TNG - Homeward

[CharlesPhipps]

As a note: The Prime Directive was created so Gene Roddenberry could have Kirk angst about breaking something.

It exists to be broken.

[Nealithi]

Okay so one thing on the drowning man and Prime Directive. I copy some articles I find to Word because they disappear from the internet from time to time. So here are two stories I copied a while ago on the subject.

The Lifeguard Who Lost His Job for Saving a Drowning Man

The job description for a lifeguard isn't that complicated. It's right there in the name (even if it is a little vague). So when lifeguards see somebody drowning, they don't usually stop to flip open the rule book to figure out what the protocol is in this situation. Florida lifeguard Tomas Lopez understood his duty very well, which is why, when he spotted a man drowning in the summer of 2012 while on duty, he did exactly what anyone would expect a lifeguard to do and saved the guy's life.
The Backlash:
Lopez forgot to make sure the man was drowning in an acceptable drowning zone, because after he completed his deed for the day, his employer informed him that he was fired. The victim had been swimming in the "swim at your own risk" section of the beach, and when they put that sign up, they really f*****g meant it. Lopez lost his job for rescuing somebody who wasn't drowning within his allocated rescue zone, and two more lifeguards were fired for defending Lopez's actions.
Naturally, Lopez and just about everyone else in the world disagreed with that decision, and several other lifeguards quit in protest.
If Jeff Ellis Management had a PR division, they were probably ripping their hair out at this point over the company's strict adherence to the "let 'em die" policy of lifeguarding. Needless to say, it wasn't long before they came to their senses and reversed their stance on the matter, admitting they had been "hasty" in their original decision to, you know, fire a lifeguard for rescuing someone. The response of the former employees at being offered their jobs back involved one artfully extended middle finger.

A Bus Driver Is Fired for Rescuing Cops

George Daw is a school bus driver in Long Island, New York. On August 1, 2011, a severe thunderstorm blew in, and while most drivers weren't keen on braving the weather, Daw had teenagers he needed to get home, and he took his bus driving job very, very seriously. So seriously that, when he drove past a police car that was stranded and sinking beneath the waves, he rescued the officers like some kind of bus driving Bruce Willis and drove them back to their precinct.
The Backlash:
Daw was then promptly fired for giving some drowning officers a free ride.
Apparently, the Educational Bus Company that employed Daw takes bus driving very seriously as well. So much so that their ruling was that you can't just deviate from your route to pick up a bunch of unscheduled passengers. Not even if they're police officers. Not even if they're police officers trapped in a sinking car in the middle of a hailstorm.
The statement released by the company simply noted that it's against company policy to pick up unscheduled passengers, in the name of the children's safety. And that's fair enough -- we're sure that there's some kind of predatory animal out there that is able to disguise itself as three drowning police officers. We probably ran that one in an article just last week.
After some bad PR, the bus company did eventually give Daw his job back, with a note of praise for his rescue of three police officers, as well as a stern warning never to do it again ever.

[TGLS]

Okay so one thing on the drowning man and Prime Directive. I copy some articles I find to Word because they disappear from the internet from time to time. So here are two stories I copied a while ago on the subject.

OK, who would say the inflexible bureaucrats are doing the right thing and not just being inflexible bureaucrats? That's the problem with the TNG prime directive stories. If they were about Picard (or whomever):
1) fighting inflexible bureaucrats to do the right thing.
2) grappling with his doubts about being an inflexible bureaucrat.
3) working within the inflexible bureaucracy to technically comply while still doing the unallowed right thing.

Then you might have a story that people wouldn't have an instinctive aversion to. On the other hand, if you make something like this, don't be surprised when the audience sides against your "heroes".

[Frustration]

There's a very telling moment when the two of them are arguing about the decision to abandon Starfleet's plan to evacuate Romulus and Picard declares "The Federation does not get to decide if a species lives or dies!"

He was absolutely right, in that the Federation shouldn't be interfering with other races - even FTL-capable ones.

She was absolutely right, in that the Federation isn't obligated to offer aid.

If you took about half of each person's argument, and stuck them together, you'd get the genuinely enlightened and self-interested argument. I think it's very interesting that, outside of the "Golden Era" of TNG, we so rarely hear it.

[Riedquat]

As a note: The Prime Directive was created so Gene Roddenberry could have Kirk angst about breaking something.

It exists to be broken.

Right, and too many TNG-era writers seem to loose track of that. Although too many stories illustrating that should question why it's still in force.

[Frustration]

The old "let a drowning person drown" argument. If the Prime DIrective means no interference, period, then it's a disgusting, obnoxious piece of dogma and those who blindly stick to it need to be condemned for being the uncaring mindless zealots that they are.

"...but let me put it this way, George, and perhaps you'll understand what it is I'm after. You're alone in the jungle, in the Mato Grosso, and you find a native woman lying on the path, dying of snakebite. You have serum in your kit, plenty of it, enough to cure thousands of snakebites. Do you withhold it because 'this is the way it is' -- do you 'let her be'?"

"It would depend," Orr said.

"Depend on what?"

"Well... I don't know. If reincarnation is a fact, you might be keeping her from a better life and condemning her to live out a wretched one. Perhaps you cure her and she goes home and murders six people in the village. I know you'd give her the serum, because you have it, and feel sorry for her. But you don't know whether what you're doing is good or evil or both..."

I recommend, strongly recommend, you seek out and read The Lathe of Heaven.

[Frustration]

A classic case of worshipping the letter of the law rather than the spirit

Oh? And what is the 'spirit' of this law?

The spirit of the law is as much about preventing the Federation from deciding that it has the right to do as it sees fit with the godlike power it has, compared to pre-warp societies, to dictate to and impose their own beliefs on the universe.

In this particular case, the Federation didn't have the power to prevent the natural disaster destroying the world's capacity to support life. It did have the power to transplant enough natives to preserve their species and culture - but it also had the humility not to set itself up as arbiter as to which species should live and which should die, and the awareness of the reality of unintended consequences.

Deciding to take up the mantle of godhood would be a profoundly arrogant act - which is precisely why so many here have erupted into self-righteous moral condemnation. This forum, as a collective, has hot and cold running arrogance and a little arrogance candy left on the pillow.

People in the Utopian future have learned not to meddle; if only people in the here-and-now were so enlightened.

[bz316]

There's a very telling moment when the two of them are arguing about the decision to abandon Starfleet's plan to evacuate Romulus and Picard declares "The Federation does not get to decide if a species lives or dies!"

He was absolutely right, in that the Federation shouldn't be interfering with other races - even FTL-capable ones.

She was absolutely right, in that the Federation isn't obligated to offer aid.

If you took about half of each person's argument, and stuck them together, you'd get the genuinely enlightened and self-interested argument. I think it's very interesting that, outside of the "Golden Era" of TNG, we so rarely hear it.

That's an idiotic interpretation of what he said. By standing by and doing nothing while species they could help save perishes, they are 100% deciding "who lives and who dies." If you have the power to save someone, and actively decide not to, you have decided that they are to die. Your "non-interference" is an active choice not to help (i.e., choosing who lives or dies). I mentioned this because, in the face of actions like this, it is a statement of delusional hypocrisy.

[Riedquat]

A classic case of worshipping the letter of the law rather than the spirit

Oh? And what is the 'spirit' of this law?

The spirit of the law is as much about preventing the Federation from deciding that it has the right to do as it sees fit with the godlike power it has, compared to pre-warp societies, to dictate to and impose their own beliefs on the universe.

I'd say the spirit of the law is to prevent societies from getting messed up due to outside interference.

Even if it's to do with what you say that still doesn't excuse standing by whilst they get wiped out by natural disaster. Anyone who can do that with a clear conscience is a messed up excuse of a person.

[Frustration]

By standing by and doing nothing while species they could help save perishes, they are 100% deciding "who lives and who dies."

Let's abolish this abstract and fictional situation and address something a little closer to home.

I 100% guarantee that there are people dying, right now, who could have lived if you or I had decided to act differently. Are we responsible for their deaths?