The vast starship was many years away when the transmissions began. Some of the scouts and weapons platforms were already in system, though.
The People of Earth speech was aimed at Athens, Alexandria and Atlantis, thereby demonstrating a somewhat incomplete or at least twisted understanding of geopolitics but the message was received everywhere.
It amounted to a blood curdling threat. If the people of Earth did not do as they were told by the people who openly admitted to wanting to share the planet with the humans and all of its other lifeforms, megadeaths would ensue.
The instructions were fairly simple:
People of Earth,
Greetings from the People of Carpica and the other twelve colonies. Our planets have been destroyed by our own creations and we are fugitives from genocidal A.I.s. We have been looking for you as a haven for a long time.
We were ecstatic to find you but uneasy with what the long range sensors report: You still occupy but one world in a multi-planet system and that is a world under serious threat from yourselves. If you had seen Caprica incinerated by nuclear fire you might wish that you had taken better care of your own home.
We do not have anywhere else to go. Yours is the last human outpost in the galaxy. In other circumstances you would be right to be angry that that we have led the enemy to your gates but the way you guys are going, there would be nothing left for them to kill.
We will arrive in 2057. Until then we will be decelerating and unable to alter the programming of our advance units. These units are not smart enough to parse excuses but they will follow their orders. We do not want to kill people but our machines will if they think you are not adhering to the schedule.
Schedule from Now (2010) to September 5, 2057:
No major fighting until we arrive. All fighting will be punished by orbital laser strikes and major fighting will be grounds for targeted gamma ray blasts. Collateral damage may include dozens of innocent victims.
CO2 emissions must level off within a decade and CO2 levels in the atmosphere must be dropping by 2035. We really do not care how you do it, just that it is done. If this is not achieved, we will not have to kill anyone, Gaia will do it for us. Casualties will be in the thousands of millions.
We have not seen any kind of animal for decades, much less a wild one. Keep them around for us, please. Any extinction that can be avoided will be punished by gamma ray strikes on the individuals deemed responsible by the Weapons Platform Artificial Intelligence (WPAI). Given that WPAI has a somewhat expansive view of responsibility, casualties could be in the billions. Keep those critters alive!
Peace,
Admiral Adama