Post-Detection Toolkit
What is the Post-Detection Toolkit?
The Post-Detection Toolkit grows out of the work of the SETI Post-Detection Hub at the University of St Andrews. It brings together both pre-detection scenarios and a growing archive of post-detection scenarios developed through a 15-month participatory futures process (2023–2024) that imagines alternative futures for the SETI ecosystem in 2050 and explores discovery and its aftermath.
The toolkit provides practical resources - scenarios, templates, checklists, and interactive methods - as well as guidance on how to adapt and use them. The Toolkit is a creative, participatory resource that makes futures thinking accessible: it uses storytelling, roleplay, and collaborative exercises. These activities help groups think comparatively, imaginatively, and consider how they might feel, act, and respond in unfamiliar or unprecedented situations.
A Commons Resource
As a living commons, the toolkit welcomes contributions from multiple contexts. Not all pages are editable, but anyone can contribute to the open sections, critique, or adapt the materials. This is in the support of ongoing dialogue and ensures the resource remains robust and relevant across different communities.
The post-detection scenarios archive is a living, open-ended resource. The strength of the archive lies in plurality and contributors are invited to add new scenarios, drawing on science fiction, history, or imagination.
Please see the Contributing Guidelines before adding your work.
Public Outreach
For the wider public, the Toolkit serves as an accessible and creative way to understand possible futures in the context of scenarios of discovery in 2050.
- Designed to Engage: The Toolkit is structured to be approachable and is used in workshops, public events, and community activities, to invite people from all backgrounds to participate in futures thinking about post-detection. Creators and researchers are encouraged to adapt the exercises and scenarios to formats that fit community contexts.
- A Tool for Dialogue and Participation: Participants consider the ethical, social, and emotional dimensions of possible futures together, and discuss what values and actions might matter most in those contexts. The goal is to include communities in policy questions and issues so that futures are shaped by diverse perspectives, not just experts.
How to Use The Post-Detection Toolkit
- Explore existing pre- and post-detection scenarios, resources, and methods.
- Contribute new scenarios, tools, or reflections to expand the commons archive and strengthen collective readiness for discovery.
- Remix the toolkit through art projects, games, Live Action Role Play (LARP), or performance: adapting and repurposing scenarios so communities can explore post-detection.