Star Trek: 10 Best Captain Picard Speeches

The Next Generation: Pen Pals (Season 2, Episode 15)

The Next Generation’s second season was a marked improvement on its debut year, with several stand-out episodes. Pen Pal’s, though not often held up against episodes like Q, Who? And The Measure Of A Man, offers the scene in which Picard and his senior officers discusss the ethics of their situation.

Sarjenka’s plea to Data, begging him to rescue her, leads to the android officer violating the Prime Directive itself. Picard, perhaps more so than the other captains in Trek, kept the Prime Directive front and centre in his reasoning.

‘Data, your whisper from the dark has now become a plea. We cannot turn our backs.’

This discussion, one which includes the viewpoints of each officer, asks the tough question of what to do when the Prime Directive can lead to suffering? For some of the officers, the answer is easy – rush to her aid. To others, less so. What is the precedent that it sets? What happens the next time a distress call from a pre-first contact civilisation arrives?

The decision to act on the distress call is by no means an easy one, one that adds to the complexity of the Prime Directive, and the relationship with it. While other series would tackle these issues again, including notably Star Trek: Voyager in the episodes Equinox parts one and two, this would almost serve as a tentpole for the decisions to follow.