"The Cloud Minders" (season three, episode twenty-one; production code: 074; 28 February 1969): Wikipedia-link.
Commentary: "The Cloud Minders" is a solid if unspectacular episode. The class warfare story is interesting enough, as is Mr. Spock's infatuation with the beautiful Droxine, but what's really intersting about "The Cloud Minders" is what is says about the Federation. When all is said & done, we really know quite little about the functioning of the United Federation of Planets, the interstellar government Starfleet serves.
At the beginning of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Bajor has petitioned for membership in the Federation, but has been deemed not yet ready, which is unsurprising & understandable given the long, brutal occupation by the Cardassian Union. Prior to the discovery of the Bajoran Wormhole, Commander Benjamin Sisko's primary mission at Starbase Deep Space 9 is to get Bajor ready to join the Federation. Ardana, the planet visited in "The Cloud Minders," are clearly stated to already be members of the Federation, yet their society is stricty hierarchical & unjust, with a leisure class living in the floating city of Stratos served by an underclass called "Troglytes" (from troglodytes, cave-dwellers) who perform all the manual labor, mining Ardana's precious zenite ore. Stratos city officials practice torture against members of a Troglyte resistance called the "Disruptors." How was Ardana ever judged ready to join the Federation?
In Star Trek: Lower Decks, which is my opinion is canonically dubious (I would accept is as canon, as long as all the live-action Kurtzman Trek is denounced as non-canonical), planets are offered membership in the Federation upon first contact. The crew of the U.S.S. Cerritos specialize in "second contact," taking care of the paperwork & setting up communications for newly inducted Federation members. That seems like the only way Ardana could have slipped through the cracks, unless the rules were bent by Federation bureaucrats &/or Starfleet admirals who decided to look the other way in order to obtain Ardana's rich zenite deposits. But it is hard to square that willy-nilly approach with Bajor's long, laborious road to Federation membership (which is finally offered in the fifth season, though declined on Sisko's advice as the Emissary, to protect Bajor during the looming Dominion War).
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