Alien encounters

[Nickeris86]

I'm currently writing a scifi novel where humans make their first contact with an alien civilization my main character volunteers to be on of the citizen ambassadors for earth but i have found myself rambling on and on about his crappy normal day to day life and can't figure out how to have the aliens make contact with him so that its believable.

In my first draft i had one show up at his door step, i also had an idea of having them send a transmission through his computer of television. but I'm just stuck in a rut now.

[Paynesgrey]

Have you built your alien's personality/culture yet?  Do they think and feel roughly as we do, or are their emotional/mental/cultural processes literally alien to human thought?  How they think, feel, and process info will determine who and how they choose to make contact.  What importance does their society place on different individual roles and professions?

Aliens might choose to contact, say, the secretary general of the UN as their research might lead them to think he's actually in charge.  Or they might filter things through their own cultural perceptions and contact they loudest talking guy with the most garish tie they see on our broadcasts and demand an audience with the owner of a discount used car lot in Pasadena.

[knnn]

He's the first guy in the telephone book so he must be the most important

[Nickeris86]

the alien civilization is actually comprised of several races, most of which i have fleshed out culturally. They are pretty similar to us in thought and emotion but still alien at the same time. They have also made contact with the world governments already and have been negotiating for over two years to indoctrinate earth into their civilization. part of those negotiations was to ask for a couple hundred volunteers to be civilian diplomats so that the Aliens can see how humanity might react to living as citizens of the galaxy.

[Gaius Quartus]

If they are asking the world governments for volunteers, then it seems to me that the the world governments would gather these volunteers together in a set place to meet with the alien races.