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"[Science fiction is] anything that turns you and your social context, the social you, inside out."
- Gregory Benford
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| Relations with Extraterrestrial Life | ||
| Instructions to earth citizens on how to behave when encountering alien civilizations. |
This is the earliest reference to the idea of a non-interference directive, or as it is called in the Star Trek universe, the Prime Directive, that I know about.
The two sections of a chapter citing regulations on relationships with aliens arise in the following contexts: the first instance arose when semi-sentient trees and other vegetation was seeking to either kill or disable the Earth citizens.
In the second, several Earth citizens were trying to dig up and take back to Earth some semi-sentient trees.
| "Section 17 of the chapter on Relations with Extraterrestrial Life. No employee of this company may employ weapons against or otherwise injure or attempt to injure or threaten with injury any inhabitant of any other planet except in self-defense and then only if every means of escape or settlement has failed.
"Section 34 of the chapter on Relations with Extraterrestrial Life. No member of this company shall interfere in any phase of the internal affairs of another race. |
| Technovelgy from Ogre,
by Clifford Simak. Published by Astounding Science-Fiction in 1944 Additional resources -
|
The basic idea of the Prime Directive is that no interference with other civilizations is allowed. It is primarily used in situations when Federation starships or personnel contact new alien civilizations.
However, this is pretty clearly what Simak has in mind. I don't know if this is the first reference to this idea in sf, but it obviously antedates the usage in Star Trek by a generation.
Devoted readers of Clifford Simak, a gentle humanist genius, are probably not surprised that he would think about this.
Here's an example of the opposite idea, from Nocturne by Wallace West, published in Thrilling Wonder Stories in 1950:
“Yah !” Percy's face resembled a well-buttered beet by this time, and he was in no mood for compromise. “If we should find grasshoppers when we land on Jonah, I suppose you’ll insist they are intelligent and make us teach them how to jump farther..."
This excerpt is from Return Engagement by Margaret St. Clair, published in Imagination in 1952:
Humanoid citizens of the system are supposed to know their rights and liabilities in dealing with non-humanoid species. If Farquarson had got into trouble with the Talipygians, it was strictly his own lookout. Under the circumstances, if they carved us up, all the government would do would be to send regretful letters to the names in the 'whom to notify' spaces in Farquarson's and my dossiers.
Readers of H. Beam Piper may also be thinking about Little Fuzzy; the plot revolves around the question of what sapience really is, and how should we treat the life we find on distant worlds.
Compare to the Noninterference With Other Worlds from In the Deep of Time (1879) by George Parsons Lathrop, the law of contact from Orphans of the Void (1952) by Orville Shaara, the Prime Directive from With Folded Hands (1947) by Jack Williamson, the treatment of extramundane aborigines from Symbiotica (1943) by Eric Frank Russell, alien self-government from Co-Operate or Else (1942) by A.E. van Vogt and the prime command from Robots are Nice? by Gordon R. Dickson.
Shiela dropped her flippant tone, “We had to help the Centaurans. You know as well as I do that our charter requires us to give aid and comfort to any intelligent beings we may encounter.”
"I had side arms, of course, but I wasn't planning on using them. For one thing, Farquarson might just have turned his ankle and considered it a catastrophe which warranted sending a call for help, and for another, the Talipygians are protected by interplanetary law. They've been classified as a 'non-humanoid species of limited intelligence,' and that means that if you bother one of them all hell pops loose. Quite right, too." Joseph's manner was solemn. "The non-human species of the system are one of our greatest natural resources..."
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'Our study of your race has convinced us that you are not fitted to leave your planet in the present state of your civilization.'
'...the spreading beam of the deranging ray struck them, and Then one toppled and fell. Then another.'
'Within seconds the material was spread out over fifty yards, in a matter of hours it might occupy several cubic miles of space...'
'The men are dead, but their acquired wisdom lives on and I am the beneficiary.'
'Young people found the driverless car admirable for petting.'
'After twenty generations of shillyshallying...'
