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Was there ever a mention of what specifically was the catalyst for the creation of Prime Directive?

In other words, was the Directive merely a theoretical "this is the rules we want to live by" exercise for StarFleet/Federation?

Or was there a specific event where the interference with a primitive species (by Federation or others) caused a problem and thus served as impetus for the Directive's creation?

I haven't been able to find any reference to a specific catalyst event(s) on either Wiki or Memory Alpha, but the following quote from Picard seems to indicate such catalyst(s) may have taken place:

"The Prime Directive is not just a set of rules; it is a philosophy... and a very correct one. History has proven 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." — Jean-Luc Picard, "Symbiosis"

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    I can't remember the episode of Enterprise right now (so this isn't an answer) where Archer says something like "Until I have some kind of 'Directive' that tells me otherwise ..." so you could maybe argue that the entire series' mistakes by the crew is part of that history.
    – Jorge Castro
    Apr 5, 2011 at 19:21

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From Memory Alpha's article on the Prime Directive:

  • The Prime Directive was instigated long after Earth launched the Friendship 1 probe in 2067. (VOY: "Friendship One") Indeed, the Directive was not yet in force as late as the 2160s, when the crew of the starship Horizon left behind books on technology and culture that radically altered the course of civilization on the planet Sigma Iotia II. (TOS: "A Piece of the Action")

  • While the Prime Directive was not officially formulated until after the 2160s, the fundamental principles were an important part of Earth Starfleet procedures as early as 2152. (ENT: "The Communicator")

Apart from these I don't remember any incident mentioned in the series. However some canon books tackle the subject (also from Memory Alpha):

In the TNG novel Double Helix: Double or Nothing the Resolution of Non-Interference was drafted and signed by all Federation members in 2175. By the 2190s the Prime Directive was in full force.

In the TOS novel Prime Directive, a Scale of Culture was developed in the early 2200s in order to measure cultural development of a civilization and monitor its development.

According to the CD-ROM game Star Trek: 25th Anniversary, one of the most serious violations of the Prime Directive was an event known as "The Galahad Incident" caused by an unauthorized entry of the USS Galahad into the civil war on Shiva Omicron IV in 2208. The Galahad used its phasers to stun an army of the Jerion faction during an attempted massacre, causing the unconscious Jerions to be themselves massacred. This eventually led to the destruction of the Jerion culture. This event became a test case for measuring the competency of a starship captain. Captain Joshua Mulrone Grant was court-martialed and imprisoned for his part in the genocide. At his court martial, he stated, "the Human Directive is the real Prime Directive."

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Didn't the Vulcans already have a similar policy of non-interference when they have encountered humans? After all, the only reason the Vulcan ship landed on Earth and made the first contact is because it detected a ship with a warp drive.

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    In First Contact it wasn't described that way. It was that Sol's system didn't contain anything worth studying or investigating, until the Vulcans happened to detect Cochrane's ship's warp field. At least, that's the way I remember it. My copy of First Contact should get here tomorrow.
    – user1027
    Apr 5, 2011 at 19:54
  • I recall Troi saying that Vulcans thought humans "too primitive" to study... which of course conflicts with one of the episodes in Enterprise, but all well.
    – Xantec
    Apr 5, 2011 at 21:21
  • In the TOS novel Strangers from the Sky, Vulcans had developed their own set of non-interference laws in the 1870s.
    – Sinan
    Apr 5, 2011 at 22:13
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    @TZHX - There is an Enterprise episode that shows that Vulcans had been living as humans on earth to study them for a long while. @Xantec - Never forget Star Trek's motto: "We Hate Continuity". atwitsendcomics.com/comics/index/23/Old-Kirk
    – Jack B Nimble
    Apr 6, 2011 at 15:29
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    @TZHX ENT 2x02, they were watching Earth from orbit. The episode ends with T'Pol having her ancestor's purse, so it was a true story in at least some measure. So yes, the Vulcans were waiting for the first Warp flight.
    – Izkata
    Dec 29, 2011 at 4:29

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