Let me give you a brief example from the episode my friends and I were debating. The story revolved around Planet A who suffered from a plague which had no cure and a second, Planet B, a planet where a plant with the only treatment for the plague could be found. The crew from the Enterprise rescues two members from each society and a cargo of the medicine needed to treat the plague.
Unfortunately, the payment that the two men from plague-ridden Planet A had to pay for the medicine was lost during the rescue. Fearing imminent death, they beg the two representatives from Planet B to please give them the medicine so they can live, and they will pay for the medicine later. Because the only industry that Planet B has is to produce the medicine for the people of Planet A, they refuse to give up the medicine until they receive payment.
Stuck in the middle of this conflict is Captain Picard and the ship's surgeon, Dr. Crusher. Picard refuses to force Planet B's people to turn over the medicine to Planet A because of the non-interference directive. Even when Dr. Crusher discovers that the medicine is not medicine but a narcotic and the plague is not deadly, Picard refuses to even tell Planet A that they are being duped. He does do something so that this will be the last "medicine" that is ever delivered. So Planet A can no longer get their "medicine" and Planet B will have no one to sell the "medicine" to anymore.
Are you still with me? At the end of the show, Dr. Crusher is angry that Captain Picard would neither tell the duped Planet A that they were not going to die from the plague and were just drug addicts, nor would he allow the doctor to give Planet A synthetic drug that would ease their withdrawal symptoms. The captain insists that the Prime Directive is not "a choice but a way of life." History shows, the captain says, that when a more advanced society interferes with a lesser advanced society, it almost always disrupts and harms the lesser society.
The doctor gets in the last, and for my money, the best line of the episode. Replying to the Captain's reasoning for invoking the Prime Directive, Dr. Crusher says, "It is hard to be philosophical in the face of suffering."
A friend of mine who was part of the discussion took the doctor's side in the debate. She said that she believed that Jesus would "interfere" and would stop the suffering. Boy, did the debate get started then. Some argued that is precisely what our Christian missionaries do: go to "lesser" societies and disrupt their lives and future by imposing on them our values, which may not help the "lesser" society. The other side replied that there are some values that are universal and that people who oppose slavery or genocide have an obligation to "interfere" with those societies which practice such evils.
I was left pondering which Gospel was the correct one: the Gospel according to Gene Roddenberry or the Gospel of Jesus Christ? Am I my brother's keeper, do I stop and help the man lying in the ditch, do I fight against slavery and genocide wherever it exist? Or do I assume that people and societies will evolve as they should and to "interfere" with them is to harm them? Even if that means not opposing their slavery or genocide?
Count me on the side of those who would "interfere." I would have told the people from Planet A that they were being duped with the "medicine" and done what I could to ease their pain. I do stop for the man in the ditch. I support our troops being in Bosnia to stop the genocide. I love Star Trek, but I often find the Prime Directive troublesome. Guess that would disqualify me from joining Star Fleet. Maybe I can join the Christian faith.
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