First Contact

"Greetings, People of the Jesus-Person."

SETI: Oh my God, we're receiving a message. From Messier 45! In....Aramaic. What. Get a translator!

Aliens: Greetings, People of the Jesus-Person.

SETI: What.

Aliens: Yeah, he burned up his soul and sent us a massive signal. Told us to come and "consume everyone so they can be spared from the pain of Samsara." In return, we get raw energy to build our Dyson Sphere project to power our Virtual Reality paradise so we can be spared the pain of Samsara ourselves.

SETI: What. I mean, we kindly decline. We want to live.

Aliens: Oh, but our Devourer Fleet is already entering your Solar System. It costed us a lot of fuel to get there, we had to torture a billion of our citizens to death to get enough pain-energy to travel over 400 light years. Sorry, this is happening. We are committed. Our economy is committed. If you have concerns, feel free to torture a couple thousand of your people and burn up their souls to file a complaint with the Galactic Government and then wait for a return signal in about a thousand years, but by then we will have destroyed you. Have a good day.

SETI: We will fight you!

Aliens: You can't fight a self-replicating drone armada. But we welcome you to try. We're a very happy people who have made peace with death. May the best species win.

SETI: Is it too late to co-exist?

Aliens: The Virtual Reality we're building can only hold about a billion people. We're saving those spots for our most beloved and compassionate citizens— the rest of us chose to get our hands dirty to protect their innocence. So no.

SETI: Is there any compromise we can offer?

Aliens: We can probably accept a long term payment plan. Sacrifice a couple hundred people every year and stream us the energy and we'll let you guys keep on living. Long term investment type deal. Let me pass it up to our Central Government.