10 Times Star Trek: Voyager Went Woke
7. Ethics of Cultural Interference
This is by no means a Voyager solo project. After all, Starfleet's Prime Directive is based on this very concept. But there's no getting away from Voyager's doubling down on the issue.
Natural Law sees Chakotay and Seven stranded in a shielded reserve and helped by the secluded, pre-warp community that lives there. To rescue them, the barrier has to be lowered. But with the barrier out of the way, their technologically advanced neighbours immediately seize the opportunity to 'improve' their lives with infrastructure and education. When Seven wonders if that might be for the best, Chakotay vocalises the question behind the story:
Can you honestly say that you know what's better for them?
The late 1990s and early 2000s were a time of cultural and historical reckoning. In the year 2000, the US Bureau of Indian Affairs gave a strongly worded apology for the historic mistreatment of Native American and Alaska Native peoples. In the same year, The Guardian ran a piece about the Brazilian policy shift in the 90s, from making contact with Indigenous people 'for their own good', to leaving them alone. And 250,000 Australians marched (and danced) over the Sydney Harbour Bridge to support reconciliation with Indigenous peoples.
So by the time Natural Law aired in 2001, the idea of governments deciding that Indigenous peoples should be 'improved', absorbed or educated based on their own values was being very publicly challenged around the world.
And that fits the particular flavour of cultural interference we see in Voyager's stories about unintentional harm.
Blink of an Eye sees Voyager's continued presence change an entire civilisation's mythology and technological development. Friendship One is about a 21st-century Earth probe that's reverse-engineered with terrible consequences.
Even in the pilot, we meet the Caretaker, left behind to care for the Ocampa after his people accidentally devastated their world's environment. Their overprotective response is shown to have continued to impede the natural progress of the Ocampans.
There's a theme running through Voyager that refuses to let us off the hook for even well-meaning or unintended damage. We're being warned to do better and take more care in how we insert ourselves in other people's lives.