Agreed. TBH, watching first run episodes, I was much more impressed by Voyager than I was by DS9. Watching both series through the second time around, of course, my POV changed somewhat. 
Yeah. Picard’s self-righteous pout at the end sums non-interference up for me. Get over yourself, Picard. Not everyone is a human or a corporal being or travelling in one dimension. The universe is a big place.
I really wish one of the folks that the Feddy Prime Directive folks ran into would have said, “Oh that’s nice. Look they have a Prime Directive. Isn’t that cute? We had something similar 10,000 years ago.”
I guess there were a few aliens that did that. Just not that blantantly condescending (The Metrons, Organians, et al.) Q was kinda the first omnipotent being to get all up in their face. Trelane did but he was even more childish than Q…literally.
I guess. I’m not sure if it was mentioned how long the planet was in that state. I was under the impression that it was like that a while but now that I think about it they were probably just making a commentary on pollution. Those folks probably mucked up their atmosphere in a decade or so which is amazingly stupid and careless.
This of course brings up the point, if they were not so techno-advanced to destroy their environment so quickly they wouldn’t have gotten help. All that pre-warp jazz. Would the Enterprise just floated by another planet in a similar situation with a pre-warp society? As has been mentioned, that’s ridiculous.
Did you actually watch both series again all the way through? I’ve not done that. (Though I’ve still ended up seeing a lot of episodes more that once.)
So you like DS9 better on the second run through?
I disagree. They can’t just swoop in like a great flying deus ex machina. Look at our environmental movement. The only reason it’s even as half-assed as it is now is that even the most cynical among us are starting to recognize the effects of pollution. Remember when we were kids, and black, choking smoke poured from every exhaust pipe? If someone just magically took all that away one day, how bad off would our planet be by now? It’s not like the Enterprise is going to hang around for the next few decades and help us not to fall into the same pattern of behavior. It’s also like hiring someone with a high school diploma or a college degree: you have to demand a certain level of accomplishment to ensure future expectations.
I did. I DVR’d reruns off Spike. I was actually surprised how many episodes I had no recollection of ever seeing before.
So you like DS9 better on the second run through?
I did. I enjoyed the more good vs. evil semi-mystical nature of the last season particularly, something I didn’t really appreciate as much the first time through, since I’d obviously missed a few episodes in the first run.
Why not? It doesn’t have to be the Enterprise, though. But the Federation could send folks to train and teach the people how to use some alternate that wouldn’t pollute their atmosphere.
My point is that the society as a whole hasn’t learned to be forward thinking. It’s like coming up with some radically new way to improve gas mileage and using it to drive even bigger cars (which has totally happened, BTW). Ultimately, it’s not helping the root problem. Either we would have to learn to deal with these sorts of problems ourselves, or we’d have an army of alien babysitters here for the next several decades. Which is really healthier for the growth of our society?
So what you’re saying is that it isn’t possible to have technology given to you and you not grow from that? For me, that makes no sense since t happens all the time. Each generation grows up with stuff that was given to them by the former generation. We grab it, pick it apart, and make it better.
Sure I get the whole Caveman and an iPhone argument. But think about it. How 'bout giving a caveman a wood or stone home, equipped with a fireplace, and a well?
But that’s the kind of divide I’m talking about. Even basic pieces of Federation technology, the kind of thing that every child uses, are practically magic given our current understanding of science. Consider giving replicators to impoverished regions to save children from starvation. How soon would it be until they were used to manufacture weapons? Or seized by warlords, who would dole food and water as they saw fit? Technology doesn’t change who we are. In many ways, it makes us more so what we were already.
The actress that played Amanda also plays Abby Carter, ex-wife of Sheriff Jack Carter, on Eureka.
That brings up the whole ‘give a fish / teach a man to fish’ argument. If you’re just going to drop tech in a culture’s lap. There are going to be major problems but if you teach them and protect them, they’ll have a better chance adapting and adopting the advances.
I guess I am approaching this with something similiar to the parent analogy Sean brought up. If you’re going to go out into the universe, be a mentor. If someone needs help and you can offer it, don’t turn a blind eye or seclude them because of some silly pre-Warp condition. Help 'em out. Stick around. If you father a child and then walk away from the responsiblities. Don’t say, “Welcome to the world. So long.” In essence if you just drop the tech off, you’re doing the same thing, “Welcoming to this new tech. Hope you don’t kill each other.” A starship should be equipped with all of that, a military and humanitarian presence. It should have people trained in first contact situations.