Hi All

In Gregory Benford's novel "If the Stars are Gods" the interstellar aliens aren't more advanced than us, just differently motivated and thus able to spend 14,000 years in a Space Ark on a religious quest.

What if aliens turn up in Orion-style pulse-ships which take a millennia to get between stars (0.04 c ~ 25 ly between stops)? They stop off at Saturn to tank up and then blast their way off to a new system. They wander along Galactic Song-lines and, as a species, have been itinerants for 100 millennia. Their technology is static and they live in a closed-loop economy.

What could they teach us? Would we be patient enough to learn?

Qraal

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