Also, there was just something about it that felt like a re-hash of an actual TNG episode, but I can’t pin down which one.
“Homeward,” the episode where Worf’s adoptive brother evacuates a pre-warp species to a new planet because theirs is dying using the Enterprise’s transporters and holodeck to make them think they’re just traveling over land to a new place. It’s almost exactly the plan for moving the Ba’ku.
I am part of the group that thinks Insurrection was not just bad as a movie, but bad as a plot line all together. Literally everything about the Ba’ku-Son’a conflict falls apart at the slightest scrutiny.
I think they technically say that Vulcans don’t lie, not that Vulcans can’t lie. That would imply that they prefer to avoid it, but can if they need to. I mean, if Tuvok couldn’t lie then he never would have been able to go under cover as a member of the Maquis.
For their internal politics, yes the PD applies. For general interaction, no, the PD no longer applies. You can also land on a pre-warp world if they’re already buying Romulan Ale from the Ferengi. It’s not like you can make it any worse once the cat’s out of the bag. Consider that Kirk was sent to negotiate with the Organians back when they were thought to be a pre-industrial species; that was fine since they had already been contacted by some other people, including the Klingons.
They’re actually a republic. The Vedek Assembly has a lot of influence, but they’re fully separate from the Provisional Government. And they only have that much influence because the vast majority of the population follows the Bajoran faith. Think of the Assembly like the Vatican - powerful when everyone cares (Pope during the Middle Ages), but virtually powerless when nobody does (Pope now).
They were going through a few different movie scripts at the time. Interestingly, a rejected one was about a black hole that threatened to consume reality, not dissimilar to the prime timeline part of '09.
The Prime Directive shouldn’t have even applied with that. They can’t stop a foreign government from executing their own citizens for stupid things, but trying to execute another nation’s citizens is an international incident and falls under standard international politics. The Federation seems to give Starfleet ship captains ambassadorial powers, so Picard should have started threatening sanctions and making comments about how executing Wes could be considered an act of war.
You can combine it with nearly anything and it will work. I love chocolate, but I’m unconvinced that it would work as the ice cream flavor in a float, for example. Vanilla? So long as the other flavor is sweet, it will work.