The Prime Directive

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THE PRIME DIRECTIVE - GENERAL ORDER ONE

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Star Trek's General Order One, referred to as the Prime Directive, establishes an important benchmark for the Federation to follow when new planets are discovered and explored. It states that under no circumstances whatsoever is the contacting ship and crew to interfere with the normal development of indigenous life on the planet being explored. To ensure that alien cultures are not exposed to technology beyond their wisdom, the ship and crew are expendable. Seems to be a sensible precaution: Imagine if Hitler had been given phaser technology in World War II by a visiting alien race – we would all be speaking German now, I should think.

Once again, however, we are dealing with a television action / adventure show that relies on the hero (Kirk, in most cases) defeating the opposition, whoever or whatever that may be. As a result, the Prime Directive often times got in the way of good storytelling. Consequently, to be able to tell their tale and still fall within the guidelines of the Prime Directive, the writers usually had a wonderful excuse for Kirk to interfere with the development of the cultures he contacted. We will touch on these excuses in the various show analysis.


	ROB'S STAR TREK SITE \| Home The Cage \| The English Language \| The Music \| The Prime Directive \| Time Travel \| The Transporter \| The USS Enterprise \| The Episodes \| The Animated Episodes \| The Star Trek Font \| Contact Me THE PRIME DIRECTIVE - GENERAL ORDER ONE (Best viewed if you expand your browser's window.) Need the STAR TREK font? Click here to download it! Star Trek's General Order One, referred to as the Prime Directive, establishes an important benchmark for the Federation to follow when new planets are discovered and explored. It states that under no circumstances whatsoever is the contacting ship and crew to interfere with the normal development of indigenous life on the planet being explored. To ensure that alien cultures are not exposed to technology beyond their wisdom, the ship and crew are expendable. Seems to be a sensible precaution: Imagine if Hitler had been given phaser technology in World War II by a visiting alien race – we would all be speaking German now, I should think. Once again, however, we are dealing with a television action / adventure show that relies on the hero (Kirk, in most cases) defeating the opposition, whoever or whatever that may be. As a result, the Prime Directive often times got in the way of good storytelling. Consequently, to be able to tell their tale and still fall within the guidelines of the Prime Directive, the writers usually had a wonderful excuse for Kirk to interfere with the development of the cultures he contacted. We will touch on these excuses in the various show analysis.