We Will Destroy Your Planet (13 page)

If your species, or at least its military forces, have this ability, then using the physical mobility skills of fencing and martial arts is probably not the best way of engaging in combat anyway. After all, why put your life and limbs at risk when you can simply control the weapon telekinetically, from a safe distance? If your species has psychokinetic abilities, then, depending on how that ability has evolved, you may find that you can in fact weaponize the ability or skill, and use that in place of more conventional melee weapons, at least when in conflict with individual terrestrial natives, or small groups.

Note also that if your species, culture or military forces have extremely strong psychokinetic powers, capable of hurling large objects by the application of mental force directly influencing the physical world, you ought to find that those abilities are far more practical in a combat situation than tiring physical exertion. Why would you want to jump around while trying to wield a massless blade, when you can simply conserve your energy by using psychokinesis to rupture vital organs in your opponent's body or nervous/brain system? At the very least, you should train to use the psychokinetic ability to control the weapon, rather than use physical force unnecessarily, or aim a ranged weapon under physically challenging conditions. Remember that military maxim: the best tactical move being the one that nets you the most gain for the least expenditure of whatever kind of resource – even personal energy. Let the enemy tire themselves out instead.

Of course, other forms of psi abilities would have their own values in combat situations, for example by influencing the perceptions of the human defenders by making them see their comrades as members of your invasion force, or vice-versa. Affecting the perception centres of the human brains may also allow your forces to be edited from the ability of the defenders to see or recognize at all.

Other useful psychic abilities would include the ability to affect the fear centres of the brain so that defenders will simply run away, blind them, destroy their aim, and so forth. In fact the practical applications are almost endless. Such abilities have been referenced in terrestrial literature and entertainments, although, strangely, they have tended to be done so in relation to mutated or enhanced human characters using these skills against or in aid of other humans, rather than in terms of extraterrestrial invaders having evolved such abilities elsewhere, and brought them for use in an operation on Earth.

Of course the reason why solid melee weapons have lasted in use since the dawn of time is because they are always still practical. No moving parts to malfunction, no power source to be jammed by an EMP burst, just simple straightforward practicality. Even in advanced societies with technological defences, the simple blade has its place. Bulletproof body armour can be cut, because the physical effects of the two types of impact are so very different. Energy shielding designed to stop electromagnetic radiation will not react to something as slow and dense as a piece of steel.

The simple knife, bayonet, or sword, therefore, still have their place in melee combat, and the only real reason for not using them would be if your species has inbuilt natural equivalents, such as claws.

There is no need for a particularly large blade – it's not the size that matters, but where you stick it. Humans are relatively fragile, with arteries and blood vessels too close to their outer skins for their own good in combat, and, over the whole human history, the average depth of a fatal piercing or cut is a mere two inches.

Blades do not need to be particularly sharp at the edge, but it helps if they come to a fine point at the end. A curved blade will be more effective if the cutting edge is on the outside of the curve, as there will be more pressure on the target across much less surface area, making penetration easier, and damage greater.

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.

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.

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 advance, 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.

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.