Same premise as Greg Bear's The Forge of God [1] from 1987, where the aliens play mindgames with the civilizations they are about to destroy. His analogy (from

Same premise as Greg Bear's The Forge of God [1] from 1987, where the aliens play mindgames with the civilizations they are about to destroy. His analogy (from memory) is baby birds cheeping in a tree. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Forge_of_God https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Forge_of_God