VOY - Natural Law

[MerelyAFan]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YtYWGRi4K4&t=921s

This might be rooted in my generally low expectations for Voyager, but I'll give it credit in that while the Prime Directive element is underexplored, the final result at minimum doesn't make the crew look like uncaring a**holes, which at least gives it something over Homeward.

[Coyote's Own]

I think Chuck means Paleolithic.
Neolithic cultures are agrarian or at least starting to be.

What? It's a geek forum. Someone has to nitpick those things.

Edit: n the other hand they apparently mastered weaving since they have blankets.

[drewder]

Did he say that this was the last voyager episode that he hadn't covered?

[Coyote's Own]

Did he say that this was the last voyager episode that he hadn't covered?

I understood it as the episode closest towards the end of the series that he hasn't covered yet.

[clearspira]

Good Prime Directive counterpoint to ''Homeward''. Its interesting to note though that humans ourselves have been interfered with by aliens at least half a dozen times to my knowledge. There are the Greek gods, the white guys who gave the Native Americans technology, the Vulcans, Quinn the Q, the aliens from the ''37s'', and Gary Seven's employers. And that figure only goes up if we include the many massively polluting time travel events.
It really does seem to be a missed opportunity to address this within the context of the episode. After all, despite all of that nasty interference, humans have turned out so well that we became the head of one of the galaxy's biggest superpowers.

I liked the idea of Paris being picked up by a traffic cop/health inspector. This sort of thing should come up more often really. Its also kind of funny that the Federation's OSHA standards haven't changed since the NX-01's elevator that severs limbs.

Chuck makes a great point about Seven's heels conflicting with her fetish regarding efficiency. But then, so does purposefully padding her bra three sizes. BTW, we know for a fact that there is survival gear on-board the shuttlecraft so there is no reason not to change out of the catsuit. I guess it was all conveniently destroyed in the crash

[Madner Kami]

I'd like to highlight an additional problem of this entire situation. So there are two species on this planet and a third species comes along and puts up an infinite and impenetrable shield bubble around one of the two species. To what end? Protection? I have my doubts...

Actually think about the situation at hand. Did the "Preservers" put up a wall-like shield to isolate them from each other? No, they deliberately put one of the two species into a limited area out of which they have no means of escaping unless they manage to develop far future high tech, which is rather unlikely given their spacial isolation and, by consequence, resource-limitations. They imprisoned the Ventu and took away from them the chance to develop and grow, possibly even resulting in a regression from their prior technological and cultural status, given there was apparently a war between the Ventu and Ledosians when the Ventu were imprisoned (while the Ledosians, given their status as a space-faring species, clearly were not subject to the same treatment). What the Preservers did, was to create a reservation for a sapient and sentient species, out of which they can never step out, unless an outside force manages to break the barrier down, an outside force that the Ventu have no means of understanding or, if necessary, fighting against...

I've only ever seen one species doing that and they were not the good guys...

[Nealithi]

I am starting to think the whole 'A' plot 'B' plot thing has messed up more Trek episodes than Neelix cooking.
Either of these plots could actually have been a story to themselves. Use the screen time from dropping the Paris plot to fill out the PD plot.
Or and this is a shock. Tom is a good pilot, but he lacks discipline. Fighter pilots tend to be very good pilots. But they need to obey civilian traffic control when not in combat. Just going where you please in a port is a bad thing. That could have been fleshed out to pulling in the reins a bit on the whole crew. Things having gotten more and more relaxed on procedures and just assuming they are going to be fine since they are just passing through. Drop the native plot line and this is much like the maquis need Star Fleet training v2 but with officers that have been getting too comfortable.

[drewder]

Good Prime Directive counterpoint to ''Homeward''. Its interesting to note though that humans ourselves have been interfered with by aliens at least half a dozen times to my knowledge. There are the Greek gods, the white guys who gave the Native Americans technology, the Vulcans, Quinn the Q, the aliens from the ''37s'', and Gary Seven's employers. And that figure only goes up if we include the many massively polluting time travel events.

It seems to me the Q would be exempt from the prime directive. On top of the obvious fact that they're certainly not subject to federation law, the purpose of the prime directive is to prevent unforeseen consequences of their actions. However, since the Q have unlimited understanding of time and space they're perfectly capable of understanding all of the ramifications of their actions and thus could never have unforeseen consequences.

[9ansean]

Good Prime Directive counterpoint to ''Homeward''. Its interesting to note though that humans ourselves have been interfered with by aliens at least half a dozen times to my knowledge. There are the Greek gods, the white guys who gave the Native Americans technology, the Vulcans, Quinn the Q, the aliens from the ''37s'', and Gary Seven's employers. And that figure only goes up if we include the many massively polluting time travel events.

It seems to me the Q would be exempt from the prime directive. On top of the obvious fact that they're certainly not subject to federation law, the purpose of the prime directive is to prevent unforeseen consequences of their actions. However, since the Q have unlimited understanding of time and space they're perfectly capable of understanding all of the ramifications of their actions and thus could never have unforeseen consequences.

While I agree it would be pretty much impossible to enforce Federation law on the Q, I've been skeptical of the whole idea that their knowledge is unlimited. Omnipotent I can believe, but omniscient? Our main Q just seems way too curious for that. Plus is this were true, then why did they seem so unsure of what would happen if Quinn was allowed to expire? Shouldn't they have already know every possible outcome and been able to confirm the worst possible example they could find in making their case against it?

[Fianna]

Maybe not omniscient, but if something they do has an outcome they don't like, they can always change the past so that they never did that thing in the first place.