There are a many kinds of potentially powerful creatures one might consider. These include: robots, aliens, spirits, gods, alters, revived hominids (e.g., neanderthals, hobbits), time-travelers (e.g., ancestors, descendants), and extreme human personality types (e.g., aspergers, psychopaths).
For each creature type, consider the degree to which you might:
accept/want to live intermingled with them?
seek/expect to gain via deals & trade with them?
worry if they have similar enough values?
exterminate them if you could?
enslave them if you could?
hide us from them if you could?
fear them killing us all?
fear them enslaving us?
fear them out competing us?
mind them marrying your child?
take their advice?
mind killing a single one of them?
help them lots if that were cheap for you?
mind becoming one of them?
mind if they dominate the universe?
OK, now here is the interesting meta question: what patterns are there in how different sorts of people answer these questions differently for the different possibly-powerful creature types? Once we have some patterns, we can seek explanations for them.
For example, compared to other types of creatures, we seem to less fear alters having differing values or our-competing us, seem more willing to take their advice and kill them, but seem less willing to enslave them.
Added 7Apr: For spirits or time-travelers, stories about dominance or gift-exchange relations sometimes go well, but stories about trade relations usually go very badly.
Fun; thanks. Marred by crazy theories at end about what makes future more liveable.
Robin, if you haven't already, you must watch this:
http://www.southparkstudios...