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"...in fifty years, do you believe that people will be recognizably human?"
- Greg Bear

Threat Team (of sf writers)  
  Gathering together a group of science fiction writers to try to predict what will happen, or to understand an unknown threat.  

The government creates a special think tank of science fiction writers who try to understand the aliens and extrapolate their capabilities. Eventually, they even invited a captured member of the aliens to join their "herd" - the Dreamer Fithp. The military called them the Threat Team.

They took their places in the lecture room, but they tended to sit for a moment, then get up and gather in clumps. Most of them talked at once. Working with the science-fiction people was an educational experience. They had no reverence for anything or anyone...

"Admiral Carrell has assembled an intelligence group to advise the National Security Council. You are part of it."

"Makes sense. Who else knows about aliens?"

She looked at her seating chart. Curtis. She nodded. "...You are the Threat Team. The others will assume the aliens are friendly. Our group will examine the possibility they are hostile..."

Technovelgy from Footfall, by Larry Niven (w/J. Pournelle).
Published by Ballantine in 1985
Additional resources -

As one character says in the book, you might as well listen to science fiction writers because, in some areas, "they're the only experts we have."

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from Footfall
  More Ideas and Technology by Larry Niven (w/J. Pournelle)
  Tech news articles related to Footfall
  Tech news articles related to works by Larry Niven (w/J. Pournelle)

Threat Team (of sf writers)-related news articles:
  - Sigma: SF Writers Advise Homeland Security
  - France's 'Red Team' Of Science Fiction Authors
  - Does Your Company Need A 'Chief Dreamer'?

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