 What is the aliens' goal on the surface of Earth?
A gentle fancy for the Christmas Season—an oft-told tale with a wistful twistful of Something that left the Earth with a wing and a prayer. Earth was so far away that it wasn't visible. But this vast distance did not mean that isolation could endure forever. Instruments within the ship intercepted radio broadcasts and, within the hour, early TV signals. Machines compiled dictionaries and grammars and began translating the major languages. The history of the planet was tabulated as facts became available. The course of the ship changed slightly; it was not much out of the way to swing nearer Earth. "We've got to make or break," said the first alien. "It's not what they've done," said Bal, the second alien. They've had two world wars in one generation and that the third and final one is coming up you can't help feeling in everything they do." "The wrong diplomatic move, or a trigger-happy soldier could set it off. A meteor shower could pass over and their clumsy instruments could interpret it as an all-out enemy attack." "We'll just have to forget there ever was such a planet as Earth." Except for the one thing they lack, and that's quite odd, they seem exactly like us. "It is. "There is. "In a week we can't negate their entire history. There's nothing in this region of space our people want," said Ethaniel. "And how long can Earth last? They went much closer to Earth, not intending to commit themselves. For a day they circled the planet, avoiding radar detection, which for them was not difficult, testing, and sampling. Atmospheric analysis showed that as far away as we were." "What's worse is that I now find they also have missiles, range one thousand miles and upward. They either have or are near a primitive form of space travel." I should go down and live among them, read books, talk to scholars, work with them, play." We can't help them," said Ethaniel. "It's happened before. In the meantime the ship moved much closer to Earth. They no longer needed instruments to see it. The planet revolved outside the visionports. The southern plains were green, coursed with rivers; the oceans were blue; and much of the northern hemisphere was glistening white. Ragged clouds covered the pole, and a dirty pall spread over the mid-regions of the north.
 They want to keep the humans from fighting and destroying themselves
 They want to delay any wars until they can come back to help with backup  They want to defuse the bombs  They want to keep the humans from fighting and destroying themselves  They want to officially connect the alien culture and the humans' culture