LogFAQs > #961802992

The thing with the Prime Directive is that it's contrived by the writers to be a sensible principle on paper whose application in extreme scenarios causes values dissonance and readily sets up conflicts between the cast. In practice we see in the show that officers' sympathies generally beat out adherence to the code even when the ship's command is an ethical hardliner like Picard, and Starfleet pretty much throws reports of such incidents in the trash or at worst gives out slaps on the wrist.

I think the main argument in favor of the Prime directive is that breaking it is sort of a slippery slope. First we intervene in pre-interstellar civilizations when they face total Oblivion like the destruction of their planet. But then how about if there's a local global plague that may wipe out 90% of them? 80%? Is there a threshold where intervening isn't considered worth it? If kids are dying of cancer and waving a medical wand can cure it all, why shouldn't we go and do that?

But the thing is once Starfleet shows itself and introduces all this wonderful technology, the native culture will so easily be overpowered by Federation ideas, customs and technology, and the planet becomes a sort of memetic colony of the Federation.

TNG also kinda touched on how this would look if it happened to the Federation with the Borg. The Borg collective actually believes it is doing good to the people it converts into Borg drones by letting them join the collective consciousness and become more than themselves. We see how Hugh missed the collective voices of the Borg while isolated aboard the Enterprise and initially can't understand why Geordi and Co don't want to be assimilated. To him, Federation citizens were leading primitive painful lives and the moral thing to do was to bring them into the Borg. Yet from the eyes of the Enterprise crew and the audience, such an act is terrifying and extremely unethical.