This raises some interesting questions about how the Federation Council would treat an interstellar race that hasn’t cracked warp. Thing is, by the time they are in contact with other warp-capable alien species like the Asgard, trading information and technology, they would probably then themselves be considered warp-capable, even if it was bootstrapped, so the window of time where they are traveling to other worlds and immune from the prime directive is extremely brief.
This raises some interesting questions about how the Federation Council would treat an interstellar race that hasn’t cracked warp. Thing is, by the time they are in contact with other warp-capable alien species like the Asgard, trading information and technology, they would probably then themselves be considered warp-capable, even if it was bootstrapped, so the window of time where they are traveling to other worlds and immune from the prime directive is extremely brief.
Basically once they get the x302 with the sort of working hyperspace drive. That would count as their Zefram Cochrane moment.