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There are a few things I would take as "givens" about alien races, even though we are whistling in the dark on a lot things.  
For example, if they can build starships, they can communicate with each other.  Let's not push our "How can we assume we know ANYthing?" humility TOO far.  :- )
I believe you could make a long list of givens.  Humility is great, but so is inference.
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Let's take it as a given that a starfaring species has motivation / emotion / locomotion / preferences / free will.  There are things they want.  They are "made in the image of God," above the animal kingdom, in that they can reason, they can decide, and they have noble/ignoble desires.
The term "motivation" is a very broad one.  We start thinking of aliens as very advanced Macintoshes, we are guilty of becoming nonsensical.  (The problem of "consciousness" might be a good Konspiracy Korner in a few weeks.)
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A race that is very, very old would have come to the conclusion that Love / Altruism is the only fuel that makes the engine of our hearts and minds run forever.  That's my opinion, and it's one I regard as a given.  Reasons:
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1) As a lifelong counselor, I've seen self-interested people become gradually but inexorably unhappier as they get older.  I've seen loving, altruistic people do the reverse:  they're more at peace, and happier, as they get older.  I haven't seen any exceptions to this, though I'm sure there are -- humans don't live long.
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2) CS Lewis explained this whole problem of "deteriorating self-interest," in the 1950's, and applied it to the concept of angels and demons.  "If you become slowly unhappier with each passing decade, what will be your fate in 10,000 years?  You would become a being that men conceive only in their nightmares."
Whereas the "lore" about angels -- there is a ton of it -- always pictures them as benevolent.  There is SOME first cause for this lore, even if it's only the instinct of man.
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3) All the world's religions teach the principle.
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4) The "inner voice," the conscience, whispers it to us.
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5) Everything we see around us -- Gandhi and Mother Teresa vs Saddam Hussein and Hitler -- is consistent with it.
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6) etc.
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Those things, to me, are the facts of the case.  A very, very old man needs love, or he's going to crack up eventually.  :- )
Here's the inference, and it could be wrong:  if there were an alien species -- or a Federation of them -- that made it through 1 billion years? -- it would have helped us out by now.
Even the U.S.A. intervenes in foreign societies, and does so out of "humanitarianism."  Tweak that word a bit and you've got what MUST be the driving motivation of any species that prospers for a billion years.
or not,
Jeff