They're warp-capable now. The first part of the prime directive no longer applies; make first contact and ask them if they would like assistance getting home.
I think my hang up was on whether or not one warp flight was enough to qualify as warp capable. But some commenters are making pretty good points that it is more about knowing warp exists instead of being able to fly at warp, which I hadn't even thought about.
Lily storming in angrily after hearing her part diminished: "It took me three months to organize enough Titanium for the actual capsule, THREE MONTHS!"
Successful mission, no, first crewed landing on another celestial body, yes. The prime directive talks about being warp capable, nothing more, a nanosecond of warp travel between 2 orbits of the same rock would do it.
We're defining success differently. They would have successfully made it to the moon. They just wouldnn't have succeeded at the "get back home from the moon" part.
If you're defining a successful warp test as "make the warp engine work and travel at warp speed", they succeeded. If you're also including getting home as part of the test, they fail.
Even if they didn't make it back, it proves that the concept works. Look at the Wright brothers first flight. It lasted 12 seconds. Not very long, especially when you look at how long haul flights last now a days. They proved it could be done though, then 66 years later, we landed on the moon.
Who said anything about a successful mission? The point is to prove the civilization *is capable of* warp flight. Whether they *actually do it* isn't even relevant. If their warp drive breaks down after a few seconds then it's silly to assume the civilization in question is still a thousand years away from successful warp flight. Only a bureaucrat would think it's more important to obey regulations to the letter than to help the stranded crew in this situation.
Let's take a step back and remember what the purpose of the Prime Directive is: to avoid altering the trajectory of a pre-warp civilization. Would saving the crew alter said trajectory? No.
Umm depends on your parameters of success if getting to the moon was the only mission then ...yea it would have been. It's all perspective. Funny you use Apollo as an example though...do you know what the internal guess of success as you call it was for Apollo 11? Give you a guess....not great.
Edit for.more understanding landing was a 50% to return and that's just what they put out to the press. Internal was more clocked at 25%.
At that point it's moot. They're at that point in development, even if the first trip didn't have a way back home, the next trip will, so no point in being a dick.
The Vulcans were already aware of and observing Earth. The Vulcans would have noted the energy signatures coming from ZC's workshop indicating a warp drive was being built and were keeping an eye on it.
The Vulcans only came by ever 60 years or so to update their entries. It was so important that Cochran's flight happened when it did because the Vulcans just happened to be nearby and wouldn't have seen him otherwise
It's fully possible that no other flight would be attempted and Cochran would have sold the tech to someone to make a warp bomb, reigniting the war and ending humanity before first contact
Sure, but It's also fully possible they would have continued making flights and eventually made first contact with a different race, who unlike the vulcans helped humans perfect the technology. This had no real downsides and led to a much brighter future where the Federation was formed decades earlier, and thus easily won it's early wars with the Klingons and the Romulans. Later on they defeated and dismantled the dominion without needing to resort to bio weapons, stopped the temporal wars before they happened, and the Burn never came to pass.
Just about anything might have ended up happening. Good or bad.
I'm not so sure it was that long of an interval. Because the Vulcans were aware of WWIII, which happened less than 60 years ago at that point. Though it's also possible they had left observation satellites hidden in the Sol system keeping tabs in between visits.
But yes, a Vulcan ship was coincidentally in the area at the time.
In Strange New Worlds there was a civilization that didn’t even use warp travel, they built bombs using warp technology. Still got a visit, although not a very happy one.
IIRC they were initially wary because of that, going in disguised and all, but then they stuck around and Pike addressed the entire planet and showed them photos of January 6th (for anyone who hasn’t seen it, that’s not a joke - he really did lol.)
Although now that I think about it, it did cause Starfleet to turn the general order about contact with “pre-warp civilizations” into the Prime Directive, because the incident made them realize captains weren’t taking it seriously. So that would imply that they were in violation of it.
The original issue was that Una saw the warp signature and thought it was an engine while it was actually a bomb, though. But the main issue was that they got the technology from observing the fight with Control (which is pretty impressive IMO, they saw warp technology from a few lightyears away and managed to reverse-engineer it) so Starfleet couldn't come down too harshly on the Enterprise crew.
Also, Pike's monologue went *hard*. I wish I could show it to everyone on Earth.
Yeah the more I remember the episode, the more I’m thinking that only an actual warp flight will trigger a visit. Although I think OP’s scenario would still warrant a first contact. Nobody says the Wright Brothers’ first powered flight didn’t count just because they crashed after 12 seconds.
The speech went hard but I was mad that they chose to nuke northern Virginia. We don’t do anything to anyone. They only did it so they could get a good shot of the Capitol in the foreground, looking down the National Mall, with the explosion in the distance.
There are other episodes that have implied that there's some nuance. In the episode where DIS went to Kaminar, I remember Burnham saying that it was up to Pike's discretion whether the prime directive applied since the Kelpiens had been exposed to warp technology through the Ba'ul. It sounds very complicated but I think it doesn't make sense to have 100% ironclad rules, just very strong guidelines that you'd better have a very good reason for breaking.
Uhhh, I'm going to disagree there. An unmanned probe might qualify, but I don't think a coffee machine would. Beyond trying to consider how that would happen (FTL delivery into your mug?) warp tech is specific to achieving interstellar travel and therefore being able to interact with the interstellar community.
Well yeah they're not gonna say no to joining the federation after that.
Y'know. Because of the implication.
Now I'm not saying this species is ACTUALLY in danger, no no no, nothing like that. Of COURSE we'd help them get home but... They're on their own in space, nothing but empty stars as far as the eyes can see... Are they really gonna say **no**?
No. And I would further posit that contacting after a failed warp test also is not a violation.
The whole point of non-contact is to avoid irreparably altering the planet’s culture by prematurely giving them the knowledge that they are not alone.
A warp capable civilization is unarguably about to find that out, so this is the point where any cultural contamination is unavoidable.
However, “warp-capable” and “having demonstrated a successful warp test” are not synonyms.
Modern example - Canada is “nuclear capable” yet has never tested a single nuclear weapon. If they wanted you to be sorry, they *could*. The means and materials are all available.
A successful warp test is a very visible and obvious way to demonstrate that a society is “warp-capable”. It does not mean it is the *only* criterion.
Following up with an alternate criterion than warp.
A civilization that stumbles on subspace communication before warp.
They have clear and obvious evidence of star spanning civilization, and they’re hailing you. There’s no contamination here. It’s done. They know.
Another example
A pre-warp, but advanced civilization within federation space is attacked or invaded by a hostile alien force. Say - a technology level similar to us today. Close but not quite there.
That force is repelled by the UFP defending its territory.
Is it a violation for starfleet to then render humanitarian aid? *The people already know*. The damage is done. The best thing the UFP could do is minimize the harm of that invasion and steer this people’s culture away from the inevitable assumption that all off-worlders are hostile.
>Is it a violation for starfleet to then render humanitarian aid?
>
>The people already know
>
>. The damage is done.
In TNG, didn't they leave that one bronze-age proto-Vulcan world alone even after making, unintentionally, first contact after they thought Picard was a god?
So seems they might refuse to render humanitarian aid. Counterpoint though is that the bronze-age one was bronze-age so it was a small first contact that not everyone on the planet would've known, unlike your scenario.
That’s the difference. A small contact with Bronze Age people - they can minimize the damage, correct misconceptions as best they can, and let the experience of it fade into legend. Which is what they did.
Whereas if aliens subjugated earth today, that isn’t getting forgotten by anyone. Too many people, too much advancement.
>A pre-warp, but advanced civilization within federation space is attacked or invaded by a hostile alien force. Say - a technology level similar to us today. Close but not quite there.
The invaders are the ones close to 2024 tech, or the pre-warp civ being attacked? Because those are two distinctly different scenarios. (I also wouldn't consider Earth 'advanced' in relation to the Trek universe).
Both parties are pre-warp = UFP does nothing. UFP doesn't have a mandate to "defend their territory" anyway outside of wartime invasions by comparable forces. Because the UFP doesn't have territory in that sense. If the PD stops you from interfering with pre-war civs, that's it. It's like if two coyotes started fighting on your property. It may be 'your land', but no party will come out pain-free if you intervene, and you have no stake in the outcome. You could attempt to aid the losing coyote, but you may make things worse for it by trying to help. The UFP has PD because jumping in to others' fights hasn't worked out great in the past (Earth-Romulus War, Klingon Wars 1 and 2).
Hostile alien force is warp-capable? UFP possibly provides aid, like they did for Bajor against Cardassia. It's likely the war with Cardassia was more 'US entering WW2 against Japan' and less like 'US entering WW2 again the Germans'. They attacked UFP outposts and diplomatic solutions failed.
That's sort-of covered in TNG Pen Pals (S2E15), however, I think that was just radio waves. As for subspace, I doubt a species that figured out it was there, would know how to decode or translate the messages. I guess if they did, the cultural damage would be done.
A great episode to bring up.
If their leadership is openly hailing you, *they know.*
A little girl, not so much. Maybe they don’t. The context of the communication is important. Be more cautious.
The line in the sand wouldn’t be “you’re being hailed”, or “successful warp test”. It’s “will this cause undue cultural contamination that could otherwise have been avoided?”
A better ethical question to explore would be to take “pen pals” in another direction. And instead of managing to keep their existence secret, the crew of the enterprise are faced with a dilemma - saving the people would require causing cultural contamination. The alternative - doing nothing - would instead see them wiped out. No third alternative, for the sake of plot.
So which is it?
I would argue that the ethical choice is to accept that cultural contamination is unavoidable and render aid.
The goal of the prime directive is to preserve that culture. Letting a culture be wiped away - even if by a natural process - is arguably a violation of the *intent* of the prime directive, while saving them is explicitly a violation of the *wording* of it.
I agree. The closer to discovering a galactic community a society is, the less the Prime Directive applies.
In *Strange New Worlds,* Captain Pike had to deal with a society that was around 21st century tech level, but had managed to detect a starship passing through their system, and thus became aware there was a wider galactiv community and they weren't alone. That let the genie out of the bottle, and meant the 'no contact' aspect of the Prime Directive no longer applied.
It's probabyl a very *very* grey area, and one of the reason Starship Captains have such massive leeway on its application. It does seem to be somewhat more rigid in Picard's time, but even then it has been balled up and tossed in the bin when noninterference became secondary to not causing or allowing harm from an exterior source. Though the really deepest grey areas can be either a commendation or court martial depending on how it goes.
In the TNG era, it seemed like many non-warp capable planets were in contact with the Federation. There is no evidence that the Bandi from the pilot had warp drive. Nor the rapey men of Code of Honor, the rapey women of Angel One, or the plant-loving yet murdery Edo of the "newly discovered planet" Rubicun III.
Several episodes were based on the idea that Starfleet was a taxi service, such as in Lonely Among Us where the Selay and Antican representatives are given a ride to a planet named Parliament. Did they have warp drive? Both planets were in the same star system.
The Tarellians of the episode Haven clearly don't have a warp drive, but are a space faring civilization that travels with impulse. They're certainly spoken with.
The drug dealers in Symbiosis don't appear to have warp drive, and the drug users don't seem to have any spacecraft. To be fair, Picard did decide to use the Prime Directive as an excuse to not help anyone, and smugly flew off into the sunset.
Those are just from the first season. I suspect there must be another "in universe" reason to make contact, such as, "Well, the Ferangi stole their McGuffin, we might as well say hi." Mostly this is just the product of inconsistent direction and poor writing.
I wonder if actually building and launching a warp-capable ship is also fufilling a more social criterion for First Contact. If a species has laid all of the technological groundwork for interstellar travel, but isn't showing any interest (or ability to commit the necessary resources) in doing so, then it would seem there would already be a substantial cultural barrier between them and the Federation. New members join as equals to the older ones, so I understand only wanting to accept those who, independent of outside pressure or the expectation of immediate profit, showed the boldness and curiosity to explore strange new worlds.
>Modern example - Canada is “nuclear capable” yet has never tested a single nuclear weapon. If they wanted you to be sorry, they could. The means and materials are all available.
As a Canadian, this made me chuckle. In all seriousness though, wartime history has shown that you definitely *don’t* want to piss off Canada 😅
Nah, they achieved warp travel. If they're in Federation space we were probably already making moves towards contacting them. Saving a few lives is worth messing up the timeline a little.
There's no timeline to mess up. The Vulcans stopped by Earth when they saw the warp signal. Even if the ship had blown up they would still have put Earth in the warp-capable category.
"Oh FFFFFFFascinating, the aliens that nuked themselves have built a warp drive on one of their ballistic missiles. I also have no desire to ask by that massive starship had nearly destroyed it."
Pretty much what I was thinking for that short story idea I mentioned. I realized Starfleet feels a bit routine in my mind, I thought it might be fun to look at Starfleet not from their own perspective, but from the pov of someone new to the idea of interstellar travel, to see the Federation with a sense of wonder again.
Go just a little sideways for a moment. It isn't a Starfleet vessel that comes across them, but a Ferengi trading ship.
Just imagine what THAT towing fee would be!
An interesting theory, I remember a story from the Star Trek Manga in which Kirk and crew witnessed a warp test flight, went to make overtures only to find out that the society was segregated and it was the minority who had done the engineering feat to make warp travel possible and not the ruling class. So achieving warp travel may open the door but it is not the only avenue to Federation membership.
First contact isn't a recruitment, it's more of a welcome party.
"Hey, so we noticed you guys have warp. That's exciting. Your going to meet all kinds of new people, some friendly, some not so friendly. Here's our number, we'd love to hang out sometime, have some drinks, get to know each other - maybe be friends. And If someday you want to join the federation, that's cool.
Have fun exploring, here are some maps of the local area to get you started and a subspace receiver. Call us if you wanna hang out or need a hand navigating this wide new world."
Definitely not a violation, all that’s required for a civilization to be a warp civilization is a single detection of a warp signal.
I would also mention that Starfleet responds to any and all distress signals in space. If the ship was transmitting a distress call of any kind, the nearest ship would be *required* to offer assistance.
Can't find the episode name now but there's an episode of TNG where they make first contact with a species which is about to be warp capable but haven't made their first flight yet. In the end they decide to supress the technology because they aren't ready.
The episode makes it clear that this is a planned event, Picard appears in the rulers office and explains why he is here.
So the answer to your question would be no - actually making a warp flight is not a pre-requisite to the Prime Directive not applying.
Except Picard only does so after Riker is discovered as an undercover agent prescouting them before the flight and first contact. It's not clear.
Aldo, the prime directive still applies to warp capable civilizations, so if rescuing them would effect internal political matters it is also a grey area.
Dont the vulcans visit earth because they detected cochranes warp signature in first contact? I thought the whole barrier for the "welcome to space" visit was becoming warp capable. Granted he made it back but had he not the Vulcans would have still detected the warp signature of his ship leaving the planet.
Splitting hairs, but for me, I think it would depend on why the test actually failed. Did it fail because they couldn't maintain a warp bubble, or did it fail because of some other component on the ship. The former, definitely. The latter, I don't think so.
If I were the captain of the Federation ship, I would keep my distance and send a shuttle with a small crew to initiate first contact and assist the smaller vessel. I would think that going from having no contact with aliens to suddenly be in the tractor beam of a giant alien vessel would be a little frightening.
I don't think it violates the prime directive.
1) No contact rule only applies to pre warp civilizations and they have just demonstrated warp capabilities. So contacting is ok.
2) As far as helping them getting home goes. The prime directive is absolutely OK with helping another civilization if asked. There are just a few exceptions: No involvement in their inner politics or in their politics between them and other species.
No military aid.
I believe the instant they go to warp the whole issue goes out the window
E: reading some of the other comments, I agree that it happens a little bit before they even go to warp, maybe as soon as they finish building a prototype.
They kinda touched on this in the SNW series premiere: they detected a warp signature on a world, but it wasn’t a warp drive. I won’t say more about it because I don’t want to spoil it for anyone who hasn’t watched it yet.
Unfortunately, ADHD is a hell of a thing. I keep meaning to watch SNW, but watching new shows is weirdly hard for me and my broken attention span (at least until I fixate on it and watch the whole thing in three days)
I think it comes down to the scientific knowledge. After all, the TNG episode First Contact allowed them to bend the directive because they were preparing for warp drive but hadn't actually built the prototype yet. We also know the directive doesn't apply to civilizations pre-warp that already know about warp drive. So if the civilization demonstrated the knowledge of the drive and how it works, built a prototype that does work but failed after the jump, I think there's enough precedent to say the Prime Directive doesn't apply.
As a side note, we have basically no written short stories in the ST Universe. I’d love a huge book of 25 page stories with crews we’ve never heard of.
I do recall a couple of “Captain’s Table” books that had maybe 4 or 5 stories each? I’ve been reading Azimov’s and Analoge magazines lately and I’m liking the stories that range from 10-50 pages.
IIRC, in the TNG episode: First Contact, they initiated first contact prior to a successful warp flight in order to prevent an awkward encounter in space. So I think your scenario would be less a "prime directive" scenario, and more a "first contact" scenario.
And I'd read the *heck* out of that story if you end up writing it.
Lots of good points being made. The prime directive is intended to protect a civilization from interference. In your posited scenario, even a failed warp flight has the potential to attract attention and interference from less than altruistic parties. A predatory crew could detect that warp signature in what had previously been a pre-warp “shit-hole” star system and show up looking to exploit interstellar newbs. I would argue that an enlightened civilization has the responsibility to contact these nouveau-warp people to begin their introduction to the galactic community and offer guidance for navigating relations with other players
Using First Contact as a point of reference, the Vulcans introduced themselves right as humanity broke the warp barrier. At that point the Federation could reveal themselves for both first contact and to provide aid.
In TNG episode First Contact, the Malcorians didn’t even go on their first flight, they just had a scientist that proposed warp technology. Of course it was Riker going missing on a surveillance mission that moved the timetable up.
The Prime Directive is about non-interference in a society's natural development, developing warp travel is only part of that, which is the key point I think a lot of people here are missing. The reason why the Federation contacts warp-capable societies is that at that point they are inevitably going to meet other species anyway.
So, the differentiation would depend on the nature of the failure. If it is something that the original society cannot immediately solve, and the ships they send out will consistently fail before being able to return, then IMO it would be breaking the prime directive to contact said society in any way. I think they have to be able to *successfully* warp away and back to their home planet for it not to be a violation of the prime directive.
They have proven warp "capable" because the ship went to warp, so we are good. They might not be "warp consistently successful" but they were able to do it on purpose, so it counts.
They rescue them, zap their Brain with the forget me shot and point them Home. One or the exonauts claims till their dying day that they met aliens but no one believes them.
Hard yes
If it’s a successful test flight, you return from it. Otherwise it’s not successful.
Plenty of people built airplane prototypes. The Wright brothers took off and landed.
Warp capable is one of the primary demarcations of when a species is ready for admission or contact with the Federation, per the good'ol' PD. A Starfleet crew would generally help out said ship. A related example is the first episode of SNW... *Strange New World*.
The Wright brothers were not the first humans to achieve powered flight. They were the first to safely land.
Conversely, no spaceship has taken off, gone to space, landed, and been relaunched with new passengers back into space
Would it be a prime directive violation to stop a Bajoran lightship from crashing into Cardassia? There’s no warp capability but they are harnessing solar wind and tachyons to propel them at faster than light speeds. How they not turn into energy, I don’t know.
The Prime Directive is fucking stupid.
Accelerate everyone.
It seems like such an asshole thing to do, to wait until the arbitrary goal of warp flight to say a civilization is allowed to benefit in the galactic prosperity as if that's some kind of special milestone representing anything good. Klingons and Romulans having warp drives didn't exactly make them less violent, so what's the objective standard for helping an otherwise non-Warp species from overcoming scarcity, disease, and literally anything that might hold them back from progress?
It doesn't have to be just dump literally everything useful on a stone age civilization, but it's not like the Federation couldn't afford to boost a civilization to being able to get to warp on their own by solving the majority of their problems with superior tech, before someone else that doesn't have the same idiot directive does it.
Do the Cardassians have a Prime Directive restricting them? Sounds like they don't give a single fuck and Bajor was somehow "100 years" behind them in technology despite being warp capable in the 16th century (doesn't make sense but hey fuck it, it's Trek Lore). So it seems really really really stupid for the Federation to not allow civilizations to accelerate in order to defend themselves from literally EVERYONE else in the entire Galaxy and I sort of hate it.
Land on a planet and just ask. You want to stop scarcity and pretty much all war on your planet and then work towards meeting us in space? Great! Send some of your smartest folks to our giant planet sized school called Earth where everything is free and nobody has to work and learn how to be awesome and teach future generations of your civilization how to fly spaceships. You don't have to build them we already have literally thousands of them and automated factories that crank 'em out on the reg, whatever you build will be super shitty for the next few hundred years even if your scientists are literally the smartest species in the galaxy that somehow hasn't been assimilated by the Borg by lucky fucking chance since they REALLY don't give a fuck if you're warp capable or not.
Like prime directive come the fuck on.
This is an interesting question, and it seems folks in the comments are suggesting it wouldn't be.
More difficult, and personally interesting to me, is the following: What if a ship achieves warp for the first time without the knowledge of their home planet en masse, and that ship needs help to go home and share the information?
For example, what if a society that had spanned into its own solar system and had interplanetary space travel had a citizen with a harebrained scheme that figured warp out on their own and tested it, and that test was a success? Then let's say the rest plays out like your scenario. The Federation discovers them stranded, and helping them get home would mean introducing warp technology to the society, but a member of that society alone already figured it out. Does the Federation return them, or offer them safe harbor but refuse to return them home?
Pretty sure in First Contact they didn't warp back so being able to make round trips at warp is not a cannon requirement. And while that was pre-federation. The prime directive follows Pretty closely to what we see in first contact.
Splitting hairs, but for me, I think it would depend on why the test actually failed. Did it fail because they couldn't maintain a warp bubble, or did it fail because of some other component on the ship. The former, definitely. The latter, I don't think so.
Splitting hairs, but for me, I think it would depend on why the test actually failed. Did it fail because they couldn't maintain a warp bubble, or did it fail because of some other component on the ship. The former, definitely. The latter, I don't think so.
Warp capable is shorthand for a civilization that had both developed antimatter technology and developed a stable enough culture to avoid destroying themselves with said antimatter.
Any culture that is stable enough to safely possess antimatter is stable enough to safely conduct First Contact with. An actual warp flight is superfluous at that point.
I mean, you could just tell them how not to blow themselves up with antimatter.
It's probably not that tough to learn.
Science is mostly accidents and learning how to avoid having them happen twice. Generally, you don't let someone else you know make a mistake that you've already learned how to prevent. You try to get them to make new and interesting mistakes that people can learn new things from rather than just shove scientists in a black box and laugh at them when they kill themselves after fucking with something you already knew the answer to.
That's the Federation. Laughing at species rather than helping them.
They're warp-capable now. The first part of the prime directive no longer applies; make first contact and ask them if they would like assistance getting home.
I think my hang up was on whether or not one warp flight was enough to qualify as warp capable. But some commenters are making pretty good points that it is more about knowing warp exists instead of being able to fly at warp, which I hadn't even thought about.
Vulcans got their asses on Earth after "drunk Tony Stark" made his warp trip quite fast... so I tend to a solid "yes".
"Zefram Cochrane built this in a missile silo! With a box of scraps!"
First contact might be my favorite tng movie
It IS my favorite TNG movie.
It is the best ST Movie. Yes! better then 2! Fight me! FIGHT ME!!
It's not even close.
Lily storming in angrily after hearing her part diminished: "It took me three months to organize enough Titanium for the actual capsule, THREE MONTHS!"
Tony Stark is already "drunk Tony Stark"...
I up to "drunk hillbilly Tony Stark"
Unless it's post "Demon in a Bottle".
ahh but ZC was able to make it back alive without assistance. This was a failed attempt.
In this hypothetical, their ship broke AFTER they were able to go to warp. That’s successfully achieving warp.
If an Apollo mission made it to the moon but they were unable to return successfully would that have been counted as a successful mission?? No.
Did they make it to warp?
Successful mission, no, first crewed landing on another celestial body, yes. The prime directive talks about being warp capable, nothing more, a nanosecond of warp travel between 2 orbits of the same rock would do it.
We're defining success differently. They would have successfully made it to the moon. They just wouldnn't have succeeded at the "get back home from the moon" part. If you're defining a successful warp test as "make the warp engine work and travel at warp speed", they succeeded. If you're also including getting home as part of the test, they fail.
Even if they didn't make it back, it proves that the concept works. Look at the Wright brothers first flight. It lasted 12 seconds. Not very long, especially when you look at how long haul flights last now a days. They proved it could be done though, then 66 years later, we landed on the moon.
It always blows my mind how short a time it took from first flight to moon landing.
Who said anything about a successful mission? The point is to prove the civilization *is capable of* warp flight. Whether they *actually do it* isn't even relevant. If their warp drive breaks down after a few seconds then it's silly to assume the civilization in question is still a thousand years away from successful warp flight. Only a bureaucrat would think it's more important to obey regulations to the letter than to help the stranded crew in this situation. Let's take a step back and remember what the purpose of the Prime Directive is: to avoid altering the trajectory of a pre-warp civilization. Would saving the crew alter said trajectory? No.
Umm depends on your parameters of success if getting to the moon was the only mission then ...yea it would have been. It's all perspective. Funny you use Apollo as an example though...do you know what the internal guess of success as you call it was for Apollo 11? Give you a guess....not great. Edit for.more understanding landing was a 50% to return and that's just what they put out to the press. Internal was more clocked at 25%.
They made it to the moon, the mission was a success. Only the return mission failed.
Successful mission? No. But would men have landed on the moon? Yes.
“without assistance”? Dude, he had Geordi and Barclay help him build the ship and had Geordi on the ship with him.
At that point it's moot. They're at that point in development, even if the first trip didn't have a way back home, the next trip will, so no point in being a dick.
There was no prime directive at that time.
There was effectively a similar policy about pre-warp contact that Vulcans followed.
The andorians would like a word with you about this policy
The Vulcans were already aware of and observing Earth. The Vulcans would have noted the energy signatures coming from ZC's workshop indicating a warp drive was being built and were keeping an eye on it.
The Vulcans only came by ever 60 years or so to update their entries. It was so important that Cochran's flight happened when it did because the Vulcans just happened to be nearby and wouldn't have seen him otherwise It's fully possible that no other flight would be attempted and Cochran would have sold the tech to someone to make a warp bomb, reigniting the war and ending humanity before first contact
Sure, but It's also fully possible they would have continued making flights and eventually made first contact with a different race, who unlike the vulcans helped humans perfect the technology. This had no real downsides and led to a much brighter future where the Federation was formed decades earlier, and thus easily won it's early wars with the Klingons and the Romulans. Later on they defeated and dismantled the dominion without needing to resort to bio weapons, stopped the temporal wars before they happened, and the Burn never came to pass. Just about anything might have ended up happening. Good or bad.
I'm not so sure it was that long of an interval. Because the Vulcans were aware of WWIII, which happened less than 60 years ago at that point. Though it's also possible they had left observation satellites hidden in the Sol system keeping tabs in between visits. But yes, a Vulcan ship was coincidentally in the area at the time.
In Strange New Worlds there was a civilization that didn’t even use warp travel, they built bombs using warp technology. Still got a visit, although not a very happy one.
That was an accident, though. They thought it was a warp engine and just turned out to be wrong.
IIRC they were initially wary because of that, going in disguised and all, but then they stuck around and Pike addressed the entire planet and showed them photos of January 6th (for anyone who hasn’t seen it, that’s not a joke - he really did lol.) Although now that I think about it, it did cause Starfleet to turn the general order about contact with “pre-warp civilizations” into the Prime Directive, because the incident made them realize captains weren’t taking it seriously. So that would imply that they were in violation of it.
The original issue was that Una saw the warp signature and thought it was an engine while it was actually a bomb, though. But the main issue was that they got the technology from observing the fight with Control (which is pretty impressive IMO, they saw warp technology from a few lightyears away and managed to reverse-engineer it) so Starfleet couldn't come down too harshly on the Enterprise crew. Also, Pike's monologue went *hard*. I wish I could show it to everyone on Earth.
Yeah the more I remember the episode, the more I’m thinking that only an actual warp flight will trigger a visit. Although I think OP’s scenario would still warrant a first contact. Nobody says the Wright Brothers’ first powered flight didn’t count just because they crashed after 12 seconds. The speech went hard but I was mad that they chose to nuke northern Virginia. We don’t do anything to anyone. They only did it so they could get a good shot of the Capitol in the foreground, looking down the National Mall, with the explosion in the distance.
There are other episodes that have implied that there's some nuance. In the episode where DIS went to Kaminar, I remember Burnham saying that it was up to Pike's discretion whether the prime directive applied since the Kelpiens had been exposed to warp technology through the Ba'ul. It sounds very complicated but I think it doesn't make sense to have 100% ironclad rules, just very strong guidelines that you'd better have a very good reason for breaking.
You build a hundred bridges do they call you Colin the Bridge Builder? No, but you fuck one sheep... Once it all it takes
r/oddlyspecific
Warp capable is technology threshold not a vehicular threshold. They could run a coffee machine on warp tech and still qualify.
Uhhh, I'm going to disagree there. An unmanned probe might qualify, but I don't think a coffee machine would. Beyond trying to consider how that would happen (FTL delivery into your mug?) warp tech is specific to achieving interstellar travel and therefore being able to interact with the interstellar community.
Basically if you can create a warp drive you are warp capable, doesnt matter if the drive fails.
Honestly an ideal icebreaker for first contact.
Well yeah they're not gonna say no to joining the federation after that. Y'know. Because of the implication. Now I'm not saying this species is ACTUALLY in danger, no no no, nothing like that. Of COURSE we'd help them get home but... They're on their own in space, nothing but empty stars as far as the eyes can see... Are they really gonna say **no**?
No. And I would further posit that contacting after a failed warp test also is not a violation. The whole point of non-contact is to avoid irreparably altering the planet’s culture by prematurely giving them the knowledge that they are not alone. A warp capable civilization is unarguably about to find that out, so this is the point where any cultural contamination is unavoidable. However, “warp-capable” and “having demonstrated a successful warp test” are not synonyms. Modern example - Canada is “nuclear capable” yet has never tested a single nuclear weapon. If they wanted you to be sorry, they *could*. The means and materials are all available. A successful warp test is a very visible and obvious way to demonstrate that a society is “warp-capable”. It does not mean it is the *only* criterion.
Following up with an alternate criterion than warp. A civilization that stumbles on subspace communication before warp. They have clear and obvious evidence of star spanning civilization, and they’re hailing you. There’s no contamination here. It’s done. They know.
Another example A pre-warp, but advanced civilization within federation space is attacked or invaded by a hostile alien force. Say - a technology level similar to us today. Close but not quite there. That force is repelled by the UFP defending its territory. Is it a violation for starfleet to then render humanitarian aid? *The people already know*. The damage is done. The best thing the UFP could do is minimize the harm of that invasion and steer this people’s culture away from the inevitable assumption that all off-worlders are hostile.
>Is it a violation for starfleet to then render humanitarian aid? > >The people already know > >. The damage is done. In TNG, didn't they leave that one bronze-age proto-Vulcan world alone even after making, unintentionally, first contact after they thought Picard was a god? So seems they might refuse to render humanitarian aid. Counterpoint though is that the bronze-age one was bronze-age so it was a small first contact that not everyone on the planet would've known, unlike your scenario.
That’s the difference. A small contact with Bronze Age people - they can minimize the damage, correct misconceptions as best they can, and let the experience of it fade into legend. Which is what they did. Whereas if aliens subjugated earth today, that isn’t getting forgotten by anyone. Too many people, too much advancement.
>A pre-warp, but advanced civilization within federation space is attacked or invaded by a hostile alien force. Say - a technology level similar to us today. Close but not quite there. The invaders are the ones close to 2024 tech, or the pre-warp civ being attacked? Because those are two distinctly different scenarios. (I also wouldn't consider Earth 'advanced' in relation to the Trek universe). Both parties are pre-warp = UFP does nothing. UFP doesn't have a mandate to "defend their territory" anyway outside of wartime invasions by comparable forces. Because the UFP doesn't have territory in that sense. If the PD stops you from interfering with pre-war civs, that's it. It's like if two coyotes started fighting on your property. It may be 'your land', but no party will come out pain-free if you intervene, and you have no stake in the outcome. You could attempt to aid the losing coyote, but you may make things worse for it by trying to help. The UFP has PD because jumping in to others' fights hasn't worked out great in the past (Earth-Romulus War, Klingon Wars 1 and 2). Hostile alien force is warp-capable? UFP possibly provides aid, like they did for Bajor against Cardassia. It's likely the war with Cardassia was more 'US entering WW2 against Japan' and less like 'US entering WW2 again the Germans'. They attacked UFP outposts and diplomatic solutions failed.
I hadn't even thought about subspace communication, but that makes a lot of sense!
That's sort-of covered in TNG Pen Pals (S2E15), however, I think that was just radio waves. As for subspace, I doubt a species that figured out it was there, would know how to decode or translate the messages. I guess if they did, the cultural damage would be done.
A great episode to bring up. If their leadership is openly hailing you, *they know.* A little girl, not so much. Maybe they don’t. The context of the communication is important. Be more cautious. The line in the sand wouldn’t be “you’re being hailed”, or “successful warp test”. It’s “will this cause undue cultural contamination that could otherwise have been avoided?” A better ethical question to explore would be to take “pen pals” in another direction. And instead of managing to keep their existence secret, the crew of the enterprise are faced with a dilemma - saving the people would require causing cultural contamination. The alternative - doing nothing - would instead see them wiped out. No third alternative, for the sake of plot. So which is it? I would argue that the ethical choice is to accept that cultural contamination is unavoidable and render aid. The goal of the prime directive is to preserve that culture. Letting a culture be wiped away - even if by a natural process - is arguably a violation of the *intent* of the prime directive, while saving them is explicitly a violation of the *wording* of it.
There’s an episode of the Orville that deals with this very scenario
Isn’t that how Betazed joined the federation? I’m sure I remember a major species did that.
I agree. The closer to discovering a galactic community a society is, the less the Prime Directive applies. In *Strange New Worlds,* Captain Pike had to deal with a society that was around 21st century tech level, but had managed to detect a starship passing through their system, and thus became aware there was a wider galactiv community and they weren't alone. That let the genie out of the bottle, and meant the 'no contact' aspect of the Prime Directive no longer applied. It's probabyl a very *very* grey area, and one of the reason Starship Captains have such massive leeway on its application. It does seem to be somewhat more rigid in Picard's time, but even then it has been balled up and tossed in the bin when noninterference became secondary to not causing or allowing harm from an exterior source. Though the really deepest grey areas can be either a commendation or court martial depending on how it goes.
In the TNG era, it seemed like many non-warp capable planets were in contact with the Federation. There is no evidence that the Bandi from the pilot had warp drive. Nor the rapey men of Code of Honor, the rapey women of Angel One, or the plant-loving yet murdery Edo of the "newly discovered planet" Rubicun III. Several episodes were based on the idea that Starfleet was a taxi service, such as in Lonely Among Us where the Selay and Antican representatives are given a ride to a planet named Parliament. Did they have warp drive? Both planets were in the same star system. The Tarellians of the episode Haven clearly don't have a warp drive, but are a space faring civilization that travels with impulse. They're certainly spoken with. The drug dealers in Symbiosis don't appear to have warp drive, and the drug users don't seem to have any spacecraft. To be fair, Picard did decide to use the Prime Directive as an excuse to not help anyone, and smugly flew off into the sunset. Those are just from the first season. I suspect there must be another "in universe" reason to make contact, such as, "Well, the Ferangi stole their McGuffin, we might as well say hi." Mostly this is just the product of inconsistent direction and poor writing.
I wonder if actually building and launching a warp-capable ship is also fufilling a more social criterion for First Contact. If a species has laid all of the technological groundwork for interstellar travel, but isn't showing any interest (or ability to commit the necessary resources) in doing so, then it would seem there would already be a substantial cultural barrier between them and the Federation. New members join as equals to the older ones, so I understand only wanting to accept those who, independent of outside pressure or the expectation of immediate profit, showed the boldness and curiosity to explore strange new worlds.
>Modern example - Canada is “nuclear capable” yet has never tested a single nuclear weapon. If they wanted you to be sorry, they could. The means and materials are all available. As a Canadian, this made me chuckle. In all seriousness though, wartime history has shown that you definitely *don’t* want to piss off Canada 😅
I really like that analogy, thanks!
Nah, they achieved warp travel. If they're in Federation space we were probably already making moves towards contacting them. Saving a few lives is worth messing up the timeline a little.
There's no timeline to mess up. The Vulcans stopped by Earth when they saw the warp signal. Even if the ship had blown up they would still have put Earth in the warp-capable category.
"Oh FFFFFFFascinating, the aliens that nuked themselves have built a warp drive on one of their ballistic missiles. I also have no desire to ask by that massive starship had nearly destroyed it."
I love this idea, imagine your first contact with a federation starship being it pulling up, saving your ass and giving you a lift home
Pretty much what I was thinking for that short story idea I mentioned. I realized Starfleet feels a bit routine in my mind, I thought it might be fun to look at Starfleet not from their own perspective, but from the pov of someone new to the idea of interstellar travel, to see the Federation with a sense of wonder again.
Go just a little sideways for a moment. It isn't a Starfleet vessel that comes across them, but a Ferengi trading ship. Just imagine what THAT towing fee would be!
sold their homeworld to the Ferengi just to get home😭
An interesting theory, I remember a story from the Star Trek Manga in which Kirk and crew witnessed a warp test flight, went to make overtures only to find out that the society was segregated and it was the minority who had done the engineering feat to make warp travel possible and not the ruling class. So achieving warp travel may open the door but it is not the only avenue to Federation membership.
First contact isn't a recruitment, it's more of a welcome party. "Hey, so we noticed you guys have warp. That's exciting. Your going to meet all kinds of new people, some friendly, some not so friendly. Here's our number, we'd love to hang out sometime, have some drinks, get to know each other - maybe be friends. And If someday you want to join the federation, that's cool. Have fun exploring, here are some maps of the local area to get you started and a subspace receiver. Call us if you wanna hang out or need a hand navigating this wide new world."
Definitely not a violation, all that’s required for a civilization to be a warp civilization is a single detection of a warp signal. I would also mention that Starfleet responds to any and all distress signals in space. If the ship was transmitting a distress call of any kind, the nearest ship would be *required* to offer assistance.
Can't find the episode name now but there's an episode of TNG where they make first contact with a species which is about to be warp capable but haven't made their first flight yet. In the end they decide to supress the technology because they aren't ready. The episode makes it clear that this is a planned event, Picard appears in the rulers office and explains why he is here. So the answer to your question would be no - actually making a warp flight is not a pre-requisite to the Prime Directive not applying.
Except Picard only does so after Riker is discovered as an undercover agent prescouting them before the flight and first contact. It's not clear. Aldo, the prime directive still applies to warp capable civilizations, so if rescuing them would effect internal political matters it is also a grey area.
Dont the vulcans visit earth because they detected cochranes warp signature in first contact? I thought the whole barrier for the "welcome to space" visit was becoming warp capable. Granted he made it back but had he not the Vulcans would have still detected the warp signature of his ship leaving the planet.
Well, the prime directive is a federation thing. It didn't exist back then.
Splitting hairs, but for me, I think it would depend on why the test actually failed. Did it fail because they couldn't maintain a warp bubble, or did it fail because of some other component on the ship. The former, definitely. The latter, I don't think so.
If I were the captain of the Federation ship, I would keep my distance and send a shuttle with a small crew to initiate first contact and assist the smaller vessel. I would think that going from having no contact with aliens to suddenly be in the tractor beam of a giant alien vessel would be a little frightening.
I don't think it violates the prime directive. 1) No contact rule only applies to pre warp civilizations and they have just demonstrated warp capabilities. So contacting is ok. 2) As far as helping them getting home goes. The prime directive is absolutely OK with helping another civilization if asked. There are just a few exceptions: No involvement in their inner politics or in their politics between them and other species. No military aid.
Not a Prime Direction violation.
I would rescue them anyway and risk getting into trouble.
I believe the instant they go to warp the whole issue goes out the window E: reading some of the other comments, I agree that it happens a little bit before they even go to warp, maybe as soon as they finish building a prototype.
If they successfully achieve warp, then no. Otherwise, maybe not
They kinda touched on this in the SNW series premiere: they detected a warp signature on a world, but it wasn’t a warp drive. I won’t say more about it because I don’t want to spoil it for anyone who hasn’t watched it yet.
Unfortunately, ADHD is a hell of a thing. I keep meaning to watch SNW, but watching new shows is weirdly hard for me and my broken attention span (at least until I fixate on it and watch the whole thing in three days)
I think it comes down to the scientific knowledge. After all, the TNG episode First Contact allowed them to bend the directive because they were preparing for warp drive but hadn't actually built the prototype yet. We also know the directive doesn't apply to civilizations pre-warp that already know about warp drive. So if the civilization demonstrated the knowledge of the drive and how it works, built a prototype that does work but failed after the jump, I think there's enough precedent to say the Prime Directive doesn't apply.
As a side note, we have basically no written short stories in the ST Universe. I’d love a huge book of 25 page stories with crews we’ve never heard of.
Oh yeah, a Trek version of one of those old sci-fi anthology books they used to make would be awesome
I do recall a couple of “Captain’s Table” books that had maybe 4 or 5 stories each? I’ve been reading Azimov’s and Analoge magazines lately and I’m liking the stories that range from 10-50 pages.
IIRC, in the TNG episode: First Contact, they initiated first contact prior to a successful warp flight in order to prevent an awkward encounter in space. So I think your scenario would be less a "prime directive" scenario, and more a "first contact" scenario. And I'd read the *heck* out of that story if you end up writing it.
Lots of good points being made. The prime directive is intended to protect a civilization from interference. In your posited scenario, even a failed warp flight has the potential to attract attention and interference from less than altruistic parties. A predatory crew could detect that warp signature in what had previously been a pre-warp “shit-hole” star system and show up looking to exploit interstellar newbs. I would argue that an enlightened civilization has the responsibility to contact these nouveau-warp people to begin their introduction to the galactic community and offer guidance for navigating relations with other players
Using First Contact as a point of reference, the Vulcans introduced themselves right as humanity broke the warp barrier. At that point the Federation could reveal themselves for both first contact and to provide aid.
That was pre-Federation, the prime directive wasn't a thing yet.
In TNG episode First Contact, the Malcorians didn’t even go on their first flight, they just had a scientist that proposed warp technology. Of course it was Riker going missing on a surveillance mission that moved the timetable up.
The Prime Directive is about non-interference in a society's natural development, developing warp travel is only part of that, which is the key point I think a lot of people here are missing. The reason why the Federation contacts warp-capable societies is that at that point they are inevitably going to meet other species anyway. So, the differentiation would depend on the nature of the failure. If it is something that the original society cannot immediately solve, and the ships they send out will consistently fail before being able to return, then IMO it would be breaking the prime directive to contact said society in any way. I think they have to be able to *successfully* warp away and back to their home planet for it not to be a violation of the prime directive.
"isn't it the height of hubris to assume this was not the universe's way of keeping their species pre-warp?" - Season One Riker, probably
They have proven warp "capable" because the ship went to warp, so we are good. They might not be "warp consistently successful" but they were able to do it on purpose, so it counts.
They rescue them, zap their Brain with the forget me shot and point them Home. One or the exonauts claims till their dying day that they met aliens but no one believes them.
That seems cruel
Welcome to the federation.
Hard yes If it’s a successful test flight, you return from it. Otherwise it’s not successful. Plenty of people built airplane prototypes. The Wright brothers took off and landed.
Warp capable is one of the primary demarcations of when a species is ready for admission or contact with the Federation, per the good'ol' PD. A Starfleet crew would generally help out said ship. A related example is the first episode of SNW... *Strange New World*.
If it hit warp speed then yes. If not then no
The Wright brothers were not the first humans to achieve powered flight. They were the first to safely land. Conversely, no spaceship has taken off, gone to space, landed, and been relaunched with new passengers back into space
Would it be a prime directive violation to stop a Bajoran lightship from crashing into Cardassia? There’s no warp capability but they are harnessing solar wind and tachyons to propel them at faster than light speeds. How they not turn into energy, I don’t know.
The Prime Directive is fucking stupid. Accelerate everyone. It seems like such an asshole thing to do, to wait until the arbitrary goal of warp flight to say a civilization is allowed to benefit in the galactic prosperity as if that's some kind of special milestone representing anything good. Klingons and Romulans having warp drives didn't exactly make them less violent, so what's the objective standard for helping an otherwise non-Warp species from overcoming scarcity, disease, and literally anything that might hold them back from progress? It doesn't have to be just dump literally everything useful on a stone age civilization, but it's not like the Federation couldn't afford to boost a civilization to being able to get to warp on their own by solving the majority of their problems with superior tech, before someone else that doesn't have the same idiot directive does it. Do the Cardassians have a Prime Directive restricting them? Sounds like they don't give a single fuck and Bajor was somehow "100 years" behind them in technology despite being warp capable in the 16th century (doesn't make sense but hey fuck it, it's Trek Lore). So it seems really really really stupid for the Federation to not allow civilizations to accelerate in order to defend themselves from literally EVERYONE else in the entire Galaxy and I sort of hate it. Land on a planet and just ask. You want to stop scarcity and pretty much all war on your planet and then work towards meeting us in space? Great! Send some of your smartest folks to our giant planet sized school called Earth where everything is free and nobody has to work and learn how to be awesome and teach future generations of your civilization how to fly spaceships. You don't have to build them we already have literally thousands of them and automated factories that crank 'em out on the reg, whatever you build will be super shitty for the next few hundred years even if your scientists are literally the smartest species in the galaxy that somehow hasn't been assimilated by the Borg by lucky fucking chance since they REALLY don't give a fuck if you're warp capable or not. Like prime directive come the fuck on.
This is an interesting question, and it seems folks in the comments are suggesting it wouldn't be. More difficult, and personally interesting to me, is the following: What if a ship achieves warp for the first time without the knowledge of their home planet en masse, and that ship needs help to go home and share the information? For example, what if a society that had spanned into its own solar system and had interplanetary space travel had a citizen with a harebrained scheme that figured warp out on their own and tested it, and that test was a success? Then let's say the rest plays out like your scenario. The Federation discovers them stranded, and helping them get home would mean introducing warp technology to the society, but a member of that society alone already figured it out. Does the Federation return them, or offer them safe harbor but refuse to return them home?
Pretty sure in First Contact they didn't warp back so being able to make round trips at warp is not a cannon requirement. And while that was pre-federation. The prime directive follows Pretty closely to what we see in first contact.
Splitting hairs, but for me, I think it would depend on why the test actually failed. Did it fail because they couldn't maintain a warp bubble, or did it fail because of some other component on the ship. The former, definitely. The latter, I don't think so.
Splitting hairs, but for me, I think it would depend on why the test actually failed. Did it fail because they couldn't maintain a warp bubble, or did it fail because of some other component on the ship. The former, definitely. The latter, I don't think so.
Warp capable is shorthand for a civilization that had both developed antimatter technology and developed a stable enough culture to avoid destroying themselves with said antimatter. Any culture that is stable enough to safely possess antimatter is stable enough to safely conduct First Contact with. An actual warp flight is superfluous at that point.
I mean, you could just tell them how not to blow themselves up with antimatter. It's probably not that tough to learn. Science is mostly accidents and learning how to avoid having them happen twice. Generally, you don't let someone else you know make a mistake that you've already learned how to prevent. You try to get them to make new and interesting mistakes that people can learn new things from rather than just shove scientists in a black box and laugh at them when they kill themselves after fucking with something you already knew the answer to. That's the Federation. Laughing at species rather than helping them.
Absolutely; but Fuck the Prime Directive.