Space Wildlife

[Valdivia]

You are the captain of a starship, and on your exploration, while studying an asteroid belt, your crew has made a most amazing discovery. Space fish! Fish-like creatures that live autonomously in space. Each specimen is big as a shuttle, and as you entered, a group of them has been playing around your ship, while you studied them.

Meanwhile, you have detected lifesigns within an asteroid, similar to those of the creatures following you. Eager to find more, you use the phasers in your ship to open a hole in the rock. And a new creature appears. But this one is huge. And not like the others. It is clearly a predator, and after you freed it, it is now eager to have a meal, chasing the small fish that had been accompanying you through the asteroid belt. 

You should defend them! Or should you? Is it your fault they are going to be eaten? You freed it after all. Should you interfere in the natural cycle of life in such an environment? Does the prime directive even apply to this situation? 

This is a new edition of our category Morals of Trek, where you are in the shoes of a Starfleet Captain facing a dilemma any of our favourite characters could have faced in Star Trek. If your crew has faced any such dilemmas and you want to see it featured in a Poll of the Week, let us know!
 

[Christopher Lambert]

Well, since I released the predator, inadvertently, I would probably tried to fix my error putting it in jail again. This way things stays as they were.

[Paul Sharpe]

I went for the first option

[+ Akoni Soriano]

I feel that while the "no intervention" idea is probably the responsible one... you already let the wee beasty out of its cave, so you've already interfered. Technically. Scare the predator off and if it wants so come back and eat the fish, I guess that's the way it must be.

[Solaris]

Ive already made things bad by freeing the predator... doing anything else could make things worse. May as well not interfere with things any further.