THE PRIME DIRECTIVE

MAIN DISCUSSION

SPECIES EXCEPTED FROM THE PRIME DIRECTIVE

Species 8472, the Borg and the Klingons are discussed here as being species excepted from the Prime Directive. All three species are not members of the Federation and have had / are having significant contact in some way with Federation Starfleet. The Klingons are excluded from the Prime Directive by the Federation either officially or in so many unofficial instances that official inclusion is merely technical. There are also certain Delta Quadrant species excepted by Janeway.

SPECIES 8472

In the case of Species 8472, in [#68 and #69 Scorpion] Janeway excepted them from the Prime Directive on the assumption that they proved a threat not only to her ship and crew but to the galaxy based on Kes' telepathic contact in which they stated: "Your galaxy will be purged." Although "purge" means "rid of impurities", whatever those "impurities" might mean to Species 8472 they do not clarify, but the scriptwriters intend "purge" to mean "all life will be destroyed" and therefore this is the meaning that Janeway assumes. She does not, it seems wisely at the time, assume that 'my enemy's enemy is my friend'. Janeway's decision to take active measures against Species 8472, by forming an alliance with the Borg against them, may have been precipitate or ill-advised, with her ignoring Chakotay's protests, and he also later discovers that the Borg started the war against Species 8472 by which time that point is moot. Before that, Species 8472 was happy within their realm of fluidic space and that it was the Borg invasion which prompted them to defend themselves by attacking. Janeway: "Six months, a year down the road, after Species 8472 gets through with the Borg we could find ourselves back in the line of fire. And we'll have missed the window of opportunity that exists right here right now!" Chakotay: "How much is our safety worth?" Janeway: "What do you mean?" Chakotay: "We'd be giving an advantage to a race guilty of murdering billions. We'd be helping the Borg assimilate another species, just to get ourselves back to Earth. It's wrong!" Janeway: "Tell that to Harry Kim. He's barely alive thanks to that species. Maybe helping to assimilate them isn't such a bad idea. We could be doing the Delta Quadrant a favour." Chakotay: "I don't think you really believe that. I think you're struggling to justify your plan, because your desire to get this crew home is blinding you to other options. I know you, Kathryn!" [Seasons 3 and 4: #68 and #69 Scorpion] Granted that Janeway's facilities for researching Species 8472 were very limited so that it would have been very difficult for her to get both sides of the story, her decision ignores the Prime Directive and also Directive 110 which derives from it: 'Before engaging alien species in battle, any and all attempts to make first contact and achieve non-military resolution must be made.' Only in [#98 In The Flesh] does she say "So why can't I get that Directive out of my mind?" And only in [#94 Hope And Fear] is Janeway forced to consider that there were unwanted consequences to her alliance with the Borg. It is not a foregone conclusion that Species 8472 would have annihilated the Borg, but by the time USS Voyager enters the heart of Borg space in [#68 and #69 Scorpion], the Borg had already suffered huge losses. It is logical to assume that at that rate of attrition, the Borg would have been severely weakened. It is also logical to assume that unless the Borg were able to adapt, by develop more stronger defences or more powerful offensive weapons, Species 8472 would indeed "purge" by destroying the Borg. Arturis makes the plaintive accusation: Arturis: "Did it ever occur to you that there were those of us in the Delta Quadrant with a vested interest in that war? Victory would have meant annihilation of the Borg, but you couldn't see beyond the bow of your own ship!" Janeway: "In my estimation, Species 8472 posed a greater threat than the Borg." Arturis: "Who are you to be make that decision, a stranger to this Quadrant?" Janeway: "There wasn't time to take a poll. I had to act quickly." [Season 4: #94 Hope And Fear] Janeway's mention of "a poll" is a figure of speech, but it is interesting that she never even considered taking such a poll or consulting or even forewarning other species, though to do so would have been fraught with difficulties while leaving Voyager vulnerable.

Species 8472 destroy a Borg armada - debris seen on Voyager's Bridge's viewscreen a member of Species 8472.... .....attacks Kim.... in Sickbay, Janeway looks at.... .....Kim, being destroyed by the attack the Voyager crew download Borg data about Species 8472, enabling an assessment of the species' destructive force Kes' telepathic communication with Species 8472 enables her to warn of their plans to purge the galaxy

The issue here is not whether Janeway should be reprimanded for failing to consider fully or at all the consequences of her decision to ally with the Borg, but whether, granted she wanted to make that decision, she had a right to interfere in the development of two species, namely the Borg and Species 8472. War tends to be a situation in which the Prime Directive makes exceptions, though usually it is that a Starfleet starship captain intervenes to broker or impose peace, as with the inhabitants of Eminiar VII and Vendikar in [TOS: A Taste Of Armageddon]. In addition, the Borg has been excepted from Prime Directive considerations ever since First Contact with them.

THE BORG

This leads onto discussion of the Borg species. It is not a species in the conventional sense of the word, as its drones (it has no citizens as such) are forcibly recruited from an enormous range of species by the painful process of assimilation. The minds of all drones are interconnected, and the multiple thoughts are both kept ordered by and used to convey commands by the Borg Queen via various technological processes including a Vinculum and central plexus. (The Borg Queen, as ruler or co-ordinator of the Hive, is introduced in [Star Trek VIII: First Contact], and seen in three [Voyager] stories. A Vinculum is seen in [#101 Infinite Regress]. A central plexus is seen in [#146 and #147 Unimatrix Zero].)

two Borg drones, and the Borg Queen (she is also seen in three [Voyager] stories), [Star Trek VIII: First Contact]

However, given the Federation's multi-species make-up and open-mindedness about forms of life, the Borg should either be considered as a species or at the very least be classified as one for speedy nomenclature purposes. But the nature of the Borg makes it partly or wholly unacceptable to the Federation to be classified as a species. The Federation is not infringing the Prime Directive by excepting the Borg from its protection because, and this is tenuous as it rests on a technicality, the Borg is not a species or civilisation or society in the accepted sense. More importantly, as far as the Federation is concerned, the Borg is not a species/civilisation/society in the acceptable sense. For Starfleet has classified the Borg as a major threat to the Federation ever since First Contact with the hostile Borg, made by the USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D near System J-25 in the Alpha Quadrant in 2365. The threat classification was not made solely based on the way that the Borg 'reproduce', i.e. assimilation and the coercive nature of it which is anathema to the free peoples of the Federation. Otherwise the Federation would commit to all-out war against the Borg. The exception classification exists because of the Borg's attempts to assimilate and thus enslave members of the Federation too, both individually and en masse, and Starfleet's response so far has been mainly one of defence, though that could change if it achieves breakthroughs in anti-Borg technology and which will be augmented when USS Voyager brings more such technology back from the Delta Quadrant thanks to Seven's inside knowledge and the future Admiral Janeway. In [TNG: The Best Of Both Worlds], at the Battle of Wolf 359 (located 7.8 light-years from Sol) in which Starfleet battled a Borg cube intent on invasion, due to the Borg's assimilation of Captain Jean-Luc Picard and his knowledge Starfleet suffered the loss of 11,000 lives and 39 starships, and would have lost the battle were it not for the Enterprise-D crew who rescued Picard (severing him from the Borg Collective); casualty figures are from [TNG: The Drumhead]. (Picard's period as a Borg drone, pictured, as a representative of the Borg with the designation Locutus is referred to in [#68 and #69 Scorpion].) Any benefits of Borg society are ignored in the face of such a significant threat. One such benefit is that the mental energy of the group consciousness can help an injured individual to heal or regenerate damaged body parts, as demonstrated by a group of former Borg drones, living in the Nekrit Expanse of the Delta Quadrant, who used their collective link to bring peace and order to their new society. Torres tells Kelis, in [#142 Muse]: "She's a Starfleet officer! - trained to avoid violence whenever possible. She would make peace with the Borg if she could." but peace with the Borg seems an impossibility given the nature of the Borg which, Chakotay believes and conveys in his parable of the scorpion in [#58 and #69 Scorpion], will never change. The fundamental threat the Borg pose to the Federation, which further supports argument that the Borg should remain excepted from any Prime Directive considerations, is seen in the Borg's attempt to prevent Mankind from becoming a warp-capable civilisation and thus eligible to join the galactic community. This is further supported in [Enterprise: Regeneration]. In that episode the fifth Star Trek series establishes that there is a temporal loop involving two Borg drones accidentally left on Earth in 2063 following an abortive Borg attempt to prevent Mankind's First Contact with Vulcans. Those drones sent a subspace message containing Earth's co-ordinates to the Borg's home space in the Delta Quadrant; at subspace speed the message would be received in the 24th century, and the strong inference is that it is received by 2373 and initiated the Borg's travel back in time to 2063 to make the attempt to prevent Mankind's First Contact with Vulcans. Fortunately the reason why two Borg drones ended up on Earth is never discovered by the Borg of the 24th century, dooming their attempt to sabotage First Contact by influencing events in the 22nd century (whether the temporal loop continues indefinitely is not relevant to this article) (the name Borg remains unknown to humans of the 22nd century). It is also unlikely that the Federation will ever make peace with the Borg because stories and concepts take care not to redeem the Borg in any way. Despite Torres' assertion that Janeway would make peace if she could, other stories aired before and after that convey the Borg as beyond redemption. Even the benefit of being part of the collective therefore offers biomedical advantages to individual members is only a benefit if the collective is benevolent; in [#109 and #110 Dark Frontier], with the drone the Hansens nickname Junior being deactivated and his cybernetic parts recyled, reinforcing the fact that there is no retirement option for drones, and that regeneration is solely to make a drone's functionality as efficient as possible. It is this comprehensively dispassionate ruthlessness which cannot be changed thereby indicating the impossibility of any room for compromise, together with the sheer difficulty of rescuing and rehabilitating a Borg drone, plus the vast size of the Borg Collective, which makes the Borg such an exception as far as the Federation is concerned. The Vori and the N'Kree are species that employ forced recruitment, refs. [#72 Nemesis] and [#112 Course Oblivion] respectively. But they are small-scale compared to the Borg. (The N'Kree are not known to Federation Starfleet, but are encountered by the 'silver blood' duplicates. It is hard to argue that those duplicates are genuine members of Starfleet.) The question then arises, based on Picard's protest to Admiral Dougherty in [Star Trek IX: Insurrection]: "How many people does it take, Admiral, before it becomes wrong, mmm? — a thousand, fifty-thousand, a million? How many people does it take, Admiral!" If Starfleet could reach the Vori and N'Kree, should it interfere or not, just as it does with the Borg? That Starfleet is inconsistent when applying an exclusion policy is not really a problem. It is only when it applies an inclusion policy inconsistently that issues really arise, i.e. when it applies the Prime Directive inconsistently as regards species that it classifies as being entitled to Prime Directive protection; that is discussed elsewhere in this article.

One way to find the room for compromise which to Starfleet so far seems to be missing from the Borg is found by Janeway, and that is via mutual self-interest. That one instance led to a Borg-Voyager alliance against Species 8472. But it is difficult to visualise any other form of mutual self-interest that would be of interest to the Borg except for war against a perceived common enemy.

THE KLINGONS

The Klingons are like the Borg in that, (ignoring for the moment the fifth Star Trek series [Enterprise] which amends history so that First Contact occurred much earlier), at First Contact in [TOS: Day Of The Dove] and subsequently for a long time there are hostilities, both open and covert, with the Federation. In addition, like the Borg, the Klingon Empire is huge with vast resources of manpower and technology, rather equal to that of the Federation. Furthermore, as with the Borg, the Klingon mindset is such that there seems no room for compromise and thus for a truce. The similarity with the Borg ends there, for the Klingons are not, as a society, intent on destroying humans except in the scenario of war where the object is to destroy the enemy.

Peace is eventually established between the Federation and the Klingons, in 2293, and downright friendly relations break out at certain times. The Klingon Empire's position in the Dominion War is not clear-cut, or not enough for narration or even summary here, but generally it was pro-Federation and anti-Dominion. However, because of long hostilities (almost a century) and then due to actively entering into friendly relations (the formal Khitomer Accords of 2293), normal Prime Directive considerations never did apply and continue not to apply. Incidentally, those hostilities that lasted nearly a century were reduced from a state of war to that of an uneasy peace for a time, with peace imposed by the Organian Peace Treaty (imposed in [TOS: Errand Of Mercy]); see the episode entry [TOS: A Private Little War] for details; and until 2293 there was an area of space that formed a no-man's-land between the United Federation of Planets and the Klingon Empire, with passage into the zone by ships of either state forbidden by treaty, ref. [Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan].

Following the Khitomer Accords, the Federation sometimes interferes in what would be considered Klingon internal matters, sometimes by invitation, sometimes not, such that there is an inconsistent policy is applied, or rather, there seems to be no particular policy.

Example of involvement in the Klingon Empire: In [TNG: Reunion], a non-Klingon, the Starfleet captain Jean-Luc Picard, is chosen as the Arbiter of Succession in an unorthodox and unprecedented move, and appoints the new Chancellor of the Klingon High Council. Chancellor K'mpec (who presided over the High Council longer than anyone else in history, maintaining peace within the council and the Empire) was murdered in 2367, apparently poisoned with Veridium Six by Duras who aimed to succeed K'mpec as Chancellor. To Klingons, such killing is without honour as the killer does not show his face to the victim. K'mpec sought to protect his empire from leadership by such a dishonorable person, and appointed a non-Klingon as his Arbiter of Succession. Picard did not appoint Duras.

Example of non-interference in the Klingon Empire: Conversely, in [TNG: Redemption], the Klingon Empire experiences a brief civil war, specifically a power struggle between leader and would-be leader, but Captain Picard refuses Chancellor Gowron's request for aid on the basis that it is a matter internal to the Klingon Empire despite the fact that Gowron is the legitimate ruler of the Klingon Empire, and even though the Romulans are suspected of supplying weapons to the opposing side. Picard's reason for refusing Gowron aid seems to be due to the Prime Directive even though that is not explicitly mentioned (support for this assessment of Picard's reason stems from Sisko's superior cites the Prime Directive as reason for evacuating Starfleet personnel from Deep Space 9 when Bajor nearly winds up in a civil war despite knowledge that the Cardassians are supplying weapons to one side in the conflict).

DELTA QUADRANT SPECIES

Janeway excepts a number of Delta Quadrant species from the Prime Directive, in that she ignores or flouts sovereignty. In [#46 The Swarm] she refuses to go around the Swarm's territory as it would add months to Voyager's journey and she says she does not like bullies. The incursion gains the hoped-for benefit — a direct route — as well as retrieving the alien named Chardis (name is in the script not given in dialogue) enabling the Doctor to ease his passing and so that he dies leaving a message with Janeway for his people. He is one individual, but in the larger picture his message, and we have no reason to assume that Janeway does not keep her promise to deliver it, would warn off Chardis' people from the Swarm's territory in future. But as Janeway does not know, when entering Swarm space, that she would meet Chardis, perhaps that benefit for Chardis' people should be ignored. Indeed, one might argue that Chardis' people should have been left alone, to find out for themselves some other way or not at all.

two members of the species the Voyager crew call "the Swarm" board a Voyager shuttlecraft attack and wound Torres and Paris	the dying alien (named Chardis) is comforted by Janeway's promise to take his message to his people
above 2 screenshots: [Season 3: #46 The Swarm]

In [#74 The Raven], Janeway is forced to agree to the tortuous route set by the B'omar Sovereignty as the price for travelling through their space, rather than the longer route around it, but she has no hesitation in ditching the route and incurring the wrath of the B'omar when Seven is drawn to the crash site of her parents' ship called the Raven. The B'omar representatives had earlier explained that their specified route keeps Voyager away from populated areas as well as the Agrat-mot Nebula which they explain is a key resource in their trade negotiations with the Nassordin. It would seem that the B'omar, however unpleasant their social manners, are acting properly if they wish to avoid cultural contamination with Voyager, for there is no obligation on them or any species to enter into positively friendly relations with alien species (humans and the rest of the Voyager crew would be aliens to the B'omar).

the B'omar impose on Voyager a time-consuming and tortuous route through their territory	the sarcastic and condescending B'omar are unpleasant
above 2 screenshots: [Season 4: #74 The Raven]

SUMMARY

1. The Federation excludes species from being accorded Prime Directive consideration and protection if that species carries out positive hostile action against the Federation or even living beings en masse, does so on a large scale, with no evident room for compromise (and thus truce). Throughout Star Trek, a particular example is the Borg. In [Voyager], an example, apart from the Borg, is Species 8472 in [#68 and #69 Scorpion], although Janeway establishes peaceful contact in [#98 In The Flesh].
2. The Klingons are an example of a species originally omitted from Prime Directive considerations because of similar reasons as the Borg i.e. a hostile species intent on destroying the Federation, of vast size, and apparently no room for compromise (and thus truce). Once a truce is reached, precipitated by the explosion of the Klingon moon Praxis which rendered it uneconomical for the Klingons to maintain their military forces at previous levels, the Prime Directive remains irrelevant to Federation dealings with the Klingons. Interference from the Federation continues to occur, though inconsistently, and sometimes with the agreement of the Klingon High Council or the Klingon Chancellor, sometimes without it.
3. Captain Janeway ignores the Prime Directive with regard to a number of species where the priority is a faster route home and she feels incursion into the territory of certain aliens is justified. This does not mean that Federation Starfleet would do the same or necessarily condone her actions, although her promotion to Admiral as seen, not in [Voyager] but in [Star Trek X: Nemesis], is telling.

   
   Admiral Kathryn Janeway, [Star Trek X: Nemesis]