what about the V aliens? they managed to take control of pretty much al the governments and media without anybody finding out until it was to late. They would have won hadn't it been for the red dust (another plot device).
Starglider wrote:Had they landed their troops a little earlier, they may have won anyway (certainly it would have been a hell of a ground battle after they lost their ships).
Do we actually know if thay had ground troops at all? I remember a thread on this forum about a year ago which implied that they wern't even a military society (the "fighters"were probably cargo ships since they were so big and hollow and their weapons so weak. The main gun might have been something used for mining or part of their ftl drive).
Actually, I found the thread
DPDarkPrimus wrote:The Decepticons were pretty good at it. If Optimus Prime and those pesky Autobots hadn't shown up to help out, they'd have gotten their way easily.
Dartzap wrote:The Daleks seem to constantly try and invade, and tend to fail miserably, if only because Earth is defended by a God of Thunder Chavette and a Doctor.
I was only intending to ask about the aliens that were fought back by humans alone. If they would of succeeded if it weren't for the assistance of other aliens, then they don't count.
How about the Race from Turtledove's World War series? They did moderately well and if their intelligence on Earth's level of technological development had been up to date (so that they would have been more appropriately armed) they probably could have won.
Srynerson wrote:How about the Race from Turtledove's World War series? They did moderately well and if their intelligence on Earth's level of technological development had been up to date (so that they would have been more appropriately armed) they probably could have won.
I haven't read the series (Turtledove needs a good editor above all else), but isn't the very fact of toning down the quality of your equipment against inferior opponents in matters of interstellar warfare and planetary subjugation pretty dumb?
In the Worldwar instance, while the Race are pretty dumb, it has more to do with the fact that they are so conservative they make the sum total of every right wing wackaloon and fundamentalist nutbar on the planet look like Marx. If there is no pressing need to change, they don't do dick. Unfortunately they applied this to other species, so while they came with a couple million soldiers with the rough equivalent of modern tech, they came expecting medieval knights to be the pinnacle of human military technology, not Panzers. Thus while their original plans were the very definition of overkill, reality bit them in the ass big time.
Whether or not this counts as competence is debatable.
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Srynerson wrote:How about the Race from Turtledove's World War series? They did moderately well and if their intelligence on Earth's level of technological development had been up to date (so that they would have been more appropriately armed) they probably could have won.
I haven't read the series (Turtledove needs a good editor above all else), but isn't the very fact of toning down the quality of your equipment against inferior opponents in matters of interstellar warfare and planetary subjugation pretty dumb?
Very brief backstory: The Race's intelligence on Earth came from a reconnaissance probe that visited in roughly the 12th Century AD (they have no FTL). The Race itself had taken many thousands of years to advance from an equivalent pre-industrial stage and the other species they had previously conquered had all been technologically stagnant during the several centuries between first observation and arrival of a conquest fleet.
To answer your question, the Race didn't tone down the quality of their equipment, but rather brought what turned out to be insufficient quantities of aircraft, antiarmor weapons, etc. And it's not that dumb if you think about it. For the Race interstellar travel is expensive and dangerous, so they didn't want to carry substantially more equipment and personnel than was anticipated to be necessary to complete the invasion based on the intelligence they had. (In fact, as I think of it, the situation is comparable in a number of ways to the Iraq War -- so the Race is at least no dumber than Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, etc.)
Ah, thanks for clarifying. Okay, that's in the realm of defensibly stupid actions. Conservatism and faulty intelligence don't quite make up for sending insufficient forces for a planetary invasion, but it's not terrificly dumb.
ray245 wrote:Did the novel mention what kind of gas the martains used?
No it is simply refered to as "black smoke"
IIRC the end part of the book states that spectral analysis picked up something indicating a high degree of argon in the black smoke.
I don't recall that part but the black smoke is definately not just a run of the mill poison gas.
The gas is stored in canisters which are shot out of a perculiar type of gun with a loud report but no visible flash (as far as I know, this is consistent with what we would expect of an efficient coil gun). The canister then land and release the black some. However the smoke doesn't drift about like in the air currents like a true gas would. Instead it forms into "hill" shaped masses that can linger for atleast a few hours in one place.
Rain and moisture in the air causes it to become inert and drift to the ground (I belive the narrator mentions drinking from a stream contaminated with black dust and not dying). Additionally the Martians use steam hoses on their fighting machines to quickly clear the smoke from their immediate area if they need to, so it is probably poisonous to them also.
ANGELUS wrote:what about the V aliens? they managed to take control of pretty much al the governments and media without anybody finding out until it was to late. They would have won hadn't it been for the red dust (another plot device).
I don't see how the red dust was a plot device. It was a biological weapon that required a considerable amount of research to produce (starting as I recall from the observed death of a human-alien hybrid infant), as well as a lot of effort and co-ordination by the resistance to produce and distribute. The genius hybrid baby disarming the self-destruct at the end, now that was deus ex machina.
ANGELUS wrote:
Starglider wrote:Had they landed their troops a little earlier, they may have won anyway (certainly it would have been a hell of a ground battle after they lost their ships).
Do we actually know if thay had ground troops at all? I remember a thread on this forum about a year ago which implied that they wern't even a military society
We saw vast ranks of aliens in their exo-suits lined up in the mothership in a clearly military formation, waiting to be loaded onto ships. As I recall one of the characters remarked on this as they flew past.
ANGELUS wrote:(the "fighters"were probably cargo ships since they were so big and hollow and their weapons so weak. The main gun might have been something used for mining or part of their ftl drive).
The Covenant have gigaton-level shielding and firepower, thousands of mutli-kilometer warships, and advantages in FTL utility and probably speed as well, and ground forces that actually have combined arms, armor support, and something reasonably close to passable field tactics (or, barring that, millions of highly-disposable Grunts). I think not.
bilateralrope wrote:Of all the alien species that attempted to invade modern (or a less advanced) earth, but were defeated by us fighting back, which ones were the most competent at doing so ?
I thought that humans in the Halo universe were more advanced than us, making the Covenant not count. I mean don't they have FTL equipped warships ?
Seriously. The covenant might be incompetant, but you think they could fail to conquer modern earth?
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Seriously. The covenant might be incompetant, but you think they could fail to conquer modern earth?
If they are limiting themselves to ground forces only [Which the games suggest they are for Earth] then any conquest would be a horribly bloody and drawnout battle for them.
Is anyone going to mention the Goa'uld from Stargate? Oh. wait. you want competent, not over-dressed and grammatically feeble. but they almost succeded several times. (pause for dramatic effect)
How 'bout the nBSG Cylons. They are (relatively) high-tech, can infiltrate well, and can corrupt computer systems and networks with ease. with air superiority (Raiders, Heavy Raiders) and nukage from orbit, not to mention computer hacking abilities playing havoc with military and civilian communication systems, it should be fairly simple, despite the fact that their only ground unit is an (admittedly versatile) robotic footsoldier.
will their air superiority negate their weakness in combined--arms tactics?
Will the Cylons run rampant over Modern Earth until they until they download the latest version of Windows Vista? Or do they run on linux?
If this makes no sense, I did write it at 3:45 AM...
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Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba wrote:I haven't read the series (Turtledove needs a good editor above all else), but isn't the very fact of toning down the quality of your equipment against inferior opponents in matters of interstellar warfare and planetary subjugation pretty dumb?
They didn't tone down their technology, but they based the size of their invasion force on their intelligence which showed Earth with medieval technology. Unfortunately, in the few centuries it took for their fleet to reach Earth, we had entered the Industrial Age. Apparently human technology advanced far more quickly than any other race they tried to conquer.
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Tasoth wrote:The Darkness from The Fifth Element. It, using the Mangalores and Zorg, managed to destroy the Mondochiwan ship, kill the opera singer and almost get the stones. The Darkness itself made it within Earth's orbit and was only stopped by act of plot device.
That's rather unfair love combining with the other elements to defeat the 'Ultimate Evil' was a fundamental part of the plot all the way through, it's not like in numerous other films mentioned like ID4, War of the Worlds & Mars Attacks where the aliens are winning until they suddenly succumbed to an unexpected contrived weakness.
