Starfleet and a Swarm of anti PD Von Neumann probes (RAR!)

[Zor]

In this scenario some time in the TNG era the Enterprise is doing a survey mission of a system which contains an M-class planet that had been found and surveyed by Starfleet two years earlier. Said planet has a native species of sapiants that are at a neolithic to medieval level of development the last time they checked with numerous Feudal Kingdoms, Theocracies, some Empires, a few Republics and a few clans and tribes. As they pass by they find a strange warp signature and come in to investigate. Said signature belongs to a strange ship which was orbiting said planet. It is about 350 meters long, cylindrical, of an unknown configuration and scans reveal no life signs and that it's interior is not even pressurized. There are also some energy signatures on one of the planet's moons. As they approach this strange ship hails the Enterprise. It gives them a set of questions in digital form about their civilization their system of government, their social values and political stances. Data answers them and then the ship's AI responds by saying that the Federation exhibits 74% compatibility and that it offers heartfelt greetings on behalf of it's creators. A civilization from a cluster of Star Systems 20,000 Lightyears from Sol. Like the Federation it is keen on exploration. Unlike the Federation it goes about it in a different way. Instead of building manned exploration ships, it builds Von Neumann Probes.

Each probe is fully automated with a central computer and a "crew" of limited AI robots under it's control. In addition to the usual shields, phaser banks and torpedo tubes found on most federation ships (which it is on par with in it's size category) it contains within it a set of ore processors and industrial machinery which allows it to mine asteroids and comets for raw materials and build factory space stations which serve as communications hubs and produce fuel, spare parts, ammunition and additional probes. One of said stations was situated about 21 light-years away. Each probe can set up a Factory Station in six months, which can produce a new probe every six months. This probe had come across this planet about thirteen months earlier in a general survey and has been here since overseeing operations on the planet. When asked on details, it provides a detailed report which is confirmed by sensor readings.

Basically the drone spent a month sending down probes investigating the native populations and cultures before stepping in. The first thing it did was nuke the capital cities of the Theocracies and combat drones to level their temples and holy sites. Afterwards they sent down instructor units to some of the Republics which gave them new technologies (most notably muskets) and gave them scientific information and blueprints. Other drones offer medical aide to the sick in the Republic as well as in Kingdoms and disseminates medical textbooks which explain germ theory and denounce the notion of hereditary hierarchy as a valid system of government. They also sent drones to some of the more primitive societies giving them writing, the wheel, ironworking and domestic animals and crops (screened for diseases). As it stood the Republics, armed with rifled muskets, rockets and cannons and producing new products more efficiently were on the rise politically and economically. When famine strikes, the drones drop care packages of emergency rations from the sky. When asked why they were doing this, the Probe explained that this is for the benefit of this species for it to quickly rise out of non technological barbarism and that it is only moral to (for example) give societies the means to prevent one in three infants from dying before age 3. It also prevents "dangerous memetic atavisms" such as theocracy or feudal warrior cultures from surviving into the space age where they can threaten the peace of the galaxy and at which point they can be remarkably difficult to rectify. It then asks for the locations of more planets populated by primitive sapients.

This probe is rather set in it's ways, as are the thousands of counterparts made from the same template and the less common 700 meter long Battleship variant.

How would Starfleet respond to such a development?

Zor

[The Romulan Republic]

They'd probably be disturbed and make some protests, though less over the fact that its interference is a Prime Directive violation (the probes are not part of the Federation, and I don't recall the Federation condemning every civilization that didn't follow the Prime Directive, i.e. every other civilization), as over the fact that the intervention is so blunt and brutal (fucking nuking pre-industrial cities, really?).

That said, they probably won't interfere much as long as the probes don't attack the Federation or its allies. Not sure if the Prime Directive would forbid interference- the probes would not be pre-warp, and while the civilizations they interfere with might be, I don't recall how the Prime Directive addresses interference with pre-warp civilizations that have already made first contact. But the Federation doesn't have a habit of starting fights with every imperialist civilization out their.

[Simon_Jester]

One big issue with this is that these automated units are a serious potential threat. They were friendly because the Federation turns out to be "74% compatible." What's the cutoff threshold? What if they encounter a Federation member world that answers some of the questions differently, the Federation being a fairly diverse place? What if they change their minds about "compatibility?"

People who think it's okay to exterminate millions of low-tech aliens just because their governments are 'regressive' or whatever, to the point where you're willing to nuke the capital of a "theocracy" while arming the capital of a "republic," are very dangerous people to have around. I mean, by that standard, if they'd visited medieval Earth circa, oh, 1450... what, would they have nuked Rome to destroy the Vatican, and made Venice the master of Italy? Would they have vaporized cathedrals all over Europe with phaser strikes? How would that have been just given the massive suffering and death that would result from the destruction?

And it's not like Venice was really better governed or in any meaningful sense 'nicer' than Rome, and its 'republic' was a de facto oligarchy of the wealthy. For that matter, the Venetians were Catholics who adhered to the same religion this probe would be targeting as 'theocratic.'

Would the probes indiscriminately target any city where the inhabitants adhere strongly to a religion? Doesn't that seem a bit unfair, especially as a standard applied to low-tech societies?

And the question isn't just "what do they do to people who can't fight back." It is, again, "If that's what they do to someone who cannot stop them, what will they do to people who can? What if they're just waiting to build up more probes until they have enough numbers to take us on, and forcibly shift us from 74% compatibility to 99% compatibility?"

[NecronLord]

They attack the murderous thing before it kills again.