cooperation

The new space station was a big thing, an international effort from many nations across Earth. I was obviously going to be dropping in at an interesting juncture in their history. Perhaps a time of peaceful co-oexistence? So far there was no sign of any weaponry, and the whole thing looked like it would fall apart if you threw as much as a pencil off it. I settled down with interest to watch the comings and goings.
There was one group in particular who seemed to have it all worked out. The Damn Americans I heard them called, with their plane things. Everyone else shooting stuff up with rockets and then chucking themselves back down. There these damn ones were just sliding alongside and then gliding away. I liked their style.
If I could hitch a ride down with one of them I'd have it made. Slip in on top of a wing, ride down in the void behind it to avoid that heat, brilliant.
So the new plan was set, I had only to pick my time...

hopefulness

...so it happened, that my first attempt to reach Earth had failed.
The constant zipping back and forth to the moon through the planetoids history had taken it's toil. My temporal vibrator would be useless without a new power source.
My only option now was to wait for another opportunity to hitch a ride. Fortunately it did not take long to arrive.
Several years went by and a new venture was taking shape above the blue planet. A bigger more impressive and much busier structure. The comings and goings were interesting. Several parts came up bit by bit. It all kind of fit together, like some mutant 'Meccano'* set with 'Lego'* and whatever kitchen utensils could be found.
I watched with interest, cautious and concerned at what this meant. It would certainly mean a new opportunity for me to reach my goal, but what did it mean for my race? Just another platform for the humans to throw stuff from???

* toy construction sets Earth parents buy offspring to teach the adult passtime of flat pack furniture. Like the toy sets, these rarely look like the item depicted and usually have a greater or lesser number of parts than is necessary.

timing

...blap. I'm floating with one arm out, a line extended toward Mir. Clasp open and just about to close on the exposed piping...then it kicks in...NO!!!
Just a second, no real reasoning but this vague feeling that I should stop...I let go of the line... it all comes rushing back. Wow, that was fine timing. A split second or a hesitation and I'd be floating off towards a melty end. The empty space station fell away.
So what now, plan blown, I set the retrieve button on my ship and vowed to always charge my vibrator from now on.
Time to come up with plan B.
As I activate the gas lock on my ship a flash of red whizzes by below and I hear tingling in the distance...

powerless

...nothing. I pushed the button again. No response. I checked the power gauge, empty. Damn it, it needed charging, the battery was low.
 Isn't it always the way, when you're zapping about for the hell of it it works just fine. The one time it becomes imperative for the damn thing to work it runs low on battery.
At this point my feet were beginning to get hot, I was about to hit the atmosphere. 
I quickly keyed in 666, for the emergency number, this would give me a ten second trip back, hopefully just enough time to just before I latched on. It would be close, it can take a second for your head to catch up with the time shift, if it was a second out, I might be attatched before I realise I'm supposed to be stopping myself.
I twist the dial press the button and...

descending

It had seemed a briliant idea at the time.
The space station was due to come down to earth after years of service. In my mind this was a no brainer.
 Park up in a higher orbit, synchronise to just before the space station was due to start it's earth return and hitch a ride. The plan unfortunately had hinged on the idea that as it was a manned orbital satellite that would be brought down nice and safely.
This turned out not to be the case.
I had set my temporal vibrator to take me to Mir with minutes to spare. I docked with the station only to discover, to my horror, that it had been deserted well in advance.
This thing was basically going to drop out of the sky and right now I was attatched to it.
I grabbed the vibrator out of my backsack, never really understood the idea of having everything you need on your back when your arms are efectively at the front, still. I managed to get a sucker to it.
If I timed it right I would be able to ping back to a time I was on the moon and rethink my options.
I set the timer to a month before, hoping if I could pinpoint the inhabitants of the craft leaving I could go with them instead.
I pushed the  start button and... nothing

journeys

All the planning was over, the observing, the procrastinating and most of all the sheer panic over what I was about to do. It was time to embark on my big adventure.
M next trick was to actually get down to 'Britain' without being noticed. I had hoped to hitch a lift on a passing spaceship, but unfortuntely throwing junk at other planets seemed as far as the inhabitants had managed to get.
It's a bit like a kid chucking pebbles at a piece of wood floating on a lake, it's all good fun but it's not going to get you anywhere except into the logs bad books. A little unwise perhaps.
So far as people visiting the moon I was now sitting on, they'd been, seen and yawned. Got back in their spaceships and buggered off home never to return. Not surprisng really. It's a pretty dull place. Grey, cold or too hot depending on the time and no atmosphere whatsoever.
Obviously taking my own vehicle was unwise, I'd get spotted or even if I could cloak it, the power would eventually go down or some idiot would walk into it and the game would be up.
Best park it in orbit somewhere and hitch a lift down.
As it turned out, the earthlings had been hurling things about for a while and their space environment was cluttered with bits of metallic crap, bleeping and farting about in orbit. Every now and again something would fall slowly back to the ground. My plan was to hitch a lift down with one of them as it's orbit decayed and it plummetted earthward. What could be easier...

appearances

I decided, from catching some of the broadcasting wavelengths I'd been listening to, that Earth was not an easy bet when it came to welcoming strangers. You only had to have the wrong colour hair, or even no hair to provoke a reaction. Turning up as a whole new species from a distant planet would probably not go down too well.
Unless I wanted to be radiated and blown holes in, or slashed into small pieces by some strange masked men in wellies, hiding my identity was going to be necessary.
This earthling species seemed very reactive to initial appearances. I could only presume that they posessed psychic abilities.
There was an instance of one very strange gang that, whilst objecting to lack of modesty in not being properly covered, could take even more offence at a person who covered everything except their eyes.
Very bizzarre.
This was obviously going to be tricky.  I would need to go for a diverse society.
 I decided on a small population, in the northern hemisphere. A little island surrounded by water and hopefully nicely tucked away from major civilisation, but large enough an weird enough to fit into.
A little place named by the locals as 'Britain'...

delicacy

Now there are several problems that have to be overcome before jetting off to visit another race. The secret is to avoid first contact for as long as possible. the reason for this is complicated.
Depending on the age of a race they will want to do one of two things, welcome you or kill you. The latter is a non starter so it's good to have an idea before you go what to expect.

That's the first step to get past. If they welcome you, brilliant, it may be they are interested in finding out about you. Now if they want to learn about you that's great, but then you have the learn about you in a nice way or gut you like a fish way.

Then even if that turns out to be the nice way, you have to figure out why and what they want to learn about you. If they want to know you're nutritional content, that would revert to bad. If it's so they can find out about your physiology and go back a step and kill your race more efficiently then that goes back to being not good.

If they want to know about your home and the civilisation you come from, that can also mean one of two things. They either want to know in an enquiring way or in a 'we shall find and conquer your race' way.

To boil it all down to it's basics, when an organism meets another organism there is a simple calculation that is made. If the other organism is bigger than you, you will run or fight, if it is smaller than you you may squash or eat it, if it's the same size as you you will probably try to initiate friendship or mating. It is a very fine balance...

arrivals

So there I am sitting on the moon, watching the world go by.
 I sent down a couple of probes of my own already. The first was not successful, tin robot thing shaped like what I understood to be a 'pet' as humans would call it. I learned more about them later, this one was a 'dog' but I didn't realise, from the  pics I had seen, that they were supposed to be soft and came in other colours. The spinny antennae ears probably didn't do much for it either.
 My next was shaped like a refuge receptacle. It was designated 'Artohditoo', which means 'probe' in my native tongue. I have never really received any data from this, 'cept for some woman asking for help but I never did track her down. If "Oh! Be one can o' pea" means anything to anyone, I think your wife needs you to pick up some shopping.
It became obvious that to learn anything about this civilisation, I would have to observe directly...

beginnings

It was a few years ago, this thing landed on our planet, in my back garden actually. It looked like a kids go-kart with an antennae on it. It kind of bounced and rolled to a halt under my front window.
I ran out to see what the commotion was and there it sat. Looking a bit bruised and useless.
So fed up with it now, these contraptions falling frorm the sky. The only connection was the plate on the side. Had a funny looking picture on of a humanoid, some symbols, no ones figured them out yet and these bits that make strange sounds. the last one nearly killed a kid, then started playing the most awful clanging screeching noises.
This one just sat, I kicked it and walked away, next thing I hear this bleeping noise and such. All very strange.
Turns out the scientists think its some kind of communication thing. Like a really long distance, one way phone call. Some primitive life form sending it's crap. I think it's a weapon designed to deafen or interfere with our brain waves.
Anyway, the important thing is, me being a scientist too and all, they need to try solve the issue. Can't have all this junk flying about. It's a safety and health risk.
They put together a team to trace the things to their point of origin, and I'm it!
So here I am, an anthropological theoretiscist on a  mission to meet new civilisations. I found that one listening to radio waves.
Spent the last 40 odd years popping off to a spinning, grey rock listening to them coming from this rather pretty planet that's called Earth by it's inhabitants.
Had a close call just after I first arrived, people coming and going but they left after a while and haven't been back since, though I swear I heard someone thought they saw my ship. I knew they should have made it grey instead of black and it really needed to look more organic but still...