Was the directive broken?

[marsh8472]

It's pretty clear in the various series and movies that when Starfleet personnel use the term "lifeforms" they are specifically referring to intelligent life, and not life in general. So I think when McCoy spoke of "life" he was referring to sapient people, and not simply anything alive.Archer doesn't wash his hands? gross.

Not clear enough for me.

From Voyager Episode "Infinite Regress"

NAOMI: How about the suborders of the Prime Directive? I know all forty seven of them.

depositing new lifeforms on a planet may be violating one of those 47 suborders of the prime directive

TNG "A Matter of Time"

PICARD: Of course, you know of the Prime Directive, which tells us that we have no right to interfere with the natural evolution of alien worlds. Now I have sworn to uphold it, but nevertheless I have disregarded that directive on more than one occasion because I thought it was the right thing to do. Now, if you are holding on to some temporal equivalent of that directive, then isn't it possible that you have an occasion here to make an exception, to help me to choose, because it's the right thing to do?

if altering the natural evolution of worlds is a violation of the prime directive, introducing new species to an ecosystem could cause sufficient alteration of the natural evolution of life on that planet.

TNG "Homesoil"

PICARD: Doctor Crusher is still making her determination. Mister Mandl, you know the Prime Directive.
MANDL: Are you saying that I knowingly defied it?
PICARD: That's what I have to find out. You're a man obsessed with what you do. Who knows what an obsessed man will do to keep going? Kill, perhaps?
MANDL: I create life. I don't take it.

Picard accused Mandl of violating the prime directive before he found out that the life they were investigating was intelligent life.

 

[at Quark's]

If monkeys or fish start talking... The Federation would have to leave, and take all their technology with them. So it's not like they would settle somewhere where the animals were a couple dozens years away developing sapience.

In a novel I read, they were talking about how the Enterprise D has to be cut up and taken away before the prewarp people living one planet over noticed the plethora of alien tech resting there in a crater like a cheap yard sale.

Hmmm… interesting question. What would the Federation do if, say, a 2nd species on earth started to become sapient? (Excluding species like dolphins etc, which possibly already are to some degree)

Of course the question isn't practical as evolutionary timescales are much longer than a few centuries, but still… how far would they be willing to go to protect the PD? Would they vacate earth … or perhaps relocate that species, or just let it happen because the situation arises naturally and is not a result of them space-traveling and interfering?

 

[Guy Gardener]

That would be a purely internal matter and the Federation couldn't lean on United Earth policy... Although if the United Earth acted like a dick, they would most likely be kicked out of the Federation.

 

[Lynx]

Well, if you really consider "Threshold" as a real episode, then it was wrong to leave the lizard kids on the planet, taking their parents from them.

But I'm not sure if it would have violated the Prime Directive.

Possibly, but I'm not sure.

However, I consider "Threshold" to be nothing more than a nightmare Janeway had after eating too much of Neelix's food so I consider the whole thing quite irrelevant.

I mean, the whole episode is so weird that it can't be explained in any other way.

 

[Ghislaine H. B. BRAEME]

Oh it was, and even at repeated occasions but I think that Janeway did it, with full knowledge of the evidence for the very first time in "Time and Again" in season 1 - Episode 4, after she and Tom Paris found themselves transported in another temporal universe.

JANEWAY: We can assume that Voyager will be looking for a way to reach us. I'll set my comm. badge to emit a subspace beacon. If they get close, maybe they'll pick it up. I know.
PARIS: Maybe there's some way that
JANEWAY: Don't even think about it, Tom. The Prime Directive is clear. We cannot allow our presence to alter this planet's natural course of events.
PARIS: Even if the natural course of events is annihilation?
JANEWAY: Yeah.
PARIS: My father used to talk at length to us about the Prime Directive, once a year, like a holiday sermon.
JANEWAY: He considered it the guiding principle of space exploration.
PARIS: To be honest, I tuned out most of his sermons years ago.
JANEWAY: Well, tune back into this one, because I agree with him. You have no idea what the consequences might be once you involve yourself.
PARIS: The consequences would have to be better than mass destruction.
JANEWAY: You're not to warn these people. That's an order.

then later

JANEWAY: You wanted the truth, all right, here's the truth. We're from the future. Exactly one day in the future.
LATIKA: You mean I was right?
PARIS: We weren't allowed to tell. At least, I thought we weren't.
JANEWAY: In a few hours from now there will be a serious accident on this world. It will be caused by a polaric detonation. We came here in an interstellar ship to investigate that explosion. When we arrived, we were exposed to the polaric radiation.

PARIS: I don't get it, Captain, this morning you were giving orders about not interfering because of the Prime Directive, and now you're telling them everything.
JANEWAY: I told them the truth when I realised we'd already violated the Prime Directive in the worst possible manner.
PARIS: How did we do that?
JANEWAY: Just by being here. Because if we hadn't been here it's very possible this world would not have been destroyed.
PARIS: What?
JANEWAY: Think about it, Tom. Before we got involved, these people were planning to commit some kind of sabotage next week. We were the ones who forced a change in their schedule. Because of us, they decided to begin today at four hundred rotations, and we know the detonation takes place today at just after four hundred and one .
PARIS: Four oh one twenty two eighty four. Wait a minute. You're saying we're responsible for an explosion even though it occurred before our ship arrived here.
JANEWAY: We've travelled back to a point in time before the explosion, so, yes, we can be responsible for it.
PARIS: Let's say we never came, and their plans didn't change. Wouldn't the accident simply have occurred next week instead of today?
JANEWAY: Who knows what might have happened between now and then. They could have been arrested before they got a chance to carry it out, conditions at the plant might not have been the same next week. But it's become our problem now, Tom, and we have got to find a way to solve it.

 

[criscodisco]

Oh it was, and even at repeated occasions but I think that Janeway did it, with full knowledge of the evidence for the very first time in "Time and Again" in season 1 - Episode 4, after she and Tom Paris found themselves transported in another temporal universe.

JANEWAY: We can assume that Voyager will be looking for a way to reach us. I'll set my comm. badge to emit a subspace beacon. If they get close, maybe they'll pick it up. I know.
PARIS: Maybe there's some way that
JANEWAY: Don't even think about it, Tom. The Prime Directive is clear. We cannot allow our presence to alter this planet's natural course of events.
PARIS: Even if the natural course of events is annihilation?
JANEWAY: Yeah.
PARIS: My father used to talk at length to us about the Prime Directive, once a year, like a holiday sermon.
JANEWAY: He considered it the guiding principle of space exploration.
PARIS: To be honest, I tuned out most of his sermons years ago.
JANEWAY: Well, tune back into this one, because I agree with him. You have no idea what the consequences might be once you involve yourself.
PARIS: The consequences would have to be better than mass destruction.
JANEWAY: You're not to warn these people. That's an order.

then later

JANEWAY: You wanted the truth, all right, here's the truth. We're from the future. Exactly one day in the future.
LATIKA: You mean I was right?
PARIS: We weren't allowed to tell. At least, I thought we weren't.
JANEWAY: In a few hours from now there will be a serious accident on this world. It will be caused by a polaric detonation. We came here in an interstellar ship to investigate that explosion. When we arrived, we were exposed to the polaric radiation.

PARIS: I don't get it, Captain, this morning you were giving orders about not interfering because of the Prime Directive, and now you're telling them everything.
JANEWAY: I told them the truth when I realised we'd already violated the Prime Directive in the worst possible manner.
PARIS: How did we do that?
JANEWAY: Just by being here. Because if we hadn't been here it's very possible this world would not have been destroyed.
PARIS: What?
JANEWAY: Think about it, Tom. Before we got involved, these people were planning to commit some kind of sabotage next week. We were the ones who forced a change in their schedule. Because of us, they decided to begin today at four hundred rotations, and we know the detonation takes place today at just after four hundred and one .
PARIS: Four oh one twenty two eighty four. Wait a minute. You're saying we're responsible for an explosion even though it occurred before our ship arrived here.
JANEWAY: We've travelled back to a point in time before the explosion, so, yes, we can be responsible for it.
PARIS: Let's say we never came, and their plans didn't change. Wouldn't the accident simply have occurred next week instead of today?
JANEWAY: Who knows what might have happened between now and then. They could have been arrested before they got a chance to carry it out, conditions at the plant might not have been the same next week. But it's become our problem now, Tom, and we have got to find a way to solve it.

I feel like Voyager's computer would use most of its processing power to run the odds on literally every movement they made changing the eventual fate of the galaxy around them, at least to meet up with Janeway's definition of the prime directive.

 

[STEPhon IT]

Oh it was, and even at repeated occasions but I think that Janeway did it, with full knowledge of the evidence for the very first time in "Time and Again" in season 1 - Episode 4, after she and Tom Paris found themselves transported in another temporal universe.

JANEWAY: We can assume that Voyager will be looking for a way to reach us. I'll set my comm. badge to emit a subspace beacon. If they get close, maybe they'll pick it up. I know.
PARIS: Maybe there's some way that
JANEWAY: Don't even think about it, Tom. The Prime Directive is clear. We cannot allow our presence to alter this planet's natural course of events.
PARIS: Even if the natural course of events is annihilation?
JANEWAY: Yeah.
PARIS: My father used to talk at length to us about the Prime Directive, once a year, like a holiday sermon.
JANEWAY: He considered it the guiding principle of space exploration.
PARIS: To be honest, I tuned out most of his sermons years ago.
JANEWAY: Well, tune back into this one, because I agree with him. You have no idea what the consequences might be once you involve yourself.
PARIS: The consequences would have to be better than mass destruction.
JANEWAY: You're not to warn these people. That's an order.

then later

JANEWAY: You wanted the truth, all right, here's the truth. We're from the future. Exactly one day in the future.
LATIKA: You mean I was right?
PARIS: We weren't allowed to tell. At least, I thought we weren't.
JANEWAY: In a few hours from now there will be a serious accident on this world. It will be caused by a polaric detonation. We came here in an interstellar ship to investigate that explosion. When we arrived, we were exposed to the polaric radiation.

PARIS: I don't get it, Captain, this morning you were giving orders about not interfering because of the Prime Directive, and now you're telling them everything.
JANEWAY: I told them the truth when I realised we'd already violated the Prime Directive in the worst possible manner.
PARIS: How did we do that?
JANEWAY: Just by being here. Because if we hadn't been here it's very possible this world would not have been destroyed.
PARIS: What?
JANEWAY: Think about it, Tom. Before we got involved, these people were planning to commit some kind of sabotage next week. We were the ones who forced a change in their schedule. Because of us, they decided to begin today at four hundred rotations, and we know the detonation takes place today at just after four hundred and one .
PARIS: Four oh one twenty two eighty four. Wait a minute. You're saying we're responsible for an explosion even though it occurred before our ship arrived here.
JANEWAY: We've travelled back to a point in time before the explosion, so, yes, we can be responsible for it.
PARIS: Let's say we never came, and their plans didn't change. Wouldn't the accident simply have occurred next week instead of today?
JANEWAY: Who knows what might have happened between now and then. They could have been arrested before they got a chance to carry it out, conditions at the plant might not have been the same next week. But it's become our problem now, Tom, and we have got to find a way to solve it.

Janeway is the ultimate hypocrite, what a wonderful way to display a lack of ethics to a subordinate. There's a moment where the student will challenge the Master and when shite hits the fan, the Master will be challenged--its THAT moment when the Master needs to step up and wear her big girl skirt and stand up for what she believes in because the student needs to learn. This was Voyager to a T, it was hard to buy those episodes because the writing couldn't be taken seriously.

 

[Megadoomer]

The directive allowed for interpretative flexibility depending on the situation. Plus, Voyager is super quick, which is helpful in case their self-righteous behavior isn't well-received by the natives. I love the prime directive. It justifies just about anything you do or don't do.