I am leaving soon, and you will forgive me if I speak bluntly.  The uni­verse grows smaller every day, and the threat of aggres­sion by any group, any­where, can no longer be tol­er­ated. There must be secu­rity for all, or no one is secure.

Now, this does not mean giv­ing up any free­dom, except the free­dom to act irre­spon­si­bly. Your ances­tors knew this when they made laws to gov­ern them­selves and hired police­men to enforce them. We, of the other plan­ets, have long accepted this prin­ci­ple. We have an orga­ni­za­tion for the mutual pro­tec­tion of all plan­ets and for the com­plete elim­i­na­tion of aggres­sion. The test of any such higher author­ity is, of course, the police force that sup­ports it. For our police­men, we cre­ated a race of robots. Their func­tion is to patrol the plan­ets in space­ships like this one and pre­serve the peace. In mat­ters of aggres­sion, we have given them absolute power over us. This power can­not be revoked. At the first sign of vio­lence, they act auto­mat­i­cally against the aggressor.

The penalty for pro­vok­ing their action is too ter­ri­ble to risk. The result is, we live in peace, with­out arms or armies, secure in the knowl­edge that we are free from aggres­sion and war. Free to pur­sue more… prof­itable enterprises.

Now, we do not pre­tend to have achieved per­fec­tion, but we do have a sys­tem, and it works. I came here to give you these facts. It is no con­cern of ours how you run your own planet, but if you threaten to extend your vio­lence, this Earth of yours will be reduced to a burned-out cinder.

Your choice is sim­ple: join us and live in peace, or pur­sue your present course and face obliteration.

We shall be wait­ing for your answer.

The deci­sion rests with you.