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THE PRIME DIRECTIVE

with emphasis on [Star Trek: Voyager]
United Federation of Planets

 

STORIES INVOLVING THE PRIME DIRECTIVE

[TOS: Season 2: A Piece Of The Action]

SUMMARY: Kirk leads a landing party to the planet Sigma Iotia II and discovers that the visiting crew of the early Federation Starship, the Horizon, had left behind a century ago a book entitled "Chicago Mobs Of The Twenties", causing severe cultural contamination. Kirk does what he can to remedy the situation.

The Federation starship, USS Horizon, Daedalus class, Starfleet registry NCC-173, was one of the first deep-space exploratory vessels launched by the United Federation of Planets. The Horizon visited the planet Sigma Iotia II in 2168. The Horizon was destroyed shortly thereafter, transmitting a distress call by conventional radio which did not reach Federation space until 2268, whereupon the crew of the USS Enterprise has been ordered to investigate.

In the turbolift:
Kirk: "The contact came before the non-interference directive."
McCoy: "They must've interfered with the normal evolution of the planet."
Spock: "It will be interesting to see the results of the contamination."
Kirk: "We don't know that there is contamination. The evidence is only circumstantial."
McCoy: "What was the state of the Iotian culture before the Horizon came?"
Kirk: "The beginnings of industrialisation."
They exit the turbolift and head for the transporter room. In the transporter room they collect standard mission equipment.
Spock: "The Horizon reports indicate that the Iotians are extremely intelligent and somewhat imitative."
McCoy: "So we're going down to re-contaminate them."
Spock: "The damage has been done, Doctor. We are here to repair it."
Kirk: "Let's not argue about it. Let's go study it."

[TOS: Season 2: A Piece Of The Action]

The Enterprise landing party beams down to ascertain the nature and level of cultural contamination and discover that Horizon personnel had left a book (intentionally or not is not known) entitled 'Chicago Mobs of the Twenties' (published 1992) on the planet. The Horizon mission predated the establishment of Starfleet's Prime Directive of non-interference (the date of its official adoption by Starfleet is not known). The somewhat imitative Iotians proceeded to use the book as the blueprint for their society. By 2268, when Kirk makes second contact, Iotian society has become splintered into territories ruled by gangster bosses. Law and order are breaking down and the energy of mob bosses is taken up with their rivalries rather than in developing the society. Kirk is captured first by one mob boss, Oxmyx by name, then by his rival Krako, respectively Bosses of the Northside and Southside Territories.


'Chicago Mobs of the Twenties' - this copy is in the office of Bela Oxmyx (pictured left), and there is an identical copy in Jojo Krako's office.

McCoy: "One book on the gangs of Chicago did all this. It's amazing."
Spock: "They evidently seized upon that one book as the blueprint for an entire society."
McCoy: "It's the bible."
Kirk: "In old Chicago conventional government almost broke down. The gangs nearly took over."
McCoy: "Yeah, well, this Oxmyx is the worst gangster of all."
Spock: "You may quarrel with Mr Oxmyx's methods but his goal is essentially the correct one - this society must become united or it will degenerate into total anarchy."
Kirk: "If this society broke down as a result of the Horizon's influence, then the Federation's responsible and we've got to do something to straighten this mess out. Spock, if you could get to the sociological computer, do you think you could find a solution?"
[TOS: Season 2: A Piece Of The Action]

Both Oxmyx and Krako cajole, then threaten and try to blackmail Kirk into supplying them with phasers so that they can attack the other with a superior advantage. When the Enterprise sociology computer is unable to provide a logical, rational way to decontaminate the Iotian society, with no record of any society "based on a moral inversion", Kirk improvises.

Krako: "Thought you guys had laws - no interference."
Kirk, using the speech mannerisms of the culture: "Who's interfering? We're taking over." To Spock: "Check?"
Spock, catching on, in the same manner of speech: "Right."
Kirk to Kraco: "The er planet is being taken over by the Federation but we don't wanna come in here and er use our muscle, know what I mean? Now that ain't er subtle. What we do is we we have one guy take over the planet, he pulls the strings and then we pull his, heh heh heh."

[TOS: Season 2: A Piece Of The Action]

He assumes the mannerisms of the culture and physically brings together the mob bosses for a meeting. He then establishes a syndicate between these various territorial leaders. As Oxmyx earlier indicated that he believed the territories should be united in order for society to prosper, thus exhibiting wisdom (albeit that he wanted a united planet under his own rule), Kirk appoints him as the chief boss with Krako as his deputy. All the bosses agree that the Federation would return each year to collect a 'cut' of the profits or, using the parlance of the planet and Chicago's 1920s, to collect "a piece of the action".


A phaser blast fired by the Enterprise stuns the attacking gangsters unconscious, cowering the arguing and hitherto sceptical mob bosses. Kirk sets up the syndicate, appointing Oxmyx as boss with Krako his deputy. [TOS: A Piece Of The Action]

Back aboard the Enterprise, Kirk suggests the collected money would be put into a fund and used to steer the planetary government into a more ethical form. After the Enterprise is some distance away from the planet, Dr McCoy remembers that he accidentally left a Starfleet communicator behind on the planet. With the imitative nature and intelligence that the Iotians exhibit, Kirk wonders if in future the Iotians will come looking for "a piece of the action" from the Federation.

McCoy: "I left my communicator."
Kirk: "In Bela's office?"
Spock: "Captain, if the Iotians, who're a very bright and imitative people, should take that communicator apart-"
Kirk: "They will, they will, and they'll find out how the transtator works."
Spock: "The transtator is the basis for every important piece of equipment that we have."

[TOS: Season 2: A Piece Of The Action]

DISCUSSION:

McCoy's mistake in leaving behind a Starfleet communicator on the planet is possibly how come USS Horizon personnel left behind the books about Chicago mobs - by absent-mindedness - and thereby influenced the civilisation's evolution, though the detailed circumstances of the Horizon's mistake are not given in the story.

NOTES:
  1. Blooper: Krako mentions to Kirk that the "Feds" have laws about interfering. How can Krako know that, for none of the Enterprise landing party have told him, and the non-interference directive was not in operation when the USS Horizon visited a century earlier.
  2. Blooper: Krako has a poster of Bela Oxmyx in his office (he uses it as target practice). The poster reads "Bela Okmyx" i.e. "k" not "x". The same poster is outside by the main entrance. But the canon authorities Encyclopaedia, Concordance and TOSTFF spell it "Oxmyx" and the name is pronounced with an "x" not a "k" - so which is correct?
  3. The Enterprise landing party beams down to a street intersection. Nobody screams or even notices this unusual maybe even supernatural-looking event. Have the inhabitants been briefed about Federation transporters? A century earlier it is unlikely that the USS Horizon had transporters. If they had they might have told the Iotians about them since at the time there was no Prime Directive in force. However, in [Enterprise], a kind of transporter is utilised so the Horizon crew may have used this, but the visual effect would have differed.
  4. Blooper: After the landing party beams down, a woman crosses the street from the left side and behind the television camera. She takes three or four steps onto the corner of the kerb then steps back down into the street to cross heading right in front of the camera. That is, she is obviously making a detour to avoid the television camera's obstruction. She also has room to walk without stepping up onto the pavement and then so soon off it again. Her behaviour is illogically directed by the episode's director. See Pictures B, C and D below.
  5. Blooper: A young woman wearing a pink dress and red hat walk past the landing party. She walks past the furniture shop from whose adjacent alley Oxmyx's men later accost our heroes, and she keeps going and exits from the scene. But when our heroes stop by the bench close by the front of the shop, the same woman appears, walking in the same direction that she had done so before, walks past and stops near the doorway of the shop and watches the goings-on. See Pictures A, B and F below (note the location marks of the fire hydrant and the bench). It would be unremarkable if she were walking in the opposite direction in Picture F. Excuse: she is a spy for one of the gangster bosses and walks continually past Oxmyx's door and past the shop as part of her route, in which case she must work for Oxmyx as otherwise her clothes make her too conspicuous to his guards, though that would not be a problem given the apparent stupidity of, say, Krako's guards (see below). The real reason for her odd re-appearance is that it is incompetence both at the television direction stage and also because it was missed by the continuity staff.
  6. Blooper: After the landing party beams down for the first time, the three (Kirk, Spock and McCoy) go over to a bench. Kirk reaches out and touches the bench. But the close-up that immediately follows shows Kirk walking up to the bench again and touching it. See Pictures E and F below.
  7. Blooper: Maybe Oxymx is playing an uncommon version of pool, but he is some way into the game and so one player must have already nominated stripes or solids, so, since we do not know which he ended up with, he should be hitting either stripes or solids. But he hits a stripe as Kirk walks in and the red solid and the black roll back toward him and the red solid goes in the corner pocket. The movement of the red solid defies the normal laws of motion as regards direction. A staff member off-camera must have rolled the red so that it would go into the corner pocket. In the next pool shot Oxmyx hits a solid (the blue). Both those times he hits the balls using the cue ball as per the rules. The pool shot after that Oxmyx hits a blue solid, without using the cue ball. He then hits a stripe (purple), again without using the cue ball, though it is more of a tap which just moves the ball a little way for no reason. Therefore either he does not know how to play pool or else he is playing by Oxymyx's Rules and since he is a mob boss none of his minions playing him ever demur.
  8. When Spock notices and puts a hand on The Book, the sequence was clearly filmed not as one piece as it involves cutaways, but the continuity department fails here. Spock's hand when seen in close-up on The Book is not quite in the same position as the longer shot. When he goes to close The Book, to be seamless the footage should show him fully closing it, because in the immediately following longer shot The Book is fully closed and his hand is in a different position. See the consecutive frames from the footage, below:
  9. At one stage McCoy keeps guard on Oxmyx's men by pointing a submachine gun on them. Since both Oxmyx and Krako want supplies of the "fancy heaters" (phasers; "heater" is slang for "gun") that Kirk carries, McCoy would be wiser to point a phaser at them instead. If he had to use it, he could humanely and quickly render an attacker unconscious, and the captives are in fear and awe of phasers thus less likely to risk attacking. With a machine gun, if someone risked attacking, the good Doctor would not find it in himself to shoot them and thus severely wound them probably kill them, though it is of course what the captive thinks the Doctor would do rather than what the Doctor would actually do which really matters. Although Kirk tells Spock they can use phasers against two of Krako's hoods (minions) because no one is looking, this seems unnecessarily cautious since the two bosses, Oxymx and Krako, already want supplies of the phasers and Kirk has already informed Oxmyx that a phaser blast could knock out the side of the building. That means also that there is no point McCoy using a submachine gun rather than a phaser anyway. Besides, McCoy is standing in such a position that two captives (the minions who were earlier forced to hand over their clothes for Kirk and Spock to wear as disguises) could easily rush him, and he is facing away from them and cannot see them. Likewise, Spock uses a machine gun to cover Oxmyx while he makes telephone calls so that the Enterprise can beam those being telephoned into the room. When the first gangster boss telephoned is beamed in (and exclaims "Mother!"), McCoy is looking round at him, not at the captives - an ideal time for the captives to rush him, though they may fear that if they do so then Spock would submachine gun their boss but if he did that (we know Spock would not but they do not know that) then one of the minions would rise to replace Oxmyx as boss and it seems likely that any minion would love to be boss.
  10. As Oxymyx captures Spock and McCoy for the second time, when they beam into his office, there is a voice-over of Spock's log. He cannot be recording it at that precise moment as his lips do not move, he is not speaking into any apparent recording equipment and he would not do so or be able to do so at such a time. Obviously he recorded it later, but he speaks in the present tense. This log voice-over in the present tense during certain "live" moments occurs quite often in Star Trek and is often employed as a re-capitulation for the television audience after a commercial break in the USA and elsewhere where broadcast on channels funded by advertising. (The BBC, which first broadcast [TOS] in the UK, showed it without commercial breaks, but nevertheless the commercial break time can be identified easily by the climactic music and re-cap. As at autumn 2007, USA broadcasters are permitted to show up to 13 minutes of advertising per hour, compared to 7 minutes per hour in the UK for terrestrial channels and 9 for others, but the regulator proposes to review this up to 12 minutes but a compromise is likely of 9 minutes for all channels whether terrestrial or otherwise.)
  11. Kirk and Spock travel between the bosses' headquarters in a car (which Kirk drives slowly and rather incompetently, producing several scripted comic moments). Beaming would be quicker and more efficient.
  12. It is implausible in a lawless society that something as valuable as a motor car would be left in the public street with its key in the ignition. Why, anyone could steal it.....and they do, because Kirk and Spock drive off in it. In the story the theft, as theft, goes unremarked. In [#50 and #51 Future's End], Tuvok and Paris acquire "wheels" from a vehicle dealer with every intention of returning it but are unable to do so as it is destroyed by a 29th century Federation phaser.
  13. The two hoods guarding Krako's headquarters are taken in by the boy's antics and his pretend-fall. Kirk, pretending to be the boy's father, hurries up followed by Spock, and the pair overcome the hoods (Spock uses a Vulcan nerve pinch). The two gangsters fall for one of the oldest tricks in the book.....but presumably it is not mentioned in The Book i.e. 'Chicago Mobs of the Twenties' which excuses their stupidity, stupidity because they are there to guard against situations such as men armed with submachine guns rushing toward the door.
  14. The class and registry designations of the Horizon are conjectural, but a desktop model bearing that name and number has been seen as set decoration in Sisko's office on [DS9].

 

 

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