Cap­tain Ford Pre­fect, Com­mand­ing Officer USS Neil Arm­strong, NCC-48728.

The fol­low­ing testi­mony is sub­mit­ted in respect of the inquiry into the inter­ac­tions between myself and the crew of the Arm­strong on or around Stard­ate 48175, on and in the vicin­ity of Orgun III.

Act­ing on Star­fleet orders we tracked the Fed­er­a­tion ves­sel SS Tesla to the Orgun sys­tem. Tesla had lost com­mu­nic­a­tions and we were ordered to loc­ate and, if appro­pri­ate, res­cue the Fed­er­a­tion personnel/vessel. This is a mat­ter of record.

From orbit we were aware the crew of sci­ent­ists had (crash) landed on the sur­face of Orgun III, but atmo­spher­ic con­di­tions were such that detailed sensor sweeps were not pos­sible. Sensor data has been sub­mit­ted to the board for veri­fic­a­tion that Arm­strong fol­lowed appro­pri­ate pro­ced­ure and oper­ated all equip­ment with skill and diligence.

Unable to ascer­tain the status of the Tesla crew from orbit, I led an away team to the plan­et sur­face. The per­son­nel included in the away team was appro­pri­ate and pro­por­tion­ate to the risk involved in the mis­sion and is a mat­ter of record from shuttle logs.

All appro­pri­ate steps were taken to remain undetec­ted, with Cmdr Win­ters pilot­ing the shuttle appro­pri­ately at all times. How­ever, dur­ing the sur­face mis­sion we were engaged by the indi­gen­ous pop­u­la­tion of Orgun III who were mon­it­or­ing the wreck­age of Tesla fol­low­ing dir­ect con­tact with its crew. In our ini­tial con­tact we dis­covered that the inhab­it­ants of Orgun III were cap­able of space travel with­in their own sys­tem, but had not dis­covered warp tech­no­logy. They were aware of oth­er spe­cies on oth­er plan­ets (spe­cific­ally Orgun II) and, after the arrival of the Fed­er­a­tion sci­ent­ists, were aware of the wider galactic pop­u­la­tion. Spe­cif­ic action to erad­ic­ate or obfus­cate this know­ledge would have, in my judge­ment, been impossible and so fur­ther actions in respect of our inter­ac­tions are moot. The mat­ter of pos­sible inter­fer­ence with the nat­ur­al devel­op­ment of the indi­gen­ous spe­cies in the Orgun sys­tem hangs on the ruins up to this point.

I sub­mit to the tribunal per­son­al logs as evid­ence of due con­sid­er­a­tion of all factors lead­ing to the actions I under­took and ordered my crew to under­take. I believe them to be wholly com­pat­ible with all Star­fleet dir­ect­ives and ask the tribunal to note the records to this effect.