Don't take this as any particular argument about what you said, but since your post caused me to think about my biggest question, I'm quoting you. I'd be happy to hear your answer, but it isn't just pointed at you.
Everyone always assumes they/we/me are the main characters. Everything is happening now, or it has been happening for a long time but the culmination of all that work is going to happen ANY DAY NOW. Why? Why didn't they do this back in Roman times? We'd have been even easier to control then. Or how about when we started murdering each other with guns but had no air presence? Or ok, if they were waiting for us to develop space technology, why not 50 fucking years ago when we proved we could go to the moon?
It is really no different than the "Yosemite is overdue for an eruption, it could happen any day now!" but since it is calculated in millions of years, our entire civilization is a rounding error to that timetable. Why would aliens or NHI or whatever you believe in have waited until just this moment in time to spring their carefully crafted plan? Or why would they do it now when they can wait another couple hundred years?
To me, the answer is plain: the only ones crafting plans are other humans seeking to benefit in some way from the hysteria or mystery or power vacuum. If no one can explain to me why this particular era of humanity is when they decided to make their move, regardless of any "proof" (which everyone here knows how I feel about that), then I'm going to dismiss anything except extraordinary evidence.
We are no more special than the humans a thousand years ago in terms of a NHI. We are less special than the humans a thousand years in the future. So someone explain to me, why now? Why us?