"Do you ever think that we should adopt the Prime Directive?"

Carson's the only one who looks up, although he's frowning.

"We've not got warp capabilities either, so we're not technically breaking the Prime Directive." John frowns a little himself, then shrugs. "And besides," Carson continues after a few minutes, "most planets we've come across have already had experience of the Wraith, so it's not like we're doing anything that's not already been done."

John shrugs again.

"I don't know," he murmurs, looking over to Teyla who's scrunched up in the corner of the sofa, hogging a bowl of popcorn viciously. "I never thought about it until we started this marathon but we do trade with less advanced communities."

Teyla glances over to them then, nudges her feet against John's calf.

"You would have us left unprotected?"

John shrugs, knows that he should back down because even he doesn't truly believe what he's preaching but there's something niggling in the back of his mind, something that refuses to let him let it go.

"It's not that. I mean… Would the Deltoran society have evolved to include the cure for TB? Would the Bghazi have ever created weapons like the P-90s we gave them in exchange for access to the Mthly plant? I mean, we don't even need to worry about them reverse engineering any of it because they wouldn't even know how. What right do we have to barge in completely screw up their culture's evolution?"

"I maintain that-"

"It's like what the British did to build their Empire. They went to less advanced places, told them that their way of life was wrong and imposed their own on it and look at how Empires are viewed now." He glances around the silenced room, to the paused Star Trek Original Series on the viewscreen before them. "Are we really just building a human – western civilization – empire out here?"

"You're saying you'd rather leave them to the Wraith?"

John shakes his head, even as he can see Ronon and Teyla still beside him at Carson's question.

"No. No. But what use is a couple of P-90s in the grand scheme of things? If a Wraith Hive goes to one of those planets, a P-90 isn't going to shoot it out of the Sky."

"What would you have us do? We have little else to offer."

John groans, scrubs his hand across his face and glares at the warming bottle of beer in his hand.

"I don't know." He shrugs. "It's just something to think about, I guess."

The silence that follows is uneasy, and John gets the feeling that he's kicked the hornets' nest. That he's started something that he isn't sure he wants to see concluded. The last thing the Pegasus Galaxy needs is for the Atlantis expedition to get any more conservative than it already is. Especially not as a results of his slightly drunken ponderings.

It takes a while but finally Rodney presses play on his tablet, the retrofitted viewer displaying Kirk running across screen in another torn shirt, Spock and McCoy not far behind. And John wants to comment on that, on the ridiculousness of the whole command team beaming down to an unknown planet but he knows hypocrisy when he sees it; Rodney's the best scientist on Atlantis, John the highest ranked officer, Teyla the leader of their closest ally and Ronon the best source of Pegasus tactics.

At least Woolsey stays on the ship.

He's still troubled, still wondering if he should petition for some kind of Prime Directive, even as another part of him wars that beggars can't be choosers and while he may not like it, the Atlantis expedition can use all the help it can get.

Teyla tucks her feet under his thigh, wiggling her toes to get his attention. He smiles slightly, reaching down to hold her warm ankle.

He contents himself with the knowledge that Kirk broke the Prime Directive almost ever episode.

Later

"And now that I think about it, we should practice the Vulcan IDIC!"

Everyone groans, and Teyla kicks out at him even as Carson calls from the corner; "someone take that beer away from him!"