I found this a little bit ago and it has some pre trek history and seems pretty impactful on the whole of trek. Aplogize in advance if most of you already know about this, I would liked to have seen the full episode.
The idea that there is this alien body that follows a prime directive guide line and does not interfere with young races. This started due to an experiment in the early 50's, there is a government project call penguin . The project was created to test psychological manipulation along with drugs, they invited a Dr. from India Dg Benow. The point being is was this Gene Roddenberry's inspiration for Star Trek here is the link you guys watch it and lets have a dialog about this also put a link to project penguin from wiki.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JG2YDZS7d7I
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgewood_Arsenal_human_experiments