights in the sky. Even though, as you explain, some cultures might deal with it all rather easily, we wouldn't know how they would react, so we would not know if or how our arrival might do harm. Unless there is a compelling reason to initiate contact, I think it should be avoided in such instances.
^^I'll say again: the idea of a single uniform "threshold" for deciding on whether to contact a society makes no sense. Each case is unique and needs to be judged on its own merits. Hundreds of different factors could come into play.
And what if not contacting them does more harm than contacting them? What if they're dying from a plague you could easily cure? Do you condemn them to die just because they don't know what the stars really are? How is that any better than conquering them?
Conversely, what if they have something that could benefit you? Just because they're not as schooled in astronomy doesn't mean they're lacking in ideas, abilities, or resources. There can and should be no blanket rule for these situations. It has to be case-by-case or it's uselessly reductionistic.
And what if not contacting them does more harm than contacting them? What if they're dying from a plague you could easily cure? Do you condemn them to die just because they don't know what the stars really are? How is that any better than conquering them?
Conversely, what if they have something that could benefit you? Just because they're not as schooled in astronomy doesn't mean they're lacking in ideas, abilities, or resources. There can and should be no blanket rule for these situations. It has to be case-by-case or it's uselessly reductionistic.
Prior contacts, for starters, and most blatantly sub-light contacts. Back before the novelistic canon of Alpha Centauri as a post-Cochrane human colony was set up, Strangers From The Sky (and others) said that the UNSS Icarus left Earth in the early 2040s, arriving at Alpha Centauri later in the decade to discover a society of Preserver-transplanted hominids. Does pre-contact culture x and not y get to enjoy First Contact because its first successful star had a warp drive while y had an antimatter-catalyzed fusion drive?
I've always been curious to know what the Federation would do with a technological civilization that managed to build a thriving culture that had colonized the dozen nearest planetary systems with launch laser-propelled generation starships and was enthusiastically heading down the transhumanist trajectory in regards to nanotechnology and biotechnology ... all achieved entirely in the electromagnetic spectrum and without the benefit of warp. Pre-warp savages or Special Case?
I can also think of less obvious calls for exceptions. Right now, at our current level of technology and based on the resources we know to exist elsewhere in our own planetary system, there is little economic incentive to engage in the sort of the settlement of our system that could eventually lead up to the indigenous production of warp drive. (Maybe if Mars was a garden world ...) In Trek canon, we know that all of the enduring human settlements, in-system and elsewhere, came about only after First Contact. What will be done with an advanced, peaceful, united species that lives almost entirely on its homeworld and hasn't thought it worth the bother to go elsewhere?
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I haven't suggested that each case be decided via some kind of tripwire threshold. I've proposed a guideline that, I believe, demarcates two very different kind of cultures.
Is the Federation to provide no guidance at all to its personnel and let the contact decision rest solely with the ship's captain on the scene?
In most instances, you can't measure the impact of contact until contact has been made. Likewise, it is impossible for a newly located culture to participate in the contact decision because, obviously, that participation requires prior contact.
Obviously, the eradication of a plague-like illness would normally call for intervention of some form. Even there, however, direct contact might not be necessary if not required to wipe out the disease.
I've pointed out several times that the Federation's self-interest has a legitimate role to play in any contact decision. The Federation is not the Mother Teresa of the galaxy.
We're debating tiny shreds of difference. You've come close to proposing the elimination of the PD. I've proposed a guideline that draws a threshold that is dramatically less constraining than the existing directive.
I will suggest that, even if the PD was eliminated, an informal de facto threshold would quickly develop in Starfleet. Captains facing contact decisions would look to the precedents set by other captains. They would contact Starfleet to seek guidance, and the officers at Starfleet would turn to guidance previously given. Inevitably, certain markers of a culture's status and condition would be used to shape contact decisions.
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