Violating the Prime Directive

Mother and Father have decided to have a serious discussion with Dolly and Minerva about the Arrow family. "They seem to be fine people and very amusing," says Father, "but there are boundaries that should not be crossed.  Most of us in the world of publications travel a bit and experience life from a different perspective. I have no problem with this. I, myself, have divided much of my time between periodicals, and if it were not for that, I would not have met your dear mother."

Mother smiled. "What a good move it was, dear James! I could have spent my whole life in that morbid religious tract, a sad victim of the Gin Craze. But there you were, and you welcomed me into the lovely world of Ackermann's Repository."

"I could have settled you into Vetusta Monumenta,my dear, " replied Father, "but there are so few women there! And Ackermann's Repository is the best life one could ask for. But back to the subject," he turned to the girls, "the one hard and fast rule, the Prime Directive, is that we do not bring our world into another publication. We do not interfere or even identify ourselves. That is what the Arrows have done, without any regard for the effect on the Space-Time Continuum. History has proven again and again that whenever mankind interferes with a less developed civilization, no matter how well-intentioned that interference may be, the results are inevitably disastrous."

Dolly and Minerva looked down in shamed silence. They had been such willing victims.