Oh boy. This one really deserves a detailed post all on its own, especially since I’ve seen practically no discussion about it despite being one of the most fucked up violations of the prime directive in all of Star Trek.

Star Trek TOS S02E05 “The Apple”, or as I know it, “That Time the Enterprise Destroyed an Entire Civilization and Laughed About It”.

Alright, so the crew finds this beautiful tropical paradise planet and goes down to investigate it. But, surprise, turns out the planet is deadly! Worse yet, something is preventing the ship from leaving or being able to transport the crew off planet.

Living on the planet is a primitive race of near-immortals. Beings who are thousands of years old, never get sick, never age, but seem to have stopped progressing mentally past the point of a child. These beings worship a “god” called Vaal, that is actually an ancient computer which controls the entire planet and has taken on itself to be a caretaker to the primitive civilization; ensuring their safety, taking care of all their needs, and being the reason they are essentially immortal. It also is the thing that’s been attacking the crew and preventing the ship from leaving.

Now, everything is not perfect for the people of this civilization. Vaal is not only the reason they stop developing mentally, but he prevents them from having sex or having any physical affection beyond hugging. Now, on its own, this seems harsh, but remember; Vaal is taking care of ALL their needs. The weather is always perfect. There is abundant food. They have comfortable shelters. They never get sick. Never age. They are always happy. They live lives of such peace, that they barely even understand the concept of death. I think a lot of people would agree, that’s not too bad a trade-off, and certainly a lot better a life than most places in the galaxy.

So the ship is unfortunately in an unstable orbit, and everything the crew tries to free it, fails. At the last moment before it crashes, the ship fires a phaser at Vaal and blows it up. Now, on its own, this is not great. Without Vaal, these people are doomed. No longer will they be safe from disease. No longer will they live forever. No longer will they have free food, free shelter, or anything. But, an argument COULD be made that the Enterprise crew was out of options. Sure, it’s kind of screwing the prime directive in favor of their own lives, but the directive has been bent for less, and who knows what the ship crashing into the planet would do.

However, and here’s where things go from an unfortunate situation to “holy shit, what the fuck is wrong with you?!”, after Vaal is destroyed, Kirk and the crew meet with the primitive beings to let them know their God is dead. They are understandably concerned and ask what will they do? Kirk responds that they’ll live. They’ll grow farms, and build houses, and have children. They then ask, proving the extent of their innocence, “what are children?” and Kirk responds “Oh… You’ll figure it out” then the entire crew laughs before abruptly leaving. End of episode.

What. The. Fuck?! These people have zero life skills. You just destroyed the one thing keeping them alive and then you’re just… Leaving? While laughing about it? Oh, but they can have sex now. That’s clearly the only important thing. Not teaching them how to farm. How to build shelters or clothing. How to cope with disease. Bad weather. Death. How to raise a child. Nope. They can have sex now, and to the crew, that means it’s a job well done.

That civilization is dead. Their odds of survival are about as good as if you took a bunch of 5 years olds and dumped them in the wilderness. The only member of the crew who questions any of this is Spock at the very end where he wonders if they had essentially just ruined the Garden of Eden and doomed an entire people by destroying their paradise. Then McCoy chimes in with, “Well if that’s the Garden of Eden, would that make you the devil since you have pointed ears?” And then they all laugh again.