Why Join the Federation?

Why do so many species want to join the Federation of Planets? A central plot to Deep Space Nine was Bajor's petition to join and Starfleet has standing orders to present itself and the UFP in a positive light to encourage new races to consider membership, but what can the UFP offer?

This is Part Three of a Federation series I'm working on exploring the different aspects of the UFP.

Cultural Index Series:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cB1PCx093Tk&list=PLnz8giR6uGEfgNaK1rLagPqwsRQtfsS9F

Music from bensound.com, purple-planet.com and freesfx.co.uk and Mass Effect 3

"Floating Cities" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Star Trek Online developed by Cryptic Studios and Perfect World.
Star Trek, Star Trek First Contact and Star Trek
Enterprise/Voyager/Deep Space Nine and The Next Generation are all owned by Paramount Pictures and distributed by CBS.
This Video is for educational purposes with commentary.

Видео Why Join the Federation? канала Certifiably Ingame