Yeah I was definitely thinking that. Thing is the aliens could be completely beyond our comprehension, what if they're a fucking sentient gas cloud or something?

While I'm all for human nature being communist-compatible I definitely don't believe that literally all aliens might be, the ethics of an ant hive might not be particularly compatible with humans. Or they might be? But we need to study and work that out before we get ourselves killed. Blundering in and assuming friendliness and compatibility is an amateur mistake.