I think these two are almost if not entirely exclusionary. It cannot be Federation space if the inhabitants are pre-warp.
There are prime directive eff-ups. Like the flower bed trespasser assassins of S1 TNG. The Fed is in contact with the Edo although they shouldn’t be but somehow s happened. We don’t really know where they’re located in reference to everything else in the Fed or the universe. But even if everything around them was warp hopping mad, the system of the Edo or at least their planet Rubicun III should be an exclave. In the scenario where the Fed would have to defend them from a hypothetical anti-prime-direxxer it could be a protectorate but not Fed territory.
I can think of two other instances with the PD that come close to this scenario but are no cigar. Data’s long-fingered pen pal Salenka or something like that and Worf’s adopted brother trying to save his knocked up pre-warp Penny Johnson. In both cases I don’t think we know if the territory was Fed, Fed adjacent, or something else. And it’s a moot point anyway because they were defending against natural disasters, not other species.
I think these two are almost if not entirely exclusionary. It cannot be Federation space if the inhabitants are pre-warp.
There are prime directive eff-ups. Like the flower bed trespasser assassins of S1 TNG. The Fed is in contact with the Edo although they shouldn’t be but somehow s happened. We don’t really know where they’re located in reference to everything else in the Fed or the universe. But even if everything around them was warp hopping mad, the system of the Edo or at least their planet Rubicun III should be an exclave. In the scenario where the Fed would have to defend them from a hypothetical anti-prime-direxxer it could be a protectorate but not Fed territory.
I can think of two other instances with the PD that come close to this scenario but are no cigar. Data’s long-fingered pen pal Salenka or something like that and Worf’s adopted brother trying to save his knocked up pre-warp Penny Johnson. In both cases I don’t think we know if the territory was Fed, Fed adjacent, or something else. And it’s a moot point anyway because they were defending against natural disasters, not other species.