War of 1996

The War of 1996 was a full scale assault on Earth from July 2nd to July 4th by a vast extraterrestrial race (later named Harvesters) seeking to harvest Earth's natural resources.

It was the largest military conflict in the history of mankind, taking the lives of 3,000,000,000 people with over 108 cities destroyed over a matter of two days.

The invasion was halted when humanity found a way to deactivate the alien's City Destroyer defense shield and coordinated global counterattack on July 4th and were able to destroy the aliens mothership, thus ending the invasion and war in human victory.

The war caused humanity to step aside their previous cultural and united globally. The Earth Space Defense was established to order to evolve human technology and prevent any other future extraterrestrial threats.

Prelude
The alien who later became know as the Harvesters first came into contact with humanity in 1947, when an alien attacker crashed into Roswell. The U.S. government secretly covered up the incident in fear of American panic. A facility name Area 51 was established in order to keep the alien and study on them. The chief scientist Martin Brown came into contact with the surviving alien from the crash, which gave a telepathic message for "kill". Later in 1971, Brown retired and Cal tech graduate Brakish Okun was recruited to fill his role. For many years the U.S. government including then CIA director Albert Nimiski new about the existence of the base but kept the president from hear about this.

July 2nd
On July 2nd, 1996 an alien mothership arrived on planet Earth and deployed 36 City Destroyers over major cities on Earth which were either nation capitals or major cities like New York, London, Jerusalem, and Paris. The alien used human satellites to relay the signal to each other and coordinate the attack. Human response was mass hysteria and panic and most population tried to evacuate from cities. Most nations tried to have their military stand by while they tried to make contact with the aliens. Under the Whitmore administration, the Vice President and the president's chief of Staff were evacuated to NORAD as a precaution while President Whitmore decide to sat in D.C. to calm the people. Cabinet member Albert Nimiski and General William Grey decide to stay as well. However in the United States, a MIT Technician named David Levinson was able to crack the alien's hidden transmission and went to D.C. to warn Whitmore and his ex-wife White House Communication Director Constance Spano. Being convinced from Levinson, Whitmore called an evacuation.

Unfortunately his warning came too late, as the aliens used the simultaneously fired main weapons to destroy major cities and capitals around the world. Most people perished in the destruction. President Whitmore along with his daughter, Spano, Grey, Levinson, his father, and Nimiski were able to evacuate from the destruction of D.C. on Air Force One.

July 3rd
By July 3rd, every major city around the world was either destroyed or was heavily inflicted by the destruction. Each survivng nation launched their own counterattack against the aliens. However because of the City Destroyer's defense shield, human weapons could not penetrate the ship. The result ended in a massacre of every military air force. In retaliation the alien launched an attack over the military bases including NORAD and NATO headquarter in Brussels.

After the failed counterattack, President Whitmore was finally informed of the existence of Area 51 by Nimiski. Heading to the facility to inspect it, Whitmore learned of the aliens and witnessed their attacker and assigned David to help study the aliens and come up with a way to defeat them. With most of the major cities destroyed and the military forces left in disarray it was calculated that the alien were expected to destroy every major city on Earth in about 36 hours.

However, fighter pilots Steve Hiller and Jimmy Wilder were able to down and capture an alien pilot. From the alien pilot, Whitmore was able to gain insight on the alien plan for Earth which was to plunder Earth's natural resource at the cost of destroying all life on the planet. Using this information and the acknowledging a truce between the aliens impossible, Whitmore decide to launch a nuke at them. The recommendation was transmitted to remaining nuclear-armed states, which they refrained from launching their arsenal until the result of the American's nuclear attack were made clear.

A City Destroyer set to destroy Houston was targeted, nut the result ended with the destruction of Houston and the City Destroyer still intact. Seeing this, Whitmore called of any more nuclear strike. By the evening, most (if not all) major cities were abandoned and became ghost cities and military forces were routed. A select few, including Whitmore, began to considering ways to resit the inevitable ground invasion by the aliens.

July 4th
Since the arrival of the aliens, Area 51's retrieved Attacker was reactivated and provided human handlers insight into alien's technology. With this, Levinson devised a plan to to shut down the alien's shield: by to infiltrating the mothership and hacking into their main computer frame and implant a coded virus and signal a worldwide counterattack. The attacker was refurbished and used to infiltrate the mothership with Hiller volunteering to pilot Levinson into the mothership along with deploying a nuclear warhead to cripple the mothership.

All remaining military forces on Earth were informed of the July 4th counterattack via Morse Code by the Americans, with Whitmore personally leading the first strike to confirm the shield are disable. After Levinson successfully transmitted the virus, Whitmore led his forces into battling a nearby City Destroyer over Area 51 and were able to inflict damage to the Destroyer. During the battle, the American learned of the alien's weak point being their main weapon. Crop duster pilot Russell Casse sacrificed himself to destroy the Destroyer.

The Americans then informed other countries around the world of the City Destroyer's weak point, before they could strike their 4th wave. Meanwhile, Hiller and Levinson were able successfully launch the warhead the alien's command center and escape the destruction of the mothership. The loss of the mothership ensured the disorientation and subsequent destruction the alien forces left on Earth, thus ending the invasion and the war.

Aftermath
Humanity won the war, but a cost. Earth was devastated by the war as more than a hundred of the planets major cities were obliterated and at least 3,000,000,000 people killed in the attack. People also died from deaths caused by riots, disease, crime, and hunger during and following the conflict. Those alive would never recover from the wounds of the invasion both physical and emotional.

Most of the alien survivors were either killed or captured. In the African country Umbutu, the alien were able to fight against the humans for 10 years before being defeated in 2006. Most of the cities were rebuilt but some cities had to either move or be built around the remains of a City Destroyer. Within time President Whitmore, Levinson, and Hiller founded Earth Space Defense to prevent any possibility of another alien invasion. The remains of the alien ship were salvage in order to reverse-engineer into new technology for consumer and military use which further helped humanity explore space with countries establishing bases on the Moon and Saturn's moon Rhea.

For 20 years, Humanity were able to excel themselves from the previous status before the invasion. The war of 1996 was remembered by every human on Earth as an almost destruction of the human race.

City Casualties
Here are some of the cities that were destroyed during the War of 1996

1. Hong Kong was under British administration.

2. Colorado Springs was targeted for destruction because of the NORAD base at Cheyenne Mountain.

3. Houston was largely destroyed by a nuclear missile.

4. Macau was under Portuguese administration.

5. The original target was San Diego.

6. The Umbutu ship was the only City Destroyer to survive intact before it was shutdown following the destruction of the mothership.

7. The DRC was called Zaire in 1996.

8. Serbia was part of Yugoslavia in 1996.