Star Trek

[Lost Star]

I made this topic to get a bit of clarification about something that maybe someone out there can answer.

Since when did the Prime Directive mean not interfering if a culture is going to be killed by outside forces? I mean I distinctly remember an episode where the policy came into play with a culture on the brink of being killed by something, and the drama was the fact that they had to figure out a way to transfer the people.

I always thought the Prime Directive made it so that it was illegal to say give people technology or let them know that there is life out there, but not to intervene if a natural disaster was going to nuke the planet. Am I wrong?

 

[Prince Charon]

Its a TNG thing (and an example of writer failure, IMHO). They didn't take it nearly that far on TOS.

 

[AbyssalDaemon]

Depends on the writer of the week opinions, and how lazy they're feeling on being. In both TNG and Voyager the exact usage of the Prime Directive seems to change from episode to episode. As for Kirk, he generally seemed to ignored it (much like he did with any other rules that might have gotten in his way).

 

[The Eromancer]

Depends on the writer of the week opinions, and how lazy they're feeling on being. In both TNG and Voyager the exact usage of the Prime Directive seems to change from episode to episode. As for Kirk, he generally seemed to ignored it (much like he did with any other rules that might have gotten in his way).

which makes him AWESOME

 

[Lord Raa]

An unfortunate necro, but I have something that may <a href='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_ZbVk_Dh9E' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'>interest</a>

 

[Prince Charon]

An unfortunate necro, but I have something that may <a href='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_ZbVk_Dh9E' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'>interest</a>

Yes, that is interesting.

 

[Lost Star]

Heh, of course then he misses something else that you have to take into account. Can you help by interference? Will interfering totally destroy what you are trying to protect? And so on.

Really it's a matter of degrees. The prime directive is a good idea in my opinion. Not as an absolute no, but in practice I would rather an advanced civilization allow lesser civilizations to grow first before contact. For natural disasters you probably have to let things run their course. For extinction events...

Well this is were you get opponents of the prime directive squawking. I think there is a bit of something else you have to consider. Would warning the civilization actually help? For that matter can you actually help? What if you can save only a portion of them? How do you decide who to save?

The star trek series is a story, and like all stories it's more concerned with telling itself than answering the deep philosophical questions everyone likes to throw at it. Ultimately Star Trek was conceived as an ideal, something grand and idealistic. Not so much realistic nitty gritty.