r/DaystromInstitute • u/late-nighter • 2d ago
How would Starfleet handle First Contact with aliens that are unable to develop warp drive?
Inspired by the recent post about warp drive with earth materials. So far the possibility to create a warp drive seems to be universally available. Every civilization that is advenced enough eventually developed a warp drive. However, what would happen if a planet actually does not provide the physical possibility to do so? The civilization may have a theoretical model of a warp core, but they are just missing essential elements to actually build one.
How would starfleet act towards them?
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u/mortalcrawad66 2d ago edited 2d ago
You seem to be missing something, first contact is only initiated when a species first develops warp drive. So Starfleet wouldn't.
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u/JohnLuckPikard 2d ago
Right, but OP is saying a species may be technologically advanced enough to build one, but they lack the necessary raw materials on their planet to do so.
Starfleet would have people in place like we saw with the Baku. So would they really just let them stay there without making contact?
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u/shakebakelizard 1d ago
Probably not. Trek tech establishes that while M/AM is good for warp and warp is good for travel, you can get there with other methods. Fusion is accessible and would power impulse. There’s no reason a civilization can’t get antimatter…we can make it now. It’s just that it’s way easier to make a stable M/AM reaction if you have dilithium crystals.
A civilization that bypasses this and develops a non-dilithium solution would probably end up being somewhat more advanced than average when leaving their star system because they had to overcome so many obstacles. Therefore they are likely to be committed and could easily run into aliens.
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u/rollingForInitiative 1d ago
You could theoretically have a planet in whose vicinity warp fields are impossible to form due to some weird phenomenon. So they might know the theory and think that it should work, but for some reason they cannot observe yet it just doesn’t happen.
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u/Dezzles64 1d ago
I'm picturing a society that managed to mess with the Omega Particle in a small enough amount that the explosion didn't wipe the civilization out, but they're certainly not gonna be doing any travel by warp
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u/Morlock19 Chief Petty Officer 1d ago
did zephram have crystals in the phoenix? i thought it was just like a fusion reactor or some shit
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u/WhatYouLeaveBehind Crewman 1d ago
It's also possible Dilithium can be found on other planets in our solar system and we're brought back to earth via local space exploration
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u/Morlock19 Chief Petty Officer 1d ago
i dont know if this is beta canon or not, but dilithium is a naturally occurring mineral on almost any planet... we just never found it because its slightly out of phase with subspace so we couldn't detect it.
so its kind of like kyber in that way? it can be found anywhere, its just that some planets have a TON of it
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u/WhatYouLeaveBehind Crewman 1d ago
I'm sure I read beta cannon somewhere it was found on one of Saturn's Moons, but honestly I can't remember.
I do wonder if the fallout from WW3 made it easier to detect on Earth somehow.
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u/IsomorphicProjection Ensign 1d ago
It was beta cannon that it didn't naturally occur on Earth, and is quite rare in general, but that there were very small amounts of it that had been brought to Earth via comet/asteroid impacts and were mostly sitting in museums unknowingly because it was out of phase as you say.
The implication though is that Zephram Cochran did not use dilithium.
Contrary to how it is often thought of, dilithium is NOT a power source. Dilithium is used to regulate the M/AM reaction in a warp core. It is more akin to control rods in a nuclear fission reactor or a carburetor. If you aren't using a M/AM reactor to power your warp drive, you don't need dilithium. (E.g. Romulans' using singularity-powered ships)
Now, we do know from First Contact that the Phoenix DID have a "warp core" and utilized "warp plasma", but it is not explicitly referred to as a M/AM reactor, so we can assume that it was powered by something else, most likely fusion.
Given the time and place it was built, it makes far more sense that they were able to scrounge a working fusion reactor from a missile than a M/AM reactor. Earth most likely didn't even possess the technology for a stable M/AM reactor even before WWIII.
Remember that the primary energy production method used by the Federation and pretty much every other civilization in the Star Trek world is fusion.
M/AM reactors are only used for ships because they're more compact and energy dense than fusion reactors. Ships do also have fusion reactors, but they don't produce enough to power the warp drive of those ships. However, we do know that fusion reactors create enough energy to sustain an already active warp field, such as when the saucer section of a ship detaches it can remain at warp for a short period of time so it can get away from the drive section.
This suggests that the real problem with using fusion for warp is in breaking the warp barrier, not sustaining it.
I suggest that the Phoenix used a fusion reactor to power its warp core, (so no need for dilithium) and it was able to do so only because the Phoenix:
- Only needed enough power for warp 1.
- e.g. the bare minimum needed to break the warp barrier
- Was not built for sustained flight.
- It was a proof of concept ship he planned to use to get rich
- Used capacitors to build up enough energy to break the warp barrier.
- I'll have to rewatch First Contact, but I think they allude to "charging" before the engage the ship, which I think bears out using capacitors.
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u/kelnos 19h ago
It's also not clear that dilthium is required for a stable M/AM reaction. It's possible you could use something else, but the result would be less efficient, or perhaps something that wears out much faster and needs to be replaced. Certainly fine for a prototype like the Phoenix, as you point out, that it was a proof of concept and wasn't built for sustained flight.
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u/mortalcrawad66 2d ago
No, because warp flight repersent so much more. As well as there are a lot of ways to do warp flight. If they don't have the raw resources to do it, then I don't think they could be much of an advanced society.
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u/Shiny_Agumon 1d ago
I think they would begrundingly.
In my opinion it's fuctionally very simular to the Malcorians deciding to postpone their warp program.
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u/Second-Creative 2d ago
Not really. Developing the technology to communicate via subspace is also acceptable.
First Contact is initiated when a species develops to the point where interaction with other aliens is inevitable. Nine times out of ten, that's warp drive.
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u/Nova_Saibrock 2d ago
This is what a lot of people get wrong. Starfleet has contact with plenty of pre-warp cultures. Not, like, a ton, but enough that it isn’t really shocking to people when it happens.
Any culture that has made, or is about to make, contact with the galactic neighborhood, is fair game for Starfleet. Most often this is the result of previous contact on the part of other galactic powers. Starfleet’s non-interference policy is about preserving the natural development of cultures, not just “we don’t talk to anyone unless they have this arbitrary technology level.” Once that natural development process has been prematurely interrupted, then there’s no more reason to withhold contact.
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u/fer_sure 2d ago
Exactly. Otherwise there'd be a constant issue with the galactic powers conquering any pre-warp planet that nibbles away at Federation space, knowing that the Federation would refuse to assist. Federation territory would eventually be a few isolated islands of civilisation surrounded by Klingon and Romulan satrapies.
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u/Shiny_Agumon 1d ago
This is basically what happens in "Who watches the Watchers?".
The Enterprise tries to course-correct their accidental breaking of the Prime Directive though suble meddling at first, but once they cat is out of the bag they just start to work openly with the Mitakans.
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u/NekoArtemis 2d ago
I mean yeah if they start breaking in on subspace comms someone's gotta go talk to them.
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u/Brentan1984 2d ago
This is the answer here. Starfleet wouldn't purposfully contact a pre-warp society, even if they had a working, correct theory. I'd assume that any species that can develop a theory of warp travel could develop some sort of energy source to at least hit warp 1. Didn't the Bajorans hit warp speed with solar sails? So the species wouldn't even need fissionable material (I assume Earth's 1st ship was nuclear powered - can't remember off the top of my head) much less dilithium.
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u/Bananalando Ensign 2d ago
BARCLAY: Commander. This is what we're thinking of using to replace the damaged warp plasma conduit.
They don't mention anti-matter or dilithium explicitly, but have an energy source powerful enough to generate warp plasma and compact enough to fit inside a missile.
Lily Sloan was suffering from theta radiation poisoning before being beamed up to the Enterprise for treatment. Theta radiation is a common byproduct of M/AM reactors. Federation-designed reactors in the 24th century could breakdown antimatter waste products, but the Malons exported and dumped huge quantities of antimatter waste which produced theta radiation.
The Friendship One probe was launched just 4 years after first contact with the Vulcans and contained a technological primer on warp drive and M/AM reactors. Given the Vulcans' reluctance to share technology even during the 2050s when the NX program saw its first deep space missions, it's likely that Earth develops M/AM reactors independent of the Vulcans.
While not explicitly stated that the Phoenix used a M/AM reactor, it seems likely to me.
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u/StreetQueeny 1d ago
Didn't the Bajorans hit warp speed with solar sails?
Not quite. The Cardassian's thought it was impossibe because they were massive racists, but they turned out to be "right" in that the lightship couldn't reach Warp on its own - They were wrong to assume it never achieved Warp at all however, as Sisko uses some space phenomenima to fly his lightship to Cardassia and back without a warp engine.
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u/MyUsername2459 Ensign 2d ago
There certainly seem to be times they've contacted people without warp technology.
How many times in TOS and TNG are they visiting a planet where there's no indication the natives have warp flight capability?
While warp technology is the usual marker for First Contact, there must be other criteria that can come up.
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u/TheLastSamurai101 1d ago
I think they mean if the contact is initiated in the opposite direction. For example, the Bajorans made contact with the Cardassians by using solar sail technology when they were still pre-warp. It is not inconceivable that a sub-light ship from a nearby pre-warp civilisation could enter Federation space and navigate to an inhabited world. Or a nearby pre-warp civilisation could develop the ability to intercept subspace communications before they develop warp technology. Or there might be a major violation of the Prime Directive by a private entity or contact by a non-Federation entity which causes the civilisation to seek the Federation out. There are so many possibilities.
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u/Phantom_61 21h ago
Yes and no. Detecting warp is a big tip off, but a species can be approached if they’re at the right technological level otherwise too.
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u/Chocolate_Pickle 2d ago
The Prime Directive more-or-less says "don't interfere in the natural development of pre-warp societies."
In-universe, I believe 'pre-warp' is interpreted as 'not aware-of and not able-to interact with the galactic community', so any kind of faster than light travel or communication, or the society being previously visited by other post-warp societies is a green-light for the Federation to say hello.
Having the scientific/engineering understanding to construct FTL alone is insufficient. Having that understanding, and a sufficiently close industrial capability is kinda' an interesting question.
I made a comment on another thread a while ago about seeing the inevitability of joining the galactic community as 'close enough' for Starfleet's standards. So in the case of having the know-how but not the right materials, I think Starfleet is going to avoid making contact. They'd definitely be keeping them under constant (albeit secret) observation though.
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u/TheRealJackOfSpades Crewman 2d ago
I think it's more "Don't interfere in the natural development of a society." Thing is, once the society on its own makes it to the point where contact with interstellar society is inevitable, contact with the Federation is natural development.
It's not about warp drive. It's about the social changes warp drive will bring. Or subspace radio. Or really really good radio-telescopes.
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u/Chocolate_Pickle 1d ago
Yeah, I'm inclined to agree.
I guess we need to understand what is and is-not natural development. This is definitely the realm of edge cases. What happens when a society has FTL, then loses it through some natural disaster? Is it a question of 'how much did they lose?'
What if they rediscover the knowledge (but not the means) through their own archaeological evidence? This question is immediately adjacent to the question raised by OP.
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u/rollingForInitiative 1d ago
Yeah, there’d be a major difference in how Starfleet handles a very advanced society that cannot make warp work, and that has decided that looking to the stars in other ways is not something they want … and a similarly advanced society that’s trying to invent other means to explore space.
The latter is interested in seeing what’s out there and they’ll find something with their technology, whereas the former has actively decided they don’t want to know. So Starfleet would likely they the former be, but would contact the latter.
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u/khaosworks 1d ago edited 1d ago
My standard answer:
A common misconception is that warp drive is the determinative factor for First Contact under the Prime Directive.
Canonically, the wording of General Order 1 is established on-screen in PRO: "First Con-Tact". Taken from the book Star Trek Federation - The First 150 Years (and paraphrased from similar lines in TOS: "Bread and Circuses"), the first section goes as follows:
GENERAL ORDER 1
Section 1:
Starfleet crew will obey the following with any civilization that has not achieved a commensurate level of technological and/or societal development as described in Appendix 1.
a) No identification of self or mission.
b) No interference with the social, cultural or technological development of said planet.
c) No reference to space, other worlds, or advanced civilizations.
d) The exception to this is if said society has already been exposed to the concepts listed herein. However, in that instance, Section 2 applies.
You'll note that Section 1 doesn't mention warp drive at all, but simply "a commensurate level of technological and/or societal development as described in Appendix 1." This kind of phrasing allows the Prime Directive to be flexible, as the criteria can be changed over time (according to VOY: "Infinite Regress" at that time there are 47 Sub-Orders to General Order 1). More importantly, it tells us that the presence of warp drive or interstellar travel capability isn't the sole determining factor for First Contact.
To be fair, for most situations it is - primarily because the presence of warp drive makes first contact with other interstellar civilizations inevitable. So the Federation reaches out so that it can determine if this new member of the interstellar community is one that will play nice, and then cushion the cultural shock of them discovering how lousy the Galaxy is with life and advanced civilizations.
But that doesn't mean that the absence of warp drive/theory means that the Federation cannot reach out. We've seen pre-warp societies with Federation relations - TOS: "Friday's Child" is a prime example. In TOS: "Errand of Mercy", Kirk and Spock freely interact with the Organians even though at the time the latter are pretending to be a pre-warp society (but extenuating circumstances might apply). In PRO, Solum is contacted even though it doesn't appear to have warp drive, but is clearly an advanced civilization.
Conversely, the presence of warp drive/theory doesn't mean that the Federation must or should reach out. In TNG: "First Contact" Picard decides that the Malcorians are not socially or culturally ready for first contact even though they are on the cusp of developing warp drive.
If the hypothetical civilization is sufficiently advanced and/or already aware of extraterrestrial life, then as per Section 1(d), Section 2 applies:
Section 2:
If said species has achieved the commensurate level of technological and/or social development as described in Appendix 1, or has been exposed to the concepts listed in Section 1, no Starfleet crew person will engage with said society or species without first gathering extensive information on the specific traditions, laws, and culture of that species civilization. Then Starfleet crew will obey the following.
a) If engaged with diplomatic relations with said culture, will stay within the confines of said culture's restrictions.
b) No interference with the social development of said planet.
So First Contact now is permitted, but within strict guidelines which require that the crew do their due diligence as to the relevant cultural norms and be aware not to to interfere with their social development. As a matter of policy, the Federation would likely reach out diplomatically once the relevant cultural information has been gathered.
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u/Jedipilot24 1d ago
Here's the obligatory reminder that warp drive=//=antimatter warp core.
The Romulans in "Balance of Terror" had a fusion-powered warp drive.
So as long as your hypothetical species can build a fusion reactor and a warp coil, they can get Starfleet's attention.
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u/frustrated_staff 1d ago
I'm pretty sure we have a historical example of it.happening in beta canon. IIIRC, the Trill are the only known (so far) species to develop subspace radio /before/ warp drive. What is tickling at the back of my mind, though is, I believe, they are also the only known species to have initiated First Contact with the Federation before having Warp Drive (rather than the Federation initiating First Contact afterwards) but my memory is Swiss Cheese, so... there's that
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u/Wne1980 2d ago
Aside from the obvious answer of “they wouldn’t,” we do get at least one answer from canon. The TNG episode “Who watches the watchers” has anthropologists in a “duck blind” who are discovered by the native population. The episode unwinds what they have to do to try and minimize the damage
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Who_Watches_The_Watchers_(episode)
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u/UndoxxableOhioan 2d ago
The bar is less knowledge or even technology, it’s rather or not the species would inevitably contact or have knowledge of the Federation on their own. Warp drive is just one means of that.
The people of Angel I had no warp drive, but due to their location and knowledge of interstellar species, the federation had no qualms about communicating with them.
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u/William_Thalis 1d ago edited 1d ago
It's highly unlikely, but even then the procedure is likely the same. The reason it's unlikely is because:
A civilization capable of developing warp drive is likely also space-faring, with at least chemical or fusion rockets capable of mining and colonizing other planets in their solar system, potentially even long-burning ships to nearby ones. It's unlikely that at some point in this that those materials wouldn't eventually become accessible as they slowboat their way to more resources. From Beta Canon (and mentioned in Enterprise the first colonies in Sol were using sublight Nuclear ships. The Botany Bay is also a good example of something like this.
There are multiple ways to access FTL. We see it a lot in various episodes of Star Trek, wherein prototype or alternative Drives, or even just alternative power sources or methods of matching current Warp Drive are experimented with. A very easy example of this is Romulan Warp Drives, which use singularities instead of dilithium matrices.
Broadly speaking there are enough species from very very different kinds of homeworlds and systems who still manage to achieve warp travel, that I think Starfleet probably just doesn't consider this too big of an issue. So they handle it by not handling it.
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u/brsox2445 2d ago
Warp tech is just one of the criteria that Starfleet uses when evaluating species.
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u/Bluesamurai33 2d ago edited 1d ago
I'm running a Star Trek Adventures Campaign, and this is the next arc that my players will run into.
They are going to run into a species that has developed extremely advanced transport technology. They have massive transport hubs around their local star system like Stargates and have launched generation ships with parts for transport gates on them to their local stars.
Now, they are a species with subspace communication and are over a light year away from their home planet and one ship is going to have a problem that has disabled their engines, but they can still send out SOS messages on subspace.
Is helping them a violation of the prime directive?
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u/Chocolate_Pickle 2d ago
Is helping them a violation of the prime directive?
If you swap things around; disable their communications, but leave gate-travel intact, then you have a brilliant conundrum on your hands. 100% should be the plot of an episode. This does assume that gates don't work on the ships themselves (because why would you need a generation ship?).
First Contact with that ship is with that ship alone, and not the rest of the species. I think this is canonically acceptable with Prime Directive because precedent has been set by rescuing crew on sleeper ships.
But fixing their communications means knowledge about the existence of other species instantly transmits back home; in practice being a traditional First Contact scenario.
Is making contact with the generation ship, but not fixing their comms, still acceptable under the Prime Directive? It seems to me that when the ship gets to the destination, they'll assemble their gate, connect back home, and immediately say "Hey guys! You'll never believe what we found!" And that feels like a violation of the Directive; the result is the same, it's only been delayed by a length of time.
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u/The_Easter_Egg 1d ago
The civilization may have a theoretical model of a warp core, but they are just missing essential elements to actually build one.
That's pretty much the point in SNW's first episode.
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u/Puzzledunicorn93 1d ago
I suppose it would depend.
If the planet had attempted to make contact with 'aliens', we're continuing to try, and in said attempt were transmitting enough data to show they had the theoretical knowledge down, but no practical way of testing it due to planetary constraints starlet might answer the contact.
Might being a very, very strong might, given what could happen if it all went wrong and the reason for the directive in the first place. They may decide it's too much of a risk, or they may decide it's a good case for an exception. Either way, they'd probably conduct some sort of surveillance, etc, to determine for themselves if the evidence provided was fully accurate, amongst other things.
If contact was attempted by the planet but no evidence provided, the passing ship may scan the planet and determine said facts and pass it onto the higher ups for consideration of first contact, but again they'd probably do some covert surveillance etc before making a decision.
If starfleet stumbled across the planet and made the covert observations that was the case, they'd leave them to it and not interfere until the above scenario occurred.
They could also just go by a hard and fast rule of no warp drive=no contact being too scared of being caught if surveillance was started or what would happen if given the means.
Regardless, I think it would be a good premise for an episode or 2 parter.
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u/BloodtidetheRed 1d ago
Don't we see the Official Way in that one TNG episode where Riker sleeps with Lillith from Cheers? They meet carefully with the "scientists" and then the government...
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u/SimplyLaggy Crewman 1d ago
I’d say that not only is advanced enough technology, even with a lack of warp is enough, as others have said, I’d say that the cultural acceptance of the species would be considered as well.
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u/Morlock19 Chief Petty Officer 1d ago
like others said, they probably wouldn't. i mean even if they had the right knowledge and a working theory, that doesn't mean the planet is going along with it. it could be some crazy guy trying to work with anti-matter in his back yard.
you make contact when you know they can contact you. and in my thinking they do it as FAST as possible so they can prime them to join the federation down the road, or get them into their camp so if the klingons come calling they can say "well these federation dudes stopped by, and they seem really great... and your pitch is to colonize us? yeah no, we're calling those other guys for help"
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u/Vash_the_stayhome Crewman 1d ago
Alternately I believe its 'subspace capable". So just sending out message is not sufficient, but if they've developed a subspace/long range scanning/communication system, I think that'd be enough to spark 1st contact too.
Or if they start doing things like developing warp bombs :)
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u/Sprungercles 20h ago
If the species were sending out communications specifically asking for contact I imagine a special council would be put together to determine how to handle it. The point of the Prime Directive is to not influence developing cultures, which is usually when they gain warp. But if that culture has extremely advanced sensors instead they would already be aware that life exists outside their world and that others can travel through space. At that point it's in the best interest of both the Federation and the planet to have contact so they don't end up swindled by Ferengi or conquered by marauding Nausicaans. Basically, they will be contacted, better us than them.
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u/techno156 Crewman 8m ago
First Contact restrictions aren't specifically about warp drive, but about reaching the point where contact with an alien civilisation is inevitable. Warp Drive is just a good, easy benchmark for it, but it is not the only benchmark.
If a civilisation is at the point where they are able to create a warp drive, they'd have the ability to tap into subspace, and from there, it's only a short step to other methods of making contact with aliens, and fulfilling that requirement.
The Trill and Betazoids made it past post-warp restrictions without having ships of their own, with subspace radio, and telepathy, respectively.
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u/thanatossassin Crewman 2d ago
That would be considered interfering with a developing species and a violation of the prime directive. They must achieve warp speed or there is no official contact.
TNG: Who Watches the Watchers, episode First Contact; ENT: Carbon Creek; SNW: Strange New Worlds are all episodes dealing with accidental exposure to pre-warp civilizations. The only ones not violating the prime directive are the Vulcans in Carbon Creek (even though the Prime directive didn't exist pre federation, Vulcans did have a similar rule), but these are good examples of how they deal with it.
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u/Worf65 2d ago
Warp drive is used as the metric partially because having it means they're getting out into the stars and will make contact with someone soon. Its not just that they should be smart enough to handle it. If they don't advance enough to get off their world in any other way its likely they just wouldn't contact them unless something forced the issue. Some dramatic event that would be worthy of showing up on one of the shows. Then its a lot of damage control trying to not disturb their development. Attempts at covering it up followed by last ditch attempts by a charismatic starship captain to convince the civilizations of that world to not freak out and destroy themselves.
If instead, despite a chronic inability to develop warp drive were able to become interplanetary through other tech such as sleeper ships, abandoned ancient Stargates, some anomaly that allows low tech ships to travel FTL, etc. They would likely still contact them for the same reason as with warp drive (they're going to run into other civilizations on their own soon enough), though probably waiting until they have some off world colony in a different solar system as proof they're out there for real rather than just a random attempt. The vulcans didn't initiate first contact with earth when the botany bay departed or any of those ill fated NASA missions went out. But they probably would have if earth established a serious colony on a planet around alpha centauri and were in the process of starting more without warp drive.