The War of 1996 was a full scale assault on Earth from July 2 to July 4, 1996 by a vast extraterrestrial race (later named the "Harvesters") seeking to harvest Earth's natural resources. It was the second largest military conflict in the history of mankind, taking the lives of 3 billion people. Within a span of two days, over 108 cities were outright destroyed and/or damaged, as the aliens began a systematic and genocidal campaign of wiping out humanity. The onslaught was halted when humanity coordinated a global counterattack after the United States managed to disabled the aliens' force-field technology and the subsequent destruction of the alien mothership, thus ending the war in human victory.
The conflict drastically altered the political alignment and social structure of Earth. Humanity set aside their previous cultural and nationalistic rivalries and united globally. The Earth Space Defense was established to defend Earth and humanity from future extraterrestrial threats.
Prelude
Acknowledgement of extraterrestrial life was secretly confirmed when in 1947, an alien vessel crash landed in Roswell, New Mexico.[3] U.S. military authorities recovered the wreckage and the bodies of its occupants to the future military base Area 51, where they remained in secret for the next four decades while Area 51 and the Roswell incident became mythologized in popular rumors and conspiracy theories.
Only a few selected people in the U.S. military and intelligence agencies knew and discouraged revealing this secret to the public for fear of mass panic and the tense political climate of the Cold War between the United States and Soviet Union. At the same time, the United States were hiding a secret war with aliens. In 1979, special forces entered the Dulce Base where a battle ensued with the extraterrestrials. Two person did told the truth, General MacArthur and Army Engineer Phil Schneider.[3][4]
The Invasion
On July 2, a 550 km wide alien mothership enters Earth's orbit and deploys 36 saucer-shaped "destroyer" spacecraft, each 15 miles (24 km) wide, and taking position over some of Earth's major cities. The aliens made use of human satellites to relay signals between vessels and coordinate their attack. Human response was in panic and uncertainty as people tried to flee from the targeted cities while the governments placed their military forces on high alert and making attempts to contact the aliens despite remaining ignorant of the extraterrestrials' hostile intentions.
Destruction of Los Angeles.
David Levinson, an MIT graduate working for a cable company in New York City, discovered the aliens' hidden transmissions in Earth's satellites, which he realized is a timer counting down to the aliens' coordinated attack. With the support of his estranged wife Constance Spano, the White House Communications Director, Levinson was able to notify President Thomas Whitmore about the attack. However, Levinson's warning proved too late for Whitmore to issue a large-scale evacuation, as the aliens attacked with advanced directed-energy weapons and reduced the 36 targeted cities to ruins.
On July 3, the City Destroyers began to move onto other cities while facing human opposition. However, human attacks against the Destroyers proved severely ineffective, as the aliens are protected by force fields, making their vessels invulnerable to conventional weapons. This resulted in a one-sided massacre on human military forces. Afterwards, the aliens began methodically eliminating many military installations, such as NORAD and NATO headquarters in Brussels.[3]
After the failed counterattack, President Whitmore and his remaining staff, who escaped from the destruction of Washington, D.C., soon learned the secret of Area 51 from Secretary of Defense Albert Nimziki and arrived there in hopes of learning anything that could stop the invaders.
During a failed assault on a City Destroyer in Los Angeles, an alien pilot was captured by Captain Steven Hiller, a Marine Corps pilot, and taken to Area 51. When scientist Dr. Brackish Okun attempts to autopsy the alien, it regains consciousness and attempts to escape. When questioned by Whitmore, the alien attempts a psychic attack against him, but is killed by Whitmore's security detail. Whitmore learned that while he was being attacked, he saw the alien's thoughts and its kind's intentions to plunder Earth's natural resources at the cost of destroying all life on the planet. Whitmore then orders a nuclear attack on the Destroyers, but the first attempt in Houston fails to penetrate the force field of the vessel. Whitmore ordered an immediate withdrawal of the bombers.
Other nuclear states agreed to not launch their arsenals until the results of the Houston attack were clear.[3] Similar strikes were quickly abandoned. By midnight on July 3, most major cities had been abandoned and military forces had been routed. A select few, including Whitmore, began considering ways of how they could resist the inevitable ground invasion by the aliens.[3]
July 4 Counterattack
- Main article: July 4 counterattack
On July 4, Levinson devises a plan to use the repaired attacker to introduce a computer virus and plant a nuclear missile on board the mothership, theorizing that this will temporarily disrupt the force fields of the destroyers. Steven Hiller volunteers to pilot the attacker, with Levinson accompanying him to implement the virus. The shutdown of the force fields would coincide with a globally coordinated attack on the destroyers with the Americans leading the first assault.
With not enough military pilots to man all available aircraft, volunteers including Whitmore are enlisted for the counterstrike. With the successful implantation of the virus, Whitmore leads the attack against an alien Destroyer approaching Area 51. Although the force field is deactivated and the fighters are able to inflict damage, their supply of missiles quickly becomes exhausted. As the Destroyer prepares to fire on the base, one pilot, Russell Casse, has one missile left, but it jams. He decided to fly his plane directly into the alien weapon in a suicide attack, which kills him but destroys it.
Following the destruction of the City Destroyer, the Americans then informed other resistance forces from around the world about how to destroy the alien ships. Hiller and Levinson successfully launched the nuclear device that destroys the mothership, and managed to escape the ensuing destruction unharmed. The loss of the mothership ensured the disorientation and subsequent destruction of the remaining alien forces on Earth.
Aftermath
Steven Hiller with Dylan Dubrow watching the remains of a City Destroyer.
Following humanity's 'Independence Day,' Earth was devastated from the invasion as more than a hundred of the planet's populous and historical cities along with irreplaceable institutions such as museums and libraries were destroyed, and at least three billion human beings were killed.[2] Those alive would never recover from the wounds of the invasion, both physical and emotional.[3]
Within time, the international community recovers and becomes more politically united by common cause due to a fundamental sense of self-awareness that humanity as a whole is not alone in the universe and had barely escaped from their extinction.[3] Coinciding with this unity, the United Nations formed the Earth Space Defense to prevent the possibility of a similar extraterrestrial invasion in the future. The remains of the alien vessels were salvaged and reverse-engineered by humanity to creating new technology for consumer and military use, and further help in Earth's reconstruction process.
Alien survivors were discovered in the aftermath in which many were captured or killed. Others, however, were able to establish a temporary resistance against human forces. One such example was in the African Congo in which an alien cell survived for more than ten years after the invasion.[5]
Twenty years later, it was revealed the aliens were able to send a distress signal on the X-Band frequency before the mother-ship was destroyed, which results in forcing the aliens' queen to personally come to Earth and threatening the human race once more in 2016.
City Casualties
107 cities and NORAD were completely destroyed in three waves by the aliens, and 35 suffered from some structural damage in order to prevent a fourth wave.[1]
| First Wave | Second Wave | Third Wave | Intercepted Wave |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rio de Janeiro, Brazil | Sao Paulo, Brazil | Buenos Aires, Argentina | Caracas, Venezuela |
| New York City, U.S. | Philadelphia, U.S. | Pittsburgh, U.S. | Cleveland, U.S. |
| Washington, D.C., U.S. | Atlanta, U.S. | (1) Houston, U.S. | Dallas, U.S. |
| Los Angeles, U.S. | NORAD, U.S. | Phoenix, U.S. | Las Vegas, U.S. |
| Vancouver, Canada | Seattle, U.S. | San Francisco, U.S. | (2) Area 51, U.S. |
| Toronto, Canada | Chicago, U.S. | Detroit, U.S. | St. Louis, U.S. |
| Mexico City, Mexico | Guadalajara, Mexico | Monterrey, Mexico | El Paso, U.S. |
| Havana, Cuba | Miami, U.S. | Boston, U.S. | Montreal, Canada |
| Dakar, Senegal | Abidjan, Ivory Coast | Kinshasa, DRC | Tripoli, Libya |
| Lagos, Nigeria | Addis Ababa, Ethiopia | Nairobi, Kenya | Cape Town, South Africa |
| Jakarta, Indonesia | Medan, Indonesia | Perth, Australia | Sydney, Australia |
| Singapore, Singapore | Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia | Rangoon, Myanmar | Mandalay, Myanmar |
| Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam | Phnom Penh, Cambodia | Vientiane, Laos | Bangkok, Thailand |
| Manila, Philippines | Hanoi, Vietnam | Pingxiang, China | Kunming, China |
| Shanghai, China | Ningbo, China | Hangzhou, China | Wuhan, China |
| Seoul, South Korea | Pyongyang, North Korea | Busan, South Korea | Hiroshima, Japan |
| Beijing, China | Shenyang, China | Changchun, China | Quiqihar, China |
| Hong Kong, U.K. | Guangzhou, China | Macau, Portugal | Taipei, Taiwan |
| Tokyo, Japan | Yokohama, Japan | Nagoya, Japan | Osaka, Japan |
| Calcutta, India | Dhaka, Bangladesh | Kathmandu, Nepal | Lahore, Pakistan |
| Bombay, India | Bangalore, India | Madras, India | Colombo, Sri Lanka |
| New Dehli, India | Hyderabad, India | Mogadishu, Somalia | (3) National Republic of Umbutu |
| Karachi, Pakistan | Islamabad, Pakistan | Kabul, Afghanistan | Mecca, Saudi Arabia |
| Jerusalem, Israel | Tel Aviv, Israel | Damascus, Syria | Beirut, Lebanon |
| Tehran, Iran | Baghdad, Iraq | Riyadh, Saudi Arabia | Cairo, Egypt |
| Vladivostok, Russia | Harbin, China | Sapporo, Japan | Petropavlovsk, Russia |
| Moscow, Russia | St. Petersburg, Russia | Helsinki, Finland | Stockholm, Sweden |
| Kiev, Ukraine | Odessa, Ukraine | Volgograd, Russia | Corum, Turkey |
| Istanbul, Turkey | Bucharest, Romania | Belgrade, Yugoslavia | Sarajevo, Bosnia & Herzegovina |
| Athens, Greece | Naples, Italy | Algiers, Algeria | Casablanca, Morocco |
| Rome, Italy | Venice, Italy | Milan, Italy | Monaco, Monaco |
| Warsaw, Poland | Vienna, Austria | Prague, Czech Republic | Budapest, Hungary |
| Berlin, Germany | Hamburg, Germany | Frankfurt, Germany | Munich, Germany |
| London, U.K. | Birmingham, U.K. | Liverpool, U.K. | Belfast, U.K. |
| Paris, France | Lyon, France | Marseille, France | Barcelona, Spain |
| Amsterdam, Netherlands | Brussels, Belgium | Antwerp, Belgium | Rotterdam, Netherlands |
1. Houston was destroyed by a nuclear missile.
2. The original target was San Diego.
3. The Umbutu ship was the only one to survive. It landed and began drilling toward the core before shutting down after the destruction of the mothership.
Gallery
Arrival of the City Destroyers
The City Destroyers attack
July 4th counterattack, a.k.a. The Fourth
Behind the Scenes
Appearances
- Independence Day (novel) (First appearance)
- Independence Day
- Independence Day: Dark Fathom
- Independence Day: Crucible (Mentioned only)
- Independence Day: Resurgence (novelization) (Mentioned only)
- Independence Day: Resurgence (Mentioned only)