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Owlbear Camus posted:So this week's Lower Decks has me wanting to do something with a derelict generation ship in my STA game. If they have achieved interstellar space flight, and are exploring the galaxy, albeit slowly, it's not breaking the prime directive to intervene is it? Having warp technology as a prerequisite seems not in keeping with the directive and/or logic. An easy exception to that rule would be any being using a superior method of transportation. Transwarp corridors, time travel, various slipstreams, subspace distortions, or the spore drive if you consider that canon would be some examples. Who's to say they developed warp before these superior methods? Another might be sentient, often long-living beings who are able to live in space. They might be slow, but you would have to find a different metric to decide whether to consider them underdeveloped and/or vulnerable, as they could very well never see the need for warp capability. Is speed really so important to a creature that lives for millions of years? What other advances might not such a culture develop in that time? Of course, if you live next to a wormhole, maybe solar sails can get you pretty darn far no matter your lifespan. Finally, who's to say that there are not comparable, but technically different methods for interstellar space travel? Warp might be what most civilizations discover, but finding new and unique species and phenomena is integral to Star Trek, and breaking established conventions for a good story is hardly unheard of. I'm sure some species discovers "blarp" instead, which is very much like warp but everything looks kinda blue while you're in it. thotsky fucked around with this message at 03:03 on Aug 29, 2020 |
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Aug 29, 2020 02:39
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The Prime Directive was a good idea as far as preventing the unintentional repercussions of flying by some culture and trying to solve all their problems without really knowing anything about them. It stops making sense when they get all ultra-Darwinian about it. "This species will die if we don't help them, but that would be polluting their culture, which will totally matter when they're all dead! It's impossible to know what the right choice is!"
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Aug 29, 2020 03:00
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQDGK0EDTqc
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Aug 29, 2020 03:02
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These scenes never make any sense. Universal translator?
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Aug 29, 2020 03:06
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Sir Lemming posted:The Prime Directive was a good idea as far as preventing the unintentional repercussions of flying by some culture and trying to solve all their problems without really knowing anything about them. It stops making sense when they get all ultra-Darwinian about it. "This species will die if we don't help them, but that would be polluting their culture, which will totally matter when they're all dead! It's impossible to know what the right choice is!" Which has always felt weak to me. Yeah, you're "responsible" for space Hitler existing, but that doesn't make you responsible for what he does. There is no way to have clean hands, stop pretending like that's possible because you don't interfere and just make the best decisions you can based on the information that you can have. A better way to look at the prime directive is that by not interfering in pre-warp civilisations, you're avoiding homogenising the universe and thereby giving the opportunity for better outcomes/new ideas. You might think a civilisation is barbaric and doomed, but you could come back in five centuries and they've culturally and technologically leapfrogged everyone by doing things in a novel way.
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Aug 29, 2020 03:37
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The rationale was also presented as, and I'm paraphrasing "maybe this society is meant to die, to make place for a different one". The problem with this is two-fold, like, what does "meant" mean here. Does the federation believe in fate? And also, I always felt like it was implied that this second society/species whatever was "better" somehow. As in, "if the dinosaurs did not die out, there would be no humans". So what? How are we better? Maybe there would be birds with warp technology then or whatever...
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Aug 29, 2020 03:53
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thotsky posted:The rationale was also presented as, and I'm paraphrasing "maybe this society is meant to die, to make place for a different one". The problem with this is two-fold, like, what does "meant" mean here. Does the federation believe in fate? And also, I always felt like it was implied that this second society/species whatever was "better" somehow. As in, "if the dinosaurs did not die out, there would be no humans". So what? How are we better? Maybe there would be birds with warp technology then or whatever... The Voth are total assholes tho
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Aug 29, 2020 04:03
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Who Watches The Watchers is probably the episode that best justifies the Prime Directive. Just the appearance of the Federation was enough to spark people to start worshiping them as gods and that's the kind of thing you want to avoid. Now, I'm of the opinion that if you can intervene to prevent a major disaster (like an asteroid strike) and do it without letting the people you're saving going on to believe that you're gods then it would be unethical not to do it.
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Aug 29, 2020 04:12
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Strong Convections posted:I can't remember where I'm getting this from (possibly TNG?), but I think there was some explanation along the lines of: "what if you end up saving someone/civilisation and they end up being space Hitler?" It's an absolute poo poo movie overall, but I liked the take from the cold open of Into Darkness. Specifically as I recall the rear end chewing from the Admiral was NOT "you should not have helped that civilization not go extinct" but rather "you should not have made your involvement known and potentially altered their development." It was a given that saving them was the right choice, just clandestinely, even if it meant Spock getting fangoriously skeletonized in molten magma. TNG though definitely has some episodes where it really seems like "genocide by omission of action, even if we could move this asteroid off impact course with like .000001% of our power output through the tractor beams for a nanosecond burst." I even recall Riker making some appeal to basically fate or destiny or the universe's greater plan or some poo poo.
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Aug 29, 2020 04:26
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The Prime Directive wasn't consistent even within series, and pretty much meant whatever the writers wanted it to mean.
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Aug 29, 2020 04:31
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8one6 posted:Now, I'm of the opinion that if you can intervene to prevent a major disaster (like an asteroid strike) and do it without letting the people you're saving going on to believe that you're gods then it would be unethical not to do it. If you do then you're preferentially saving the people who are already most like you, so basically space (cultural) eugenics. If you don't then you're potentially helping space Hitlers survive, and/or preventing another civilisation from rising the way mammals did after the dinosaurs. What do you think that saving space Hitlers would do to the morale of a ship? Ethics is an absolute minefield.
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Aug 29, 2020 04:32
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Regardless of the rest of it I did like the opening of Discovery where they save the village from dehydration. All that species saw was two figures in robes (Did they show that the species wore the same kind? I forget) walk up to their well, do something, walk away, and then the water returned. In a completely realistic scenario you’d probably go in at night (if night existed on that planet) or whenever those people would not be able to observe so closely but in my head it was “Yeah, okay, that works.”
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Aug 29, 2020 04:33
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8one6 posted:Now, I'm of the opinion that if you can intervene to prevent a major disaster (like an asteroid strike) and do it without letting the people you're saving going on to believe that you're gods then it would be unethical not to do it. There were all ready to do that in TOS without any Prime Directive concerns. And Discovery took that approach with the opening episode, too. It's a much better interpretation.
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Aug 29, 2020 04:35
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Strong Convections posted:Here's a question though: do you make a judgement call on the people first? Unless they're space Hitlers right now or will be in the immediate future then the best thing would be to save them. It would have been impossible to predict [gestures widely at 2020] for an alien species that monitored Earth in like the 1st century or the Renaissance. You're also not responsible for any "might have been" civs that could have developed had the current civ not been wiped out by the asteroid made of atomic bombs superman tried to fling into the sun. Strong Convections posted:Ethics is an absolute minefield. The nice thing about scifi is you can explore things like this. MikeJF posted:There were all ready to do that in TOS without any Prime Directive concerns. And Discovery took that approach with the opening episode, too. It's a much better interpretation. Indeed!
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Aug 29, 2020 04:40
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8one6 posted:Unless they're space Hitlers right now or will be in the immediate future then the best thing would be to save them. It would have been impossible to predict [gestures widely at 2020] for an alien species that monitored Earth in like the 1st century or the Renaissance. You're also not responsible for any "might have been" civs that could have developed had the current civ not been wiped out by the asteroid made of atomic bombs superman tried to fling into the sun. You've basically chosen to be a God and decide who lives and who dies - some might say you don't have the right. You obviously feel that you have the responsibility. A charitable interpretation of the Prime Directive is that it's about abdicating both of those: you don't get to choose, but you're also not responsible. How much blood you get on your hands following the prime directive is very subjective, and that's why I think that over the years the prime directive has been applied so inconsistently by the writers.
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Aug 29, 2020 05:03
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God drat does TOS have some awful stunt work. Just not even trying to hide it.
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Aug 29, 2020 05:35
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Animal-Mother posted:There's that one episode where this alien woman has people convinced she's the devil and the whole episode Picard refers to her as THAT WOMAN like he's a 17th century antagonist and she's trying to vote or have a job or something. That was a recycled script from the failed 1970s TOS reboot, for what it's worth.
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Aug 29, 2020 05:35
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Strong Convections posted:I can't remember where I'm getting this from (possibly TNG?), but I think there was some explanation along the lines of: "what if you end up saving someone/civilisation and they end up being space Hitler?" I think it's the episode with Data's penpal and the debate is "if we have the moral obligation to save a species from a natural disaster to prevent the most lives being lost, do we not also have the moral obligation to intervene in intra-planetary conflicts for the same goal? And where do we draw the line?"
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Aug 29, 2020 07:56
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Is it ethical to allow a dangerous child-race to trek through the stars at all if you have the means to stop them?
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Aug 29, 2020 08:22
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Nessus posted:What I am not sure about is how it is regressive. It relies on antiquated notions of how cultures work, that they can be spoiled by interaction or that there is such a thing as a "pure" culture (!!!pull up!!!), when cultures are defined by their interrelationships with other cultures.
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Aug 29, 2020 09:24
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Sodomy Hussein posted:It relies on antiquated notions of how cultures work, that they can be spoiled by interaction or that there is such a thing as a "pure" culture (!!!pull up!!!), when cultures are defined by their interrelationships with other cultures. I can see an argument for the Prime Directive as a way to prevent colonialism. When you have governments of such wildly different power levels (it sounds weird to call em cultures) any interaction is inevitably going to be one-sided. Imagine if the USA decided to open trading relationships with the Sentinelese. It doesn't matter how well-intentioned it might be (it wouldnt be, but lets pretend), the USA would hold absolutely all the cards, they completely set the terms and context for the relationship. They'd end up completely subsumed - not just culturally, but politically and economically. There's also the culture-shock element, but the only time I can think of that backfiring is the one with Worf's brother where they spend an entire episode gaslighting a community and then act surprised when they respond poorly. Whenever starfleet identifies itself openly and talks to people as peers it seems to work out pretty well. Kibayasu posted:Regardless of the rest of it I did like the opening of Discovery where they save the village from dehydration. All that species saw was two figures in robes (Did they show that the species wore the same kind? I forget) walk up to their well, do something, walk away, and then the water returned. In a completely realistic scenario you’d probably go in at night (if night existed on that planet) or whenever those people would not be able to observe so closely but in my head it was “Yeah, okay, that works.” I kind of want an episode where a "primitive" civilisation spots Starfleet meddling in some sort of natural disaster, and instead of worshipping them as gods they're able to deduce the existence of the Prime Directive. Imagine how uplifting it would be, knowing that there was life out there that is filled with enough goodness to help your planet out, but also respects your independence. Imagine how the whole planet could pull together, to better themselves spiritally and technologically, to venture out into the stars so they can one day meet these kind strangers as equals. But that would require optimism.
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Aug 29, 2020 10:20
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In my mind, the Prime Directive was always kind of a compromise. Especially as presented in "First Contact" - the TNG episode, not the movie. It's basically, 'it's really best for everyone involved if we just stay the hell away from you until encountering us becomes absolutely inevitable.' That's why discovering warp drive was the demarcation point.
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Aug 29, 2020 10:25
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Started watching The Orville the other night, a few friends and I have never watched it and decided to do it together (well watching separately but discussing the show after) and gently caress me if it isn't much better than I imagined. In case there is anyone else who hasn't tried it yet and is wanting some TNG style hijinks I can recommend.
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Aug 29, 2020 10:29
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Senor Tron posted:Started watching The Orville the other night, a few friends and I have never watched it and decided to do it together (well watching separately but discussing the show after) and gently caress me if it isn't much better than I imagined. Once I realized that show was experiencing the same upswing in quality over the course of its first 5 episodes that TNG went through across its whole first two seasons I was sold.
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Aug 29, 2020 11:07
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Strom Cuzewon posted:I can see an argument for the Prime Directive as a way to prevent colonialism. Sure, but how it works in practice is that, as a mere coincidence to the moment you have something to offer the Federation, you are asked to join and coincidentally sign up for involvement in their intergalactic politics. The way TNG in particular builds on the idea of the Prime Directive is Not Good. Instead of staying hands-off, the Federation spies on pre-warp cultures and observes them for scientific purposes or as a method to deem their culture "worthy" of being contacted. This reveals that even with the PD in place, the Federation is routinely exploiting pre-warp cultures for its own benefit and judging civilizations not by any real metric but their homogeneity to Federation values. In other words, colonialism. This is setting aside all the times when that week's Evil Admiral fucks it up for everyone because they need to exploit even harder, Federation regulations insist that pre-warp cultures be allowed to die out from preventable disasters (openly admitting the horrible petri dish philosophy), and so on. Repeal the Prime Directive!
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Aug 29, 2020 11:33
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it was probably a worse decision to have Adra try and kidnap and gently caress picard for all eternity against his will, than to have him mention her gender, tbh idk how many great and woke reactions to that you're going to write in that never mention the characters gender
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Aug 29, 2020 12:39
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It seems like the Federation does not like, require other star nations to match their values, they just don't let you join the Federation unless you match certain details. It would certainly present a thorny issue if you have some small stellar nation which has great ambitions of becoming the rulers of the galaxy, but they happen to have exactly five planets, of which only two are worth poo poo, and are otherwise completely engulfed in the space territory of The Hated Hegemons. Actually that would be a pretty good gimmick for that RPG campaign. It would make sense if that was the Kzinti, too.
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Aug 29, 2020 12:59
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sponges posted:God drat does TOS have some awful stunt work. Just not even trying to hide it. They tried to hide it by having their viewers watch the episodes on distorted 13 inch fuzzy TVs. They were successful for many years.
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Aug 29, 2020 13:00
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Strom Cuzewon posted:Imagine how uplifting it would be, knowing that there was life out there that is filled with enough goodness to help your planet out, but also respects your independence. Imagine how the whole planet could pull together, to better themselves spiritally and technologically, to venture out into the stars so they can one day meet these kind strangers as equals. I'm sure I'm going to be thrilled when it turns out the aliens had the cure to cancer all along but decided not to share it because they decided it would mean more if we figured it out for ourselves. Thanks, aliens!
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Aug 29, 2020 13:06
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Epicurius posted:I'm sure I'm going to be thrilled when it turns out the aliens had the cure to cancer all along but decided not to share it because they decided it would mean more if we figured it out for ourselves. Thanks, aliens! the original script for code of honor had the enterprise going back in time to provide earth with a vaccine, but nobody wanted it no doubt DC fontana found a different franchise to put that version of the story into
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Aug 29, 2020 13:24
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Nessus posted:It seems like the Federation does not like, require other star nations to match their values, they just don't let you join the Federation unless you match certain details. Certain details including values. Sisko says flatly that Bajor wouldn't be able to join the Federation if they reintroduced their caste system.
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Aug 29, 2020 13:37
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Arglebargle III posted:These scenes never make any sense. Universal translator? The Klingons are such drama queens that they tend to overload the Universal Translator's Narrative Compensator circuits.
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Aug 29, 2020 13:50
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The point of the prime directive (once you get to later trek) is that you can't just land in Iraq, topple a few statues, tell everyone their lives are going to be a lot better under this new thing you call 'democracy', hold a mission accomplished party and expect that everything is going to be great. It's Roddenberry saying 'there's no such thing as good imperialism, no matter how tempting it might be'. It's right that Star Trek goes and tests that idea, and I don't think it's a bad thing about the show that we can argue that sometimes the Federation makes the wrong call or is inconsistent. e: the Federation is in form a super 'UN in space', but in substance it's pretty clearly 'the US in Space'. There's certain 'states rights' that let you run your planet how you want, but everyone is signed up to the Federation Charter that guarantees certain rights and values and there's one military etc etc. Alchenar fucked around with this message at 14:02 on Aug 29, 2020 |
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Aug 29, 2020 13:59
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romulus and vulcan must be somewhere in the space balkans then?
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Aug 29, 2020 14:16
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Alchenar posted:It's Roddenberry saying 'there's no such thing as good imperialism, no matter how tempting it might be'. It's right that Star Trek goes and tests that idea, and I don't think it's a bad thing about the show that we can argue that sometimes the Federation makes the wrong call or is inconsistent. Sure, but to be fair it is often presented in TNG as something the heroes (not just "The Federation", but the main characters) truly believe in. The fact that it often creates conflict implies that it's not perfect, but I think it's still fair to say it's dumb for the heroes to believe so strongly in that version of the PD anyway. Like other flawed Roddenberry ideas, I still think it's a net positive for the show. But it had some big problems.
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Aug 29, 2020 14:23
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Nessus posted:It seems like the Federation does not like, require other star nations to match their values, they just don't let you join the Federation unless you match certain details. It would certainly present a thorny issue if you have some small stellar nation which has great ambitions of becoming the rulers of the galaxy, but they happen to have exactly five planets, of which only two are worth poo poo, and are otherwise completely engulfed in the space territory of The Hated Hegemons. In the pilot of TNG they moralize to and punish a non-federation people for enslaving a space jellyfish.
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Aug 29, 2020 14:59
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The problem isn't the Prime Directive itself, but the rigid, dogmatic approach that TNG tended to take with it. The worst offender was Homeward, where Picard and his crew were prepared to do nothing to prevent the death of an entire culture because they weren't deemed "advanced" enough to help. I can't stand watching the first part of that episode because I hate that so much. TOS-era Starfleet seemed to allow captains more latitude to judge on a case by case basis, which meant that technically they probably violated the written letter of the law, but they upheld its spirit of noninterference. A great example (thinly-disguised allusions to Vietnam aside) is A Private Little War.
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Aug 29, 2020 15:11
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thotsky posted:In the pilot of TNG they moralize to and punish a non-federation people for enslaving a space jellyfish. They don't really punish them though? I'm pretty sure the end of the episode has a line about working out plans to build a new starbase. Also the non Feds had specifically reached out to the Feds, this wasn't a first contact scenario.
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Aug 29, 2020 17:33
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What’s funny is that the prime directive only makes sense in a we can’t decide who lives and dies but that only applies for who lives. If you let everyone die then your not making a choice but if you save everyone you are? Somehow? Like if you know you are deciding either way, one is just more passive
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Aug 29, 2020 18:31
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TNG takes it to an absurd extreme and TOS absolutely has a better take on the Prime Directive. Homeward was mentioned as the most egregious example but there's also that case in Pen Pals where Riker is arguing whether saving a planet - in a way which the people there wouldn't even know there had been outside intervention - might go against some sort of bullshit "cosmic plan." Contrast with TOS where Spock burns out the Enterprise's engines trying to save a planet from an oncoming asteroid. Sodomy Hussein posted:Sure, but how it works in practice is that, as a mere coincidence to the moment you have something to offer the Federation, you are asked to join and coincidentally sign up for involvement in their intergalactic politics. Not everyone gets an automatic invite to the Federation. There are multiple TNG episodes where planets are reaching out to apply for membership and the Feds reject them. quote:Repeal the Prime Directive! In favor of what?
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Aug 29, 2020 20:24
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