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278 Many SETI advocates assume that any extraterrestrial technological civi- lization that comes into contact with us will have prior experience with other technological civilizations and will know how to incorporate us into a network. “The advanced technology we detect will have experienced this type of encounter many times before,” according to Jill Tarter. “It already may have established a galactic protocol for information exchange.” Brace- well imagined that we will be brought into touch with a chain of communi- ties already in communication with each other who know quite well how to bring new members into their ranks.** A civilization affiliated with the Galactic Club will have given sustained, in-depth thought to interstellar contact, Harrison proposed. That civiliza- tion will know how to construct messages that are easy to understand; it will know how to decipher messages from other species and how to manage first impressions. In short, they would make it easy for us. What about isolated civilizations? Harrison recognized that each would have to look to its own theories and analogs for guidance, sources of infor- mation that may or may not work well when applied to radically different species and cultures. Neither society would be able to draw on actual experience.** In other words, the extraterrestrials may be no better pre- pared than we are. As the Annex to this book shows, our own efforts to prepare for contact are confined to small numbers of interested people and are not widely known among our fellow humans. The same may be true of many extra- terrestrial societies. The fact that a civilization is technological does not necessarily mean that it knows of others; contact with us could come as a surprise. Before Contact They Have Prepared for Contact