The Prime Directive is focused on the natural development of any species development if Starfleet doesn't interfere.
If Janeway wasn't there.
How would things have played out?
Which is exactly the argument which those Ferengi used to win over Janeway so that they could continue exploiting those hapless aborigines.
So Voyager hadn't been pulled into the Delta Quadrant?
The Kazon might have gotten around Caretakers self destruct, and if they did, they would have taken the Array... Considering they'd been putting plans together to seize the array for years, gods, they noticed the power beaming had been increasing in speed, they weren't idiots, it seems likely that could take out the Arrays selfdestruct without too much effort considering how well they did that exact same dealio to Voyager in Basics.
it's their thing.
Their entire fleet, is predicated on the fact that they took the trabe Fleet before their captains could activate their self destructs... Do you have any idea how the Trabe would have been treated? Imagine Scarlett form Gone with the Wind suddenly kicked in the face every time they think that she isn't on her hands and knees scrubbing the floor fast enough if the Coloured people had won the US Civil War?
In personal terms.
Remember when you first moved from home and your mother kept trying to clean your apartment? 2 possibilities. Either you let her and you never learned to look after yourself, or you didn't let her and took responsibility for your own filth... You know I'm talking directly to you about your 20s, and your spouse making your life a delight right now is just an emergency replacement for your mother.
If Bryce Ewing jumped off a bridge would you?
It doesn't matter how every one else was meddling in the affairs of younger races, their chickens would come home to roost, so what if caretaker screwed over the Ocampa, saving them from the Caretaker is also screwing them over and saving he Ocampa from the Kazon is also screwing them over. So what if they die out, maybe down the line the Kazon will remember all that genocide, feel bad about it and grow up. Bad things pile up until somethign good happens, sometimes.
Some species, it is there lot to be preyed upon by a stronger older race and diverted, perverted into new direction other than cultural momentum would have sent them.
PICARD: Mirasta said it would be a mistake to discuss this with you.
DURKEN: Yes, she's tried to accept the responsibility.
PICARD: It was my error, not hers. Chancellor, there is no starship mission more dangerous than that of first contact. We never know what we will face when we open the door on a new world, how we will be greeted, what exactly the dangers will be. Centuries ago, a disastrous contact with the Klingon Empire led to decades of war. It was decided then we would do surveillance before making contact. It was a controversial decision. I believe it prevented more problems than it created.
DURKEN: I can appreciate the logic of your position, Captain. But it would seem a full disclosure after contact would have been in order.
PICARD: In time there would have been full disclosure. I can only ask you to believe that. On other worlds it would not be an issue. But here, everything our observers reported indicated that the people of this world would almost certainly react negatively to our arrival. We could see that even surveillance might even be interpreted as an act of aggression. I hoped that we would have found Commander Riker before you did so the matter would not complicate our introduction. It was a mistake.
Janeway forgot that the Prime Directive was supposed to protect the Kazon from her, and herself from the Kazon, of which she did neither.
Lord Manitou, you're one brave SOB.
