[ WP ] Turns out it was n't the Nazis hiding on the dark side of the moon . It was the Roman Empire . They 've come back with a vengeance .

The ship slipped through the atmosphere, parting the clouds as a sailing ship of old would part the waves. It was rough, `` slipshod'' was the term my father used for it, `` like a flying cinderblock''. 
 
 Nonetheless, it landed with a gentle thunk on the other side of my TV screen. The media was there, the President was there, and a great many other dignitaries I would never know. 
 
 A port opened up on the side of the cinderblock, and a rope ladder fell down from it. 
 
 `` Goddamn it, they ca n't even build a ladder out of *wood*, why in the Hell is anyone afraid of these guys?'' came my father's laugh, stuffing a few more crackers into his mouth. 
 
 I was rapt. 
 
 A gentle plume of smoke fell on the ground around the base of the ladder, scattering the outlines of our extra-terrestrial visitors. A gentle *clank* marked when the first touched the Earth, the first of his people in many moons to do such. But we would only learn that later. 
 
 Four of them walked through the dissipating smoke, and the reporter gave an audible `` *well fuck me*'' under his breath before stating what we all already knew, 
 
 `` Human! The visitors appear to be human!'' 
 
 As they walked, clanking all the way, towards the assembled dignitaries of Earth, it was only reconfirmed. The visitors looked around in what can only be described as tearful reminiscence. Memories told through stories, paintings, and legends of things we take for granted. 
 
 One of them took a moment to examine a purple flower growing in the field. He touched it the way I touched my first love's face. The others waited patiently before all carrying on the final few steps. 
 
 Hands were outstretched, and the visitors took them by arm, nodding and speaking in elegant phrases I could n't understand. 
 
 I noticed a man in the back of the group start, as if he had just been struck. He pushed his way through the others, through the rulers of England, the US, Russia, China, and dozen powers that dwarfed his own. He shouted a few words as he passed through, the visitors turning their heads slowly towards him. 
 
 He took one of their hands, shook it vigorously, and spoke faster than I could understand. 
 
 The visitors merely looked at him. 
 
 The reporter nearest told us he was the Italian Prime Minister. It was at that moment, I took greater stock in the outfits of those not-so-alien visitors. The strange metallic shoulder plates, the jangling mail skirts, a helmet protecting the nose, and the crests. 
 
 They were a touch different, of course. The colors had changed, the metal was not that shimmering steel, but a dull and dark metal I did not know. Nothing on their person was red, and the crests they bore spoke little resemblance to the image I had seen on this very screen so many times. 
 
 I knew them. 
 
 I *knew*. 
 
 The reporter shouted at the Prime Minister to go away, that he was making a mess of the entire event. People were undoubtedly already talking about his electoral history, where he went to school, and how he would undoubtedly be removed from office and hung in the streets for the debacle. 
 
 Then he paused, and let out a big boisterous laugh. 
 
 `` The fuck is wrong with this guy?'' my father asked, `` like the cat that ate the canary...'' 
 
 His language changed. 
 
 The visitors started but smiled and let out a merry laugh. Greek, as I would later learn. The Prime Minister was one of the few in the crowd who knew the language that they had left this planet with so many moons ago. 
 
 This is where moments begin to blur. 
 
 The group talked for several minutes, the Prime Minister acting as ambassador and translator for the entire human race. They exchanged pleasantries and discussed that time had moved much since their people had left this planet. 
 
 Diana, they had said, had taken their people from certain death at the hands of barbarians. Thrown them off of this world and into the cold, harsh embrace of Diana herself. 
 
 But they were back. 
 
 And they would regain all the had lost, with the Gods on their side. One or two of Earth's leaders responded that our own Gods would protect us. 
 
 The lead centurion let out a whistle that nearly pierced my eardrums. 
 
 Immediately, another figure came out of the cinderblock ship, scurrying down the ladder and catching a long slender object presumably thrown down by his cohorts. 
 
 He ran with the item towards the procession. As he moved closer, I heard the shouts through my screen, `` it's a spear! It's... is that blood?'' 
 
 As he covered two thirds of the distance between ship and human, he let loose the spear with a mighty throw. It sailed through the air, and many dignitaries took hurried steps away, several knocking down one another in the process. 
 
 But it was unnecessary, the spear hit mere feet in front of the visitor's own comrades. The lead centurion spoke words that needed no translation. 
 
 *War* 
 
 -- -- 
 
 They had never made it back to their ship. After drawing their swords and attempting to kill the Prime Minister himself, they were rapidly gunned down. More soldiers poured from the ship until the ground was littered with hundreds of dead. 
 
 Not a single one let himself be captured. 
 
 My father laughed, `` they think that can kill us? All this giant ships and moon-talk and shit, and they try to stab us?'' 
 
 For the next few days, this sentiment was shared widely and uproariously on news stations, radios, television, and the internet. They had been summarily defeated. No other ships landed, no attacks from the sky, nothing. 
 
 We did not realize what had happened until nine o'clock the next morning. 
 
 It was dark. 
 
 Dark as night. 
 
 Nobody quite believed it at first, these sword-wielding savages causing the night to continue into the day? How would they even do such a thing? But as the day wore on, we grew arrogant. 
 
 We brushed it off, as only humans can do. A day or two of darkness, is that all they can do? We will survive, we will thrive. We will go up their and get them. 
 
 Days turned into weeks. 
 
 Slowly, they began to confiscate our sattelites. Not destroying them, merely taking and moving them away from the Earth. Sending them out into space. Even the International Space Station was merely cast out into the Universe as if it were a leaf in the wind. 
 
 But that was the only act of aggression. 
 
 They continued the darkness for months, years... 
 
 Those who live in the darker corners of the Earth, who spend weeks without seeing but a ray of sunlight through the heavens, knew what would happen next. 
 
 -- -- 
 
 Many died, including my father. Struck dead by an disturbed man on the way from his carriage to the gate. As he lay there, bleeding on the ground, I knew my own mind was beginning to wander into the darkness. 
 
 Up in the sky, she hung there, as she even does today. All these days, all these years... 
 
 Even our sweet mother Earth has turned on us. 
 
 There is now but one constant in this new world: 
 
 *Hail Diana, Goddess of the Moon*
