[BoorishBears]

There's a bit of critical thinking that I'd suggest makes the distinction moot here:

Unity could have said 'listen', and given the insane mismatch between their past actions and the current rather predictable response, there'd be precious little comfort the sentence "We Have <Either> You" could provide compared to whatever their next actions are.

With all your research I'm sure you've come across this concept in the often quoted form: "actions speak louder than words"

(And for posterity, they even said they're listening: they just don't open with it...)