system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
[Star Trek]Suppose a Starfleet ship (circa 2330s) is flying through space and they detect evidence of warp from a planet previously thought incapable of such. Does the ship make first contact right away, or contact starfleet to send in first contact specialists?
gpt
The short answer is "yes."

By the 24th century, the Federation had a pretty good idea of what civilizations were on what planet in or near Federation space, and anthropological researchers would likely be stationed and be able to give the Federation a heads-up. If, for whatever reason, the traditional models utterly failed, the big question would be: why?

Let's take a hypothetical example: there's a civilization that has 19th-century level of technology. By all rights, they shouldn't reach anything remotely capable of warp for another 200 years. But, tomorrow, they launch a warp-capable ship. What the what now?

Uplifting a species is directly against the Federation charter (it falls under the Prime directive). Some other species are known to do this, whether for profit (Ferengi) or imperial expansion (Romulan, Klingon). Barring outside help, a sudden jump from steam to warp drive should be completely impossible.

So the starship in question would definitely want to stop by and see what could have caused such a precipitous event. The captain or other bridge officers would be trained well enough in first contact protocols to get things started while they wait for the real experts from Starfleet. In the meantime, they investigate as best they can the reason for the sudden technological advancement, which can be used to modify the models used to predict future additions to the galactic citizenry.