The ultimate Prime Directive no-win scenario

[OttoVonBigby]

A question for all the encyclopedic Trek nerds:

What is THE WORST Prime Directive-straining scenario you can think up? The sort of thing that makes everybody question the validity of the Directive in the first place... the sort of thing that's almost guaranteed to result in somebody's court martial and/or zillions of deaths... something to reeeeeally put a captain in a pickle.

(This is actually for a campaign I'm DMing--er, "Narrating"--and it's okay if the scenario ends up being a campaign-changer. Timeframe is about ten years before the start of TNG, if it matters.)

The episode I keep thinking back to is TNG "Homeward," the one with Worf's brother and the Boraalans. The circumstances there are pretty dire--Picard's 100% gonna let the entire culture die--but (a) it's not like there's blood on Starfleet hands in any direct way, (b) the planet-killing event is a natural phenomenon, and (c) it's not like we the viewers (or most of the characters) gave a crap about the Boraalans anyway.

I think we can put our heads together and do better.

[jseah]

Two pre-warp civilizations have come into contact with each other, having evolved near simultaneously on the same star system. These people are rather more intelligent than humans but physically weaker, they rely alot on their technology to do their fighting.
They have been in contact with each other for some time, and relations have not been good, but only recently have had feasible sub-light travel.

One side has been dominated by a theological council and has been waging a decades long holy war against the other side. A holy war fought with interplanetary nuclear missiles.

The other side is doing its best to avoid extermination but is slowly losing. They're also much nicer people.

Extensive evidence of mutual nuclear attacks and megadeaths are visible. Both sides are also pushing their military and production technology as fast as possible.

More disturbingly, due to the high civilian and military casualty rates in the war, both sides are pursuing artificial intelligence technologies and multiple unique advances along those lines that the Federation hasn't come across is visible.
For one thing, the "nice" side already has human-level AI that they grant full citizenship and the "not-nice" side is catching up with them fast (these guys aren't going to give them citizenship). It is clear that they are about to begin a full-scale drone war which looks likely to result in the complete destruction of the "nice" side; and if/when the "not-nice" side discovers the warp drive, they're going to end up as borg v2 as plans for von-neumann probes (sublight for now) are already in place for after the war.


Around this time, the USS Enterprise enters the star system limits and picks up the civilian and coded military transmissions from the two warring planets.

[Eldan]

Hmm.

I don't know much about Star Trek, or any details of the Prime Directive, but...

What if a still planet-bound civilization invented a new kind of WMD that actually, in some fashion, was dangerous to the galaxy at large? Say, they were in the process of, probably accidentally, making their main star go nova, which would threaten other inhabited (and perhaps still isolated!) systems in a wide radius around them?

[TheEmerged]

Mini-rant spoilered

Thing is, in order to make a "no win" scenario, it has to be possible to lose. And throughout ToS and a lot of TNG, it gets violated without real consequence on a regular basis with no real penalty.

There was a first-season TNG episode for example where the Enterprise clearly violated the PD by beaming down to spend vacation time with the pretty natives... and then spent the rest of the episode in a VERY forced narrative about how they would violate the PD if they allowed a crew member to avoid an absurd penalty for a minor crime.

And then allowed the crew member to do so, and there was never any consequence for EITHER violation.

It's easy to write that off as, "Meh, first season TNG was horrible." But that was merely the most contrived example. Ask yourself, how many times did the crew find themselves interacting with pre-warp civilizations and end up interfering massively with their development?

Even in the recent movie, where there *were* consequences, did those consequences last more than a month in continuity?

[paddyfool]

Prime directive was always an issue as termed - far better if it was a doctrine of minimal interference (i.e., not interfering in local crises that don't stretch off-planet, up to and including nuclear holocausts, but stopping extra-planetary threats that planet-bound civs are powerless to avoid, such as large asteroids, ideally without revealing the ships presence e.g. by subtly altering the incoming object's course from a distance).

[GloatingSwine]

There isn't one, because no moral individual would ever place the survival of a species over the ideal of nonintervention.

I mean seriously, the ideals on which the Prime Directive were founded came from the Enterprise episode Dear Doctor, and Phlox's moral sense in that episode wouldn't have looked out of place at the Nuremberg rallies (the genetic destiny of the untermenschen was to die so that their genetic "betters" could inherit the planet).

So, basically, **** the prime directive. **** it in the ear with a clawhammer.

[Aotrs Commander]

Mini-rant spoilered

Thing is, in order to make a "no win" scenario, it has to be possible to lose. And throughout ToS and a lot of TNG, it gets violated without real consequence on a regular basis with no real penalty.

There was a first-season TNG episode for example where the Enterprise clearly violated the PD by beaming down to spend vacation time with the pretty natives... and then spent the rest of the episode in a VERY forced narrative about how they would violate the PD if they allowed a crew member to avoid an absurd penalty for a minor crime.

And then allowed the crew member to do so, and there was never any consequence for EITHER violation.

It's easy to write that off as, "Meh, first season TNG was horrible." But that was merely the most contrived example. Ask yourself, how many times did the crew find themselves interacting with pre-warp civilizations and end up interfering massively with their development?

Even in the recent movie, where there *were* consequences, did those consequences last more than a month in continuity?

To be "fair" that episode was probably arguably the worst (and was, in my opinion) of the entire TNG run. So there's that.

[Gamerlord]

To be "fair" that episode was probably arguably the worst (and was, in my opinion) of the entire TNG run. So there's that.
I'd say Code of Honor has it solidly beat as the worst TNG episode.

[OttoVonBigby]

It is clear that they are about to begin a full-scale drone war which looks likely to result in the complete destruction of the "nice" side; and if/when the "not-nice" side discovers the warp drive, they're going to end up as borg v2 as plans for von-neumann probes (sublight for now) are already in place for after the war. Oo, currency. I always like a bit of that.


I mean seriously, the ideals on which the Prime Directive were founded came from the Enterprise episode Dear Doctor, and Phlox's moral sense in that episode wouldn't have looked out of place at the Nuremberg rallies (the genetic destiny of the untermenschen was to die so that their genetic "betters" could inherit the planet).

So, basically, **** the prime directive. **** it in the ear with a clawhammer.:) See, this is the type of thing I'm fishing for. Now overlay that attitude (which we know, canonically, that at least some Starfleet officers share to a degree) with the imperative of Trek RPG players to not end their characters' careers, or saddle them with irredeemable guilt. I'm looking for a scenario that does that.

[Marnath]

Hmm.

I don't know much about Star Trek, or any details of the Prime Directive, but...

What if a still planet-bound civilization invented a new kind of WMD that actually, in some fashion, was dangerous to the galaxy at large? Say, they were in the process of, probably accidentally, making their main star go nova, which would threaten other inhabited (and perhaps still isolated!) systems in a wide radius around them?

Something like this has already been explored. What we got is the Omega Directive. "For the duration of this mission, the Prime Directive is rescinded. Destroy that lab by any means necessary."

[Yora]

What is the Prime Directive?

In every episode that it comes up, it appears to be whatever is most conventient to the plot to create an artificial dilemma. It never seemed to be actually defined.

[Aotrs Commander]

I'd say Code of Honor has it solidly beat as the worst TNG episode.

Nah, that was just moribundly bad (heck I had to look it up to remember what episode it was, it was that forgettable1); Justice is so bad I have ever after refused to watch it, as I found it that out-and-out offensive. On several levels.



On the subject of the Prime Directive, I've always thought it was the most ridiculous, offensive, elitist and useless piece of bureaucratic crap I have ever had to witness in fiction (it's nearly as bad as real-world stupidity.) Nobody ever follows it anyway, in the end (which is as well, because in pretty much all the cases it's brought up it's on a "we can either follow orders or stop these people from being killed" basis, invariably leading to a ludicrously contrived moral "dilemma" you know the outcome of anyway.)



1Then I was like, "oh yeah, that one, that was abit like the later and equally forgettably bad one with Sam Carter in the very early days of SG-1 that they all admitted was a step in the wrong direction."

[Tiki Snakes]

Hmm. Well, you could always try stealing liberally from the mass effect universe?

Federation stumbles into war with the rachni, and are somehow getting their asses handed to them.
They discover the pre-warp Krogan, brutal, Rachni resistant super soldier types who could take the fight to them but miiight get carried away and carry oh fighting and expanding afterwards.

Respect the prime directive and die to bugs, or abandon it and maybe die to krogans? Rename as appropriate.

[Kitten Champion]

As SF debris has pointed out, the Prime Directive is a well meaning philosophy formed out of anathema at the exploitative nature of early European exploration and colonization and the American Truman doctrine. Non-intervention with underdeveloped civilizations and in the internal matters of developed ones. The idea isn't fully without merit, when tempered with rationality and objective criticism. However, when it becomes an unquestioning doctrine, when it's only support is a series of fallacious arguments like "who are we to play god?", "they could develop into space Nazis and then we'll be sorry!", or "because I say so!" it comes out sounding rather stupid.

I think the ultimate no-win scenario wasn't some natural disaster or war, it was Star Trek: Insurrection.

For those who didn't see it, it's about a small community of Luddite alien settlers living on a planet with unknown radiation that provides a fountain of youth effect. The Federation and another race have colluded to evacuate the aliens secretly and take the radiation for themselves somehow. In comes the Enterprise, they learn of the conspiracy, and take up arms against it. The whole thing is seen as unambiguously wrong, because of the prime directive and poorly developed analogies to historical genocidal forced relocations.

The problem is, quite transparently, that it was a more morally complicated issue. The Federation was not the United States, permitting an atrocity to get their hands on lucrative land, as a benevolent power it would use such an advancement for the good of all and that's hundreds of billions of lifeforms. Which in the wake of the most violent war possibly in all of history, is a godsend. The aliens themselves were never going to progress to the point where they could viably use the radiation constructively rather than passively. Oh, sure, they are technically capable of doing so coming from a sophisticated post-warp civilization, but have rejected this for the sake of living like it's the late 18th century and have indoctrinated their children against the idea of machinery. They're also such a small population that without the radiation making them young they'd interbreed until languishing, that speaks more to their viability as a species than an ethical reason to keep them bathing in this Mary Sue-topia's radiation at the exclusion of all other concerns. There's nothing about their lifestyle or philosophy that requires near-eternal life, it's not like removing fish from water, their civilization will die on its own merits... just in excruciating slow-motion as is. Of course, these issues are never raised since the Prime Directive is almighty in its stupidity.

If I found the literal fountain of youth - water able to cure all illness and reverse aging with just a sip - in a well in my backyard (lets assume I have a backyard and not a cemented alley), and I just used it on myself and to water my carrots now and then knowing full well what I had at my disposal... I'd be an amoral person. I couldn't answer the basic ethical question of why I value my personal comfort and immortality over the broader needs of billions of sentient beings. Then, after my secret is revealed, the government does show up to expropriate my property for civic use, but a bunch of libertarian fundamentalists show up with heavy weapons ready to fight back against this injustice. The battle ends with a few deaths, me choosing to accept a few sick extended family members as roommates, it and my callous selfish disregard for humanity are never mentioned again.

I could say that I won in that scenario, but I'm still a self-entitled ******* watching as the world decays around me.

The prime directive, flattening complex moral issues into simplistic black and white scenarios since 1966.

[bguy]

A question for all the encyclopedic Trek nerds:

What is THE WORST Prime Directive-straining scenario you can think up? The sort of thing that makes everybody question the validity of the Directive in the first place... the sort of thing that's almost guaranteed to result in somebody's court martial and/or zillions of deaths... something to reeeeeally put a captain in a pickle.

Well like Kitten Champion said, the Prime Directive is really 2 different things: 1) don't interfere with pre-warp civilizations and 2) don't interfere in the internal affairs of other civilizations. Most Prime Directive ethical questions involve the first aspect of the PD but maybe we should play with the second instead.

Have a faction about to seize power in the Klingon Empire that is violently anti-Federation. Their plan once they take power is to ally with the Cardassians and Tzenkathi and attack the Federation. The characters can take action to prevent their coup, a clear Prime Directive violation, or they can let the coup happen in which case the Federation will soon find itself in a massive war it may not be able to win.

STTNG sort of played with this idea with their Klingon Civil War arc, but in the end that story let the Feds eat their cake and have it too since Gowron was able to defeat the Duras sisters without the Feds having to violate the PD. (Which pretty much makes takes all the drama out of a Prime Directive story if the Federation doesn't suffer anything from upholding it.)


The episode I keep thinking back to is TNG "Homeward," the one with Worf's brother and the Boraalans. The circumstances there are pretty dire--Picard's 100% gonna let the entire culture die--but (a) it's not like there's blood on Starfleet hands in any direct way, (b) the planet-killing event is a natural phenomenon, and (c) it's not like we the viewers (or most of the characters) gave a crap about the Boraalans anyway.

I think we can put our heads together and do better.

I think problem (c) is going to affect any story you do about a less developed civilization. It's going to be hard to make your players care about some one off civilization. Still, if you want to do that kind of story what about if we do make Starfleet responsible for the disaster. Say a Federation undercover team surveying an inhabited planet (one with late 20th, early 21st century level technology), inadvertently unleashes a devastating pandemic on the planet. The plague could be easily contained with Federation medical tech but is beyond the technological ability of the planet. The plague will kill approximately 75% of the population of the planet if left untreated and is spreading rapidly enough that the players will need to be able to work with the planet's existing medical infrastructure to be able to contain it. (No just covertly spraying some chemical into the atmosphere to make the problem go away here.) To make things even more difficult the planet does not have a unified government but rather is divided into multiple nuclear armed nation-states, some of which may violently resist the players if they are contacted (as some of them will believe that the Federation deliberately infected their planet as the first step towards conquering it.)

Thus you have a situation where the Federation caused the problem and will have great difficulty fixing it. (They may have to outright conquer some of the more militant nation-states on the planet to be able to get sufficient access to their people to help them.)

[GloatingSwine]

What is the Prime Directive?

In every episode that it comes up, it appears to be whatever is most conventient to the plot to create an artificial dilemma. It never seemed to be actually defined.

Starfleet officers shall not interfere with civilisations which have yet to make first contact.



Unless they really want to.

[Philistine]

What is the Prime Directive?

In every episode that it comes up, it appears to be whatever is most conventient to the plot to create an artificial dilemma. It never seemed to be actually defined.

Oh, it's defined. It's just that - despite Kirk's TOS protest that any Starfleet captain should willingly sacrifice his life, his ship, and even the lives of his crew to maintain and uphold the Prime Directive, and even the TNG era's rigid dogmatism on the subject - compliance seems to be entirely discretionary, and enforcement virtually nonexistent. (Which... If you frequently find yourself excusing officers for justified violations of your General Orders, then said General Orders desperately need to not be General Orders.)

[Mando Knight]

Starfleet officers shall not interfere with civilisations which have yet to make first contact.



Unless they really want to.

Actually, it's "No starship may interfere with the normal development of any alien life or society."

With 47 sub-orders clarifying that yes, it is meant to be a rule that can be expanded to justify why a Starfleet captain can wash their hands of any matter involving non-Federation life, no matter how unethical it is to do so, and that it will be broken without repercussions whenever Kirk, Picard, or Janeway feels that it is better to do what's right than to follow a short-sighted and poorly-written rule.

(And yes, my regard for the general ability of Star Trek writers to develop and apply a consistent and consistently valid code of ethics for Starfleet beyond "the Captain is right" is slightly above that of George Lucas's ability to write any scene involving Anakin. Or his ability to make well-received updates to the Original Trilogy.)

[Fjolnir]

How about a near-warp species that is a known interspecies plague carrier? There have been "covert" explorations of prewarp cultures, what if these guys are genetically toxic to several of the major federation species and are unaware?
Is the federation justified in using tractor beam c-sabots to create a "natural disaster" that should knock warp travel right off the drawing board for a few centuries or follow the prime directive, knowing that if a cure or countermeasures aren't found, there could be a quadrant wide pandemic?

[GloatingSwine]

Oo, currency. I always like a bit of that.

:) See, this is the type of thing I'm fishing for. Now overlay that attitude (which we know, canonically, that at least some Starfleet officers share to a degree) with the imperative of Trek RPG players to not end their characters' careers, or saddle them with irredeemable guilt. I'm looking for a scenario that does that.

If you're doing it as part of an RPG campaign then create a situation that your players in particular will feel compelled to violate the prime directive, and then have a couple of adventures lined up where you explore the ramifications of that (and make it more complex than "ha ha you should have not done that you have made it infinitely worse Phlox knows better than you", because that would make you That Guy, and you don't want to be That Guy.)

[Juntao112]

If I found the literal fountain of youth - water able to cure all illness and reverse aging with just a sip - in a well in my backyard (lets assume I have a backyard and not a cemented alley), and I just used it on myself and to water my carrots now and then knowing full well what I had at my disposal... I'd be an amoral person. I couldn't answer the basic ethical question of why I value my personal comfort and immortality over the broader needs of billions of sentient beings. Then, after my secret is revealed, the government does show up to expropriate my property for civic use, but a bunch of libertarian fundamentalists show up with heavy weapons ready to fight back against this injustice. The battle ends with a few deaths, me choosing to accept a few sick extended family members as roommates, it and my callous selfish disregard for humanity are never mentioned again.

I could say that I won in that scenario, but I'm still a self-entitled ******* watching as the world decays around me.

Two things.

1)Perhaps Dumbledore said it best: "The Stone was really not such a wonderful thing. As much money and life as you could want! The two things most human beings would choose above all - the trouble is, humans do have a knack of choosing precisely those things that are worst for them."

Immortality bring a lot of problems. For example, overpopulation unless birth control exists and is enforced (no-child policy?), cultural stagnation (the Q), and probably more things than I can think of.

2) If you, say, had the mental genius to invent a drug to extend human lifespan indefinitely, but choose to compose piano music for a living (and do quite well in that endeavor), does it still make you a selfish asterisk for not using your talent to benefit humanity? Should the government be allowed to take you from your studio and force you to work in a lab?

This isn't the same as the "fountain of youth" scenario you outlined earlier, but I am just curious as to your opinion.

[McStabbington]

Two things.

1)Perhaps Dumbledore said it best: "The Stone was really not such a wonderful thing. As much money and life as you could want! The two things most human beings would choose above all - the trouble is, humans do have a knack of choosing precisely those things that are worst for them."

Immortality bring a lot of problems. For example, overpopulation unless birth control exists and is enforced (no-child policy?), cultural stagnation (the Q), and probably more things than I can think of.

2) If you, say, had the mental genius to invent a drug to extend human lifespan indefinitely, but choose to compose piano music for a living (and do quite well in that endeavor), does it still make you a selfish asterisk for not using your talent to benefit humanity? Should the government be allowed to take you from your studio and force you to work in a lab?

This isn't the same as the "fountain of youth" scenario you outlined earlier, but I am just curious as to your opinion.

Well, here's the one problem: at the very same time this little scenario is playing out in a tiny, little corner of the galaxy, in most of the rest of the galaxy, a massive interstellar war is playing out. In this war, in an average, non-descript week with no serious offensives, no major battles, no significant setbacks, the Federation was losing four to five thousand soldiers. In a major engagements, they might lose 15-20 times the number of ships and men that they lost at Wolf 359. There were multiple such major enagements. And their allies in the Klingon Empire and the Romulan Star Empire are suffering similar losses, against a Dominion force that could quite literally breed replacements in the form of cannister-born Jem'Hadar soldiers that go from newborn to lethal in seven weeks.

In short, the Federation was engaged in a fight that was the interstellar equivalent of the Russian front of World War 2. Losses were appallingly high, especially when you consider that every one of those men lost took somewhere between four and seven years to train just to turn them into green officers and men. An experienced an able veteran might require another five years of hands-on training. And there was absolutely no guarantee that they would win.

Now, what are you going to tell the families of those men and women? What are you going to tell the captains that lost their best men and no longer have the crew that can do the missions they're being asked to perform? What are you going to tell your allies when they ask what you've got that can relieve the pressure on their lines? What do you tell your men, who might very well be throwing their lives away in a futile effort to win the war? Apparently, if you believe Star Trek: Insurrection, you tell them that you had a technology that might very well have saved them, but you couldn't do it because it might damage the internal relations of 600 space elves that were dying of inbreeding and cultural stagnation anyway.

[grolim]

How about a near-warp species that is a known interspecies plague carrier? There have been "covert" explorations of prewarp cultures, what if these guys are genetically toxic to several of the major federation species and are unaware?
Is the federation justified in using tractor beam c-sabots to create a "natural disaster" that should knock warp travel right off the drawing board for a few centuries or follow the prime directive, knowing that if a cure or countermeasures aren't found, there could be a quadrant wide pandemic?

Actually that is an easy one. They just set up ships outside of the system and wait for them to develop warp travel. At that point they are allowed to show themselves. Say they have been watched, their biology is dangerous to our type of life, give them the files and tell them they will not be permitted direct contact. But they could still have diplomatic relations etc just have to be careful.

[Kitten Champion]

Two things.

1)Perhaps Dumbledore said it best: "The Stone was really not such a wonderful thing. As much money and life as you could want! The two things most human beings would choose above all - the trouble is, humans do have a knack of choosing precisely those things that are worst for them."

Immortality bring a lot of problems. For example, overpopulation unless birth control exists and is enforced (no-child policy?), cultural stagnation (the Q), and probably more things than I can think of.

Sickness, age, and death bring about a lot of problems too.

I won't claim existential concerns aren't evident, what a post-mortal society would look like is such an unknown I can't help but have some reservation. I'm merely arguing that my individual ephemeral right of ownership over this theoretical property and personal wishes do not supersede the needs of the many. Others should make those decisions for themselves.

This isn't an absolute statement that we should bend to the will of the majority wherever asked, just that you've got to have some wider selfless perspective if, in my opinion, you want to consider yourself moral.

In Insurrection that "ethical" decision would be made for me, by a bunch of strangers waving guns around, without even asking me. That the now natural course of my immortal life is just worth defending objectively, and screw the consequences.



2) If you, say, had the mental genius to invent a drug to extend human lifespan indefinitely, but choose to compose piano music for a living (and do quite well in that endeavor), does it still make you a selfish asterisk for not using your talent to benefit humanity? Should the government be allowed to take you from your studio and force you to work in a lab?

This isn't the same as the "fountain of youth" scenario you outlined earlier, but I am just curious as to your opinion.


How could you know what a life can accomplish until they've accomplished it? I think we should encourage people to do what they're aptitude inclines them to do, but otherwise inspired innovation usually comes with the effort off of someone's brow and not just their natural skill. Forcing people to work in a field of such objective importance to one's society could be catastrophic as personal indifference outweighs the benefits of supposed competency.

[Mando Knight]

By the time a post-mortal FTL-capable society needs to worry about overpopulation, there are probably more pressing concerns. Like administrating a society with more members than there are grains of Terran sand.

[Philistine]

How about a near-warp species that is a known interspecies plague carrier? There have been "covert" explorations of prewarp cultures, what if these guys are genetically toxic to several of the major federation species and are unaware?
Is the federation justified in using tractor beam c-sabots to create a "natural disaster" that should knock warp travel right off the drawing board for a few centuries or follow the prime directive, knowing that if a cure or countermeasures aren't found, there could be a quadrant wide pandemic?
That doesn't even make sense. Are you talking about a toxin or a contagion? (The two terms are not interchangeable!) And what's the vector? Airborne, skin contact, fluid transfer, what? Note that any aliens whose biochemistry is that weird - relative to the established races of the Alpha Quadrant, naturally - probably also has a rather different opinion from ours as to what constitutes a habitable planet, so that neither sharing nor competing for real estate would be of interest to anyone.

[Juntao112]

Well, here's the one problem: at the very same time this little scenario is playing out in a tiny, little corner of the galaxy, in most of the rest of the galaxy, a massive interstellar war is playing out. In this war, in an average, non-descript week with no serious offensives, no major battles, no significant setbacks, the Federation was losing four to five thousand soldiers. In a major engagements, they might lose 15-20 times the number of ships and men that they lost at Wolf 359. There were multiple such major enagements. And their allies in the Klingon Empire and the Romulan Star Empire are suffering similar losses, against a Dominion force that could quite literally breed replacements in the form of cannister-born Jem'Hadar soldiers that go from newborn to lethal in seven weeks.

In short, the Federation was engaged in a fight that was the interstellar equivalent of the Russian front of World War 2. Losses were appallingly high, especially when you consider that every one of those men lost took somewhere between four and seven years to train just to turn them into green officers and men. An experienced an able veteran might require another five years of hands-on training. And there was absolutely no guarantee that they would win.

Now, what are you going to tell the families of those men and women? What are you going to tell the captains that lost their best men and no longer have the crew that can do the missions they're being asked to perform? What are you going to tell your allies when they ask what you've got that can relieve the pressure on their lines? What do you tell your men, who might very well be throwing their lives away in a futile effort to win the war? Apparently, if you believe Star Trek: Insurrection, you tell them that you had a technology that might very well have saved them, but you couldn't do it because it might damage the internal relations of 600 space elves that were dying of inbreeding and cultural stagnation anyway.

I apologize, it has been a while since I watched Insurrection, but did the Banku have the ability to bring back the dead?


Sickness, age, and death bring about a lot of problems too.

Medicine cures signess and helps with age, although of the three, death strikes me as the least troublesome. After all, we all know what awaits humans after death. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiOq6c2Y0Ao)

[Mando Knight]

Medicine cures signess and helps with age, although of the three, death strikes me as the least troublesome. After all, we all know what awaits humans after death. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiOq6c2Y0Ao)

The universe is not that badly designed. It's definitely Q playing around with poor ol' Jean-Luc's emotions.

[Kitten Champion]

I apologize, it has been a while since I watched Insurrection, but did the Banku have the ability to bring back the dead?

They seemed to have the ability to slow down time in their immediate surroundings allowing for medical technology to help save them from mortal injuries.

This is part of some "faith, not reason" BS theme the film was spouting, so it wasn't explained even by technobabble.

[McStabbington]

I apologize, it has been a while since I watched Insurrection, but did the Banku have the ability to bring back the dead?


Medicine cures signess and helps with age, although of the three, death strikes me as the least troublesome. After all, we all know what awaits humans after death. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiOq6c2Y0Ao)

. . .I'm not sure if you're serious or not, but it's only the assumption that you might not be that's preventing a Picard Facepalm. The planet effectively allowed for low-level regeneration. People grew younger, old wounds healed up, and Geordi regrew his frickin' eyes. The Son'a apparently had the ability to harness whatever was in the atmosphere that was doing this and employ it with technology. The implications for battlefield medical treatment, to say nothing of all the other uses it could be put to, are pretty obvious.

The Stardate was unknown, but memory-alpha.org said that this movie took place during the last year of the Dominion War. If you have a technology, let's say a tourniquet, and you have a man in front of you with an amputated limb, and you fail to use the tourniquet, guess what? You're partly responsible, at least morally, for not saving his life. Well, if that's the case, what's the difference between the tourniquet and the Son'a technology?

[SaintRidley]

I'd say Code of Honor has it solidly beat as the worst TNG episode.

In the running with Spock's Brain for worst Star Trek has ever had to offer, easily.

Just remember, the Prime Directive can be good, but often it's a crock. The Federation? A lot more like the Terran Empire than they would ever care to admit publicly. Just don't get Section 31 on your case, and you'll see that the Federation can be far worse than the Terran Empire, but they have a better PR team.

[Juntao112]

. . .I'm not sure if you're serious or not, but it's only the assumption that you might not be that's preventing a Picard Facepalm. The planet effectively allowed for low-level regeneration. People grew younger, old wounds healed up, and Geordi regrew his frickin' eyes. The Son'a apparently had the ability to harness whatever was in the atmosphere that was doing this and employ it with technology. The implications for battlefield medical treatment, to say nothing of all the other uses it could be put to, are pretty obvious.
From the way you phrased it, it sounded like the Son'a could bring back the dead. After all, its pretty hard to talk to the relatives of the dead before the dead are dead.


The Stardate was unknown, but memory-alpha.org said that this movie took place during the last year of the Dominion War. If you have a technology, let's say a tourniquet, and you have a man in front of you with an amputated limb, and you fail to use the tourniquet, guess what? You're partly responsible, at least morally, for not saving his life. Well, if that's the case, what's the difference between the tourniquet and the Son'a technology?
I was not aware that Starfleet was restricted to 19th century medical technology on the battlefield.

Assuming that is true, how would they get the injured to the planet, as the metaphasic particles, to the best of my knowledge could not have been harvested, which is the reason Starfleet tried relocation? (Unless I am misremembering the film?)

[Philistine]

It wasn't ever explained as such. The film's heavy implication, though, was that the Federation believed that they would indeed be able (possibly after some amount of research) to transport and/or duplicate the effect elsewhere - that was the apparent foundation of their interest in the world, insofar as their motivation was discussed at all.

[Juntao112]

It wasn't ever explained as such. The film's heavy implication, though, was that the Federation believed that they would indeed be able (possibly after some amount of research) to transport and/or duplicate the effect elsewhere - that was the apparent foundation of their interest in the world, insofar as their motivation was discussed at all.

It is a world with 600 people. They would take up a space far less than the town of Nowhere, Kansas. Is there anything stopping the Federation from camping on the other side of the planet and conducting research there?

[Mando Knight]

It is a world with 600 people. They would take up a space far less than the town of Nowhere, Kansas. Is there anything stopping the Federation from camping on the other side of the planet and conducting research there?

This is a very good point... if they can all fit inside the Enterprise-E, they're not taking much more space than some random Small Town, USA. Unless the planet is actually an asteroid or something, that means there's millions of square miles of space that the Federation could use for basically anything they needed.

Except that no, all Sci-fi planets can only fit one settlement each, no matter how small the settlement or large the planet, unless it's a main character's homeworld.

[Soras Teva Gee]

ST: Insurrection epic fails just for its ridiculous bull**** shallow contention that there would be only one of something on any cosmic scale and it would ever be able to service a galaxy. (No being "not real" is not a justification)

And anything that makes THE Space Whale Aesop sound almost well founded doesn't merit further consideration on its ethics in my book.

For the actual Prime Directive well I think at a base level its debatable with the whole certainty of negative effect but the Federation is pretty evidently not quite post-scarcity enough to actually be able to afford any other policy.

Since obviously once you abandon non-interference how do you continue to justify NOT handing out replicators. And sending in teachers to ensure that everyone can take advantage of everything you have to offer. Once you've interfered you've already caused irreparable change the worst thing you can do is show off all this stuff... and then leave.

So you have to see such a commitment through fully, which means creating a society as functional and modern as it wishes to be after making a full and informed choice on the matter.

I don't think the Federation has the willing manpower for the actual obligations of a benevolent galactic empire. Even if such a thing can be done.

[Kitten Champion]

It is a world with 600 people. They would take up a space far less than the town of Nowhere, Kansas. Is there anything stopping the Federation from camping on the other side of the planet and conducting research there?

Logically, yes. The issue was the Son'a, and that the movie needed a firefight rather than a long diplomatic and ethical discussion which would be happening if this was any well written TNG television episode.

The Son'a were degenerating and on the verge of extinction due to technobabble, and were the only race in the universe with the technobabble thingy the Federation needed to utilize the planet's radiation. Picard offered that the Son'a colonize the... whole 99.99% of the planet these 600 people weren't using. However, he was refused because many of the Son'a would die far too quickly for planet's radiation to be effective naturally. Upon the conclusion of the movie, some of the Son'a are implied to stay with the Ba'ku in their perfect little village, but for those Son'a which are still going to die horribly from degeneration? ****'em, the movie certainly didn't care.

I don't know, maybe the Federation does stay, it never comes up again. TNG was never a series about following up on the BS they did and the movies were utterly inconsistent with everything, that's why DS9 remains my favourite. Sisko was far less dogmatic about the Prime Directive, and usually not to the detriment to anyone.

Incidently there was an episode like this on DS9. On Bajor, there was an important project to bring power to millions of Bajorans - but to push it through some farmers would have to vacate their land. These were grizzled veterans who were the insurgents during a military occupation. They were tired of being ordered around, so they took a stand... and while we were made to sympathize with their position we also understood that Bajor as a whole needed this project for its future and however cruelly it cut into sentiments it still got pushed through. Not quite the same, the Prime Directive wasn't at stake since this was Bajorans tackling Bajoran issues, but these few men and women were still asked to justify their actions objectively... and really couldn't.

[grolim]

Best I recall the Son'a were not a race. They were the dissidents of that colony that left long ago because they wanted to use tech. So that ship was probably just about all of them. And as far as harvesting the energy to use on the battlefield or whatever they pretty much said what they were doing would drain the planet's ability for that field. So do you want super healing now or a planet with slower healing on a permanent basis.

[McStabbington]

Best I recall the Son'a were not a race. They were the dissidents of that colony that left long ago because they wanted to use tech. So that ship was probably just about all of them. And as far as harvesting the energy to use on the battlefield or whatever they pretty much said what they were doing would drain the planet's ability for that field. So do you want super healing now or a planet with slower healing on a permanent basis.

That was really the crux of the "moral" dilemma presented by the movie. You can't have the planet as it is and have the medical tech whatsamajig that lets you cure diseases, heal wounds, make cats and dogs live together, etc. Whatever they were planning to do ostensibly would wreck the planet and kill whomever was on the surface. So the options as presented were: 1) don't collect the medical tech whatsamajig, 2) forcibly relocate all the Ba'ku and collect it, or 3) collect it while the Ba'ku are on the planet and kill them in the process. The Prime Directive did technically apply, because the So'na and the Ba'ku were in fact one and the same people. Nevertheless, the planet was in Federation space, and neither the Ba'ku nor the So'na were native to the world.

The real problem with the script, however, was that it never seriously grappled with the moral issues at stake. In theory, if you move the Ba'ku, you're committing genocide, because the only thing that's keeping their species alive with only 600 people in their species is the eternal youth provided by the planet. Barring injury, a person who stays on the planet for ten years regenerates to an age of 25-30 and lives at that age forever, which means that they have a chance to build a breeding population. On the other hand, if the So'na were to be believed, by harnessing the bull-crapatronic particles in the atmosphere that caused this effect, the Federation could potentially save billions of lives and turn the tide of a devastating war. That is actually a fairly compelling moral dilemma. It's a classic "needs of the many vs. needs of the few and upholding the law" dilemma.

Unfortunately, the movie decided to obscure the dilemma on both ends. Rather than focusing on the fact that the consequence of removing the Ba'ku is their extermination, they talked about it as some kind of fuzzy cultural extinction, which is screwy because the Ba'ku weren't native to the planet. And the value of the particles was obscured because rather than focusing on the fact that the Federation is in the middle of, and currently losing, a devastating war, and these particles could save enough soldiers to turn the tide, they talked about it in terms of how old and creaky the Federation was, and how this advance could breathe new life into their society.

[Derthric]

As Grolim said, the Son'a Chose their fate and basically came back to take away Ma and Pa's magic elixir. What's more the Son'a were selling Ketrecel White to the Dominion. You know that stuff the Jem'Hadar needed to survive and keep conquering in the name of the Founders? Explain to the people of Betazed how Starfleet helped save the race that just allowed their world to be brutally occupied. Plus the Son'a, despite being the outcasts of a colony of 600 who were themselves outcasts, managed to conquer and make two less advanced worlds into "client races". Even after somehow failing to "conquer" the Baku. So if we are going to be Machiavellian enough to put "Frell the natives we need this now" on our list. Arguing to save the war profiteering, seemingly enemy allied slavers should also not be on that list.

But as stated before the Prime Directive, as a policy of Non-Interference, does seem well in keeping for the Federation to have. The problem is how dogmatic they seem about it. And more importantly how contrived the writers are about non-interference. Two examples

For example. Dear Doctor, which does occur before the founding of the Federation, in this episode the tone is that the crew should not interfere with the development of this world's evolution and allow one sentient race to die out so another can live on. This episode is terrible in its horrible understanding of Evolution and Ethics, but it was meant to show how "we can't play god". And in the end it just makes Archer into a passive accomplice in genocide. This is a terrible way to show how non-interference is a good thing.

But, I cannot believe I am doing this, in Into Darkness (Spoilered just in case)
The opening sequence, while failing at 5th grade earth science in spectacular ways, shows the crew acting to save a primitive species in a gloriously stupid way. And IIRC the real problem comes from the fact that Kirk acted to save Spock in a way that revealed the ship to the natives and thus interfered. Pike did not chastise him harshly for trying to save the natives but more for mucking it up so badly. That to me is a good way to present it
I admit I could be wrong on this interpretation, as I only saw the movie once and you can't make me see it again.

If they were just less dogmatic about it, and actually didn't put people on primitive planets to watch these races *cough*Mintaka*cough* It would be less contentious.

As far as making a very compelling situation for the crew. You could do what they attempted in Insurrection, with less hammering home the point. Make it personal, the more you up the stakes to other races and worlds. The more they can hide behind the prime directive as to prevent others from interfering. So make it personal just don't make it about a dying world, keep it small. So in that spirit:

An old human deep space probe with cryotubes(ala the TNG episode the Neutral Zone) crashed on this late industrial world either about to engage in a global war circa 1930 or on a simmering cold war circa 1950. The people on this world have taken it to their Area 51 type base. How do you retrieve the materiel without being caught. And you have to use subterfuge but if caught you could be mistaken for a rival power's spy, or a rebel, etc. Is it worth retrieving and revealing even more of the outer galaxy? What if it turns into another Friendship One disaster because you don't interfere? What about the people on probe doesn't the Federation, as the successor state to the old Earth nations, have a responsibility to its citizens?

The question should not be about to interfere or not to, it should be about how to minimize it.

[Joran]

Well like Kitten Champion said, the Prime Directive is really 2 different things: 1) don't interfere with pre-warp civilizations and 2) don't interfere in the internal affairs of other civilizations. Most Prime Directive ethical questions involve the first aspect of the PD but maybe we should play with the second instead.

Have a faction about to seize power in the Klingon Empire that is violently anti-Federation. Their plan once they take power is to ally with the Cardassians and Tzenkathi and attack the Federation. The characters can take action to prevent their coup, a clear Prime Directive violation, or they can let the coup happen in which case the Federation will soon find itself in a massive war it may not be able to win.

STTNG sort of played with this idea with their Klingon Civil War arc, but in the end that story let the Feds eat their cake and have it too since Gowron was able to defeat the Duras sisters without the Feds having to violate the PD. (Which pretty much makes takes all the drama out of a Prime Directive story if the Federation doesn't suffer anything from upholding it.)


DS9 had this exact scenario but with the Romulans in Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges. It involved Section 31, so that should immediately raise tons of ethical and moral red flags.

Bashir is recruited by Section 31's Sloan to observe a virulently anti-Federation Romulan Senator, Koval, during a medical conference. Bashir realizes that the Senator has a rare medical condition and is alarmed that Sloan seems very interested in the man's condition; he figures out that Sloan is going to try to kill him by acceleratinghis condition. He enlists another Romulan Senator, Cretak, to hack into the Romulan database to try to find the traitor but ends up falling for Sloan's plan to implicate Cretak in the unauthorized access of Romulan files. Turns out the first Romulan Senator, Koval, was a Federation informant, while Cretak, while a friendly Romulan, is also a nationalist who couldn't be absolutely trusted.

BTW, didn't Worf kind of crap all over this Prime Directive when he had a one man coup d'etat of the Klingon Chancellor?

As a Starfleet officer, he killed the Chancellor and replaced him with his friend...

[Mando Knight]

BTW, didn't Worf kind of crap all over this Prime Directive when he had a one man coup d'etat of the Klingon Chancellor?

As a Starfleet officer, he killed the Chancellor and replaced him with his friend...
He is also a Klingon. Klingons are supposed to do that kind of thing when they think the Chancellor is dishonorable.

[Jothki]

If you want a really, really stupid example, what about a case where a fleet of pre-warp generation ships are headed directly towards an (unknown to them) populated world, intended to colonize it? In the name of non-interference, is the Federation required to evacuate the world and destroy any evidence that they were ever there?

[Soras Teva Gee]

If you want a really, really stupid example, what about a case where a fleet of pre-warp generation ships are headed directly towards an (unknown to them) populated world, intended to colonize it? In the name of non-interference, is the Federation required to evacuate the world and destroy any evidence that they were ever there?

One could argue there is a precedent for waking up the generation ship...

[GeekGirl]

I didn't see this mentioned, but the troubles of the PD come up a few times in ST:Enterprise, before it's actually drafted into use. The best example is in S01.E13 Dear Doctor (http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Dear_Doctor_(episode)).

The summary there give a general idea, but I would definitely recommend watching it. Personally I really liked Enterprise, but I seem to be in a minority opinion on that one.

[Mikeavelli]

An ethical dilemma very similar to what you desire existed in the Night's Dawn trilogy by Peter Hamilton, intended as an internal sub-parallel to the current situation humanity was facing.



- The protagonists are tracking down an ancient alien artifact called 'The Naked God' which is apparently a reference to its power source being a Naked Singularity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naked_singularity). Humanity as a species is facing an existential crisis which, if not solved with alien super-tech, will result in trillions of deaths. The extinction of mankind is not guaranteed (an even-more-advanced alien race has already chosen not to interfere at this point due to their own prime directive, and seems confident humanity will succeed without interference), but it is a plausible scenario at this point.

- In order to track down the Naked God, the protagonists are searching through ancient records from a different alien race (The Tyrathca, bug people) which is on par with Humanity, and has interacted with the Naked God in the past. Throughout their journey, we learn a bit of the history of the Tyrathca, they colonized the galaxy with generation-ships, and received hyperdrive technology from humanity in exchange for tech.

- We learn that, at one point, the Tyrathca landed a generation-ship on a world with indigenous life, and not only genocided the indigenous life, they didn't even consider it an immoral decision. The obvious implication is that the Tyrathca would do the same to humanity if it proved necessary, and they outnumber humanity by an order of magnitude or more.

- Further on in the story, the human protagonists come to the home system of the Tyrathca, and make first contact with what was a slave-species to the Tyrathca. They live in an ancient ring-world built after the sun of that system entered another stage of its life, and grew so that their original home planet is no longer inhabitable. They have stalled in their development as a species due to the lack of any remaining heavy elements in the system. They will never be able to develop hyperdrive technology, and will go extinct sometime in the next several centuries because their ringworld is now unsustainable. They also have the coordinates of the Naked god, which Humanity needs.

- It is made very clear that the slave-race would love nothing more than to gain hyperdrive technology, flee their dying star system, *and annihilate the Tyrathca*. They have the numbers to do it, too. In essence, it is directly confirmed that by trading this species technology, it would save them from extinction, but they would also use it in a manner humanity considers immoral, waging a genocidal war.

- The protagonists mull philosophically about it for a while, but then decide to do it anyway, because they need the Naked God, and to hell with the consequences because it doesn't matter if they're dead.

- They find the Naked God and it's a magic technology wish genie that solves all the problems of the 3000-page trilogy in about 5 pages.


Basically; find a dual-use technology, like real-world Nuclear Power, which will solve societal problems of a planet, but will have the potential to be used for warfare.

- A cure for a disease that requires enough understanding of biology and genetics to craft a targeted plague that could be used to wipe out the undesirable members of society.

- A planet is on the brink of environmental collapse, and a power source exists that would fix that, but requires some rare mineral on the planet, and would spark wars over acquiring that mineral.

Next, find a way for the players to interact personally with the leaders of the civilization. Imply, but do not directly state, that the technology would be misused in some way. A good example of this narrative device was in Dragon Age: Origins in Orzammar. If you just paid attention to the surface details of the succession crisis, you'd be convinced there was a clear 'good' and 'bad' choice; but actually looking into dwarvish society showed both sides were very murky grey, and the 'bad' choice was arguably much better than the 'good' choice.

Finally, allow the players to make their decision. Follow-up on this with a later adventure that allows the consequences of their decision to bloom. If they withheld aid, have them assigned to a humanitarian evacuation of the planet. If they gave it, create a resulting mess, and assign them to fix it. If they found a third solution that fixed the mess, but prevented further consequences, reward them for it.

[Karoht]

A pre-warp society is tinkering with Omega particles/molecules.
If they go off they can shut down subspace based travel (IE-Most forms of warp drive) for 2 billion light years in all directions.
This planet is nearby the unstable subspace corridor mentioned in TNG, where frequent warp drive is breaking down subspace, like wearing down carpet. If Omega collapses, it could cause an unpredictable issue with the corridor. Possibly leading to something affecting both time and space, not just subspace.

The choices here are not binary, as the show would probably present it.
For one thing, there are degrees of intervention. It's a spectrum, not a binary choice:
-Do nothing, wait for the inevitable accident, or for Borg to come and assimilate. Or anyone else greedy enough to be interested to come and murder these people for the tech.
-Show up and say that Omega research isn't worth the time and resources and that the risks are too great.
-Have them point to a constellation in their night sky, and tell them how many populated worlds happen to be in said constellation. Explain that their research will affect not only the people on this planet, but them as well. If their research fails, they will never be able to travel to those worlds, meet those people, share culture and ideas.
-Tell them/show them the Borg. Who will be very interested in the Omega tech, and it will make them a target of an enemy even the Federation can't really fight reliably. The Federation can either intervene to discourage them, or they can have this choice again when the Borg come to assimilate them all.
-Use Transporters to beam out all the tech, the computers, the hard drives, the backups, scour their networks, etc. Remove any and all trace of knowledge of the Omega particle.
-Set off a controlled 'accident' to demonstrate exactly how risky this stuff really is.
-Destroy whole planet

Prime Directive is not a law but a guiding principle. Picard said so himself. Tuvok backed that up.

[Aotrs Commander]

A pre-warp society is tinkering with Omega particles/molecules.
If they go off they can shut down subspace based travel (IE-Most forms of warp drive) for 2 billion light years in all directions.

I'm assuming you're speaking colloquially about the two billion, as whole galaxy is only like, ten thousand light-years across. (Two billion light years would take out most of the currently identified galaxies, the furthest one I could find mentioned by name on wiki is only 1.1 billion light years away...!)

As otherwise, kinda making it such a big threat it'd have to be dealt with as otherwise galactic civilisation (across a significant chunk of the known universe) would collapse. That's... pretty fracking major, and well above the level the Prime Directive should even be considered...!

[hamishspence]

100,000 light years across (very roughly) but yes, it would be a huge effect.

As a matter of fact, one of the nearest quasars is a bit over 2 billion light years away:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3C_273

[Aotrs Commander]

100,000 light years across (very roughly) but yes, it would be a huge effect.

As a matter of fact, one of the nearest quasars is a bit over 2 billion light years away:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3C_273

Sorry, I meant, a hundred thousand; slip of the keyboard.

Nontheless, two billion years is a fraking long way...!

It's like, far from just the galaxy,it's a large chunk of the nearby superclusters (bear in mind a very rough and inaccurate estimate is around 5000 galaxies in a supercluster, just to give you a maybe-in-the-same-city-as-the-ball-park figure).

The observable universe is only 46 billion year-years...!

[OttoVonBigby]

Omega particles are one of the only things in canon that allow for (and seem to mandate, in fact) total suspension of the Prime Directive, according to Starfleet regulations :smallfrown: (which is to say, according to Voyager's desperate writers :smallmad: )

However, I do like the idea of doing something with that one corridor of weakened subspace. Put a prewarp society in its path, some phenomenon causes the subspace->real space leakage you mentioned, and bam! PD choice. Maybe the phenomenon won't *wipe out* the society, but adversely affect it in an arguably impermissible way; that the corridor was weakened in the first place is also only arguably the Federation's fault.

Great stuff everybody :smallcool: