DIS - New Eden

[Darth Wedgius]

I do like that they discuss religion and bring up aliens with incredible abilities (natural or technological). They're Starfleet; believing three impossible things before breakfast is easy when you saw them the previous day. I'm not sure what would separate a god (small g) from a member of the Q continuum. Quinn (the suicidal Q) said they weren't omnipotent but most gods weren't either.

We know from TOS that the Greek gods were real so there is precedent for such things. I guess by extension the Roman gods were also real as they are effectively the same gods.

I knew I was missing something.

I wonder if anybody in the production to put the Flying Spaghetti Monster into stained glass.

[Darth Wedgius]

Maybe they recite Zelazny's Agnostic's Prayer:

Insofar as I may be heard by anything, which may or may not care what I say, I ask, if it matters, that you be forgiven for anything you may have done or failed to do which requires forgiveness. Conversely, if not forgiveness but something else may be required to insure any possible benefit for which you may be eligible after the destruction of your body, I ask that this, whatever it may be, be granted or withheld, as the case may be, in such a manner as to insure your receiving said benefit. I ask this in my capacity as your elected intermediary between yourself and that which may not be yourself, but which may have an interest in the matter of your receiving as much as it is possible for you to receive of this thing, and which may in some way be influenced by this ceremony. Amen.

[Ranchoth]

You know, Jim Kirk would probably argue that the PD, designed to protect the natural development of pre-warp civilizations, wouldn't apply here as, A) this is not the "normal" development of these people, as they were transplanted here, and B) they're not "developing," they've stagnated.

Spock, on the other hand, would probably note approvingly that it was perfectly logical to set up a civilization that could be filmed entirely on reused The Walking Dead sets with the power turned off, using off-the-shelf wardrobe and no alien makeup prosthetics, so as to save money for all the flashy CGI effects shots.

[Yukaphile]

[AllanO]

There was a TNG episode where Picard and Riker decide that the prime directive doesn't apply to one civilization because they're human. But there's a lot of time between STD and TNG and the directive could have been redefined or might just be being reinterpreted differently, so I'll give it a pass.

That was the Masterpiece Society I think (that is the one I remember). A colony of genetically engineered humans who had cut themselves off from Earth in pursuit of a civilization where each member was genetically designed for one's role in society, The Enterprise ruins things by saving them from a disaster threatening the colony but allowing many members to leave the colony once they realize that the colony is a backwater compared to developments among humanity and the federation...

Note there seem to be two different issues in the Prime Directive, one is civilizations that don't know that aliens exist where just letting them know that aliens do exist is considered forbidden interference. The other is some weaker notion of non-interference for those civilizations that do. Sometimes the difference is treated as Warp drive or not, but in other cases it seems more like just knowing about aliens is enough. There is nothing to suggest that once a civilization develops warp drive one is free to just do whatever you want to that place, and much to suggest they resist interfering in internal affairs of anyone not in the Federation (for example the TNG first contact episode implies the Federation would respect any such civilizations desire for the Federation to piss off), although sometimes they can be pretty cavalier about it. Also it seems like members of warp capable civilizations seeking asylum from Federation ships usually got it, which complicates further the letting the members of the Masterpiece Society hitch a ride action arguably they were just granting political asylum.

So is a lost Earth colony or the like ignorant of the existence of aliens and space travel, well clearly they have not heard of all the aliens but that would be true of many Warp capable civilizations etc. So I find Pike's view here a bit dubious, although these guys are only aware that the Earth once supported life and have no other knowledge of extra planetary civilization, so maybe. More clearly just because a civilization is made up of humans (warp capable or not) does not mean it is internal to the Federation so treating them as such would be dubious to my mind.

----

On the merged religion thing, it is worth pointing out that many historical and current religions admit of varying degrees of syncretism, ie things like taking two gods worshipped by different groups as the same God. So taking Mars to be Ares and the like. In fact the Greek and Roman gods had distinct mythologies, festivals etc. and so the merger of the pantheons is more than a simple name change. And it was common for the Greeks and Romans to just assume that local gods were different names for the gods they worshiped despite big differences.

In modern Japan the saying "born Shinto, die Buddhist" has come up to point out how both religions are adhered to by the same people.

So the idea of a blended religion is not that unimaginable or even completely unprecedented in human history.

That being said some religions like Christianity and Islam are (in most varieties) pretty exclusionary (one truth, one way etc.) so imaging them and a bunch of other religions just merging strains credulity. So yeah...

[Darth Wedgius]

There was a TNG episode where Picard and Riker decide that the prime directive doesn't apply to one civilization because they're human. But there's a lot of time between STD and TNG and the directive could have been redefined or might just be being reinterpreted differently, so I'll give it a pass.

That was the Masterpiece Society I think (that is the one I remember). A colony of genetically engineered humans who had cut themselves off from Earth in pursuit of a civilization where each member was genetically designed for one's role in society, The Enterprise ruins things by saving them from a disaster threatening the colony but allowing many members to leave the colony once they realize that the colony is a backwater compared to developments among humanity and the federation...

Note there seem to be two different issues in the Prime Directive, one is civilizations that don't know that aliens exist where just letting them know that aliens do exist is considered forbidden interference. The other is some weaker notion of non-interference for those civilizations that do. Sometimes the difference is treated as Warp drive or not, but in other cases it seems more like just knowing about aliens is enough. There is nothing to suggest that once a civilization develops warp drive one is free to just do whatever you want to that place, and much to suggest they resist interfering in internal affairs of anyone not in the Federation (for example the TNG first contact episode implies the Federation would respect any such civilizations desire for the Federation to piss off), although sometimes they can be pretty cavalier about it. Also it seems like members of warp capable civilizations seeking asylum from Federation ships usually got it, which complicates further the letting the members of the Masterpiece Society hitch a ride action arguably they were just granting political asylum.

So is a lost Earth colony or the like ignorant of the existence of aliens and space travel, well clearly they have not heard of all the aliens but that would be true of many Warp capable civilizations etc. So I find Pike's view here a bit dubious, although these guys are only aware that the Earth once supported life and have no other knowledge of extra planetary civilization, so maybe. More clearly just because a civilization is made up of humans (warp capable or not) does not mean it is internal to the Federation so treating them as such would be dubious to my mind.

That is indeed the episode I had in mind. The transcript has:

PICARD: If we ever needed reminding of the importance of the Prime Directive, it is now.
RIKER: The Prime Directive doesn't apply. They're human.
PICARD: Doesn't it? Our very presence may have damaged, even destroyed, their way of life. Whether or not we agree with that way of life or whether they're human or not is irrelevant, Number One. We are responsible.
RIKER: We had to respond to the threat from the core fragment didn't we?
PICARD: Of course we did. But in the end we may have proved just as dangerous to that colony as any core fragment could ever have been.

So Riker's position is that the prime directive doesn't apply to humans, and Picard's response is that the colonists being human doesn't matter. From that I think I'd take it that the applicability of the prime directive to humans could be taken either way by a reasonable officer, though of course Picard is the senior officer and his take might be given greater weight.

That Picard did act to help the colony might indicate that he agrees that the prime directive doesn't apply, but Picard has, in the past, saved one civilization and was willing to let another die, both from natural disasters, and his last set of lines in that quote contradict each other if taken literally. If they were just as dangerous as the stellar core fragment then they hardly had to respond to that threat. Leaving aside the wisdom of valuing the culture as much as the people in it, IMHO Picard is such a mess on the prime directive that I think it could be taken either way.

[Yukaphile]

Oh God, is that the episode some Trek fanatics spin into claiming that the Enterprise-D could blow up a star in one shot? You know, that thing which would render Tain's fleet obsolete?

[AllanO]

PICARD: If we ever needed reminding of the importance of the Prime Directive, it is now.
RIKER: The Prime Directive doesn't apply. They're human.
PICARD: Doesn't it? Our very presence may have damaged, even destroyed, their way of life. Whether or not we agree with that way of life or whether they're human or not is irrelevant, Number One. We are responsible.
RIKER: We had to respond to the threat from the core fragment didn't we?
PICARD: Of course we did. But in the end we may have proved just as dangerous to that colony as any core fragment could ever have been.

So Riker's position is that the prime directive doesn't apply to humans, and Picard's response is that the colonists being human doesn't matter. From that I think I'd take it that the applicability of the prime directive to humans could be taken either way by a reasonable officer, though of course Picard is the senior officer and his take might be given greater weight.

That Picard did act to help the colony might indicate that he agrees that the prime directive doesn't apply, but Picard has, in the past, saved one civilization and was willing to let another die, both from natural disasters, and his last set of lines in that quote contradict each other if taken literally. If they were just as dangerous as the stellar core fragment then they hardly had to respond to that threat. Leaving aside the wisdom of valuing the culture as much as the people in it, IMHO Picard is such a mess on the prime directive that I think it could be taken either way.

I don't think it is literally a contradiction to say the interference caused by the Enterprise was as dangerous as the core fragment, as I take danger in this context to mean damage. So the damage of rendering the colony non-viable is equal whether the colony was rendered non-viable by a core fragment or by the Enterprise's intervention. Even if Picard meant dangerous in the sense of risky not sure it is actually a contradiciton, the risk of rendering the colony non-viable might be equal but it might be better in terms of other dimensions to replace the risk of the core fragment with the risk of interference given that there would be more time to evacuate etc.

In terms of that episode I took Picard's dialogue to be a kind of powerless lament, essentially going "there should be a law." I thought he was saying that he recognized they were following the rules as written, but he thought the outcome of the situation showed there was a problem with the rules as written.

Note in terms of helping or not aliens beset by natural disaster my sense would be that Picard goes back and forth on helping pre-warp/non-space faring civilizations but I think they help pretty much all space faring civilizations who ask with natural disasters; do scientific investigations, transport evacuees, give medical aid etc. The only space farers I recall him not helping when asked were the planet of unwitting junkies whose last working spaceship had exploded who he elected not to give spare parts to and that would be a borderline case as they are sort of not spacefarers at that point and they still got a fair bit of aid up to that point.

So the Masterpiece Society seems to fit in the spacefarers category pretty clearly but are they a Federation member by dint of their human ancestry or are they an alien civilization? I think Picard was suggesting they were more like an alien civilization and so non-interference should have been a bigger priority. As I said I am not sure it matters given that they take asylum seekers from alien civilization in most cases...

[clearspira]

Oh God, is that the episode some Trek fanatics spin into claiming that the Enterprise-D could blow up a star in one shot? You know, that thing which would render Tain's fleet obsolete?

With Red Matter, a trilithium weapon or a Genesis torpedo (all things within the Federation's reach) yes it could. Otherwise, no, not in one shot.

[Yukaphile]

Idazmi was arguing "with tractor beams." He just could not comprehend that would render Tain's fleet useless (just send one ship under cloak, no need to bring in the Romulans, and tractor the planet until it burns up) and that's clearly an outlier. Any attempts to get it changed, and his Trek bias became quite clear. He just wanted it to be as high as possible on the tier list. If it was possible, he'd have the Enterprise-D rated at 2-A (multiversal level) on the VS Wiki because it "manipulated infinity" in "Parallels," really.