I was wading through a bunch of science fictions books that I have and I found a few that I hadn't read in a while which sparked my memory. Several of them were alien invasion or occupation stories that turned out really badly for the invader. Name your top five Worst Alien Invasions Ever and discuss them. Mine have to be:
1. The Martians in the War of the Worlds
2. The numerous alien invasions in Doctor Who.
3. The Race from Worldwar.
4. The Combine from Half Life 2.
5. Independence Day aliens.
My reasons are:
1. The initial damage was good, but they were retaliated against by a few of the British Empire rammers and ships, which took down a few of them. These were 19th century warships we're talking about, vs giant poison gas excreting, laser toting alien tripods. In the end they finally were defeated because they caught the flu.
2. Usually, the aliens are working in secret, building up to their final attack. This usually happens, what with the salt & pepper shakers coming out of Canary Wharf to exterminate everything, including the Cybermen. Unfortunately, they are always thwarted by one super-intelligent man without the use of any weapon whatsoever. Moral: Never underestimate the power of a nerd.
3. I suppose that, ultimately, it is their slowness that is their downfall. The dino-like Race send a probe to Earth 800 years ago and use that time to prepare for an invasion for the glory of their three-planet empire (not very big considering the size of other aliens' empires). Little do they know, we humans have a certain adaptability and manage to develop our technology at a pace they had never seen before. The Race came to Earth expecting the worst we had to offer to be crusader knights, and take the planet within days. Unfortunately, they blundered onto Earth in the middle of WW2 and faced a far more fierce and advanced humankind than they first saw. They were taken by surprise, but still managed to occupy the lower hemisphere. The thing that stops them dead in their tracks are the winter weather, which they weren't used to, and the Nazi war machine. That's right, in this universe, the Nazis save the day and a bunch of Jews are Traitors to Humanity for helping the Race for a bit of the story. It all goes on to the invasion commander being disgraced as the only Fleetlord to have ever not captured a planet, and those that did capture a planet lost only a dozen troops, as opposed to his thousands. The humans don't really regain the rest of their planet, but end up taking some tech and building FTL ships (Which the Race can't build) and get the Home (The Race's planet) within five weeks, surprising the hell out of them and scaring them into realising that they're pretty much fucked if they try to compete with humanity. At the end of the series, mutually assured destruction saves the day and leaves the future unclear and for the reader to speculate. I for one think that we Humans Are Specialtm and will advance rapidly to repel the Race off of Earth and conquer their planet.
4. Enough of the review, onwards. The Combine did pretty well. Surprising humanity, destroying our armies and subjugating us in little over seven hours. Twenty years later, their superior technology loses out to a nerdy physicist and untrained conscripts. I'm sitting here going "What the hell?" when I (Gordon Freeman) single handedly destroy entire armies of trans-human Combines and their giant mutant-cyborg tripods without any military training or service. I don't really know what else to say. I mean, come on Combine. You're supposed to be an almighty inter-dimensional empire who's never lost a war. This is what you get when you piss off geeks. Nerd Rage!
5. The Independence Day aliens kick arse all right. Obliterating entire cities with one laser, surviving the might of Earth's air force, military and even a nuke without a scratch. Nothing could stop them from, uh, doing whatever they wanted to do with our planet. That is until, once again, America Saves The Daytm. Will Smith just downloads a home-made computer virus into their Windows and buggers off as the US army nukes the mothership. Once again, nerds (and America) save the day.
