Axanar

The Axanar are the first extraterrestrial race befriended by Earth people aboard the NX-01 Enterprise. Archer and his people attempt to rescue Axanar aboard a ship that has been disabled, but they are already dead, and when both another Axanar ship and the preying ship, show up, Archer can persuade the Axanar to help him fight off the preying ship. One of James T. Kirk's earliest commendations is the Palm Leaf of Axanar Peace Mission, following the Battle of Axanar; although the exact nature of the conflict is unrevealed, it is revealed in the episode "Whom Gods Destroy" that Starfleet Captain Garth of Izar achieved a great victory on behalf of the Federation, and his strategies became required reading at Starfleet Academy (since Kirk himself studied these strategies, the Battle of Axanar must thus have occurred well before Kirk entered Starfleet Academy in 2250, which was itself almost 20 years before "Whom Gods Destroy"). Kirk claims that the Axanar Peace Mission "topped [Garth's victory] with a greater one" and preserved the civilization that made Spock and himself "brothers", implying that the mission may have contributed to healing a serious rift in the Federation at that time.