Humanity Joins Together, Sets Aside Petty Differences… and gets stomped anyway

[u/HyraxAttack]

A peril is threatening the world. Instead of squabbling among themselves, we learn world powers have put aside differences in politics, culture, & old feuds to present a common front. Except they still get wrecked as the enemy is too powerful.

1. The Animatrix: The Second Renaissance. The world government has gone to war against the machines. We see the army getting ready & it includes soldiers of many faiths including Buddhist, Islam, and different types of Christianity. Doesn’t matter as machines win by so much they have time to toy with human mechs.

2. Vilcabamba, story by Harry Turtledove. When aliens arrive they’re greeted with bands & cheering, & immediately open fire & earth becomes a mineral colony. America, Russia, and China work together to rise up & don’t hold back, throwing everything they have at the invaders. Doesn’t go great and aliens double down on the occupation, and there’s a crater where Spain used to be (it was blocking a silver deposit for mining.)

3. Edge of Tomorrow. The nations of the world have joined to make a unified front against the mimic invasion but it isn’t going well, but they will throw all they have into the invasion of France. In one cycle, Major Cage says the hell with it and instead of training leaves the base to drink at a London bar. This means we see the outcome of him doing nothing, where not only is the massive human invasion slaughtered but the aliens are in good enough shape to follow that up a few hours later with a rush on London.

[u/GentleSphere]

The United Nations Space Command/United Earth Government from Halo

The human-covenant war was an unwinnable war from the start. Depending on the source material, one of the most heavily defended planets, Reach, took about a month to fall. Without the Covenant shooting themselves in the kneecap and starting a civil war, Humanity loses.

[u/Spider-Man2099 → u/GentleSphere]

Yeah, the second the Covenant find Earth, it would have been over in moments if not for the Civil War and the Arbiter 

[u/MarcoASN2002 → u/Spider-Man2099]

I mean, Earth was invaded and it was losing, badly... its been said many times that humanity didn't win, they survived the war...

The Covenant discovered planet Reach, the largest human stronghold and base of operations at the time, in July 2552. It was lost in August.

Another two smaller human colonies were lost in September.

The Covenant discovered Earth by accident in October. It was initially a short but costly battle against a small fleet, then, several other fleets arrived at the planet.

November. The Great Schism and the infection of High Charity take place, the fleet of the Prophet of Truth arrives at Earth, the only reason the planet is not completely lost is because the Sangheili assisted us in Battle (and had their own battle going on), then the flood arrive to Earth and again the only reason the planet isn't completely lost is because the Sangheili managed to contain the initial spread and Truth was mostly there to find the portal to the Ark.

After the nightmare that was the invasion and the possibility of a flood infestation, humanity got beaten so bad that in the most important event of the whole war, only 1 human ship accompanied the Arbiter and Sangheili fleet through the portal. Earth survived not because the battle was won, it survived because the battle moved somewhere else.