Darth Wedgius wrote: ↑Sun Oct 13, 2019 4:11 am
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.
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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...