Star Trek Adds A Multiverse Version Of Starfleet's Prime Directive & It's A Big Improvement To Canon

Warning: MAJOR spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Lower Decks, season 5, episode 9, "Fissure Quest."Star Trek's multiverse has been visited many times throughout the franchise's storied history, which makes Star Trek: Lower Decks' new piece of lore concerning the sci-fi trope even more important. Alternate realities have appeared across the entire Star Trek timeline. Along with characters embarking on interdimensional travel in the Star Trek TV shows, they've also made the journey in some Star Trek movies. As a result, a complex web of worlds has been loosely mapped, and none more so by one of the saga's newest characters.

Star Trek: Lower Decks season 5, episode 9, "Fissure Quest," is a thrilling ride through the multiverse that quickly becomes as canonically relevant as it is brilliant in its fan service. Captain William Boimler (Jack Quaid) and the crew of the USS Anaximander encounter Star Trek characters in varying forms of recognizability, as the Section 31 vessel slowly amasses a group of alternate versions of familiar franchise faces. There's one character in particular who returns to the franchise for the first time in almost 30 years and imparts some fascinating information.

"Fissure Quest" Reveals The Existence Of Star Trek's Quantum Prime Directive

Star Trek's new directive highlights the dangers of the multiverse

Alfre Woodard reprises the role of Lily Sloan in "Fissure Quest" for the first time since 1996's Star Trek: First Contact. In the Prime Universe, Lily worked with Zefram Cochrane (James Cromwell) to help develop Earth's first warp-capable vessel, which changed the fate of humanity forever. The version of Lily who shows up in Star Trek: Lower Decks achieved something slightly different from her Prime Universe counterpart, as she and Cochrane built a multiversal ship instead. The advancement comes with a built-in ethical rule, similar to Star Trek's Prime Directive.

'We have directives which dictate ethical boundaries to contacting societies who can't cross realities on their own." - Lily Sloan in "Fissure Quest."

Star Trek: Lower Decks doesn't give the rule an official name, but given its similarities to the Prime Directive and the Temporal Prime Directive, it makes sense to call Lily's statement the Quantum Prime Directive. So, just as Starfleet officers are trained not to interfere with the development of pre-warp civilizations, nor are they supposed to change the course of history in the event of time travel, Lily and her crew are under strict orders to remain concealed from the inhabitants of the other realities they visit - unless they too have the technology to travel between realities.

Why The Quantum Directive Is More Important Than The Prime Directive & The Temporal Prime Directive

Lily Sloan's rule protects every Star Trek reality (not just her own)

Although Star Trek's other two directives are certainly important, they almost pale in comparison to the Quantum Prime Directive. Sure, pre-warp civilizations can develop wildly differently if contacted too early, and a universe's timeline can be irreparably altered if events are changed, but at least those missteps would only impact one reality. For example, when Patrick Stewart's Captain Picard interferes with Earth's history in Star Trek: First Contact, it's "only" the future of the Prime Universe that will change. Furthermore, the Prime Directive only initially addresses the fate of a single world. However, the Quantum Prime Directive protects every reality.

Lily's ship is inadvertently responsible for the rips in the fabric of the multiverse, but the crew's intentions aren't nefarious. They simply wish to be observers of other universes, keeping their distance and allowing events to pass as they otherwise would, as if they weren't even present. To those from Lily's reality, the Prime Universe must seem almost as primitive as a pre-warp society would appear to be to a 24th-century Starfleet crew from the franchise's primary dimension. If the Temporal Prime Directive were not in place, then the damage could have been far greater to the entire multiverse.

The Quantum Prime Directive Is One Of The Biggest Additions To Star Trek Canon

Other interdimensional vessels could have been watching Star Trek characters the entire time

Star Trek's multiverse is unknowably vast. It's essentially infinite, which means pretty much anything is impossible in terms of who visits other realities - either by intention or by accident. Star Trek: Lower Decks' final season has also reinforced the fact that not all parallel realities line up temporally with the Prime Universe. In other words, those who cross over can also be traveling in time as well as into another reality. The infinite possibilities are difficult to comprehend, but they make one thing very clear - it's unlikely that Lily's universe is the only one that has developed interdimensional travel.

Just as there are realities very similar to the Prime Universe, there are highly likely to be some worlds that are almost identical to Lily's. So, there could have been ships visiting the Prime Universe for centuries, and the Quantum Prime Directive being in effect would mean it would be almost impossible to detect the vessels in question - possibly even from other interdimensional ships. It has essentially caused a soft retcon of the entire Star Trek franchise, with Star Trek: Lower Decks ending with a huge tease that there have been stealthy eyes in the sky the entire time.