I've been checking out this rather amusing blog and was reminded that in season one, there are multiple un-addressed Prime Directive violations. (In this case beaming up one of the Edo). What's your in-universe explanation for this?
What's your explanation for early TNG prime directive violations?
- Thread starter hxclespaulplayer
- Start date
Technically, if the Edo were a pre-warp civilization, then the Enterprise shouldn't have been there at all. Just having the Edo even aware of their existence is a violation of the Prime Directive.
Now if the Edo knew about alien life, than that's possibly a workaround to being on the planet. But then how does the PD interpret this? I mean, how much are the Starfleeters able to reveal about themselves? I'm pretty sure that beaming one of them aboard the ship is a definite no-no.
I think that this early in the series, TNG was basically no different from TOS in terms of stuff like this. The PD was interpreted very loosely if even at all.
Now if the Edo knew about alien life, than that's possibly a workaround to being on the planet. But then how does the PD interpret this? I mean, how much are the Starfleeters able to reveal about themselves? I'm pretty sure that beaming one of them aboard the ship is a definite no-no.
I think that this early in the series, TNG was basically no different from TOS in terms of stuff like this. The PD was interpreted very loosely if even at all.
Nowhere in Trek is it established that being "pre-warp" would be grounds for a quarantine. Apparently, ability to build warp drives is not relevant to making contact - awareness of space aliens is. It just so happens that the former automatically results in the latter!
The Edo seem perfectly comfortable with the idea of space aliens, and our heroes never pretend to be anything else. From the get-go, it appears well established that the natives are frequently receiving visitors from outer space, even though they themselves don't venture off their paradise planet. (Whether all those visitors get crushed by God, or only those audacious enough to drop colonists in the 'hood, we don't know. But then again, neither would the Edo.)
Timo Saloniemi
The Edo seem perfectly comfortable with the idea of space aliens, and our heroes never pretend to be anything else. From the get-go, it appears well established that the natives are frequently receiving visitors from outer space, even though they themselves don't venture off their paradise planet. (Whether all those visitors get crushed by God, or only those audacious enough to drop colonists in the 'hood, we don't know. But then again, neither would the Edo.)
Timo Saloniemi
The Federation's first contact protocol was established in the TNG episode "First Contact."
...Regarding one special case, a civilization that did not yet know of outsiders but was on the verge of learning, thanks to launching a warp-driven vessel.
Nothing in the wording of the episode suggests the discovery of indigenous means of warp travel as such would be significant wrt the PD. All those other episodes featuring natives who just barely know how to forge steel but are best buddies with space aliens can easily fit the same mold.
Why is the beaming up of one Edo significant anyway? The heroes had contacted the planet, asked for introductory material including a collation of laws and rules, visited the place in person (Riker beamed down for the second time when we saw him beam down for the first time, as is evident from the dialogue), and then began beaming down en masse. They spoke openly of their interstellar Federation. If there was "damage" to be done, they had been doing it for hours if not days already, with intent and deliberation.
Timo Saloniemi
Nothing in the wording of the episode suggests the discovery of indigenous means of warp travel as such would be significant wrt the PD. All those other episodes featuring natives who just barely know how to forge steel but are best buddies with space aliens can easily fit the same mold.
Why is the beaming up of one Edo significant anyway? The heroes had contacted the planet, asked for introductory material including a collation of laws and rules, visited the place in person (Riker beamed down for the second time when we saw him beam down for the first time, as is evident from the dialogue), and then began beaming down en masse. They spoke openly of their interstellar Federation. If there was "damage" to be done, they had been doing it for hours if not days already, with intent and deliberation.
Timo Saloniemi
Writers working it out as they went along, as they also did in TOS. I don't try to rationalize bugs in a product as canon. They're just bugs.
That's no excuse, however, for their final production's romp across the planet in an ATV. "Star Trek Nemesis" was just bad writing. But in both cases, I dismiss it from canon.
Which is exactly what I said in my first post. But again, where does the Federation draw the line with contact? Let's say the Edo were aware of aliens and had been visited by them before. So by the rules of the Prime Directive, Picard isn't interfering with the development of their culture by simply being on the planet. But any technology he uses while there that the Edo don't already possess of their own would be interfering, especially such things as transporters, tricorders, and directed-energy phaser weapons. But we don't even have to go that far.
Wesley broke one of the Edo's rules that both he and the rest of the Starfleet personnel were unaware of. Which meant that the Federation didn't have the necessary information about this culture before the crew beamed down, information that didn't seem all that difficult to obtain beforehand. This is why Federation personnel go undercover and utilize duck-blind research outposts ahead of time.
But instead, an alien teenager inadvertently breaks the law, but according to the Edo, he must be sentenced to death for what he did. Picard then proceeds to give the Edo the figurative middle finger and takes Wesley away before they can kill him. So Picard has just interfered with this culture by basically saying that we aliens don't give a crap about your laws. Now the Edo will be distrustful of all offworlders because of this, and their society will be changed because of it. All because of the Federation's shortsightedness and possible violation of the PD.
The problem with the episode is that it's written and filmed in such a way that the audience is supposed to actually go along with Picard's decision, because hey, these hedonistic Ken-and-Barbi-doll bimbos with see-through clothing, rampant sex and massages and ridiculous laws about killing you for trampling some stupid plants are really just being silly, and it's hard to take you and your dumb laws seriously when your boobs, ass, and schlong are sticking out of your paper-thin outfits that would make even William Ware Theiss blush. Not to mention that there's no way in hell you're gonna kill off our cute little wunderkind, since we need him to help save the ship from destruction on a weekly basis.
I imagine a deleted scene where Picard is riding the turbolift with some wide eyed ensign and something is nagging at him. Then snaps his fingers "The prime directive! That's the one." Then walks out. Then the camera zooms in on the ensign like in The Office.
Picard just asked "WWKD?" What would Kirk do?
I think Picard's decision is clearly wrong. But there was no way he was going to allow Wesley Crusher to die due to Yar's (and ultimately his own) incompetence.
But, another angle would be, if the Edo really do think that the sky station that is phasing in and out is a God and their ultimate authority, then Picard may be able to get off on the Prime Directive violation due to a technicality.
That was my thought too. The Edo were in contact with a more advanced race, that race was more advanced than the Federation and Star Fleet and were obviously not bound by non-interference, and the Edo laws were not their own; they were imposed.
But that's already covered by the "it's okay to make contact with them" decision. For one thing, interstellar aliens obviously will have alien and advanced technologies such as, well, starships. The whole point of making contact is to bring the natives into a community that regularly operates such technologies and benefits from them.
Yet the other side of the coin is that now that there is contact, there won't be anything about the native culture to preserve - they have already been spoiled for good, as they will now be developing as members of the interstellar community, rather than on their own. There's no benefit for the community from keeping the natives oppressed and in the dark about technologies, as the natives no longer will contribute astounding indigenous ideas anyway, now that they have access go Google.
There's no halfway solution there, of "almost" telling the natives about the Federation. Heck, the Feds will be lucky to get even one idealistic speech in before the Ferengi, Klingons and Breen all come bearing gifts and insisting that there's absolutely no excuse for the Federation to stop them from interfering now that the Feds themselves are meddling here.
Timo Saloniemi
IrishNero
Commodore
The 'Prime Directive' is a judgment call, and I think that the only way to truly follow its tenets is to operate in an observational capacity only. Every time you interact with a civilization to any significant degree, you are going to affect that civilization's development to some degree. Ultimately, it's not a yes or no proposition. It's a question of how much you're going to change their development.
But the only possible answer is "totally". So it is a yes-or-no proposition after all...
The PD can be seen to be useful in two ways:
1) It keeps cultures "virgin" for the maximum time possible, allowing them to come up with cool new ideas the UFP can assimilate when finally making contact. It's too bad that none of those ideas can be more "advanced" than the invention of warp drive or subspace communications, because these two ideas make short work of the virginity of thought and innovation.
2) It keeps Starfleet officers from having too much personal influence. This is by far the more important aspect here, as the PD doesn't do much good in keeping civilians or foreigners out of these pre-contact planets. Indeed, the PD extends far beyond the point of contact in its role of limiting Starfleet powers, as seen when it stops Sisko from interfering with the Bajoran "civil unrest" or Picard with the Klingon "civil war" (until it is revealed these involve outside agents, who are free game for Starfleet).
Timo Saloniemi
The PD can be seen to be useful in two ways:
1) It keeps cultures "virgin" for the maximum time possible, allowing them to come up with cool new ideas the UFP can assimilate when finally making contact. It's too bad that none of those ideas can be more "advanced" than the invention of warp drive or subspace communications, because these two ideas make short work of the virginity of thought and innovation.
2) It keeps Starfleet officers from having too much personal influence. This is by far the more important aspect here, as the PD doesn't do much good in keeping civilians or foreigners out of these pre-contact planets. Indeed, the PD extends far beyond the point of contact in its role of limiting Starfleet powers, as seen when it stops Sisko from interfering with the Bajoran "civil unrest" or Picard with the Klingon "civil war" (until it is revealed these involve outside agents, who are free game for Starfleet).
Timo Saloniemi
I agree with the point you are making and I know you are talking rather tongue in cheek here, but as far as I know Theiss was actually the designer of those Edo outfits. He's credited as the costume designer for the whole first season of TNG.
Would the Federation make contact if a planet developed FTL communications without having FTL travel?
According to Picard in Pen Pals, they will not unless it is a direct plea for help whereupon the Prime Directive no longer applies. The communication was conventional in Pen Pals, but I think the concept still applies.
Personally, it sounds like a writer's rationalization to resolve the story and not an escape clause the Federation would have added to the Prime Directive.
Starfleet doesn't really care about the prime directive in cases where it doesn't feel good.
@Timo
If #1 were the case it would be self defeating. They'd come up with more original ideas with access to Federation ideas than without.
The idea of the prime directive is to allow civilizations to be as much in control of their own destiny as possible.
@Timo
If #1 were the case it would be self defeating. They'd come up with more original ideas with access to Federation ideas than without.
The idea of the prime directive is to allow civilizations to be as much in control of their own destiny as possible.
Similar threads
