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From: cipher@mmm.UUCP (Andre Guirard)
Newsgroups: net.startrek
Subject: Re: prime directive
Message-ID: <277@mmm.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 30-Oct-85 13:44:45 EST
Article-I.D.: mmm.277
Posted: Wed Oct 30 13:44:45 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 8-Nov-85 07:40:54 EST
References: <1668@umcp-cs.UUCP> <264@ukecc.UUCP>
Reply-To: cipher@mmm.UUCP (Andre Guirard)
Distribution: net
Organization: 3M Company, St. Paul, Minn.
Lines: 39
Summary: 

In article <264@ukecc.UUCP> edward@ukecc.UUCP (Edward C. Bennett) writes:
> Here we have the Capellans
>happily killing each other on thier own little planet...
>And all of a sudden here come strange-looking beings, wearing strange
>clothes, carrying weapons that shoot beams of light, materializing out of
>thin air and talking about mining treaties. To me, just beaming down in
>full view of the inhabitants of a planet violates the PD.
>
>	Now of course there are episodes where they do things right.
>In "Bread and Circuses" they beam down outside the city to avoid being
>seen. Even though I can't think of any episodes where they outfit themselves
>in native costumes BEFORE making contact, they do refit to blend in
>several times.
>
>	To carry this to extremes raises this problem. If your most strict
>rule is non-interference, how do make friends with alien cultures?
>
>	To me, this is on of the major questions that WE are going to face
>when we finally start venturing beyond our solar system.
>

It's a little hard to tell when the Prime Directive is being violated
because we are never given the full text of it.  Kirk and McCoy recite
part of it in "Bread and Circuses".  In another episode, Kirk justifies
his apparent violation of the PD by saying that it "applies only to
living, growing cultures."  Presumably the PD has numerous clauses
detailing special cases where it can be violated, as for instance to
save the entire population of the planet in question, or else to
correct damage already done by other spacefaring races (as for instance
in "Bread and Circuses", "A Private Little War", "The Organian Treaty",
etc. etc.)  Also, the Prime Directive probably does not apply to races
more technologically advanced than the Federation ("The Gamesters of
Triskelion", for instance), or perhaps it even exempts all races of a
sufficient level of technology (perhaps capability of interplanetary
travel is the criterion, as e.g. the episode whose name I forget, with
two planets carrying on a computerized war).
   Does one of the numerous Star Trek books out contain the exact
wording of the Prime Directive?  I would be interested to see it.
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