In Star Trek you develop Warp 1. You feel like you're the top of the food chain. You can get from one side of your solar system to the other in less than a day.
Then this shiny beige dude in red pyjamas shows up.
He's like "cool boat you have there, really zips around doesn't it? Oh, by the way there's a couple thousand other civilizations that have done this, and you've been metaphorically right next to their trucking lane this whole time."
You ask him where he's from and he points it out on a map. Took him two weeks to get here in his massive space pleasure cruise ship.
And you start doing the math.
It would take your little Warp 1 ship over 300 years to visit his planet.
No sooner have you broken the laws of physics than you've realized you're still trapped.
Surely he can help you with this?! I mean, the hard part is done, right? Spot us a bit of an upgrade?
He smiles.
He smiles.
He is kind, but lets you know in no uncertain terms that there are three things you have to build yourselves: weapons, warp drives, and cloaking devices, and if anyone else tries to trade you one make no mistake that hellfire will rain from your skies.
He says he'll check in every now and then, see how you're doing, check to make sure religious zealots haven't slaughtered half your population in response to his visit.
"Oh, by the way, there's this race of machines that like to find new warp civilizations and devour them whole. We'll try to help, but no promises. You'll probably all be dead before we even get here."
And then he leaves.
