Watching The Directive

[Brell]

Last week our question dealt with simming and the Prime Directive this week we wish to ask about watching the Prime Directive.  Many episodes throughout the series dealt with the Prime Directive and all of the implications around it.  Whether it dealt with the directive being upheld or the mess that occurred from a breach they were always fascinating and fun to watch.  Many also have led spirited ethical debates in academia, print, as well as in homes and among friends.

 

Which Prime Directive episode was your favorite? Tell us in the forums!

 

There are so many great episodes that featured the Prime Directive it was really hard to narrow it down.  TNG had a good number of episodes and the Prime Directive was even a theme in their movies.  When the directive had to be broken or when the crews had to deal with the implications of contamination of other cultures were a common theme used to show the many aspects of the Prime Directive.  Often it was broken to save people like in “Justice” when it was broken to save the life of Wesley Crusher, or when Nikolai Rozhenko beamed a group of Boraalans onto the Enterpirse-D in “Homeward.”  Other times it was interference in the affairs of other worlds or civilizations that was the highlighted aspect of the Directive in an episode: Such as Section 31’s meddling in Romulan matters of state in “Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges.”  Some of the most entertaining were the times that illustrated the importance of noninterference in pre-warp societies like in “Who Watches the Watchers”, “Time and Again” or “Dear Doctor.”

So many excellent examples were shown and explored on screen there are many that were not included as options be sure to tell us about your favorite in the comments. This poll comes from our General Trek Category where we ask questions about our favorite moments, episodes, ships, and characters.

[+ Trellis Vondaryan]

Since DS9 is my favorite series, and “In the Pale Moonlight” one of the best episodes of that series, I went with Other and voted that.

While TOS established the Prime Directive Kirk was never very good at obeying its rules. He would be heavily involved in other civilizations, pre-warp of not. The Prime Directive really came into its own, and the repercussions of breaking it, in TNG.

That said, sometimes the Prime Directive was tossed about as a plot device. Sometimes it meant non-interference in any species, sometimes just non-interference in pre-warp cultures. With the DS9 episode we got to see the reasoning behind the Prime Directive, how a captain struggles with the decision and the eventual outcome of what happens when a captain does break the rules.