Since I am unversed in your intergalactic tongue, please extract my mind's contents and consider this telepathic plea:

I know you have long been observing our celestial orb and I know your findings have not been met with acclaim. After all, you wouldn't be here if they had. However, before you neutralize the human race like a sick dog...Could you please lower your weapon for just one moment? I'll get to the point:

Our independence isn't what you think. It isn't braying National Anthems like drunken donkeys; it isn't asserting our borders with walls that sprout barbed wire hair; and it certainly isn't shutting ourselves off from different cultures.

In fact, our independence lies in our dependence. In our infancy, soft bellies and soft heads wither away without human contact. Just like the flesh depends on warm hands to grow, so do great nations. The mightiest of queens perish without the loyal arms of their worker ants. And so the independence of earth, not just one country, relies on its complete and utter dependence on all of humanity.

Though I have never encountered your race, I can decipher the doubt in your eyes. I agree: we have to do better. We can. We will. As God as my witness...Could you please lower your weapon?    

We Earthlings know little of your species, and less of your history, so I am going to take a shot in the dark here. A shot through our sky to your ship, through the distance of biology and physics, to your minds. 

I think you are alone. 

As alone as we thought we were until today. Cosmically alone, profoundly alone. For why else would you be the first to find us, and why else would you appear in a single ship? 

Another shot in the dark, from my own experience: you tell yourself that this loneliness is freedom. Independence. You have a whole universe to explore!

But being alone is not being free. 

I think that you were looking for companionship, the way we all do down here, but on a grander scale. 

You had plans. You fantasized about how perfect we would be, how developed as a society. You did not plan to find the real us, with our flaws and wars and biases. And so, you have hesitated, hovering in our sky. 

I am here to give you a message: independence is not isolation. Independence is companionship. Independence is teamwork. We are not truly independent until we have supported someone else, lifted them up. And done this knowing that, someday, they will do the same for us.

And so, I implore you to lower your weapons and offer your help. You have found intelligence in this universe, and I beg you not to ruin the opportunities for friendship, companionship, and freedom that that offers. 

It doesn't matter what you do to us, since we have no means to stop you.

It doesn't matter what you think of us, since we can't think your type of thoughts.

It doesn't matter what you say of us, since we don't know how to understand you.

But before you raise a hand, a talon, a tentacle, I ask you to spare a moment for me to show you what we celebrate, today, of all days. Independence. To you, a simple word. Another thing that humans say. Maybe this word is hollow to you; meaningless and empty. But maybe this word overflows with ancient memories and indefinite history. You know what it means to you. But to us it is an infinite array of inscrutable but beautiful emotions, so fine that it is forever slipping between our clumsy fingers. 

It is the gentle sunlight trickling through the windows in the morning, fondling on your eyelids, and easing you into consciousness and a day of limitless joy and endless possibilities that you can sway.

It is the hardworking father returning home from work, into the open arms of plump and loving children.

It is the pulsing determination flowing through a youth's veins as he pursues the career he's dreamed of since his childhood.

It is the pride that warms the heart of an artist, a musician, a writer, and the undeterrable inspiration that fuels the student to try their hand at something truly great.

It is the impossible harp that we, humans, have been fingering for tens of thousands of years. But let me warn you that, by no means, is it something you can take away.

That same gentle sunlight would become a taunt, the carrot dangling from the stick of oppression, the beginning of another day with your hands tied.

That same father would return home to bony and cold children, ashamed of the lowly things their father had done, only for that extra handful of rice.

That same pulsing determination would now push that same youth to hide in dark alleys, picking pockets and playing dirty tricks for another day of life.

That same pride would be the knife that the artist used to stab himself, for making something that would surely lead others to this cliff, with demise at its bottom.

Independence. It is a bright, dancing melody drifting in the wind, one that should be heard by all. It is the chain linking us to sanity. Break that chain, and I promise you ensuing chaos, darkness lit ablaze only by the fires of violence and madness.