prime directive n.
a chief objective, goal, or requirement; a rule or law that overrides or guides other rules or laws; (specif.) a rule forbidding interference in the affairs of less developed planets or cultures
Popularized by the television series Star Trek.
SF Encyclopedia
Memory Alpha
Star Trek
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[1940 Washington Post 17 Feb. 10/4
The prime directive of all working-class groups—unions, political parties, social organizations—is to keep this Nation from embroilment in a new holocaust.]
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1947
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Jack Williamson
bibliography
‘I prefer to run my own business, and support my own family, and take care of myself.’ ‘That is impossible, under the Prime Directive…. Our function is to serve and obey, and guard men from harm. It is no longer necessary for men to care for themselves.’
With Folded Hands… in Astounding Science Fiction July 18 -
1956
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Poul Anderson
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All of a sudden the Prime Directive was repealed… ‘Under no circumstances whatever may the Patrol or any unit thereof kill any intelligent being.’
Live Coward in Astounding Science Fiction June 111/1 -
1964
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George Locke
bibliography
What had made the robot, whose prime directive was never to harm human life, kill?
Last Order in Fantastic Jan. 110/1 -
1966 Return of the Archons (Star Trek episode) (transcription)
Spock: Captain, our Prime Directive of non-interference. Kirk: That refers to a living, growing culture. Do you think this one is?
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1974
James Blish
It’s added up a few scanty observations—and clicked to the conclusion I’ve violated the Prime Directive!
Star Trek 10 143
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1985
Barbara Hambly
They’d seen thousands of them on planets that the Prime Directive had forbidden them to touch.
Ishmael xviii.235
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1990
Attention to the Prime Directive meant trying not to come stomping through people’s backyards with a veritable army.
Home is Hunter ii. 12
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1995
Dean Wesley Smith
Kristine Kathryn Rusch
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She knew that with the same bone-deep certainty she had had when she had stared in the face of the Prime Directive and decided to strand her people in the Delta Quadrant rather than take the easy route home.
Star Trek Voyager: Escape xxii. 223
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1996
William Shatner
Though the ship was beyond salvage, in accordance with the Prime Directive no trace of it could remain on this world.
Return i. 5
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1997
Susan Shwartz
Josepha Sherman
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It was one thing to, well, bend the Prime Directive a bit.
Vulcan’s Forge xiv. 166
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2001 Sci Fi June 6/2
It’s safe to say that the closest Lexx will ever come to a Prime Directive is that, no matter how dire the situation, Stanley Tweedle shall not lose his hat.
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2021
Thomas Locke
bibliography
My species is driven to learn and to understand. Which means asking questions regardless of what your Prime Directive says. We will try to adjust our questions, but these issues do not grant you the right to eliminate one of my kind. As I stated before, our key Prime Directive is that human life is precious. And your own. All sentient species hold a special relationship within the galactic empire.
Prime Directive xxxiv. 104
Research requirements
antedating 1956
Earliest cite
Poul Anderson, "The Live Coward"
Research History
Rick Hauptmann submitted a 1947 cite from Jack Williamson's "With Folded Hands".Dave Langford pointed out that the sense of the phrase there was of inbuilt programming, similar to Asimov's laws of robotics. He submitted a 1956 cite from Poul Anderson's "The Live Coward", in which the phrase was used in the "non-interference" sense popularized by Star Trek.
Ben Ostrowsky submitted a 2021 cite from Davis Bunn.
The OED has later cites from Star Trek, and other, non-sf, sources.
Last modified 2021-09-09 12:37:34
In the compilation of some
entries, HDSF has drawn extensively on corresponding entries
in OED.