Contact, yes, but I'm not sure that means they instantly can get their hands on Federation level technology. In First Contact (the episode), Picard and Durken have this conversation: And this is after first contact has been made because the species has essentially become warp capable. So it seems that the Prime Directive doesn't suddenly completely 'stop' once a species reaches that level... it just doesn't forbid contact anymore. Of course, it could be that Picard is taking things a bit too far here, for the sake of pontificating Interesting idea, so in essence that space is declared 'non-federation' for all intents and purposes (well, except perhaps that the Federation will defend it when attacked, and perhaps cruise through it if it's the shortest connection, etc). The question then becomes, what constitutes a civilization? I suppose intelligent humanoids in the early stone age qualify, but do proto-humanoids with gradually increasing brain sizes that could well -or could not- give rise to an intelligent species in, say, half a million years? Where do you draw the line?
Actually, stellar density out here in the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm is about one star per cubic parsec, so in 100 cubic lightyears you'd have about 26,362 stars, about 1/38th of a million.
I remember reading some place, perhaps in a Trek novel, that when such developing civilizations are discovered, the Federation places their planet and all planets within 10-15 light-years off-limits to provide said civilization room and resources to grow. Interesting. In the game "Federation & Empire" (F&E), the map hexes are 500 parsecs across by 500 parsecs thick. I suggested that is there is an average of one stellar body every five parsecs cubes, there are one-million systems per hex. Further, using conservative estimates, if one were to assume that 10% of these are stars with planetary systems, and then 1% of those have planets worth visiting, that's about a thousand planets that one could "safely" put a mining base or military outpost on. Let's further estimate that 1% of these planets are Class-M and can support life without too much terraforming required. Therefore, by this math, there are approximately ten potential colony worlds in each F&E hex. What you're telling me is my math is off by 125 to 1 ....... there's over a thousand Class-M planets per hex on the F&E map. Brain melt.
Maurice said: Sgt_G said: According to Wikipedia "Stellar Density": If there are 0.004 stars per cubic light year, and there are about 34.64 cubic light years in a cubic parsec, there are about 0.1385 stars per cubic parsec. Thus there would be one million stars in a volume of about 250,000,000 cubic light years or about 7,220,216.6 cubic parsecs. According to my calculations a space 100 light years in one dimension could contain a million stars if the other two dimensions were both 1,581.1388 light years. A cube about 630 light years on each side would contain about 250,000,000 cubic light years and about 1,000,000 stars, A sphere with a radius of about 390 light years and a diameter of about 780 light years will have a volume of about 250,000,000 cubic light years and about 1,000,000 stars. Shawnster said: Official and fan maps disagree, but it makes a lot of sense to think of a space realm as a set of dots instead of a solid area of space. Interstellar treaties may allow each space realm to claim a spherical volume of space with a specific radius around each star system that it claims to rule. And possibly each space realm is allowed to claim for its exclusive use narrow cylinders of space connecting each of its stars with about one to three of the neighboring stars also claimed by that space realm. Thus a small space realm might look like a model of a simple molecule. And a large space realm might look like a model of a very complex molecule with hundreds and thousands of atoms. And probably a 3-D space map would show different space realms partially overlapping or interpenetrating. The official warp factors for TOS were too slow for many desirable plot elements. Since starships tended to travel at the speed of plot, sometimes they traveled at approximately the speed of the official warp scale, and sometimes they traveled tens, or hundreds of times as fast. In the extreme case, "That Which Survives" the Enterprise was thrown a vast distance away from a planet, stranding the landing party: A light year is defined as the distance traveled by light in one Julian year, or 365.25 days. It thus contains 8,766 light hours, a light hour being the distance traveled by light in one hour. 990.7 light years contain 8,684,476.2 light hours. Assuming that the entire trip at warp 8.4 takes 11.337 hours, the Enterprise travels 8,684,476.2 light hours in 11.337 hours, at a speed of 766,029.47 times the speed of light. Warp 8.4 would be 8.4 cubed, or 592.704 times the speed of light. Thus the Enterprise travels 1,292.4317 times as fast as it should at warp factor 8.4. So I think that creators of new Star Trek productions should acknowledge that and make 1,292.4317 the new magic number that constantly appears in various episodes, instead of 47. One theory to explain how starships sometimes reach their destinations in less time than the warp factor formula allows is a theory that each solar system contains one or more space warps leading to other solar systems that may be tens, hundreds, or thousands of light years away. Thus when the Enterprise was thrown 990.7 light years, the computers calculated the fasted route through the space warps from its position to the planet where Kirk was stranded. At warp factor 8.4 they could travel 6,719.4852 light hours, or about 0.766 light years, in 11.337 hours. So the Enterprise would have traveled at warp 8.4 to the mouth of the nearest wormhole or space warp, appeared in a distant solar system, traveled at warp 8.4 to the mouth of another space warp, appeared in another distant solar system, and so on, for a total of 11.337 hours until reaching the planet Kirk was stranded on. According to this theory a space realm would consist of many star system connected by space warps, each one being tens, or hundreds, or thousands of light years from the next one, as well as all the star systems the space realm might reach and annex by traveling though space outwards from the various star systems they reach through the space warps. So when the Federation, or the Romulans, or the Klingons, reach a star system through the system of space warps, and make that system part of their realm, they might decide not to bother with colonizing or annexing any of its neighbors reached by travelling a few light years using warp drive. Or they might decide to colonize or annex some of the neighboring star systems reached by warp drive, and a claim a sphere of space with a radius of 5, or 10, or 20 light years, or some other radius, around that system. Thus a 3-D map of space might include many dots or spheres of space claimed by various pace realms, each space realm using a different color, as well as showing many non claimed star systems.
What happens when there is an area of space with several pre-warp planets (not statistically likely but it sounds fairly Star Trek-y) and ONE of them gets warp drive? Is the one prevented from messing about with the others? And prevented how? Now the Federation would turn its nose up at preventing one nation from nuking another on a pre-warp world or if it was one world interfering with another if it was all stellar conflict. Ah, the terrible choices that Prime Directive stories are made of. And then Kirk or Picard would save everyone anyway.
Not sure. They don't seem to urge other Alpha Quadrant powers not to mess with pre-warp cultures,for example - at least, we never see it on screen AFAIK. But whether that is by principle or by pragmatism, I don't know.