THE PRIME DIRECTIVE

MAIN DISCUSSION

INEVITABLE CONFLICT WITH THE PRIME DIRECTIVE

It is an essential law for an organisation like the United Federation of Planets, however, but just in coping with everyday life let alone the kind of grave and diverse situations and often heart-rending dilemmas which occur in the Star Trek universe, it could be argued that the Prime Directive is impractical. Each time someone infringes the Prime Directive, it devalues its stock, which damages the Federation reputation; in [TNG: Justice] the Edo called Liator taunts Picard for the shifting nature of the principle when it comes to dealing with a member of his own crew (Wesley). It also devalues the worth of the Starfleet oath: Kirk states in [TOS: The Omega Glory] that a starship captain swears to uphold the Prime Directive and sacrifice his life, the lives of his crew and even his starship if necessary; and in [TNG: Who Watches The Watchers] Picard sharply reminds Federation anthropologist Dr Barron who urges him to rescue Palmer at effectively all costs that Palmer, Barron and everyone Starfleet took an oath to uphold the Prime Directive at the cost of their life. Later, however, Picard, despite deliberately breaching the Prime Directive himself by bring the Proto-Vulcan leader Nuria aboard ship, upholds his oath and demonstrates his commitment to the Prime Directive, by allowing Liko to shoot to kill him, and Picard is only saved by Liko's daughter sending Liko's aim partly off-target.

Unless our hero crews are able to travel around doing absolutely nothing i.e. not be the cause of anything someone does, the Prime Directive is going to come into play sometime somewhere and, given the patrolling and exploring nature of Starfleet, the chances of a conflict with the Prime Directive are high and instances are inevitable. That is just within the Star Trek universe itself. In this respect, the Prime Directive would appear to go against the very spirit of space exploration. If we are not permitted to interfere with other lifeforms, we will be very limited in exploring the Star Trek universe because we dare not risk much observation of other lifeforms for where do we distinguish between interaction and interference? Space exploration in Star Trek is about boldly going where no one has gone before, to seek out new life and civilisations - to me that does not seem very compatible with a non-interference directive. It makes the prospect of any contact that does occur very limited. Presumably as soon as a spacefaring species contacts us (not the other way round), that renders the Prime Directive irrelevant and we can make first contact. But if we do not let species know of our existence, we must rely on them to be aware of our existence and to contact us if they wish.

Viewing the Star Trek universe from 'outside', namely as a television viewer and fan, the situation gets "worse" because Star Trek is a television show designed to engage audiences' thinking processes while entertaining them, and that means that the show is actually required to produce stories that by and large deal with the non-mundane and that in turn inevitably gives rise to social interaction (often extreme examples) along with the encounters, problems and dilemmas that go with it.

Although the quote involves discussion of timeline issues, I believe it is relevant. Picard to a time traveller apparently from the 26th century: "A person's life, the future, hinges on each of a thousand choices. Living is making choices! Now you ask me to believe that if I make a choice other than the one that appears in your history books then your past will be irrevocably altered. Well, you know, professor, perhaps I don't give a damn about your past, because your past is my future and as far as I'm concerned it hasn't been written yet." [TNG: A Matter Of Time]