"at or near"..... and 500F is "near" room temperature when compared to the surface of the sun. :P
Yes it is, but the experimental cell was claimed to remain at 30-50C... Not 'cold' as in 'colder than hot fusion'... And either way, still totally different to what cold fusion was claimed to be in ID :P
The Prime Directive. Bane of any Starfleet captain's existence.
As far as I see it, the Prime Directive is indeed a directive, not a rule. It is something to give a direction to a Starfleet captain, not to force them into making a decision. In any interaction with another species, one would arguably already break the Prime Directive.
Take DS9 for example. The Bajorans ask the Federation to protect them, which the Federation grants. In itself, this is already a violation of the Prime Directive. However, the Federation agrees, seeing that the Bajorans were just milked out by the Cardassians. In this case, they follow the PD: they are granting the Bajoran request, but only if the Bajorans remain in control of the system, their own politics, and officially also of the station.
Next, they find a wormhole. By doing so, they change how Bajoran society would develop. To add to the situation, the Federation help the Bajorans to claim the wormhole, while a Cardassian ship would also have been able to claim this asset. However, since they found it and a Bajoran asks to move the station, Starfleet officers decided that moving the station would not go against the direction. It would not follow it to the letter, but most certainly not move against it.
Heck, you can even argue that when the Dominion invaded, Starfleet would not be allowed to defend the Federation. Maybe it was the natural course for the Dominion to conquer all of the Alpha Quadrant. Even the existence of the Federation could arguably be against the Prime Directive, species bond together and interfere with each other.
What am I trying to say? The Directive is not a rule in my opinion. Consider it a one-way very wide highway, with each Starfleet captain riding in a car. You can go straight on, you can move a little to the left or the right if you are careful, but turning around is simply not ok. That is how I see things.
Yes it is, but the experimental cell was claimed to remain at 30-50C... Not 'cold' as in 'colder than hot fusion'... And either way, still totally different to what cold fusion was claimed to be in ID :P
I have difficulty grasping just how the energy is supposed to be extracted from a room-temperature reaction. There is literally no way for energy to escape from a reaction except either by photons or by particle kinetic energy--gravitational radiation is billions of times too small for anything less dense than neutron matter, and the other known forces (the strong and weak nuclear interactions) can only operate across subatomic distances.
Thus, the only way for energy to come out of the reaction non-thermally is if it is released exclusively as photons of wavelengths that the surrounding medium is totally transparent to. For water this means near-infrared through near-ultraviolet. Any other wavelengths would be absorbed by the surrounding water molecules and re-radiated as heat.
The Prime Directive. Bane of any Starfleet captain's existence.
As far as I see it, the Prime Directive is indeed a directive, not a rule. It is something to give a direction to a Starfleet captain, not to force them into making a decision. In any interaction with another species, one would arguably already break the Prime Directive.
Take DS9 for example. The Bajorans ask the Federation to protect them, which the Federation grants. In itself, this is already a violation of the Prime Directive. However, the Federation agrees, seeing that the Bajorans were just milked out by the Cardassians. In this case, they follow the PD: they are granting the Bajoran request, but only if the Bajorans remain in control of the system, their own politics, and officially also of the station.
Next, they find a wormhole. By doing so, they change how Bajoran society would develop. To add to the situation, the Federation help the Bajorans to claim the wormhole, while a Cardassian ship would also have been able to claim this asset. However, since they found it and a Bajoran asks to move the station, Starfleet officers decided that moving the station would not go against the direction. It would not follow it to the letter, but most certainly not move against it.
Heck, you can even argue that when the Dominion invaded, Starfleet would not be allowed to defend the Federation. Maybe it was the natural course for the Dominion to conquer all of the Alpha Quadrant. Even the existence of the Federation could arguably be against the Prime Directive, species bond together and interfere with each other.
What am I trying to say? The Directive is not a rule in my opinion. Consider it a one-way very wide highway, with each Starfleet captain riding in a car. You can go straight on, you can move a little to the left or the right if you are careful, but turning around is simply not ok. That is how I see things.
I think your examples are going a bit too far, though I do like your line of thought. The main thing that I think you got wrong is that the Prime Directive is designed to NOT apply when the race in question specifically asks the Federation for help.
I'm just going sum up the entire prime directive: The prime directive is a rule that all the captain's must follow. It states that if a species doesn't have warp, than you can't even wave to them, and if their planet is about to be destroyed then the prime directive basically says "well...since you don't have warp then..YOUR SCREWED. But if they do have warp then it says "Conning to the rescue!"
Plus, for civilizations that don't have warp and they are about to be destroyed, the prime directive says "we can't help you because we might corrupt your already doomed society so just die already."
I think your examples are going a bit too far, though I do like your line of thought. The main thing that I think you got wrong is that the Prime Directive is designed to NOT apply when the race in question specifically asks the Federation for help.
I can agree with what you said. I was not particulary awake when I typed that wall of text.
Still believing in the wide road system. I was awake enough for that.
The Prime Directive, is it uncaring ? does it allow millions to go to their deaths? It almost certainly does, is this a bad thing? Well thats a relative moral issue that you have no objective right in which to interfere
Take our own planet as an example, put yourself in the position of an alien similar to that of a Starfleet Captain, who happens to be near enough to earth at the time of the Impact that most scientists agree is likely to have caused the extinction of most dinosaur species.
What about the Ancestors of the Voth who left that planet in the ST universe?, imagine you had the power to prevent that impact, and the voth never left, you stopped it before they saw the disaster coming, and Humanity was never given the oppertunity to evolve, achieve domminace, and eventually contribute to the founding of the federation. They simply were denied the oppertunity to exist, Because an Alien race arbitrarily chose to help one race , another is cut short, and that is something you or any other person has a right to choose, We say that nobody has a right to say who lives and dies? well what right does anyoje have to decide which race or species lives or dies !
Just because you can do something, doesn't automatically mean you should, saving one race from total anihilation may seem like a good idea, but it could deny the potential for any future race that could come about
A human lifespan is too short a frame of referance to properly understand the grand scheme of the universe, how it functions, humans are incapable of judging the massive implications of their actions when given this power of developing races, and so the Prime Directive is there to protect the aliens and us from our own poor judgement
These are the Voyages on the STO forum, the final frontier. Our continuing mission: to explore Pretentious Posts, to seek out new Overreactions and Misinformation , to boldly experience Cynicism like no man has before.......
I have difficulty grasping just how the energy is supposed to be extracted from a room-temperature reaction. There is literally no way for energy to escape from a reaction except either by photons or by particle kinetic energy--gravitational radiation is billions of times too small for anything less dense than neutron matter, and the other known forces (the strong and weak nuclear interactions) can only operate across subatomic distances.
Thus, the only way for energy to come out of the reaction non-thermally is if it is released exclusively as photons of wavelengths that the surrounding medium is totally transparent to. For water this means near-infrared through near-ultraviolet. Any other wavelengths would be absorbed by the surrounding water molecules and re-radiated as heat.
I'm not a theoretical physicist, so I couldn't tell you, even if I wanted to, but if you check the link I posted, it links to the commonly-understood form of 'cold fusion' as opposed to 'the earlier/other' meaning of the term
Take DS9 for example. The Bajorans ask the Federation to protect them, which the Federation grants. In itself, this is already a violation of the Prime Directive. However, the Federation agrees, seeing that the Bajorans were just milked out by the Cardassians. In this case, they follow the PD: they are granting the Bajoran request, but only if the Bajorans remain in control of the system, their own politics, and officially also of the station.
Next, they find a wormhole. By doing so, they change how Bajoran society would develop. To add to the situation, the Federation help the Bajorans to claim the wormhole, while a Cardassian ship would also have been able to claim this asset. However, since they found it and a Bajoran asks to move the station, Starfleet officers decided that moving the station would not go against the direction. It would not follow it to the letter, but most certainly not move against it.
A couple of things with this example. As you noted, the Cardassians had already exploited Bajor so the Bajorans were well aware of the existence of other races. As the Cardassians are warp-capable and the Bajorans, near as can be determined, were not PD did not apply regarding openly interfering with non-warp civilizations. The Federation was attempting to "right a wrong" as it were though it ended up with Bajor forever altered. Also, the Bajorans knew of the wormhole, but they didn't know that's what it was.They called it the Celestial Temple. Remember, that the Bajorans had relatively great records about, and sometimes had experiences with, the "Prophets".
I note that people go with "Prime Factors" when regarding VOY and its dealing with the PD, but I submit that its biggest infraction was Caretaker and even then that situation was much like Bajor: the Ocampa knew of space-faring races and had been exploited by them (at the very least, the Caretaker, Kazon and Talaxians) so PD didn't apply regarding their interference. "Blink of an Eye" is a gray area for many reasons. The fact that time moved so fast meant that literally in the timeframe of that episode, the people there were space-faring. Would they have gotten there as fast without Voyager? Maybe, maybe not. That was also an accident in the largest sense of that word, mitigated by the aforementioned fast time, and the PD allows for that so long as tech isn't left behind. "Muse" is the greatest example of that last statement too. Icheb's people were not technically warp-capable either, but multiple Borg incursions negated the PD there as well.
There's also several missions in STO where the PD is called into question. I can think of two diplomacy type missions during "Explore" missions (one where (insert enemy race here) tries to alter a species to worship them, but the species is wiped out by other races, and the probe that crashes and the indigenous people are apparently using swords and such). Also note that for all intents and purposes, the PD is relatively unstated in canon, but its general idea applies in many aspects. Besides, if they didn't "violate" the PD, that wouldn't be much of a story would it?
Actually the Bajorans WERE a warp capable race. One of the DS9 eps revolved around finding a wrecked Bajoran ship on Cardassia. The reason the Bajorans didn't have a space navy is because the Cardassians blew them all up.
Anyways... the Prime Directive.... is really a force of plot. It applies differently in some situations that others simply because of the whims of the writers.
Actually the Bajorans WERE a warp capable race. One of the DS9 eps revolved around finding a wrecked Bajoran ship on Cardassia. The reason the Bajorans didn't have a space navy is because the Cardassians blew them all up.
Anyways... the Prime Directive.... is really a force of plot. It applies differently in some situations that others simply because of the whims of the writers.
I wouldn't really call those ships warp capable because the only way they are able to go into warp is accidentally running into tachyons. Otherwise they could not even go anywhere near warp speed on their own.
I wouldn't really call those ships warp capable because the only way they are able to go into warp is accidentally running into tachyons. Otherwise they could not even go anywhere near warp speed on their own.
All of which is entirely secondary to the precedent with the PD that if somebody else interferes first, you're allowed to go in and try to mitigate or repair the damage. Not to mention the Bajoran Provisional Government specifically asked for the Federation's help. It was something of a plot point in the three-parter at the start of season 2 that if the Bajorans changed their minds and told the Federation to GTFO, they were supposed to GTFO.
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
The Prime Directive, is it uncaring ? does it allow millions to go to their deaths? It almost certainly does, is this a bad thing? Well thats a relative moral issue that you have no objective right in which to interfere
Take our own planet as an example, put yourself in the position of an alien similar to that of a Starfleet Captain, who happens to be near enough to earth at the time of the Impact that most scientists agree is likely to have caused the extinction of most dinosaur species.
What about the Ancestors of the Voth who left that planet in the ST universe?, imagine you had the power to prevent that impact, and the voth never left, you stopped it before they saw the disaster coming, and Humanity was never given the oppertunity to evolve, achieve domminace, and eventually contribute to the founding of the federation. They simply were denied the oppertunity to exist, Because an Alien race arbitrarily chose to help one race , another is cut short, and that is something you or any other person has a right to choose, We say that nobody has a right to say who lives and dies? well what right does anyoje have to decide which race or species lives or dies !
Just because you can do something, doesn't automatically mean you should, saving one race from total anihilation may seem like a good idea, but it could deny the potential for any future race that could come about
A human lifespan is too short a frame of referance to properly understand the grand scheme of the universe, how it functions, humans are incapable of judging the massive implications of their actions when given this power of developing races, and so the Prime Directive is there to protect the aliens and us from our own poor judgement
All of which is a complete argument from ignorance fallacy, stating that because you can't prove something is false, it must be true. Which is bull****.
That same species you intentionally withhold help from because of some future race that might possibly exist millions of years in the future, or because they might possibly turn into galactic conquerors thousands of years down the line? They might possibly also have turned into the race that reduces the Borg Collective to a bad memory, or great peacemakers who unite the races of the galaxy and lead them into a golden age. Or they might all nuke themselves into oblivion right after you leave and the second race evolves anyway.
Ergo, the only logical solution is to evaluate the situation based on the facts at hand. FACT: There is an entire sapient species that exists now that you have the power to help. Unless you have actual evidence, anything else is specious supposition, therefore useless, therefore does not enter into the argument.
The Prime Directive has been taken from a general guideline to avoid causing harm into knee-jerk dogma that is regularly perverted into something morally reprehensible for no good reason. When did the Federation turn into the Voth, again?
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
This is exactly why I would never wish to join Star Fleet, if I lived in this fantasy universe! It is so full of boring dogma and politics. I would prefer to try out the life I play in the game, Quark himself stuck to a set of rules designed to serve the person following them, for a profitable end result to the user only! That would be a fun life to play out, then I could also make fun of the people struggling to be goody-goods! lolz
The Prime Directive, sort of reminds me of 1950's history, with the John Birch Society, but those old guys never really took off. I remember they believed in not interfering in others business outside the country and sticking to improving their own knowledge and progress within their own society, plus they where none profit.
New Lunar Republic
"Where monsters rampage, I'm there to take them down! Where treasure glitters, I'm there to claim it! Where an enemy rises to face me, victory will be mine!" -Lina Inverse
Comments
That may explain the Decapodians, they could have come into contact with the Picard!
Yes it is, but the experimental cell was claimed to remain at 30-50C... Not 'cold' as in 'colder than hot fusion'... And either way, still totally different to what cold fusion was claimed to be in ID :P
As far as I see it, the Prime Directive is indeed a directive, not a rule. It is something to give a direction to a Starfleet captain, not to force them into making a decision. In any interaction with another species, one would arguably already break the Prime Directive.
Take DS9 for example. The Bajorans ask the Federation to protect them, which the Federation grants. In itself, this is already a violation of the Prime Directive. However, the Federation agrees, seeing that the Bajorans were just milked out by the Cardassians. In this case, they follow the PD: they are granting the Bajoran request, but only if the Bajorans remain in control of the system, their own politics, and officially also of the station.
Next, they find a wormhole. By doing so, they change how Bajoran society would develop. To add to the situation, the Federation help the Bajorans to claim the wormhole, while a Cardassian ship would also have been able to claim this asset. However, since they found it and a Bajoran asks to move the station, Starfleet officers decided that moving the station would not go against the direction. It would not follow it to the letter, but most certainly not move against it.
Heck, you can even argue that when the Dominion invaded, Starfleet would not be allowed to defend the Federation. Maybe it was the natural course for the Dominion to conquer all of the Alpha Quadrant. Even the existence of the Federation could arguably be against the Prime Directive, species bond together and interfere with each other.
What am I trying to say? The Directive is not a rule in my opinion. Consider it a one-way very wide highway, with each Starfleet captain riding in a car. You can go straight on, you can move a little to the left or the right if you are careful, but turning around is simply not ok. That is how I see things.
Join the Deltas today!
I have difficulty grasping just how the energy is supposed to be extracted from a room-temperature reaction. There is literally no way for energy to escape from a reaction except either by photons or by particle kinetic energy--gravitational radiation is billions of times too small for anything less dense than neutron matter, and the other known forces (the strong and weak nuclear interactions) can only operate across subatomic distances.
Thus, the only way for energy to come out of the reaction non-thermally is if it is released exclusively as photons of wavelengths that the surrounding medium is totally transparent to. For water this means near-infrared through near-ultraviolet. Any other wavelengths would be absorbed by the surrounding water molecules and re-radiated as heat.
I was thinking of Pakleds myself. as races go they strike me as a partiuclar example of a race that likely benifited from a "lack of a PD"
My character Tsin'xing
Plus, for civilizations that don't have warp and they are about to be destroyed, the prime directive says "we can't help you because we might corrupt your already doomed society so just die already."
And Picard talks about morals...
I can agree with what you said. I was not particulary awake when I typed that wall of text.
Still believing in the wide road system. I was awake enough for that.
Join the Deltas today!
Take our own planet as an example, put yourself in the position of an alien similar to that of a Starfleet Captain, who happens to be near enough to earth at the time of the Impact that most scientists agree is likely to have caused the extinction of most dinosaur species.
What about the Ancestors of the Voth who left that planet in the ST universe?, imagine you had the power to prevent that impact, and the voth never left, you stopped it before they saw the disaster coming, and Humanity was never given the oppertunity to evolve, achieve domminace, and eventually contribute to the founding of the federation. They simply were denied the oppertunity to exist, Because an Alien race arbitrarily chose to help one race , another is cut short, and that is something you or any other person has a right to choose,
We say that nobody has a right to say who lives and dies? well what right does anyoje have to decide which race or species lives or dies !
Just because you can do something, doesn't automatically mean you should, saving one race from total anihilation may seem like a good idea, but it could deny the potential for any future race that could come about
A human lifespan is too short a frame of referance to properly understand the grand scheme of the universe, how it functions, humans are incapable of judging the massive implications of their actions when given this power of developing races, and so the Prime Directive is there to protect the aliens and us from our own poor judgement
A couple of things with this example. As you noted, the Cardassians had already exploited Bajor so the Bajorans were well aware of the existence of other races. As the Cardassians are warp-capable and the Bajorans, near as can be determined, were not PD did not apply regarding openly interfering with non-warp civilizations. The Federation was attempting to "right a wrong" as it were though it ended up with Bajor forever altered. Also, the Bajorans knew of the wormhole, but they didn't know that's what it was.They called it the Celestial Temple. Remember, that the Bajorans had relatively great records about, and sometimes had experiences with, the "Prophets".
I note that people go with "Prime Factors" when regarding VOY and its dealing with the PD, but I submit that its biggest infraction was Caretaker and even then that situation was much like Bajor: the Ocampa knew of space-faring races and had been exploited by them (at the very least, the Caretaker, Kazon and Talaxians) so PD didn't apply regarding their interference. "Blink of an Eye" is a gray area for many reasons. The fact that time moved so fast meant that literally in the timeframe of that episode, the people there were space-faring. Would they have gotten there as fast without Voyager? Maybe, maybe not. That was also an accident in the largest sense of that word, mitigated by the aforementioned fast time, and the PD allows for that so long as tech isn't left behind. "Muse" is the greatest example of that last statement too. Icheb's people were not technically warp-capable either, but multiple Borg incursions negated the PD there as well.
There's also several missions in STO where the PD is called into question. I can think of two diplomacy type missions during "Explore" missions (one where (insert enemy race here) tries to alter a species to worship them, but the species is wiped out by other races, and the probe that crashes and the indigenous people are apparently using swords and such). Also note that for all intents and purposes, the PD is relatively unstated in canon, but its general idea applies in many aspects. Besides, if they didn't "violate" the PD, that wouldn't be much of a story would it?
Anyways... the Prime Directive.... is really a force of plot. It applies differently in some situations that others simply because of the whims of the writers.
My character Tsin'xing
I wouldn't really call those ships warp capable because the only way they are able to go into warp is accidentally running into tachyons. Otherwise they could not even go anywhere near warp speed on their own.
My character Tsin'xing
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
All of which is a complete argument from ignorance fallacy, stating that because you can't prove something is false, it must be true. Which is bull****.
That same species you intentionally withhold help from because of some future race that might possibly exist millions of years in the future, or because they might possibly turn into galactic conquerors thousands of years down the line? They might possibly also have turned into the race that reduces the Borg Collective to a bad memory, or great peacemakers who unite the races of the galaxy and lead them into a golden age. Or they might all nuke themselves into oblivion right after you leave and the second race evolves anyway.
Ergo, the only logical solution is to evaluate the situation based on the facts at hand. FACT: There is an entire sapient species that exists now that you have the power to help. Unless you have actual evidence, anything else is specious supposition, therefore useless, therefore does not enter into the argument.
The Prime Directive has been taken from a general guideline to avoid causing harm into knee-jerk dogma that is regularly perverted into something morally reprehensible for no good reason. When did the Federation turn into the Voth, again?
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
My character Tsin'xing
The Prime Directive, sort of reminds me of 1950's history, with the John Birch Society, but those old guys never really took off. I remember they believed in not interfering in others business outside the country and sticking to improving their own knowledge and progress within their own society, plus they where none profit.
"Where monsters rampage, I'm there to take them down! Where treasure glitters, I'm there to claim it! Where an enemy rises to face me, victory will be mine!" -Lina Inverse