Federation colonization and the Prime Directive

Deathstalker · Post by **Deathstalker** » 2004-11-05 06:01pm

I was watching an early TNG episode where the Federation was terraforming a supposedly "lifeless" planet until it was discoverd that there was life on the planet, at which point the planet was declared off limits. It was mentioned at the begining that there could be no life that could evolve for terraforming efforts to be allowed. What I was wondering is that this policy would seem to prevent new colonies from setting up on habitable planets or at the very least severly limit the choices. Colonists may not terraform much, but their presence does affect the environment. Pre-Prime Directive colonies of course would be exempt, but I wonder about Post PD colonies.

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2004-11-05 06:13pm

iirc the problem was terraforming a planet with bioorganisms on it compromised the quality of terraforming effort or something similar. which is why they searched so hard to find an utterly lifeless planet. as far as colonizing goes, they don't have to worry about planets so long as there's no intelligent life. the fact that the life forms on the planet they were terraforming proved intelligent made it impossible for them to continue morally/legally/etc

Deathstalker · Post by **Deathstalker** » 2004-11-05 06:27pm

From what was said at the begining of the episode, there could be no life, intelligent or otherwise. If there was, then it was a violation of the PD because the Federation was interferring with the development of the planet. For example, I take it to mean that if a planet had a biosphere, but had no "intelligent" species, but had life on it and in a million years something might evolve into an intelligent creature, the planet could not be terraformed. If that is the case then the Federation shouldn't colonize planets for the same reason.

Slartibartfast · Post by **Slartibartfast** » 2004-11-05 06:57pm

And if they did, it would be like Earth, when all the hairdressers and phone sanitation engineers replaced the monkey men.

Prozac the Robert · Post by **Prozac the Robert** » 2004-11-05 10:43pm

A thought: are pre-federation colonies (human, vulcan, whatever) protected by the prime directive if they have lost/never had warp technology?

DarkSilver · Post by **DarkSilver** » 2004-11-05 11:47pm

The difference between Terraforming and Colonization is what applies here

Terraforming is taking a unsuitable planet (such as Mars, or Venus) and altering planet's biosphere to be capable of supporting life, sometimes this is to a Earth-normal climate (Or Vulcan, or whatever the design called for it). For this to happen, there has to be no life on the planet, no living being. For all intents and purposes, the planet has to be dead. Otherwise the very act of terraforming will destroy said life.

Colonization, is completely different. Colonization simple established a colony upon a life bearing planet, as long as no intellegent life exsist on that planet already. Again, in example

Mars was terraformed, making the environment capable of supporting Terran life without need for domes, etc. Alpha Centauri was colonized, as it's environment awas already suitable for human life.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2004-11-06 01:31am

I think the Prime Directive is one of the most misunderstood Trek concepts.

It is easy to bash the Prime Directive and bring up situations like this, "Oh, a Hitler came to power a primitive planet, and the Feds would stand by and let them slaughter innocents. What morons."

I see the Prime Directive as a way of the Federation from being technology gifters throughout the quadrant. Why should they give away technology unless you have joined the Federation? They might be hypocrites, but they don't give away their technology to every civilization that comes around.

As well colonization might not be as limited by the Prime Directive as you think. The Prime Directive applies to non-interference to pre-warp cultures. If the culture does not exist, why should the Prime Directive apply? Culture would be in the broadest sense -- any form of intelligent life would fall under the Prime Directive.

If there was just plain old life on a planet, then why would the Feds apply the Prime Directive? Because life might pop up a few million years from then? We know that isn't how the Prime Directive is used. For example, Khan was dropped on a planet full of life. If this was a violation of the Prime Directive, surely Kirk wouldn't have put Khan on the planet. Voyager numerous times was faced with the choice of settling on a hospitable planet without intelligent life, and violating the Prime Directive was never mentioned.

Brian

Sir Sirius · Post by **Sir Sirius** » 2004-11-06 05:44am

Prozac the Robert wrote:A thought: are pre-federation colonies (human, vulcan, whatever) protected by the prime directive if they have lost/never had warp technology?

No, according to Admiral Dougherty in Insurrection the Prime Directive only applies to indigenous people.

Deathstalker · Post by **Deathstalker** » 2004-11-06 09:13am

brianeyci wrote:If there was just plain old life on a planet, then why would the Feds apply the Prime Directive? Because life might pop up a few million years from then?

That's what I am suggesting. For example, say the Vulcans developed warp drive 3 million years ago. They come across the third planet of a system that is the perfect "M" class planet. There is life, but none they consider "intelligent". Colonization ensues. Becasue of the outside influence, humans never evolve.

Potentially any life has the ability to evovle into "intelligent" life, but it may not evovle if outside influences interfere.

Crazedwraith · Post by **Crazedwraith** » 2004-11-06 09:24am

Sir Sirius wrote:
Prozac the Robert wrote:A thought: are pre-federation colonies (human, vulcan, whatever) protected by the prime directive if they have lost/never had warp technology?
No, according to Admiral Dougherty in Insurrection the Prime Directive only applies to indigenous people.

and Picard says thats bullshit and acts accordingly. Due to the lack off any courst martial it seems picard was in the right...

Questor · Post by **Questor** » 2004-11-06 09:29am

Crazedwraith wrote:and Picard says thats bullshit and acts accordingly. Due to the lack off any courst martial it seems picard was in the right...

Has anyone ever been CMed for violating the prime directive?

Sir Sirius · Post by **Sir Sirius** » 2004-11-06 10:31am

Crazedwraith wrote:and Picard says thats bullshit and acts accordingly. Due to the lack off any courst martial it seems picard was in the right...

Picard disagreed for moral reasons, he never challenged Dougherty's statement concerning the Prime Directive. Besides had Dougherty been wrong Picard could simply have refused to obey an illegal order, but rather then doing so he put down his rank insignia and decided to act alone (and got lucky when his crew decided to follow him).

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2004-11-06 11:20am

Deathstalker wrote:That's what I am suggesting. For example, say the Vulcans developed warp drive 3 million years ago. They come across the third planet of a system that is the perfect "M" class planet. There is life, but none they consider "intelligent". Colonization ensues. Becasue of the outside influence, humans never evolve.

Potentially any life has the ability to evovle into "intelligent" life, but it may not evovle if outside influences interfere.

That's not how the Prime Directive is applied though. Khan was dropped on a planet with life on it, and there was no mention of a violation of the Prime Directive. I could probably find more examples.

The Prime Directive seems only to apply to existing intelligent life with a pre-warp society.

Brian

Deathstalker · Post by **Deathstalker** » 2004-11-06 01:40pm

I think I found my answer. This is from the script of the episode "Home Soil"

LUISA: The first phase is selecting the
planet. That's very important.
It must have the right mass and
gravity, the correct rate of
rotation, and a balanced day and
night. The planet must also be
without life or having the
prospect of life delveloping
naturally. The Federation makes
that decision. Then...
(she pauses a beat for
emphasis)
... we take over.

The bold is mine.
I guess if the Federation decides that life on a planet will not develop then terraforming proceeds, and I assume it is the same for colonization.

Bellator · Post by **Bellator** » 2004-11-06 03:02pm

As others have already stated: The principles involved for deciding wether or not to colonize are not the same as those involved for deciding wether or not to terraform. And this makes perfect sense.

The Silence and I · Post by **The Silence and I** » 2004-11-06 05:21pm

I wonder:
Many Earth colonies were made before high speed warp drives came about IIRC and all the planners could look for would be evidence the planet can support them and lack of evidence of intelligent habitation (e.d. cities). So any older colony like that probably cannot be rationalized with the Prime Directive. Only newer colonies can be, and the Federation may impose certain limits (such as area colonized) and do their best to determine whether or not the planet will ever develope intelligence in the future before giving the thumbs up.
For example high population worlds may be limited only to terraformed planets and other alien worlds which already have an advanced indiginous population.

Deathstalker · Post by **Deathstalker** » 2004-11-07 02:28pm

Thank you Silence, you said what I was trying to say! Pre-Federation colonies are exempt, they would have to be. But the Federation's respect for life may have lead it to be much more selective of planets for future colonization.

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2004-11-07 02:59pm

Deathstalker wrote:I think I found my answer. This is from the script of the episode "Home Soil"

The bold is mine.
I guess if the Federation decides that life on a planet will not develop then terraforming proceeds, and I assume it is the same for colonization.

i'm not buying it. if the federation wants to colonize a world it has to be already capable of supporting life with a suitable biosphere or else they have to put a tremendous amount of effort into remaking the world suitable for human life. In one episode with the crystalline entity federation colonists were actively working on building a new colony before it was attacked, on a world that already had a fully developed biosphere.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2004-11-07 04:00pm

Darth_Zod wrote:i'm not buying it. if the federation wants to colonize a world it has to be already capable of supporting life with a suitable biosphere or else they have to put a tremendous amount of effort into remaking the world suitable for human life. In one episode with the crystalline entity federation colonists were actively working on building a new colony before it was attacked, on a world that already had a fully developed biosphere.

Agreed. What nobody seems to realize is that the Prime Directive is only applied to cultures and intelligent life, not to protecting life that could possibly develop millions of years later, and usually only in terms of interference or giving away technology.

Nobody has answered my Khan point. Khan was put on a planet capable of supporting life with indigeneous life. This was not a violation of the Prime Directive. Also, the fact that Federation away teams can beam into planets with life casts doubt on the value the Feds would place on pre-intelligent life. They don't always beam down in space suits, and one could argue that even slight inteference by an away team could interfere/cause future life.

The Prime Directive is a way for self-righteous Feds to not give their technology away at every instance. It is also a way for the Feds to justify themselves not getting into every primitive planet there is and stopping genocides, etc. The Prime Directive doesn't limit colonization on planets without intelligent life.

Brian

Winston Blake · Post by **Winston Blake** » 2004-11-07 05:09pm

brianeyci wrote:The Prime Directive is a way for self-righteous Feds to not give their technology away at every instance. It is also a way for the Feds to justify themselves not getting into every primitive planet there is and stopping genocides, etc. The Prime Directive doesn't limit colonization on planets without intelligent life.

Note: it's also a standard scifi excuse for why we haven't been able to find aliens yet- they're avoiding us.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2004-11-08 06:06am

I thought the PD was a part of extending Federation hegemony; that they would withhold aid/technology/whatever until the planet joined the Federation, at which point the Federation has full access to their population, resources and space. The PD is almost ALWAYS violated when it becomes a problem for the Federation (ie in defence, Insurrection etc); I see that its a river that only flows one way.

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2004-11-08 03:19pm

Stark wrote:I thought the PD was a part of extending Federation hegemony; that they would withhold aid/technology/whatever until the planet joined the Federation, at which point the Federation has full access to their population, resources and space. The PD is almost ALWAYS violated when it becomes a problem for the Federation (ie in defence, Insurrection etc); I see that its a river that only flows one way.

afaik, it would withold such aid and technology until the point they became advanced enough to be considered for membership. as they didn't want to upset the balance of power for a civilization by introducing technology well beyond their means.

Stofsk · Post by **Stofsk** » 2004-11-12 12:26am

DarkSilver wrote:Terraforming is taking a unsuitable planet (such as Mars, or Venus) and altering planet's biosphere to be capable of supporting life, sometimes this is to a Earth-normal climate (Or Vulcan, or whatever the design called for it). For this to happen, there has to be no life on the planet, no living being. For all intents and purposes, the planet has to be dead. Otherwise the very act of terraforming will destroy said life.

Colonization, is completely different. Colonization simple established a colony upon a life bearing planet, as long as no intellegent life exsist on that planet already.

Not so.

You colonise a planet, and in doing so you must terraform it in some way to your species' liking, irrespective if it can already support your species with the proper balance of atmosphere and solar distance and presence of water.

For example, a colony will certaintly plant imported foods and crops, and bring animals from home like the dog and livestock, and this will make a MASSIVE effect on the local ecology, to the point of risking an imbalance. While terraforming is largely considered 'making a venus into an earth', it doesn't necessarily need to be this extreme. Colonising an earth-like planet will not automatically make it fit for human beings, and thus some low-level terraforming will be essential for the colonists to survive.