Firstly, it's well established that Gharr isn't the most cautious guy and he quick to execute half-baked ideas.

Secondly, Zane had always been extremely rigid about the First Directive, so it was necessary to gather solid data and evidence before he could even just consider contact. Gharr knows this, and has therefore rushed to get something to discuss with his Commander before the ordre to leave the system.

It was absolutly reckless, but it was also one of the few way to actions facing of blind obedience to the ill-written law that is the First Directive.

It being "ill-written" is highly debatable.

When the officers in the field - including Gharr (I suppose), Zane and Shuru - get the impression that it's not quite applicable in practice, it could at the very least be written better ...

The spirit is good, but its application and especially the reasons why it was created are bad.

The First Directive was created in the wake of the Siluran uplift fiasco, and Zane is quick to point this out whenever the subject comes up. In other words, it's a law created in the panic of a "cultural trauma", a law written irrationally out of the emotion of "Never again". This kind of law are rarely good, mostly because was drawn up without taking into account the very imperfect nature of reality, which is full of nuances.

Firstly, the Silurans were at a pre-industrial stage, it's hard to judge a civilization on its technological level alone, but perhaps they weren't ready for such an abstract concept as extraterrestrials, not only technologicaly, but also culturaly.

When Humans have reached a complex technological level, having even created a planet-scale instantaneous communication network, often referred to as "information age". Even more, the concept of extraterrestrials being is firmly anchored in popular culture, and we have the scientific certainty that they exist somewhere up there, but invisible and out of reach.

Beside, this is the first major flaw in The First Directive: the concepts of "advanced civilization" and "space age" are vague and abstract. It works for the extremes, but when you're in the fuzzy in-between, it gets gray very quickly. Shuru had a personal opinion, but I'm willing to bet that an expert scientist like Gharr doesn't like vague and abstract concepts, and will be the first to point out their conceptual weakness.

While it's not sur that Humans should be contacted, the situation is that humanity has long since passed the point where we could say "No" without argues, leave and come back in a thousand years to see their evolution (like Zane do). The question and the debate must be seriously asked, whether in the Fifth Expeditionary fleet or inside the central political organ of the Alliance (surly the intial goal of Gharr).

Another important point is that the Silurans were their first uplift that went wrong, but as Gharr says, the Raharr are not exempt from mistakes during their existence. We need to learn from ours mistakes, not be guided and defined by them. The Raharr and the Alliance need more experience to know if this or that civilization can be uplifted. It's risky for the civilizations that will pay the price, but if we're careful, we'll be fine.

More over, contact with Humans has an exceptional advantage over any other species: the Human and the Raharr are physiologically very similar, to the point where it's easy to confuse the two peoples. I don't know what the Silurans are like, but maybe they didn't have any equivalents or close relatives kind inside the Aliance. In this case, there was a fundamental misunderstanding between the different parties, which led to increased tension as each side took action against the others. Whereas with Humans, you take any passing Raharr, and you have a generally accurate opinion of how Humans would react to such and such actions. The Raharr can (and already do) understand deeply the humans to the point to predict their reaction. It's a ideal First Contact scenario because Raharr can easly handle any thing that human can do and react propely to them on the most optimal way to avoid conflict.

To conclude, the First Directive can be well better writent and resum as "The Expeditionary fleet can't take the initiative of First Contact, except if the technology and cultural level are clearly considered to be sufficiently advanced." The important point is 'The Expeditionary fleet', by restricting this directive to a defined entity that implies that only they do not have the right or must avoid the First Contact, but that the rest of the Alliance can decide that later at any time, when the report of the civilisation come to them. The 'clearly sufficiently advanced' remains fuzzy, but with something as complex as an entire civilization, we won't be able to do better than anything subjective based on our previous experience, and by especially don't define a technological stage, it adds subjectivity and pushes to think about whether or not contact should be made, rather than hardly pushing to blindly say "No" like curently. And that just a "resume", the "Real First Directive" has a 200-page appendix, mostly scientific doc that explain how it's hard to define "advanced" for a unlinear thing like a civilisation.

Because in reality, this is the biggest and fundamental error of the "First Directive": It's based on a linear perception of the concept of civilisation, when there is nothing more unlinear than that. The only and true way to handle the discovery a new civilizations is that each one need to get a real debate If and How contact them, because each species are unique and so that a generic law can be hardly apply on them without know them.

Note that I don't blame the Raharr and the Alliance for having written the First Directive like they do, it was a logical reaction at the time. But now that they're faced with a case as complex as humans, it's time to admit that the First Directive was ill-written in haste, and it needs to be revised to better match of the complexity of the reality.

PS: Personally, I set the minimum bar to Nuclear power and Rocket. The first imply an understanding of the complexity of the world, the second that they want to go to the space, and both combined can lead to some M.A.D. things. I can debate that it might still be too early and not perfect, it just that more early seem definitely too early.

I think its worth remembering that when the directive was written they had only met intelligent species which were at the extremes of pre-industrial or established space age.

The idea of meeting a species on the very cusp of being an established space age species was far fetched and niche enough they didn't consider the possibility or necessity of defining it further. But more than that, they had no examples to help them set a more complicated and nuanced rule in place. The law was around contact and if a species was already advanced enough to be an established space farer it was likely the Rahar ships could not evade detection anyway, making the entire point moot.

In that sense, the law/rule can be viewed almost as a restriction against introducing themselves to species who likely couldn't detect their nearby presence if they didn't introduct themselves. Thus, almost a total ban on any initiation of contact if they remained undetected. BUT, the details on how to conduct contact and items such as candidacy for the alliance are very likely to be much more nuanced.

I'd also argue that no matter what Gharr brought him, Zane would have stuck to the law, not necessarily out of blind obedience without thought, but because he lacked the authority to overrule it. There's the note about the Laymaran's being contacted because they were assessed and found to have regressed from a previously sufficient technological level. There's no details but I'd wager the case was put back to the Alliance lawmakers or courts with xenopsychological profiling to detail not only the loophole but their readiness for exposure without undue cultural shock/impact and the lawmakers or courts approved it.

Zane would likely have done the same. Possibly agreeing with Gharr that humanity is a unique case, worthy of evaluating for an exemption or re-assessing the contact directives BUT... He would have passed the case back to Alliance leadership to make that call and probably moved on with the expedition. Not because he's an arse who wouldn't breach any rule for any reason, but because he lacked the authority and lacked any reason to breach his authority or make such a decision himself. I could even imagine that if he were on the panel of decision makers he'd cast his vote to make contact.

If anything this is proven by the fact Zane has made the decision to breach the directives after assessing humanity to the best of his ability and arriving at this conclusion. He continued to analyise and seek adivce and guidance to ensure he had done due dilligence, not because he's a stickler for the rules but because he had up to 7 crew members lost or endangered on the planet which was his driver for taking the decision of contact into his own hands. He gave careful consideration to the breach of directives because he needed to be sure that retrieving his people would not lead to a cultural shock that could kill many thousands or even millions.

The directives give a cut-off point in technology where the commander of a fleet, and others, can make the decision of first contact at their own discretion (likely because the other species has the technology to notice them anyway). If the Alliance has lawmakers or courts which can create the directive then those same bodies could have been given the opportunity to re-assess based on the fleet's findings and reports.

Gharr simply didn't want to wait or chance it and miss out on the opportunity of a lifetime for a xenopsychologist.

Yeah, I was a bit harsh to say that Zane have a blind obedience to the First Directive, he could have been convinced to contact or transfers the case. Enter the reckless of Gharr who thought he needed a proof to convince him to not leave and "abandon" the humanity.

I realize that my new statement doesn't clarify another big problem with the First Directive: It's too binary. It's either we contact a civilization, or we don't contact it.

A truly better First Directive would establish three distinct statuses for a newly discovered civilization: No Contact (not developed enough), Rapid Contact (highly developed) and a Range of Uncertainty in between (the boundaries of this range are to be defined).

If this Range of Uncertainty had been established from the outset, it would have led members of the Expeditionary fleet to caution by default (rather than the avoid by default). Zane would not have been quick to decide to avoid a first contact and Gharr would not have had the sense of urgency to prove to his superior the possibility of one. The two would no doubt have been in similar positions, but by the nature of the Range of Uncertainty, they would have known that a debate would take place soon, and thus accepted the resulting compromise.

Plus, it might not have prevented the story from going the same because they would have been surprised by the level technology of human, but Gharr wouldn't have had to lie to his friend and commander.

Hm. The million dollar question is, is that intermediate a workable approach? On the level of individual natives, "do they know of our existence?" is a binary. You can try to blur the line by splitting the entire populace between "yes" and "no", but that split likely is more under their control instead of yours / your guiding criteria's; in the worst case, you prompt exactly the kind of power plays general Bahin is up to.

Except that "do they know of our existence?" is a totaly other question and my "essay" is only on the subject of the Alliance initiave to perform a contact.

If desicion is taken to make contact or if they know your existence, on that I follow Zane strategie: You need to perform a total contact with the entire race, without favouritism and not hidden you. I can understand the "politeness" of doing some discussion behind closed doors to think about how to present the news to the rest of the population, but few of them. And given the size of the event, governments know they won't be able to keep this secret for long, so it's important to do it on a controled ways (we can already see an example of this, as Protagonistan wasted few time to reporting their discovery to the UN).

The only reason Zane is interacting almost exclusively with Protagonistan so far is because he wants to get his crew members and bodies back as quickly as possible. Once back, he'll plan to make a formal contact with the UN as a representative of humanity, he made this extremely clear during the pages 207-209.

Beside, I think that's the Major thinks something similar too: He ordered the shuttle shot and therefore believes that resolving this crisis is a matter of internal politics. It's his/their mistake and it only involves them, not the rest of humanity. Once the shuttle has left, and so the internal criss solved, he will certainly turn back and offer full cooperation with the UN and disavow all of General Bahin's "initiatives".

From my perspective, the Directives are, in reality, a bit more about the power difference rather than any specific dangers to the discovered civilization. Star Trek's original spirit of the Directive (before it was flanderized) was, basically, "Do not play God with the natives", and I think this applies way more to the political structures rather than individuals.

In essence, there's a really thin line that separates contact with a civilization that's, for the lack of a better word, not strong enough to withstand it, from basically cultural or literal imperialism and annexation, that may or may not be unintended. Silurans were notable for raharrs because it's both almost happened with them and they've realized this is happening and rebelled against that. And this is on top of all the disasters that it caused.

Instead of "nuances" I first read "nuisances".

On reflection, I like my way better.

Or he could have still stretched the truth, only to 'reevaluate' once they get a lot closer, and then argue that since they have come all this way...

Possible Native Fever

All for science of course.

"some other Raharrs in the room" ...Dunno , I would think so. Maybe they are standing in the background all silent and wide-eyed. I doubt even the Mil. has seen Zane like this before.

"slowpokes"...Pfffhhh, lets face it : People without FTL might as well be riding beasts of burden! No, some nice beefed up Brabus MB 600 SL does not count either!

Wont even bring us to Mare Acidalium quadrangle ! And I who wanted to set up a small tent-shop there that sells little tacky souvenirs of the Face...

I think the beating is over. Now starts the...*GASP* "Damage control".

And a happy New Year to all of you out there.

Time is fluid. It remains for those who break it into slippery pieces to use One Orbit as a unit of measure.

I parse the small text as Zane's words coming out in an icily furious hiss.

Zane wanted to keep this conversation between himself and Gharr alone because of the danger to both of their careers. So unless he changed his mind in the passion of the moment, I suspect they're the only two people in the room. We've only been shown part of the room though, so we have to wait and see.

I'm also not sure exactly how the Directives have been violated. Wasn't there some debate on the Dawn about whether first contact was forbidden or permitted in this case? Has the author published actual text of the Directives anywhere?

Not that I know, but even if their actions now are reconciled with The Directives™, there was no such leeway back when the existence of extraterrestrials was initially revealed to the local rock-throwers (by way of the shuttle serving as a cible for them). Which is also why Gharr is to blame for it (he didn't exactly have much decisive influence beyond that point).