What if Earth was like one of those uncolonized planets from Star Trek where it was just on the cusp of warp and if you interfered you would disrupt the whole future of the planet?

The crews of thousands of alien starships watch in awe as our Apollo 11 makes it to the moon.<br><br>They had been monitoring Earth since the first nuke went off in 1945. At first they thought we were just going to blow ourselves up, but then they realized all those nuclear tests were building up towards something big. And here we are on the moon.<br><br>They argued for centuries about whether or not they should make contact with us. They have strict rules against interfering with "primitive" civilizations.<br><br>They decided to just observe and see what we would do. Would we colonize the moon? Mars? Shoot on us out of the solar system. They talked endlessly about us. Some said that we were "ready" for first contact. Others said that if we made it to Pluto it would be okay to make contact. Others said not until we made it to proxima centauri.<br><br>Humans watch alien starships orbiting just outside of Pluto. We are awed and confused. We don't know what they want or where they come from. We just shoot probes at them and they just orbit in silence.