No, I told you before, you can’t invade the Earth until you’re seventeen.

I don’t care if all your friends are doing it. If all your friends were getting their third eyes removed, would you do that too?

No, I didn’t know that all your friends were getting their third eyes removed. No, you can’t do that either.

Because I said so, that’s why not.

Yes, I know that I invaded Earth when I was only fifteen. Look at the mess that got me into. Do you really want to repeat all my mistakes?

Well, how did you think I’d got the laser burn?

Five days, if you must know.

Well, that’s a pretty long time to be conqueror of Earth! Your dad only managed half an hour, and he had a whole clone army under his command. I only had the neutron cannon.

I forgot to bring a spare battery, and the power sockets are incompatible.

Yes of course I should have thought of that! That’s my point! You don’t think of these things when you’re fifteen. You don’t prepare properly, you don’t bring the proper protection. There’s no way you’d think to bring an anti-matter shield, for example, is there?

No, I know you hadn’t thought of that.

Do you really think that you’re prepared to battle against science-heroes, men of action, and bookish teenagers who notice your one fatal flaw? Really?

Look, sweetpolyp, I understand why you want to do this. It’s exciting, it’s fun, it makes you feel like a grown octopoid, and you don’t want to be the only one in your swarm who hasn’t done it.

But don’t you want your first time to be special? When you look back at the first time you conquer a planet and subjugate its people to your whim, the first time you slaveringly devour the cowering wretches who you have telepathically bent to your will, don’t you want to remember a proper bond between you and them?

You don’t want to be in and out in five minutes and come staggering back home ashamed of yourself, probably with some terrible disease (ask your granddad some time about that thing he caught when he took his tripod down there; he had mucus coming out of bits you don’t even know you’ve got!), you want it to be nice, not just something you joke about with your swarm-rivals.

You want to have something that’ll last, that you’ll remember forever. And you want it to be special for them, too. You don’t just want to be some here-today gone-tomorrow conqueror who they never think of again. You want to make a mark. At the very least wait until you’re old enough to operate a geosculptor — passion only lasts so long, but a continent resculpted into the shape of your face lasts forever.

I know you think I’m being cruel and bladderless now, but you’ll thank me in a few years. Trust me.

Now hurry off out, or you’ll be late for your orgy.