you've conquered twelve planets?
that's not how we see it

II. The second mistake was to look at the infinitesimal sphere, spinning around a distant sun in a forgotten galaxy, and think--there.

III. The third mistake was humanity. A fleshy, breakable bipedal species, all threading proteins and ion channels--wet things, dripping things, soaked in hormones and blood. But Souls are not unfeeling; they first took only the undesirables: the poor, the homeless, the sick. They made them new again, approaching humanity's many leaders (what quaint territorial claims govern them!) in the spirit of enlightenment.

But the Humans refused to see, baring their calcinate teeth and making noises later deciphered as laughter.

Thus ended the spirit of enlightenment. Enter the stick.