"If you only know the basic equations it may be decades before we have an operational drive."

"That depends on what raw materials and manufacturing capability you have available."

"We are better at genetics than devices and manufacturing, but approximately twenty years past the homeworld completed its first non-research-scale thermonuclear fusion power plant. Does this give you a better guess?"

"Nuclear power is normally several decades before large-scale nuclear power. You might take a while to build warp technology as you guess. But if you don't, the Federation won't want to talk to you. Depending on the range of your gates, you could find other races and trade with them for warp. Those civilizations tend to be less friendly to unfamiliar species but might not be hostile."

"The gates have no maximum range, but must reach their destinations by sublight travel. I think we will need to wait until we develop warp."

"And you will pretend to have developed it on your own to the Federation? Or at least gotten it from some other source."

"If I order everyone who knows of your visit to secrecy - five individuals including myself, all loyal members of my hive - I can likely plausibly pretend that one of my physicists discovered the equations."

"That will do. I'll send them over." Which she does.