[TheOtherHobbes]

This assumes we'd recognise the interaction as an interaction.

A super-intelligent species would have no trouble modelling and manipulating human politics from behind the scenes.

It's naive to assume that an interaction will look like the old explorer or conquistador model - a ship arrives, someone gets off it, and then demands to talk to the chieftain, or starts killing people and blowing shit up to make a point about power.

The set of all possible - and effective - interactions which doesn't look like that is much bigger than the set that does.

[Houshalter]

Why would they want to hide? You are making a very strong claim about the motivations of aliens.

[tyingq]

SciFi usually offers this sort of explaination: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_Directive

[Houshalter]

That's a very forced explanation by science fiction writers to justify it. I wouldn't expect actual alien civilizations to invent such an arbitrary rule.