@Knixon said:

I guess. Although in other contexts, especially future contexts - the TNG ep First Contact being a prime example - it was the development of warp drive that triggered first contact. A generation-ship might not qualify.

That was the Vulcans who were triggered by Warp Drive. The thing more important is unavoidability. The people of Yonada would have been given full knowledge of their tech a year later making any violation a mute point and first contact inevitable, and the rebels of this ship would make their way to the bridge at some point and contact would have been unavoidable again. Its easy to avoid a system, but harder to avoid people who could leave it and possibly spread out. When that occurs, you don't want to deal with people conquering other less technological worlds thinking they have the right do so because they believe their society is the first to make claim on the universe. History has proven that would be a very bad thing. If there is already a "Federation" out there in the universe, I believe the same will occur if we ever manage to leave our system to explore other worlds outside our own system.

But any non-warp ship wouldn't encounter anyone in "Deep Space" for decades at least. Although you could argue if they already started out decades ago (or in the case of the Orrville spaceship about 2 millenia, or for Yonada about 10 millennia) so the encounter could happen "any time now."

And the Vulcans might have started that policy, but according to that TNG episode again, Starfleet appeared to follow it.

@Knixon said:

But any non-warp ship wouldn't encounter anyone in "Deep Space" for decades at least. Although you could argue if they already started out decades ago (or in the case of the Orrville spaceship about 2 millenia, or for Yonada about 10 millennia) so the encounter could happen "any time now."

And the Vulcans might have started that policy, but according to that TNG episode again, Starfleet appeared to follow it.

Still, if Kirk did make the official contact a year later with the people of Yonada (as he said he would), then that policy is more loosely observed by the Federation. "At any time now" would have been my argument. I hadn't read the follow up novel so I don't know what occurred when Kirk returned to the people of Yonada.

I haven't read any of the novelizations in years. Decades, really. I really enjoyed "Starship" and "Galactic Whirlpool" but "Spock: Messiah!" and the "Hollow Kirk" nonsense written by a couple women who were hot for Spock, really put me off and I haven't recovered.