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  • That the Prime Directive only applies to pre-warp civilizations.

    • Besides the fact that the Prime Directive is violated constantly, what am I missing about it?

    • You're not wrong, but man the Prime Directive would make a whole lot more sense if it did. The commonly misunderstood version of the PD that is intended to prevent cultural contamination is clear and simple. Given its status as the literal top rule, the actual PD—a generalized non-interventionism/pro-isolationism dictum—is oddly complex, vague, and lacking a focused objective.

      • I still want the story of the one mousey, overworked lieutenant junior grade whose job it is to follow-up on all prime directive violations.

        Investigator: Alright, Captain, let's begin, shall we? Apparently you and your crew intervened in a labour dispute between two independent worlds, and taught the previously exploited civilization about unions, and now their entire social development has radically shifted. Is there anything in that basic statement you'd like to dispute?
        Captain: Uh...when did this happen?
        Investigator: Stardate 43012.7.
        Captain: That was eight months ago!
        Investigator: Correct. I've had an entire backlog to work my way through, and this is the earliest I was able to address your situation.
        Captain: Five months ago my entire ship was trapped in a time vortex and we all deaged to adolescence.
        Investigator: ...I did think you looked rather young.
        Captain: We don't even have any memory of those events, but it does sound pretty dope. Surely you can't hold us responsible for actions we haven't yet committed, and might not actually commit if we were put into similar circumstances again.

      • All of this could be avoided if they'd just rename it to the Mind Your Own Business Directive.

  • Oh, here's a biggie. That individual ships in TOS had their own unique insignia. That turned out to be a myth, despite being perpetuated on-screen by ENT: "In a Mirror, Darkly".

    It also led to a post of mine that was particularly controversial at the time.

    • @khaosworks @concretebaby Oh wow. I remember reading this “fact” in Mr Scott’s Guide to the Enteprise or a similar technical manual in the 80s!

      • You remember correctly. From Mr Scott's Guide to the Enterprise, p24:

        The great success of Enterprise's historic five-vear mission brought other changes to Star Fleet procedure. To honor the ship and her crew, Star Fleet Command unanimously elected in 2212 to drop the individual ship emblem system employed since 2206 and then adopt the insignia of Enterprise [Command Division] as the official insignia of Star Fleet. Each individual's branch department would no longer be denoted by shirt color; rather, this would be expressed by a colored, circular background on the uniform insignia. The basic uniform became a long- sleeved tunic of gray or tan, with foot coverings built into the uniform pants.

        (As you can see, the chronology here is way off, written as it was prior to TNG and the establishment of TNG's Season 1 in 2264 as per TNG: "The Neutral Zone". Mr Scott's Guide was based on the FASA Star Trek RPG timeline, which was in turn derived from the Star Trek Spaceflight Chronology.)

        To be fair, the whole thing stemmed from a production mistake in TOS: "The Omega Glory". The article I linked to is pretty interesting and explains how this happened. It was only until the memo surfaced that we discovered exactly what the original intent was.

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