The rules said, do not contact those not ready for space flight. This culture was quite primitive, and religious. So the humans had to make a choice. Possibly risk interrupting the culture, and the religion, and rush in with their advanced tech to save the civilians before that huge quake they detected caused a tsunami that would wipe out almost the only large city on the entire planet, or sit back, do nothing as the rules dictated, and watch tens of thousands die? Damnit! -- Fighting Fit
There's a reason why more technologically advanced cultures try not to meddle with those still working out that -for example- fire is hot. It's embarrassing for both parties to discover that the benevolent god that saved them from, or showed them how to do something... was actually just some guy who decided to fix something that may or may not be broken.
Somewhere, there is an entire planet whose intelligent life owes their existence to a vending machine janitor named Dave[1].
And it's things like that that make moral quandries like this such an enormous problem. Submitted for introspection: the planet known to its natives as Shoal. They're working towards an industrial era and, thanks to an accident of geography, a large portion of the population is in one city.
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