The Prime Directive is one lone postmodernist idea in a largely modernist setting. So of course it gets violated all the time for reasons where our pure and noble culture can help — but never for realist reasons like “these poor benighted savages aren’t even using their dilithium bounty. Ultimately it’s a poster child for dialectics: a good idea that makes a poor absolute.
The Hainish approach to first contact is the best practice: send someone to learn about the culture before you start fucking with it. Stargate seems to be the most realistic: people try to do the right thing sometimes but also steal resources and tech, occasionally listen to your anthropologist/archaeologist/diplomat but also blow things up a lot. (e.g. Afghanistan)
Of course the Moon Kingdom has a much simpler rule for first contact, abbreviated WWUD: what would Usagi do?
The Hainish approach to first contact is the best practice: send someone to learn about the culture before you start fucking with it. Stargate seems to be the most realistic: people try to do the right thing sometimes but also steal resources and tech, occasionally listen to your anthropologist/archaeologist/diplomat but also blow things up a lot. (e.g. Afghanistan)
Of course the Moon Kingdom has a much simpler rule for first contact, abbreviated WWUD: what would Usagi do?
"Kitto daijoubu da yo." - Sakura Kinomoto