Humanity had spent most of it's history on Earth warring with each other. Never for more than a few years did we stop fighting each other over our different ideals. Even after the Second Korean War in 2025, when the worlds powers worked to deal with the former rogue nuclear state of North Korea, that relationship was only temporary. China took a buffer zone of 25 miles from the former nation to prevent US military assets from being on their direct borders. However, in 2027, NASA made an amazing discovery. Bright flashes of light at the edge of our solar system. The scientific community was overjoyed at the prospect of first contact. However as telescopes kept being pointed towards the object, something frightening was observed. More flashes. Hundreds of them. It was deduced fairly quickly that this wasn't a scientific expedition. A fleet of ships that large meant only one thing, invasion. That was only further solidified when the first messages from them reached our antennas. They called themselves the Phauthi. They had observed humanities wars via TV and radio transmission over the years and had deemed us a threat to them and all life. After that, they refused all contact. Calculations estimated that they would arrive at Earth in 5 years. The worlds governments used those five years to buildup existing nuclear arsenals, recalling all foreign military assets, and shifting their economies for war. They did it in the hope that we would stand a chance and survive.

Year 1: When the Phauthi first landed on earth and began their war against humanity, they landed in nations that would've offered the least resistance to their landings. They tried simultaneous invasions of every continent, but soon found out that it would've been impossible to launch a direct attack on the Northern Hemisphere. They instead focused the bulk of their initial landing forces in the nations of Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and Madagascar.

Within a week they not only eliminated the entirety of those nations militaries, they slaughtered millions. They began using those as staging points to offload their military forces for conquering earth. It was from there on they began their offensive against Africa and South America. Within a month the remnants of the Chilean military were forced out of the country after Santiago fell, forcing them into neighboring Peru and Bolivia. In Africa, they had pushed into the Congo meeting light resistance after conquering South Africa. It was when they finally launched an attack into Indonesia that they began encountering more resistance than they initially expected.

Within six month's they had landed troops into Thailand, had entered Sudan, and nearly conquered all of South America. It was at this point the nations of the world realized they couldn't just idly by and wait. US and Canadian forces reinforced the front in Guinea and Colombia. The Europeans had set up a defensive position in North Africa with the nations of Egypt, Israel, and Algeria. Meanwhile China and India began deploying forces into Southeast Asia to blunt the Phauthi offensive.

Year 2: The battle swung violently from side to side, with both sides tasting victory and defeat. It stayed this way for a year before Phauthi forces finally forced remaining Earth military forces to flee in Mexico and Central America. In Southeast Asia, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, and Laos had fallen to the invaders. It was at this time Phauthi forces finally landed in the Middle East, swatting the local military's aside with frightful ease. It was only due to European, Russian, and Israeli forces that they held onto Egypt and Jordan.

Year 3: Eventually Yemen, Oman, the UAE, and most of Saudi Arabia had fallen. Bahrain and Qatar were entirely destroyed via nuclear bombardment and Kuwait was being flooded with remnants of Saudi military forces. Arab military's were incapable of mounting effective resistance on their own. This left gaps the Israel and Iran had to fill in many areas. Even with Russian support on the ground and in the air, it was a harsh fight. When they began targeting humanities religious cities, this was met by nuclear retaliation from the United States, China, Israel, and India.

When Kuwait was obliterated in a nuclear bombardment, followed by attacks on allied forces in Central America, North Africa, and Southeast Asia, ICBM's from four different nations began targeting Phauthi forces ships in orbit. Several of their military vessels were destroyed by American and Russian ICBM forces. This forced the Phauthi to refrain from further nuclear strikes.

When the war reached it's fourth year, the invaders had gained more ground steadily. They were in Southern Mexico and the Caribbean fighting US and Mexican forces. Egypt had lost everything past the Sinai desert, India and China were fighting in their own territories, Iran and the Caucasus were invaded, and the Phauthi were on the brink of launching their deadliest operation of the entire war.

Year 4: It began with orbitals strikes on key infrastructure using newly developed kinetic rods supplemented by tactical nuclear strikes, they hit power plants, dams, and noticeable military bases in the Southern portions of the United States, China, and Europe, with secondary and tertiary strikes on Israel, Turkey, Taiwan, Korea, and Japan. However shortly afterwards a nuclear barrage was launched into orbit destroying 27 Phauthi military vessels, all of which where carrying the weapons responsible for the destruction. The damage was done however as this gave them an upper hand over the nations of earth.

They simultaneously launched invasions into the Southern United States, Southern Europe, Central Asia, and into Southern China and India. They captured Florida and Louisiana from the US within the first month. Similar gains were made in other parts of the world When Greece and Spain fell in Europe. Phauthi forces poured into the Caucasus mountains, but were stopped not far from Georgia. The Stans were completely under Phauthi control as well. Israel and Turkey were barely hanging on due to fighting on all sides. Pakistan was dealing with a similar situation, losing 80% of it's territory.

Without six months of the offensive, India lost all provinces east of Calcutta and South of Bangalore. China lost control of Yunnan, Guangxi, and Guangdong provinces. In Europe, Spain, Portugal, Greece, the Balkans, and most of Italy had fallen. Fighting in Europe didn't stabilize until the fighting was directly on the doorstep of France, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, Austria, Poland, and Belarus. While America had kicked these invaders out of Texas, they still controlled Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia.

Year 5: It was at this point the war had raged on into it's fifth year. Both sides were exhausted, but the nations of earth wouldn't give up. It was at this point the remaining nations of the world launched one last strike to push the invaders out of their countries and off our planet. Operation Hammer Down was initiated. The operation consisted of a multi front assault in the air, land, and sea against key strategic targets the Phauthi had on earth. Multiple tactical nuclear strikes were launched against the Phauthi bases in South America, Africa, and Australia. Only 20% of the missiles hit due to missile defense systems set up to protect their bases.

North American forces launched one massive push into the Southern United States and Mexico, while European and Asian forces were tasked with uprooting the enemy from their hold on mainland Europe and Asia. Within two months the final Phauthi forces were killed or captured in North America. Greece, Italy, and Spain were the only holdouts left in Europe. Meanwhile Russian forces liberated Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Iran, and the Stans. Indian, Chinese, Korean, and Japanese troops pushed the Phauthi out of Pakistan and much of Southeast Asia. What was left was concentrated in mostly the Middle East. By the eighth month Europe and the Middle east had been secured, along with North Africa. The Caribbean had been secured, while the US Marine Corps had begun amphibious landings with the French in Guiana and Venezuela. alien forces in Central America were cut off from supplies and were forced to surrender.

Realizing they made a huge mistake, seeing how this campaign was unwinnable, the growing peace faction of the Phauthi overthrew the warring leadership. Seeing as how they've lost 25 million of their own in a failed endeavor to conquer earth. They met with remaining world leaders in Geneva, Switzerland for a peace summit. They agreed to leave earth and stay around the outer solar system. All Phauthi forces would take withdraw from earth completely and as soon as possible. This was accepted and both sides POW's on both sides were exchanged and any military technology captured by either side was kept. Thus marked the end of the Earth-Phauthi war.

When the Phauthi first entered our solar system, we hoped they would be peaceful. They weren't. Not the Phauthi in charge anyway. Their leadership had decided to claim the entirety of our solar system and make it their home, by force if necessary.

There was one thing they didn't count on, human willpower. They thought that having the big spacecraft and being more advanced than us would force us to roll over and surrender. They were wrong. We fought, we fought hard. While many of the world's poorer and least equipped countries fell to the Phauthi, they soon engaged them in brutal guerrilla warfare. However the Phauthi were not above laying waste to cities and killing off populations of area's that resisted. It was that fact alone that saw the global death toll reach nearly one billion people.

This only strengthened humanity's resolve against the alien invaders. While they managed to beat the weakest of us, they were met with defeat at the hands of the world's strongest nations, such as the United States, Russia, China, and Europe. Together they held the line against the invading armies when they attempted to push into their territories.

Even when those nations finally got beat back in some regions, it taught the Phauthi one thing. Humanity would not go quietly into the night. We wouldn't vanish without a fight. We'd fight tooth and nail for our home world. And if worst came to worse, we'd turn our world into a radioactive hellhole they wouldn't survive in. If we couldn't have earth, no one could.

After five years of bloody war, half of the world's military might was destroyed, hundreds of millions lay dead across the globe, and dozens of earths cities ravaged by an alien race who sought to conquer humanity. But they also bled heavily as a result. They took millions of casualties fighting us and lost nearly all of their military vessels. They lost over 80% of their own military in a failed bid to beat us into submission. In the end their peace faction overthrew the warring leaders and agreed to leave our planet, but stay in our solar system. And thus, on December 25th, 2037, the bloodiest war the human race had ever endured was officially over.

However after their invasion, there was a power gap left across the world. Few standing governments were left to help those in need. America, Canada, Europe, Russia, China, Korea, and Japan were the only nations left on Earth with stable governments and militaries. Even decades later and the equivalent of trillions of dollars later, most of Africa is still without stable governments. Much of the middle east is left radioactive from the war decades earlier. Out of the 190 nations that existed in 2032, less than 90 are on the UN in 2080. But as the 43rd anniversary of Victory Day approaches, an event would soon shatter the peace that the people of Earth was enjoying.