Common sense is abolished in the 24th Century
I never understood why Starfleet had such a problem with genetic engineering.
Human society in the 24th Century is widely accepting of advanced technology. Starfleet outfits its ships with antimatter drive, food replicators, and a deflector dish that can do seemingly anything from detecting cloaked ships to repairing the structure of entire planets.
The Federation always seemed pretty open-minded and egalitarian, too. Starfleet captains adhere to an impeccable set of moral standards, including respect for life and tolerance of other cultures.
But sometimes, in a few very specific sets of circumstance, they throw all common sense out of the nearest airlock.
Genetic engineering is forbidden
According to Star Trek lore, genetically engineered super-humans started a global war in 1992, and for the next 400 years everyone decided that genetic manipulation was worse than murder.
Never mind the benefits: super-intelligent scientists and tacticians who can come up with ways to defeat any alien threat, super-accurate marksmen, and cures for every genetic disease. The Federation doesn’t want to save billions of lives if it means living alongside people with vastly superior physical strength and mental acuity (…except that they already do: they’re called Vulcans).
Actual reason: There’s a logical out-of-universe explanation. If genetic modification wasn’t banned, Star Trek would be a show about superhuman creatures who solve every problem with ease. The viewers can’t relate to characters who don’t have human limitations and flaws.
The Prime Directive
A populated planet is doomed due to ecological cataclysm, but the Enterprise has a way to fix it and save billions of lives. Captain Picard orders his crew not to save the planet, because the people haven’t discovered warp drive yet.
Prime Directive episodes are usually absurd. Prohibited from intefering with a primitive culture, the crew do it anyway, stealthily or undercover to avoid being spotted. Then, they get spotted. The captain refuses to use the ship’s technology to immediately solve the problem, until the end of the episode, when he does.
What’s more, this idiocy is their prime directive: Starfleet’s Rule #1. Respect for life, duty to scientific and personal truth, and exploring space are directives #2-4 at best. No, Starfleet’s primary goal is to twiddle its thumbs when a a civilization is on the brink of destruction because they haven’t reached an arbitrarily defined tech level yet.
Actual reason: Again, it makes perfect sense out-of-setting: the Prime Directive exists as a plot device to create conflict:
Thematically, it should be noted, the purpose of the Prime Directive was almost always about giving the protagonists something to rebel against: The Prime Directive says we shouldn’t do this, but we’re going to ignore it and save the day.
— Justin Alexander, Thought of the Day: Star Trek’s Prime Directive.
Slightly more reasonable problems
Star Trek has a lot of overused plot devices, but the two above stand out as completely ridiculous. Most of the time, there’s some kind of internal logic.
-
Cloaking devices would allow Starfleet ships to avoid combat and escape danger. Naturally, it’s forbidden, because this would make for a boring show. The Federation’s ban on cloaked ships is lampshaded as a term of their treaty with the Romulans, so it has a reasonable explanation.
-
Data’s superhuman strength and intellect would be extremely useful, if only they could replicate the technology. But this has the same problem as genetic engineering: you end up telling stories about a ship full of non-humans. They successfully prevent this by proving the technology impossible to replicate: Data’s own attempt to create an android eventually fails, and Picard refuses to let Starfleet reverse-engineer Data by arguing that it interferes with Data’s rights as a living being.
-
They can teleport people down to the planet’s surface, but can’t beam them back out when they’re in trouble because “there’s too much interference”. Obviously, the writers can’t let the super technology solve their problems instantly, but Voyager used this excuse so often that they ended up inventing a new transporter trick so they could stop doing it.
-
Time travel sure would solve a lot of problems, which is exactly why the Federation can’t have it. The main reason they don’t is that it hasn’t been invented yet, and the few times they encounter time travel technology it’s usually because someone brought it back from the future.