[ WP ] Aliens come to Earth in hoping to wipe us out and take over the planet , but are honorable and gives us a fighting chance . They announce they will return in 100 years so as to give Earth a chance to prepare and defend itself . Neither side expected what the other would bring to war

A century they gave us. One hundred years to prepare for their invasion, to pour humanity's collective resources into developing our technology, recruiting and training hundreds of millions for a military force of most epic proportions, and to build and stockpile the greatest arsenal ever seen in the history of mankind. 
 
 *... But to what end? * 
 
 The brighter individuals among us knew that it was all in vain. A few among my academic circle openly called it a running joke by the interstellar visitors, a taunting of the cow before its slaughter. I and many others knew it was an empty gesture given in farce, and any plans derived from it would had been a hopeless gambit from the beginning. 
 
 As the late Gordon E. Moore had stated, technology is an exponentially growing entity, one which feeds on itself. It took humanity tens of thousand years to move from stone to metal tools. But only several hundred years had to pass from simple bamboo tubes filled with gunpowder and stones to the advent of Maxim's rapid-firing machine gun. From the Wright brothers' inception of powered-flight, it took us less than a century to move on to hypersonic aircraft capable of cruising the stratosphere. What possibly could we do against a race that had already mastered travel between star systems and other feats of technological wonder unknown to us? 
 
 In a hundred years, they might as well had moved on to deadlier means than they now possess at their confident disposal. Like destroying entire stars at the snap of a finger... or whatever comparative gesture these aliens used. What if they already could destroy stars? The situation was as hopeless as it was surreal, analogy to a large middle-age man giving a wee toddler ten years to prepare for a beating of his life. 
 
 To tell you the truth, I had more faith in this unfortunate toddler than the prospects of humanity as a whole at this point. There was no way we could had beaten them, short of a divine miracle. 
 
 Of course, the more hard-headed or prideful of us decided to stand and fight from the onset - despite this clear logical truth presented in front of them. I ca n't tell you how many times I and my like-minded constituents wrote and made calls to the White House all those years ago, asking the president ( the one in power then ) to reconsider his stance. The Russian and Chinese government thought they had a chance as well, along with much of the NATO bloc, India, and South Africa. They poured billions, even trillions into new weapons research - railguns, hypersonic missiles, nuclear-propelled vehicles, super-alloy armor, and of course energy weapons. They even funded a few quack projects push in by questionable companies and individuals, like the infamous `` black-hole cannon'' or Cryshel Tech's dreampipe nanobot swarm. The money and resources they wasted on anti-matter alone,... we could had used the dough to finish and launch GAIA a decade earlier. 
 
 The mainstream media lauded and sensationalized these efforts and accomplishments at every point. The economy was riding high from all the money being thrown into research and development, so most folks were happy with the way things were going. I guess many of them believed, or perhaps clung in desperate hope, that humanity had a chance in the impending showdown. 
 
 We knew better...'' we'' being me and my constituents. We were predominantly academics from the start, but it was your usual mix bag of people from all walks of life, just people who believed that the sword was not the answer to the threat. We started as individuals or small groups of concerned citizens writing to local media, appearing on news or talk-shows as `` experts'' to voice our views. Over time, we got more organized. We got labelled as defeatists a lot of times - hardly fair, since compare to the thousands of suicide cults that sprung and countless tragic individual cases of people ending it right after the alien's ultimatum ( it was hard to miss, the clunks were broadcasting it all over earth ), we were prepare to do something other than roll over and die. 
 
 I was a 22 year-old graduate student at MIT at the time, majoring in nuclear engineering. Two months after that faithful broadcast, me and a few classmates got to talking and formed MIT's **HAWGOOT** group - HAWGOOT standing for `` How Are We Getting Out Of This'' - an on-campus initiative on finding ways to deal with the issue. We were mostly centered on finding an avenue of escape from our undue extinction. Instead of fighting, we intended on leaving earth itself. If we could n't win, we'll run. Noah's Ark kind of thinking if you may. It was just half dozen of us the first year, sitting in campus libraries discussing and doodling prototype ark ships on paper. The second year, our membership grew to a few dozen students, even professors and faculty, and HAWGOOT's credibility grew. With new numbers on our side, we got more publicly vocal, on the streets and online. 
 
 We were n't alone in our thinking, there was *Sanctum For Mankind*, the *Exodus Initiative*, ELSUS, *Church of Global Salvation*, ABRK in Germany, EVAIS in France, Berkeley's WCWLR ( *We Ca n't Win Let's Run* ), *Ark For Humanity Initiative*, and countless other like-minded groups all over the world; many with real influential backing from politicians or businessmen. We started making waves, putting up media and pushing our governments to consider the alternative. We took on a shared general mantra: We can fight and die, or flee and survive. 
 
 Needless to say, we were met with a lot of opposition. On campus, HAWGOOT had to deal with the antics of its counterpart, the **IODTA** ( *Institute Of Death To Aliens* ). These guys were warhawk engineering students who were concocting anti-alien weapon and defense systems in their spare time between exams, and generally giving a hard time to HAWGOOT members. These same folk who thought it possible to defeat spacefaring aliens told us it was impossible for humans to travel to another star. They made their points in other ways as well - their stink-bomb attack on our 2019 annual conference is still fresh on my mind. Over time, we `` arkists'' attracted the attention of other less than savory groups. 
 
 We were seen as cowards. Threats and hostility from those who disagreed with us was rampant. From denunciation and harassment came death threats and outright attacks. A spokesperson for ELSUS was attacked at a supermarket when a woman recognized her from a CNN interview. In Munich, ABRK's office was hit several times by arsonists during the 20s and 30s. Many campus arkists groups were banned ( HAWGOOT included ) - not surprising as the universities and colleges were getting a fair share of the research money. Shortly after my publicized debate at the pivotal 2027 U.S. Senate hearings, a brick was thrown through my apartment window in Boston. Then three more the next week. A lot of people were mad with us for even thinking about running, and there was no way in hell they were going to allow their politicians to fund our escape. 
 
 Eventually, even the government started poking around, to find out if any of us were secretly alien collaborators. Black SUVs with tinted windows started following us to work and back home, the authorities pulled us in for questioning, and a few of us were declared flight risks. At least that was how it was in the States, Russia, and most of the other countries I mentioned before. 
 
 So that was how I found myself moving to Ottawa, Canada. 
 
 The Canadians were making a killing taking tech development contracts, shipping crude, and exporting uranium and other war materials to the main American effort down in Texas. War was expensive, and it does n't get anymore expensive than a winner-take-all fight with beings from another planet. But Prime Minister Arthur Guernsey was eager to hear us out, against the pundits both at home and abroad. I was with Ark for Humanity by now, and most of us big heads were gathered in the Canadian capital for some serious heart-to-heart with the Prime Minister and his Cabinet... 
 
 *To be continued... * 
 

