Setting aside the specific scenario discussed in recent news stories, there’s ways craft could change hands through interactions that don’t involve limited means or inscrutable goals. Some examples:
A combination gift/test: see what we can learn from some samples, and prove we’re worthy of joining the interstellar community as they observe what we choose to do with the gains.
A calculated technology transfer, where we get very old junk and then gradually newer junk as our understanding improves. Essentially foreign development aid across a much larger wealth and tech gap.
Anything that’s crashed or that we’ve otherwise obtained, was meant to be disposable, or was so old it was meant to crash long ago. I always assume that if there are aliens watching Earth, they’ve had automated probes here for millions of years at a minimum.
Setting aside the specific scenario discussed in recent news stories, there’s ways craft could change hands through interactions that don’t involve limited means or inscrutable goals. Some examples:
A combination gift/test: see what we can learn from some samples, and prove we’re worthy of joining the interstellar community as they observe what we choose to do with the gains.
A calculated technology transfer, where we get very old junk and then gradually newer junk as our understanding improves. Essentially foreign development aid across a much larger wealth and tech gap.
Anything that’s crashed or that we’ve otherwise obtained, was meant to be disposable, or was so old it was meant to crash long ago. I always assume that if there are aliens watching Earth, they’ve had automated probes here for millions of years at a minimum.