In May of the year 2012 at the University of Terrania the Institute of Cosmobiology opened a series of lectures. One of these seminar talks was on the subject of contact with extra-galactic intelligences. In the course of his lecture the speaker said:

   "Here within our own galaxy we Terrans have perceived that not all intelligent life forms can evolve according to Terran standards. We’ve, come to understand that an intelligent being does not necessarily have to walk on two legs nor does he have to have two arms, two eyes, two ears, and one mouth and one nose. There are other forms of life and nowadays we can sometimes encounter an alien creature who might offer us a tentacle instead of a hand in greeting, if such a gesture is known to him — yet do it with a certain ease or simplicity which heralds a growing state of cosmic thinking.

   "But what still lies ahead of us? How-ever variegated the races of our galaxy may be, there are signs that they all have certain common characteristics. For example we have not found any mode of thinking that is essentially alien to our own. However, what should we expect when we make our first contact with a race from an alien galaxy? Can we hope to find features and characteristics with which we might all have something in common?

   "The answer is no! Even within our own galaxy we have found grades of differentiation which begin to get pretty far off the norm. So in considering any extra-galactic contacts we would have to expect to encounter some rather wide differences. We can’t expect them to regard friendship as something good or hate as something bad. We can’t even expect them to have any concept of good or evil. What could be ‘beautiful’ to us might be ‘green’ to them, if you know what I’m driving at. We can’t depend on being able to even converse with races from an alien galaxy when we first encounter them—not as we are accustomed to doing with other races in our own galaxy. Misunderstandings will be common at first but such misunderstandings could have devastating consequences.

   "One might accuse me of talking about rare eventualities such as a 3-headed calf, and in fact at first glance this subject seems a bit far-fetched. However, in this age of trans-light spaceflight that first contact could occur any day and at any hour. This is especially so if we wish to concede that some hypothetical life form in any particular alien galaxy may be far advanced over the state of development of Arkonide-Terran civilizations.

   "For that moment–the moment of the first contact — we should be prepared. It is highly possible that it could be vital to the further existence of our culture. we cannot afford to just sit complacently around and wait. We have to foresee and anticipate such an event. Our situation demands it."

   Quite contrary to expectations, the words of the speaker were heeded. Men began to prepare for such an extra-galactic contact. That is, preparations were made as far as they could go under the circumstances. Any effective program of this nature required at least some knowledge that could define the objectives, but no such knowledge was available. No one had even the slightest idea of what lay ahead for humanity.

   Still, there were the probability calculators, mighty positronic computer installations which were provided with highly detailed programs. These machines worked out hundreds of thousands of possible situations and prescribed an equal number of modes of operation. Of course even these advanced machines could not assume a success probability higher than 53% on the average for any proposed method of procedure.

   So basically everything was still up in the air, if one discounted at least the act that men had begun to get used to the idea of an intergalactic contact, which was in contrast to what they had done prior to that May lecture of 2012.

   Later it seemed to be a strange quirk of fate that the first contact occurred almost 100 years afterwards to the day. Of course in a more basic sense that eventuality was foreordained when Perry Rhodan first encountered the Arkonides …