The alien armada approached earth, an advisor being brushed off by a general “Oh please, the humans only invented air-travel a hundred or so cycles ago, how advanced could they be?”
The general seemed to be right, at first. All the humans in the city we’d decided to conquer first were quick to flee, surrender or be killed…but over time, we noticed pushback as we tried to conquer the human’s home world, and it was getting stronger with every city and town we successfully took over. “It’s normal!” The general assured “All the civilisations we’ve conquered resisted for a while before they crumbled.” The general led us to another city the next day and it was fairly routine…until I heard one of our soldiers cry out and I looked over just in time to see them collapse dead at a female woman’s feet, who looked shocked and relieved before turning to her young and saying something to them before reluctantly parting from them, advancing towards another soldier as I noticed other human civilians grabbing weapons, emboldened by seeing one of us fall. It wasn’t long before we were forced to retreat from that city, such was their boldness and ferocity. Soon after, we began losing cities and towns we’d conquered, faster and faster as the free humans encouraged our captives until we were back where we’d started “I told you we shouldn’t underestimate them!” I exclaimed in the privacy of our headquarters “This is a minor setback, they happen sometimes.” The general assured, but I pleaded that we either surrender or retreat nonetheless. Within the week, the general was dead and arrangements had been made for a peace treaty to be negotiated. “How advanced could they be” Indeed.