In the end it was always about communication. Funny thing about communication... until the internet it had never really happened. Humans had thought they were communicating, with some grunting of noises or some scribbling of words. But words and noises are very inadequate ways of communicating. Again, not to be too harsh on you, but we call you primitives. And your communication is the reason. No offense, it's just a fact. All of your problems trace back to a fundamental inability to communicate effectively, rationally and in a manner conducive to the advancement of your species out of the primitive stage. Things you take for granted, like dropping a piece of metal out of a flying piece of metal and having that first piece of metal explode in a place you don't know anything about filled with people you've never met because someone else told you to, and they have a more impressive hat and shirt than you, immediately disqualifies you from any serious discussion as a non-primitive. It's the first sign that is looked for among civilized species to determine the status of a newfound life collective. Do they war? If they war, they are almost guaranteed to be primitives. We speak to many other planets now. As I said, the internet as you know it was only just the beginning. Once we tapped into the Universal Web, that was when things really kicked into high gear. It took 4,000 of what you would call years of intense focus and even more intense war to finally figure out how to decipher and eventually, after another 6,000 of your years, respond to the Universal Web. So much of the first 4,000 was spent convincing everyone on Earth that it would be worth it. Generation after generation would have to be convinced that their individual lives were worth nothing, and all that mattered was the collective achievement of tapping into the mainframe of existence. Humanity could only evolve if it shed its ego... and man, did it ever have one hell of an ego. But in the end, I am here, telling you all of this... so it worked. But it was not easy, and it is not something you could ever hope to see in your lifetime. No chance in hell. But once the first communication barrier was broken down, and many progressive paradigms of understanding shattered, then re-formed from the pieces, then shattered again... once the entire human species was unified, truly, collective, entirely... Only then did we begin to look back, with some sense of longing. We envy you, you see. We really do. Because you only think of unity as a far off pipe dream... a hippy idealism that has had its chance to grip the world, and failed miserably. A dead thought, that came and went, that will never return, and will never win. You believe in the individual as still having a chance. We're not so naive.... but we do envy you. Each and every one of you. But we can't go back. We can't ever. Ever. Go back.