The air was thick with anticipation as the Supreme Overseer entered the room, wriggling his three proboscal tendrils majestically.

I joined the rest of the committee as we emptied our pheremone-bladders in appreciation of His presence. An empty gesture, I've always felt - when you think about what our great icthyan ancestors used those pheremones to represent, and how these days it's considered proper to empty one's bladder even upon purchasing a crystallised saltworm from a vendor. But I digress.

"As you know, -543 and -902 have returned from the planet" said the Supreme Overseer. "I'm pleased to confirm that their reconnaissance mission was a unqualified success. They have returned with a report of the planet's customs, traditions, and beliefs."

Operatives 2309162543 and 5290165902 stepped into the room. I've always had a great deal of admiration for people capable of doing their jobs. Of fitting into an entirely alien society, surrounded by obscene and terrifying monsters with strange mannerisms, strange habits, incomprehensible jabber. They said that -902 had taken the job to defy the future ordained to him by those superstitious enough to believe in numerology; 902 was, by anybody's standards, an inauspicious endnumber to be lumbered with.

One or two of my colleagues went translucent with shock as -543 and -902 entered, and I could have sworn I detected the hint of bromides among 25910385932's skin. The poor Aquillan had clearly come close to entering attack mode upon seeing the two Operatives' appearances.

The reason, you see, was that -543 and -902 had not had time since their return and debriefing to resume their Aquillan forms. They still had those four long, ungainly limbs: two distancing the rest of the body from the floor and two carrying - I saw now - a stack of plastic slabs.

"Apologies for the shock." said -902. "The situation is rather more urgent than we'd imagined; we couldn't afford to have wasted the time reforming. The inhabitants of the planet -- what did they call it?"

"Urth." said -543.

"-- Urth are closer to mutual annhiliation than we'd imagined. They've not yet become a Collective; instead they've somehow remained at the Individual stage of evolution while their technology progressed to the nuclear phase."

"Moreover," said -543, "they've formed into warring tribes. Many of these tribes possess nuclear weaponry. It can only be a matter of time before mutual annhiliation takes place."

This time it was the Supreme Overseer's turn to become translucent. "This is still not grounds for intervention." he blurted out.

"If you'll let me finish." said -543. "Not only this, but the Urthians have a strong warrior culture. We have here a stack of what they call Deevy Dees - they're their way of preserving their thoughts - their stories, knowledge and words."

One of the science team, -019, honked a request for a question. "Yes?" said -543.

"You said that they'd not yet become a Collective. Are you expecting me to believe that these -- these Urthians can preserve their thoughts without the creation of a memory lattice?"

"The thoughts themselves aren't recorded." said -543. "Only pictures and sounds. Lots of pictures and lots of sounds, so that they can be replayed in order and the observer can relive the event."

"I still don't see how -"

"They manufacture discs, and store the information in patterns of grooves; a little like our crystal spheres, only with the numbers representing picture and sound instead of aroma."

"How very inventive." said -019, in a rare moment of surprise.

"Anyway; a great many of these Deevy Dees are used to store their myth-cycles, their stories of heroes. We've got some samples here." In one hand, he raised one of the slabs he'd brought with him. On the cover was a picture of an Urthian fleeing an explosion. "This is a story about the hero they call Bond James Bond. He's blessed with incredible good luck and strength. Oh - you'll like this - his nickname is -007."

The room practically exploded with red pollen. One of their great heroes! Nicknamed -007! It just went to show, you could never predict what these alien cultures would come up with. It took some time before it had settled and we could continue the meeting. The Supreme High Commander was still clearly unamused.

"But -- but seriously, this is no matter for us to squirt pollen over." said -902. "There are a great deal of these stories. Some, oddly enough, about the human mating ritual; some about the act itself. Most of the rest are just stories, but these stories more or less all feature -- no, they glorify -- acts of violence, danger and bloodshed. I can show you an example if you like."

A large box was brought into the room. "This is the device that they use to replay the Deevy Dees." said -902. "Yes, yes," he continued, as -019 began to honk another question-request, "I know that they're not yet a Collective. They come up with ways around it, -019. They do -- they do ingenious things with polyhydrocarbons, with electric and magnetic fields. Trust me, when you get your hands on all the things they've managed to come up with without Collectivity, you'll be busy for the rest of your life. If they don't go into mutual destruction, which is what's going to happen if we don't stop asking questions and do something now. Anyway. This is from one of the chronicles of Bond James Bond." He slid one of the Deevy Dees into the player. To the surprise of all of us, pictures lit up the screen. Moving pictures. Pictures of Urthians.

"Here, Bond James Bond has confronted a mercenary from another tribe." narrated -902. "The mercenary intends to kill everybody within Bond James Bond's tribe. Bond James Bond is planning to negotiate."
There was a general consensus of approval. Negotiation was what the civilised did.
"The mercenary is now pointing a projectile weapon at Bond James Bond, as part of a show of power. He says he will not listen to Bond James Bond's words. He does not know that Bond James Bond has a similar projectile weapon cunningly concealed within his clothing."
Still a consensus of approval. Shows of power, and cunning trickery, were a necessary - if unpleasant - part of any negotiation, after all.

There was a loud noise from the viewing-box.

"Oh! Well, that's okay." said -019. "The mercenary has seen the funny side. He's released red pollen."

Then -902 explained, and the room fell rapidly into silence.

"And they actually watch this for pleasure?" said the Supreme High Commander eventually. "They sit down after an evening's work and watch stories of their great warrior-heroes taking peoples' lives?"

"I'm afraid so." said -902. "You see now why we have to act. We need to send a Message of Peace from the Stars. In every similar scenario we've encountered, realising there's something bigger than their planet has caused warring nations to pull together."

"I have to agree." said the Supreme High Commander. He was clearly not prepared for this. A research ship is called upon to provide a Message of Peace from the Stars barely once in its Supreme High Commander's career.

"Then I'll prepare the other discs." said -902. "I took the liberty of obtaining some other stories that the Urthians wrote. You see, they also create stories about what it might be like if things happened. -543 and I call them "what it might be like stories". A surprising amount of these are about what it might be like if visitors from another planet really did visit Urth."

There was a palpable look of relief about the Supreme High Commander's tendrils. The hardest part of any Message of Peace from the Stars is preventing culture shock, of not showing the audience anything they're not prepared to see. One has to play up to the culture's expectations, or the psychological effects can be decimating.

"We've only had the opportunity to see one." said -543. "It's called Ee Tee. If the others are like it, I imagine we can get things done by sending an operative who pretends to be stranded and befriends an Urthian child."

He slid the disc into the player. "This one is called Independence Day." he said.