I was just thinking about it as I was walking home from the station. What if a sentient alien race with the same level of technology as current humans, came into direct contact with the human race?

1. Would the aliens see humans as inherently violent (non-stop war, basically enslaving all other earth-organisms), or inherently peaceful (we haven't destroyed ourselves using nuclear weapons yet)?
2. Would humans and the aliens interact with each other if there is the possibility of significantly bettering the technology for both races (i.e both sides have much to gain by cooperating)? Or would humans and aliens be naturally suspicious of each other and ditch that idea? Or have a war (which would be dehabilitating for both sides)?

a) If humans had a war with aliens, would ll of humanity be able to unite as one entity to fight the aliens? Or would humanity still be divided over their own petty quarrels?

Do you mean same level of technology as it achieving the same ends, or as it being merely designed using the same techniques? Both would show an immense distinction in cultural, and consequently intellectual development. I could answer your question more precisely if this was clarified.

Example: A super strong and super weak race, both isolated, would take different approaches to harnessing technology for lifting things. The strong race may need only a see-saw type apparatus, which harnesses half their own bodily power, the other half of the work being done by the machinery itself. The weak race, being disparate in physical strength, may use a complex system of pulleys and levers to elevate an object of equal weight an equal height from the ground. Assuming they aren't of the same intelligence, both discoveries could have taken the same amount of time to accomplish.

>>2

you are a lazy butt for not elaborating on the scenarios of them being equally advanced by different means

>>2

also you are quite lazy (or oblivious) for not realizing that making contact with the human race presumes overcoming the whole, you know, light-years-away-from-earth-crossing-space type thing

>>4

But what if the aliens were transported to earth and given a direct communications path back to their home planet by another race that chose not to interfere for purposes of observation? Like what if the protoss were just fucking with the terran by letting some sentient and friendly zerg prance around their geographic space?

>>5

That's impossible. No zerg would be friendly enough to just "prance around"! So there would be conflict because the zerg are by nature, and in accord with an assumption from >>2 , an evil race that reached the same level of terran technology with their psi powers.