Prime Directive Bites the Federation

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Tyyr
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Re: Prime Directive Bites the Federation

Post by Tyyr »

Mikey wrote:
Tyyr wrote:Didn't Voyager miss a ride home specifically to stop the two Ferengi from further dicking with a primitive world though in False Profits?
Yep. But are you seriously using Janeway's application of regulations and/or morality as an example of consistent policy? :lol:
I know, shaky ground, but it was the only case I could think of where someone outside the Federation giving the PD the finger.
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Re: Prime Directive Bites the Federation

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I think that the best person I've ever seen respond to the PD who was a SF officer was Data. Here you have someone who lives by the letter of law no matter what and even he said "What the fuck are you on about?".
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Re: Prime Directive Bites the Federation

Post by Graham Kennedy »

Tyyr wrote:Didn't Voyager miss a ride home specifically to stop the two Ferengi from further dicking with a primitive world though in False Profits?
They did, but only because in that particular case the Federation had a hand in getting those two Ferengi to that place originally, so they felt responsible for it.
To which this race would reply, '"Get f***ed."
Ah, but they'd just keep on preaching, and preaching, and preaching. You know how Picard is.
Tyrr wrote:How would they be an enemy though? They'd have 2200's tech or so. They don't want to destroy the Federation just try and prevent them from letting other species die because they're too primitive to talk to the almighty Federation.
If this were a real Trek storyline, the way it would go is that your species would wind up causing massive devastation on some - if not most or even all - of the planets it tried to help. And would inevitably come around to the Federation's way of thinking.

Whilst we may disagree with the PD, or it's strictness in particular circumstances, it has been explicitly stated by Picard that when the Federation HAS tried to help less developed species in the past, the results have been a disaster, every single time. From the Federation's view it's not so much an arbitrary rule that they shouldn't help, it's more an acceptance that they are incapable of it.
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Re: Prime Directive Bites the Federation

Post by Tyyr »

I can understand them having problems with say trying to fix a famine, or stop a war, but how could doing something like diverting a comet or asteroid possibly get messed up?
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Re: Prime Directive Bites the Federation

Post by Sionnach Glic »

Exactly. There's a difference between stopping by Earth in 1939 and giving everyone a whole bunch of nukes, and diverting an asteroid that's going to hit 1939 Earth.
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Re: Prime Directive Bites the Federation

Post by Mikey »

In fact, the TOS-era UFP (read: Kirk & co.) has many times either averted disaster for a primitive sapient species - or even "saved" them from a morally-subjective problem (TOS: "The Apple," et. al.) - and all and sundry at the time appeared to agree that it was the right thing to do.
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Re: Prime Directive Bites the Federation

Post by Graham Kennedy »

Mikey wrote:In fact, the TOS-era UFP (read: Kirk & co.) has many times either averted disaster for a primitive sapient species - or even "saved" them from a morally-subjective problem (TOS: "The Apple," et. al.) - and all and sundry at the time appeared to agree that it was the right thing to do.
Actually Spock argued that Kirk was violating the prime directive in The Apple. Kirk argued that the PD said that a civilisation must progress and evolve on its own, and the Vaalians were not progressing or evolving at all as a result of Vaal. It's a narrow point, IMO... one could certainly make a case that Kirk discovered the perfect utopian society and decided to destroy it merely because it was too perfect.

Averting disaster, the only example I can think of was The Paradise Syndrome and the PD wouldn't apply there as the people they were saving were humans.
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Re: Prime Directive Bites the Federation

Post by Mikey »

They were ostensibly humans, but patently pre-warp (hell, they were pre-metallurgy) ones - the PD would certainly apply.
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Re: Prime Directive Bites the Federation

Post by Tyyr »

GrahamKennedy wrote: It's a narrow point, IMO... one could certainly make a case that Kirk discovered the perfect utopian society and decided to destroy it merely because it was too perfect.
They had it coming.
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