The Prime directive prevents episodes from ending after 10 minutes

I know the Hur'q invasion of Qronos probably took place during the Klingon medieval age or something, but I do like to imagine an 'Independence Day' style conflict as Klingon jetfighters duel'd with Hur'q spacecraft that tried to operate in the atmosphere. That or I just would love to see a Klingon F-35.

Fun Fact: The reason the Prime Directive is a thing in Star Trek is because Gene Roddenberry was very critical of the Vietnam War. The brutality of the war led him to believe that no good could ever come from interfering in the affairs of another nation, especially less developed ones, and that a more enlightened society would generally leave other civilizations alone.

The best example of Klingon interference on pre-warp worlds was in the TOS episode "A Private Little War," in which on the planet Neural, the Klingons provided a village with flintlock muskets and set them on the Hill People.

Something worth point out was that the prime directive can be suspended/has limitations: - when they received a call for help (Pen Pals. Every single time they responded to a distress call) - when a secret operation is sanctioned by the Federation Council or even just undertaken by a official secret agency of the Federation. - stuff like the Omega directive 9:40 No mention of "Who Watches The Watchers"? Picard was willing to die to undo accidental interference.

They should have featured more examples of benevolently intended interference going wrong an early Trek. Like, a founding species of the Federation that did as much damage as the Klingons or the romulans while just trying to do good.

Apparently the very enlightened federation was never able to fine a happy medium between stopping planet wide apocalypses and subjecting people to brutal colonialism, despite being a post scarcity civilisation.

I’d love to see a nerdy philosophical debate between Starfleet’s Prime Directive of non-interference and Spider-Man’s “with great power comes great responsibility.”

For me it's not set in stone. But it's more about leaders thinking about the actions

There was also Kukulkan from TAS. Kukulan was the last of an ancient serpent species who visited Earth's distant past & was instrumental in the technological and architectural advances of the Egyptian, Mayan, Aztec and South Asian civilizations. He was identified with the lore of Quetzalcoatl, as well as the legend of the Chinese dragon. Today this feel very "Ancient Aliens" problematic implications and all, though it was written by a Native American.

It's kinda weird how the Bajorans were never brought up in this video. They're basically the most prime example to why the Prime Directive exists.

Chuck Sonnenberg of SF debris has a great rant about the Prime directive at the end of his review of: The Masterpiece Society. Not only does he explain how its supposed to work, but he also chews out both the shows creators AND in show characters for screwing it up. Its so good to hear.

I look at the Voyager episode Distant Origin for the answer of the rightness of the Prime Directive. If someone had helped the ancient Voth on Earth, humanity would never have evolved certainly not in the form they did, and they wouldn't have been able to uplift whatever species are working in Cetacean Ops. The universe would thus be emptier with just the Voth around. It can suck in the moment and the TNG episode Homeward just had a terrible premise in that letting the entire biosphere collapse serves no one, but the Prime Directive is there for a reason.

Another great vid, Ric! You got me thinking of how rich in plot-lines a show about the unknown planets and civilizations in the beta quadrant would be.

That one episode of Voyager demonstrated perfectly what can happen to an alien civ that has any contact with a more advanced power before it's ready, it was that episode where they got trapped in orbit of a rapidly rotating planet, and the natives went from flitstones to First Contact in just a couple of days. While that would have been a perfect case of "The PD applies here" their situation meant they had no choice but to ignore it.

The Prime Directive prevents whatever the writers of that particular episode decide. TOS had the balance right, with Kirk technically breaking it when common sense demanded it, like with the Organians (before knowing their true nature) and the Yonada asteriod as two examples. Spock even regards those decisions ultimately, as "logical". From TNG onwards in the vast majority of instances, it was applied like dogmatic nonsense, always based on the flawed argument of "you can't know the consequences" if you do decide to break it.

The Prime Directive prevents Captains from being promoted to Admiral, but the Temporal Prime Directive (looking at you Janeway) gets you promoted to Admiral, especially if you violate it 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

My thought on this has been that we didn't really need a "backstory" for the Prime Directive outside the Enterprise prequel series, which definitely did a bad job in the episode that was supposed to address it. There were always two obvious scenarios for Case 0. One was that an accident or an idealistic intervention gave Federation weapons or tech to an undeveloped species that ended up destroying themselves. The other, in some ways more plausible, was that a warlike primitive culture got warp drive and became a threat to other planets and/ or the Federation itself. Which, when you get down to it, is as good an explanation as any for the Klingons.

Nice to see people finally doing videos on prime directive

Thank you for your videos. You help me understand the Star Trek universes as someone who is a Star Wars super fan.

10:55 so that's I was feeling this presence when sitting on John ! ahahah Have a nice day mate !

I think it makes more sense to interpret the Prime Directive as "YOU should not interfere with primitive societies". I think we can all agree that interference has such profound consequences that it should not be left up to the discretion of individual captains. I can imagine the Federation has a panel of xenoanthropologists and ethicists for years deciding whether or not to aid a particular primitive society, based on whether such a thing would likely do more harm than good.

I always saw the Prime Directive as an outgrowth on the Federation as a science-philosophy culture, and that Starfleet existed for a long time as a scientific organization rather than a military one. Scientists observing nature will take pains to not interfere so they can get accurate data, even if that means the subjects die from circumstances the scientist is capable of saving them from. In this case, the Prime Directive, like most 'ultimate rules' has a dark side in that it allows Starfleet and the Federation an excuse for not saving civilizations and individuals they otherwise could have by citing non-interference. It's also why many Starfleet commanders of conscience knocked heads often with the more 'pure science' officers when they did interfere.

Excellent video!🌟 I especially agree with you that it’s the Vulcans that gave the Federation its Prime directive. Usually for better, but sometimes for worse because it leads to standing by whilst a planet gets destroyed as we too often see in TNG, like in the episode “Homeward.” Or the various orders of idiotic admirals. See the Lorerunner for his indignant “ruminations” on that subject with which I agree.

Ah those prime directive episodes are often tough lol. I too quite enjoyed the Nibiru sequence in Into Darkness. Thank you for another interesting episode looking at the directive from another side. God be with you out there everybody. ✝️ :)

I remember a Voyager episode where an early 22nd century human probe try to give 20th-century-level humanoids the warp drive but they ended up using it as a weapon against each other.

There are a few episodes of the different Star Trek series which I believe would have definitely demonstrated the reasoning for the Prime Directive. In TOS there was a world on which a sociologist thought he could recreate the Third Reich without any of its depraved flaws. Needless to say the experiment didn't go accept to plan. In fairness same seeing was episode involving a world that had been heavily information by a 20th century crime novel, which was left behind by an Earth freightliner. Finally there's an episode of Voyager where they discovered a pair of Ferengi on a pre-warp world. The pair got stranded after going through a wormhole in an episode of TNG. They then used their tech to appear as prophesied deities and taught the inhabitants the Rules of Acquisition.

the alien bounty hunter who tries to kill Mulder and Scully is a ROMULAN?!?!?!

When writing work emails to multiple people and departments, I now begin them with "Hello All,". One coworker called me asking if I also watch your channel!

Ah yes the prime suggestion that every single starfeet caption breaks

Very cool

The fact that the Romulans wiped out the Harkonins makes me chuckle. The writers know what they did.

Seeing STO footage is so surreal to me. Half the time it looks good, half the time it looks like Champions Online jank.

Captain Kirk had the best philosophy regarding the prime directive,- namely bend it when necessary and a bit more if need be...!

Starfleet interferes simply by flying their fancy starships around, which have been occasionally picked up by pre-warp civs. First contact by Starfleet by soon to be warp-capable species, has also been disastrous on occasion. Whatever makes them sleep well at night, I guess.

I think the Iconians had a good approach, making contact and sharing knowledge when they were deemed ready for it. Those more prone to war-like tendencies didn't receive much help as it was feared even medical or agricultural technology would be weaponized

I kind of prefer a closer relation in canon to Stargate for the Greek gods than Star Trek gave us: _all_ the gods were interfering aliens, but not necessarily malicious, just... flawed. This is one of the reasons I really like Roger Zelazny's Lord of Light.

Short on time but Picard also had 2 issues to tackle the prime directive. One was warfs human brother trying to save a people whose planet was about to be destroyed, and the other when an observation team was in trouble and he was being venerated as a god.

Certain captains cross it when it suits them to do so, and hide behind it when they don't want to get involved. Like in TNG's Homeward.

Hi Cert, you should be a Intergalactic Lawyer. Lol

The history of the Klingons being enslaved by the Hur'q and overcoming them mirrors that of the Hish-qu-Ten (the ancestors of the Yautja) being enslaved by the Amengi before overcoming them.

One issue with the Prime Directive is that by TNG, it has become like religious dogma and those such as Picard consider it sacrosanct.

I just realized that it actually makes sense that Klingon society didn't focus on war and combat until they got space travel and began conquering and exploiting other worlds and civilizations. No society can consist entirely of warriors, but once the Klingons could force others to perform non-martial duties for them, they could afford to become a warrior culture. Of course there are still Klingons who have other main professions besides being warriors, like the Klingon chef on DS9 and various lawyers and merchants that we've seen in the shows, as well as artists and craftsmen that have been mentioned occasionally, but the majority can now allow themselves to be warriors full time.

Does anyone remember a video on this channel. It covered something about during the dominion war starfleet ordered extra production of defiant class vessel from 7 per year to 12 oer year . At utopian fleet yards. ?

The Prime Directive is not perfect, and some Starfleet captains can be a little too dogmatic in its interpretation, but overall, I think it's a policy that does far more good than harm, especially when you take into account the fates of species in less idealistic areas of space. The Federation may only be able to silently protect species in its own space, but that makes a difference to *those* species at the very least. If you want to see what a sci fi galaxy looks like without something like the Prime Directive, look at Star Wars. Slavery and exploitation run rampant, and the Republic, even the "holier than thou" Jedi, don't care. I know which Galaxy I'd rather live in.

Resulted in things like "The Picard", failed first contact in TNG, I think that's the name of the episode, and even if they just show up in a planet that is affecting the ppl of it

Look, I don't mind being spyed on, but if your gonna eat my chips you gotta replace them

The interpretation depends if the writers want to write a high minded philosophical episode, a rebellious heroic story, or an edgy 'leadership is corrupt' story. By Picard's time it has morphed into almost religious dogma like the Klingons morphed into a raiding/warring culture, through idealising Archer's self sacrificing gallows speeches. Voyager did it well by recognising that they were not seperate from anyone around them, that they should not refuse to help others for a distant ideology and Janeway holds the record for the most first contacts of any captain. Prodigy (my niece is going to be devastated if it doesn't get a second season) had an interesting take on first contact done right but still going very very wrong. The Federation did everything right, waited, assessed, talked, removed themselves when it went wrong but there was never anything they could have done right anyway. The Vau Na'kat were never going to take the existence of aliens well, they were convinced they were the centre of the universe and destroyed themselves because they couldn't undo that knowing (until time travel became an option).

i thought the haakonians where in the delta quadrant the species that had conflict with the talaxians and used the metreon cascade on the talaxian moon ?

It should have prevented dealing with the bejorins, but someone made a mistake there.

From which series and episodes are those images of Klingons in daylight?

I've sometimes wondered if the Hurq were merely the Klingon's "gods" returning

Didn't the Hur'Q also appear in the non-canon PS1 game Star Trek : Invasion?

Hey, Rick!

What I always loved about Trek were discussions about ethics and morality. That might doesn’t make right. Though I disagree with the Prime Directive sometimes like allowing an entire sentient species to go extinct

I hate it when Star Trek is a slave to itself.

oh no! not the harkonens! they're brutal!

Didn't archer implement it after a fluff up?

The episode where river gets exposed to the civilization that’s about to go to warp?

Yes, the Klingons gave more autonomy. The word for conquered species is jegh,pu'wu.

What's the source of the "uncaring if those worlds were already inhabited" assertion? Into Darkness was garbage and I include the opening scene in that until some one can give me a reason the Enterprise was underwater and not in orbit.

It protects the Federation's cowardice, so they never have to take responsibility for actions they took b/c it says they can never take actions when they're needed.

Nothing because they all seem to ignore it

One thing to note...Starfleet has no problems with exploiting being on the *other* end of the equation--they find out a more advanced civilization was watching *them*, they're perfectly willing to yoink whatever they can from them. Kinda the Borg crossed with China, in a way.

Expedient conflict resolution

the SNW example with Pike is technically not a prewarp civilization, thus general order 1 does not apply.

The thing I hated most about the new movies, was the part where Pike said they were forbidden from saving the planet because it would be a violation of the Prime Directive, regardless of if they were discovered or not, but in the original series, they did it all the time. Often on orders.

How come Starfleet never invented a neuralizer? I'll bet Section 31 did.

I would like to see a followup video on how the Prime Directive effects the Federation's relations with other nations of equal, or greater power. While we see the Federation willing to ally or war with other powers they don't send diplomatic visits or really try to influence their neighbor's internal cultures. Perhaps if they'd exercised some soft power on the Klingon culture they could have become stronger allies before things became... awkward during the Dominion war. There's also the hypocrisy when they interact with civilizations (or their remnants) that were more powerful, like the Iconians, Precursors, or Q. If they really believed that cultural contamination was such a danger they should halt their archeological efforts, and stick their fingers in their ears when Q shows up.

The mission with the crystal egg Hurk temple has immages of Trek interfearance. You should show them off :D

My question is why did they force them to grow food if replicator tech is a thing?

It's like horse stealing. It's so emphasized and severely punished because it's so easy to violate.

👍🙂

PROGRESS!

Should that be Veridian 3 or Veridian 4 at the end? Four was said to be inhabited, but I guess given the the incredibly Earth-like M-Class-ness of Three, it's not inconceivable it's own sapient species could evolve eventually off the microbes from the D's hull... 🤯

I don't know why, but I had previously thought that the Klingons had gotten warp technology from Pre-Prime Directive Earth.

Any other’s watching this and going, so how much of this UFO/Alien influence helped create this concept?

oh yes General Order 1, also known as the Plot Devictive. joking aside, the Prime Directive is such a interesting case of irony when you think about it, like it's core concept is respecting pre-warp civilization's agency while actively disregarding it because they're "primitive people".

What, exactly, does the Prime Directive actualy mean. I mean it's constantly mentioned, but never worded.

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NOTHING at all same as the Temporal Prime Directive both prevent nothing as seen by watching or playing anything to do with ST as its null and void when ever they feel like it.

My fav prime directive violation is when kirk is on the mafia planet and just gives up with the soft touch and just stunns 4 city blocks and tells everyone the federation is in charge now but they just want them to go back to before they decided to imitate the mafia

Any Awareness Of The Sulfosuccinic Acid Authority

Technically even if there is no intelligent life on a planet your still interfering with that planets Evolution cycle.

To me, the Prime Directive is intended as a guardrail against colonialism and imperialism, diegetically a response to both the effects of those forces on human history as well as the early failures of interference in the pre-Federation era, and externally was also probably written in part as a reaction to the geopolitics of the cold war, which were rife with proxy wars, surreptitious funding of insurrections, and outright overthrowing of foreign governments in the interest of one superpower gaining an upper hand against the other.

The Romulan Star Empire sounds a lot like a currently existing empire hell bent on world domination at all costs.

Their survival

To prevent high tech given to low tech plants to keep them from blowing themselves up

🤘😆🤘

I still maintain the Romulans are the biggest bad in ST. More than Borg, Dominion, Species 8472 etc.

Harry Mudd, that's why.

Prime Directive please follow dilligently at all times*. *exceptions may apply

Pike & Mariner: SCREW THE PRIME DIRECTIVE!

Kirk interfering with that Stoneage people should of gotten him a slip-on the wrist not a chewing out.

It's there in order to get ignored when the plot demands it. Duh

Sounds like the Klingons are bros.

The god Emperor pulls up with the Imperium of man in the Star trek universe by by prime directive

The Federation is highly complex, but imo the Prime Directive is mostly for self-preservation. It's for protection of the Federation, rather than any alien civilizations. No idea what the right thing to do would be, it'd probably be more a case by case basis, but the Prime Directive is also just.. standing by while people are dying because of x,y,z. I don't know what the right thing to do would be. Non-interference would be totally understandable to me, but once again, because of self-preservation, and not because they want to protect other pre warp species. Would that be selfish? Probably. It's what the Federation does either way, but in their view, they're morally superior for thinking like that, when I think they're really just doing it for their own benefit. We literally cannot predict the future. So to choose to not help because what if they used whatever weapon of ours to their extinction, is kind of a weak argument for me. Their own "natural" evolution can also lead to extinction. So, I guess, we're going with "survival of the fittest". I don't know if I remember correctly, but Vulcans also had first contact with Earth when Earth and humanity were pretty much shattered. They were just barely recovering from WWIII, but just because the warp was developed, first contact was suddenly a good idea? Even if the natives of the planet were just kind of a mess and hobbling around after something awful like a war. But, really, this does help with my own opinion, that there SHOULD be some interference, and of course, the Federation should ASK if some species want help. It was with the Vulcans' help that humanity flourished and ended up one of the founding members of the Federation. It was their interference that helped massively, and changed humanity's course. So, yeah, no easy answer, but imo, if you're an advanced civilization and just stand by while some species is close to its extinction, that's just cruel.

ah yes Flying under the Eagles wing and constantly interfering....NOT SPACE USA.

If its anything like modern constitutions. The governments will ignore it when convenient.