10 Dumbest Things In Star Trek: The Next Generation
6. The Letter of the Law
The Prime Directive is taken to idiotic extremes by Picard and others under his command, where they’ll allow entire civilizations to die rather than interfering, as if a planet’s geologic conditions were some etched-in-stone fate handed down by the universe. Kirk had a very different, and more humane take on this, in “For The World Is Hollow And I Have Touched The Sky”:
SPOCK: Captain, informing these people they're on a ship may be in violation of the Prime Directive of Starfleet Command.
KIRK: No. The people of Yonada may be changed by the knowledge, but it's better than exterminating them.
SPOCK: Logical, Captain.
KIRK: And the three billion on Daran Five.
SPOCK: Also logical, Captain.
Contrast this with “Homeward” (where atmospheric dissipation threatens to wipe out an entire village) and “Pen Pals” (where a Piezoelectric effect threatens to destroy the entire planet of Drema IV and kill millions of people). In both cases, the initial position of Picard and most of his crew is that they should sit back, do nothing, and let entire populations die, for no other reason than they haven’t had the luck of discovering warp drive. It is only through the actions of Nikolai Rozhenko and Data in these episodes, both acting against direct orders, that these people are saved.
“Pen Pals” is by far the most egregious example, for the Enterprise could have saved the planet without ever communicating with its inhabitants—had they not decided to stand back and do nothing because of a ridiculous notion of a “cosmic plan.”