Why, if Pequod knows nothing about our civilization, would anyone, human or amygdaline, assume that they might pose some danger to us? Part of it is based on their history, but most of it is based on what they can extrapolate about us. By nature, we are more competitive than they. We are more violent. We are more consumptive. We are more individualistic. We are more tribal. Most terrifyingly to them, we are omnivorous. Imagine being of a species descended from herbivores looking in on us humans, who eat nearly anything, but especially delight in the flesh of our fellow animals. We raise and slaughter them in factory farms, and that’s not even the worst of it. We go to war with each other constantly. We continue to pump greenhouse gas into our atmosphere, knowing full well how future generations will suffer for it. We traffic and enslave our most vulnerable, and those who don’t turn a blind eye to it. What intelligent being would look at a species like this and not see a potential threat?

Now imagine learning that these violent, competitive, omnivorous monsters had technologically advanced more quickly than you could ever have imagined possible, far more quickly than your ancestors did. Those traits you assumed would prevent the development of an advanced civilization—competitiveness, greed, gluttony, tribalism, bellicosity—in reality turbocharged their progression. These monsters may be only a few thousand, perhaps even a few hundred, years away from approaching your level of advancement, only a generation or two according to the life spans of your kind, and they are already looking to the stars with hungry eyes. What kind of threat might those monsters pose once they come close to your level of technological sophistication? What might you do to mitigate such a threat?

Nikola is, for the most part, resigned to what he sees as an inevitability. He sees our advancement as incredible, he sees our lives as precious, but he knows his fellows back home will not feel the same way, and he believes our long-term prospects are dire. He does not want to see our civilization die, but given that he has nowhere else to go, he considers his own journey near its end. Amygdalines are much more long-lived than humans, and as such they decide on their life spans, and choose when they die centuries in advance. Nikola has not come to Earth to live, but rather, to die, specifically to die with his last remaining “next of kin,” Jude Atheatos.