[weswood]

Every now and then I go through a phase where I want to be an author and try to come up with some ideas. Here's my alien invasion idea:

Primary alien race has been spying on Earth for years, at least decades. While this info gathering is taking place, the aliens are putting together an invasion fleet. Said fleet contains at least 12 big ass ships, probably more. The fleet moves to Earth's solar system, parks in an orbit on the opposite side of the sun from eath. At least 2 "factory" ships break out of the fleet, hit some asteroids, mine asteroids and manufacture the various assault craft needed.

The main fleet is keeping out of earth's view by orbiting the sun on the same path/speed as earth. The majority of the assault forces have been in deep sleep until now.

There are two alien races involved, the "masters" and the "grunts". The masters are the fleet crew and the officers of the assault force. The grunts are basic cannon fodder. Instead of transporting the millions of needed grunts God knows how far across the galaxy, I thought it would be easier to have some breeder stock in stasis sleep and awakened just prior to the invasion. I wanted a race that was quick breeding and quick to grow to adulthood and at least smarter than a rock. Pigs fit the profile but pigs can't carry weapons, so in my mind I crossed pigs with humans to come up with the grunt race....And ended up with D&D orcs. Okay, whatever, works for me anyway. Breeder orcs awake, put to work. My space orcs grow to young adulthood in app 5 years, I gave the fleet 20 years hidden to grow armies and for the factory ships to produce assault craft.

Assault begins. The fleet, consisting of 10 primary battle craft, is assigned 1 ship per continent. 7 continents, 3 primaries are reserve. My storyline didn't include T2K so the first thing the masters do is drop a series of nukes across the world, set to airburst and wreck the power grid and infrastructure. After the nukes, kinetic energy weapons -barely guided rocks- strike major military bases. The aliens wait 3 months for the mass deaths caused by starvation, disease and anarchy created by no electricity, very few vehicles and no way to move tons of food off the farms and into sities.

Then they drop. Here's where things might seem goofy to some. My brain just doesn't alway work normal. The main forces are dropped from orbit on giant eggs. Some type of super ceramic shell that will stand up to atmospheric entry burn and not crack on landing. Of course there will also be space to earth dropships and air/space assault craft but fewer of these. I just like the idea of some poor yokel standing in his field and sees a meteor shower crashing and house sized eggs land. Hiding in the tree line watching these giant eggs crack and hatch and out comes....

Giant mechanical insects. I didn't want to go with standards wheeled and tracked vehicles for my aliens, so I went with mechanical insects. Giant spiders would be the armored personnel carriers, scorpions for main battle tanks, mosquitoes and wasps for troop and assault helicopters. Birds- primarily raptors, hawks and eagles, take place of jet fighters. Large cargo aircraft would be normal (futuristic) craft.

Leadership positions and all the vehicle crewmen would be of the master racer. My master race ended up being based on drow elves from AD&D. They've always been my favorite bad guys and they've always used goblin races as slaves.

The three reserve primary battle ships are all drow, better armed and armored than the general fleet orcs. They're used in trouble spots.

My small arms ended up being electo magnetic railguns shaped like crossbows. Smaller versions are carried as sidearms. The drow are armored and have helmets that look like full face motorcycle helmets while my space orcs are generally unarmored. I haven't worked out how they're armed.

Not for everybody's taste but sounds fun to me.