THE PRIME DIRECTIVE

STORIES INVOLVING THE PRIME DIRECTIVE

[TOS: Season 2: Bread And Circuses]

SUMMARY: On a planet whose brutal gladiatorial culture is similar to aspects of ancient Rome of the Mid-Empire period, Kirk meets Merrick, captain of the Federation ship S.S. Beagle, who (partly through compulsion) six years previously had agreed to abide by the Prime Directive to the extent that he does not report to the Federation, decides to stay on the planet, and reluctantly abets in the deaths of those of his crew unable to "adapt". The same fate awaits Kirk and his crew but, unlike Merrick, and despite threats from the planet's ruler, Kirk refuses to abide by the Prime Directive. He and the landing party are aided in their escape by the guilt-ridden Merrick.

The fourth planet of the Eight Ninety-Two solar system is a Class-M world where the survivors of the survey vessel S.S. Beagle beamed down in searach of supplies after their ship was damaged by meteors in 2261. The planet's society is a modern version of Earth's ancient Rome, with video communications, power transportation, and similar government to that of (end of Early into Mid-) Imperial Rome. By 2267, slavery had existed for two millennia, and a slave caste has developed into a stratum of society with specified rights under the law (like in ancient Rome). When R.M. Merrick, the captain of the S.S. Beagle, beamed down to the planet in 2261, he met Claudius Marcus, the Proconsul and Roman leader, who obliged him to agree to stay and not report this culture to the Federation authorities. Six years later, in 2267, a landing party from Captain Kirk's starship the USS Enterprise locates Merikus and beams down to find him, concerned that he has broken the Prime Directive. Kirk notes that the Roman culture on planet Eight Ninety-Two-IV is entitled to full Prime Directive protection. After landing in prison, Marcus arrives and explains Kirk that he does not want to jeopardise the stability of his world by contact with alien races, and wants the starship crew brought down a few at a time after which the Enterprise would be destroyed. When Kirk refuses, Marcus threatens to execute Spock and McCoy slowly. The tactic had worked on Merrick, but Kirk is made of sterner stuff. Not only did Merrick allow himself to be assimilated by this culture to the extent of becoming known as Merikus with the title First Citizen, but he did not intervene when members of his crew suffered as a result.

Merikus and Marcus. Kirk elicits from Merikus what happened to the Beagle's crew.
Marcus tries to compel Kirk to order his men down to the planet.

Kirk: "If I brought down a hundred of them armed with phasers...." Marcus: "You could probably defeat the combined armies of our entire Empire, and violate your oath regarding non-interference with other societies. I believe you all swear you'd die before you'd violate that Directive. Am I right?" Spock: "Quite correct." McCoy to Spock: "Must you always be so blasted honest!" Marcus: "But on the other hand why even bother to send your men down. From what I understand your vessel could lay waste to the entire surface of the world, oh but, there's that Prime Directive in the way again - can't interfere." [TOS: Season 2: Bread And Circuses]

the arena, located in a television studio, [TOS: Bread And Circuses]

Kirk spends time with Drusilla the slave before Kirk's scheduled execution in the arena

Merikus again does nothing when Kirk is sentenced to execution in gladiatorial-style combat on the television show 'Name The Winner!' Kirk also meets Septimus, the leader of a group of slaves collectively calling themselves Children of the Sun. They band together, live in caves, preach brotherhood, and form an underground movement which rejects the Roman culture.

Kirk and Spock are outnumbered as they fight for their lives against Marcus' soldiers, watched by Merikus and Marcus

Merikus helps the Enterprise landing party escape after Kirk's arrival and subsequent events make him feel remorseful and Kirk's courage plus Marcus' taunting reminds him how a starship captain should behave, and he is fatally stabbed by Marcus. In his dying moments, having ordered the Enterprise to lock transporters onto the co-ordinators, he throws the communicator to Kirk enabling the landing party to be beamed up a second before Marcus' guards open fire.

Marcus murders Merikus

Merrick made first contact with the planet's inhabitants, specifically Marcus, but fails to follow Federation protocols and report his discovery of the planet and its culture. More than that, he allowed himself and his crew to be assimilated by the culture and those who adapted survived whilst it is implied he sent the rest to die in the arena - this is taking his non-conformist view of the Prime Directive too far. Merrick is rather like Professor Robert Crater in the earlier (Season 1) [TOS] story [TOS: The Man Trap], in agreeing to abet murder - in Merrick's case instead of opting for outside interest in the culture or, as with Crater, instead of killing the last one of its kind which had killed his wife Nancy. The episode is significant because in it we at last hear a definition of the Prime Directive, and Kirk notes that this particular planet qualifies for full Prime Directive protection.

DISCUSSION: A Starfleet officer, namely Merrick captain of the S.S. Beagle, exhibits a murderous adherence to the Prime Directive, to the extent that he does not report the culture of planet Eight Ninety-Two-IV to the Federation authorities, decides to stay on the planet and orders his crew to do likewise even though it means that those unable to adapt end up being killed in the gladiatorial arena. It should be noted that, it is implied, Marcus threatened Merrick the same way he threatens Kirk. Merrick's choice to do right or wrong is imposed upon his beaming to the planet and meeting Marcus. Kirk has to discover what happened to Merrick, but if he had not beamed down with a landing party onto the planet's surface in order to do so, no further aspect of the Prime Directive would be involved. That Merrick commits wrong as regards his crewmembers is not in doubt, especially as the episode clearly portrays his actions as such, and Merrick himself realises that he was wrong in failing to stand up to Marcus' threats. Marcus himself feels Merrick behaved unmanfully and treats him with contempt, contrasted by Marcus' respect for Kirk. The guilt that Merrick feels, plus Marcus's disdain, leads him to make amends by assisting Kirk, McCoy and Spock to escape death ordered by Merrick via submachine gun fire. In this era, that of the 23rd century, for Kirk, as with [TOS: The Apple], circumstances alter cases. It is alright to violate the Prime Directive where murder is concerned and the safety of his ship and crew is at stake, and since the ancient Romanesque regime is tyrannical and murderous. But what if they had encountered the society during an earlier or later part of the ancient Roman parallel, for instance during the Early or Mid-Republic period of ancient Rome when the government was an oligarchy not a dictatorship and before public gladiatorial combat started, or what about a time in the Late Empire after gladiatorial combat was banned? It would not be so black-and-white if the society that Merrick had encountered had been a democracy, without gladiatorial combat or executions, and his crewmembers had been, say, merely finding it hard to adapt but were all still alive. In that case, Kirk could fault Merrick as regards his adherence to the Prime Directive only for the extent to which Merrick had gone in doing so (in deciding to stay on the planet). If the S.S. Beagle was beyond repair, with a benign and tolerant native society, Merrick would have had the option to live quietly until Starfleet personnel turned up to investigate, which he would know would happen sooner or later. The moral of this story is that too close or too narrow an adherence to the Prime Directive is wrong, at least with regard to an evil society. "Evil" of course is as per the values of a particular 23rd century Starfleet captain, namely Kirk, these inevitably being those of 1960s' Earth specifically in Western civilisations since that was the period when this story was filmed.

NOTES: I venture that it is the prospect of the destruction of Kirk's beloved Enterprise that really makes Kirk refuse Marcus' demands - fans know the crew are actors but the starship is REAL! The S.S. Beagle was named for the ship with which Victorian naturalist Charles Darwin, lived 1809-1882, travelled and collected numerous flora and fauna specimens. His study of them led him over 20 years to develop and propound the theory of evolution by natural selection. He rushed into publication on learning that another naturalist had formed the same theory. I recommend a visit to his home, Down House in Kent, which incorporates a display of his work along with the flora and fauna specimens; free entry to members of The National Trust. Merrick's decision to stay, and the survival of only the fittest of his crew (i.e. those who could adapt to the society), a kind of natural selection, might be a deliberate inference by the scriptwriters. If planet Eight Ninety-Two-IV has developed a parallel culture like that of ancient Rome, the period that our heroes see is roughly end of Early Empire AD75 or possibly as late as Mid-Empire say c. AD 120. As with the slaves on planet Eight Ninety-Two-IV, in ancient Rome even by the Early Empire slaves had a few legal rights. Also, sensible or caring owners (it was considered enlightened to treat slaves well) realised that slaves were more productive if they were allowed to form families, if family-members were kept together, if the slaves were not mistreated and if they were given incentives to good behaviour. The Roman festival of Saturnalia, which the Christian religion absorbed and replaced with Christmas Day, included a festive role-reversal in which the master of the house acted as a slave, with specific rituals such as washing his slaves' feet - that could never generally have worked in society if most slaves were as oppressed as Hollywood likes to portray. Many owners benefitted from real loyalty from their slaves, including the imperial family. The emperor Claudius' administration went further than some in that he relied more than his predecessors upon two of his household's ex-slaves. One was named Pallas. In the BBC's tv dramatisation 'I, Claudius', Pallas was played by actor Bernard Hepton who appeared in the BBC drama Secret Army which is mentioned in my Personal Log entry for [#86 and #87 The Killing Game] with regard to personal comments about Nazi Germany. To imitate the parallel with ancient Rome further, within a century the slaves on planet Eight Ninety-Two-IV would all be freed. In AD 212, the emperor Caracalla abolished slavery, as a fiscal move to raise revenue as only free men paid taxes. Caracalla also wanted to eliminate the embarrassment of the increasing trend of poor free men selling themselves into slavery to better their lot. For its impact, the story concentrates on only one or two aspects of one period of ancient Roman history, and exaggerates those aspects for more impact. These are slavery and gladiatorial combats. Slavery is discussed in Behind-the-scenes: Historical Origins Of Names. In Rome and certain large cities, the Games, as they were known, were regular entertainments sponsored by the emperor, political candidates or rich philanthropists, and by Early Empire considered a public right. Acts featured animals, some specialist fights by trained gladiators, and humans (criminals condemned for capital crimes or prisoners of war) executed in various ways. The Games of course formed only one aspect of life. Killing losing gladiators was considered a waste of the effort and expense invested in their training so trainers/ gladiators/ gladiator-owners connived at ways to save them e.g. fake blood, sending saved gladiators to fight in other provinces where they would not be known.     What this story concentrates on (thereby distorting the tv viewer's opinion of ancient Rome) are the combats conducted 'sine missione' (without sending back) in which criminals condemned for capital crimes or prisoners of war, all of them untrained and unskilled fighters, were sent into the arena as one-to-one duels in bulk executions, often as fillers between the main acts while the audience went 'below stands' for refreshments, toilets and prostitutes. Fights were to the death with no reprieve or pause, with winners each facing the next fighter. Often numerous bouts took place in the arena at a time so that as a whole the event was continuous and the audience need not peer too far. The upper classes (those of Senatorial and Equestrian rank, who had reserved seat rows; the imperial family and the Vestal Virgins also had reserved seats) despised these unskilled bouts so they were often held at lunchtime when these people went home for lunch (the hottest part of the day). The last winner would be executed but occasionally, if he put up a good enough show, was "sent back" to fight another day. It was better than crucifixion or similar torturous death.     What never happened, though shown in this story, was for trained gladiators (or even well-armed amateurs) to be pitted against unarmed amateurs, as there would have been no point tiring trained men and having very unevenly matched fighters would not have been "entertaining".     By Late Empire, when society was at its most rigidly hierarchical and there was no social mobility as men were required by the emperor Diocletian's law of AD 285 to follow their father's trade, members of lower classes ("humiliores") who were convicted of capital crimes were increasingly sent to the arena (condemned "ad harenam") for economy as the means to execute them were already in place and at times there was a shortage of arena victims, but professional and higher classes ("honestiores") were spared that particular form of execution. Ancient Roman society placed more emphasis on people's social rank than we do today. Slaves had rights but criminals convicted of a capital crime and war captives had none.     There were certainly unacceptable aspects of ancient Roman society judging by today's standards, and sometimes judging by the standards of the time. But I have to beware of judgement by Hollywood, and a would-be historian is expected to avoid viewing past cultures subjectively.     And I am not going to get drawn into a discussion about the quasi-Roman uniforms. It does not matter which way round Star Trek has the names. Merely I observe that the names "Claudius Marcus", in order to accurately mimic ancient Rome, would have to be the other way round. In ancient Rome, Marcus was the first name or praenomen, and Claudius the house name or gens. Ancient Romans as a whole experienced social muting in that they were named for their house and the first name was usually a traditional one associated with the house, and anyway there were only a few first names, the most common being Marcus and Gaius/Caius, and the names were so standard that they had standard abbreviations e.g. "M" for Marcus. Women experienced more social muting than men in that they did not receive a first name, and if there was more than one daughter they were numbered e.g. Claudia Quinta i.e. Claudia 5 (there was a famous Claudia Quinta). If they had had the practice of embroidering their initials on their hankies, there would have been a lot of confusion. In the Early Empire the naming system improved in that it more or less collapsed.

 

 

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