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"Bureaucracies hide their mistakes, because people's careers are tied to those mistakes. Therefore, bureaucracies are a perfect mechanism for perpetuating mistakes."
- Frank Herbert
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| Prime Directive | ||
| The first and most important rule; usually protective. |
This is (as far as I know) the earliest use of the phrase. It doesn't quite have the full meaning that it later acquired.
| But 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, because we exist to insure their safety and happiness. |
| Technovelgy from With Folded Hands,
by Jack Williamson. Published by Astounding Science Fiction in 1947 Additional resources -
|
By 1966, the usage had expanded. From a 1966 script for the Star Trek episode Return of the Archons:
As far as the concept of the Prime Directive is concerned, the reader may wish to compare this entry to the Noninterference With Other Worlds from In the Deep of Time (1879) by George Parsons Lathrop, Relations with Extraterrestrial Life from Ogre (1944) by Clifford Simak, to the Law of Contact from Orphans of the Void (1952) by Orville Shaara and the Alien Self-Government from Co-Operate or Else (1942) by A.E. van Vogt.
Kirk: Landru must die.
Spock: Our prime directive of non-interference...
Kirk: That refers to a living, growing culture. I'm not convinced that this one is."
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'... an artificial intelligence equal to the human.'
'Rayno folded up the microterm and tucked it back inside his jumper.'
'Nemourlon armor of reasonable weight resists penetration by most fragments and any bullet that is not both reasonably heavy and fairly high-velocity.'
'Several thousand of them formed the positioning grid on the rubble pile.'
'Its slack walls tightened, bulged, were crossed by ripples and waves of movement.'
'Norman... had never ridden any motorized device that lacked onboard steering and balance systems.'
You will note that HG Wells also figured out the aspect ratio of the future!
'As though a switch had been turned off, the pain stopped...'
'At the ringside opposite them a table had been removed to make room for a large transparent plastic capsule on wheels.'
