# How would you manage a first contact?



## Vertigo (Sep 8, 2011)

I was a little wary about starting this thread as I do *NOT* want it to degenerate into an "aliens grabbed my mother" conspiracy discussion.

I am interested in how aliens who have discovered our presence could manage first contact with us *as friends* without causing mass panic. I am interested in this as background to story ideas but am posting it here as I think it is a more generally interesting question.

I would like to assume that the aliens' science is not so far different to ours. IE they have not discovered any radical new science concepts that allow them FTL travel, or even FTL communications. They cannot "beam" themselves to the surface of the planet or even project some kind of holograms to the surface etc. Their application of that science can and probably would be far in advance of us but no great pure science surprises.

It seems to me that there are a number of problems:

1. It is unlikely that any sizeable starship (and without FTL it would have to be sizeable) could approach Earth without being spotted by amateur astronomers as well as professionals (at least once in Earth orbit). If nothing else their decelerating drive is likely to be visible. So maybe they would stand off a long way and send in a smaller, harder to spot ship.

2. If they just broadcast a general radio message for all to hear, I am convinced the result would be mass panic across the globe, financial markets going into melt down, cults and religions going bonkers. There would be, I am certain, a lot of deaths associated with such an announcement.

3. If they wanted to contact only world leaders, then which would they contact first without putting the others’ noses out of joint? Maybe the answer would be to contact the head of the UN. Either way, just how exactly would you make that contact without ending up back in scenario 2? You can’t just get on the phone to the president of the USA/Russia/China etc. or the secretary-general of the UN or walk up to their doors and knock. However if you turned up yourself (not looking particularly human) in order to verify your story then you would get no further than the man on the gate before the security team went into overdrive. That is assuming you could get that close without drawing attention to yourself first.

4. If we can solve problem 3 we have still only delayed problem 2. A global announcement by the Secretary-General, President etc. would generate only marginally less panic than the announcement being made by the aliens themselves.

I really can’t think of any way that contact could be made without generating panic. Ironically it would probably have been easier several thousand years ago when the aliens could have just appeared as “Gods” and then proceeded to “educate us”. Again please let me stress I am not saying that has already happened and don’t want to discuss whether it has happened. I want to consider how an alien arriving today could announce their presence without causing a breakdown in Earth’s society. Maybe you disagree that there would be mass panic, in which case I would be interested in why you would think that.


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## Terrible Tempest (Sep 8, 2011)

Vertigo said:


> I really can’t think of any way that contact could be made without generating panic.



I agree. And to add to that: we (humans) can barely tolerate each others' differences as is, so there's no way I can see us not flipping the hell out. 

I really don't know how I'd manage it if it were up to me. I'd probably bring pizza and beer and invite them over for dinner. That sounds like a smartass answer, but I'm not sure how else one _could_ handle it. Breaking bread together has worked throughout the ages.


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## Metryq (Sep 8, 2011)

John Scalzi's "free" on-line book _Agent to the Stars_ is a humorous look at this very problem.

But to answer the proposed question seriously, without FTL flight, how long has the ship been in transit? Assuming a technology asymptotically close to lightspeed and coming from one of the nearby stars, would the visitors already know something about us? If so, wouldn't they try to contact us somehow before starting the flight?

If we now assume engines significantly slower than light and/or a flight starting from a much greater distance, suppose the crew had no clue of our existence before the flight started. Using the facilities on board and without guidance from back home, the visitors must come up with a solution as they drop towards Sol. This is pretty much the scenario presented in the first place. The cat is already out of the bag, as the starship's deceleration is visible with the Earth technology now evident to the visitors. What do you do? 

Have the visitors learned enough about us to take a shot at sending a message? Do the visitors even know enough about us to understand that a very large portion of humanity is irrational, or would any sign of panic completely mystify them? (Consider James P. Hogan's "Giants" who were not war-like or devious because of the evolution of their biology. No predators.) Psychology is a very big part of this problem. Keep in mind that the ship is already visible. Do you stop at the Moon, or better yet Mars and wait for the natives to calm down?


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## RJM Corbet (Sep 8, 2011)

They could post an intro thread on the _chrons_?


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## alchemist (Sep 8, 2011)

D'uh! They'd contact The Leader of the Free World! Haven't you seen the movies? 
And LOL at RJM.

Does SETI have a return address? Or Voyager? i.e. a particular frequency they could reply on, or a code embedded in the signal they can use to ID themselves? 
Rather than a voice message they could send something in code, so complex that only the experts could decode it and then take it to the authorities. 

The best thing to avert panic may be a dripfeed of information, rather than a grand entrance.

Oh, and I'm sorry to hear about your mother, Vertigo. Hopefully they'll return her soon.


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## Ursa major (Sep 8, 2011)

_(Given that Vertigo seems determined to avoid causing panic, I expect him to keep mum on that subject, alchemist.)_


Is it definite that any technically known sort of deceleration is bound to be seen? What sort of radiant energy is given out by, say, a high-speed ion stream (assuming the ion stream itself isn't aimed in our direction)? Could there be natural sources of such energy so that we would not have our attention drawn to the unnatural source?


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## TheEndIsNigh (Sep 8, 2011)

I believe the arrival of an alien life form on our doorstep would create mass panic regardless of how friendly or otherwise their opening gambit.

At least 75% of the Earth's population believe in a deity. The snag is that a 'more capable' life form would show we were the arse end of that deity's grand design.

The options are that they were formed first in, which case we are the rib ends and muck that was left over, or we were formed first, but hey, he made a more advanced version after he saw the mess he turned out here. (since they get here first in both options)

We all know what his grand design is for the also rans. They are the fodder on which the highest life form will feed. Look how he allowed us to to screw up our world.

So friendly or otherwise, it looks like it's the needles and probes for the humans.

It's only fair though. We'd do it to any planet we ever managed to discover.


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## Vertigo (Sep 9, 2011)

Some interesting responses there and Agent to the Stars is one of the books that got me thinking about this.

First I don't think they would know much of anything about us before they arrived. Stuff I have read reckons that even in our heyday of undirected radio signals those signals would only have been detectable up to about a light year away. More recently we have transmitted much more efficiently and I doubt our presence could be detected even that close. The only transmissions likely to have reached across interstallar space would be things like military radar but what are the chance of such a thing happening to point in just the right direction to catch another inhabited planet? And even if it did, it would move off them again in seconds (microseconds?).

So I think it unlikely my aliens had foreknowledge of our presence.

Now could they arrive undetected? If they think the solar system is a possible haven of life and if maybe prior experience has taught them that first contact could be fraught, they might try to arrive "quietly". Apart from anything else if the life (us) could see them well ahead of time then they might make militaty preparations and everything could go pear shaped. How could they do this? If they have time (and interstellar travel without FTL kind of presumes that) then I think it might be possible, though I don't know enough about astrogation to be sure.

The way I figure it, to be efficient a ships drive would be very focused sending out whatever drive exhaust it uses in a very tight beam. So if you plotted your course so that you are "missing" the system whilst decelerating, you should be able to take up a remote comet like orbit around the system without ever actually pointing your drive directly at it. From there it should be easy to use much the same tactic to move in closer. You will of course be detected eventually but not before you are much closer.

However here's another idea. Just before you start decelerating you fire a flyby probe at the system. No drive would be necessary as it has all your existing velocity. Send another one later maybe after you've killed some speed. The probe(s) would simply fly by and transmit as much information as they can gather as they pass. Being small and with no drive they are very unllikely to be detected.



> Do you stop at the Moon, or better yet Mars and wait for the natives to calm down?


I like that idea Metryq and I really can't thing of anything much better. Stay well back, present as little threat as possible and talk fast 



> Rather than a voice message they could send something in code, so complex that only the experts could decode it and then take it to the authorities.


Again I quite like that idea, maybe in combination with Metryq's above. Except it still doesn't solve the problem, it only delays it. At some point the masses have to be told before it leaks out in an uncontrolled manner.



> It's only fair though. We'd do it to any planet we ever managed to discover.


Maybe that's the point. If we ever go out there these are the decisions we might have to take.


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## Metryq (Sep 9, 2011)

Ursa major said:


> Is it definite that any technically known sort of deceleration is bound to be seen? What sort of radiant energy is given out by, say, a high-speed ion stream (assuming the ion stream itself isn't aimed in our direction)?



Vertigo assumed a technology not incredibly ahead of ours, which I assumed to mean engineering we may have imagined, but not realized. With that in mind:

*There Ain't No Stealth In Space*



> If the spacecraft are torchships, their thrust power is several terawatts. This means the exhaust is so intense that it could be detected from Alpha Centauri. By a passive sensor.
> 
> The Space Shuttle's much weaker main engines could be detected past the orbit of Pluto. The Space Shuttle's manoeuvering thrusters could be seen as far as the asteroid belt. And even a puny ship using ion drive to thrust at a measly 1/1000 of a g could be spotted at one astronomical unit.
> 
> This is with current off-the-shelf technology. Presumably future technology would be better.



They're not sneaking into the Solar system unseen.


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## Vertigo (Sep 9, 2011)

Yeah but as I said, do they need to point the drive at the Solar System in order to get here?

Also another thought is that if they are using some variant of the Bussard ramjet then, as I understand it, it works passively in deceleration. There is no actual drive; it uses the drag effect of the ramscoop to decelerate. That might not seem enough but the problem with the Buzzard ramjet is that under acceleration the thrust only just outweighs the drag. So the drag is enough to slow you down (and incidentally store up enough fuel to get you back up to ramjet speeds when you want to leave).

Edit: I would also add that the stuff on that page is really talking about battle type SF scenarios; trying to hide from someone who is actively looking for you. Yes they could constantly scan the whole sky every four hours but if you're not expecting anyone then your're not looking for them. Sure people searching for asteroids might spot you but I suspect only if they were very lucky.


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## J Riff (Sep 9, 2011)

Well the plan was to have a huge tourist ship just float on in, with cute Star-Warsy friendly aliens aboard, in order to get over the hump of icky scary bug aliens scaring everyone.
 First contact for the human race as a whole will be big fun, should dominate TV for months.
 Last I remember they were all nicely disguised as clouds and staying out of sight until FC day, whenever that is set for.
 There will be huge problems that nobody has thought of yet, though. Big. Nasty problems with uhh what people have been up to. Aliens don't recognize Governments or money of hereditary power structures like we do, so that's what I'm waiting for, the actual truth about the space prog and a few other things. Oh, and the minutely detailed recordings of the history of our solar system and galaxy.


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## RJM Corbet (Sep 9, 2011)

I think all organised systems, such as are necessary for conducting space exploration, will be hierarchical. Even a fishing boat has a skipper with a licence


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## chrispenycate (Sep 9, 2011)

How do they slow down? No, this is not a facetious question; if we can 





> assume that the aliens' science is not so far different to ours. IE they have not discovered any radical new science concepts


, then they have no gravity generators or 'inertial compensators' to absorb the deceleration forces (assuming their propulsion system powerful enough to generate several tens of gs of delta v in what must be a considerable mass to handle interstellar timescales, several megatonnes, at least) so should slow down from cruising speed - at, at most a couple of gravities. Which means decades from "tuning on the brakes" and arrival. And almost any system of braking would be detectable well outside the confines of the solar system, be it solar sail parachute or reaction drive (have you looked at reverse gear on a bussard ramjet? messy). The "almost" involves mass to energy conversion and a collimated beam of many kilos of photons aimed carefully off the target planet; but even that would ionise the solar wind in a ruler-straight line while you were still light weeks out).

So humanity would have *time* to adjust to the situation. A whole generation, between the "scientist have detected" headlines (with their cartload of cranks and cults, most dying down within the year), the "communication has been established with", as the incoming vessel  filters "eastenders" and "the weakest link" out of the interference caused by their own drive, and struggle to decode language, society and culture out of the static, while SETI experts with new massive budgets helpfully explain that 2 +2 =4, the exchange of communication phases, before the "is synchronising with the international  space station and orbital Hilton complex where ambassadors are gathering…" phase. 

Call me optimistic, but I thing that the slow, incremental acquisition of contact would give humanity the chance to adapt to, and even get bored by and be more interested by the football, the revelation. There'd be the same sum panic spread across so many years that it would be homoeopathically diluted below ground hysteria levels. A few SF fans would peruse each tiny development, analyse and argue, but they're not the ones (any more than the conspiracy theory excessives, or the cattle mutilator nuts) who are going to cause disruptive reactions. Even religions would have time to adjust and get their stories straight (and disapprove logically).

With a superdrive that could bring them to a halt in a matter of days the argument is very different; but that involves new physics, not just a refinement of what we already have.


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## Moonbat (Sep 9, 2011)

Well, up until Chris' post I was firmly in the 'there is no way of them arriving without causing panic' scenario, but I can see that a slow arrival would dilute the panic to manageable levels.

I think it is a good reason why, if there are any sentiant species out there travelling across the stars, they might avoid first contact with us until we have made significant discoveries of alien civilisations ourselves (although that is my projecting human ideas/thoughts/concerns onto aliens which is silly) 

But it is an interesting point, they can't just turn up (anyway with the science it would be hard to just appear without someone noticing them pull up) and if they revealed themselves there would be mass panic, they would only have time to learn about us (without us spotting them) if they arrived slowly and stealthily, which they could be in the process of doing and have been doing for the last century (who knows how long it would take to slow down). Also if they had gone to all the trouble to come this far and meet us, maybe the moment of first contact (first impressions) would be so important they would spend years/decades/even centuries preparing for it to get it right. Saying that, I'm sure if we sent people off to meet other species the public wouldn't be so patient, then again it's probably best that the public don't make these kind of decisions.

A very interesting question Vertigo


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## Vertigo (Sep 9, 2011)

Ok I like that, Chris and I could see that a slow feed of information might work well. So how about we extend it further. If the aliens send out an information gathering flyby probe ahead of their arrival (as described above) and it detects technology, maybe it could repeatedly send out a hello signal to Earth as it flies by. Something that is very obviously coherent and not going to be mistaken for anything natural. The fact that the aliens at this stage (remember this probe has probably been dispatched around their half way point on route to the solar system) probably do not know our language etc. is probably an advantage. The signal would be received, recognised for what it is and announced and then be followed by some years of decoding it (make it obviously artificial in nature but not too easy to decode as per Alchemist's suggestion). That interval would be plenty of time for people to get used to the idea (and bored). 

I see this as similar to the initial media panic about the LHC collider "they're going to make a black hole that will swallow the world". By the time it was actually turned on I suspect only those interested in science paid much attention. Sure this would grap more public attention but the same sort of dynamics might be possible.

Another advantage of making the first contact by probe is that there is no need for this first probe to announce that they are on the way and so cause possible panic. There would be little possiblity of the probe being detected, it is small and virtually unpowered. It would be travelling at the aliens' maximum interstellar cruise speed which would hopefully be a significant proportion of the speed of light. At these sort of speeds there would obviously be very little time for information gathering or sending. So it would really be able to do little more than say "hi we exist" and send "there's someone here" back to the mother ship. Earth would be able to deduce very little from the probe itself even if they did managed to detect it and figure out its trajectory through the system. They would have no way of knowing whether it was sent from another planetary system or deep space. So really all people on the Earth know is that there is someone out there and they want to be friends (very important to get that last bit across in the first transmission).

The next probe to be sent would be slower (as the aliens have now been decelerating for a while) and could pick up more info to send back to the mother ship as well as send more info to Earth. It is also possible that by then the aliens have figured one or more Earth language if the first probe was able to send back sufficient data. 

This could be done several times before actually announcing the aliens' imminent arrival, which (due to relativistic effects) might still be decades away in our planet time even if much less in ship time. You couldn't do it too often without announcing we are on our way as by the third probe the slower speed of each probe would imply that anyway.

Hopefully by the time that is announced everyone is getting used to the idea. It probably wouldn't be a bad idea for the aliens to stress their technological superiority to encourage the humans to accept your peaceful intentions rather than trying to figure out how sling weapons at you! For the same reason the aliens probably also don't really want the humans to know their approach route until the latest possible time. Don't give the possibly hostile humans time to mine their route or lay traps etc.

In this way the whole arrival process could be spread over literally decades of planet time though much less ship time.

Crikey I seem to be going for the mega post on this thread; sorry!


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## Vertigo (Sep 9, 2011)

Sorry for the double post but here's another quick thought on the benefits of this sort of early annoucement; just saying that they are here and they are friendly. Getting a firm message that we are not alone and that contact is possible might just redirect a lot of money away from killing each other and towards space instead. The motivation would now be very strong to do so. Admittedly it might just rediredt the money towards building some sort of space defence but that too would help defuse panic.


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## TheEndIsNigh (Sep 9, 2011)

Sadly, I think folk are missing the the fact that they wouldn't be here for the good of *our* health.

Obviously my faith in the way species treat different alien lifeforms is vastly different from the norm.

It's fair to say we only have a 'human' take on what would happen, but these beings have crossed the vastness of space and they will be wanting rewards for their troubles.

Here we are with backward technology - if it can be even called as much by their standards (as far as ants are concerned, they ants think they own the world), Whereas they see a big blue planet just ripe for the picking, and all there is to stop them is a few maggots who are killing anything that moves. We obviously don't care to look after it, so why worry about it.


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## Vertigo (Sep 9, 2011)

Actually I don't think that is really such an issue in this case TEIN. Without FTL inerstellar trade or warfare really wouldn't be very practical. The cost of transporting resources from one star system to another would make trade (or piracy) in resources (other than maybe knowledge) totally uneconomic. Warfare and maintaining an interstellar empire would be equally impractical with the huge communications delays and transit times. About the only reason to go out there would be exploration and possibly looking for colony prospects. In the latter case if there is already a technological civilisation in a system it would almost certainly be easier to find another system than to overpower the existing inhabitants of this one.

Call me an optimist but that's how I think of it. Also I did state that for this scenario I am assuming friendly contact.


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## Metryq (Sep 9, 2011)

*"What Gus is saying..."*

I thought _Avatar_ was silly, too.


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## Parson (Sep 9, 2011)

I suspect that if FTL is not possible, then interstellar flight will be the rarest of rare, and the odds of any of these scenarios coming to be are at least billions to one. If you want to consider first contact protocol the operating assumption has to be FTL, and then all of Chris' finely thought out and immanently reasonable conclusions go right out the window.


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## Vertigo (Sep 9, 2011)

I'm not totally sure that would necessarily be the case Parson. We are not so far from extending human life and it is not unreasonable to think that any advanced race would be able to achieve something similar. A sub FTL interstellar ship, assuming it could reach near light speed (which is plausible), could make interstellar crossings in only a decade or two subjective (ship) time which might be two or three times as long objective (universe) time. Given longevity, that is not a totally unviable situation. The ships would probably be large habitat style ships (hollowed out asteroids maybe giving good radiation shielding) with large crews that would probably constitute complete societies. I could easily imagine a nomadic culture forming that travels from star to star exploring in this way.


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## Parson (Sep 9, 2011)

*Vertigo, *That's just the point. I didn't say that it would be impossible that the interstellar space could be covered with less that FTL. What I was trying to say was that such ships would be extremely rare -- because of the huge cost in building such a ship. I expect that any such ship would be a colony ship and would make at most a few voyages into the unknown. Given stellar numbers and the fact that nothing of the sort has been seen by us, I estimate that if there are any intelligent races out there, they will be far and few between and the odds of two of them meeting up are prohibitively unlikely, given those facts and the real possibility that intelligent races can quite easily destroy themselves.


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## Vertigo (Sep 9, 2011)

I take your piont there Parson, though I think I have a slightly more optimistic view . However I would not think of this as a common occurence and I also quite like the idea of a nomad civilisation, where their habitats have become their homes rather than planets. Such a civilisation might wander continually from system to system, so such meetings might be relatively common for them (as in every few hundred or even thousand years). So then I got to speculating how such a civilisation would make contact if it came across us. Not likely I agree but an interesting problem all the same.


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## Metryq (Sep 10, 2011)

Our ancestors of just 300 years ago would consider the things we do today not merely miraculous, but "impossible." Things become easier with prior art. After humanity has putzed around the Solar system for a few centuries, self-sustaining colonies on what had previously been lifeless planetoids might be commonplace. By then, a generations-long star jump might seem a challenge, rather than an impossibility. Perhaps several colonies will go together, thus maintaining an inter-colony commerce similar to that back in the Solar system, just a little smaller. 

Perhaps a colony planetoid will get used up, or at least run down. Then the colonists will spend some time—perhaps between the stars—turning some rogue body into a new habitat. Imagine us finding such an abandoned colony in the asteroid belt. They came, saw Earth when it was young, stayed in the Solar system for a thousand years or so, then moved on, leaving behind some of their old hardware. They'd be smart enough to strip anything left behind. If the primitive lifeforms they saw on Earth ever make it into space (unlike unfortunate Mars), the abandoned colony will challenge the Earthlings to reach higher without "giving" it to them.


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## Vertigo (Sep 10, 2011)

Yeah that's sort of the way I see it. Maybe return later if they see some promise. But then you have to figure how to make safe contact...

I imagined them being forced into this way of life initially by something happening to their own planet; maybe they destroyed it as we seem to be determined to do or maybe some natural disaster such as the expansion  of their star. Afterwards they would disperse (keeping such a large number of habitats organised together would be impractical) some finding other worlds to settle but some choosing to continue exploring.


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## TheEndIsNigh (Sep 10, 2011)

OK then: friendly is it?

They would need to observe for some time.

I think it's fair to say they would see a planet of chaos in terms of where to make contact.

They have a few choices.

*Contact all civilisations (via the UN say).*

It would depend on what they were ere for. I would see this as the least useful (to them). It would bog them down in meetings and committees. The chances of getting even a simple request agreed



> Please can we fill up our water tanks?


 
would take years. No doubt every country would want something from them, even if it's just the proof that they are what they are. No definitely not the route to take IMO.

*Contact a single country.*

This has more promise, again depending what they were after. At least with this option you're dealing with one entity. It would probably have to be the US as they are the ones likely to spot 'unusual' activity from space. This might be the best of a bad bunch, but such is the politics of the Earth. Others could be China, Russia, or maybe India. It would depend on the stability of the particular country at the time of arrival. It's not beyond belief that the US is waining so give it a few decades and they could be out of the picture.

The UK would not have the ability to hide the comings and goings from the other nations for them to be a viable single contact. Similarly, single country contact in Europe would soon be multiple contacts and then we're back to the equivalent of the UN.


*Contact NATO.*

By this I mean the leading nations via this organisation. This has promise. NATO seems to be able to give a little direction when it comes to common goals. In getting them on board the chances of an unfortunate inter planetary incident would be reduced. There's a small group of people at the top and they know about military interactions. This would be my favourite option as long ( we don't actually know if there is a them and us culture within NATO) as no one broke ranks and spilled the beans.

*Contact me.*

OK, by this I mean individual Earthlings that have influence. (So not me then) They will need movers and shakers to shape opinion. Effectively this gives the chance to go under the head of the world leaders (Let's be honest, a useless bunch). If their existence could become accepted by the masses then the leaders may follow with the flow.

So on this basis *Vertigo*, I assume you have already been contacted and this thread is the opening gambit in your/ their master plan.


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## Vertigo (Sep 10, 2011)

Muuuuhaha 

I quite like that Tien at first glance you would think something like NATO would be your last choice. However the one bunch most likely to try something silly would be the military, so it would make sense to try and get one of the major military organisations on your side. And as you say not choosing a _national_ military organisation removes some of those pesky layers of bureaucracy.

I had wondered about combining your last choice with one of the others. Talk to a major authority but also establish some "human ambassadors" from the street, ordinary people who would act as some kind of liason between the aliens and the media that was not under the control of a government.


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## Varangian (Sep 13, 2011)

Dunno. A vastly intelligent super-advanced alien race with technology only dreamt about here on earth, does not necessarily mean that they would be a peace loving race. Who's to say that they would not look upon earth with the same indifference we would an ant mound?

During the development of a race, eventually a 'Y' junction is met, one road to science, the other to spiritual 'enlightenment'. We have very much taken the science route, regardless of what any holy person has to say on the matter. There are a few Christians I work with who even (very rarely thankfully) spout informationm out of Christian 'scientific' magazines which have been, shall we say, influenced to backup the theory that Christianity is the only true religion. So we have taken the road to science, whether we like it or not.

So logic suggests that in order to be able to travel to our planet then the 'new comers' would have also chosen the route of science. Incredible, mind blowing technology does not necessarily mean that a race has advanced spiritually. 

If contact were to happen, I would approach with caution and maintain a friendly attitude towards said 'new comers'. If they proved to be not so friendly, I probabaly wouldn't last long, but I'd respond with violence and extreme prejudice


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## RJM Corbet (Sep 13, 2011)

Varangian said:


> ... During the development of a race, eventually a 'Y' junction is met, one road to science, the other to spiritual 'enlightenment'. We have very much taken the science route ...



Science is telling us now that the act of perception affects what we perceive, and Buddha, etc. said that a long time ago. The 'Y' is converging back to a 'V' again ...


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## Varangian (Sep 14, 2011)

Touche RJM


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## J Riff (Sep 14, 2011)

It has now been 35 plus years. That's not long enough, because culplable rich people still run the show. They all have to die off before the truth can emerge.
 By doing this, humans have sealed their fate, as the lowest lifeform in their own solar system. No other creature is so consciously despicable, to their own kind, as the soft pink things from that planet near Mars.
 Word gets around, yknow, even in a big galaxy like ours, sorry, theirs. )


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## Vertigo (Sep 14, 2011)

Sigh. Oh well I suppose I should be glad there was enough time for some *relevant* and useful posts to come in first. Thank you to those for the useful ideas.


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## chrispenycate (Sep 15, 2011)

Vertigo said:


> Actually I don't think that is really such an issue in this case TEIN. Without FTL interstellar trade or warfare really wouldn't be very practical. The cost of transporting resources from one star system to another would make trade (or piracy) in resources (other than maybe knowledge) totally uneconomic. Warfare and maintaining an interstellar empire would be equally impractical with the huge communications delays and transit times. About the only reason to go out there would be exploration and possibly looking for colony prospects. In the latter case if there is already a technological civilisation in a system it would almost certainly be easier to find another system than to overpower the existing inhabitants of this one.
> 
> Call me an optimist but that's how I think of it. Also I did state that for this scenario I am assuming friendly contact.



Actually, thinking as a human (for once) there are even *human* motives which would send people out to the stars with no hope of economic advancement and thoroughly destructive consequences, and not just Niven/Pournelle's "Footfall"

Some of the nastiest involve a desire to do good for or to the culture visited. Convert them to a religion that you KNOW absolutely to be true, or the equivalent in political systems (nothing guarantees that high technology will eliminate either religious fanaticism or politics; the one cultural example we have, Earth, suggests the contrary), or introduce technology or philosophy their society is not capable of absorbing without collapse and reconstruction, leaving the survivors orphaned of their roots. Examples of both of these situations linger on on our planet now.

I could also see some more alien motives. While interstellar warfare for conquest might be impractical (have to bring everything you need with you, or set up manufacturing locally) for annihilation it's not unthinkable. For a start, just aim the drive beam from a multi-megaton vessel slowing down at one gravity at the only inhabited planet in a system for a few days. If Earth culture didn't meet a given standard of ecological responsibility, for example (and if there were such a standard I certainly suspect we wouldn't meet it). Or there could be races that needed to eliminate all competition, scouring the galaxy free of all developing sapience, and the incoming ship might be coming to warn of of those; drawing attention to the solar system while trying to help.

Good intentions, and a testament labelled "How to serve Man", do not guarantee pleasant results.


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## Vertigo (Sep 15, 2011)

I agree absolutely that "good intentions" could (and probably would) cause more damage than any attempt at interstellar warfare.

Maybe I'm just an optimist (or is it pessimist I'm not too sure), but  don't really think that any given race is likely to make it to the stars and still be warlike. I suspect that any races that continue with that kind of attitude will a) eventually destroy themselves long before they can reach the stars and b) would not be able to afford the huge cost of getting out to the stars whilst still spending vast amounts of money on killing each other. Let's face it if all the world's defense budgets were channelled into space we would probably have colonies on the moon and several other planets/moons by now.


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## chrispenycate (Sep 15, 2011)

But humanity (possibly not other species) needed the pressure of war, of combat (even if simulated in the cold war) as a stimulus to develop the engines needed to get into space. When the tension drops, do we use the spare time to concentrate on writing that book, painting the study? A few of us, perhaps, but the vast majority mend the roof when it's raining, write with the kids squabbling around us, find time to repair things when there is no time… and when breathing space arrives, we breath.

Is it the tropical paradise where sticking a hand out in a random direction brings back food that stimulates inventiveness and great art, or poverty and lack or resources? There are individual exceptions, but society as a whole reacts well to  challenge.

A disciplined, organised economy should work more efficiently than wasting resources in competition, doing the same calculations in secret in five different places, wasting energy in trying to undercut those who might get there before you, putting more money into selling things than making them, shouldn't it? Unfortunately for theory, experiment has demonstrated the opposite; the mass of humanity will give 110% to stab their neighbors in the back, where they'll barely manage 80 to achieve the approval of their peers.

And space exploration is an absolute example. When it's a dedicated few battling the impossible, twenty hour days and cutting corners. When goals become realistic, health and safety bureaucrats crawl out of the woodwork, grinding progress to a halt, and suddenly (well perceived suddenly, anyway) the nation that got to the moon in ten years from a practically standing start couldn't make it back in twenty, despite technological advances and all the data from the first great leap.

I hope your visitors' space drive is perceived slowing down towards the solar system; that panic you've decried might be just what's needed to bump start the working rather than administration society, and is less dangerous than a full scale war or a dinosaur killer hitting the planet.

Just.


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## Vertigo (Sep 15, 2011)

Actually that's pretty close to my thoughts. I suspect we won't be going to the stars or at least the planets until things on Earth are so dire that we have no choice. That kind of incentive should work almost as well as war.

I also think that we are not likely to be very far different from any other technological race. I suspect that intelligence and technology is only likely to happen with species that _need_ it, after all that's how natural selection works. I don't think pure carnivores are likely to develop this way. They are smart, yes, but tend to have tunnel vision; if it's not to do with the hunt or procreation it is of no interest. As for herbivores they have even worse tunnel vision in some ways and running fast is far more useful than being smart.

On the other hand omnivores have a much a much broader way of thinking. They are more experimental, as they already know that there are many different possible food sources that will suit them, so they are more likely to experiment. Also I think such an evolution is only likely to happen amongst arboreal species since for the most part they are the only ones likely to develop gripping hands that can develop tools.

So my suspicion is that most technological civilistations are likely to come from arboreal omnivores. Also the more varied possiblities for food require learning and such species tend to nuture there young more. This will produce social groups which in turn will produce territorial behaviour. Sure all predators tend to be territorial but lacking the other qualities I don't see them evolving tool use; how would tools help wolves or tigers hunt for their food and giving up two of their limbs to manipulate tools would only slow them down and work against their survial.

So that's my pet theory and unfortunately that does mean that I supect intelligent tool users will always be territorial social species which almost inevitably will result in conflict.

However I still think a species will never successfully leave their planet until they have overcome that part of their instincts, before those instincts, combined with advanced technology, end up killing them off.


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## Parson (Sep 15, 2011)

*Vertigo,* great post. I would agree with what you say here, but I would make one caveat. We only have one eco-system as a basis for our analysis. We (the system) might be exceptional in some way that we don't even recognize. To some degree it sounds like the social Darwinists who came up with some really stupid racial ideas that they knew were right. All they had to do to prove their point was to look how things were at that moment in history. That proof proved to be anything but permanent and woefully wrong.


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## chrispenycate (Sep 15, 2011)

Your arguments, while seductively reasonable, are based on the observation of exactly one planet; and even there rats and elephants have developed manipulation and considerable intelligence without swinging from branches. The anthropic principle: we must be as we are because the universe is like that (which gets you a Star Wars bar with lots of aliens looking like Hollywood extras in costumes even when you CGI them.

Look at a lizard's front paws, and think of a bipedal dinosaur. Omnivorous, if you prefer. There's no particular reason it couldn't develop towards tool using by observation, rather than direct parental education. Harry Harrison made a good argument for it in his "West of Eden" trilogy (or try Sawyer's "Foreigner"). I don't say it's perfect, but life has covered so many bases on the one planet we do know I'd say the "made in God's image" argument should be held back until we've investigated another ten or twelve planets bearing sapient lifeforms.


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## Metryq (Sep 15, 2011)

Vertigo said:


> So my suspicion is that most technological civilistations are likely to come from arboreal omnivores.



James P. Hogan's "Giants" stories describe a race (the Ganymeans) completely devoid of all violent behavior due to their evolutionary biology. (It's been a while since I read the series, but I believe they are vegetarians.)

Especially interesting is the contrast between humans and Ganymeans—one human civilization grew up on Earth, while another developed alongside the Ganymeans. And now the Ganymeans seek the help of Earthmen in understanding their counterparts because Earthmen think in a similarly devious way.


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## Vertigo (Sep 15, 2011)

I agree with all of you  I am fully aware that my observations are only based on a single planet but I feel they are logical and until we find some more examples I can only say that I _personaly suspect_ that this is the way things are. Obviously I cannot know (though Lord would I ever like to )

Also Chris, I agree that there are exceptions. As you say dinosaurs that stood on two legs could have developed the ability to manipulate tools, but I suspect there would not have been an evolutionary drive for that sort of lateral thinking. They were probably very effective predators as they were and for most of them that stood on two legs their arms, rather than developing as manipulators, seemed to be retreating to rather useless little limbs. I can't believe T Rex could realy do very much with those arms.

Rats and ideed many other predators are interesting in that they are clearly smart. Very necessary to be flexible enough to use the varying landscapes where their prey is. Things like; there's no good cover but there is a depression that could be used, where is the wind coming from etc. but I don't believe they will ever go beyond that without a pressing evolutionary need to free up their front limbs for manipulation.

Oddities like elephants could theoretically  advance with their manipulative trunks but with only one manipulator you are limited by the inability to exerted opposing forces, twisting etc.

Another one is octopuses, again clearly smart and with multiple tentacles they can do twisting etc. However I think any purely water based speices faces a huge problem to evolve into a technological species as they don't get to discover fire, without which making even a hardened sharp spear is very difficult. Yes they might be able to use hot underwater vents in some way but I still think without mastery of fire any evolution of technology is very unlikely. I am always highly skeptical of books with ater based intelligent aliens.

I am still highly skeptical of any pure herbivore developing significant intelligence and going on to technology. I just don't see the same evolutionary drive. They simply don't need to do much thinking to find their food.

We can of course only speculate but my belief is that advanced intelligence will only come to mammalian _*type*_ species. Species that protect their young in nice safe wombs (or analogs of) whilst they develop much further than would be possible in, say, eggs and then go on to nuture and _teach _their young (instinctive knowledge can never provide the flexible knowlege that teaching can.

I don't like to rule it out completely, I think if an herbivore did develop intelligence and tool use it would be fascinating to see as I suspect they would not develop aggressive warlike tendencies. Although herbivores might fight for the privilege to mate I don't think they very often fight for territory (though I may well be wrong there), so one herd fighting another just doesn't seem that likely.


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## Metryq (Sep 16, 2011)

Vertigo said:


> They simply don't need to do much thinking to find their food.



I don't think herbivores hunting for their food is part of the equation—it's the "horsepower" of their food. Big brains like ours require a lot of energy, and you're not going to get that crunching grains. I realize there are vegetarians who are very smart, but I'm talking about a species-wide behavior here.

In _2001: A Space Odyssey_ "Dawn of Man" sequence we see the man-apes starving during a drought. They are also competing for the same source of food as the pigs. Their hands were already free to manipulate tools, but it was not until the monolith inspired them that the man-apes started eating meat. Then their brains had enough energy to work, and their time had been freed up to do something other than eat.

I think being the physical underdog was also a factor for us. We don't have the speed, the muscle, the claws, or any other specialty hardware to compete on a physical level. And yes, rats are very clever, but they needed an opportunity to put their cleverness to work. The dinosaurs were around far longer than the time since they've been extinct. They didn't develop a technology in that time, and I doubt we could have taken the first step until they were out of the way. (Makes them sound like politicians, doesn't it?) Even then, we had lots of other things to threaten us into getting smarter.


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## RJM Corbet (Sep 16, 2011)

I know it's slightly off the point, sorry _Vertigo_, but somehow people have the idea that nothing's happening in NASA these days and it's not true. There is work on delivery systems, but often now satellites are built in international collaboration and delivered by European or Russian delivery systems, to space.

Big science in general is more international than it was during the cold war days. Large hadron collider, for example. Many other lesser known but very expensive neutrino and dark-matter detectors, etc.

The moon landings were highly symbolic because they were manned. But mankind's space exploration didn't end after the Apollo missions? The whole world doesn't pay attention anymore everytime a rocket is launched and a new space mission begins.

There's the space station. No mean feat. There have been missions to all the planets as far as Jupiter. There's the Hubble telescope, but its not the only one.

There are at least a couple of ultra-violet and infra-red telescopes stationed a million miles from earth, I think I have my facts right.

There's the Pluto mission.

There's a new Mars rover being constructed, with advanced capabilities, powered by its own miniature plutonium reactor, so it won't be dependent for power on solar arrays, which eventually get dulled over by Martian dust. I think it may have been launched already. The trip there takes a while.

As mentioned in another thread, all the information, public lectures, data, photographs and so on are available on NASA's website to anyone, free of charge.

Newest Martian rock (weird):
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mer/multimedia/pia14752.html

All in all, I wonder if humanity _would_ be so terrified by aliens announcing themselves? 

The reaction may be more like: It's about time ...


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## J Riff (Sep 16, 2011)

Insects are not 'warlike'. But they don't think much of eating weaker species, like we do with cows, birds, fish...
What's to stop a warlike race stealing spaceflight tech?

Pointless. Here's my new question, which could make a good thread:
When aliens are finally revealed, and the galaxy is known for what it actually is -teeming with life and weirder than sin - will it spell the end for Science Fiction?
I vote Yea. So get that bestseller out before tis too late. )


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## Vertigo (Sep 16, 2011)

Metryq said:


> I don't think herbivores hunting for their food is part of the equation—it's the "horsepower" of their food. Big brains like ours require a lot of energy, and you're not going to get that crunching grains. I realize there are vegetarians who are very smart, but I'm talking about a species-wide behavior here.
> 
> In _2001: A Space Odyssey_ "Dawn of Man" sequence we see the man-apes starving during a drought. They are also competing for the same source of food as the pigs. Their hands were already free to manipulate tools, but it was not until the monolith inspired them that the man-apes started eating meat. Then their brains had enough energy to work, and their time had been freed up to do something other than eat.
> 
> I think being the physical underdog was also a factor for us. We don't have the speed, the muscle, the claws, or any other specialty hardware to compete on a physical level. And yes, rats are very clever, but they needed an opportunity to put their cleverness to work. The dinosaurs were around far longer than the time since they've been extinct. They didn't develop a technology in that time, and I doubt we could have taken the first step until they were out of the way. (Makes them sound like politicians, doesn't it?) Even then, we had lots of other things to threaten us into getting smarter.


 
You are absolutely right that grazing grass (very poor notritionally) probably wouldn't be able to run a big brain but many herbivores eat much more nutrional food and probably could... if it made evolutionary sense for them to.

I wonder whether being a physical underdog is a cause or effect. For examples there is speculation that our sense of smell and hearing might have diminished after dogs were domesticated and could do these jobs for us. This would then have freed up spare brain capacity to develop, for example, language (believed to have happened about the same time). It may be that we became less fast, strong etc. as a direct result of developing intelligence making those abilities less important and freeing up the brain capacity for other things. I seem to remember that a very significant part of dogs brains is used purely for their senses of smell and hearing.

The dinosaurs are an interesting one. Whilst we have only the example and data from a single planet to base our ideas on it could be argued that there have been more than one attempt on a dominant lifeform; us and the dinosaurs. Now if you take our dominance to be the dominance of mammals and date it from the end of the dinosaurs then our dominance has lasted around 65 million years and produced us at the top. The dinosaurs were around for 160 million years and never produced any technology though arguably they were far more evolutionarily successful. Also as you say their presence almost certainly supressed any rise of the mammals (simply no spare niches for them) or any other attempt at dominance.

This fact then raises an interesting issue We have two examples to work from (more if you go back to the ammonites) and in the first, if the meteor extinction event had never ocurred, we almost certainly would not have evolved. So that would suggest that whilst there may be life out there not all planets with life will necessarily produce intelligent life and technological civilisations. We can only speculate on the probablities; it may be that non intelligent dominant life is actually for more likely and we are an anomaly. Without a lot more data we can never really know.


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## Metryq (Sep 16, 2011)

Vertigo said:


> there is speculation that our sense of smell and hearing might have diminished after dogs were domesticated and could do these jobs for us.



I don't hold any degrees in biology, but I wouldn't give that idea much credence. I think Mankind's noses were already reduced to their current state by the time wolves domesticated themselves to us and became dogs. (Wolves are social animals, intelligent, and not above scavenging. So there is speculation that wolves hung around the periphery of human encampments. Perhaps that familiarity and/or status as protective totems got the ball rolling. Although I've read that undomesticated dogs are fairly quiet. Alarm-style barking was probably a domesticated trait. But to get back to noses— )

Human noses probably reduced in size (thus reducing the effective sensory area) around the same time as our jaws. Some lower primates have big, powerful jaws driven by a heavy muscle running up past the cheek. That muscle needed firm anchorage on a thick skull with no comparatively fragile "plates." No plates, no brain growth. So the evolutionary line that led to us traded in the ogre-ish, bone-crunching jaws in favor of softer skulls with plates that permitted brain growth through childhood.



> if the meteor extinction event had never ocurred



That's still being debated, unless I've missed something more current. "Great dyings" have occurred throughout Earth's history, and the dinosaurs survived many impact events. No doubt a Chicxulub impact would have killed a lot of creatures, and may have contributed to lowering dinosaur populations. But from what I've read, I don't believe it was the one, wild card event that decided the fate of the dinosaurs.



> So that would suggest that whilst there may be life out there not all planets with life will necessarily produce intelligent life and technological civilisations.



In the anime _The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya_ there is an amusing passage in Yuki Nagato's revelatory monologue to Kyon that she is really an alien interface for communicating with humans: "The current inhabitants of Earth, as it is known by your kind, developed a cognitive ability that could be _considered_ intelligence... Throughout the universe it is common for organic lifeforms to develop a consciousness. Human beings from Earth were the only creatures whose consciousness evolved into intellect."


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## Vertigo (Sep 16, 2011)

I am no biologist either  my point about the dogs came out of a couple of documentaries from a few years back about the domstication of wild dogs and they did make the point that much of it could only be pure speculation. 

I agree that the meteor extinction is still not certain but there was certainly an extremely rapid decline at the K-T boundary event and they could no longer maintin their position on the top of the pile. So I still think we can infer from that that it would be perfectly possible for a planet to produce higher order lifeforms but no significant intelligence or technology.

Of course all this has to be pure speculation a sample of 2 (or maybe 1.5) hardly makes a reasonable statistical sample. But then we can only speculate and make our best guess on what we have seen. I am just disputing the idea that because we exist the galaxy must be teeming with intelligent lifeforms. I consider that holds no more water than saying that we are an evolutionary oddity and there may be no other intelligent life out there.


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## Metryq (Sep 16, 2011)

Oh, I understand this is all speculation. It's just that I've heard as many "anthropic principle" style arguments about the incredibly long odds of our existing at all, as fantasies about the unimaginable bounty of the universe and the ease of traversing interstellar distances.


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## Vertigo (Sep 16, 2011)

Absolutely Metryq, the bottom line is that at the moment we just cannot know. The best SF can do is try to make reasonably logical speculation. Problem is, with our current knowledge that leaves an awful lot of latitude  Or maybe that's the blessing rather than the problem as far as SF is concerned!


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## K. Riehl (Sep 21, 2011)

If they manage to reach Earth undetected I would use the method Rebecca Ore used in her Becoming Alien, Being Alien and Human to Human books. The trilogy is all about first contact and the myriad mistakes that can be made.

The alien is introduced on a late night talk show and the idea is to see if people believe it. Then gradually, through small controlled and usually remote interactions, they start telling the aliens story and give out information in measured doses.


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## J-WO (Sep 21, 2011)

Its important to remember that what might be friendly to us could be alarming to them. That's why I'd greet them by firing automatic weaponary into the air and screaming.


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## Metryq (Sep 21, 2011)

J-WO said:


> I'd greet them by firing automatic weaponary into the air and screaming.



It's Duke Nukem!


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## J-WO (Sep 22, 2011)

Yup, he knew the score.


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## RJM Corbet (Sep 22, 2011)

Charlie don't surf ...


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