[kevin]

Originally Posted by horatio

Yeah, if someone stands in your flat with a knife you don't care much about the usual rules of living peacefully together, ne nice, treat others like you wanna be treated etc. You get the hell out of there or also grab a knife and it's either you or him.

Then again, if the PD is about not interefering in the natural development and if you were in a fight that you could not win naturally aka perhaps the natural evolution is that your time is simply up - it's rather sneaky to violate said rule and interfere in the development of another power (or in comparison knock on the flat wall and get your big burly neighbour to come help you thereby endangering him as well) in order to prevent becoming a victim of your own major rule.

I wonder if that kind of PD story could have mileage - the Federation comes up against another power it needs help or something important from but which has it's own version of the PD and refuses to help..........

It has been quite some time since I have last since "Justice" but as far as I remember, the Enterprise crew wasn't aware of the Edo laws or someone didn't brief the away team correctly. Anyway, someone made a mistake, either the Edo or folks aboard the Enterprise, yet not Wesley. So it seems a bit unfair that he has to die. And it is of course again about survival, why should a misunderstanding lead to the execution of one of your crewmembers and not just any random ensign but the son of your former love.

The normal rule of thumb as I understand it is that ignorance of the law has never been an excuse for breaking it if in another countries jurisdiction.

Although, when I was refreshing my memory on some PD related issues it has been observed that in 'Justice' the ship makes contact with a pre-warp culture that is more primitive and appears not to have frequent contact (if any) with other aliens at all.

On the face of it, it's possible the ship's entire presence there for some vacation time may have been a PD violation as soon as the landing party set foot on it!

I agree that the style of a lot of the late PD episodes was lukewarm, it seemed like they just follow a pattern that has "worked", franchise fatigue and all that.

I think franchise fatigue has a part to play in it.

[horatio]

It is a great rule isn't it, follow it unless it is inconvenient to do so.
Seriously, I would like to see something more controversial, a major break and everybody is fine with it (the would-have-been, darker INS) or a violation of the rule by someone of the main cast and dire consequences like imprisonment.

About DS9 again, in general it was a dark, gritty and down-to Earth show whereas TNG was rather lefty-lofty (one could claim that TOS had the best of both worlds) and the Prime Directive was just one ingredient in this utopian recipe. So naturally the Prime Directive is more or less relevant in different Trek shows and Trek cannot and shouldn't always be TNG-style-idealistic.

[kevin]

Yeah, as I think Samwiseb or maybe it was yourself once said - TNG was the best expression of the Utopia idea.

TOS hinted around it but didn't get too detailed about it and DS9 spent most of it's time unravelling it. VOY and ENT had nothing to do with the Utopia for their own reasons so mostly when we mention that Utopic (even though I've always hated that darned word Utopia being used in Trek period) notion we're basing it on what we get from TNG which was I suppose quite 'right on!!' a lot of the time.

[horatio]

To exaggerate it a bit, when it comes to moral issues Picard always knows the answer before the question is asked. Sam called it dramatically earned and that is often absent in TNG. Interestingly the arguably best scene in FC was the one in which Picard was challenged, in which there was drama, real interaction between human beings and not just convictions nicely packed in rhetorics.
Ying and yang, everything can be an asset and a liability.

[TNG_Trekman]

Originally Posted by kukalakana

Does anyone else feel that there are times when those rhetorical speeches that Picard tends to make can get really inappropriate for the situation.

I'll give some examples:

"Violations" -- at the end, when everyone's sitting around the table, and the last thing Picard does is to give a speech about violence and such. When essentially he's in the room with three of his crew members who've just found out they were victims of mind-rape.

"Homeward" -- the Enterprise crew is sitting back and watching a populated planet die because of Prime Directive blah blah blah. And Picard does his rhetoric about how much he is reminded At Times Like These about how difficult the Prime Directive is to keep and so on.

Picard's cool and all, but sometimes his "perfect rhetoric" does come across as kind of hollow. I'm sure there are other examples.

Negative.

[samwiseb]

Originally Posted by horatio

To exaggerate it a bit, when it comes to moral issues Picard always knows the answer before the question is asked. Sam called it dramatically earned and that is often absent in TNG. Interestingly the arguably best scene in FC was the one in which Picard was challenged, in which there was drama, real interaction between human beings and not just convictions nicely packed in rhetorics.
Ying and yang, everything can be an asset and a liability.

Touche! I've always been in the crowd of viewers that didn't much care for Picard's explosion in that scene (or thought the execution was taken at least a little too far). But I certainly can't deny the moment was more than adequately set up.

I was thinking of 'Measure of a Man' as being a good example, where Picard is forced to continually re-evaluate his position regarding Data's autonomy. First Data points out some hasty assumptions on his part... then Guinan later spells out what's actually waiting inside the can of worms once it's open. When Picard catches on ("We're talking about slavery here, aren't we?"), she rhetorically backpedals with something like "Really, I think that's a little premature, don't you?" Nice.

(And now we'll accept that he's grown enough to 'earn' the right to march in and strike a home run with his epic closing speech)

[kevin]

Yeah, in that context 'Measure of a Man' would be Picard having to earn his words at the end as oppose to Horatio's point (which I think is also accurate a lot) that Picard had the answer before the question arose.

[horatio]

I love Guinan's style of asking questions and listening to get her point across or to let her dialogue partner discover the truth (that's perhaps too big a word) hidden in him- or herself.

[MrQ1701]

I miss Picard's speeches!!!

[MagaditH]

Why is movie Picard a 180 from Tv Picard?