The First Duty
- Thread starter Hiver
- Start date
- Location
- England
Urrgh. Strict Prime Directive is just silly in this context. If they've just developed iron working then go ahead and stealthily stabilise the planet's atmosphere. They won't have a clue that any super advanced intervention happened and the whole accident in the first place was a Prime Directive violation. Getting involved here is just fixing the Klingon's fuckup.
That is a completely logical and sensible way to go about it. It would also wrecked this entire story arc, so there's no way that's going to happen.
Edit: not a criticism, just an observation
UbeOne
Daydreaming CPU
- Location
- Philippines
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Fixing someone else's Prime Directive breach wouldn't be a violation of the Prime Directive. The point is to make sure that the effects of the Klingon crash will not affect the civilization down there. If discreetly fixing up their atmosphere, due to the crash, would be needed, then why not?
They could just do it, then explain themselves when questioned.
They could just do it, then explain themselves when questioned.
Last edited:
- Pronouns
- she/her
The first duty of every Starfleet officer is to obey the Prime Directive right up until it's being bloody stupid, and then disobey the hell out of it.
- Location
- Error 505: pending move
The "Prime Directive" is one of the few things I hate about the Federation, while I can understand the need to avoid Contamination of a pre-spaceflight civilization, some times doing nothing is worse then doing something. In this case you are looking at massive ecological damage on a PLANETARY scale. Famine, war, DNA corruption due to radiation for GENERATIONS leading to still-births and erratic genetic mutation if not outright Sterilization on a SPECIES Wide scale.
Starfleet and the Federation has a standing obligation to HELP, Not ignore something like this simply due to a damn Law that is so out of date that it hinders them more then it helps. I doubt the public would blame Velvet if she turned a blind eye to any of the rest trying to help these people.
Starfleet and the Federation has a standing obligation to HELP, Not ignore something like this simply due to a damn Law that is so out of date that it hinders them more then it helps. I doubt the public would blame Velvet if she turned a blind eye to any of the rest trying to help these people.
Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
Evidently, some of them would. More would take it as an excuse, and it might be the straw that makes the Federation start to fragment, which is *stupid* given that they have a number of aggressor species on their doorstep. Politics, in other words.
But you're absolutely right.
Richardson
CAN YOU HEAR THE PEOPLE SING?
- Location
- Yes
Yeah, fuck no. Stupid prime directive interpretations are a turnoff point for stories. This is a very, VERY stupid interpretation of the prime directive that has no basis in any example whatsoever in the shows or any other canon.
Crazael
Rehydrated Demon King
- Location
- Lost to the vagaries of time.
Actually, it's a pretty standard TNG-era interpretation. In the TNG episode Pen Pals, Picard refuses to even consider attempting to stop a geological disaster happening on a planet that a little girl Data has been talking to is living on because they haven't encountered alien life yet. And in another one, he refuses to help when another primitive race's homeworld is having it's atmosphere blown off by it's parent star. He only agrees to help when Worf's brother beams a bunch of them into a holodeck in the night.
I think a lot of that was because the point of the Prime Directive episodes was that you had to break the prime directive. I mean if you had this problem with an easy solution you don't have much drama. The other problem is that there's only so much time you can spend on fixing the problem before the episode ends.
The Prime Directive does not state that one should not intervene In any situation; away teams are on planet all the time they just have to look and act like natives. So for intervening, You just have to be careful, for example if your sensors revealed that the next winter would cause a village to freeze to death you couldn't give them indoor heating but you could have a peddler sell blankets at a lower then normal price. or arrange for one or two pieces of wood to be added to the fire so that it would burn longer and hotter. Smaller things that would not be noticed but make the situation better.
Those were natural disasters, though, not repairing the actions of other spacefaring powers. Repairing damage caused by prior interference has been done multiple times, including in the TNG-era (Who Watches The Watchers, False Profits).
- Pronouns
- They/Them/It/Its
As dumb as I think the Prime Directive is most of the time, I think in this case the non-interventionist stance makes perfect sense because the issue here is about the political mess it would cause more than anything else.
As others have said, this seems like a pretty clear case where 'breaking' the Prime Directive is justified, and a captain who did so would probably get off with, at most, a slap on the wrist under normal circumstances. This isn't normal circumstances though. The Jovians have been at the center of a lot of political turmoil lately though, and are basically being held under a microscope because of it, so even if their actions were ultimately vindicated just the fact that there was another Jovian being court-martialed for another Prime Directive breach would be enough to cause a serious incident.
As others have said, this seems like a pretty clear case where 'breaking' the Prime Directive is justified, and a captain who did so would probably get off with, at most, a slap on the wrist under normal circumstances. This isn't normal circumstances though. The Jovians have been at the center of a lot of political turmoil lately though, and are basically being held under a microscope because of it, so even if their actions were ultimately vindicated just the fact that there was another Jovian being court-martialed for another Prime Directive breach would be enough to cause a serious incident.
Last edited:
Crazael
Rehydrated Demon King
- Location
- Lost to the vagaries of time.
Yeah, I pretty much agree with you. And I have repeated stated in other threads my opinion on the Prime Directive. I just wanted to point out that, no, this reading of the PD is perfectly in line with how it is presented in this era of the setting.
I have nothing to say about False Profits, as I don't actually recall anything about what happens beyond "Voyager runs into some lost Ferengi", but for the other one, Picard was extremely reluctant to do anything besides retrieve the scientists, and later, his people. And he was rather angry with Crusher when she brought an alien on board for medical treatment, pointing out how doing that is a clear violation of the Prime Directive.
esotericist
A Weary Hand
- Location
- Lacey, WA
Now it seems clearer where this arc was going. The first duty of a soldier is generally seen as obedience (this has a lot of attributions from a lot of cultures; that particular phrasing is most readily traced to a German officer in World War 2, but the Chinese had their own equivalent for quite a lot longer), but I'm personally more fond of 'the first responsibility of every citizen is to question authority'. (This is often attributed to Benjamin Franklin, but this has no actual basis in fact. Best guess I've seen is that it's Timothy Leary's fault.)
As has already been gone over (extensively, at that) previously in the thread for this story, the core problem with the Prime Directive is that followed naively, it frequently mandates inaction when an atrocity is occurring. The thing about obedience from a soldier, though, is that blind obedience can be much worse than simple insubordination; if you will yourself perform atrocities without question simply because you were ordered to do so, you are failing your responsibilities to your civilization.
It naturally follows that it is one's duty to disregard the Prime Directive when it is clearly wrong. While it is not necessarily the case that the Federation (and the loyalist Jovians) are allowing a world to die simply because it is politically expedient, it could very well look like this is so to the perspective of many other Jovians, who bear both a morality based in our time and a deeply rooted instinct to help others who are in need (so long as it does not pointlessly endanger their crew).
This will get messy.
As has already been gone over (extensively, at that) previously in the thread for this story, the core problem with the Prime Directive is that followed naively, it frequently mandates inaction when an atrocity is occurring. The thing about obedience from a soldier, though, is that blind obedience can be much worse than simple insubordination; if you will yourself perform atrocities without question simply because you were ordered to do so, you are failing your responsibilities to your civilization.
It naturally follows that it is one's duty to disregard the Prime Directive when it is clearly wrong. While it is not necessarily the case that the Federation (and the loyalist Jovians) are allowing a world to die simply because it is politically expedient, it could very well look like this is so to the perspective of many other Jovians, who bear both a morality based in our time and a deeply rooted instinct to help others who are in need (so long as it does not pointlessly endanger their crew).
This will get messy.
- Location
- Error 505: pending move
There are always going to be Harldliners, that's a given fact even in post scarcity cultures, Picard would be a good example.
If I have read some of the stuff in this story then the Federation is ALREADY fracturing, if this is the case then Velvet fallowing a stupid order or not won't likely change much. Starfleet General Order 1 sites the fallowing: "No starship may interfere with the normal development of any alien life or society." Note the underlined and boldened section of that passage, By not helping to stabilize the environment of the effected cultures planet and it's ecosystem they are doing JUST THAT!
On a side note: I think the Story is referencing the TNG episode "The First Duty" though it surprises me that no one noticed this....
Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
Which I think is the point. This is an easy case--even they prime directive itself can be straightforwardly argued to say they should intervene.
The drama will come either from them *not* doing so--and having internal conflict as a result--or doing so, with that used as an excuse by parties that already wanted to break away, joining parties that really just want the jovians gone.
I will admit I'm a little tired of every Hiver plot being based around conflict of some sort, though. It's not his fault, far too many Western writing guides say that's what you're supposed to do, but... *Sigh*
I would recommend New Beginnings and it's sequels in that case.
Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
Too much pony, sorry. :X
I heard you can ignore the ponyness.
Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
Only in special cases where it's irrelevant to the plot. Or deliberately played up, like with Friendship is Optimal. I'm not completely ponyhating, but... hmm, I don't think the ponies were actually why that story didn't grab me.I heard you can ignore the ponyness.
It's hard to explain, especially after it's been this long. The lack of conflict, maybe?
(There's a particular kind of slice-of-life I tend to love, and by and large that isn't romance, so that's probably part of it. This article describes it pretty well, otherwise I can point at Non Non Biyori and Minami-ke as two of my favorite stories. That they're both adapted from four-koma manga is unlikely to be a coincidence.)
Last edited:
Crazael
Rehydrated Demon King
- Location
- Lost to the vagaries of time.
I noticed it right away. And spent the next hour trying to remember the exact words of Picard's speech on the subject, which I used to know by heart.
samdamandias
Apprentice Plane Wizard
Now here's a question. If the impact winter was caused by, say, a comet hitting the planet or small supervolcano going off (see the Year Without Summer), would the Federation have a duty to intervene?
This isn't an extinction-level event, and it sounds more like an alien version of the Year Without Summer rather than something that will cause civilization to collapse.
This isn't an extinction-level event, and it sounds more like an alien version of the Year Without Summer rather than something that will cause civilization to collapse.
Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
As defined by their laws?
No, they don't have a "duty", but let's disassemble that word, because it would be very easy for someone to disagree with you simply because they're using the word differently.
Duty (noun):
- a moral or legal obligation; a responsibility.
- a task or action that one is required to perform as part of one's job.
Notice how there are actually three different definitions in here. There's the moral obligation, which I would argue they absolutely have--if you see someone about to die, and you can help, then most people would hold that you should do so--independently of whether or not you have a legal obligation. There's the legal obligation; what Federation law says; and lastly there's Starfleet regulations for what's part of their job.
It's entirely possible for military regulations to say you shouldn't interfere, while civilian law says it's fine and encouraged, while common morality says you must. In such a case, doing the right thing will land you in a court-martial; militaries are not generally in the business of upholding high morality.
The prime directive is something else, however. On the face of it, it's a law that goes directly against morality, which makes no sense as laws normally amount to "ethics, but with less penalties for inaction and typically more practical (to evaluate)". This isn't; it's a law that penalizes taking an action most of us would consider highly moral. Typically, at most, they'd be not-penalizing refraining from taking the action. Which suggests to me that common morality has shifted such that interference is considered worse than non-interference, so the prime directive is intended to prevent evil.
The evil of helping a non-star-faring civilization avoid death, specifically. Please excuse me while I gnash my teeth for a minute.
...there are some possible explanations for this, e.g. attempting to avoid anyone repeating the Klingons' actions, but it's still far too absolute for my liking. Does anyone know if it's a Federation rule or a Starfleet rule? I.e. what would happen if civilians showed up to help?
...but I got a bit off track.
When you talk about duty, be sure to mention which definition of the word you're using. Otherwise you're arguing semantics and language rather than content.