Narrower blades will be more difficult for an enemy to grab and commandeer, with more chance of cutting themselves in the attempt. A wide blade may be more easily trapped and controlled by an enemy. Especially if it has handles built into it all the way along.
A large blade with the blunt edge on the outside of the curve will be fairly effective at deflecting incoming enemy blades if you wield the weapon in such a way as to place the outer curve in the line of attack, but this will, of course, mean that the sharper edge is closer to you, and increase the danger of a push or shove causing it to lacerate yourself or your equipment. If you are the sort of species who prides itself on struggling with extra difficulty as a point of honour, then combining a wide blade with handles all along the blunt outer edge will provide the perfect – if near-suicidal – test of your martial skills, since if you are able to wield it effectively enough to gain victory in combat over humans, you must be a formidable warrior indeed.
The smarter and more efficient and effective warrior, however, will stay away from such weapons as the legendary bat’leth, and use a proper blade instead.
DO YOU KNOW KUNG FU?
If you have come to Earth from a parallel Earth, or from a different era on the planet, your martial arts will still be appropriate and valid. However, if you have come from a different world, with different environmental conditions, you will have to consider altering your styles of melee combat.
This is the case regardless of how humanoid your species is because of the differences in air pressure, gravity, atmospheric conditions, and so forth. If you evolved on a lower-gravity environment than Earth, for example, you will find your movements slower and clumsier. If you evolved in a different atmospheric composition, you may find that you tire more quickly because the chemicals and nutrients you’d normally acquire through respiration in your own atmosphere are differently balanced – or absent altogether – in the Earth’s atmosphere.
What forms of martial arts are best for melee combat against humans? There is no true ‘correct’ answer to that question – your species obviously has its own preferred means of combat, evolved over however long.
Motive and intent will determine your most useful style of unarmed combat. Obviously the way you fight will vary according to whether you are trying to kill your opponents, subdue them for questioning/slavery/experimentation/amusement, get away from them, etc. The way you conduct yourself in a desperate fight for life will be different than the way you fight to capture a resistance leader with vital information, for example. You will find certain forms of holds and injuries more effective than others against human resistance. The human nervous system is fairly fragile, and vulnerable to pressure and impact damage applied to nerve clusters that are quite shallow under the epidermis. Attacking these nerve clusters can incapacitate or render unconscious. Humans are also vulnerable to damage from the flesh being (easily) punctured. Severing the spinal cord at the third vertebra is fatal, rupturing almost any of the organs by impact or pressure wave is fatal, immersing the head in water for a couple of minutes is fatal, asphyxiation by constricting the respiratory passages for three minutes is fatal… You get the idea.
Humans, of course, also have their many forms of martial arts. You may try to restrict their knowledge of these arts, or their chances to learn them, but this will be a futile effort. Because unarmed combat skills use the same muscles, and some of the same skills, as necessary non-combat arts, it has always been a simple matter for humans to continue practicing martial arts by disguising the moves within other activities, such as agriculture (many weapons were derived from agricultural tools), sport, and even dance (which requires the same degree of balance and spatial awareness).
If your species also combined its martial arts with other activities, or derived the combat skills from other activities, this might aid in deceiving melee opponents, or at least in lulling them into a false sense of security, if they do not recognize what you are doing as a threat to them.
Another issue that you will have to prepare for where unarmed combat skills are concerned, is that any protective military or environmental coverings or equipment your forces need in order to survive in the Earth’s climate and environment will interfere with their abilities to use their innate skills. Restrictive equipment will interfere with the ability to move freely, interfering with both speed and agility. You will have to re-train your martial artists in new adaptations of suitable unarmed combat skills, to take these variations and restrictions into account.
There will always be ways around the restrictions, and alternate techniques for any situation, but you absolutely must consider them in advance, as part of your preparations for conducting combat operations on Earth.
WEAPONIZING YOUR TECHNOLOGY
Many forms of peacetime technology and engineering, even on Earth, evolved from weapons and military requirements, simply because, as the saying goes, necessity is the mother of invention. The reverse, however, is also true – you will find that many types of technology and engineering lend themselves to surprising military applications, especially in a campaign such as one to conquer the Earth.
Rather than be belatedly forced into adapting technologies for invasion purposes due to lack of planning, or surprises on the battlefield, consider well in advance how you can use all of your equipment to its best effect in the pursuit of victory.
Teleportation, whether by natural ability or technological means, is vastly underrated as a potential weapon, and any invader with the ability to teleport objects by whatever means should most definitely not just be using it to get around, unless the ability is limited to being only able to teleport oneself. In which instance, of course, it is invaluable for penetrating secure areas that could not otherwise be approached.
Even on Earth, where the natives are adept at weaponizing almost anything and everything, matter transmission devices are almost always solely seen as for transporting people and objects. This is distinctly unimaginative; as a weapon, teleportation is an excellent choice for killing or disabling almost anything on Earth. Dematerialize a sphere of matter, say, six inches in diameter, from anywhere on the human body, and that human is out of action. You don’t need to rematerialize it anywhere else. Likewise, removing a random volume of matter from any engine will stop it. Do the same to a reactor and it’ll probably explode. Dematerialize a section of hull from a ship or submarine, and it will be consigned to the deep forever.
Conversely, teleporting warheads into otherwise protected areas is a good way to take them out, even where a missile or commando strike team would never get through. Don’t forget that you can teleport antimatter, if you have any, exactly as easily as you can teleport matter. Generate some in a handy particle accelerator (there are suitable ones in both Switzerland and the USA), teleport it into anything you want disabled or destroyed, and sit back and watch the fun. The possibilities are endless.
Matter-transmission transporters may be the greatest unsung weapons you can use, but there are other pieces of equipment you could do well to adapt. Artificial gravity would be another good choice. If you are able to create and manipulate gravity by technological means, you can make impressively useful mines and anti-vehicle traps by increasing the gravity when triggered, to the point where enemies or vehicles cannot move, or are physically crushed.
If you have the use of force fields or energy shields for protection, don’t be afraid to use them offensively as well, as battering rams. As for time travel technology, this can also be used offensively if you can focus upon a target to be moved through time. Rather than simply send targets through to your time, however, you can disable or eliminate them by simply moving part of a target through time, ripping the whole apart. Or you can age part of a target to the point where it will decay, at least where the affected and unaffected parts meet. Any starship drive system which warps space can, logically, also be adapted to warp solid matter around it.
Overall, however, make sure that you consider all options in a
dvance, and are prepared with the most efficient and effective skills and weapons for the combat environment in which you will find yourself on Earth.
Do be aware that any human resistance forces who survived the orbital bombardment you should have made will also be doing the same with their technology, and will be weaponizing everything they can get their hands on.
This means you will be unable to trust anything you encounter in areas where the resistance operates, and not least because booby-traps will be a primary weapon used by them. Remember that you will now be in a situation of asymmetric warfare, and take appropriate care.
CALLING FOR BACKUP
Being able to refresh, replace, and reinforce your garrison or invasion troops is another vitally important consideration. In fact, one of the biggest obstacles to even the concept of an invasion between worlds is the issue of re-supply and reinforcement over astronomical distances.
If you have starships capable of making faster-than-light or hyperspatial journeys – any sort of trip that will take a matter of terrestrial days or weeks rather than centuries or millennia – then you should certainly instigate a programme of convoys bringing in fresh troops and supplies. Likewise, if you are able to march troops through some kind of temporal or dimensional portal, or teleport them across from your homeworld or dimension, you should be sure to have suitable waves of reinforcements mustered on your side at regular intervals, who can be sent into the campaign.
Otherwise, you are going to be stuck with some rather more difficult propositions when it comes to keeping your forces fresh and in good numbers.
This is where drones, robots, and military AIs in general become worth thinking about. So long as you can use the Earth’s metallic resources, you can construct new military AIs and drones on site, rather than having to import them from home. Being able to increase your forces at will is well worth the effort. Just be very sure to protect your manufacturing sites from attack, and to keep the AI programming safe from interference by humans, who will be quick to realise that they can also increase their forces by reprogramming yours to attack you.
There is, of course, no reason why any human programmers should be able to interpret a truly alien computer system or language from a truly alien civilization, but the idea of messing up alien invaders by infiltrating virii to their computers has been so prevalent in human propaganda for so long that it is one of the first things the resistance to you will think of, so why take the risk of being complacent about it?
If you have the use of matter transmission technology – and it will have to be a technological process for this to work, not an innate teleportation ability – you may be able to quickly replicate reinforcements, depending on how your system works. Assuming it follows the standard convention of breaking down matter at one end, transmitting the data to the destination, and reassembling the matter there, it would surely be possible – if confusing – to copy the data as it goes through, and re-send it as often as you like. Essentially you could ‘re-print’ as many copies of the same data as you like, allowing you to rematerialize as many copies of the same teleported soldier as you want. This would be a good way to create whole units, or even armies, to spawn directly into the combat area, or at least at your nearest base to the combat area.
This technique could cause psychological problems, of course, with all the copies claiming to be the original, so you will need to assemble a group of volunteers beforehand, who have been thoroughly screened and trained to know what will happen, and understand their situation in advance. It would also be advisable to not send the original volunteers into combat, since they are the original natural ones. How the copies would be treated under your ethical standards – whether they have the same rights as natural-born originals, for example – is a matter for your philosophers, and possibly lawyers.
Otherwise, you have two real options: breeding (including cloning), or recruiting auxiliaries/cannon-fodder locally.
Obviously the problem with breeding natural replacements is that, depending on how quickly your species matures, you could be looking at many years before each generation is ready. Worse still, if they’re all individuals with anything resembling free will, they might not want to be part of the campaign when they have matured. The same problem applies to true cloning. You can create identical copies of your existing forces at a cellular level, but they still have to be gestated and matured as per normal, and their personalities and minds, having been shaped by a different upbringing than the originals, will not be the same.
You can try to mitigate this by providing the clones with as close to the upbringing and experience of the originals as possible, but there will always be differences. Alternatively, you can try modifying the clones by adding genetic memory and tendencies.
The last option, recruiting auxiliaries locally, is always worth considering. Humans are a violent species, yet also pliable, and can be guided into living certain ways, with the application of authority, religion, or bribery. You may be concerned about the danger of human auxiliaries rebelling, and it’s certainly the case that a percentage of them would, but that’s why you should give them less effective weapons that will not work against yourselves. A larger percentage, however, would be effectively loyal if treated correctly, because humans are hardwired to belong to tribal groupings. This percentage who are willing to view you as a viable tribal grouping will increase with time. Humans born and raised after your landings will be more used to your presence, and thus more willing to be a part of life with your species.
LIVING ON EARTH
Unless your sole reason for attacking the Earth was to keep your fighting forces in training, to justify their continued existence, or for a simple desire for combat, your time on the planet will not be spent entirely in fighting.
At some point you will have subdued or avoided all local resistance, and be free to do whatever it was that you came to Earth to do in the first place. Perhaps you will be stripping the planet of its resources, to send them back home, or to use in a war effort elsewhere. Maybe you simply need room for your expanding population, or a new home after some misfortune befell your own. Perhaps you even just want a place to visit for fun and recreation. Whatever the reasons, there are things you’ll need to think about and be prepared for.
ENVIRONMENTAL AWARENESS, PART 2
Aside from the climate and gravity, which have already been mentioned, there are many other environmental factors that you will have to take into account when it comes to living on Earth for extended periods of time.
There are many different types of life form on the planet, some of which can prove surprisingly dangerous, whether they be tiny microbes, or large and fearsome predators. Local weather conditions and geological events must be considered when choosing sites for important facilities or landing areas.
If you are intending to stay on the Earth for a long time, for whatever reason, you will have to look at how best to take up residence, and what sort of residence will be best for you. While it is always possible to remain aboard ships in orbit, or even to land them on the surface, there is more practical value in constructing more permanent settlements.
Building cities and settlements is a complex business, as there are so many factors to consider about them, even without military concerns about security and defensibility. You must be sure the geology is stable, the temperature correct, the structure secure against landslides, earthquakes, floods, drought, and so on. The main geological and seismic issues you will face are volcanoes, earthquakes, and tsunami. There are volcanoes and seismic quakes on other planets also, so you are presumably familiar with the concept. The largest volcano in the Solar system isn’t even on Earth, actually, but on Mars. Earth, however, has many more volcanoes, some of which have been dormant or extinct for centuries, and others which are still active.
If you come from a hot and sulphurous planet, then you may feel relatively comfortable making a home away from home in one of the Earth’s volcanic areas, but otherwis
e they are generally best avoided when choosing locations for landing sites, planetary defensive emplacements, and large-scale military facilities. There are too many risks associated with areas prone to volcanic or seismic activity, especially near the oceans.
Many of the Earth’s volcanoes are actually to be found underwater. This is because, in general, volcanic and seismic activity is centred along the areas where the planet’s tectonic plates – the vast rafts of bedrock that form the main solid crust of the planet, floating on the more viscous lithosphere – meet. Where the edges of the plates meet, molten rock is forced upwards towards the surface, and can emerge through fissures and hollow mountains. Similarly, where these plates meet, and where other fault lines within the plates rub against each other, seismic quakes are triggered. Several of these plates meet in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, while three of the four sides of the Pacific plate meet other plates under the Pacific Ocean. These underwater tectonic regions have formed underwater ridges of volcanoes.
Where seismic and volcanic activity takes place underwater, there is a danger of a tsunami following the original wave. This occurs when a pressure wave propagates across the ocean at high speed. When it reaches shallower coastal areas, it shortens in wavelength and vastly increases in amplitude. This will cause the water to draw back from the coast first, adding to the amplitude, i.e. the height. A massive wall of water can then hit coastal areas with enough force to smash buildings, carry ships miles inland, and kill thousands.
These areas – coastlines around the edges of the Pacific plate, are best avoided when choosing suitable locations for facilities and landing sites.
Likewise, the central plains of the United States are prone to tornadoes, while the east coast of the US, and the Caribbean islands around it, are prone to hurricanes – massive storms capable of tearing down buildings and completely changing the local geography. You will need to be careful in selecting suitable environments in which to construct settlements and facilities, which are stable and not at risk from either seismic events or extreme weather.
We Will Destroy Your Planet Page 10