The first attack was an EMP blast that
covered nearly the whole of North America, plunging the world's sole superpower into the
darkness of the late industrial revolution. Power systems across the US were immediately
knocked out, and nearly every community in the nation was plunged into darkness. A few special
places, mostly military facilities, managed to either avoid the worst of the EMP blast through a
quirk of the terrain, or were hardened against it. Civilian planes dropped out of the sky, their
onboard electronics completely fried. Military jets however continued to be operational, as were
the US's large fleet of ground combat vehicles- all of which had been designed
for war on a nuclear battlefield against the Soviet Union or Russia.
High up in the atmosphere, the EMP blast simply wasn't close enough to destroy
the electronics on their shielded hardware. The US had had a few weeks to prepare though, and
almost immediately engineering crews moved into position to fix what power systems they could.
Restoring the entire national grid would take years, so their efforts were focused on critical
civilian and military infrastructure. Even then, it would be weeks at minimum before power could
be restored to even a tiny fraction of the US. The alien spacecraft had been observed a little
over a month and a half ago, first drawing the curiosity of astronomers using computers to
search the night sky. The computers noticed the tiny dip in starlight as the giant craft crossed
space and blocked out stars behind it, and soon deep space reconnaissance radar was turned on
the phenomenon confirming that a solid object was indeed on an intercept course with earth. Any
doubts on the object's true nature were squashed a few days later when the object began decelerating
from its current speed at 5% the speed of light. Now with the object parked
in high orbit over the earth, the President of the United States along
with the Joint Chiefs and his top advisors discuss their strategy for repelling a hostile
invasion of the earth by an alien species. The first to speak is the chief science advisor,
confirming that the EMP pulse was an expected first strike option against the United States,
which as the world's sole superpower was the likeliest target to be struck first. The
advisor then pulls up images of the object made by combining direct visual observation
from ground telescopes and radar telemetry, revealing a long cylinder shape with a giant
almost mushroom style dome at the front. The advisor points at the dome. This is good news, he says, because this is exactly how we
would cross space at very high speeds. The Joint Chiefs are confused, how exactly is this
strange feature of the spacecraft good news? The advisor clears his throat and explains.
Reaching velocities of a few percentage points of the speed of light is something well within our
grasp today, but the biggest problem is shielding a spacecraft from debris encountered in
space. At such incredibly high speeds, a pebble can strike a spacecraft with
the force of hundreds of tons of TNT, and while debris is extremely rare in the vacuum
of space, it is not non-existent. Therefore, a large shield at the front of a large, thin
spacecraft is the best way to shield your vehicle. And because this is how we would do it, the
advisor explains, then this means that our alien invader's technology cannot be too far
ahead of our own. We have a fighting chance. The men and women who'll decide the fate of
the United States, and possibly the earth, all look around the room at each other. A chance-
any chance- is more than they had hoped for. The advisor once more clears his throat. Because
their technology isn't too far advanced from ours, and they obviously want our planet intact
since they are reluctant to simply drop asteroids on our head from orbit, then I have
a plan to win this war. Let me explain... A day after the EMP blast, ground based radar
confirms activity along the main body of the spacecraft. Several components are detaching from
it and breaking up into smaller objects- transport craft of some sort. Some though, are obviously
combat craft, and these move to new orbits. The US military however has already guessed what
the aliens might do next, and they're ready. From several hundred miles up, metal
rods half the size of telephone poles rain down on military installations across the
US. The rods pack no explosives, instead relying on the kinetic energy of their fall from space
to deliver devastation on the scale of mankind's largest non-nuclear weapons. Military airfields,
hangars, command and control nodes, supply depots- metal rods rain down on these and other
strategic targets, completely obliterating them. But the US was ready, and following protocols
established long ago for a nuclear war, had already widely dispersed its personnel and
equipment. Many military aircraft and ground combat vehicles are destroyed in the attack,
but many more survive, widely dispersed into the surrounding areas and on the thousands of civilian
and makeshift airfields all across the US. As the attack takes place, the
President and his advisors, secure in an underground bunker over a
mile deep, monitor the situation through dozens of redundant command and control
networks. The US's plans for a nuclear showdown with the Soviet Union have created
one of the most resilient nations on earth. The science advisor predicted this attack, and
works to reassure his fellow colleagues. Because the aliens aren't too far advanced from us, he
explains, they have many of the same limitations in space travel that we do- even if they are much
better at dealing with them than us. The economy of space travel makes moving large amounts of
equipment, like an invasion fleet, extremely expensive, so the aliens are dealing with very
limited assets. Our plan for victory is to simply bleed the aliens dry, making an invasion of our
nation so expensive in terms of manpower and resources that the aliens are unable to continue
the fight or it simply isn't worth it anymore. The plan is solid, after all, the aliens had to
bring everything to invade our world with them- including their troops- while we here on earth
can regenerate every soldier killed on the spot. The war will be one of long, ongoing resistance. The aliens may be limited in resources due to
having to ferry them across interstellar space, but they are still much superior to our own
forces. The US military thus makes the best use of its assets in the short time that it will still
be able to before they are inevitably destroyed. Within hours of the kinetic strikes,
the troop transports and combat aircraft begin to enter the atmosphere. Here, with their
sensors blinded by the incredible heat of reentry, is humanity's best chance at striking
with all available air and missile forces. All across the world combat aircraft and
air defense batteries move into action. Over the skies of the US,
squadrons of F-22s, F-35s, F-16s, and every other plane capable of taking
on an interceptor role move to intercept the incoming alien spacecraft. Heat-guided
ground-based interceptors fire in large volleys, guided to their targets by the unmistakable heat
signature of the alien spacecraft entering the earth's atmosphere. The combat aircraft are
next, firing radar and heat-guided missiles in rapid succession at swarms of alien
craft screaming through the atmosphere. The President had considered using
nuclear weapons, but was talked down by his advisors- the aliens had yet
used weapons of mass destruction, and using a nuke may be an invitation to a
type of war the earth couldn't hope to win. Conventional weapons are having a spectacular
effect on the incoming alien craft though, and cheers erupt in the President's secure facility
as the reports trickle in from all over the US. Moving at such high speeds, the superior alien
craft simply can't avoid the incoming volleys, or they'd risk tearing themselves apart,
and despite whatever type of propulsion or radar-absorbent materials they may be using,
the signature of incoming spacecraft at high speeds through the atmosphere is almost
too easy a target for earth's weapons. The victory however is extremely short lived. America's combat pilots were warned
to immediately break off their attacks once the spacecraft punched through
the atmosphere, but for many it's still too late. Now within the atmosphere, the
alien combat aircraft easily outmaneuver and outrun even America's best fighter aircraft,
and casualties are in the hundreds within minutes. Next, the combat aircraft strike at air defense
batteries all over the US, easily destroying any they encounter and calling in orbital strikes
on those they can't reach. More metal rods from space obliterate air defense batteries across
America- though their crews are long gone. The aliens now rule not just
space, but the skies too. With alien transports disgorging combat troops
by the thousands, America's ground response is mostly infantry-based. With space firmly in the
alien's grasp, more kinetic strikes would easily obliterate large formations of armored vehicles.
For the first time in modern history, the United States doesn't rule the skies, and has to fight
much in the same way its adversaries have. In some places though, commanders are able to
manuever combat vehicles to within very close range of the enemy. Hugging the enemy, so to
speak, forces the aliens to not use kinetic strikes for fear of hitting their own troops.
Forced to ferry all of their invasion equipment from space, the alien forces are fielding
very few combat vehicles of their own, despite their infantry weapons being
superior to man's. Without combat vehicles, American Abrams tanks and M2 Bradleys
decimate alien forces where they encounter them. No matter their level of technology,
even aliens must obey the laws of physics, and despite their advanced construction,
the anti-tank silver bullet rounds of an Abrams or lethal missiles of a Bradley, are
extremely effective against the alien vehicles. Once more though, victories are short lived as alien air forces who now have
uncontested dominance of the sky, do the job of close air support that
orbital kinetic strikes simply can't do. The alien's numbers build by the day, and by
the end of the week they have disgorged several million troops on US soil. Then the shuttle
flights slow down considerably. With the ability to only bring a limited number of troops
and equipment across the vast distances of space, the aliens have clearly disgorged
nearly all of their combat assets. Their advanced technology will
make up the shortfall in personnel. Or at least that was the plan. The aliens hail
from a planet a hundred light years from earth, making their observations of our planet
a hundred years old, and their invasion plans are based on fighting a civilization
who's planet exhibited the techno signature of a late industrial age civilization.
Then, moving at 5% the speed of light, it took the invasion fleet another twenty years to
arrive. That means the best knowledge the aliens had on Earth's level of technology was based on
distant observations of Earth in the year 1900, when the most advanced techno signature
detectable was weak radio transmissions. Now they face humanity armed with automatic
machine guns, man-portable anti-tank missiles, electronic warfare suites, and
extremely stealthy combat drones. The war of occupation is indeed costly, but the
technological disparity still favors the aliens. To offset their lack of manpower, the aliens
turn to manufacturing combat drones of their own, who can quickly self-replicate and
overwhelm human forces. Within a few weeks, the conventional war is over, and the US military
is roundly defeated, unable to fight any longer. This is when phase 2 of the US's victory
plan over the aliens takes effect. Seasoned combat troops are ordered to disperse
widely into the countryside, taking with them as much military equipment as they can carry.
American special forces operatives are amongst those ordered to flee for the wilderness or the
ruins of cities, and there they link up with other military personnel and civilian survivors.
Special forces operators initiate phase 2, and begin training surviving combat troops
and civilians in the art of resistance. American forces are taught to hide from and fight
a technologically superior enemy the same way that the Taliban and the Vietcong resisted
US might. A guerrilla war begins overnight, with American survivors striking at alien
supply depots and personnel barracks. The goal is simple: destroy as much equipment
as possible and kill as many aliens as possible so that the invasion becomes too costly in
the terms of lives and finances to continue. The guerrilla resistance lasts for years, despite
horrific losses incurred by the human survivors. Yet, humanity can quickly replace its losses,
though it does mean that the traditional societal norms of relationships have to be
temporarily redefined. Men and women cannot have a single sexual partner, and must have
multiple in order to ensure genetic diversity, and healthy women must produce
children as often as possible. The losses incurred by human guerrillas
are staggering, and must be replaced. The aliens on the other hand must travel twenty
years to bring fresh troops to the fight, and each individual soldier transported
over a hundred light years of space costs their civilization a small fortune.
The first wave of reinforcements costs the aliens as much as the entire economic
output of earth over an entire decade. There is no second wave of
reinforcements. The trip is too long, the cost far too great. Even a rescue
mission to their forces stranded on earth would be too expensive, and come far
too late. What aliens are able to, retreat back to their orbiting spacecraft,
but most simply surrender to human forces. For earth, the cost has been staggering and
humanity has gone from a population of almost 8 billion to just over one billion. But the war
has been won. Earth is free of invaders for the first time in thirty years, and the survivors
can once more rebuild their shattered nations. Much as it has many times before, humanity will
rise from the ashes, and should the aliens send another invasion force in the future, they'll meet
a planet armed with their own advanced technology, reverse-engineered for human use,
and determined to remain free. Want to learn about a real alien military
encounter? Check out Iran Military Intercepts UFO, or check out this other video instead!
