I didn't see it as a cop out.. I believe they often had to fight with their consciences when they deliberately ignored something that they could fix. I would hate to be in that position.

I sometimes feel that the Prime Directive has become something of an old Star Trek joke. It is used or ignored by individuals or governments, depending on the circumstances. With Section 31, The Department Of Temporal Investigations, and whatever other "secret" organizations that exist within or outside the Federation, that bend the rules whenever the interests of mainly the Earth civilization are at stake, I consider the Prime Directive as an unattainable goal that was thought up by eternal idealists. It was certainly not only the captains of the Enterprise who would struggle with that rule and sometimes break it. Occurrences like observation teams leaving objects behind, preventing natural disasters to save the life of crew members, looking for valuable minerals like dilithium crystals, and so on, will always have the potential of violating the Prime Directive. If they really don't want to, they should stay clear of any new planets. Often after the damage has been done and it is too late, the Prime Directive would be invoked, but only if there is no more advantage for the Federation to be gained.

In the end, the humans and other species from the future are no different from those present or past. All are tempted with acquiring as much power and knowledge as possible, to dominate and dictate to others what they believe is good and right.
The Federation will not hesitate to set aside the Prime Directive whenever they think their position of power and dominance is threatened by any civilization, even those that are still of a low technological level, but with the potential of becoming a future competitor, who could replace them as the dominant force in the universe.

I'm wondering if there are aliens waiting for us to develop the warp drive Wished they'd make contact before we start a third ww.

46 years to go!

The "Prime Directive" was a nice idea but it never fit in with the Star Trek storyline. If they really were committed to non-interference they would have observed other cultures from a distance, as in "Who Watches the Watchers?", and even that ran into problems.

One emphasis that was brought up occasionally, in both TOS and TNG, was not to "contaminate" societies that didn't already have space flight, and in the case of TNG it was more specific to warp drive. (TNG episode "First Contact" for example.) Just having rockets in someone's own solar system didn't put them in a position to encounter aliens.

But even just the third - or fourth, depending how you count - episode of TNG was a pretty obvious violation of that. Did anyone think "Planet Liberia" had previously developed space flight of any kind, let alone warp drive, on its own?

They didn't treat more-advanced civilizations much better, though. For example in the episodes where they showed "everyday life" for Romulans (i.e., "Unification" parts 1 and 2) they made it out that, aside from government/military offices, most Romulans basically lived and worked in adobe huts. I found that rather baffling.

i think it would be wrong to assume The Prime Directive was a Human invention ,since T'Pol in ENT frequently reminds Archer that the Vulcans have certain rules and guidelines when encountering a new intelligent species/culture.And the rules and guidelines sound awfully close to what has been put down into the Prime Directive so what I think is the the PD is largely a copy of those Vulcan directives (with some tweaking here and there).And I think there can be argument for both cases but I think after watching ENT that there at least should be something to fall back on in such cases considering how much troubles and self doubt it gave Archer that he himself in the progression of the series saw the wisdom to have some "directives" in the future in what to do in such circumstances.

Actually, the Prime Directive seems pretty clearly to have been an offshoot from some of the situations Archer dealt with, and his conversations with T'Pol and sometimes Phlox, such as specifically in the episode "Dear Doctor" where Archer basically laments that there is no Prime Directive already and that in the future they need to come up with one.

Since the planet involved in "Dear Doctor" already had space flight, but not warp drive, it can be argued that what came to be the Prime Directive would have kept them from going to/contacting that planet in the first place. Unless an exception is allowed when other alien races have already been "interfering."

Well having spaceflight was not the point where there was so much trouble about in that episode .It was the fact that if Phlox would have given them the cure,Archer would be interfering with the natural evolution of that planet not giving the chance to the other less developed species (but immune the disease) to fully evolve themselves to become the dominant species.Giving the species Warp drive would also not have helped because they would have likely killed themselves in the process(by accident because of lack of knowledge and working with anti-matter or by using the technology as a weapon) and even if they had Warp drive it might not mean that some other alien species want to help them as Archer pointed out that not all species where as friendly as humans .

That was a terrible episode. There's no scientific basis for Phlox's statement that the race was destined to "evolve wrong" and eventually die out. Evolution depends on external environment, and if you can't predict future environment then you can't predict how evolution is going to go. Of course the idea was to have Phlox startle Archer with some alien medical ethics, but instead it ruined the character of Phlox for me.

The species was already dying out within a hundred years or so they would have been gone,it wasn't just a simple disease ,it was a genetically hereditary disease and that species had been trying to repair the genetic default but couldn't even with using the genetic material from the less developed species who didn't have the genetic fault.Their disease was hereditary and was becoming worse with every new generation so they were doomed (without the help of a more technically advanced species).I think Phlox did the right thing and for the following reason ; The less developed species was becoming more and more intelligent (the more developed species even underestimated their intelligence),so let's speculate shall we what would have happened if Phlox had given the more developed species the cure them staying alive and surviving would in a couple of centuries inevitably lead to (violent)conflict between the two species when the less developed species would have reached a level of intelligence up to the point when they are not going to accept their secondary status and will demand equal rights and opportunities etc.

That is why I have no problem with the whole Temporal Cold War of ENT ,there already was a committee that investigated temporal viololations as was shown in DS 9 episode Trials and Tribble-ations and there also was mentioning of the Temporal Prime Directive so Starfleet (and The Federation) clearly must have felt the necessity to have these,probably from prior experience (the Temporal Cold War?)

I think the Prime Directive is a whole lot of balderdash and hooey, with a sprinkle of poppycock thrown in!

@wonder2wonder said:

I sometimes feel that the Prime Directive has become something of an old Star Trek joke. It is used or ignored by individuals or governments, depending on the circumstances. With Section 31, The Department Of Temporal Investigations, and whatever other "secret" organizations that exist within or outside the Federation, that bend the rules whenever the interests of mainly the earth civilization is at stake, I consider the Prime Directive as an unattainable goal that was thought up by eternal idealists. It was certainly not only the captains of the Enterprise who would struggle with that rule and sometimes break it. Occurrences like observation teams leaving objects behind, preventing natural disasters to save the life of crew members, looking for valuable minerals like dilithium crystals, and so on, will always have the potential of violating the Prime Directive. If they really don't want to, they should stay clear from any new planets. Often after the damage has been done and it is too late, the Prime Directive would be invoked, but only if there is no more advantage for the Federation to be gained.

In the end the humans and other species from the future are no different from those present or past. All are tempted with acquiring as much power and knowledge as possible, to dominate and dictate to others what they believe is good and right.
The Federation will not hesitate to set aside the Prime Directive whenever they think their position of power and dominance is threatened by any civilization, even those that are still of a low technological level, but with the potential of becoming a future competitor, who could replace them as the dominant force in the universe.

Agreed. Yeah, I think it's a cop out for the most part. The crew interferes with virgin, primitive, cultures all the time. They parse their rationales for doing so like politicians dancing around their broken campaign promises. Sometimes they save the lives of crew members or the lives of denizens of the primitive planet using their phasers. I guess they feel this is justified because they are saving lives. Whatever. They broke their rule. Other times they are torn between obeying the prime directive and preventing mass casualties for other reasons. So they parse their reasoning, sometimes torturing their logic, in order to find a justification for interfering.

I think that if they don't want to influence the development of these primitive, virgin cultures they should avoid them altogether. Any interaction with them is going to influence those cultures in some way, sometimes minimally, sometimes dramatically. But even the minimal influences may have major impacts over time. The Prime Directive in this show is an early expression of the liberal, multi-cultural, idea that no western culture is in any way better than any other culture, and therefore you have no right to influence another culture.
Obviously western culture isn't perfect, and those who believe or pretend that it is perfect are arrogant idiots. But to say that it is in no way any better than any other culture is just as idiotic, and those who hold to this dogma intentionally blind themselves to, or even attempt to justify the sometimes barbaric practices found in some foreign cultures. Multi-culturalism is viewed as a fundamental truth, like "Thou Shall Not Do Murder", and defended as such, even when circumstances show how flawed the reasoning is.

The prime directive carries this same defect. The writers do a fairly good job of working around the stupidity of treating the prime directive as a fundamental, basic truth. But it's not possible to write out the inconsistencies which necessarily arise from this rule.

@Invidia said:

The PRIME DIRECTIVE is also meant to PROTECT other more primitive societies who could be EXPLOITED and ABUSED by those who are more ADVANCED than them.

Look at the way the SPANISH took ADVANTAGE of the NATIVES in AMERICA and let them believe that they were some kind of GODS they were expecting to arrive because of their legends.

Then the SPANISH also proceed to ENSLAVE them and FORCED them to work in MINES so that they could send the GOLD and SILVER they got from them back to SPAIN.

And they also brought diseases like SMALL POX with them when they arrived which also WIPES out 25 MILLION of the inhabitants or most of the NATIVE population.

So this is still another reason why the PRIME DIRECTIVE becomes part of the FEDERATIONS RULES for EXPLORATION.

Right. Granted, there are good reasons for regulating the kinds of contact and interactions one has with foreign peoples, cultures, and planets in this case. I don't disagree with that. Some of the examples you gave show valid reasons for regulating and restricting your interaction with these peoples so as to minimize or prevent any negative impacts upon them. Nobody (at least nobody I've ever met) would condone the enslavement of foreign peoples, or risking their health through exposing them to foreign pathogens. (I assume the risk of negative health impact was handled by advanced technology available to the Enterprise crew though I can't recall them mentioning it. I guess they had a way to assay the pathogen profile of the lands they visited before beaming down so as to be sure they were not bringing in something which the denizens had no resistance to.) And the introduction of advanced technology to primitive cultures could have negative impacts in various ways. I understand and generally agree with the principle of minimizing influence on the development or evolution of foreign cultures in order to avoid causing unwanted, and unforeseen negative outcomes. One can even argue that giving advanced medical treatments to such people could have negative ramifications for them. One could also argue that the application of humanitarian assistance in individual cases is less likely to cause harm than the 'gift' of advanced weaponry for example. Still, there could be unforeseen consequences of even the most seemingly benign interventions. A new cult or religion surrounding the tale of strangers with special healing devices could develop and drastically alter the course of their cultural development, for example.
As I mentioned previously, just about any interaction with the foreign culture carries with it the risk of transmission of alien influences on their culture, if by nothing more than the inadvertent expression of advanced concepts or ideas. And a simple idea, concept, or belief, transmitted into the primitive culture may wind up dramatically altering the course of history in that world. One may debate the likelihood of negative ramifications of this or that idea or influential contact, but it's not possible to know how any particular influence will impact the culture in the long run. The only certain way to avoid influencing such cultures is to avoid having contact with them altogether. And that would run counter to the mission of exploring new worlds.

The Prime Directive, if treated as the goal of ultimate and supreme importance, would effectively rule out interaction with such virgin worlds.

But in practice the crew of the Enterprise finds a balance between their mission statement and the prime directive. What bothers me is how they treat the prime directive almost as an inviolable rule or truth.

Might there be negative consequences resulting from interacting with foreign, primitive cultures? Sure. But you cannot by any rule completely eliminate such risks. Should humanitarian medical aid be withheld from suffering individuals for fear of violating the prime directive? I think that is a debatable point. I would argue that there are exceptions, times when humanitarian aid to save lives is worth the risk. The Prime Directive ought not be written in stone or venerated as if it were a law from a divine being.

And I think the crew of the Enterprise applies it inconsistently, according to circumstances. And I think they should do that. But it bothers me to hear the way they talk about it, as though it trumps all other considerations in all circumstances.

In many situations - episodes- the Prime Directive is itself a type of deus ex machina, used as needed to drive the plot in a certain direction. And it's difficult to see how they could have justified making contact with either the "jogging-suit planet" (episode "Justice") or what I call "Planet Liberia" ("Code Of Honor") just for two examples, since neither had apparently developed any kind of space flight of their own, let alone warp drive which - at least according to the episode (not the movie) "First Contact" - seemed to be required. Or for that matter, "Bread And Circuses" where it's stated that they aren't allowed to mention space travel, other worlds, etc.