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Hellraiser

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The idea of some intelligent lifeform invading Earth and humans being able to resist is retarded. Any civilization capable of organizing massive interstellar logistics hence possessing a much more advanced tech would wipe us out in days if not hours
it depends how those interstellar logistics look like and what the objective is, as well as what the currently unknown to us (but known to potential advanced aliens) limits of physics are, in regards to how they could defend against our weaponry. That is to say - can they dodge/block all bullets and nukes or not? But if the aliens can bend the laws of physics to do magic, why bother with invading us terrans?

As for just wiping out mankind, to remove a potential threat, that's piss easy for any true space faring civilizations that can build very large ships able to spend years in space and fly around fairly fast (not even fraction of lightspeed fast, Jupiter in 6 weeks fast is already more than enough IMO). Find big rock, accelerate it to a high velocity with an orion drive, put some defense systems on it too shoot down any nukes or oil rig workers turned astronauts. More subtle exermination might involve artificial lifeforms wrecking havoc with crops or the whole biosphere, nanobots and who knows what else.

But the thing is going after Earth makes little sense unless either we're already a threat (which implies we can hurt the aliens rather than get stomped fast) or the aliens need an Earth-like planet specifically. For an advanced spacefaring civilization capable of moving large fleets between stars, just taking free real estatte in the form of lifeless star systems is a better investment than larping independence day, as you can essentially live in O'Neill cylinders and other artificial habitats anywhere you want. And the problems start if you don't want to just sterilize the planet and want to play invasion and occupation, because glassing the whole thing or screwing with the biosphere is not an option for some reason (honestly how much intel and R&D on Earth biology would an alien species need to do to invent the perfect virus that wouldn't just mutate unpredictably and fuck up their own plans somehow?).

Then if you go down the invasion rabbit hole it really is a matter of how those logistics look like, are lead times short or not? What are the bottlenecks? Is there enough materiel and manpower (or robotpower) to establish control or will more need to be brough in? What can be produced locally, how much strategic infrastructure can be easily built/put in place by the invaders and how many would take too long to establish? How much of an attrition rate can the invaders soak? And regarding a decapitation strike, just how much intel on critical targets can aliens obtain before they attack? Even with ultimate ELINT and god-like AI formulating a target list it's impossible to fully crush any possibility of armed resistance. Speaking of intel and tying to the logistics question is another thing, already mentioned ITT, what intel the aliens had when they planned the invasion and how many gaps does it have? If casual fast FTL is possible then they are more likely to be very well prepared, if travel time is years they will be underprepared somewhere.
 

Alienman

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The aliens invading in all these Xcom games seem to be degenerate empires. Long overdue for a collapse, with armies consisting of mindless slaves. You only have to knock out one critical part, and the whole house of cards comes falling.
 
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The UFO: After... series is the only one in which advanced aliens show up and wipe out most of humanity in five minutes (though a few milion people survive in various ways), but even there it turns out that the aliens are just a small faction of religious extremists who want to terraform Earth into a super organism they want to worship.

IIRC in the original UFO: Enemy Unknown the whole point of the alien invasion is to enslave the humanity and turn it into another slave race (ie the aliens couldnt just nuke the whole planet anyway), in Terror from the Deep aliens actually need to raid human shipping and ports to steal resources they need to "wake up" their super ship that crashed in the Marianas Trench etc. You can come up with at least somewhat plausible reasons for an alien invasion to playing out in an "X-COM way."

Things like powerful invaders actually being kinda retarded/their state and/or society falling apart during the invasion are not unprecedented in human history either after all. X-COM-likes simply have Earth become sort of a space Afghanistan.
 

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