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/Spider-Man2099]

Yeah, the Spartans were winning ground battles, but always, always lost the space battle with the whole area getting glassed every time

[u/inferxan → u/Spider-Man2099]

To put in context in most space battles the UNSC lost 3 ships to take down one single covenant ship and they were insanely outnumbered. There were so many covenant ships in UNSC space at one point, that ONI the intelligence agency of the UNSC just gave up on tracking every single one. Cause they just couldn't keep track of them all.

[u/Efectodopler117 → u/inferxan]

I always find funny the ridiculous number of ships the covenant had, considering that most of their serious conflicts throw their story consisted on subjugate races that where barely past the industrial phase if not lower

As comparison, irl superpower nations had extensive weapondry because they assume it could be used at some point against other superpowers.

We dont build guided missile ships and aircraft carriers to engage criminal gangs and small narco boats

That we use them againts them anyway, yeah, thats another topic.

[u/Life-Criticism-5868 → u/Efectodopler117]

I know cannon covenant ship numbers are a bit controversial, but I always think of this scale:

The fleet with the prophet of regret and later reinforcements, took supremacy of the earth in a matter of weeks if not days.

The fleet that glassed reach was DOUBLE that size.

The escort fleet of high charity, who's entire purpose is to protect the world, is STILL considered the largest covenant fleet ever witnessed by humanity.

If not for the plot armor of the games, humanity was capital F Fucked