Editing Prime Directive (section)

==== ''The Original Series'' ====
*The first filmed reference to the Prime Directive occurs in the first season ''TOS'' episode "[[The Return of the Archons]]" (1966), when [[Spock]] begins to caution Captain [[James T. Kirk|Kirk]] of the [[USS Enterprise (NCC-1701)|starship ''Enterprise'']] when he proposes to destroy a computer controlling an entire civilization. Kirk interrupts him after Spock says, "Captain, our Prime Directive of non-interference" with, "That refers to a living, growing culture..." Later, Kirk argues the computer into self-destruction and leaves behind a team of sociologists to help restore the society to a "human" form.
*In the second-season episode "[[The Apple (Star Trek: The Original Series)|The Apple]]", Spock says of Kirk's plan to destroy Vaal, "If we do what it seems we must, in my opinion, it will be in direct violation of the non-interference directive."
*In the second-season episode "[[A Piece of the Action (Star Trek: The Original Series)|A Piece of the Action]]", Kirk, briefing Spock and McCoy before beaming down on possible interference 100 years earlier by the [[United Federation of Planets|Federation]] ship, the ''Horizon'', Kirk explicitly states, "the contact came before the non-interference directive".
*In the second-season episode "[[A Private Little War]]", two different factions on a planet were at war with each other and it is discovered that the [[Klingon]]s were furnishing one faction with advanced weapons. Kirk responded by arming the other faction with the same weapons. This resulted in an [[arms race]] on that world, as a fictionalized parallel to the then-current [[Cold War]] arms race, in which the [[United States]] often armed one side of a dispute and the [[Soviet Union]] armed the other. 
**In a similar storyline on ''TNG'', "[[Too Short a Season]]", a Starfleet admiral admits he interpreted the Prime Directive to mean equally arming two different factions on a planet, intended to reach a stalemate, but which resulted in 40 years of war.
*In the second-season episode "[[Patterns of Force (Star Trek: The Original Series)|Patterns of Force]]," Federation cultural observer and historian John Gill created a regime based on [[Nazi Germany]] on a primitive planet in an effort to create a society which combined the high efficiency of a [[Fascism|fascist]] [[dictatorship]] with a more benign philosophy. In doing so, he contaminated the normal and healthy development of the planet's culture, with disastrous effects; the regime adopts the same [[Racism|racial]] [[Supremacism|supremacist]] and [[Genocide|genocidal]] ideologies of the original. Eventually, this leaves investigating Starfleet officers with no other option but to arrange the overthrow of the government in order to mitigate the harm of Gill's interference.
*In the second-season episode "[[The Omega Glory]]", after finding out that Captain Tracy may have violated the Prime Directive, Captain Kirk states, "A starship captain's most solemn oath is that he will give his life, even his entire crew, rather than violate the Prime Directive."
*In the second-season episode "[[Bread and Circuses (Star Trek: The Original Series)|Bread and Circuses]]", the crew discusses that the Prime Directive is in effect, saying, "No identification of self or mission. No interference with the social development of said planet. No references to space, or the fact that there are other worlds, or more advanced civilizations."