[X] Plan: Addressing Local Threats
Second Contact.
It had occurred as the Accomplishment had explored the region to the south of Teklia, named the Reach. While reliable navigation in the strange realm of warpspace was nearly impossible past a certain distance, the Accomplishment had found itself lucky, stumbling after a lucky jump to one of the target worlds that were theorized to host life.
The Broken Edge System, located at the edge of the reach, south and slightly east of Teklia. A yellow dwarf star. Preliminary scans indicated three points of interest in the system. The first was what seemed to be a space station of sorts. Preliminary scans showed it was teaming with life: the best theory was that it was some sort of ecodome. It seemed to be in excellent condition, though no ships were observed leaving or arriving during the time that the Accomplishment observed the system.
The second was a large ship-graveyard. Unknown composition: the best guess is, at some point in the distant past two groups fought each other to the point both of their ships were reduced to a massive, planet sized debris field forming an artificial asteroid belt between the fifth and sixth planets of the system, barren desert worlds.
The third point of interest? The third point of interest had life.
Intelligent alien life. The Directorate would find its networks set ablaze at the discovery: it was early days yet, but the planet, fourth in the system, seemed to be overgrown with thorny vines, bubbling, acidic swamps, large amphibioid creatures, and some sort of green, hulking simian creature that scout-probes had captured communicating and using tools.
Intelligent alien life! These creatures had been observed by the Accomplishment for ten years, who had observed them organizing themselves into what seemed to be large social units led by more physically developed members of their species. These creatures and their social units had been found across the planet, from the hot and humid equator to the frigid and icy poles, frequently engaging in combat with other social units, presumably over territory or resources.
With the discovery of these creatures would come a discussion in the Directorate: how to approach intelligent, less technologically developed life and go about preventing the repeating the historical crimes of Tekket civilization: imperialism, colonialism, and subjugation, both material and cultural. Fundamentally, even merely establishing limited contact with pre- space flight cultures ran the risk of causing catastrophic societal damage depending on how the knowledge of your existence and public perception of you influenced planetary politics, much less any more direct means of influencing them or intervening in their affairs. Even if done with benevolent intentions, history was replete with examples of interventionism conducted by foreign superpowers going horrible awry, and when dealing with the power disparity provided by space flight and warp-drive, the potential for accidentally sharpening the contradictions of a society in unpredictable ways or upsetting the balance of power to destabilizing degrees was increased to unacceptable levels.
History was replete with tribes and kingdoms being destabilized and harmed by those more powerful than they simply through accidentally empowering or weakening different social classes through their very existence, much less diplomats unwittingly influencing their political ecosystem. Introducing material or technology even more so: a good example of how it could backfire, sourced from pre-Destroyer history, had been the nation of Quarth: when it had been discovered by explorers from one of the major super-powers of the world, Quarth had been in the grips of horrific, generations long plague. Doctors and medics had been sent by the Taskmasters of one such superpower in a mission of mercy in order to save lives and teach knowledge of medicine and surgery...
And in the process caused the COLLAPSE of Quarth. The nation had been suffering from internal strife between the King, a power hungry monarch looking to expand his influence and wealth who held sway over the soldiers and military of Quarth, and the Guilds, who employed most skilled trade in the nation, providing a check against the Kings power and a voice for the power of the labourers of Quarth.
One such group of labourers had been the doctors of Quarth. With their work devalued by foreign medical labourers, a major pillar of the Guilds power would collapse, allowing the King to push forward laws that hemorrhaged at the Guilds power and authority, removing one more check against the King's power, setting off a chain of events that would begin with a series of treason accusations against the Guild and end with a civil war, causing efforts to manage the plague fail entirely as the region was embroiled in bloodshed. In the centuries after, Quarth had never recovered, becoming embroiled in perpetual strife, sickness, and poverty up until the Destroyer War, which saw the region cleansed of Tekket life, leaving Quarth as merely a cautionary tale of how foreign interventionism could potentially backfire, no matter how well intended. However, obviously there are moments where the Directorate is morally obligated to step in: should they find a species under attack by the Destroyers, it would obviously be unacceptable to merely stand by, but everything beyond that was an extremely murky field beset by uncountable ethical conundrums and potential pitfalls.
A few argue that there should be no contact whatsoever should be made with undeveloped species except when the potential for the extinction of the species is to occur: a strict policy, perhaps, but it would provide the strongest safeguard against accidental abuse by the Directorate. Even providing humanitarian aid could produce unintended ripple effects capable of destroying societies at the level of power disparity you'd be operating at: depending on how developed a world was, their entire global industry could potentially be what amounts to a ROUNDING ERROR in your economy, especially as the Directorate continued to grow and expand: it would be all too easy, for instance, to destroy a societies agriculture industry by accidentally making them reliant on Tekket grown food, or their medical industry because their doctors couldn't compete with your advanced pharmaceuticals, or their mining industry because a year of their annual GDP could be outdone in a month on Naklis alone, or...Well, so on and so forth. Quarth but on a planetary scale was something the Directorate needed to avoid at all costs: it could not become a destroyer of society in a misguided attempt to play hero.
Critics of this idea, the political centrists of the Directorate, would point out that even if an extreme non-interference clause WOULD be more effective as a way to curtail negative influence on a civilizations development, the cost in lives could potentially be prohibitively extreme: while there does need to be a limit to prevent overreach, the Directorate should be able to step in to prevent complete civilizational collapse at the very least. Yes, there would be a strong chance of accidentally destroying the society in crisis yourself, but they'd probably be destroyed even if you opted not to intervene.
Hardliner militarists claim that the Directorate needs to worry itself less with destroying primitive cultures and more about the Destroyers destroying primitive species: yes, there needed to exist strong checks against Directorate overreach and strict ethical guidelines for interacting with pre-spaceflight civilizations, but if these civilizations were at least informed of the Directorates existence and the threat of the Destroyers, they might be able to prepare themselves: at a minimum, they had the right to know they were faced with terrible danger.
Of course, there were more and less extreme interpretations of each philosophy, but over the decades one particular version would find its way into policy with the drafting of official Directorate contact policy: the prime directive.
Prime Directive Vote! Which factions policy is successful? Note that this is not set in stone: as a civilization, the way you treat less developed civilizations is subject to change as your culture evolves.
[-] Extreme Xeno-Isolationist: No diplomacy, no observation, no preventing extinction, and no contact until the society was on parity with the Directorate technologically. The proposed idea is so far outside the realm of serious politics that it never even reaches a ballot, even though its supporters claim its the best option: the idea of letting an entire species go extinct is too callous for most to consider.
[ ] Moderate Xeno-Isolationists: Observation and protection against species extinction level events only: less developed civilizations would have to thrive or collapse on their own. Once these civilizations hit space flight and the odds of accidental social destabilization was minimal (and by proxy it became unfeasible to hide), THEN (limited) contact could be pursued ONLY if initiated by the other civilization. This would minimize the chance of accidentally causing irreparable harm to less developed societies by the Directorate, but would admittedly mean they were one civilization shattering event from...Well, having their civilization shattered.
[ ] Xeno-Preservationist: A slightly more interventionist version of the Xeno-Isolationist party that still embraced minimal contact with species that were less technologically developed, but permitted humanitarian aid in response civilization collapsing catastrophes as opposed to having extinction level events be the benchmark for when the Directorate needed to step in.
[ ] Extreme Xeno-Preservationist: The Moderate Xeno-Preservationist stance was fairly similar to its extreme version, with the caveat that it had looser standards for when a civilization was considered mature enough to establish official contact and relations with. The extreme version meanwhile argued that the benchmark for making contact should be set at the development of warp-space technology, under the logic that in the coming centuries the Directorate would likely grow to the point it's economic output outstripped many star systems: the same dilemma they already had was likely to grow exponentially worse.
[ ] Xeno-Preparationists: The hard-interventionist option: diplomatic contact would be established, information would be relayed, but no material assistance outside civilization shattering calamities. That way, societies could prepare for the Destroyers. This would cause unpredictable damage to said culture, but it was seen by many as an acceptable compromise in the name of survival.
[-] Extreme Xeno-Preparationists: Diplomatic contact, humanitarian aid, material assistance. This position is considered too fringe to gain traction.
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30 minute moratorium. The downside of picking the Not!Trek civ is that ethical considerations aren't optional. 
