THE PRIME DIRECTIVE

MAIN DISCUSSION

THE PRIME DIRECTIVE = PRIME-TIME DIRECTIVE?

Whether achieving record television viewing ratings or at other times less popular, Star Trek's name, aspects of the show and numerous characters are known worldwide. One of the reasons is the quality, subject and depth of the stories. The Prime Directive, as a fundamental guiding principle of the Federation, contributes enormously to the show. The Prime Directive is one of many dramatic devices, being employed by Star Trek writers to drive plot and character-interaction on a variety of levels, varying between the episodes concerned, ranging from physical conflicts such as war to an individual's inner personal agonising.

As a dramatic device or plot device, the Prime Directive enables stories to question the wisdom of technology-rich cultures (basically, Federation) having interaction with less technologically-advanced societies. The Prime Directive also acts as a plot device to 'even up' the status of the visited and the visitors by requiring the visitors to set aside the advantage of easy access to and use of their technology. As one of Star Trek's missions as a show is (via entertaining stories) to raise questions or explore interesting or controversial issues or relay a message to the television audience, aliens and their societies are usually employed to hold up a mirror to what is often termed 'the human condition'. This allegorical aspect of Star Trek is especially noticeable when what is being thematically explored by the scriptwriters is a society identical or very similar to a past or present aspect of human society e.g. the treatment of Native Americans (mixed in with 'what if?') ref. [TOS: The Omega Glory] [TNG: Journey's End], slaves ref. [TOS: Bread And Circuses], those oppressed by Nazi Germany ref. [TOS: Patterns Of Force], and more generally the arrival of modern humans into remote and stable and often idyllic primitive societies ref. [TOS: The Apple] and [#168 Natural Law].

In [TOS: Bread And Circuses], Kirk says that the planet, whose culture is a modern version of Earth's ancient Roman imperial society, is another example of Hodgkins' Law of Parallel Planet Development. This Law also neatly accounts for the close similarities of aspects of society on Omega IV to those in a certain period on Earth, such as "Yangs" equal "Yanks" and an identical U.S. flag and identical wording to the U.S. Constitution. The Law could also explain the similarity of the Ekosian society in [TOS: Patterns Of Force], although in that instance Federation cultural observer John Gill's influence played a large part in creating the similarity. Hodgkins' Law of Parallel Planet Development seems to have been devised with the sceptical Trekkie in mind.