An entire freaking race addicted to a drug and Picard calls it a symbiosis. Uhuh sure Mr. Asshole.
I just love his speech in the end when he harps about the sanctity of the Prime Directive even though he just found a convenient way to "bend it" thus proving that Directive was WRONG.
I guess I'm not really angry at the fictional Picard as with the writers. Honestly what are these people smoking when writing up these prime directive episodes? The most disturbing thing is how they constantly point to Earth history as proof that any contact with less advanced civilizations will end in disaster even though those disasters were brought on by more advanced civilizations colonizing, exploiting, enslaving and exterminating the less advanced civilizations not by the less advanced civilization being "too primitive" for the contact.
It's almost as if they are trying to whitewash the European and later US colonial era crimes against Africans, Asians and Native Americans by saying that it was really their fault for being so primitive and that even if they came in peace the result would still be a disaster.
Then we move onto the Pen Pals. How can any person write that script and not realize he made the characters utterly EVIL?
Oh sure Picard gives us a pathetic slippery slope fallacy: "What if there is a disease instead of a geological disaster? What if it's a war and millions die? What if it's an oppressive government?"
What if someone gets bitten by a wasp Picard? What if a child steals a chewing gum from a supermarket Picard?
After Picard finishes delivering his pompous self-righteous speech Data suggests that Sarjenka's transmission could be considered a call for help and Picard accuses Data of....sophistry.
I honestly don't get it. A frightened little girl's home planet is falling apart around her and there is this huge meeting over whether they should go in and save her? And no one read the script and said "wow this sure makes them and their Federation heartless bastards"!
