From: jsbell@acs.ucalgary.ca (Joshua Bell)
Subject: Re: Prime Directive
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 92 06:00:04 GMT
Organization: The University of Calgary, Alberta

In article <A57347@HB.maus.de> Sem_Hoelscher@hb.maus.de (Sem Hoelscher) writes:
>I'm interested so much, because sometimes I think, "we" should leave those
>Third World people alone! (Okay! I know, difficult, if you see it. But what
>are the results?) And that's close to it! What might have happened to some,
>now long dead cultures on earth (like the Inka, the "Indians" (acutally the
>Americans)), if they had had the benefit of the Prime Directive and not
>being tought "the right way" (who-ever determines, what that might be)?
>There is =no= being on earth but the so-advanced humans to do such a thing!
>Other beings just go somewhere else and get, what they need to survive.
>Just humans have to teach other humans (not considered human enough or so) ...

Interesting analogy. This could also make an interesting plot for
a TNG episode. Theories about why almost all Trek aliens are just
humans with latex foreheads or ears usually point to some alien
species transplanting humans from a million years ago or so to a
number of other planets, modifying some to survive in their
new environments (Kirk states that this is a theory on one TOS
episode). 

The following is a theory discussed in a junior anthropology
class, I'm not an expert in the field by any means, and don't
know the credibility of the theory at the moment, but I like it,
so read on with a grain of salt firmly in hand...

On Earth, when humans migrated to the Americas through the Bering
land bridge over several generations, any tropical diseases would
have been weeded out as they passed through the temperate and
near-arctic climes. As they travelled south to the more temperate
and tropical climes, any arctic diseases would also tend to be
removed from the population. Thus, there would be very, very few
diseases in the native american population, and they would
gradually lose resistances to Eurasian maladies over hundreds of
generations.

When Columbus&crew (Pizaro, Cortez, etc) came to the Americas,
they brought hundreds of European diseases with them. The theory
speculates that within a few hundred years these diseases alone
wiped out up to 90% of the population of the Americas, not even
including the slaughter of the populace by the conquerors. To be
fair (!), it is also believed that Syphilis was a native american
disease (low succeptibility to it among american natives, or
something, combined with the timings of the outbreaks in Europe)
brought back to Europe by early explorers, traders and conquerors.
The native american cultures were decimated, and totally unique
cultures like the Inca, Aztec, and Maya (and their predecessors)
were erased.

Whats this got to do with Trek?

Well, imagine the decimation of planets with a humanoid culture
brought to a nearly sterile environment by those ancient alien
starfarers when an 'advanced' culture like the TOS Federation
attempted to make contact.

Or even the TNG Federation if the Biofilters are accidentally
left off on the WAY DOWN during a First Contact mission.

Probably never happen - The Mark of Gideon (is that the episode
name?) already presented something similar... but thats never
stopped the TNG scriptwriters before. :)

Joshua
+      "Each woman is a promise that she can't keep that appeals to           +
|  a hope you can't control." - joe theseus, Deadface: Earth Water Air Fire   |
|                                                                             |
+ jsbell@acs.ucalgary.ca   Academic Computing Services, University of Calgary +