[ WP ] A hostile Alien race arrives at Earth , But misinterpret the U.S. flag as a 50 Star systems strong government .

They must have been just as surprised to see us. I mean, imagine the only image you have of your destination was take from millions of light years away. Then, after a brief FTL jump, you find yourself surrounded by satellites and space junk. The shock must have been enormous, they probably thought the planet was still inhabited by dinosaurs, or some lower forms of life. They definitely were not expecting to see us. Well, the SETI institute noticed their presence almost immediately, and started bouncing all sorts off electromagnetic waves of their hull. For us, they were just scans and attempts at communication. For those poor saps, it was full on electronic warfare. In our excitement to interact with this newly discovered species, we accidentally fried almost every electronic system they had on board. Then things really started to get interesting. 
 
 The Bothan ship that we had unintentionally fried was just a preliminary scout. From what we know now, these scout ships would make the FTL jump to `` widen'' the passage for the rest of the fleet. When the second ship emerged from the growing, twisting abyss of space-time, it attempted to attack. We thought it was trying to communicate. Our radios were picking up all sorts of strange static, and those poor lab-coats at SETI must have been going nuts trying to find a pattern in the jumble of radio, micro, and infrared waves being sent directly into their satellite dishes. After frying the second and third ship, someone must have figured out what was going on because the FAA grounded all flights and shut down all forms of public radio communication. By this time, there were at least a dozen ships in orbit, several of which were attempting to dock with the scouts. 
 
 Eventually, one of the larger ships sent landing craft to land directly outside of the White House. After a few hours, the president addressed the nation to announce that the race was known as the Bothans. Furthermore, the president announced that as the elected representative of the Bicential Imperium of Mankind, he had personally accepted the unconditional surrender of the Bothanian royal fleet. In reparation for the Bothan `` invasion'' the human race would be given full access to Bothanian technology, in return the Bothans would be allowed to return to their home world unharmed. 
 
 It goes without saying that this came as quite a shock to the population of the planet, but the sudden acquisition of FTL travel quickly occupied our minds. WE made it to mars in just a year. By the end of the decade, we had research stations in orbit around every planet. After twenty years, we were mining the asteroid belt, and by the fifty year mark, we had built our first colony ship. Now we are approaching our goal of 50 controlled star systems. The Bothans still believe our empire has existed for around 40 millennia, which thanks to difficulties in translation, has still not been cleared up. Soon we will have the 50 systems that the Bothans thought we had all along, and we can continue diplomatic discussions then.
