I really like your 'alien'.
A lot of my ideas about SETI have had to be revised as I have contemplated how physics-oriented technology chauvinist we are. There are alternative technologies based on managed biological evolution that do not rely on fire, electricity/magnetism and in vitro chemistry, metallurgy, combustion and optics. Technical civilizations may be common in the cosmos, but the ability to build spaceships and radio telescopes may not.
Incidentally, have you been following how a group of cephalopod researchers have begun to promote the idea of sentience in octopi and have started agitating against fish farming the creatures for food?