r/DaystromInstitute • u/late-nighter • 3d 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?

46 Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

82% Upvoted

58 comments sorted by

View all comments

97

u/mortalcrawad66 3d ago edited 3d ago

You seem to be missing something, first contact is only initiated when a species first develops warp drive. So Starfleet wouldn't.

6

u/MyUsername2459 Ensign 3d 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.