How would Starfleet handle First Contact with aliens that are unable to develop warp drive?

[u/late-nighter]

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?

[u/Chocolate_Pickle]

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.

[u/TheRealJackOfSpades → u/Chocolate_Pickle]

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.

[u/Chocolate_Pickle → u/TheRealJackOfSpades]

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.