NOTE BY SVC: good write up, but still doesn't change things. They were a one episode wonder, and there was nothing to base anything on. There is no spot on the map for them.
More to the point, as we never used them ... so the way our license works we never can.
Now I do admit that the GORNS had no more data and became a major empire, but we needed them to balance the Romulans, and they were on the FJ map. We might have done something with the FIrst Federation but we would have had to invent everything.
We cannot do it now because the days of creating the map are long gone.
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I have allways wondered about the off hand rejection of the "first federation".

Stephen V. Cole writes - "I hear about the "first federation" all the time. What's the deal? There was no information, no technology, you could make up ANYTHING and nobody would say you were wrong. They disappeared from the universe in one episode and couldn't have been much."

In fact the Gorns are in one episode, we never see anything of thier ship and I presume they ended up with plasma torps because the special effect was simular to the romulan torp in Balance of terror (Allthough I am not saying that none of it makes sense, the gorn ships match what happened in the episode fairly well, fireing arcs and chasing down a plasma armed ship-wise).

In the episode with the first federation we see a weapon system, a sort of defensive mine, if I recall. We also see the ship. So we have more direct technical data than the Gorn episode gave us. But we also get a sense of thier racial charateristics, the little alien uses a puppet of an evil looking monster alien to bluff his opponets (pretty dumb plot idea because you never know how an alien race is going to react).

So if you want a fisrt federation that can fit nicely into the game and wont un-balance things it's simple, the first federation is bluffing. The ship, huge as it is, is just a projection, a bluff, they are puffing themselves up like blowfish. The mine like weapon appears to put out dangerous levels of radiation but, it doesn't, it's a fake (not too big of an explosion in reality but useful as a game weapon). The name "First federation", well they probably told the gorns they were the "First Confederation".

A model that can fit this data could be simply a number of small scout ships, flying around and trying to avoid conflict by bluffing. If I recall, on the old star trek maps, the first federation contact was near the Gorns, so make them a one-hex race on the far side of the Gorns who the Gorns tolerate and the ISC considers too annoying to let into thier orginsation (most likely because the "First Concordium" offered to let the ISC into thier orginisation). The Romulans use them for target practice.

Give them an ultieror motive, like trying to become the pirates of the area or attempting to form a far reaching political group of oppressed races that they can lead.