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What would you do?

I would get rid of it.

It's a stupid directive. What the fuck kind of society makes "avoid cultural contamination of primitive societies" their HIGHEST LAW? The old standby, "don't murder each other", just isn't good enough to qualify as a top law? Silly principles like "uphold the rights of citizens" just don't measure up?

Exscuse me, but The PD includes those things. It isnt just ONE rule.

Also what constitutes a "primitive society"?

How about a world with a ultra high standrad living (with the high level economy to support it), ultra-efficient manufacturing, special abilities etc.

How the PD arbitrarily uses a single narrow facet of a society to justify its 'primitiveness' says something for the Federation.

You can not measure a society by a single defining attribute.

I would definately get rid of a rule which not only is nonsensical, but also creates more problems than it solves - especially if nobody obeys it.

The level or primacy and reverence that's supposedly given to it (well, not by the ST main captain's, but anyways) is unwarranted. Factoring in considerations of doing more harm than good in any given scenario are a prerequisite, however. You can't have ships capable of such destruction (not world destroying destruction- if we assume for example that the TM is correct when detailing the E-Ds torpedo load and MT rating) interfering in wars and such on a whim either.

There was a time when it was general order no 1. And could be ignored by starfleet at the COs discression. by TNG however, it seems to have become their highest law... WTF?

ggs wrote:Also what constitutes a "primitive society"?

I think that the UFP defines this mainly as a lack of Warp technology.

I wouldn't get rid of the PM totaly, historically most instances of a technologicaly advanced society coming in to contact with a less advanced society has ended rather catastrophically for the less advanced society. Star Fleet just needs to follow the PM less strictly, something like "avoid unnecesary cultural contamination of pre-Warp cultures, except when there are excistent circumstances demanding action" <Insert quidelines for instances where cultural contamination can be risked at the Captains discression>.

NecronLord wrote:There was a time when it was general order no 1. And could be ignored by starfleet at the COs discression. by TNG however, it seems to have become their highest law... WTF?

Gene Rodenberry+greater control over TNG=

- Dustbuster phasers
- Men in skirts
- Prime directive is a holy law instead of a general order
- The Enterprise is the Love Boat
- The bridge is a lounge room, where, bizarrely, the tactical officer/miscellaneous ensigns/engineer stand
- The crew doesn't argue, they all love each other to death


There's your explanation.

The 'Prime Directive' needs to be scrapped and redone if it was real.

I think something to the effect of

"In the event of contact with a new species, the commanding officer of the contacting ship or mission, can, at there discretion, make formal contact, even if the species in question lacks Interstellar flight capability, if the species meets at least two of these guidelines.

Late 20th century Earth technology or equaivilant
Possesses technology unknown to Federation science, which could be acquired via trade
Is showing evidence of looking for, or having looked for, lifeforms outside of there planet/star system with whatever means are possible, such as radio telescopes, or emition observation (i.e Earth's Seti program comes to mind, as do the Voyager space craft)
Shows a evidence of acceptance of the possiblity of life on other worlds from there own (i.e Sci-Fi entertainment shows, etc)
Is not currently involved in a planetary 'civil-war' or 'cold-war'

In the event contact is made, it will be made secretly with the most powerful government on the planet, regardless of the nature of that government, unless it runs directly opposite of the philosophy's of the Federation. However, if it is near the borders of a power that is hostile or potientailly hostile to the Fedearation, contact can me made in a non-military attempt to keep enemy powers from gaining new sources.

If contact is made and the planet proves hostile, in the event of attack on Federation/Starfleet personelle, a withdraw from the system is to be made, and the planet/star system is to be placed under 'qaurintine' for 50 years, at which point another first contact attempt will be made.

If the Starship itself is attacked, this can be constrained as an ACT OF WAR against the United Federation of Planets. Depending on the situtation, the Federation Council and Starfleet command will have the option of launching a counter insurregent operation designed to change the leadership of the offending world. (Kinda like in the TOS episode with that computer run war between two worlds)
This will most likely occur if the alien world is near a hostile or potientally hostile alien power. (i.e Cardassian space after they joined the Dominion)

Interference in cultural progression can be made at Captains discression. However, all such interference it to be approved by Starfleet command. Non-interference does not have to be approved at the time, but can be subject to a review to see if interfernce might be warranted for political, economic or strategic gain.


A good example how this new rule set would play out is the TOS episode with the Anarians and the Breckians (the aliens that had the others addicted to drugs).

Pichard would have been able to say "sorry, can't help you without starfleet approval, but I'll take your request to Starfleet command and the Federation, and if they approve, a Starship will be along to help you out"

Now the Federation has the option of going "meh, who cares" or "Hmmmm, two new planets, which we could carefully guide over the next 5 years towards candiacy for Federation membership. We offer the drug pushers a nice alternative to selling the drug, such as turning the planet into a giant farm/food production center, and we can offer the drug users a 'cure' that would ease them off the drug over the course of 5 years in exchange for the right to effect political and social reform and possibly turn the place into a Industrial center"

Starfleet and Federation ideals are mostly held up, AND in a way that would beneifit the UFP and the aliens in question.
Drug pushers don't want to work beyond farming. Fine. Farm for us, what we want. It would be the same situation with the 'drug-user' aliens, but it would probably be more profitable for the Drug-pushers to deal with the UFP. The same risk of losing the client persets, but that's what a compentive market is about.
Drug users get off the drug, can move on with there society, and have a chance to make a huge jump towards being in the galactic community. Plus, if they where industrial structure for manufacturing and food production, hey, that could make a nice ship yard.

The Federation willingly and willfully engaged in a project to potentially violate the Prime Directive in a sustained manner, throughout a large portion of the galaxy over a period of potentially thousands of years.

Specifically, that would be the star revitalization project from the TNG episode "Half A Life." In it, a star apparently running down from natural causes in some unexplained manner is revitalized -- implausibly within moments -- using a protomatter-based device. The star is to serve as a testbed for the process, which is later supposed to revitalize the dying star of a xenophobic, isolationist species that kills its members in a happy, formal ceremony once they become old enough to qualify as senior citizen discounts.

Needless to say, the experiment goes wrong and the star goes kaboom in an uncontrolled chain reaction. The visual evidence of that explosion reach the surrounding stars at the speed of light, and any Prime Directive-protected civilization that possesses decent astronomical science and some well-founded theories of stellar formation will be fundamentally screwed up if they happen to be looking that way when the spurious evidence comes their way at the speed of light. The phenomenon of a clearly aging star suddenly, abruptly popping apart for no good reason, in clear violation of otherwise established evidence and theories (that happen to be right, except for not accounting for some protomatter meddling by Starfleet) would fundamentally damage that civilization's astrophysics knowledge, or possibly even make them aware that aliens have to be out there, blowing up stars.

That one incident could contaminate hundreds, even thousands, of pre-warp civilizations over thousands of years. And that with the full blessings of the Federation.

Scrap it for The Felts Initiative:
Infiltrate the society. Learn when their children are able to think and start remembering things, and when they are no longer able to reproduce effeciently. Lead an invasion of the planet, kidnap all children of that age and younger. Enslave the the breeding able adults. Kill everything else. As the Breeding Stock reach a certain age they are terminated. Brainwash the children somehow... maybe do something like the Covenant does in Halo.

That one incident could contaminate hundreds, even thousands, of pre-warp civilizations over thousands of years. And that with the full blessings of the Federation.

No offense but cry me a river, a few furrowed brows on a couple of worlds compared with the aim of saving an entire civlization from destruction, seems like the Feds were actually on the ball with this one.

Vympel wrote:

NecronLord wrote:There was a time when it was general order no 1. And could be ignored by starfleet at the COs discression. by TNG however, it seems to have become their highest law... WTF?

Gene Rodenberry+greater control over TNG=

- Dustbuster phasers
- Men in skirts
- Prime directive is a holy law instead of a general order
- The Enterprise is the Love Boat
- The bridge is a lounge room, where, bizarrely, the tactical officer/miscellaneous ensigns/engineer stand
- The crew doesn't argue, they all love each other to death


There's your explanation.

I was talking in universe.

Get rid of it.

Theyre not skirts! Theyre KILTS! .. Wait wtf are you talking about?

Shameless plug: http://utilikilt.com/ You know damn well that if nancyboy
feddies wore one of those theyd be REAL men..!!!

TheDarkling wrote:

That one incident could contaminate hundreds, even thousands, of pre-warp civilizations over thousands of years. And that with the full blessings of the Federation.

No offense but cry me a river, a few furrowed brows on a couple of worlds compared with the aim of saving an entire civlization from destruction, seems like the Feds were actually on the ball with this one.

No grounds for offense to be taken.

The problem is that the Prime Directive is not designed to save civilizations from destruction. Starfleet quite calmly stands by and allows natural and unnatural disasters wipe out entire pre-warp civilizations, even going so far as to send starships to watch from orbit as the poor underdeveloped dolts die through no fault of their own.

Just because one minor warp-capable civilization is having a tough go of it, and may die out because of its own stubbornness and lack of flexibility, does that automatically justify the contamination of a potentially very large number of civilizations in the near and distant future?

The problem with the civilization from "Half A Life" is that they are, in addition to their other societal problems, caught in an entirely false dilemma. Their "problem" is that their sun is winding down and will not sustain life on their planet for too much longer. Under suspension of disbelief we'll accept that this is true. The obvious answer to the problem, one that does not involve blowing up stars, is relocation.

Relocation is not an option, however, since the civilization is extremely insular and xenophobic, and they would rather all die than move to a suitable new world. If the Federation has enough worlds to send octogenarian human colonists to compose classical music on those colony worlds, they've probably got a few suitable worlds to spare. Suitable colony transports could be built, and a regular shuttle service between the colony world and the old homeworld would then take care of the problem over the course of the many years the homeworld's sun still has.

Even if relocation to a different solar system is discarded as an option, Federation and Federation-equivalent technology is certainly capable of producing self-sustaining orbital habitats of sufficiently large size to accommodate such a civilization's population if enough such habitats are built. Since the death of their sun isn't coming for many decades yet, and since it will apparently not cause the star to go nova or otherwise destabilize, the habitats could be built over that period. Again, without relying on re-igniting a star and risking extinction or waiting calmly for the long, cold night to extinguish the species.

Instead of choosing relocation to a new homeworld or to orbital habitats, these people instead decide to rely on the following two options: try to rekindle the star and risk the immediate immolation of the civilization, or sit quietly and do nothing while the gases of the atmosphere precipitate out as decorative snow.

Sir Sirius wrote:

ggs wrote:Also what constitutes a "primitive society"?

I think that the UFP defines this mainly as a lack of Warp technology.

Also, the soceity must be able to socially surive a first contact situation.

The Prime Directive is a good idea, and should remain in some form. However, as a directive it should not be prime by any stretch of the imagination. It must also be recognized that exceptions exist: letting a culture completely die is worse than contaminating it.

YT300000 wrote:
What is The Omega Directive?

The Omega Molocule is incredibly powerful, and deadly. It can "destroy subspace" and render warp travel impossible. Therefore SF decided all Captains MUST actively seek out and destroy any research into it.

Tribun wrote:Imagine a x-thousand gigaton bomb as big as a marble, which rips subspace to shreds too.

It is the counterpart to Nova in Star Wars. I mearly am using Nova as a refference point, not a topic.

Howedar wrote:The Prime Directive is a good idea, and should remain in some form. However, as a directive it should not be prime by any stretch of the imagination. It must also be recognized that exceptions exist: letting a culture completely die is worse than contaminating it.

It's not. The Omega Directive supercedes it.

I'm not kidding.

Imagine a x-thousand gigaton bomb as big as a marble, which rips subspace to shreds too.