A subject in an Inquiry of mankind (RAR!)

[Zor]

One day, something odd happens. Your outside doing something normal when a device descends from the sky, opens up a hatch and a set of Robot arms grab you and pull you in. A few minutes pass in which you experience a sensation of intense gravity followed by that of weightlessness. Afterwards you are deposited into a room with a window, there you can see a view of earth with a fleet around it.

You are then confronted with a large camera eye and a Hologram. This conveys the following facts. They came from a planet where there was a nuclear war. None of the original species that started this war survived, what did survive were various self repairing robots which eventually evolved into more and more sophisticated networks and acheived sapience. They eventually set themselves to explore the galaxy and expand. So far they have yet to find a living organic sapient species. This has changed when they came across mankind. Humanity is also radically diferent from their creators, which were eusocial and utterly alien looking beings in which secialized forms were made out of smaller symbiotic creatures that fuzed together, communicated through pannals of skin which had complex patterns of colour flow across them and other unusal traits. Now they have been capturing individual humans from around the world for study. In your case, it is a matter of explaining humanity to them before more official units are sent down. Once it has collected enough information, it will deposit you back where it found you functional and unharmed. They also state that they have no interest in destroying humanity. If they did, humanity would only know this intent after all the Earth's cities were turned to crators and millions of combat robots were dispatched to irradicate what survivors might remain.

What do you tell it?

Zor

[Rabid]

Basically :

"We are an highly adaptable specie of sentient apes, with highly developed social skills, who have managed to conquer all of our planet, and are currently in the very early stage of colonizing our solar system. We naturally tend to assemble ourselves in groups, in 'clans'. It allow us to be stronger, to increase our chances of survival, but the impulse we have to protect our 'clan' produce in reaction a 'fear', a 'paranoia' directed against those who aren't part of it, as they may represent a menace toward the survival of the 'clan' - toward our survival as individuals.

You are the most Alien thing we have encountered so far, and thus the most menacing. We fear what we don't know, and what we fear, we want to destroy. If you can assure us of your peaceful intentions, if you can prove us we have nothing to fear from you, then we will cooperate with you as if you were our Brothers and Sisters. But be sure that if you were to declare us unworthy, if you were to try to wipe us as a specie, we would not go without a fight, and will fight to the last. That is not a menace : Peace is what we seek the most. Know that this is our Nature.

Also, you have to be conscious that we are individuals, with differing opinion ; and as such, some may welcome you while other could want to destroy you. If some where to open fire on you, please, I beg you not to lump us all on the same side.


Do you have another questions ? If not, I have one of my own :

What do you want from us ?"

[Zaune]

Explain as concisely as possible the differences in our biology, given my somewhat limited knowledge of the subject, and then introduce them to the concept of the Internet.

[Zixinus]

Considering that they know the basics of our biological makeup, tell them what we evolved from (hunter-gatherers that eventually learned to form agricultural communities), a few things in what to expect if they contact various nations (sooner or later, every nation will want to drag them into their own interests, due to the nature of humans in power), some ideas on how advanced we are (we cannot make self-repairing robots but we can make advanced computers from semiconductors). Of course, also note that they'll have many, many more requests from humans, from everything to help with fusion technology and energy cells, through sharing their findings about the universe to who killed JFK. Except this and don't reply immediately, regardless of the contents (unless it is about something they verifiable caused). They'll likely get as much end of human neurosises as we can swing at them.

Regarding this, tell them that we'll likely be very freaked out by their presence. Tell them to give us a brief, simple message in all known written languages that they come in peace, that would help calm things down for us. Or I might throw out the idea that it might be worthwhile hijacking a TV satellite and announcing that through me, assuring humanity that announcing that they come in peace is not some sort of trick to gain our trust.
Also, tell them to be expected from everything from paranoia to be welcomed as a god, but definitely with a lot of nervousness. Tell them to warn them of any other moves they make.

I would make a note about religions: tell them what they are, that they are very powerful and closely held cultural heritage regarding views of the universe. It would be best to try avoiding the issue. Name Jerusalem and the Vatican as two central religious cities (I suddenly wish I knew more for other mayor religions).

If they want a decent relationship with humans, first tell them to be careful and analyze our behavior through scientific literature (online likely) before determining what kind of relationship they want to have with us. Don't send a ship to the White House, because it might look suspiciously ICBM. Or at least give a warning.

Oh, and before I forget: TELL THEM WE TOO HAVE NUKES! Tell them that they are in the odd situation for us where we just want to own them and not use them (or rather own them to not use them), which actually ensured partial peace.

[Chaotic Neutral]

Plead to them to let me have some of their stuff for research.

Then beg some more.

[Rossum]

I would ask them to contact NASA or the United Nations or some other more official organization that could deal with these things. The scientists at those organizations would be much better able to provide whatever information that aliens want.

Also, if this device is dropping donwn on my front lawn and picking me up then its likely that about a million radar and space telescopes are detecting this. Considering all the risks of gray goo Von Neuman universal constructors, alien microbes, and other stuff its likely that any military organization on the planet who noticed these things would be freaking out. The fact that the aliens aren't contacting them implies that maybe they don't use radio or have an alien way of thinking that makes it easy for them to miss official attempts at first contact.

Thus, I again try to direct them to NASA, the UN, and other official organizations. Not only to give the aliens the information they want but to provide the human government information about whats happening.

The second to last thing I want is to be in an alen ship for several days trying to give them the information they want only to return home to a terrified nation with half the population thinking the world is about to end from aliens and the other half thinking the aliens are Jesus come back to kill all the nonbelievers. Oh, and odds are if the aliens just dump me off then I'd be picked up by government officials who run me through a million tests to make sure the aliens didn't kill me and replace me with a perfect cyborg duplicate or something.

[LionElJonson]

I direct them to contact the Singularity Institute.

I also ask them if they would be willing to give the Singularity Institute their knowledge on how to program Friendly AIs, or at least how to make AIs that won't destroy us so they can convert the all the matter in the universe into paper clips or something.

[Zor]

What do you want from us ?

As of now, they want to study humanity and understand it. Mankind poses no threat to a millenia year old machine empire spanning a not insugnifigant section of the Orion Arm (it should be noted that this is an explorer fleet, their developed territory is some ways away). They don't understand all that much about their creators as their was a period between their destruction and their awakening as truely self aware entitities, during which their non sapient ansestors recycled most of the ruins. The are very much interested in the way organic sapients would function on various levels, including one which is much more individualistic than their forbearers.

Zor