35. Address For the Assimilation of Earth
"Attend me, human filth. I am the bringer of your end.
"I am Almighty Tallest Tak, and by my will you are now the property of the Irken Empire. I am not here to explain to you who we are, or from where we come; ours is a glory that needs no one to speak for it. Suffice it to say that we are vastly more numerous, more powerful, and more intelligent than you shall ever hope to be. The sooner you come to accept this, the better you will fare.
"The Earth as you know it is no more. All that you built, all that grew up around you, lies in ashes; all who do not stand in these halls are dead. As I speak, my people are reformatting your planet to make it hospitable to our purposes.
"Earth will become part of the network of planets that serves the Irken Empire, producing machinery in factories which we will build and you will staff. Until they are prepared to receive you, you will remain here, in temporary colonies on the planet you call Jupiter. When the time comes for you to return to your planet, it will be yours no longer. You will work for the Empire, until your race or the sun that sustains it dies.
"Know that there is no escaping your fate. As your dead cannot rise, as what is gone cannot return, you cannot change the course we have chosen for you. Today, humanity is reborn as a slave race, and you can no more reverse this than you can crawl back into your mothers' wombs. I warn you, resistance will bring only pain; we will not hesitate to strike down those who attempt to thwart us.
"When you have heard me, you will be stripped of all personal property and clothing, and branded with identification numbers that will replace your names. You will be disinfected and issued new clothing. You will be fed and housed here in the colonies until such time as you are needed on Earth, where you will be sorted according to the work to which you are best suited, and installed in barracks.
"We will keep you alive, and in exchange, you will give your lives to us. You will have what is needed to fuel your bodies, but nothing more; we will demand your obedience, but we will not reward it. Your days will be rigidly regimented, in order to maximize your worth as a labor force, and you will do nothing that is not productive. You will not be afforded the luxury of happiness.
"You will not be given answers. The workings of our minds are beyond your comprehension, and we have no obligation to satisfy your hunger for meaning. The fact is that the strong devour the weak; the question why is irrelevant.
"Look on what has become of your world. See that we have crushed beneath our boots all that you were or would be. Humans are loathsomely self-centered creatures, but you will no longer have the satisfaction of believing that your towers are the tallest, your leaders the strongest there ever were.
"Your towers are dust now. Your leaders are slaves. Look on the thousands of years of your civilizations, your social constructs, your art and science and technology, and see that they have come to nothing. Know that they were always meaningless, and so are you.
"Know that we are your masters, the deciders of your destinies, at whose feet you will kneel in supplication to a power greater than that of your gods. We are your gods now."