The Gaming Den

Lago PARANOIA wrote:So how would you guys fix the Prime Directive so that it became less immoral?

I mean, even beyond the obvious excess of the post-TNG viewpoint that the PD didn't allow you to intervene in planetary destruction the entire idea was pretty vile. I mean, yes, a vastly culturally, technologically, and demographically superior power interfering with your affairs can lead to some bad shit. But I don't think this protection is at the cost of having to endure centuries of, say, intraplanetary genocide and slavery.

Personally, I think that the PD should be scrapped and that Starfleet is henceforth run as a pure humanitarian organization.

Well, you have to draw the line somewhere. You don't have enough resources to fix all the problems in the galaxy, and frankly no exploration vessel is going to have enough resources to fix all the problems of a planet. There are over a thousand people on the Enterprise, but a single crowded world could be twenty billion people. Even figuring out what a planet's main social problems are could take decades.

Frankly, the Prime Directive is a pretty good place to start. You institutionalize inertia against getting involved in the affairs of people on other planets, and you institutionalize even more inertia against getting involved in the affairs of people on planets that don't have warp capabilities and are thus not people you are in any way obligated to ever talk to.

Yes, it would be moral and good to violate the Prime Directive left right and center. And you'll notice: Federation people actually do that. But you want them to agonize about doing it and know that they'll be brought up for disciplinary review every time they do. That way they;ll only do it when it's really important and won't create a giant drain on Federation resources trying to rationalize water use among the gorbthag herders of Hukaris IV.

-Username17

And there's the whole cultural contamination angle, and the Watchers Scenario.

I think the Prime Directive makes more sense as an operational directive for starship captains than as a Federation global policy or constitutional imperative.

The Federation obviously needs to have rules to prevent classic "Kirk wants to bone the blue chick/Picard gets placed in an impossible moral quandary/Janeway is off her meds again" problems as much as possible, but flat-out non-interference is pointless. It's the Trek universe. Someone without the same scruples will come along and initiate First Contact, or Q will get bored and force a Federation ship to do it or whatever. Better to send a qualified, Kirk-free team in ASAP.

The Prime Directive is a pretty good baseline because it admits that even the Federation isn't perfect. They still have prisons, for example, and fucking up a society is pretty easy to do when you're a few centuries or even a millennium ahead on the technology curve.

On the flip side, I think I prefer the philosophy in Iain Banks' Culture books. Present the existence of your Type II civilization to a Type 0 or Type I. Offer to let them join and be technologically uplifted if they agree to play by your rules. If they refuse, go on your merry way, no hard feelings.

I know the prime directive bans giving lasers to cave men, but does it also ban the Enterprise from knocking a killer asteroid off course to save said cave men? I think they're allowed, but I honestly don't remember.

Lago PARANOIA wrote:So how would you guys fix the Prime Directive so that it became less immoral?

I mean, even beyond the obvious excess of the post-TNG viewpoint that the PD didn't allow you to intervene in planetary destruction the entire idea was pretty vile. I mean, yes, a vastly culturally, technologically, and demographically superior power interfering with your affairs can lead to some bad shit. But I don't think this protection is at the cost of having to endure centuries of, say, intraplanetary genocide and slavery.

Personally, I think that the PD should be scrapped and that Starfleet is henceforth run as a pure humanitarian organization.

If you didn't have the Prime Directive, what would you, as the captain of an Enterprise-like ship built by an alien galactic civilization, do upon finding RL Earth?

Speaking only for myself, sling-shot around the sun and phaser-beam Hitler from orbit.

Build the pyramids, clearly.

Lago PARANOIA wrote:So how would you guys fix the Prime Directive so that it became less immoral?

I mean, even beyond the obvious excess of the post-TNG viewpoint that the PD didn't allow you to intervene in planetary destruction the entire idea was pretty vile. I mean, yes, a vastly culturally, technologically, and demographically superior power interfering with your affairs can lead to some bad shit. But I don't think this protection is at the cost of having to endure centuries of, say, intraplanetary genocide and slavery.

Personally, I think that the PD should be scrapped and that Starfleet is henceforth run as a pure humanitarian organization.

I'm for rephrasing it so that it explicitly states that a captain may break it but are required to justify their actions to Starfleet Command. That seems to be how it works out in practice anyway.

The Federation doesn't really have the resources to perform a full uplift on every inhabited planet in a quarter of the galaxy, and an individual exploration vessel doesn't have the resources to do anything to the local sociopolitical situation beyond fucking things up. I mean, they've been pretty successful at founding militant religions who offer human sacrifice to the great Picard in the heavens, but accomplishing something you actually want to do is much harder.

Sashi wrote:I know the prime directive bans giving lasers to cave men, but does it also ban the Enterprise from knocking a killer asteroid off course to save said cave men? I think they're allowed, but I honestly don't remember.

That seems to depend on the writer. During TOS, Spock concurred that doing that would be in the spirit of the regulation because it's basically impossible to fuck things up more than an extinction event, but in TNG and later they sometimes did stand by during extinctions.

FrankTrollman wrote:Well, you have to draw the line somewhere. You don't have enough resources to fix all the problems in the galaxy, and frankly no exploration vessel is going to have enough resources to fix all the problems of a planet.

Well technically and officially Starfleet does have enough resources to fix all problems of want and need because they live in a post-scarcity society.

I mean, they don't actually have a post-scarcity society, and the writers have often said that saying the Federation doesn't have money was one of the worst mistakes Roddenbery ever made.

But replicator technology combined with efficient energy production means the Federation theoretically could parachute two guys and a replicator down onto every pre-industrial society and great-leap-forward them to an intersteller society in a generation or two.

Kidnap rural people and anal probe them so you could verify that about one in ten don't seem to mind.



-Username17

Ancient History wrote:Speaking only for myself, sling-shot around the sun and phaser-beam Hitler from orbit.

This kind of thinking weirds me out.

Right, so you know, from the perspective of existing 70 years later, that that guy you killed from orbit was the pivot of a conflict that killed tens of millions of those rubber forehead dudes (remember, you're a captain from an alien galactic civilisation). But without some Dune level prescience helping you, how can you know that the path the Hitler-less world will set will have less suffering? Do you stay around to shot whoever was later determined to be the cause of major problems?

Well, I imagine the Department of Temporal Investigations will apprehend me and explain the Temporal Prime Directive.

nockermensch wrote: If you didn't have the Prime Directive, what would you, as the captain of an Enterprise-like ship built by an alien galactic civilization, do upon finding RL Earth?

Kidnap beautiful women, make the oceans more bountiful (particularly tuna), give Hayao Miyazaki replicator technology, slingshot around the sun and phaser michael bay from orbit.

As a serious answer, you could point giant photon cannons at Ukraine, tell everyone exactly which provinces are going into which new government, and put moderates in charge of both. Hang out for a news cycle for everyone to adjust, then warp away to the next planet on the list. You won't solve even half the problems there, but hopefully you can resolve the immediate crisis without any (more) bloodshed.

Granted, the Enterprise usually hangs out for like four days tops, rather than 4-8 weeks. If you really only have a few days to work with, beam down and stealth heal some of the locals while you gather up your samples and logs and stuff. Maybe that's where those stories of medically inexplicable recoveries from otherwise lethal diseases come from.

Personally, I don't think that Ukraine plan is a very good one. I mean, even if you can collect enough information to determine who should be in charge, your mission has a finite duration. Once their words are not backed up by orbital fire, they're probably going to get kicked out because of whatever factors made them not be in charge in the first place. Plus, people don't like being shoved around by space aliens.

I'd say that Earth doesn't have any urgent problems that the ship can effectively fix, file a report to High Command, and let them decide whether or not to send a peacekeeping/uplift mission that can hang out in orbit as long as needed.

Now, if there was an Ebola pandemic, I would instruct sickbay to develop a countermeasure that we can give to the locals, because that's a problem that can be fixed, is too urgent to let sit, and is most likely worse than any cascade effects from fixing it.

Set a ship on a long loop through a bunch of planets who have signed an uplift treaty. At each planet, the ship will give them the next chunk of advancement, something like the next 25 years of their natural development. If when the ship next comes by, they are violating the treaty by being evil, then everyone in charge gets beamed to a Federation court.

name_here wrote:Personally, I don't think that Ukraine plan is a very good one. I mean, even if you can collect enough information to determine who should be in charge, your mission has a finite duration. Once their words are not backed up by orbital fire, they're probably going to get kicked out because of whatever factors made them not be in charge in the first place. Plus, people don't like being shoved around by space aliens.

I should clarify that I meant to put in charge the most moderate of leaders amongst those who are already being seriously considered by the respective factions. The idea is to bring the crisis to a conclusion it probably would've reached on its own, but use the threat of overwhelming firepower to get there with as little violence as possible.

So.

http://www.agonybooth.com/video1315_Sta ... art_2.aspx

In this special Retrotorial, Tom follows up his previous Retrotorial about what makes a great villain. This time, he looks at what makes a bad villain by looking at one of Star Trek's most overrated villains, Gul Dukat from the most overrated Star Trek series, Deep Space Nine.

Any merit to this guy's accusations or is he just talking out of his ass?

Sashi wrote:Well technically and officially Starfleet does have enough resources to fix all problems of want and need because they live in a post-scarcity society.

I mean, they don't actually have a post-scarcity society, and the writers have often said that saying the Federation doesn't have money was one of the worst mistakes Roddenbery ever made.

But replicator technology combined with efficient energy production means the Federation theoretically could parachute two guys and a replicator down onto every pre-industrial society and great-leap-forward them to an intersteller society in a generation or two.

Technically, United Earth, is a post-scarcity society; what Earth called the New World Economy. The Federation functions on a United Nations model and presumably member planets may be allowed to conduct their own affairs so long as basic standards of sapient rights are met. Vulcans still engage in a rigid class system, own land, practice religion, and conduct other acts that even a 21st century human would consider barbaric. The exploration-and-self-betterment-is-awesome/money-is-lame attitude is a primarily a human-centric one in the Star Trek universe.

The Federation engages in commerce with non-Federation worlds thus some form of exchange takes place. Also, humans on Earth still technically "own" things, such as the Picard family vineyard or the Sisko family restaurant. But post-scarcity and anti-greed attitudes have removed the burning desire to take other people's stuff.

All problems of want and need are taken care of on Earth, Vulcan, and other right-minded worlds but you still need raw matter building blocks to run a replicator, unless a replicator engages in alchemy, rather than 3-D printing. Shipping all those rare-earth elements to other planets would be rather costly in terms of energy expenditure. And that's energy you're not spending to keep your own society rolling around in post-scarcity awesomeness.

Lago PARANOIA wrote:So.

http://www.agonybooth.com/video1315_Sta ... art_2.aspx

In this special Retrotorial, Tom follows up his previous Retrotorial about what makes a great villain. This time, he looks at what makes a bad villain by looking at one of Star Trek's most overrated villains, Gul Dukat from the most overrated Star Trek series, Deep Space Nine.

Any merit to this guy's accusations or is he just talking out of his ass?

Gul Dukat's final upgrade to a demon lord was weird and I could totally get people thinking it was weak. But basically he's talking out of his ass. I couldn't watch the whole video because his voice is really annoying. But he comes at it from completely the wrong angle. Gul Dukat isn't Sisko's equal, he's Sisko's foil.

Gul Dukat rises to the top because he is willing to hurt other people to attain and retain position, not because he is actually competent. His repeated successes and occasional victories are infuriating because he does not deserve them. If he was a master strategist or a brilliant administrator or a wise jurist or something, the fact that he gets to command starbases and planets and even vassal empires wouldn't be infuriating, merely unfortunate. The fact that he gets these things not only in spite of but literally because of his lack of virtue means that life isn't fair.

When Sisko loses to Gul Dukat, this isn't about losing to Kasparov or Magneto. This is about being passed up for promotion because the office shitbird claimed credit for a bunch of stuff you did and spread a bunch of nasty rumors. When Gul Dukat takes back DS9, it's not because he deserved to win, it's because things weren't fair. Even when Gul Dukat gets turned into a demon lord, it's not because he was awesome, it's because the Pah Wraiths needed an avatar and he was willing to do it. Because he's a horrible person.

Gul Dukat walks a very narrow line of being just competent enough for it to be believable that he could rise to the top by betraying a bunch of people more qualified than he is. While still being sufficiently short of virtue in every possible way that it is clearly unfair and insulting when good things happen to him.

I'm on the fence about the Pah Wraith demon lord thing. I think that might have been over the line. But his ascendancy all the way up to supreme leader of Cardassia works pretty well.

I also appreciate the fact that he does have virtues. Just... not very many of them. He's not a cartoonish lord of darkness (except at the very end), he's just a kind of banal guy who happens to be willing to hurt other people to claw his way to the top. The fact that he has personhood means that it doesn't feel like stupidity when people take mercy on him. If he was presented as monolithic in his villainy, the fact that people repeatedly choose to not slit his throat when he surrenders would come off as retarded rather than virtuous.

-Username17

I think that's a little unfair, but only in the details.
Most of the places that Dukat would actually be skills are administration. For whatever reason, most TV shows don't show budgets and processes in detail, so his primary skills are completely elided. Now, you could reasonably argue that the same applies to Sisko, and you would be correct. However, you can also see a couple times where he is completely overwhelmed by administrivia, where Dukat seems to effortlessly run anything he's in charge of.

There's also a bit of backstory where Cardassia was relatively recently a peaceful hippie planet, ran out of resources, and solved it by becoming a military pseudo-communist dictatorship. So, when all the Cardassians seem to have weird internal conflicts that are not well explained, that's probably because Cardassians seem to have weird internal conflicts. But that's a worldbuilding issue, not a characterization issue.

Frank nailed it. The Cardassia plotline is about revolutionary politics, with key themes being corruption, secret police and vicious political infighting. Gul Dukat rising to the position of quisling-in-chief just demonstrates that DS9 wanted to be more like Animal Farm than X-Men.

That TNG episode where Picard walks in on Ryker playing a dating sim, and then both of them get distracted by the dating sim long enough for bighead aliens to steal the enterprise

OgreBattle wrote:That TNG episode where Picard walks in on Ryker playing a dating sim, and then both of them get distracted by the dating sim long enough for bighead aliens to steal the enterprise

That's totally how the future is actually going to work you know.