Alien invasion (2035) 

For a list of alien invasions in film, television and literature, see Alien invasions in science-fiction. This article is for the widespread ongoing reports of aggressive unidentified flying objects in early 2035.

Talk: Alien invasion (2035) 

Article name issue

McGruff: I don’t like “Alien invasion (2035)” as a name, it’s not very Wikipedia in tone. We don’t know that they’re aliens or that it’s an invasion, and the “(2035)” seems really fatalistic. They didn’t call World War I “World War I” until there was a World War II.

BigG: it’s definitely an invasion, look

BigG: [Flying saucers level buildings in Manila! MUST SEE!] 

RationalSam: That footage hasn’t been verified but unfortunately, yes, it does seem to be a hostile incursion. There are credible sources showing attacks in North America as well. “Alien invasion” is a bit Hollywood though. Renamed the article “Suspected extraterrestrial hostilities (2035)”.

Naming consistency

RationalSam: Please maintain consistency when referring to the aliens and their spacecrafts: “suspected extraterrestrials” and “unidentified flying objects” is what we’re going with. The amount of references to “Martians” and “flying saucers” that I’ve had to remove over the last half-hour is concerning.

FYI the correct collective term for the alien spaceship battle fleet is “armada”, non-capitalized, e.g. “the armada arrived over the Philippines and sixteen thousand were killed in the first minute of hostilities”.

Population counts

Xanadu: is anyone else having an absolute nightmare updating each country’s page’s population counts? None of the death figures from any of the “official” reports match up and people keep editing them back and forth. Really frustrating! Thought you might have some advice here.

RationalSam: I find Worldometer to be the most reliable, or the one that links to the most sources at least. They were a godsend during the Covids.

Xanadu: I’ll put up an announcement saying to use their figures.

RationalSam: Just note that the figures from China, North Korea, and The Caliphate won’t be accurate, due to the lack of official reports.

Xanadu: the usuals, I know!

Article name issue

Electra: Renamed the article from “suspected” to “ongoing” extraterrestrial hostilities. It’s pretty clear now, especially after London and Lagos. We might want to consider removing the “2035” as well. It’s not looking like this is going to be ending anytime soon.

“Possible motivations” section

McGruff: Can I get a second opinion on removing the “Possible motivations for extraterrestrial hostility” section? It’s an absolute mess and full of awful sci-fi tropes, and it assumes the aliens share our values and have similar thought processes.

RationalSam: Ugh, I had been thinking that myself. Look at this: “The extraterrestrials may be seeking organic lifeforms to use for romantic or sexual purposes, or to implant eggs or larval parasites in. [citation needed]”

McGruff: I’ve been doing this for forty years, and I have never, never seen a citation more needed than that one. 

Plax: why not trim out all the weird stuff and lock that section down for further editing?

McGruff: Good suggestion. Removed all the unpleasantness and kept some speculative analyses from the UN and NASA, sources inc. of course.

Link to historical sightings – IMPORTANT!!

Fringe: Are we not going to address the fact that the Roswell alien was clearly a member of the same species? Look at these! 

1854574.jpg

Copy of roswell(1).png

McGruff: I don’t see the resemblance, and there is no indication that the Roswell alien is from the same species—or that it ever existed at all. Request to remove Fringe’s edit access, just in case.

RationalSam: Agreed and removed. Also removed several of their previous edits including strange allusions to the pyramids and Nazca lines in multiple sections.

Death toll figures

McGruff: What sources are you using for the overall death toll figures? I don’t know where 100 million is coming from, Reuters says 85 million so far and Worldometer says somewhere in the 80-95 range.

RationalSam: No figures, reports or satellite images have come in from Japan for a few days now, so I took a best guess based on fatalities in other countries that were badly hit and added these to the total. There’s a footnote for clarity.

Battle of Cairo – new section?

MidnightBass: suggestion that the Battle of Cairo become its own section rather than a row in the “List of largest extraterrestrial attacks by casualties” table. 

RationalSam: I’m not sure. We could open up a precedent for every major city that mounted a defence getting its own subsection. Cairo was different though, granted. What does everyone think?

McGruff: I think it would be better to have “List of largest extraterrestrial attacks by casualties” be its own page as well, and then the largest battles could have their own sections there.

RationalSam: Noted, any objections?

RebsOnFire: Can you really call it a battle?

Fringe2: It needs to be its own thing! They were going for the pyramids! 

McGruff: They weren’t. Cairo was a city of 15.9 million people. It was a big population centre and perfectly within the aliens’ MO.

RationalSam: Removed edit access for Fringe2.

“List of largest extraterrestrial attacks by casualties” table, tweak for insensitivity

Bella: I’ve removed “This list is incomplete: you can help by expanding it” from the top of the table.

RationalSam: Good shout. Similarly, removed the “In popular culture” section.

Description section – temporary removal

RationalSam: I know everyone is excited about the leaked images of a deceased alien, but can we please cool down on the “Description of extraterrestrial aggressors” section? I’ve hidden the section for now and provided a link to the Wikipedia page for the alien species; they have a long section there detailing the alien physiognomy and biology. 

Fisher: Thank you! Their skin wasn’t turquoise.

FonzieBear: it was!! You can see it on the picture!!

Fisher: No, the eyewitness testimony from the BBC clearly stated that the alien’s skin was a new colour that none of the witnesses could accurately describe—it only showed turquoise in the photos.

FonzieBear: Oh how convenient.

Apologies

RationalSam: Apologies for the lack of edits/updates on my end, we lost internet and power here for the best part of a week. It looks like I wasn’t the only one. Updated the “List of largest extraterrestrial attacks by casualties” table, death counts, and present-tense to past-tense changes for various politicians, public figures, cities, etc. 

BuffDeer: No problem! Hope you’re ok! 

RationalSam: thank you. We might want to think about contingency planning to keep this updated in the event of any further outages affecting some of us.

McGruff – anyone heard from him?

RationalSam: I know this isn’t really the place to ask this but has anyone heard from McGruff? He hasn’t made any edits for three weeks and he hasn’t responded to my Discord messages. He’s showing as offline.

Electra: I’m sure he’s just lost power or internet where he is.

RationalSam: Probably. Thank you.

Help needed – multiple edits

RationalSam: If anyone has some free time today I would really appreciate some help updating the “Nations currently under full extraterrestrial occupation” section. I’m way behind on updating population counts everywhere and de-alive-ing various people’s pages. It looks like a lot of the regulars are without power or broadband so I’m doing a lot of this on my own. 

RationalSam: Anyone? Bumping for different time zones. 

BuffDeer: Sure, I can help out today. I’ll drop you a message.

RationalSam: Thanks. Just be aware that Worldometer’s figures aren’t as accurate as previously: several countries haven’t been reporting for some time so a lot of the data is speculative. You’ll need to make sure you add footnotes to this effect as and when needed.

BuffDeer: No problem, got it. 

RationalSam: Hey, just wanted to get an update on those edits from yesterday. I don’t mind chipping in but I need to head out and pick up some supplies soon. 

RationalSam: Hello?

Checking in

RationalSam: Hey, not sure if any of the other regulars are still able to see this, and I can’t ask you directly with Discord being down but, just in case, I’m probably going to be without internet access for a few days. The National Guard are rounding up whoever’s left and moving us up into the mountains. The aliens seem to be more active during the day, so we’re moving in a convoy under cover of dark. If all goes well, I should be back online Thurs or Fri after they get us all set up. 

Anyway, I’ve updated as much as I could after what happened with POTUS and the VP, but there’s still a lot to do. If anyone could go through their articles and check for any pesky remaining present-tense references, I’d appreciate a second pair of eyes. 

I think they’re coming now, I can hear the engines. I’ll see you on the other side. 

Signing off 

RationalSam: Again, I’m not sure if anyone is reading this, but recording here just in case anyone manages to get a connection. The convoy was ambushed and half the trucks were vaporized before we knew what was happening. A few of us got away, but we got separated in the woods. 

I found this abandoned house with a generator that I managed to get working, but I can’t find any more gas for it. Once what’s in there is gone, I guess that’s it. 

Google’s down, which is crazy. All the news sites and social platforms, too. A server somewhere must still be running Wikipedia, but I can’t see that anyone has made any edits anywhere in the last week, except me. 

I’m going to stick my photo up on the front page and complete as many edits as I can before the lights go out. 

Last edited 7 years ago by RationalSam