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The Harvesters were an alien race that wiped out civilizations, from planet to planet. They debuted as minor antagonists in ID4: Independence Day, and the secondary antagonists Independence Day: Resurgence. Overall, they are the foremost antagonists in the entire Independence Day franchise.
History[]
Backstory[]
The Conquest[]
Though it is unknown what time they came into existence, the Harvesters however were found to be the threat of the universe. This was due to their plague-like behavior and their need to harvest the resources of the worlds they encountered, leading to the extinction of the planet's inhabitants. The creatures would eventually find themselves in an intergalactic war with a trans-sentient species who fought them for thousands of years. The Harvesters eventually fought these beings to the brink of extinction, but one survived and it begun forming a rebellion of surviving aliens whose worlds were obliterated by the Harvesters.
Since then, these creatures have searched for the surviving member of their all but extinct opponents and gain knowledge of the sanctuary planet where the rebellion is located. In 1947, an Agile fighter crash landed on Earth in Roswell, New Mexico and three pilots were found. Two died in the crash and the other died a few weeks after. Their ship was taken and undergone repairs, however no technology was taken from the vessel as no mothership was nearby to activate the vessel.
War of 1996[]
On July 2nd 1996 a huge Colony ship about 1/4 the size of the moon arrived in the Sol System and made it's way to Earth. It stopped outside of the Earths atmosphere and sent many smaller city destroyer ships to wipe out all of Earths major cities. The City destroyers did not attack at first, instead they went above many major cities including Washington dc, Moscow, Paris and many more. Then every ship fired it's primary weapon destroying most capital cities and more. All the counter offensives failed because of the ships shields. Even nukes were ineffective. However then David Levinson came up with the idea to implant a virus into the alien mothership using the ship that crashed in 1947. With the shields gone they could also take down the city destroyers. This plan worked as Steven Hiller flew the ship into the mothership and Levinson was able to upload the virus. Although missiles were still relatively ineffective against the ship's armor. A pilot flew into the center of a city destroyer over area 51 just as it was about to fire its primary weapon. This caused the ship to effectively destroy itself as the weapon impacted a target too close. Discovering that this was the way to defeat them, word was soon spread around the world on how to defeat the city destroyers. Meanwhile in the Mothership Captain Miller and Levinson were able to fire the nukes directly in the center of the mothership. The firing caused their ship to come loose and they had 30 seconds to fly out before the mothership exploded. They were just able to escape and the mothership blew up behind them. Back on earth City destroyers were going down all over the world, as the word had been spread on how to defeat them. Although the aliens were defeated, the war had costs millions of lives and 108 cities were destroyed as well as 35 more badly damaged.
Aftermath of the War[]
Although the aliens had lost their mothership and city destroyers, many of them survived and began fighting a Resistance war against the humans on the ground. In The United States and Europe the aliens were eliminated within days but in other less developed countries destroying the aliens took many months and even 10 years in Congo. This gave them enough time to send a distress call to to other aliens. Leading to the war of 2016.
War of 2016[]
In 2016 exactly 20 years after the 1996 war, Earth's Harvester Queen received the distress call and began making her way towards Earth wanting to finish what her species started in 1996. Wanting revenge she came with her own ship but this one was about the size of the Atlantic ocean. To begin their attack, the Harvesters started to use the gravity of the ship to lift objects and buildings up from places around the world and drop them on other places.
Overview[]
Physically, they are no more durable than a Human, but they do possess far superior technology, including enormous fleets of ships; defense fields to prevent missiles from reaching their ships' hulls; highly destructive weaponry and protective biomechanical suits.
The aliens have a slender, quasi-humanoid body with three-jointed limbs and only two digits on their hands and feet. Their head is enlarged. They have large, pupil-less reflective silvery eyes (or eye-like organs) and a number of long, grasping tentacles protruding from their suits' backs. Lacking vocal chords, they communicate using a form of telepathy. They are also able to control other beings, at least partially, by attaching tentacles to their necks. They apparently do this in order to communicate with non-telepathic species.
They travel around the galaxy in massive motherships, with the vessel from the War of 1996 being around 550 km (341.75 mi) in diameter. This ship can deploy numerous smaller, city-sized spacecraft. When invading an inhabited planet, the aliens' military tactics consist of large-scale attacks, destroying the major cities around the globe simultaneously and then heading to the next largest, presumably going on until there is nothing left. This species breathes oxygen and requires similar environmental conditions to humans, which is possibly the reason why they became interested in Earth in the first place. Although a single alien ship crashed on Roswell in 1947, the actual invasion only started in 1996. At the end, the attacking alien swarm was defeated, but not before they were able to send out a distress signal notifying others of their species to their plight. Subsequently, the nations of Earth would establish new technology based off that left behind by the aliens. Ground battles would continue for another ten years until the last alien holdouts in the Congo were defeated. In 2016 the aliens returned to Earth to seek out revenge for their lost swarm.
Notable Members[]
Technology[]
The technological standpoint of the aliens is clearly far more advanced to those of the humans and even their past enemies. They have mastered the usage of energy based weapons, deflector shields and even city destroying spacecraft. Despite their technological advancements, the computers have not been outfitted with anti-virus software which is what caused them to lose against the remaining human forces. The virus caused a major flaw in their systems which crippled the shields on all their vessels, even their mothership.
The technology of the species however is highly remarkable as it was designed not, in any way, to be dissected, but built upon. This is how humanity harnessed their technology to create what they call "Hybrid Technology". The aliens have also apparently have created ways to travel faster-than-light travel by either creating or harnessing wormholes to travel from solar system to solar system. One bit of technology they possess is the use of a cloaking device which was never seen on ships in the previous film, however the massive harvester ship possessed a cloaking device. The bio-mechanical suits of the aliens are also known to give them some durability, however the weak spot is their back where the tentacles are located. Hitting this with anything from a machete to an agile fighter blaster will cause the suit to open up, leaving the alien inside exposed to attack.