13 Times Star Trek Broke Its Own Prime Directive

13. When The Bough Breaks - Next Generation

Another one that's a bit justified, since as usual - the aliens are the ones to start the fight here. Because heaven forbid starfleet come off as anything other than f*&king saintly.

When the Enterprise crew meets a race known as the Aldeans, everything seems to be going well until their leader brings up that - oh by the way - we want some, well to be honest, ALL of your ship's kids, hope that's not an issue. Obviously it IS an issue, so the Aldeans just kinda...take them anyway.

The episode ends with Picard basically disassembling the Aldeans' entire way of life by stopping this scheme, but it's at the bottom of the list because Picard and company were LEAVING, and then the Aldeans escalated things by starting the fight. At that point, Picard has a solid defense for doing whatever he has to do in order to get them back.

The bottom portion of this list are doubtless violations of the prime directive, but as is the case with violations like these, there's a solid chance of the transgressor getting off because Picard wasn't really left with any other option.