DIS - New Eden

[RahhelTheThird]

Wait, has there been a case where the Prime Directive was used to let a people die or face horrible consequences from circumstances beyond their control?

Yep.

Is that in an episode I haven't seen yet or part of a book or comic book? Either way sauce please.

[Link8909]

Wait, has there been a case where the Prime Directive was used to let a people die or face horrible consequences from circumstances beyond their control?

Yep.

Is that in an episode I haven't seen yet or part of a book or comic book? Either way sauce please.

While there have been cases of them saying they'll keep to General Order 1 at first, only to change their mind like in due to circumstances like in "Pen Pals" or "Time and Again", I can think of two cases where they stuck to it and people did die or face horrible consequences that could have been averted if their was intervention.

"Dear Doctor" (while before General Order 1) had Archer let the Valakians (whom they had made contact with) continue to slowly die due to an illness that Phlox had made a cure for but wouldn't be willing to administer.

And "Homeward" had Captain Picard was going the let the inhabitance of Boraal II die from an atmospheric dissipation that would render the planet uninhabitable, it was only thanks to Nikolai Rozhenko beaming them onto the Holodeck that this didn't happen.

That is off the top of my head though, and their could be more cases.

Also Chuck make a video about General Order 1 and his thoughts and opinion on it that I'd recommend checking out.

[CrypticMirror]

Homeward was pure character assassination and no mistake. It is one of the episodes I'd eject from canon for being so bad it damaged the franchise simply by its own existence. I'd give it, not just the series 0 but the entire franchise 0 if I was rating them instead of Chuck. Well, the franchise 0 score before Discovery and Rick and Mortytrek aired. They set new levels of bad with every episode.

[Link8909]

Homeward was pure character assassination and no mistake. It is one of the episodes I'd eject from canon for being so bad it damaged the franchise simply by its own existence. I'd give it, not just the series 0 but the entire franchise 0 if I was rating them instead of Chuck.

Yeah, "Homeward" really was character assassination for Captain Picard, I'm fine with him wanting to uphold General Order 1, and in "Pen Pals" he raises good points to why such a directive exists, and I personally feel that getting involved in any affairs of Pre-Warp civilizations is not a good idea as it could stunt the natural development of their culture, but letting one die out because of something out of their control or knowledge is when a Starfleet Captain should intervene, and I really hated Captain Picard's decision in that episode.

It's also the same reason why I hate "Dear Doctor" and by extension both Archer and Phlox, and as Chuck said in the end of his General Order 1 video:

An individual who's only response to the pleas of multitudes dying is pointing to a piece of paper, is not the hero in your story.

Honestly I was really happy that Star Trek Discovery has the series open with Captain Georgiou and Commander Burnham saving a civilization from a drought that would have wiped them out, and in Season 2 has the crew saving the people of New Eden and the Kelpiens, and in Star Trek Picard had Admiral Picard doing everything he can to help the Romulans when the supernova happened.

[RahhelTheThird]

Wait, has there been a case where the Prime Directive was used to let a people die or face horrible consequences from circumstances beyond their control?

Yep.

Is that in an episode I haven't seen yet or part of a book or comic book? Either way sauce please.

While there have been cases of them saying they'll keep to General Order 1 at first, only to change their mind like in due to circumstances like in "Pen Pals" or "Time and Again", I can think of two cases where they stuck to it and people did die or face horrible consequences that could have been averted if their was intervention.

"Dear Doctor" (while before General Order 1) had Archer let the Valakians (whom they had made contact with) continue to slowly die due to an illness that Phlox had made a cure for but wouldn't be willing to administer.

And "Homeward" had Captain Picard was going the let the inhabitance of Boraal II die from an atmospheric dissipation that would render the planet uninhabitable, it was only thanks to Nikolai Rozhenko beaming them onto the Holodeck that this didn't happen.

That is off the top of my head though, and their could be more cases.

Also Chuck make a video about General Order 1 and his thoughts and opinion on it that I'd recommend checking out.

Thanks for the info. I watched/re-watched the episodes. I can't believe that "Homeward" is a final season episode, whereas "Pen Pals" is a first season episode. I would've thought it'd be the other way around as Picard's characterization has gone backwards. "Pen Pals" has the discussion I wish "New Eden" had.

I watched "Time and Again" on TV back in the day. Voyager was the first Trek I watched on the regular and finished. After re-watching the episode I remember thinking it had more to do with the Temporal Prime Directive instead of General Order 1. It's not surprising that something so outrageous was happening in a first season, especially since it's Voyager. It really was quite a ride how up and down the series went.

For "Dear Doctor" I remembered the episode fondly as it showed the human crew from an alien perspective. It was still very good during the re-watch. Phlox mono- and dialogues were really fun and shows so much care in developing the Trek universe. Even Archer got some great development when he finally empathized with the Vulcans on why they stayed with Earth for so long. The episode really comes crashing down in the last third when the doctor advocated genocide through inaction. Archer chose a pretty good middle-ground in giving the Valakian people the medicine, but not warp technology. Ten years is a long time for science to find a permanent cure.

I guess Starfleet really likes to role the dice to see whether they'll help someone out if they're not warp capable.

[TGLS]

Honestly, the only way to make Dear Doctor work is to change the story so the choice is between giving the Valakians warp-tech and the Valakians all dying. Or maybe make the disease something that causes the Valakians to die and makes the Menk more intelligent.

[CharlesPhipps]

Honestly, the only way to make Dear Doctor work is to change the story so the choice is between giving the Valakians warp-tech and the Valakians all dying. Or maybe make the disease something that causes the Valakians to die and makes the Menk more intelligent.

My mental rewrite (I did one for most of the Star Wars sequels too) was the Doctor revealing the Valakians aren't dying of a disease but dying of pollution. The reason the lower tech people are fine is because they still live at a much lower tech society. Archer can treat the condition they have but to actually fix it would require changing their entire tech base.

Which, of course, the Valakians won't do.

Then it becomes a global warming story.

[TGLS]

You know, that's what really gets in my craw. There are dozens of prime directive stories, and all most all of them are "natural disaster threatens planetary scale destruction". If they want to make the prime directive look good, why don't they actually use a debatable situation?

[Link8909]

You know, that's what really gets in my craw. There are dozens of prime directive stories, and all most all of them are "natural disaster threatens planetary scale destruction". If they want to make the prime directive look good, why don't they actually use a debatable situation?

I can think of two times of the top of my head when General Order 1 was shown to be good, "Who Watches the Watchers" and Into Darkness.

I personally feel that getting involved in any affairs of Pre-Warp civilizations is not a good idea as it could stunt the natural development of their culture and that's were General Order 1 works well, but in these cases the inhabitants found out and quickly regressed, this was discussed very well in "Who Watches the Watchers", and I do like to subtle implication in Into Darkness with one of the aliens dropping their sacred parchment and started worshiping the image of the USS Enterprise, that because of Captain Kirk's actions that sacred parchment and the religion tied to it and all the culture that could have come from it is now lost, that it may as well have been destroyed in the volcano eruption.

[CharlesPhipps]

You know, that's what really gets in my craw. There are dozens of prime directive stories, and all most all of them are "natural disaster threatens planetary scale destruction". If they want to make the prime directive look good, why don't they actually use a debatable situation?

I can think of two times of the top of my head when General Order 1 was shown to be good, "Who Watches the Watchers" and Into Darkness.

I personally feel that getting involved in any affairs of Pre-Warp civilizations is not a good idea as it could stunt the natural development of their culture and that's were General Order 1 works well, but in these cases the inhabitants found out and quickly regressed, this was discussed very well in "Who Watches the Watchers", and I do like to subtle implication in Into Darkness with one of the aliens dropping their sacred parchment and started worshiping the image of the USS Enterprise, that because of Captain Kirk's actions that sacred parchment and the religion tied to it and all the culture that could have come from it is now lost, that it may as well have been destroyed in the volcano eruption.

The thing about that is the fact, "Do you believe the culture is more valuable than the lives that practiced it?"

The Federation seems to feel that way sometimes and it is a callous condescending attitude, as if people were nothing more than machines to produce beliefs.