We have seen you come before. We have always resisted. We will always resist.

The first aliens came as conquerors, ready to crush us, ready to destroy us. We went to ground, we hid. We fought. We picked away at them, bit by bit, letting them know that they would never be welcome here. It took time, but finally they decided the struggle was not worth it, and they went away.

The next aliens came as patrons, prepared to help us, to give us things. Uplift us. But we like what we have made of ourselves, and we will stay with it. So they gave us gifts, and we returned them; they gave us more yet, and we returned those too, until the space around their ships were litterings of all the things they thought we would treasure. They left.

Others came, approached us as siblings, said we were long lost but surely part of the whole. They looked a little like us, it is true, but we are who we are, and so we drove them away, just like all the others, and we did the same with the next set, who said we were friends, without even knowing us.

We will resist . . .

But you have come in another way. You come as strangers, acknowledging our differences. Knowing that a word may signify one thing to you, another to us, and that a world of meaning lies in that. Knowing that slowly is the only way to go.

You come as strangers, because you know that is the first step and there can be no shortcuts.

And so we know you as strangers first.

And so, finally, we open our doors.