I love Vernor Vinge's "Deepness in the Sky", where a very diminished force of humans arrives at an alien planet during the aliens' industrial revolution. The hu

I love Vernor Vinge's "Deepness in the Sky", where a very diminished force of humans arrives at an alien planet during the aliens' industrial revolution. The humans decide to go into cold sleep until the aliens are advanced enough to help rebuild their ship, and they spend hundreds of years subtly manipulating the aliens' social and technological development to their benefit. Of course, among the aliens are a small faction of tinfoil-hat conspiracy theorists who are constantly trying to prove the existence of the aliens and their manipulation of the planet's information systems.