posted
The Prime Directive is a good idea because, as a general rule, when an advanced culture meets a less advanced culture the less advanced culture is destroyed. This is not always intentional. Hence, the Prime Directive. It protects Starfleet from having to play god, both literally and figuratively.
However, as we've seen time and time again on Star Trek, the actual interpretation varies quite a bit, and since we never saw Kirk hauled in front of a court-martial to answer for his numerous counts of computer smashing, I'd wager that Starfleet and the UFP are well aware of the ambiguities present in such situations.
posted
Well, in politics wasn't it known as a nation's right to "self-determination"? At least after WWI, Wilson's idea was that every nation had the right to choose how it would govern itself and run its internal affairs, and no other nation could step in and change that. Every nation's territorial integrity was assured from the threat of another nation coming in and dictating how it should be run.
At least some people had seen the problems the West's imperialistic policies had wrought on the underdeveloped portions of the world they conquered, and wanted to make sure things like that didn't happen again.
Now, whether or not you could say that this policy has been successfully brought into present-day politics is another matter entirely. After WWII, Germany and Japan were brought under strict control by the Allies until a democratic system of government and strong economy had been established. We have also interfered with other nation's affairs when we deemed that not doing so would be "detrimental" to our own state of well being. On the other hand there are many cases where we haven't interfered.
------------------ "A celibate clergy is an especially good idea because it tends to suppress any hereditary propensity toward fanaticism."
posted
Here's a very simple example of a PD situation -- western explorers introducing firearms to Japan. Before contact with the west, Japan was almost a medieval culture with those sword-wielding samurai. Gunpowder made the samurai totally obsolete and drastically changed a culture.
To continue this premise...
The Japanese, over the years from 1860 or so until 1900 began adopting western customs and principles and adapting them to their own culture. Naturally, there were some problems along the way. It's like an inaccurate translation -- it doesn't have the same meaning and can be very confusing. So the Japanese developed into a powerful government but with a number of cultural anachronisms (I'm oversimplifying here a bit, but I hope you see my point). And thus, WWII in the Pacific broke out.
Now, under the PD, Japan would have been left totally alone. Is this wise, either? Not necessarily. But the PD does provide some guidlines to prevent people from totally messing up another culture.
posted
It was never clearly stated if Cochrane invented the first warp drive in the region near Earth, or simply the first warp drive on Earth. He was simply credited as "the inventor of warp drive" by both Kirk and Picard.
What is clear is that Cochrane was not the first person or creature to invent warp drive in our galaxy, or even within a thousand lightyears of Earth. This is proven by the existence of ancient warp-capable cultures seen or spoken of in many episodes. True, the earliest warp drives *canonically* and *explicitly* mentioned would only be from post-Cochrane times - but we can safely expect, say, the Tkon or the Borg or the Dominion to have had warp drive (or something better) a long time ago, since they controlled interstellar empires in the distant past already. And they most probably used starships, not Iconian-style gateways, since the Iconians are mentioned as rather an exception to the norm.
Now a long rant about Vulcans and warp:
The Vulcans wouldn't have needed a warp drive to travel from Vulcan to Earth. Vulcan is supposedly a relatively nearby star (unconfirmed material puts it at 40 Eridani, just a dozen lightyears away, and TMP sort of confirms the distance estimate, if one in turn accepts the unconfirmed TOS warp formula of v=c*wf^3), and Vulcans live long and prosper and can mind their manners during years-long space voyages.
But the Vulcans we saw WOULD have needed a warp drive in order to rapidly respond to their observation of Cochrane's warp experiment. That is, unless they were already deep in the Sol system when Cochrane flew. But it was claimed they were not interested in Earth, and were only "passing". One does not "pass" through solar systems if one doesn't have a warp drive - one is forced to take the most direct route to the eventual destination, and direct routes in space do NOT accidentally pass through solar systems (space is far too empty for such incredible coincidences to happen).
So either the Vulcans did have warp and were passing at some distance - or they did not have warp and were already on Earth's doorstep, and blatantly lied to us about their former disinterest in Earth. Or perhaps they were interested in Martians or Venusians instead?
And in any case, the Vulcans were capable of observing the warp experiment, and identifying it for what it was. That means they had to understand at least something about warp physics to observe the warp signature - or alternatively, they had to keep conventional instruments crosshaired on Cochrane's ship and then observe its sudden FTL displacement. The latter seems quite improbable: even if the Vulcans were intensively spying on Earth, and noticed our first space launch after the war and kept monitoring it, it's a HUGE coincidence that they would catch the event if they were just "passing by". So again it boils down to two possibilities: either they had warp, or they blatantly lied about the "passing" and "disinterest" parts.
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