Do you remember the late-1990's movie "Independence Day"? Where the aliens made no attempt to conceal their presence, but merely showed up and did what they intended to do, not caring about us humans' possible reaction?
Well, that is how they do things.
Different species of alien than in the movie, but they simply took advantage of their superior technology to do whatever they wanted -- and unlike in the movie, we couldn't find a weakness to exploit. Their ships showed up very clearly on radar as they surrounded the planet, obviously scanning us, for three full days. Then they sent smaller ships down into the atmosphere and to the surface, systematically exterminating all high-ranking military commanders of every military force on earth, the top leaders of all terrorist groups, and the leaders and financiers of every authoritarian organization (be it a government, a church, or any other kind) on the planet. They were very careful to target ONLY the leaders, and the whole thing didn't take more than 3 minutes, as they had tens of thousands of ships swarm downwards. Nothing we tried could damage their ships. The Russians tried launching two nukes, and the nukes swerved away from the alien ships and landed right back where they started from, wiping out a Russian nuclear-launch site and contaminating the surrounding area with radiation.
After the sudden loss of many of our planet's so-called authority figures had stunned us collectively as a species, one of the alien ships flew to New York City and an alien called a press conference at UN Headquarters. Naturally, it was broadcast worldwide. He -- it was clearly a he -- spoke in English, but his speech was live-translated into other languages as he spoke, so all of humanity could hear why the things had happened.
"Good day, ladies and gentlemen -- or night, as the case may be. You may have noticed that our ships have wiped out what you call `right wing' and `authoritarian' leaders, as well as your military commanders. This is not because we believe that being left wing and progressive is better. On the contrary, in fact. Our own society is firmly authoritarian. Our king commanded us here to collect slaves with some basic intelligence, and the ability to speak. Those of you who followed your leaders who have been executed will make excellent slaves. Our ships are picking your people up now, in fact. If you blindly followed your own leaders, you are.... what is your term?... sheeple."
A tall man carrying a gun stepped up towards the dais where the alien was speaking. "I ain't no sheeple!"
The alien smiled. "Of course you are a sheeple, sir. You followed your church leader's words to a T."
The tall man pointed his gun at the alien. "Fuck you!"
The alien lifted his hands to show two rings he was wearing, a red one on his left hand and a blue one on his right hand. "Don't be a fool, sir, Put that primitive kinetic weapon back in its holster."
"You can have my gun when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers!"
A beam of blue light flashed from the blue ring, and the tall man's hand was suddenly encased in ice. The gun fell to the floor.
"Your proposal is acceptable."
Two beams of red light flashed from the red ring. One of them, a powerful one, turned the fallen gun into a melted pile of slag. The second, more gentle one removed the ice from around the tall man's hand. A blast from the blue ring froze the slag that had been a gun before the heat could cause any trouble.
"Now, where was I before I was interrupted? Oh yes. We will collect your sheeple to be used as semi-intelligent slaves. And since our king is so generous -- and we'll need to create space in our ships to house a few billion of you -- we'll give you a few billion absolutely unintelligent slaves who need no sustenance other than what they can get from the air and sunlight in return. It is easy to find unintelligent slaves, but finding ones who have some brain capacity is harder. Obviously, you cannot successfully interbreed with the slaves we will provide you, as the genetics are too different. In 15 minutes we will have completed the exchange. Are there any questions?"
A reporter from the New York Times spoke up. "So, that's it? After this, you disappear back to... wherever you came from... and we never see you guys again?"
