The United Federation of Planets discovers the Game of Thrones (RAR).

[The Romulan Republic]

You are the Captain of the USS Lincoln, an Intrepid class Starship conducting surveilance of pre-warp worlds within Federation space in preparation for future first contacts. Your primary objective is to ascertain the key points of the planet's dominant culture, how it might respond to contact with the Federation, and whether it might be a future candidate for Federation membership, without revealing your presence or otherwise violating the Prime Directive.

However, three weeks into your new command, you are assigned to chart a peculiar system about twenty light years from the Romulan Neutral Zone, with atypical planetary orbits and seasons which cannot be explained by conventional science. While surveying the system, your scans pick up the presence of a number of populated pre-industrial settlements on the system's one M-class world, as well as the presence of multiple sapient species, and a massive wall of solid ice dividing the northern regions of one of the planets' three main continents. Most disturbingly, you detect the presence of energy readings similar to the life signs of a number of malevolent or dangerous energy beings encountered by Starfleet in the past. One of these is diffused across much of the continent on both sides of the wall of ice, another is diffused throughout the planetary oceans, a third is concentrated in the arctic north of the wall, and a fourth is primarily focussed around a number of temples in major cities on the neighboring continent. Smaller concentrations of psychic or unidentified energy can also be found scattered in various places, some static and some mobile.

After forwarding the data to Starfleet Command, and confirming that there is no interference that would inhibit transporter beams from functioning, you receive instructions to beam down a disguised away team onto the planet, to ascertain what is happening there. With the Federation still recovering from the Dominion War, the Admiralty is more than willing to play fast and loose with the Prime Directive if there's a possible security threat, or the chance of acquiring a possible location for a new Federation outpost in a region that's strategically important. You are therefore authorized to intervene, at your discretion, up to and including making full first contact and establishing a permanent Federation presence on the planet. However, your actions will be subject to review by Starfleet Command, and you will be expected to justify any major decisions on both ethical grounds and potential strategic benefit to the Federation. Due to aforementioned rebuilding from the Dominion War, limited ships are available, so unless something goes catastrophically wrong with your ship and you need evacuation, calls for reinforcements will likely fall on deaf ears. You have whatever is on your ship, and one year before you are due for shore leave, at which point either the mission will be abandoned or another ship will take over, depending on the results of your mission.

Scouting on the ground will confirm that the single largest nation on the planet is named "the Seven Kingdoms", and is ruled by a King of increasingly dubious stability and character by the name of Aerys Targaryen. His heir, a young man named Rhaegar, is well-liked, but unproven. Other members of the Royal Family include Rhaegar's wife Elia, their young daughter, King Aerys' sister/wife, and their young son Viserys. Given that this civilization, unlike many others on the planet, has banned slavery (at least in name) and tolerates multiple faiths, Starfleet Command will recommend that you focus your efforts there.

About two weeks into your assignment, you will begin to detect anomalous readings matching those of a Romulan cloaking device, and your personnel may encounter disguised Romulan operatives on the planetary surface. Further observation will reveal that the Romulans have covertly contacted the governments of Braavos, Westeros, and Slaver's Bay, and are quietly supplying them with limited numbers of primitive firearms. If challenged directly, the Romulans will likely withdraw (unless you are exceptionally provocative), but there will be negative ramifications to relations with the Romulan Empire.

Your command includes the following craft and personnel:

1 Intrepid class Starship:
2 Delta Flyer class shuttles (the design was put into mass production after Starfleet reviewed the design schematics sent to them by Captain Janeway).
30 photon torpedoes.
155 crew, a roughly even mix of security, engineering, and science personnel, plus your XO, helmsman, Chief Medical Officer, EMH (the upgraded version from Voyager's "Message In A Bottle"), Nurse, and a couple of civilian scientists, including an anthropologist and an expert in energy beings. Your crew is mostly human, but also contains a couple of Vulcans in the Security and Science Department, and Andorian engineer, and a Bolian Chief Medical Officer. Your XO is a former Bajoran Resistance Member in the days of Cardassian rule, and a veteran of the Dominion War.

Assume that your replicators can manufacture the parts necessary to produce additional torpedoes (though unless you decide to glass the planet, and Starfleet Command WILL take a dim view of that, you probably won't need them), as well as shuttles, food and medical supplies, simple prefabricated buildings for planetary deployment, etc.

Going with TV verse for this thread, because I know it better, and in this timeline season eight hasn't happened yet.

What is your next move?

[FaxModem1]

Scan for Romulan lifesigns and technology. Beam them up in the middle of the night when they're alone, and put them into the brig. Same with Romulan technology, only into the cargo bay. Replace all primitive rifles with hollowed out wooden tubes via transporter, leaving said advancement as one dubious miracle among many supposed others. Send a dedicated anthropological team down there in disguise to see what the ramifications are, get a handle on the situation, and long term observation via Duck Blinds. Make sure Duck Blinds have emergency power generators and the ability to beam out if needed.

Get a dedicated male anthropologist to either join the Citadel, or infiltrate them to copy their library via tricorder.

Prime Directive crisis averted. Now to deal with the more important matters.

Contact the Romulan government and note that they have a team here, 20 lightyears into Federation territory. Ask them to withdraw, records of what they did on the planet, and recommendation to the Federation Council to use this as leverage for their trespassing in an (former?) ally's territory.

Set up an observational outpost in orbit that can beam up teams in case of emergencies, as well as monitoring interstellar traffic. The following events in Westeros is going to be just new pages in a history book, and really not our problem, not to mention it's not our job to get involved in a medieval level society, especially when we might get worshipped as gods if we start producing miracles. Better to stay far away and observe, and let events play out, as this might be a necessary step in Westeros's development as a culture away from feudalism towards their equivalent of the Renaissance or Enlightenment, maybe even becoming a culture capable of warp travel someday.

[The Romulan Republic]

Scan for Romulan lifesigns and technology. Beam them up in the middle of the night when they're alone, and put them into the brig. Same with Romulan technology, only into the cargo bay. Replace all primitive rifles with hollowed out wooden tubes via transporter, leaving said advancement as one dubious miracle among many supposed others. Send a dedicated anthropological team down there in disguise to see what the ramifications are, get a handle on the situation, and long term observation via Duck Blinds. Make sure Duck Blinds have emergency power generators and the ability to beam out if needed.

Get a dedicated male anthropologist to either join the Citadel, or infiltrate them to copy their library via tricorder.

Prime Directive crisis averted. Now to deal with the more important matters.

Contact the Romulan government and note that they have a team here, 20 lightyears into Federation territory. Ask them to withdraw, records of what they did on the planet, and recommendation to the Federation Council to use this as leverage for their trespassing in an (former?) ally's territory.

Set up an observational outpost in orbit that can beam up teams in case of emergencies, as well as monitoring interstellar traffic. The following events in Westeros is going to be just new pages in a history book, and really not our problem, not to mention it's not our job to get involved in a medieval level society, especially when we might get worshipped as gods if we start producing miracles. Better to stay far away and observe, and let events play out, as this might be a necessary step in Westeros's development as a culture away from feudalism towards their equivalent of the Renaissance or Enlightenment, maybe even becoming a culture capable of warp travel someday.

That response is generally in keeping with conventional Federation doctrine. Some of the more pacifist of the brass would probably grumble about taking such a hard line with the Romulans and causing a diplomatic incident (although in truth, you'd probably be well within your rights to demand the surrender of their vessel under threat of opening fire, given the treaty breach). And some of the more militant brass would likely decry the failure to maintain more than a token presence, though you have at least infiltrated the Citidel, getting the Federation's foot in the door so to speak. But its a by-the-book enough approach that they probably won't be able to do more than grumble about it.

There is another layer to this though that I forgot to address in the OP, and I'm kicking myself for not bringing it up before: the Three-Eyed Raven. Guy's a time traveler, mentally at least, and implied to be able to see the future and alter the past. Which creates a possible temporal prime directive/temporal paradox issue.

[FaxModem1]

Thing is, the real threat IS the Romulans. They're trying to build some sort of protectorate or vassal in Federation space. This is unacceptable, especially as they did this without permission to come into our territory, or even notice that they were doing any sort of science mission. Picard wouldn't have been okay with this, as shown in The Enemy and The Defector, so neither would I.

Frankly, this is a diplomatic incident that the Romulans stepped into, and giving the UFP and Starfleet plenty of room to manuever room to do with as they please with captured Romulan operatives and equipment for the interstellar community to hold over the RSE if desired. The Federation Council may simply dismiss the incident, or use it for future negotiations to rake them over the coals, but we have done our duty here.

With Westeros, remember Riker's mission in First Contact(the episode, not the film). Get information about the place, and deem whether it's ready for first contact or not. Westeros is nowhere near ready to be talking to aliens, so we observe, document, and have scanners ready to alert Starfleet in case a Romulan fleet should happen by.

[Zaune]

I can't think of much to say about this topic other than to note that an acquaintance of mine is already working on a fanfic with a not-dissimilar premise: The Westerosi. (And the fact that the name is a reference to The Martian should tell you everything you need to know about it.) I recommend checking it out.

[The Romulan Republic]

I can't think of much to say about this topic other than to note that an acquaintance of mine is already working on a fanfic with a not-dissimilar premise: The Westerosi. (And the fact that the name is a reference to The Martian should tell you everything you need to know about it.) I recommend checking it out.

Read the first chapter. So far I like it.

[Tribble]

With Westeros, remember Riker's mission in First Contact(the episode, not the film). Get information about the place, and deem whether it's ready for first contact or not. Westeros is nowhere near ready to be talking to aliens, so we observe, document, and have scanners ready to alert Starfleet in case a Romulan fleet should happen by.

Funnily enough given the fantasy setting of GoT IMO the population of Westeros would handle aliens pretty well given they already have to deal with things like dragons, tree-folk, shapeshifters, prophets, an army of the undead etc. It's the tech level and lack of a unified, democratic world government that are the sticking points.

Act of Q aside, it would be interesting to find out where the Westoros human came from if they were in the ST universe. Maybe they were transported there for study at some point? Lost colony ship that travelled back in time and crash landed? How would that impact the Prime Directive?

[The Romulan Republic]

With Westeros, remember Riker's mission in First Contact(the episode, not the film). Get information about the place, and deem whether it's ready for first contact or not. Westeros is nowhere near ready to be talking to aliens, so we observe, document, and have scanners ready to alert Starfleet in case a Romulan fleet should happen by.

Funnily enough given the fantasy setting of GoT IMO the population of Westeros would handle aliens pretty well given they already have to deal with things like dragons, tree-folk, shapeshifters, prophets, an army of the undead etc. It's the tech level and lack of a unified, democratic world government that are the sticking points.

Hmm, Danny could have given them the unified world government if things had worked out differently. Maybe not the democratic part, but if she died without heirs maybe she'd be willing to set up a republic to succeed her.

Depending on how exactly humans got there, and whether the Others/deities are extraterrestrial entities in this scenario, they might decide that contact has already occurred. I'm not sure, but I think the "pre-warp" part of the PD doesn't apply if the pre-warp society has already made contact (see the complete lack of concern on Voyager about talking to the Ocampans openly).

Act of Q aside, it would be interesting to find out where the Westoros human came from if they were in the ST universe. Maybe they were transported there for study at some point? Lost colony ship that travelled back in time and crash landed? How would that impact the Prime Directive?

Yeah. I'm honestly not sure how the PD handles situations involving a lost human colony, but that sort of thing has happened a number of times on Trek, and I don't recall the PD being a major focus. So I think its possible that it wouldn't apply, and that Earth/the Federation would see Westeros as their responsibility. Which would negate the second major part of the PD, interference in the internal affairs of another civilization.

Now that I think about it, the situation is made even more complicated by the Children of the Forest- an indigenous pre-warp sapient race who were dispossessed, displaced, and nearly wiped out by the humans. The Others would make a second indigenous sapient race (albeit one, in the show at least, artificially created by the CotF), in addition to any "gods" of Westeros that might actually exist.

So if the Federation deems lost human colonies their responsibility, there is a massive unintended PD breach here- far too massive to simply undo or cover up. And we do know Starfleet can and will act aggressively to repair the effects of an unintended PD breach (ie Caretaker, A Piece of the Action, etc.).

Is there a canon precedent for how the Federation deals with such a scenario as this, though? Off the top of my head, TOS's "A Piece of the Action" comes closest, but there was no mix of humans and locals there from what I recall, and that wasn't in the TNG era.

[Solauren]

We've seen several cases of parellell evolution in Trek that it's probably a gray area.

Case in point - The Enterprise-A encountered three worlds that were identical to Earth. (Miri's World, Roman Empire, and Yangs vs Coms)

That being said, if the contient of Essos had originally been host to a misplaced human colony, that would explain an awful lot.
Like how it had three sentient species on the planet that we know of (Humans, Giants, Children of the Forest)

[NecronLord]

Why do we care? Apart from chasing off the Romulans, which if I'm in an intrepid class I can't fight off the smallest romulan interstellar ship other than shuttles/couriers seen on the show so that point's moot, because they'll handily defeat an unsupported Intrepid in any warbird shown since the Enterprise Era.

We've seen several cases of parellell evolution in Trek that it's probably a gray area.

FWIW the explanation in TOS is canonically the Preservers, who were made up to justify this trope.

[Solauren]

So preservers Terraformed 3 planets to be duplicates of Earth? And left no evidence of terraforming that the Enterprise could detect? That's stretching, even for Handwaving.

[NecronLord]

Um. This is a series in which Trelane exists?

Beyond which, yes, the Preservers created Amerind and left only a small obelisk that the Enterprise found only by chance, and only then because the planet needed an active asteroid deflection system. It's obviously within their capacity to resettle large numbers of people.