Reminds me of a comic I saw once where a guy is talking to an alien on a secret survey mission of Earth. The guy asks why the aliens haven't come forward publicly, and the alien tells him that humans first have to prove themselves mature enough to handle being a nuclear-capable society. The guy asks what the aliens will do to Earth if they _don't_ prove themselves mature enough, and the alien replies _"Oh, WE don't have to do anything at all. That problem takes care of itself."_
"As a sign of collaboration and good will between our two species, we offered them a device capable of creating vast amounts of unlimited energy. We naively thought it would help them solve problems such as disease and poverty, but they used it to build weapons of mass destruction and make war. Bombs fell from the skies and scorched the earth, and in just one rotation of their world it had become a lifeless husk."
Everything Oroville did might have been based on Star Trek but it had a great identity all it's own and did a better job with alien integration into society plus the fact that earth didn't start the union was also a big bonus for me. I loved Oroville and enjoy the Star Trek franchise.
@@petepanteramanI like how the ships had 3 loop prongs for the thrusters so you could maximize space and energy output and it really does seem like star trek ships 50 years after the original show
In retrospect, I'm surprised Kelly didn't bring up the fact that one planet created an entire religion around her, leading to centuries of war and division, all because she helped a little girl.
I was surprised she didn't bring that up as well. That would have been another good point as to why they can't mingle with other civilzations that aren't where they are.
In a way it makes sense she didn't. That episode would actually work in the other woman's favor. There cultural contamination DID happen but the species didn't destroy themselves.
Star Trek rarely had the nuts to show the actual consequences of violating the Prime Directive, most of the time when they do it’s shown as “justified” and is never actually punished
@@3adgamd3r Voyager, S7E21, Friendship One describes exactly the above video, an ancient Earth probe with knowledge on antimatter and other stuff was sent off into space. A race in the Delta Quadrant extracted this info to use antimatter for power plants, but they lost containment and destroyed the surface of their world. This was pre-prime directive of course. A crew member was also executed too, so they were punished in that sense.
@@3adgamd3r They really should have done a Star Trek show where a well meaning captain violates the Prime Directive to help a society and it ends up going horribly wrong. There is a proverb that the Road to Hell is paved with good intentions. The episode could be titled: The Road to Hell.
In Star Trek such an act would be a Prime Directive violation and this show is a parody of Star Trek so shouldn't there be some legal equivalent to the Prime Directive?
@@Zurround yes. we saw it in the season one episode where kelly accidentally became a religious figure. the events described here are the reason for that policy to be enacted in the first place.
And I'd say: That's BS. It's the "You aren't smart enough to deal with the truth" kind of attitude and... Do you want to give people nuclear weapons? No. But give people the physics - and they will make them. Which is why you give them a clear understanding of mutual destruction guarantees, and interact to elevate. You don't go in and pick winners and losers, you go in with educational knowledge in the sciences. Any reasoanbly advanced society (we are talking like starting in the bronze age) is going to have some foundations of early structured education - and even if they don't, they are going to have some cultural equivilance. That is how you disperse knowledge. If you have the capacity to do nuclear fusion, wind, and solar - if you can do waste reprocessing, all of that avoids the catastrophe. What is being show cased here is "capitalism bad, sharing with unready people bad" and yet, history is full of "unready people" being forced to adapt to new ways of doing things, new technologies. The idea's, and methods that sustain are the ones that continue to exist - all else gets washed away because: Competition does that. It is only when you impose a certain technology upon people, that it can exist beyond it's own merits: Hello government subsidies. And this isn't to say all subsidies bad - on the contrary, some are good. However, direct subisidies by government leads to politicization of them, and so - we look to the old way: Countries recognize a stable, capable military has value - both in emergency response, but also as active deterrence - militaries recognize the value of physics, chemestry, and so fund these. They understand nutritional understanding, medications and supplements to help in foreign environments, avoid the negative effects of sleep deprevation even temporarily, and often want to know the side effects - this is, by the way, why science was historically funded: Not for peace, but for war: Because, if you want peace, you MUST prepare for war. By the way - all of the above has been proven and tested over, and over, and over again. We are even watching the politicization of science, research, and development in western nations right now - as governments pick winning technologies, declare others losers, and hamper full understanding by opposing oppositional research which is necessary for refining theory. We have stagnated physics by letting string theory dominate through funding choices - while ignoring a wide range of other avenues of research that are, frankly, more promising. Yet, here we are. So, do you want to info dump 1000 years of technological development all at once? Maybe not. But you can absolutely put a civilization on a fast track.
Problem is which civilisation do yo choose to impart this knowledge onto. Imagine an alien craft landing on Earth and offering advanced knowledge to the local inhabitants............ I bet it wouldn't end well.
@fabianmckenna8197 hmm how about it rather than give quantum drive,replicators,ect limited to the earliest form of artificial gravity technology nothing more give them set of co ordinates just out reach of their orbit .instruct them if you're people are able to come together long enough to build a space station or ship equipped artificial gravity with some of your brightest intellectuals,scientists to these co ordinates a union ship will meet. After this point they will given a brief but highly informative trip to union central showing them working examples of technology (not enough to copy but enough hive them basic theory ideas to start them on the right path for say 30 to 50 years from now will achieve a quantum core on their own.
Mercer was basically a prop in this episode and most of the season. He only got one feature. That shows MacFarlane has matured in his production to be able to step back and let the other actors have big roles. You have been helpful Sober Man. You may go now.
Well he directed half of the episodes. That always reduces the role you can play. But he probably knows, he doesn’t really measure up to the rest of the cast, when it comes to acting ability. So he just wrote them some killer scenes and stepped back. That’s the captain you want to have! 😁
This is my little theory. If The Orville gets more seasons, Ed will get promoted to admiral. Seth will still have some scene time, but he will be able to focus more on writing and directing. Kelly will be made captain of the Orville, which is why I think they gave Adrianne so much more screen time and more involved in the stories than previous seasons.
@@fairview3725 I think it would be more universe changing if he leaves the fleet to raise his daughter. The Hard Decision, so to speak. The one thing he wanted all his life, he'll give up. Something like, "what is all this, if I can't share it with my daughter" or something heartfelt.
That was his intention. He didn't want The Orville to be just about Ed and everyone else is a side character; he wanted every single character in the show to have a degree of importance, no matter how big or small. Ed may be the Captain, but the Orville's crew is one whole family, where every life matters.
"The Prime Directive is not just a set of rules; it is a philosophy… and a very correct one. History has proved again and again that whenever mankind interferes with a less developed civilization, no matter how well intentioned that interference may be, the results are invariably disastrous." - Picard
Nah, doesn't work with humans. The prime directive is not meant for human intelligence. The last 100 years is proof. By design, our consciousness was built to supersede everything and everybody. We're all gods to the everything else out there, and that's why they study us before we activate. And speaking of activation; that should have happened 100 years ago. Instead of waking up, somehow, we fell further into sleep; went backwards. That's how I know somebody is super jealous of human abilities. Or else there would have no Q episodes. No Traveler episodes.
"And for that reason we are going to allow them to become extinct because our interference will inevitably be worse than that" - TNG writers missing the point.
well in the curretnt world us and other act more like goblins -profit above all and when a county votes right ,profit over security , religious expansion over security , left evoves into supresson over security , 1 had kinda freedom 2 has do as we do or else - Humans dont seem to have a bright future-Ai wont since it engineeer based who basiclly are the motor behind profit before all - Now everyone gts a better tool to profit supress and expansion = just equals war
If they aren’t renewing The Orville for season 4 and this was the last episode ever, it was an amazing last episode!! Let’s hope they decide to make more Orville tho
I agree. I love how (if series finale), the Orville didn't have to end in such a high stakes cliffhanger. More of an emotional bond between beings, giving the audience an ending where...:not to worry...it would work itself out in the end".
I wonder why Star Trek never did an episode that shows how important the Prime Directive is? There should have at least been one storyline in one of the Star Trek shows where a well meaning captain violates the Prime Directive with his heart in the right place genuinely wanting to help a world and it backfires horribly leading to disaster and disgrace for the well meaning human.
@@Zurround There's a TOS episode that shows how an entire planet became a gangland because an early explorer accidentally left behind a book about the mafia. Another planet became a Nazi dystopia due to someone thinking that teaching them fascist ideologies could save them from their original state of anarchy. Klingons taught some faction how to develop firearms and they immediately used them to commit genocide against their enemies. In TNG a species on the way to reach rational enlightenment reverted back to mysticism and superstition after seeing Picard and mistaking him for a god. Maybe it wasn't quite as dramatic as the outcome shown in this video, but they did show in more than one occasion the negative effects of ignoring the prime directive.
In less than 4 minutes, The Orville explained Star Trek's Prime Directive (General Order One) better than any Star Trek episode ever did. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds came close in episode one, but that only explained what happened to Earth with nuclear power, not interfering with another less developed culture. And, yes, before you ask, I have watch every single (canon) Star Trek episode and movie there is.
They also did an overall much better job of explaining how a Post Scarcity society works than Star Trek did in this episode as well. I liked how it simply came down to the definition of currency changed to reputation/deeds/achievement from physical money and goods after they discovered a way to basically synthesize matter
In fairness, in Star Trek you have people rebelling against the laws. It's a pretty boring show if the message is 'This law is 100% correct and shouldn't be broken'.
Pike wasn't justifying The Prime Directive since it was too late for that he was doing damage control to keep a planet from probably destroying itself.
I agree the very best explanation of why the prime directive exists in Trek and the Union's version of it in the Orville. I never totally understood why it was so important until now. In some cases though, outsiders can try to help a society without revealing themselves nor giving them their tech, for humanitarian reasons.
Great work here and reminds me of a classic "Peanuts" line of Lucy: "There has never been more harm done than by those who thought they were doing the right thing. Five cents please."
The Orville gave us what Star Trek didn't: An actual good reason for the "Prime Directive". Star Trek never really did present their Prime Directive very well, often it was an obstacle preventing the crew from taking the most obvious of choices in a situation; with most times the consequences of their actions would obviously be positive for all involved. That their takeaway lesson most times was "Rules were meant to be broken", but the Orville's version was a reminder to the Union "We destroyed an entire race of people with our good intentions."
There was one TNG episode which I think showed pretty well why the Prime Directive exists: "Who Watches the Watchers". By treating a wounded Mintankan aboard the Enterprise and because the memory eraser didn't work, the Mintankans started building a religion around Captain Picard thinking he was some sort of supernatural god. Picard solved this situation by revealing himself and showing the Mintankans he's just like any mortal who can't bring back the dead and is vulnerable himself.
@@mobulisIf you give two five year olds a gun and they shoot each other, YOU killed them. Because you gave ignorants a device they could not understand.
Agreed. Gene was pulling stuff out of his imagination which inspired numerous creative minds to fill in the potholes. Many people are clinging to this 20th Century mythology based on its story origins from the single voice of the story teller. Through their work, we have such a wondrous palette of interpretations based off of the same sets of events. Let's enjoy them all. In short, make the story better.
"Beverly, the Prime Directive is not just a set of rules. It is a philosophy, and a very correct one. History has proved again and again, that whenever mankind interferes with a less-developed civilization - no matter how well-intentioned that interference may be - the results are invariably disastrous." Picard to Dr. Crusher in the turbolift in TNG episode "Symbiosis". But this scene from the Orville was far more powerful.
That is because unlike that other scene in this one we are shown visually an EXAMPLE of that disaster. I still really liked that conversation they had in the Turbo Lift.
this was the best season yet, The Orville has hit its stride and found its legs maturing into a fantastic show, this is how Star Trek should have been.
I have to respectfully disagree. This season seemed like more of a sci-fi soap opera and a budget-cut season by the heavy use of their standard sets on the ship. The show where they went back in time was ok but that was about it for good episodes. The show they got trapped in a 21st-century high school sucked.
@@JohnnyRaven69 I'm sorry you are crying about my factual opinion. I'm sure you will survive. Do you need a tissue??? Perhaps we all got spoiled from season 2 and how awesome that was and anything short of that is a letdown??? If you understood anything about how tv shows and movies are produced, you would see how correct I am.
Weird. I said that above. Had Star Trek (or any of its spinoffs) done a story about the Prime Directive being violated with good intentions but leading to disaster a good title for the episode could be "The Road To He11".
@@ColdNapalm42 While it is the point, you have to remember that reality doesn't work like fiction. Their version of the prime directive is in response to something that happened in their universe under certain conditions that was made to fit the plot and the "lesson" they wanna teach.
@@AllyMonsters The same thing has happened on earth in the past... and present. advanced tech, medicine, ways of food protection, even farm machinery, are introduced into area's... And wars break out, local factions fight over them, how to use them, who can use them. one group will then say something, say food given, is poisoned, and anyone who eats it will become infertile.. causing hatred and mistrust. People will starve, while the government "saves" who they want.
I guess one of the saddest things about such a great show is that the only way to keep it a great show is to go out before it deteriorates. The Orville certainly left me wanting more!
I think that an Orville theatrical movie would be Amazing. Seth MacFarlane is a very gifted writer/ actor and could make a Great movie based on his baby The Orville 👏
I think the current format already works extremely well. Each episode in S3 clocked in at well over an hour, and that's without any sort of commercial breaks. Each episode had enough time to tell the story fully but without feeling bloated.
Orville did something here that Trek, in all its many decades, never succeeded in doing. It actually convinced me that the Prime Directive is a good idea 😅
There's another episode where they offer to introduce technology to become a rapidly advanced society where they cure poverty, hunger and disease. You're really doing this for a dramatic story with characters, not exposition and 'explanation'.
"Helping" a less advanced civilization by a more advanced one is certainly possible. But it would require complete occupation and control of the entire world for a while.
But I still don't understand why they did not develop technologies and methods that are just advanced enough to help them provide their basic needs, but nothing advanced enough to build weapons of mass destruction. Like development workers do in Africa. Not a single country could develop weapons from what they teached them. They even could tell them that they can get more of the advanced stuff over time, once they have a functional democracy and human rights. This way they could ensure that they are not developing towards a dictatorship with spaceships and advanced weapons like the Krill, Mocklans etc.
liked their take on the Prime Directive and why it exists, civilizations need to figure everything out themselves. I hope we get an episode where the Orville makes first contact with a civilization that has become Quantum capable. I hope Lysella lives long enough to see her world mature ethically and technologically and become Quantum capable. Renew the Orville!
Reminds me of an episode of TNG where Riker is on a survey mission before first contact. He gets injured and ends up being discovered by the locals. The leaders of the planet decide to forgo first contact because their society is just not ready for it. I like the idea that there are some times when the best thing you can possibly do is nothing.
I dislike the message because it clear the global unity of the planet was shattered and any reforms he tries to enact will be shut down or never be enacted. Never underestimate how a crisis can affect the development of a people. Lies and secrets can be more disastrous in the long term because it shatters the peoples trust in their leaders. By covering it up he has signed his own death warrant. Its also ignoring the lessons from earths own first contact with the Vulcans humans had just spent 16 years blowing each other eco terrorists augments trying to seize on the chaos for their own goals. Then in the end the war didn't end as their was no one left to fight surviving governments had gone into hiding soldiers became raiders and crackpot scientist built a warp core out in an old nuclear silo. Suddenly earth pulled itself back together goverments were rebuilt reforms enacted to end the problems that had plagued them for thousands of years. It wasn't because Zephram Cockrane built a warp capable ship it was humanity learned they were not alone and finally discovered a common cause for everyone to work towards.
Even when it was on Fox it was steadily evolving. For sure, Season 3 took things to a whole new level, but there were plenty of excellent thought-provoking episodes during the show's initial run, especially once they got past the need for inserting throw-away jokes every few minutes.
I would say it is a good argument, but one that we don't really have much to compare with reality of our time. If you look at say island nations of WW2, none of them really imploded by the technology we introduced into them. Now sure, there were other effects we didn't think about, such as planes and the cargo being viewed as religious icons and a kind of dependency that also comes with it.
Not to sound offensive, but this is exactly what happened during the Age of Enlightenment. As we know prior to the industrial revolution Asia is centuries more advance compare to the west. During the 10th century where Asia is already using fire arm and most got a 1st world economy the west on the other hand...not doing too well, even the Arabs despite 1st world status in economy military is still not doing too well, it started to change during the Mongol Empire era, where the Mongols introduced fire arms into the west, india and arabic world. We see the initial affect, Europe not ready to handle the power of these new weapons started the colonial age in Africa and America. At this stage the Europeans are one sided victory, so the only people getting harm is the natives. And to be honest, if the Asians export these weapon to the natives, based on the history of native Americans and African tribes of the time, they probably destroy each other with it, anyway. But during the late 17th century China introduced a free trade policy to boost the economy. This had rapid change due to Asia had more to offer the world and the world got little to offer Asia. In addition, China as the most powerful country in Asia in most of its history got even more to offer. In the short run it actually destroy Europe's economy. For example, the reason we call silverwear china today is because the Chinese can produce them at higher quality at a fraction of the price compare to local European manufacture. But, it also allow Europeans access to technology beyond limitation of European of the time, it is like if aliens come to earth and introduce things allowing Europeans to think of things they would never thought of (or kind of like in Terminator 2 the remain terminator chip from the future gave AI developer so much ideas.) But, Europe of the time isn't ready to handle this sort of power responsibly, and it literally led to the disaster of WW1 and the chain reaction led to Hitler WW2, rise of Soviet Union and the cold war. Even till date, we still see the chain reaction influence with China and North Korea still under communist party control and North Korea is nuke trigger happy. Taliban won't have rise if the Soviet Union didn't try to invade Afghanistan in the 80s. In Africa they got same problem tribal society not ready to handle this sort of technology led to continue civil war and political instability due to access to modern firearms. Most of these militia's weapon standard is nothing compare to most military in the rest of the world, sometimes even cops got better equipment. But, most of Africa is still in stone age or semi stone age, so in that region that is very advance and we see those weapons been used abusively by warlords. I mean, how is the local Chieftain's army equip with only shield and spear going to be a match against the warlords equip with Ak47? And when the Chieftain ask the international community for help they got no help. The US literally only need to send one regiment of infantry and it is sufficient to wipe out the warlords, but nobody is helping.
@@peteryang8991 It's easy to say giving weapons to a different group of people is harmful, but honestly, how many times do you hear of a country collapsing from technological introduction apart from weapons though? Like say introducing an electricity grid.
@@AllyMonsters Because all technology can be used for war. For example, train and telegram is the main reason why the North won the civil war. In the army combat units are nothing without logistic backing them up. And during the Civil war, telegram allow information to be transmitted between officers faster and train let logistic guys sending supply to combat unit guys faster. The South is still relying on horses to supply the combat unit troops. As a result, a lot of time, the soldiers on the front line are literally starving while, on the other side the North's soldiers are having Xmas party. We see that in war also, in less develop military an ordinary Toyota Ute with a machine gun mounted to the back is sufficient to be use for calvary or ordinary truck can be for logistic supply. It might not be like the military grade jeeps of the US armed forces, but, ordinary cars still get the job done. One of the reason the Mongols is such a head ach for the Chinese is because Mongolia is the best place to breed horses in the world. In the ancient world horse = speed and flexibility. That is why the Chinese had to build the great war. Because, without it the Chinese got no idea where the Mongol will attack. The Chinese might got superior fire arm, but they lack horses. It force Chinese to defense using the great wall as a man made barrier. If we give electric grid to an ancient culture, that will also be a powerful weapon. For example, they can just build a lake around the castle and put electric wire into it and that will make it harder for enemy to cross. Dealing with the knight, their armor are made of metal, you can image how easy it be to electrocute them via booby traps. It reminded me of a Chinese comedy about an modern guy accidentally travel to ancient time, his only weapon of defense is a taser and he is able to defeat a whole bunch of people using this weapon.
The true spirit of the prime directive is actually a message from humanity to humanity. A lot of people scoff at the idea of the prime directive and think of it as stupid practicality reasons, but I think they're missing the point. It's saying that no one is going to magically reach out and help humanity out of its dystopian pitfalls, instead it is up to us to do it ourselves first. It's fundamentally a message of hope and willpower that we can be better, in hopes of one day we do meet a better standard for ourselves.
the problem is that people do not simply want a better life. they want a better life as the rest of the people. we define us by how much better our life is compared to others...
Noox are not inherently eviI. They SAVED 200,000 American Iives for the cost of 50-100k J*panese, yes they were CiViLiAnS but they were radicalized. Tactical noox would have won Viet Nam in a month or less, if the DemocRATs had let us.
Hard to believe it was almost 20 years ago when Adrienne Palicki started to gain fame. I remember one of her first roles was the clone of Kara Zor-El in Smallville back in season 3.
@@ktrimbach5771 then by your logic we shouldn’t be here either. U seriously believe that in a universe spanning billions of light years that this single is it isn’t speck of dust we call earth would be the only planet to have developed life?
What most people miss out on is that this also applies to supporting your friends and family. You can't "solve" their problems for them, no one knows their problems better than they do, you can only be there to help them find the courage to solve their problems for themselves, anything else just enables them and allows them to differ judgement and responsibility to others. That's why stepping in never works and always makes everything worse. Listen, be a shoulder to cry upon but don't advise and certainly don't say what you think should be done, give them strength, don't take their strength away...
People need to want to fix their lives. But frequently people need other peoples’ help to overcome their struggles. “No man is an island complete in himself.”
Loved this episode with all the little quirks. Love the Orville. I have noticed how they have evolved from season 1 to season 3. This season has been an amazing one and my hat goes off to Macfarland...you have grown.
One thing I like about the Orville is how they explain some of the concept that began in Star Trek, but explained in a much clearer way, first with how post-scarcity society work, and now with Prime Directive. Though, one big complain I have, the only one I have for this episode......Was the jump scare really necessary?
Ask yourself this, if you were a writer/Showrunner, could you resist? 😉 (Oh and absolutely agree on your points concerning Post-Scarity and the Prime Directive)
The one question I have about post scarcity is how they get people to do the worst jobs. Do those people get issued a bigger living space? Possible I suppose.
There are two posible explanations for that, first those jobs more or less no longer exist or second there are enough people that genuinely enjoy doing those jobs that it’s not an issue. For example depending on how the synthesizer works trash and dishes might not be a thing anymore, assuming it can deconstruct the dirty dishes and any trash…
This is a repeat of the story of the Watchers, who were these super powerful alien beings in the old Marvel Comics. I think the story appeared in an issue of the Fantastic Four comic series, which was where the Watchers appeared the most frequently. In one comic issue, a Watcher recounted the Origin Story of their rationale for why they only watched and observed the human beings on Earth, and resolutely refused to intervene, and the story was just like this one about Grendel 3 - once upon a time, long ago, the Watchers had found a world with a developing intelligent species, and they decided to share all of their high technology and knowledge in order to help this species transition faster to an even higher level of function and stability. Instead, this species used that knowledge and technology to develop weapons of war that destroyed their entire world. The few survivors at the end went to the Watchers and accused them - you did this! You caused this!
Ok I get she is like a visual learner or to help us viewer, feels like when she said "who do you think you are" when she want to smuggle the future tech out, her reply would of been like "We had encounter many planets like yours, when we first help them out, they only destroyed themselves because they weren't ready".
Kelly is by far her own Captain in a way but she is more than that, she's the perfect advisor of wisdom and intelligence. As well as, you hurt my crew or my family - you're done kind of _stay out of my way no-nonesense ass kicker._ Love this show so much ♥
I like the contrast in how The Orville and Star Trek handles non-interventionism. Star Trek kinda uses it just as the problem of the day to get around, but still holds some merit, whereas The Orville shows the end result of what happens when children are given power tools
Seems an accurate assessment of what would play out on Earth should an opportunity like this occur. This visualization was a more complete demonstration than Star Trek has ever laid out from what I can recall. On Star Trek, it is always, non-interference, then they interfere.
Never watched the show, not normally a fan of the Star Trek universe but this, this explained the Prime Directive better than I've yet heard and it makes sense. Excellent.
If Seth doesn't want to continue the Orville, Captain Mercer can get promoted to Admiralty and work at Union Central. I think the rest of the crew (actors) could, and would, continue the mission. Please let there be a season 4. Took 3 seasons to see into almost each character's lives, now its just getting to be a real family/crew.
@@freshFerdinand I totally agree, but have you seen the viewership numbers for season 3? MASSIVE increase. Its just sad you really start to get into a show wanting more and thats where they end. Thanks for the comment.
Seth is the writer and producer. It is really up to him if he continues . The cast was released from their contracts in August of 2021. They would have a problem getting them back to do a 4th season..The special effects are very costly. So there are several obstacles they would have to over come. Not only that since they havent started filming 4th season it will be 2 more years before it would be out. I just want to know what is up with Mercers daughter.....That is the story line that I am upset about. Her and Topa growing up together would be awesome. May be a full length movie is what I have heard. Star Terk didnt become big until they did the movies. We can only hope.....There just are not enough good wholesome tv shows out there.
They should just give the bleak ominous warnings before handing off the technology and their mindset approaching technology would be different. Growing pains would entirely be skipped over unecessarily if approached differently. Like in Loki TV show, Loki was shown his future and he deviated from such an occurance from happening. If civilizations were given this vision and example before given such a technology and the gravitos than it would hit different. These cilivations needs to see the better future first before entrusting them with such technology. Like Doctor Strange mentioned, the Warning should come before the spells. People need to be warned, the same way there are warning labels on a bandsaw.
This along with the clip of Capt. Pike's speech at the end of ST:SNW S1x01 are good cases for why first contact has to happen only when the society is has its crap together
This one episode made me really like this character Lysella, usually the standard fish out of water person adjusting to a new life gets old, but this worked very well. Her intentions for her people were pure and the lesson she and by extension we learned was a hard pill to swallow.
I see that as our world, given the issues we're facing. Although, we may not need outside interference to make it happen. We're going through those "growing pains" Kelly mentioned. The question, is if we'll make it past those.
For all that the show was conceived as a parody of Star Trek, The Orville has tacked issues bigger than Paramount was willing to take on, and far better than Star Trek ever did.
@@erikhawkke4861 - Star Trek TOS and the first few seasons of TNG were pretty good about this, but that was because Roddenberry was at the helm. Most of the original series episodes tackled important social issues such as racism, corporate greed, poverty, and so on. Early episodes of TNG were the same: I mean, the series opening looked at the enslavement of sentient beings for profit. Roddenberry's health issues led to a diminished role in TNG seasons 2 and 3, with a corresponding decline in the series tackling social issues. DS9 started after his death, and it abandoned his idealism and values entirely in favor of capitalism, war, and action scenes.
Sometimes I wonder, was the show really conceived as a Star Trek parody, or was it just marketed to Fox that way? Granted, there were comedic elements since that was what was expected, but even the first show had a serious core story.
The Orville is the continuation of Star Trek that I, and I'm very certain the majority of fans wanted. It was crass, and the humour was at times cringe, but in it's heart was a serious love letter to the Star Trek.
Given the tragedy of Gendel 3 you can really understand why the Planetary Unions rules on cultural contamination exist. There well meaning interference on Gendel 3 led to a once thriving civilization completely destroying itself. Thus it is understandable why they put new rules in place to prevent such a tragedy happening again on another world to another civilization.
The way she explained it made it sound like they should've just stayed to guide them. Like they literally just dumped their tech on a planet and said "goodluck, bye!" and then got all shocked when it was turned into a weapon. That's like putting a butter knife in a room of children without supervision and then deciding to ban all butter knives because they, of course, ended up stabbing eachother. I get they needed a prime directive ananlogue but that's not that muhc better of a reason than ST's "it's their destiny" type shit. Just... teach them?
Stargate did it pretty good. A group of humans with antimatter and phasing tech built antimatter power stations for the people living on their moon, who were at about Industrial Revolution era technology. The primitives managed to breach one of the reactors. Pop went the moon, and the advanced culture's home planet with it.
A species has to mature, same as an individual. We’ve been doing it for centuries, but we as individuals don’t always know it until we compare our morals of today to those of our ancestors. But, same way you wouldn’t hand a teenager a loaded gun or a huge pile of money, so too can young societies not be trusted with technology they cannot be trusted with. And if you stubbornly think we can, you’re either a naive optimist, or completely unaware of your own lack of preparedness…in short, a teenager.
We all agree that this scene, and the B Plot of this episode in general better explores the reason behind Star Trek's Prime Directive than both ST:TNG's episode "Who watches the watchers" and Orville's episode "Mad Idolatry". And it does that better because, while keeping Star Trek's optimism, it does it in a more grounded, more sociologically sound way: Technological advancement doesn't necessarily means social progress. We are led to believe, in Star Trek, that technology allowing people to have almost unlimited energy and matter puts them in a post-scarcity society and THEREFORE they can become better than they were and stop pursuing selfish accumulation. In this episode, Cmdr Grayson clearly states that if we got "replicators" in our current 2022, the ultra-rich would restricti its access to make sure they can profit from it. Social progress and technological progress are linked but must influence each other mutually and gradually. Technology won't fix the problems of our society by itself. And this is a message many "Tech-bros" should hear.
@@Chu8rock Yeah it totally did. And this reminds me of the forms of Capital elaborated by Pierre Bourdieu. For Pierre Bourdieu, "Capital" is more than just economic power. It is all form of influences individuals try to gain consciously or not. There is economic capital of course, wich is the most rewarded in our current society and is the form of Capital Marx talked about in his works But there are also Cultural, Social and Symbolic Capital. Cultural capital is the amount of understanding of concepts, the number of diplomas, everything that will allow someone to be listened more easily by other people because they will assume they know their stuff. Social capital is the number relationships and networks of people you know and can rely on. If you are, for example, member of a little organisation that needs to print some leaflets, the one person with the social capital knowing someone in another organisation that has access to a free printer just made themselves crucial to the organisation, just because they know someone. Symbolic capital is a form of aggregation of all forms of capital that is percieved to be owned by someone. When Kelly explains that they trade in reputation, it really does sound like they use some form of symbolic capital minus the economic part. They trade by talking positively about someone to help them get a position, by having talents that people will require for help, etc.
But I still don't understand why they did not develop technologies and methods that are just advanced enough to help them provide their basic needs, but nothing advanced enough to build to build weapons of mass destruction. Like development workers do in Africa. Not a single country could develop weapons from what they teached them. They even could tell them that they can get more of the advanced stuff over time, once they have a functional democracy and human rights. This way they could ensure that they are not developing towards a dictatorship with spaceships and advanced weapons like the Krill, Mocklans etc.
@@Shadow25720 Except those things they are giving in Africa make them dependent not independent. Not to mention you'd be surprised what kind of weapons and power such things can generate when you apply the resources and tools a bit differently.
This was one of the best episodes of season 3 of The Orville. I loved how commander Grayson also explained how the economics of the future had evolved so that people were no longer driven to chase money, but to better themselves and all of humanity. Meet every humans basic needs, provide them with an environment where they can thrive, grow and contribute to society in meaningful ways, and what's impossible? I hope we get there. Don't think I'll live to see it in my lifetime, as we still worship money and power, something so few have, when all our lives could be so much richer acting as a collective. This is a great show. I discovered it late, but was impressed by it all the same. Who would've thought this would come from the guy behind Family Guy?
That's not easy. In many ways, we're still growing up.and we've got a lot still to learn. No matter how well intended it was to try to help the people of this planet. The Planetary Union learnt that covert observation was the best way to get a planet to advance sufficiently. No overt influence and no giving of advanced technologies. This was the Union's darkest time. In the Star Trek universe - Jonathan Archer learnt the hard way that well meaning interference could be detrimental. It killed a third sex and an unborn baby. It was sheer luck that it didn't lead to instellar war. This was in the 22nd Century with the Star Trek time line. We're still growing up. We've come a long way. But we're still on a very long and awkward path. And we have difficulties aplenty. We've learnt some lessons. But the truth is. That we have a great deal still to learn. I've learnt some lessons. And the mistakes that have taught me that! Will NOT be forgotten!!!!
Hmm - another unoptimistic voice - well, if this upsets him. I don't care tuppence! Reading it as it is, and seeing how much it works out in general - is one of creation's gifts to us to have reasoning to figure it out and reach supporting conclusions. To dismiss it blindly, is a insult to that capacity. If one person, who wants to dismiss it, has the potential right to do so. But it doesn't rule out that fact! To arrogantly discounting it - is simply unwise! We all want better. But I know that it's going to take a long haul. We've had tears recently and grief. That's part of the package. But optimistically, we will get there. It could take many centuries. And it won't be easy.
Reminds me of a comic I saw once where a guy is talking to an alien on a secret survey mission of Earth. The guy asks why the aliens haven't come forward publicly, and the alien tells him that humans first have to prove themselves mature enough to handle being a nuclear-capable society. The guy asks what the aliens will do to Earth if they _don't_ prove themselves mature enough, and the alien replies _"Oh, WE don't have to do anything at all. That problem takes care of itself."_
Scary isn't it?
what text tags make 'itallics' in comments here?
@@amzarnacht6710 space-underscore-first character...last character-underscore-space
The old wiki markup syntax.
@@williamchamberlain2263 _Thanks!_
@@williamchamberlain2263 _like this?_
"As a sign of collaboration and good will between our two species, we offered them a device capable of creating vast amounts of unlimited energy. We naively thought it would help them solve problems such as disease and poverty, but they used it to build weapons of mass destruction and make war. Bombs fell from the skies and scorched the earth, and in just one rotation of their world it had become a lifeless husk."
The Tollan?
@@Ragitsu Indeed.
Of course then they got arrogant about less advanced species and it ended up getting them wiped out.
@@Hartzilla2007 No one expected Anubis to start using tech upgraded with Ancient knowledge. Dude's been metagaming the whole time since he showed up.
What movie or show is that from?
The Orville is not just a Star Trek parody, it is the spiritual successor to it.
Exactly.
Roddenberry was such a great man.
YES
Everything Oroville did might have been based on Star Trek but it had a great identity all it's own and did a better job with alien integration into society plus the fact that earth didn't start the union was also a big bonus for me. I loved Oroville and enjoy the Star Trek franchise.
@@petepanteramanI like how the ships had 3 loop prongs for the thrusters so you could maximize space and energy output and it really does seem like star trek ships 50 years after the original show
In retrospect, I'm surprised Kelly didn't bring up the fact that one planet created an entire religion around her, leading to centuries of war and division, all because she helped a little girl.
She actually mentioned it very briefly earlier in the episode when they talked about not playing god, although she didn't go into any detail
She’s most likely still uncomfortable talking about it not that I blame her I would be too as well
Yeah, well, Klyden cut her with that when they were arguing over Topa. I'm sure she was thinking about it.
I was surprised she didn't bring that up as well. That would have been another good point as to why they can't mingle with other civilzations that aren't where they are.
In a way it makes sense she didn't. That episode would actually work in the other woman's favor. There cultural contamination DID happen but the species didn't destroy themselves.
I love that this puts a real-ish face to ignoring the "Prime Directive."
With a fantastic jump scare as a bonus.
Star Trek rarely had the nuts to show the actual consequences of violating the Prime Directive, most of the time when they do it’s shown as “justified” and is never actually punished
@@3adgamd3r Voyager, S7E21, Friendship One describes exactly the above video, an ancient Earth probe with knowledge on antimatter and other stuff was sent off into space. A race in the Delta Quadrant extracted this info to use antimatter for power plants, but they lost containment and destroyed the surface of their world. This was pre-prime directive of course. A crew member was also executed too, so they were punished in that sense.
@@3adgamd3r who watches the watchers had a good showing. It almost tossed a society into the dark ages
@@3adgamd3r They really should have done a Star Trek show where a well meaning captain violates the Prime Directive to help a society and it ends up going horribly wrong. There is a proverb that the Road to Hell is paved with good intentions. The episode could be titled: The Road to Hell.
kelly did this just right. she didn't yell, or berate. she just calmly showed why giving her people advanced tech was a noble but bad idea.
In Star Trek such an act would be a Prime Directive violation and this show is a parody of Star Trek so shouldn't there be some legal equivalent to the Prime Directive?
@@Zurround yes. we saw it in the season one episode where kelly accidentally became a religious figure. the events described here are the reason for that policy to be enacted in the first place.
And I'd say: That's BS. It's the "You aren't smart enough to deal with the truth" kind of attitude and...
Do you want to give people nuclear weapons? No. But give people the physics - and they will make them. Which is why you give them a clear understanding of mutual destruction guarantees, and interact to elevate. You don't go in and pick winners and losers, you go in with educational knowledge in the sciences. Any reasoanbly advanced society (we are talking like starting in the bronze age) is going to have some foundations of early structured education - and even if they don't, they are going to have some cultural equivilance. That is how you disperse knowledge.
If you have the capacity to do nuclear fusion, wind, and solar - if you can do waste reprocessing, all of that avoids the catastrophe.
What is being show cased here is "capitalism bad, sharing with unready people bad" and yet, history is full of "unready people" being forced to adapt to new ways of doing things, new technologies. The idea's, and methods that sustain are the ones that continue to exist - all else gets washed away because: Competition does that. It is only when you impose a certain technology upon people, that it can exist beyond it's own merits: Hello government subsidies. And this isn't to say all subsidies bad - on the contrary, some are good. However, direct subisidies by government leads to politicization of them, and so - we look to the old way: Countries recognize a stable, capable military has value - both in emergency response, but also as active deterrence - militaries recognize the value of physics, chemestry, and so fund these. They understand nutritional understanding, medications and supplements to help in foreign environments, avoid the negative effects of sleep deprevation even temporarily, and often want to know the side effects - this is, by the way, why science was historically funded: Not for peace, but for war: Because, if you want peace, you MUST prepare for war.
By the way - all of the above has been proven and tested over, and over, and over again. We are even watching the politicization of science, research, and development in western nations right now - as governments pick winning technologies, declare others losers, and hamper full understanding by opposing oppositional research which is necessary for refining theory. We have stagnated physics by letting string theory dominate through funding choices - while ignoring a wide range of other avenues of research that are, frankly, more promising. Yet, here we are.
So, do you want to info dump 1000 years of technological development all at once? Maybe not. But you can absolutely put a civilization on a fast track.
Problem is which civilisation do yo choose to impart this knowledge onto.
Imagine an alien craft landing on Earth and offering advanced knowledge to the local inhabitants............ I bet it wouldn't end well.
@fabianmckenna8197 hmm how about it rather than give quantum drive,replicators,ect limited to the earliest form of artificial gravity technology nothing more give them set of co ordinates just out reach of their orbit .instruct them if you're people are able to come together long enough to build a space station or ship equipped artificial gravity with some of your brightest intellectuals,scientists to these co ordinates a union ship will meet.
After this point they will given a brief but highly informative trip to union central showing them working examples of technology (not enough to copy but enough hive them basic theory ideas to start them on the right path for say 30 to 50 years from now will achieve a quantum core on their own.
Mercer was basically a prop in this episode and most of the season. He only got one feature. That shows MacFarlane has matured in his production to be able to step back and let the other actors have big roles.
You have been helpful Sober Man. You may go now.
Well he directed half of the episodes. That always reduces the role you can play. But he probably knows, he doesn’t really measure up to the rest of the cast, when it comes to acting ability.
So he just wrote them some killer scenes and stepped back. That’s the captain you want to have! 😁
@@p5ych0p4th Aces in their places. And wise to know when that ace isn't you.
This is my little theory. If The Orville gets more seasons, Ed will get promoted to admiral. Seth will still have some scene time, but he will be able to focus more on writing and directing. Kelly will be made captain of the Orville, which is why I think they gave Adrianne so much more screen time and more involved in the stories than previous seasons.
@@fairview3725 I think it would be more universe changing if he leaves the fleet to raise his daughter. The Hard Decision, so to speak. The one thing he wanted all his life, he'll give up.
Something like, "what is all this, if I can't share it with my daughter" or something heartfelt.
That was his intention. He didn't want The Orville to be just about Ed and everyone else is a side character; he wanted every single character in the show to have a degree of importance, no matter how big or small. Ed may be the Captain, but the Orville's crew is one whole family, where every life matters.
"The Prime Directive is not just a set of rules; it is a philosophy… and a very correct one. History has proved again and again that whenever mankind interferes with a less developed civilization, no matter how well intentioned that interference may be, the results are invariably disastrous." - Picard
Nah, doesn't work with humans. The prime directive is not meant for human intelligence. The last 100 years is proof. By design, our consciousness was built to supersede everything and everybody. We're all gods to the everything else out there, and that's why they study us before we activate.
And speaking of activation; that should have happened 100 years ago. Instead of waking up, somehow, we fell further into sleep; went backwards. That's how I know somebody is super jealous of human abilities. Or else there would have no Q episodes. No Traveler episodes.
"And for that reason we are going to allow them to become extinct because our interference will inevitably be worse than that" - TNG writers missing the point.
"Worst thing is you using blind luck to justify, you playing god"
well in the curretnt world us and other act more like goblins -profit above all and when a county votes right ,profit over security , religious expansion over security , left evoves into supresson over security , 1 had kinda freedom 2 has do as we do or else - Humans dont seem to have a bright future-Ai wont since it engineeer based who basiclly are the motor behind profit before all - Now everyone gts a better tool to profit supress and expansion = just equals war
I love that turbolift scene so much. ❤
If they aren’t renewing The Orville for season 4 and this was the last episode ever, it was an amazing last episode!! Let’s hope they decide to make more Orville tho
I really hope so. This last season was great. To cancel this while the likes of Kurtzman Trek keeps getting renewed would be nothing short of a crime.
Tyytttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt
I agree. I love how (if series finale), the Orville didn't have to end in such a high stakes cliffhanger. More of an emotional bond between beings, giving the audience an ending where...:not to worry...it would work itself out in the end".
I've been following this since season 1 I hope there is a season 4 it's well done with humor built in.
Hopefully they’ll announce a season 4 at D23 in a month’s time
I love that this is the best explanation of Star Trek's Prime Directive I've ever seen.
Same, but at the same time it's also a travesty
I miss Trek when it was still Trek.
I wonder why Star Trek never did an episode that shows how important the Prime Directive is? There should have at least been one storyline in one of the Star Trek shows where a well meaning captain violates the Prime Directive with his heart in the right place genuinely wanting to help a world and it backfires horribly leading to disaster and disgrace for the well meaning human.
@Zurround there have been. TNG did more than one for example.
@@Zurround There's a TOS episode that shows how an entire planet became a gangland because an early explorer accidentally left behind a book about the mafia. Another planet became a Nazi dystopia due to someone thinking that teaching them fascist ideologies could save them from their original state of anarchy. Klingons taught some faction how to develop firearms and they immediately used them to commit genocide against their enemies. In TNG a species on the way to reach rational enlightenment reverted back to mysticism and superstition after seeing Picard and mistaking him for a god.
Maybe it wasn't quite as dramatic as the outcome shown in this video, but they did show in more than one occasion the negative effects of ignoring the prime directive.
In less than 4 minutes, The Orville explained Star Trek's Prime Directive (General Order One) better than any Star Trek episode ever did. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds came close in episode one, but that only explained what happened to Earth with nuclear power, not interfering with another less developed culture. And, yes, before you ask, I have watch every single (canon) Star Trek episode and movie there is.
Nice, I think Orville is more close to Star Strek than the new official series. But Strange New Worlds is ok.
They also did an overall much better job of explaining how a Post Scarcity society works than Star Trek did in this episode as well. I liked how it simply came down to the definition of currency changed to reputation/deeds/achievement from physical money and goods after they discovered a way to basically synthesize matter
In fairness, in Star Trek you have people rebelling against the laws. It's a pretty boring show if the message is 'This law is 100% correct and shouldn't be broken'.
Pike wasn't justifying The Prime Directive since it was too late for that he was doing damage control to keep a planet from probably destroying itself.
I agree the very best explanation of why the prime directive exists in Trek and the Union's version of it in the Orville. I never totally understood why it was so important until now. In some cases though, outsiders can try to help a society without revealing themselves nor giving them their tech, for humanitarian reasons.
Great work here and reminds me of a classic "Peanuts" line of Lucy: "There has never been more harm done than by those who thought they were doing the right thing. Five cents please."
Lucy is wise beyond her years. The rest of us, not so much.
A gross misnomer
All this wisdom and yet she was KELLY
"Strict laws were put into place when it came to cultural contamination...in some universes they call this the 'Prime Directive'"
Reminds me of that Giliac episode where they just divide right in to first contact with a civilization they knew nothing about.
Nice little exposition on the Prime Directive and the perils of First Contact.
Genius moments like these is what makes Orville so damn good.
The Orville gave us what Star Trek didn't: An actual good reason for the "Prime Directive". Star Trek never really did present their Prime Directive very well, often it was an obstacle preventing the crew from taking the most obvious of choices in a situation; with most times the consequences of their actions would obviously be positive for all involved. That their takeaway lesson most times was "Rules were meant to be broken", but the Orville's version was a reminder to the Union "We destroyed an entire race of people with our good intentions."
There was one TNG episode which I think showed pretty well why the Prime Directive exists: "Who Watches the Watchers".
By treating a wounded Mintankan aboard the Enterprise and because the memory eraser didn't work, the Mintankans started building a religion around Captain Picard thinking he was some sort of supernatural god.
Picard solved this situation by revealing himself and showing the Mintankans he's just like any mortal who can't bring back the dead and is vulnerable himself.
Sorry but they destroyed themselves.
This came up a lot in Enterprise. They were winging it a lot and there were some hard choices that needed a guiding philosophy and didn’t have one.
@@mobulisIf you give two five year olds a gun and they shoot each other, YOU killed them. Because you gave ignorants a device they could not understand.
Agreed. Gene was pulling stuff out of his imagination which inspired numerous creative minds to fill in the potholes. Many people are clinging to this 20th Century mythology based on its story origins from the single voice of the story teller. Through their work, we have such a wondrous palette of interpretations based off of the same sets of events. Let's enjoy them all. In short, make the story better.
This was such a great show. So happy they took the Roddenberry ideals and kept them to heart.
"Beverly, the Prime Directive is not just a set of rules. It is a philosophy, and a very correct one. History has proved again and again, that whenever mankind interferes with a less-developed civilization - no matter how well-intentioned that interference may be - the results are invariably disastrous." Picard to Dr. Crusher in the turbolift in TNG episode "Symbiosis".
But this scene from the Orville was far more powerful.
That is because unlike that other scene in this one we are shown visually an EXAMPLE of that disaster. I still really liked that conversation they had in the Turbo Lift.
this was the best season yet, The Orville has hit its stride and found its legs maturing into a fantastic show, this is how Star Trek should have been.
It was...at one time.
I have to respectfully disagree. This season seemed like more of a sci-fi soap opera and a budget-cut season by the heavy use of their standard sets on the ship. The show where they went back in time was ok but that was about it for good episodes. The show they got trapped in a 21st-century high school sucked.
@@thomasjoseph5876 Cry
@@JohnnyRaven69 I'm sorry you are crying about my factual opinion. I'm sure you will survive. Do you need a tissue???
Perhaps we all got spoiled from season 2 and how awesome that was and anything short of that is a letdown??? If you understood anything about how tv shows and movies are produced, you would see how correct I am.
@@thomasjoseph5876 I respect your wrong opinion
Or like the old saying:"The road to Hell is paved with good intentions."
I never cared for that saying because all good intentions go well as long as the people receiving them aren't power hungry shits.
The Divine Comedy! Inferno, I believe. Love that book. Especially, inferno. Although purgatorio and paradiso were good too.
Weird. I said that above. Had Star Trek (or any of its spinoffs) done a story about the Prime Directive being violated with good intentions but leading to disaster a good title for the episode could be "The Road To He11".
And truth is, Humanity would do exactly the same if we were ever in the same situation, as the people of Gendel 3.
That is kinda the point.
@@ColdNapalm42 While it is the point, you have to remember that reality doesn't work like fiction. Their version of the prime directive is in response to something that happened in their universe under certain conditions that was made to fit the plot and the "lesson" they wanna teach.
@@AllyMonsters The same thing has happened on earth in the past... and present. advanced tech, medicine, ways of food protection, even farm machinery, are introduced into area's... And wars break out, local factions fight over them, how to use them, who can use them.
one group will then say something, say food given, is poisoned, and anyone who eats it will become infertile.. causing hatred and mistrust. People will starve, while the government "saves" who they want.
You don't think it's happening now?
@@AllyMonsters nah dude humans would fuck shit up with that I mean our track record is not fantastic lol
I didn't watch Orville until earlier this year,. I really liked it and hope it gets renewed for more seasons!
I guess one of the saddest things about such a great show is that the only way to keep it a great show is to go out before it deteriorates. The Orville certainly left me wanting more!
I think that an Orville theatrical movie would be Amazing. Seth MacFarlane is a very gifted writer/ actor and could make a Great movie based on his baby The Orville 👏
i wouldn't mind something like that just an hour to an hour and half would be good
I think the current format already works extremely well. Each episode in S3 clocked in at well over an hour, and that's without any sort of commercial breaks. Each episode had enough time to tell the story fully but without feeling bloated.
The acting and direction are great. The cinematography is superb. The writing is full of holes.
@@JP-pp2tn The episodes are each over an hour long already
Orville did something here that Trek, in all its many decades, never succeeded in doing. It actually convinced me that the Prime Directive is a good idea 😅
There's another episode where they offer to introduce technology to become a rapidly advanced society where they cure poverty, hunger and disease.
You're really doing this for a dramatic story with characters, not exposition and 'explanation'.
TNG... "who watches the watchers?" That was a pretty good one.
@@jaygee6738 Oh, definitely. Probably one of TNGs best. But then, that's no surprise, given that it came from the show's high point of season three 😊
"Helping" a less advanced civilization by a more advanced one is certainly possible. But it would require complete occupation and control of the entire world for a while.
But I still don't understand why they did not develop technologies and methods that are just advanced enough to help them provide their basic needs, but nothing advanced enough to build weapons of mass destruction. Like development workers do in Africa. Not a single country could develop weapons from what they teached them. They even could tell them that they can get more of the advanced stuff over time, once they have a functional democracy and human rights. This way they could ensure that they are not developing towards a dictatorship with spaceships and advanced weapons like the Krill, Mocklans etc.
liked their take on the Prime Directive and why it exists, civilizations need to figure everything out themselves. I hope we get an episode where the Orville makes first contact with a civilization that has become Quantum capable. I hope Lysella lives long enough to see her world mature ethically and technologically and become Quantum capable. Renew the Orville!
they already did the in the same episode
@@captainrope1452 Not sure what episode you were watching. They did not make any first contacts in this episode.
@@b.s.864 In season 1 where the office we see in this video heal a girl and started a religious because of what she did
Like the federations rules in star trek? This seems like a star trek knock off.
@@idontno0 well it Star Trek but more on comedy and better write characters
In one scene, Seth sums up the reason for the Prime directive
Reminds me of an episode of TNG where Riker is on a survey mission before first contact. He gets injured and ends up being discovered by the locals. The leaders of the planet decide to forgo first contact because their society is just not ready for it. I like the idea that there are some times when the best thing you can possibly do is nothing.
I dislike the message because it clear the global unity of the planet was shattered and any reforms he tries to enact will be shut down or never be enacted. Never underestimate how a crisis can affect the development of a people. Lies and secrets can be more disastrous in the long term because it shatters the peoples trust in their leaders. By covering it up he has signed his own death warrant. Its also ignoring the lessons from earths own first contact with the Vulcans humans had just spent 16 years blowing each other eco terrorists augments trying to seize on the chaos for their own goals. Then in the end the war didn't end as their was no one left to fight surviving governments had gone into hiding soldiers became raiders and crackpot scientist built a warp core out in an old nuclear silo. Suddenly earth pulled itself back together goverments were rebuilt reforms enacted to end the problems that had plagued them for thousands of years. It wasn't because Zephram Cockrane built a warp capable ship it was humanity learned they were not alone and finally discovered a common cause for everyone to work towards.
Gendel 3 is apparently the planet where "The Walking Dead" was set 😉😊
This show has certainly changed a lot since it was on Fox..... and for the better!
agree
yeah.. the urination jokes were wearing a bit thin.
Even when it was on Fox it was steadily evolving. For sure, Season 3 took things to a whole new level, but there were plenty of excellent thought-provoking episodes during the show's initial run, especially once they got past the need for inserting throw-away jokes every few minutes.
A fair argument for The Prime Directive and what not. Let civilizations develope in their own time, without outside influence.
Quite well done, imo
I would say it is a good argument, but one that we don't really have much to compare with reality of our time. If you look at say island nations of WW2, none of them really imploded by the technology we introduced into them. Now sure, there were other effects we didn't think about, such as planes and the cargo being viewed as religious icons and a kind of dependency that also comes with it.
Not to sound offensive, but this is exactly what happened during the Age of Enlightenment. As we know prior to the industrial revolution Asia is centuries more advance compare to the west. During the 10th century where Asia is already using fire arm and most got a 1st world economy the west on the other hand...not doing too well, even the Arabs despite 1st world status in economy military is still not doing too well, it started to change during the Mongol Empire era, where the Mongols introduced fire arms into the west, india and arabic world. We see the initial affect, Europe not ready to handle the power of these new weapons started the colonial age in Africa and America. At this stage the Europeans are one sided victory, so the only people getting harm is the natives. And to be honest, if the Asians export these weapon to the natives, based on the history of native Americans and African tribes of the time, they probably destroy each other with it, anyway.
But during the late 17th century China introduced a free trade policy to boost the economy. This had rapid change due to Asia had more to offer the world and the world got little to offer Asia. In addition, China as the most powerful country in Asia in most of its history got even more to offer. In the short run it actually destroy Europe's economy. For example, the reason we call silverwear china today is because the Chinese can produce them at higher quality at a fraction of the price compare to local European manufacture. But, it also allow Europeans access to technology beyond limitation of European of the time, it is like if aliens come to earth and introduce things allowing Europeans to think of things they would never thought of (or kind of like in Terminator 2 the remain terminator chip from the future gave AI developer so much ideas.) But, Europe of the time isn't ready to handle this sort of power responsibly, and it literally led to the disaster of WW1 and the chain reaction led to Hitler WW2, rise of Soviet Union and the cold war. Even till date, we still see the chain reaction influence with China and North Korea still under communist party control and North Korea is nuke trigger happy. Taliban won't have rise if the Soviet Union didn't try to invade Afghanistan in the 80s. In Africa they got same problem tribal society not ready to handle this sort of technology led to continue civil war and political instability due to access to modern firearms. Most of these militia's weapon standard is nothing compare to most military in the rest of the world, sometimes even cops got better equipment. But, most of Africa is still in stone age or semi stone age, so in that region that is very advance and we see those weapons been used abusively by warlords. I mean, how is the local Chieftain's army equip with only shield and spear going to be a match against the warlords equip with Ak47? And when the Chieftain ask the international community for help they got no help. The US literally only need to send one regiment of infantry and it is sufficient to wipe out the warlords, but nobody is helping.
@@peteryang8991 It's easy to say giving weapons to a different group of people is harmful, but honestly, how many times do you hear of a country collapsing from technological introduction apart from weapons though? Like say introducing an electricity grid.
We're already destroying ourselves with the technology of our times. Pretty sure 31st century technology would make it even worse.
@@AllyMonsters Because all technology can be used for war. For example, train and telegram is the main reason why the North won the civil war. In the army combat units are nothing without logistic backing them up. And during the Civil war, telegram allow information to be transmitted between officers faster and train let logistic guys sending supply to combat unit guys faster. The South is still relying on horses to supply the combat unit troops. As a result, a lot of time, the soldiers on the front line are literally starving while, on the other side the North's soldiers are having Xmas party.
We see that in war also, in less develop military an ordinary Toyota Ute with a machine gun mounted to the back is sufficient to be use for calvary or ordinary truck can be for logistic supply. It might not be like the military grade jeeps of the US armed forces, but, ordinary cars still get the job done. One of the reason the Mongols is such a head ach for the Chinese is because Mongolia is the best place to breed horses in the world. In the ancient world horse = speed and flexibility. That is why the Chinese had to build the great war. Because, without it the Chinese got no idea where the Mongol will attack. The Chinese might got superior fire arm, but they lack horses. It force Chinese to defense using the great wall as a man made barrier.
If we give electric grid to an ancient culture, that will also be a powerful weapon. For example, they can just build a lake around the castle and put electric wire into it and that will make it harder for enemy to cross.
Dealing with the knight, their armor are made of metal, you can image how easy it be to electrocute them via booby traps. It reminded me of a Chinese comedy about an modern guy accidentally travel to ancient time, his only weapon of defense is a taser and he is able to defeat a whole bunch of people using this weapon.
thank you. I was looking for this scene (yesterday). Perfectly explains why 1.) we cant have nice things, 2.) why the aliens have never visited us.
I think you're close. It's not that we can't have nice things. We can, when we're ready.
The true spirit of the prime directive is actually a message from humanity to humanity. A lot of people scoff at the idea of the prime directive and think of it as stupid practicality reasons, but I think they're missing the point. It's saying that no one is going to magically reach out and help humanity out of its dystopian pitfalls, instead it is up to us to do it ourselves first. It's fundamentally a message of hope and willpower that we can be better, in hopes of one day we do meet a better standard for ourselves.
This one scene somehow did a better job at explaining the Prime Directive than almost every Star Trek series.
the problem is that people do not simply want a better life. they want a better life as the rest of the people. we define us by how much better our life is compared to others...
One of the best scenes in all sci-fi demonstrating the destructive use of technology beyond a cultures understanding level. Brilliant
Noox are not inherently eviI. They SAVED 200,000 American Iives for the cost of 50-100k J*panese, yes they were CiViLiAnS but they were radicalized. Tactical noox would have won Viet Nam in a month or less, if the DemocRATs had let us.
1:02 “They called me a madman, but what I predicted came to pass.”
Hope this show gets renewed for season 4!
Congratulations you’re a prophet…
@@velocity5249 I’m a survivor…
In time you what like to lose
Giving a lantern to people who have lived in the dark, there is no guarantee that they will not cause a fire
If this were a Season 1 episode, you just know someone would've made a joke about the early Union explorers taking up a missionary position. ;)
The Orville did more to justify the Prime Directive in this one scene than Star trek has ever done.
Hard to believe it was almost 20 years ago when Adrienne Palicki started to gain fame. I remember one of her first roles was the clone of Kara Zor-El in Smallville back in season 3.
i wish we could get the next season already. wtf. this was gold.
That jump scare moment was good. Lol
LOL i was legit looking in the background going "Omg what happened here?!" then BOOM!! I loved it.
Why was that person alive and full of energy in a world with nothing left alive?
I jumped out of my seat lol
@@imho2278 Canned food.
@@imho2278 simulation
This also seems the most likely answer to fermis paradox
The MOST likely is that Life doesn’t evolve spontaneously - we are alone in the Universe.
@@ktrimbach5771 then by your logic we shouldn’t be here either. U seriously believe that in a universe spanning billions of light years that this single is it isn’t speck of dust we call earth would be the only planet to have developed life?
Keep in mind Kelly herself did this in an earlier episode.
IMO, one of the greatest ever scenes in a sci-fi series.
What most people miss out on is that this also applies to supporting your friends and family. You can't "solve" their problems for them, no one knows their problems better than they do, you can only be there to help them find the courage to solve their problems for themselves, anything else just enables them and allows them to differ judgement and responsibility to others. That's why stepping in never works and always makes everything worse. Listen, be a shoulder to cry upon but don't advise and certainly don't say what you think should be done, give them strength, don't take their strength away...
People need to want to fix their lives. But frequently people need other peoples’ help to overcome their struggles.
“No man is an island complete in himself.”
Finally. I have found this scene. Beautiful.👍
this is the great filter theory. In our real world, this decade seems to be our "test".
Loved this episode with all the little quirks. Love the Orville. I have noticed how they have evolved from season 1 to season 3. This season has been an amazing one and my hat goes off to Macfarland...you have grown.
"Evolve..." you mean Devolve. Started out funny, ended up a sad Star Trek clone.
One thing I like about the Orville is how they explain some of the concept that began in Star Trek, but explained in a much clearer way, first with how post-scarcity society work, and now with Prime Directive.
Though, one big complain I have, the only one I have for this episode......Was the jump scare really necessary?
Ask yourself this, if you were a writer/Showrunner, could you resist? 😉 (Oh and absolutely agree on your points concerning Post-Scarity and the Prime Directive)
Maybe it was a way of showing that not even the survivors of war escape unscathed, now nothing more than diseased scavengers.
Probably not but it is one of the best ones I’ve seen in years 😁
The one question I have about post scarcity is how they get people to do the worst jobs. Do those people get issued a bigger living space? Possible I suppose.
There are two posible explanations for that, first those jobs more or less no longer exist or second there are enough people that genuinely enjoy doing those jobs that it’s not an issue.
For example depending on how the synthesizer works trash and dishes might not be a thing anymore, assuming it can deconstruct the dirty dishes and any trash…
I love how they actually gave a reason for this policy of non-interference. I wish they would explore past worlds that the union helped in the past.
This is a repeat of the story of the Watchers, who were these super powerful alien beings in the old Marvel Comics. I think the story appeared in an issue of the Fantastic Four comic series, which was where the Watchers appeared the most frequently. In one comic issue, a Watcher recounted the Origin Story of their rationale for why they only watched and observed the human beings on Earth, and resolutely refused to intervene, and the story was just like this one about Grendel 3 - once upon a time, long ago, the Watchers had found a world with a developing intelligent species, and they decided to share all of their high technology and knowledge in order to help this species transition faster to an even higher level of function and stability. Instead, this species used that knowledge and technology to develop weapons of war that destroyed their entire world. The few survivors at the end went to the Watchers and accused them - you did this! You caused this!
Ok I get she is like a visual learner or to help us viewer, feels like when she said "who do you think you are" when she want to smuggle the future tech out, her reply would of been like "We had encounter many planets like yours, when we first help them out, they only destroyed themselves because they weren't ready".
I knew that scare was coming, i still jumped...
They should at least bring this show back as movie love this show
The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.
You had me at "I want to show you something..".
Just as good an episode as ST:TNG's "Who watches the watchers".
One of my absolute favorite scenes out of the entire series.
Kelly is by far her own Captain in a way but she is more than that, she's the perfect advisor of wisdom and intelligence. As well as, you hurt my crew or my family - you're done kind of _stay out of my way no-nonesense ass kicker._ Love this show so much ♥
Just saw this episode about a half an hour ago I like the fact that they brought her back from a previous episode as I've done with a few others
A perfect reason for prime directive
I like the contrast in how The Orville and Star Trek handles non-interventionism. Star Trek kinda uses it just as the problem of the day to get around, but still holds some merit, whereas The Orville shows the end result of what happens when children are given power tools
Man, that jumpscare 😁
Seems an accurate assessment of what would play out on Earth should an opportunity like this occur. This visualization was a more complete demonstration than Star Trek has ever laid out from what I can recall. On Star Trek, it is always, non-interference, then they interfere.
Picard - whistling innocently.
Never watched the show, not normally a fan of the Star Trek universe but this, this explained the Prime Directive better than I've yet heard and it makes sense. Excellent.
This isn't star trek.
@@zerogrey3798 That would explain why I liked it then.
Request: the Quantum Core where Kelly says you get all this because of this. It further enhances this scene.
wow.. yeah they explained that better than star trek.. and also paralleled some problems we are having as well.. that was powerful.
If Seth doesn't want to continue the Orville, Captain Mercer can get promoted to Admiralty and work at Union Central. I think the rest of the crew (actors) could, and would, continue the mission.
Please let there be a season 4.
Took 3 seasons to see into almost each character's lives, now its just getting to be a real family/crew.
I'm pretty sure making the Orville is McFarlanes dream job, but because covid screwed them over, he had to look for other projects.
@@freshFerdinand I totally agree, but have you seen the viewership numbers for season 3?
MASSIVE increase.
Its just sad you really start to get into a show wanting more and thats where they end.
Thanks for the comment.
i don't think it's up to seth, it's up to disney to renew it
@@JP-pp2tn He recently said in an interview that it will be determined by the D+ numbers.
Seth is the writer and producer. It is really up to him if he continues . The cast was released from their contracts in August of 2021. They would have a problem getting them back to do a 4th season..The special effects are very costly. So there are several obstacles they would have to over come. Not only that since they havent started filming 4th season it will be 2 more years before it would be out. I just want to know what is up with Mercers daughter.....That is the story line that I am upset about. Her and Topa growing up together would be awesome. May be a full length movie is what I have heard. Star Terk didnt become big until they did the movies. We can only hope.....There just are not enough good wholesome tv shows out there.
Finally, someone uses a holodeck to LEARN something, instead of just throw snowballs and interact with literary characters.
I want more Orville.
They should just give the bleak ominous warnings before handing off the technology and their mindset approaching technology would be different. Growing pains would entirely be skipped over unecessarily if approached differently. Like in Loki TV show, Loki was shown his future and he deviated from such an occurance from happening. If civilizations were given this vision and example before given such a technology and the gravitos than it would hit different. These cilivations needs to see the better future first before entrusting them with such technology. Like Doctor Strange mentioned, the Warning should come before the spells. People need to be warned, the same way there are warning labels on a bandsaw.
It’s a crime this show didn’t get a fourth season
This along with the clip of Capt. Pike's speech at the end of ST:SNW S1x01 are good cases for why first contact has to happen only when the society is has its crap together
This one episode made me really like this character Lysella, usually the standard fish out of water person adjusting to a new life gets old, but this worked very well. Her intentions for her people were pure and the lesson she and by extension we learned was a hard pill to swallow.
I see that as our world, given the issues we're facing. Although, we may not need outside interference to make it happen. We're going through those "growing pains" Kelly mentioned. The question, is if we'll make it past those.
For all that the show was conceived as a parody of Star Trek, The Orville has tacked issues bigger than Paramount was willing to take on, and far better than Star Trek ever did.
I don't know . I think "A Piece of The Action" was pretty clear about it. It wasn't so blunt.. but it didn't mince it's message either.
@@erikhawkke4861 - Star Trek TOS and the first few seasons of TNG were pretty good about this, but that was because Roddenberry was at the helm. Most of the original series episodes tackled important social issues such as racism, corporate greed, poverty, and so on. Early episodes of TNG were the same: I mean, the series opening looked at the enslavement of sentient beings for profit. Roddenberry's health issues led to a diminished role in TNG seasons 2 and 3, with a corresponding decline in the series tackling social issues. DS9 started after his death, and it abandoned his idealism and values entirely in favor of capitalism, war, and action scenes.
Sometimes I wonder, was the show really conceived as a Star Trek parody, or was it just marketed to Fox that way? Granted, there were comedic elements since that was what was expected, but even the first show had a serious core story.
@@TheJTMcDaniel I think the third season and Identity were what Seth really wanted to make.
The Orville is the continuation of Star Trek that I, and I'm very certain the majority of fans wanted. It was crass, and the humour was at times cringe, but in it's heart was a serious love letter to the Star Trek.
Given the tragedy of Gendel 3 you can really understand why the Planetary Unions rules on cultural contamination exist. There well meaning interference on Gendel 3 led to a once thriving civilization completely destroying itself. Thus it is understandable why they put new rules in place to prevent such a tragedy happening again on another world to another civilization.
This reminds me of the saying "there's always that one guy that ruins it for everybody",gendel 3 was "that guy".
The way she explained it made it sound like they should've just stayed to guide them. Like they literally just dumped their tech on a planet and said "goodluck, bye!" and then got all shocked when it was turned into a weapon. That's like putting a butter knife in a room of children without supervision and then deciding to ban all butter knives because they, of course, ended up stabbing eachother.
I get they needed a prime directive ananlogue but that's not that muhc better of a reason than ST's "it's their destiny" type shit. Just... teach them?
LOVE it!
_thanks for sharing_
Humans have a bad habit of enforced help
Slavery was a 100% overseas employment program. But befefits were shit.
Even if we humans get infinite energy and food replicators for everyone .. we still would kill ourselves over petty issues...
Did a better job of explaining something akin to the prime directive than 50 years of Star Trek
Stargate did it pretty good.
A group of humans with antimatter and phasing tech built antimatter power stations for the people living on their moon, who were at about Industrial Revolution era technology.
The primitives managed to breach one of the reactors.
Pop went the moon, and the advanced culture's home planet with it.
someone programmed that jumpscare ghoul lmao
Send this video to someone who questions the Prime Directive.
Wish Star Trek universe had a moment like this rather than being hazy about it.
That jump scare was priceless. It had me screaming like a tyro!
I’m still hoping for a season 4, Seth can be promoted to admiral, and everyone else can get a promotion too
God, I hope we get more seasons
General Order 1( Prime Directive) is the UPF policy for a good reason. Add the Temporal Accords for goos measure.
A species has to mature, same as an individual. We’ve been doing it for centuries, but we as individuals don’t always know it until we compare our morals of today to those of our ancestors. But, same way you wouldn’t hand a teenager a loaded gun or a huge pile of money, so too can young societies not be trusted with technology they cannot be trusted with. And if you stubbornly think we can, you’re either a naive optimist, or completely unaware of your own lack of preparedness…in short, a teenager.
One episode explains the Prime Directive better than Star Trek did in fifty years.
We all agree that this scene, and the B Plot of this episode in general better explores the reason behind Star Trek's Prime Directive than both ST:TNG's episode "Who watches the watchers" and Orville's episode "Mad Idolatry".
And it does that better because, while keeping Star Trek's optimism, it does it in a more grounded, more sociologically sound way: Technological advancement doesn't necessarily means social progress.
We are led to believe, in Star Trek, that technology allowing people to have almost unlimited energy and matter puts them in a post-scarcity society and THEREFORE they can become better than they were and stop pursuing selfish accumulation.
In this episode, Cmdr Grayson clearly states that if we got "replicators" in our current 2022, the ultra-rich would restricti its access to make sure they can profit from it. Social progress and technological progress are linked but must influence each other mutually and gradually. Technology won't fix the problems of our society by itself.
And this is a message many "Tech-bros" should hear.
It also explains how a society without currency works in a better way than Star Trek ever did.
@@Chu8rock Yeah it totally did.
And this reminds me of the forms of Capital elaborated by Pierre Bourdieu. For Pierre Bourdieu, "Capital" is more than just economic power. It is all form of influences individuals try to gain consciously or not.
There is economic capital of course, wich is the most rewarded in our current society and is the form of Capital Marx talked about in his works
But there are also Cultural, Social and Symbolic Capital.
Cultural capital is the amount of understanding of concepts, the number of diplomas, everything that will allow someone to be listened more easily by other people because they will assume they know their stuff.
Social capital is the number relationships and networks of people you know and can rely on. If you are, for example, member of a little organisation that needs to print some leaflets, the one person with the social capital knowing someone in another organisation that has access to a free printer just made themselves crucial to the organisation, just because they know someone.
Symbolic capital is a form of aggregation of all forms of capital that is percieved to be owned by someone.
When Kelly explains that they trade in reputation, it really does sound like they use some form of symbolic capital minus the economic part. They trade by talking positively about someone to help them get a position, by having talents that people will require for help, etc.
But I still don't understand why they did not develop technologies and methods that are just advanced enough to help them provide their basic needs, but nothing advanced enough to build to build weapons of mass destruction. Like development workers do in Africa. Not a single country could develop weapons from what they teached them. They even could tell them that they can get more of the advanced stuff over time, once they have a functional democracy and human rights. This way they could ensure that they are not developing towards a dictatorship with spaceships and advanced weapons like the Krill, Mocklans etc.
@@Shadow25720 You can't skip childhood. Those societal growing pains are necessary to the development of a culture.
@@Shadow25720
Except those things they are giving in Africa make them dependent not independent. Not to mention you'd be surprised what kind of weapons and power such things can generate when you apply the resources and tools a bit differently.
This was one of the best episodes of season 3 of The Orville. I loved how commander Grayson also explained how the economics of the future had evolved so that people were no longer driven to chase money, but to better themselves and all of humanity. Meet every humans basic needs, provide them with an environment where they can thrive, grow and contribute to society in meaningful ways, and what's impossible? I hope we get there. Don't think I'll live to see it in my lifetime, as we still worship money and power, something so few have, when all our lives could be so much richer acting as a collective. This is a great show. I discovered it late, but was impressed by it all the same. Who would've thought this would come from the guy behind Family Guy?
That's not easy. In many ways, we're still growing up.and we've got a lot still to learn. No matter how well intended it was to try to help the people of this planet. The Planetary Union learnt that covert observation was the best way to get a planet to advance sufficiently. No overt influence and no giving of advanced technologies. This was the Union's darkest time.
In the Star Trek universe - Jonathan Archer learnt the hard way that well meaning interference could be detrimental. It killed a third sex and an unborn baby. It was sheer luck that it didn't lead to instellar war. This was in the 22nd Century with the Star Trek time line.
We're still growing up. We've come a long way. But we're still on a very long and awkward path. And we have difficulties aplenty. We've learnt some lessons. But the truth is. That we have a great deal still to learn.
I've learnt some lessons. And the mistakes that have taught me that! Will NOT be forgotten!!!!
And the biggest responsibility is to make sure that the lessons are remembered and learned from, and not forgotten
@@EbonFang_92 I concur with your assessment and agree!
What's this "we" shit? It's just a TV show, not real life. I swear, it's like millennials can't get a grasp on what is real and not real.
Hmm - another unoptimistic voice - well, if this upsets him. I don't care tuppence! Reading it as it is, and seeing how much it works out in general - is one of creation's gifts to us to have reasoning to figure it out and reach supporting conclusions. To dismiss it blindly, is a insult to that capacity. If one person, who wants to dismiss it, has the potential right to do so. But it doesn't rule out that fact! To arrogantly discounting it - is simply unwise! We all want better. But I know that it's going to take a long haul. We've had tears recently and grief. That's part of the package. But optimistically, we will get there. It could take many centuries. And it won't be easy.
Gene Roddenberry would be very proud of The Orville.