Sfdebris.net

For drama purposes, yes (whether or not you agree that it's the "right thing" to do in-universe).

Having an in-universe with unlimited resources (replicators) makes for weak drama.

1. Post Dominion War, easy to imagine a galaxy spent in resources/people and Earth still having some form of rationing.
2. Replicators need raw materials to work (You can't violate the laws of physics---Voyager mentions "bernicium" in that episode with George Costanza).
3. One theme of a new series might be that the Federation/Starfleet has to deal with scarcity in the galaxy-----and that the pre-Dominion utopia is breaking down. (not making a value judgement, the writers wrote Earth as a near-communist economic system)

So one of the causalities in the Reconstruction is the Prime Directive so that Starfleet/"Evil Admirals" can strip mine primitive planets for a populace who want to stop rationing back home.

So you have dramatic tension as it's the realists versus the idealists. And the Piccard Speech is falling on deaf ears.

Not holding my breath, as this type of high drama (or is it low drama?) concept is clearly not want CBS/Viacom want

technobabbler wrote: ↑Sun Jan 27, 2019 5:56 pm For drama purposes, yes (whether or not you agree that it's the "right thing" to do in-universe).

Having an in-universe with unlimited resources (replicators) makes for weak drama.

1. Post Dominion War, easy to imagine a galaxy spent in resources/people and Earth still having some form of rationing.
2. Replicators need raw materials to work (You can't violate the laws of physics---Voyager mentions "bernicium" in that episode with George Costanza).
3. One theme of a new series might be that the Federation/Starfleet has to deal with scarcity in the galaxy-----and that the pre-Dominion utopia is breaking down. (not making a value judgement, the writers wrote Earth as a near-communist economic system)

So one of the causalities in the Reconstruction is the Prime Directive so that Starfleet/"Evil Admirals" can strip mine primitive planets for a populace who want to stop rationing back home.

So you have dramatic tension as it's the realists versus the idealists. And the Piccard Speech is falling on deaf ears.

Not holding my breath, as this type of high drama (or is it low drama?) concept is clearly not want CBS/Viacom want

Replicators are like beaming in soldiers...

I don't care as long as it's not overtly stupid.

I consider the Prime Directive cruel, nonsensical and you can make a case for opposing it from any point / angle of the political spectrum. Also UnTreklike by my standards.

I support the Prime Directive, only so long as it's not allowed to become a straightjacket to prevent any and all humanitarian aid. It's like SF Debris says. Just because there are situations where a cop is not allowed to use lethal force it does not automatically follow there are no situations where a cop isn't allowed to use lethal force. It's also worth noting the Prime Directive in TNG was never followed to its logical conclusion - ie, where whole civilizations died out, like in Voyager and Enterprise, given that Picard and his crew were decent people, and sometimes broke it, or someone forced them to do so, which they never regretted, followed out to the best of their ability. If Janeway had been confronted with a situation like in "Homeward," she'd have probably just randomly beamed them down to whatever planet fit her whims, not caring if they lived or died.

Not gonna lie, the OP and the first responding post read like hilarious weapons grade grimdark wankery. There's just something about people who ironically confuse pessimism with realism or pragmatism.

Doubly funny when they're talking about twisting and retconning the terms of a fictional world because they know said wankery wouldn't actually follow from that world as its set up.

When talking about fictional TV worlds, I gotta say no thanks. We have quite enough artificially maintained wallowing pits for people who either enjoy that, or who for some reason mistake it for realism. Go watch GoT, or Walking Dead, or any number of of those. Trek is (well, was) one of the few that dares to explore the idea that maybe society can move forward (which historically it has), and therefore we can have a hypothetical better future.

We need that in our media. It's the glass of orange juice that makes your grimdark Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs into "part of a balanced breakfast" instead of just a lifespan-shortening self indulgence.

I would support rolling the PD back to the more consistences based idea it was in TOS, rather than the dogmatic pseudo-determinst one it became in later shows, but the rest of the stuff proposed sounds like mirror universe talk.

I'm actually more afraid that they'll DO what the second post says.

I'd prefer something like going back to the TOS version, where the rule was you didn't fuck with pre-warp people or exploit them, but if you had a GOOD reason (like, "these people are in a self-destructive war" or "these people are run by an evil computer" or "these people are going to die when their asteroid ship hits a planet") you were EXPECTED to save the day.

Hm, I think you can absolutely make an episode about how slavishly loyal one should be to the Prime Directive, but the issue at hand needs to be a morally grey one, not one of Life and Death, e.g. do you interfere in a destructive conflict that is not going to destroy the species or their basis for living or do you let it happen, so they can learn their own lesson?
Or you come across a species that has not made contact yet and has no advanced form of space travel, but is on the verge of discovering a method to do so, but that method has some tremendous environmental backlash that they are not aware of, say, some sort of wavecaster that propels ships forward, but at the same time damages subspace, making warp travel increasingly difficult and at some point impossible.

Unless it's going to involve mass murder or rape, I think not getting involved is the best idea. That's just me, though.

I'd more just like to see them heavily de-emphasize it and move it more into the, "It's a guideline to avoid exploiting or harming lesser worlds," territory it was intended to be and away from the, "It's our religion to let people die if the universe demands it," area it's long been in.

I think the Prime Directive would logically be something more like the Contact from The Culture novels - it's a way to get involved in other worlds and be a shining example for them to live up to in order to achieve social reform and evolution, usher in change and growth - without stepping outside your boundaries. Because let's face it, utopia's gotta be pretty boring, as that series shows.