Puppets

"A few are starting to understand, only starting, but we must act
now before they can organise!"

The other Puppet Masters agreed.

"If we can further undermine their faith, convince them of their
separateness, we can control them more easily. In the past it has been useful to control them by their beliefs in Eternity. Now we must convince them that god has been replaced by technology and, hand-in-hand with science, will deliver a Golden Age - an age where sickness and ultimately death itself will have been banished from the human condition."

"Get our pet scientists to release more anti-religious propaganda - something like: We have looked back and learned the secrets of creation, harnessed the power of the atom, cracked the Human genome but we cannot properly utilise this great knowledge because of the blinkered beliefs of a few religious zealots who are afraid we might anger some long dead god.

"We must be careful for already the affects of alienation is causing wide-spread unrest and disaffection. We must give them some cause to unite, to keep them occupied while we complete Phase II."

"Are the targets for increased pollution being met New York?"

New York nodded.

"Any trouble from the West?"

London, Paris and the rest indicated that there was not.

"The East is much harder to control but maybe we can get the West to help."

"New York and London - can you cook up an excuse to justify military attacks on these religious fundamentalists?"

They nodded.

"Good news from the Southern Hemisphere the renewed tension in Afghanistan has really helped. Opium production is back on target but they want to know if Pakistan and India can do more nuclear weapons testing to raise the background radiation levels."

"Good! How are the latest batch of bacterialogial blights coming
along?"

A short video.

"Very good, very good!"

"It seems like everything is going according to plan. Their atmosphere should soon be similar to ours before the accident. The pollution level on this planet is getting nearly high enough to sustain us without supplement

It's almost like the good old days back home."

"The fools have given us this planet for a hand full of toys and empty promises!"

"We must not make the same mistakes again. Once we have completed the takeover of this planet we must ready others - just in case another accident should destroy this planet as it did our own."

"The people are no threat?" asked the visitor.

"Their leaders have sold them out to save their own skins. We have taken away their beliefs and given them materialism - they are no threat because they are too afraid of death. Without their Faith they are a weak and weary race..."

"Best of all." said the visitor"They are very nutritious and should feed our people for many, many years to come - before the planet becomes too polluted to sustain human life!"