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ponnfarrtrek

I hate the Prime Directive. There, I said it.

This is how I presume it's supposed to work:

We mind our business, you minds yours.
When we meet, we meet as equals.
We don't fuck up your way of life.
We don't do colonialism, which we have to guard against cos one of the founding federation members is Earth and some of our top staff have worryingly European accents.

Here's how it actually works:

We will assume cultural superiority based on whether you have spaceships and when you do, we will still be judgey as fuck.
We will not openly interact with "less advanced" races but we're okay with secretly spying on them.
We will allow you to be destroyed rather than risk corrupting your society, even when it's a straight choice between possible corruption or definite annihilation.
We won't take sides between fascists and their victims.
Every culture has a predetermined fate and if that means everybody dies, then everybody dies.

Seems like it could have been better thought out tbh.

fractal-baby

Thank you, the prime directive sucks. It sucks more in TNG than TOS though. Everyone gives Kirk shit for breaking the prime directive but I think it’s good, actually, that he doesn’t just let entire planets die or people suffer when he has the ability to help (like Picard does, all the time)

I like how in Voyager the crew finds themselves on the other side of the prime directive and they bitch and moan about it. Like yeah? It sucks when you’re begging for aid and someone refuses to help you? That’s kind of evil? Actually?

beatriceeagle

Truly the stupidest part of Voyager (a show I love that nevertheless has many incredibly stupid parts) is Janeway's rigid adherence to the Reverse Prime Directive. You have no moral responsibility to turn down life-saving technology, actually.

abigailnussbaum

In fairness, some of these examples are ones that the franchise in general has agreed were wrongly decided. The Enterprise episode where Archer and Phlox decide not to cure a plague that is killing an alien species because their extinction will allow another species on that planet to evolve into intelligence was derided almost as soon as it aired. (It also feels less like a product of the Prime Directive - which doesn't even exist at that point; the story in this episode is raising the issue that it perhaps needs to be codified - as of Trek's strange and at times bordering-on-fascist understanding of evolution, which is repeatedly described as a directional process with a predefined goal. So in the Enterprise episode, one species is "supposed" to die because evolution said so.)

Also, Trek never fully comes out and says this, but there's a degree to which the Prime Directive functions as a sieve. As in, "if you're not able to resolve the internal disputes on your planet in a peaceful manner, or keep from destroying your own ecosystem, you should probably just stay down there until you've sorted your shit out or removed yourself from the equation".

flutish

So my main problem with the “sieve” idea is that it’s kind of incompatible with the remainder of the Federation’s purported pluralistic values. To start with: It assumes that there is one homogenized form of “sort[ing] your shit out”, including achieving a very specific type of space travel. Which is not necessarily the goal of every sufficiently technologically advanced species. In fact, I’d argue that the expansionism inherent in space travel (alongside exploration, of course) is often reflective of worse planetary choices than simply choosing to live in peace and balance on your planet (see: Musk, Branson, and Bezos, Earth circa 2021, also “Star Trek: First Contact”). Who’s to say what the true bearing of peace is? Isn’t this definition fairly arbitrary? How many lives could be saved by simply sharing technology across sentient cultures? What, does the Federation no longer influence warp-capable cultures? Of course it does! (See: the Ferengi throughout DS9. They’re not Federation members, yet their culture is ultimately influenced by Federation values.)

That said: Star Trek has done some fascinating things with the Prime Directive, and I don’t think it’s easy to just come and reject it wholesale. I certainly don’t (again: “don’t colonize” is a pretty good approach!). I also deeply value its existence in-story, as a framework for what the utopian Federation can and should be. Many of the concepts made a lot of sense (abstractly) to the era in which the show grew up. But colonialism and intervention aren’t actually the same thing, at least not in many complex situations. In so many cases, the Federation’s “non-intervention” is a false choice that stifles other cultures more than it allows them room to grow/exist. (See: Bajor and the attitude toward Bajoran culture even after Federation involvement...)

There are plenty of bad episodes that showcase the worst of the Prime Directive in a way that seems unfair, as well as others that showcase the best. For example, I thought Lower Decks did a lovely job with “First First Contact”, in giving it a sweet, idealistic excitement factor (I loved the aliens whose names I’m forgetting pointing up to the sky in what was very much a curious, positive way! Even if that wasn’t quite what was happening, but all’s well that ends well...) and showing us Starfleet actually discussing how best to approach it. The episode gave depth to the idea that First Contact is something deeply important, careful, and thoughtful. But the episodes I remember most vividly are those where it’s very, very clear what the morally correct outcome is in regards to violating the Prime Directive (save them in “Homeward” and “Pen Pals”) and Picard is staunchly... against that. Which can make for excellent television and tension, but to be clear: I view those episodes as complex indictments of the Prime Directive. It’s not anti-colonialism, it’s upholding idealistic values over actual lives. Which is, uh, definitely a problem that exists in our current real world, so.

Anyways, I probably think about the benefits and detriments of the Prime Directive more than I should and am grateful for every aspect of this conversation.

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