These Are The Voyages-Star Trek TOS Remastered and Reconsidered

It is outright stated in a way. The USS Valiant already went there and was presumably destroyed.

Plus the civilization has already populated two worlds in their solar system, and are perhaps warp capable already, so the Prime Directive would not apply. Either way, even if USS Valiant had the Prime Directive to follow, I got the impression that they sent this ambassador precisely because the cat was already out of the bag, since the ship never returned. So they were now going there to establish peaceful relations with these guys.

Spock has said, on at least one occasion, that Vulcans don’t lie. OTOH he is only half Vulcan.

I forgot about that. I guess it must have fallen victim to the same wargames the Enterprise did, but with a worse outcome.

That is stated in the episode, by the Emeniar VII leader, something along the lines of “It’s happened again”, when the Enterprise is “hit” in the “attack”.

The Prime Directive wanders and mutates (anyone ever read an official copy? 🧐), but this culture (spacefaring) pretty much doesn’t fall into the various circumstances it’s brought up as a Deus ex machina in this series, the others, and some films.

I mean, yes, it does (mutates and wanders). But there have to be rules for us fans to follow, otherwise everything is just “whims of the writers” and science fiction isn’t as fun to follow if everything is just at the whims of the writers. Then you get to Fantasy, like Star Wars.

But then fans got real upset at the whims of Rian Johnson and the rules of space travel he came up with for the latest Star Wars movie, so maybe Fantasy can’t be too internally inconsistent either. (Though it doesn’t bother me personally as much).

I don’t disagree. What I am saying is “show me them rules”.

It certainly is a principle that almost is the fabric of the franchise.

But specific rules? Hmmm…

Da mihi factum, dabo tibi ius

A good article using just franchise episodes as canon:

Wow, thanks for posting that. That’s a great read. I stopped after a few sections since it’s getting into spoiler territory as it gets more and more into the exceptions and other circumstances. That’s a really well done page.

It’s also interesting that according to that page, you can order a General Order 24, which is to eradicate all life on a planet. And it’s reference for that is this episode (“Taste of Armageddon”).

That’s funny, because I had assumed that Kirk was making up General Order 24 to communicate something to Scotty. That he was bluffing. But that wiki assumes that General Order 24 is a real thing you can order.

Only because of that episode.🧐

Deus ex machina again. :)

I actually half suspected it was some kind of Corbomite Maneuver bluff myself, like at the end Scotty would saunter up to Kirk and say, ‘And what was General Order 24, exactly?’ and Kirk would shrug and give that charming smile, cut to credits.

Mainly because I’m a little surprised the Federation has something like a General Order 24 on the books. I wonder if it was ever invoked? But I guess going by Memory Alpha we’ll never hear it mentioned again. Except in what I assume are non-canon stuff like comic books.

Hey, at the end of the episode, does Kirk say “Beam us up Scotty” or something to that effect? Beam Me Up Scotty is such a famous phrase, but I don’t think it’s been said on the show up to now. But we were finally a situation where Scotty is actually in a position where it would make sense for Kirk to say that at the end.

Garth did it too (Spoiler):

Of course things were a bit different in his circumstance…

I am LORD Navaronegun!

Hmm, I don’t recall anything in TOS that limits the Prime Directive to first contact or non-spacefaring societies. Wikipedia suggests this episode violates the Prime Directive too, though the agree it was always a vague directive.

I was suggesting that the Prime Directive applied primarily in first contact situations based off memory, but going back through the Memory Alpha link contradicts that. Still, I think the argument made for this episode is that, as a starfaring society, they would have or could have come into contact with Starfleet or some other spacefaring society sooner or later. As far as interfering in their war, that was probably a justifiable reaction since the alternative was turning over the entire crew of the ship for disintegration.

I mean, they were sending an Ambassador. Presumably the Federation Council signed off on that, Prime Directive-wise.

Well that’s why I was figuring this was not a first contact situation, but given that the Prime Directive doesn’t seem to apply only to first contact situations as I was thinking it did, maybe that’s not apropos anymore. But yeah, I have to imagine that sending an envoy to a foreign planet is not a violation of Prime Directive. That would be weird.

Yeah, any potential PD debate surrounding this involves stopping the war.

Really, Archons brings up a lot more thorny, juicy PD debate topics than this episode.

Even if we had actual, in-series written text of the Prime Directive in the Articles of Federation (or an Amendment, or whatever, however it was implemented), it’d still be subject to interpretation, and that interpretation would vary as time (and technology) progressed in-Universe, as well as when precedents were set, mistakes made, lessons learned, etc.

A lot of fan focus/discussion treats it like an eleventh commandment or something akin to that, when, even if we had a written copy, it’d be a written, codified set of principles, implemented and overseen by a government and a bureaucracy (Starfleet) and then carried out on the pointy end of things by Starship Captains far, far away from home.

Yes, agree. I’m just curious if there was any TOS episode where they actually upheld the PD. I can’t recall one off the top of my head. And, probably not, because it would kill a lot of plot lines.

I can’t think of one either, but wasn’t there a TNG episode where Picard sat back and let a civilization die rather than interfere on their behalf?

Are we doing This Side of Paradise next?