Harvesters

> “Harvesters? Probably not a bad name for yet another weird extraterrestrial species. Tripodisian elders might be a better name for them.” - Mercury, Galactic of Guardians: Resurgence
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The **Harvesters** are a race of highly intelligent and technologically advanced hive-mind extraterrestrial beings from the movie *Independence Day*, and they serve as the primary antagonists in *Galactic of Guardians: Resurgence**.*

## **Background**

### **Physical Appearance**

Physically, they're no more durable than a Human being, but compensate this by being enclosed within a biomechanical suit that gives them numerous advantages. They have a slender, quasi-humanoid body with three-jointed limbs and only two digits on their hands and feet. The head is enlarged and flattened. They have large, pupil-less eyes (or eye-like organs) and the suit armor includes a number of long, grasping tentacles protruding from their backs.

Lacking both ears and vocal chords, the aliens communicate using a sophisticated form of telepathy. They are also able to control other beings, at least partially, by attaching tentacles to their necks, and apparently do this in order to communicate with non-telepathic species. This species breathes oxygen and requires similar environmental conditions to Humans.

Their hive-like society is ruled by a massive Harvester Queen, who exerts complete control over all of her fleet's soldiers.

## **Info**

They are a threat of universal proportions that seeks to harvest and destroy planets to refuel their ships, to grow, and to perfect their technology at the expense of driving indigenous races to extinction.

## **History**

### **Origins**

In an unspecified time in the past, the Harvesters presented themselves as a threat to the universe itself. Their entire civilizations invaded planets, exterminating all indigenous life and harvesting the planet's natural resources.

Among the many planets the Harvesters invaded was a highly-advanced civilization of trans-sentient beings, which they pushed to the brink of extinction. A single survivor of this race gathered other species and survivors from the worlds targeted by the Harvesters to form a coalition to oppose them.

For thousands of years, the Harvesters have been at war against this coalition and continue to remain at a stalemate, as the Harvesters cannot locate their enemies' planet of origin. Due to this, the Harvesters attempt to hunt down a sapient artificial intelligence known as the Sphere for its vital information on their enemies, especially for possessing the technology that could overcome the Harvesters.

The first recorded interaction between humanity and the Harvesters was in 1947, when a spaceship crashed landed on the Foster Ranch outside of Roswell, New Mexico. In the crash, two aliens were killed, while a third was seriously injured. The crashed ship, the two bodies and the injured alien were brought to a U.S. Air Force installation outside of Rachel, Nevada called Homey Airport (later known as Area 51). The survivor died within a matter of weeks. Over the next forty-nine years, scientists at Area 51 studied the vessel and the alien corpses. However, none of the ship's technology could be accessed.

Vietnam War veteran Russell Casse claimed to have been abducted and experimented on by the Harvesters in 1986. However, the veracity of these claims is debatable, and as such, Casse was largely dismissed for suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

On July 2, 1996, the Harvesters dispatched a mothership to Earth and began their invasion in what became known as the War of 1996. Arriving in massive, city-sized City Destroyers, the Harvesters used human satellites to relay signals between their vessels and coordinate their attacks, destroying nearly every major city in the world during their initial strike, including Moscow and Washington, D.C..

Crippled but determined to resist the invaders, human forces worldwide began launching numerous battles against their newfound enemies, with disastrous results. However, almost by accident, a weakness was discovered by David Levinson on the morning of July 4th. Hijacking the alien signal, David devised a plan to upload a computer virus onto the central computer of the Harvester mothership in orbit above Earth. In turn, this would deactivate the Harvesters' energy-shields and render their fleets vulnerable to attack, but only for a few minutes.

Flying to the mothership in the spaceship from the Roswell incident, Levinson and Captain Steven Hiller would successfully plant the virus and enable a massive coordinated attack against the Harvesters. Having also deployed a nuclear device on board the mothership, the duo was forced to make a quick and harrowing escape. Shortly afterward, the mothership was obliterated by the device, ensuring the disorientation and subsequent destruction of their fleets on Earth.

Although defeated, many Harvesters survived. Some managed to establish a level of resistance against humanity, but were ultimately either eliminated or captured by human forces. The remaining Harvesters were eliminated within days in the United States and Europe, but it took several months for the resistance in other countries to be eliminated due to a lack of air power. This proves especially true in the Congo, where the Harvester resistance fought for ten years before being eradicated. However, prior to their defeat, the Harvesters sent a distress signal into deep space, warning the rest of the species of their failure. Having to traverse many light-years, the transmission was received in 2016. The remnants of the Harvesters on Earth were all eradicated by 2006.

In July of 2016, the message was intercepted by the Sphere, which then traveled to Earth in an attempt to warn humanity of the impending attack. However, humanity mistook the alien A.I. for a hostile force and destroyed its vessel. Shortly after, the Harvesters led by their Queen, arrived in a massive mothership. Despite humanity's use of reverse-engineered alien technology and their preparation for a second conflict, the Harvesters effortlessly destroyed humanity's defenses and made their attempt to harvest Earth's molten core while also becoming aware that the Sphere is present on the planet.

In a desperate move, the Earth Space Defense, led by David Levinson, devised a trap to kill the Harvester Queen by luring her with a duplicate of the Sphere's "radioactive signature" into a trap laid with a cold fusion bomb. However, the Queen survived the trap and personally attacked Area 51, where the Sphere was located. ESD forces managed to destroy the Queen's personal shields and allowed ESD pilots led by Dylan Hiller to kill the Queen. With the sudden loss of their Queen and severely disoriented, the Harvesters retreated from Earth. This defeat allowed humanity to win the Sphere's approval in choosing them to lead the resistance and to finally end the Harvesters once and for all.

## Trivia

* According to this alien race, in the fan fiction sequel *Galactic of Guardians: Resurgence*, Mika Fellokij mentioned the Harvesters, which she spoke herself "The Sh'kwuas," which are the alias for the Harvesters or might be possibly a real name of their species.