It was an exciting time to be a glorified space probe, Eli was positively charged when he heard the transmissions from the emerald and sapphire world that he'd been contracted to survey. Actual aliens, and advanced enough to be using radio transmissions! The planet's atmosphere had been why the Plutonian Guild of Astronomers had forked over the large sum to hire a Guild Surveyor, when they had run the lensing data from the star it orbited. The Vesuvian Guild of Extra-Solar Mining and Surveying, who currently held his employment and backup copy, keenly expressed the importance of fulfilling this contract to the letter. If he did perchance find a xeno-sapient species there could be a big paycheck in store for the whole guild and don't make a bad impression. Well that's what their implied meaning was, underneath the technical jargon, but now Eli actually had to do something no one had done before.

He knew he'd have to fulfill the contract and organize a contact scenario that didn't result in rocks being hurled from solar system to solar system over some easily avoidable insult like religion or mispronouncing a beings name. So he settled in and pondered, an internal avatar modelled after his old biological body slumped and scratching his chin, in a virtual room he'd created. The room, (he thought of it as his study) was something the psychologists consulting for the digitization project in the late 22nd century had dreamed up to keep a person's sanity by letting thier mind have a familiar setting to relax in. Eli had based it off of his old flat from when he was 30, a small room with a low wide bookshelf, a corner desk and a bed opposite of that, with robin egg blue walls. His two Canadarm XII were also part of that effort to keep his consciousness from rejecting the craft as "his body" and slow any possible mental decay.

His body that he'd inhabited for the last hundred years or so, was a creamy white stretched hexagon, about fifty meters long and thirty wide. The front and back of his hull had two large thrusters that could be angled up or down depending on what was needed. A large bay opened on the top, which held his arms, a rudimentary refinery and materials printers and room for tool storage. On the bottom a large black sphere of glass held his scanning arrays and telescope.

It took him two full server cycles to come up with a plan. He'd fulfill his contract, wait around the large gas giant in the system for the locals to do their "First being on a different planet" spiel and dangel a few radio transmissions in a few interesting places. Then arrange a meeting near the giant and get an agreement to set up a beacon to Earth. After that, maybe see if he could get a few interesting tidbits of science and data from them. Though this had hinged upon him actually finding aliens and them being somewhat technologically advanced.

With that rough plan outlined, he performed the required long range tests and scans of the planet, he redesigned his usual Build and Burn planetary scouts to something a little less noticeable. Normally he would have built them quickly and cheaply in his bay, from some local iron heavy asteroids. The original design resembling an old twenty sided die with one engine on the bottom. But with a civilization on the designated planet, he'd have to be a bit more careful.

The new scout craft was a small glider, made primarily from a silica/tungsten composite that would slowly glide down through the atmosphere, take its data then crash into a handy volcano that was currently active. The scout would at a glance to another human, remind them of a stealth bomber scaled down, coloured green and white, with a goofy face he'd stencilled on for a laugh. After the redesign, and a booster stage to get the scout going, he sent it off to the planet, second from its star. All he had to do now was wait for the glider to break atmosphere, determine the composition of the atmosphere, take some photos of the interesting bits of ground and then package all that up with the stellar data and send it to the Astronomers guild.

As he waited, he sorted through the transmissions from the planet. First he determined how to even read the transmissions, which luckily turned out to be binary, and images came through in a rough 600 by 400 image, but only in black and white. As Eli sifted through the growing gigabytes of data, he mused to himself, his avatar hunched over a computer scrolling past pages of search results.

Through some cosmic chance, the first video Eli converted was a documentary about the race themselves.

"Oh wow, they're 4 foot lemurs with no tails and look like the old planet of the apes actors. With Bio-luminous eyes, how the hell did that work or even happen? They call themselves the Glint, with guys being bigger and females being smarter on average. Seems thier eyes change brightness in response to emotions but can be controlled somewhat."

Next he found their version of a news broadcast, which from a telltale string of data at the beginning,which turned out to be a jingle of some kind, he could see it made the majority of what he was getting. The first was a female with her glowing orange eyes heavily accented by purple highlights on her face, reading from black sheet, commenting on how the nation's economies were doing.

" Looks like they're divided into 3 seperate nations states, locked in a cold war. The Pan Oceanic Islands, the United Platueas of Garl and The Yjantia coalition. Not sure how that happened, no signs of nukes or radiation from a previous war..." He muttered from his avatar, skipping between different recordings.

"Ooh looks like they're in the middle of a space race! Looks like POI got the first satellite, UPG claimed the first Glint in space, and on the moon. Looks like the Yjantia is gearing up to go to.... The 5th planet, the Mars lookalike. What did they call it, Kalina?"

"They really need the internet, that'd make this whole data accumulation easier. Oh hey, if they actually go to 'Kalina' I bet they'll set up a receiver for future missions. I could probably beam a transmission there, and chances are the ones there will be the more adventurous of the bunch and hopefully take the bait. Perfect time to send the discovery of life back, and write a message to the guild about a contact situation."

Detailing his plan of action in a premade document, someone very optimistic worked in accounting apparently, and beamed it back to guild with some of the news shows he'd recorded. He settled in the ring of the gas giant, apparently called Gri'oux, and waited for his opportunity to come.