Enjoy!
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Humanity has made its first great strides into the production of antimatter. This fuel source is so powerful that it's creation emits radiation in ways that the humans have never even dreamed of. So, even though we have only made single atoms of anti-hydrogen in our laboratories, the creation of antimatter lit what amounted to a massive signal beacon for the more advanced civilizations out there.
In essence, we accidentally drew the attention of everyone.
This was quite a shock, as Earth was on the outskirts of the western spiral arm of the galaxy, by far the most distant system from the galactic core to ever develop life, and the first in our entire quadrant in recorded history. And galactic recorded history goes back hundreds of millions of years. Scoutships weren't even sent this far out, because it was assumed that there was nothing out this far but dead rocks and proto stars.
It was decided amongst the intergalactic council of ministers that we wearn't ready to join the intergalactic community. As a species, we were too warlike, too aggressive, and not nearly unified enough in our goals. We were dangerous, and worse, we already had a planet full of weaponry because we were constantly trying to kill ourselves.
Plans were put into effect to quell the 'problem' of humanity with overwhelming force.
Five more earth years, it took. To build the assault fleet. But when it was completed, the galaxy had seen no larger fleet of warships rallied behind a single purpose. There were two hundred picket cruisers, basically gun platforms with rudimentary engines attached, with crews of 25 and enough firepower each to take on ships three times their size.
Behind those were the battleships. At least a hundred of them, each one as big as five picket cruisers, bristling with enough weaponry to glass over a medium sized planet. Slow and powerful, the battleships were capable of taking a lot of punishment, so they would serve as the main line defense force that would hold the line during the battle.
After the battleships came the carriers, all fifty of them. The size of battleships, but with minimal weaponry. Instead from their nearly hollow, cavernous hull would boil hundreds of thousands of tiny, single pilot, drone craft. These clouds of fighters were all linked to massive mainframes on their carriers, allowing them to operate with unparalleled efficiency.
Behind the carriers were the big guns. The War Cruisers. Massive vessels, easily the larges vessels in the fleet, by a factor of ten, with nearly impenetrable armor and the expected assortment of standard weaponry. What made these behemoths truly fearsome, however, was their megapulse laser system. Taking up the entire center spar of each monstrous craft, the megapulse laser fired a beam of pure energy so large and powerful that they could crack entire planetoids in half. This system could only be used once before draining all power from the ships reactors. But that wouldn't be a problem, as there were five of these mammoth war machines.
The fleet was a thing of beauty. Enough destructive force to conquer the entire western spiral arm of the galaxy, all assembled to annihilate one planet. The sleek silvers and greys of the ships practically gleamed with anticipation of the battle to come.
With great ceremony and a few really stirring speeches, the fleet was launched. This was it. The most powerful force the galaxy had ever seen was off on its mission to destroy the most unstable race that had ever posed a threat to the more civilized species of said galaxy.
The trip took almost a full year. That's how far out our solar system is from the core of the galaxy. There were some rudimentary scientific studies done aboard the fleet, mostly to due with the curious phenomenon that planets and stars grew exponentially larger the further they got from the core. This was mostly ignored, however. This was a fleet of war. The science could wait until the fighting was over.
When the fleet got within a five light years of our system they went into full stealth mode. Erecting a cloaking field that would keep them blind, but would also keep them completely hidden from the eyes of the human defenders until the fleet was on top of the planet.
It took weeks. Running dark, concealed by the cloaking field, but the fleet eventually breached our inner solar system. The order was given, the cloak was dropped, and the fleet had arrived. One second there was the blankness of space, the next there was a riot of grey and silver as hundreds of warships emerged from the cloaking field, screaming down towards the blue-green ball that is the earth.
Their weapons were hot and they began firing even before their cloak had dropped, so that their first volley was hitting the upper atmosphere as the fleet emerged.
It is unknown when the commanders realized their mistake. Perhaps it was when the cloak dropped and the earth was thousands of times bigger than had been estimated. Perhaps it was when the first volley of screaming energy from their cannons was absorbed harmlessly by the planetary magnetic field that was registering as many orders of magnitude bigger than anything they had ever seen. Perhaps it wasn't even until the entire fleet was caught in the unthinkably steong gravety well of the earth and began falling towards the atmosphere.
In the end, it was a costly mistake. The humans and their planet were veritable giants to the core worlders. Most of the fleet disintegrated in the friction of the upper atmosphere, but a good portion of the picket cruisers managed to veer off of the main flight path. Sensor blind from the intense heat, the cruisers burned their entire fuel reserves trying to make for orbit. They succeeded in arresting their descent, only to be instantaneously crushed when they collided en-masse with the massive solar panel of a human communication satellite. Knocking the satellite slightly off course temporarily and leaving a football sized scorch mark on the panel.
The fleet to end all fleets had arrived and been destroyed in a matter of minutes. Due to a miscalculation of scale, the only adverse effect they caused was a thirty second loss of signal during the end of a decidedly heated futball batch between Brazil and Guam.
Predictably, this caused a riot wherein three people were killed by being trampled to death in the streets. So the intergalactic council of ministers can probably count those three casualties as proof that the mission wasn't a TOTAL waste.
Right?
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I'm trying something kinda new this time, but I think it's really unpolished. I'm trying for serious right up ntil the punch line, so the joke becomes even more funny due to the surprise factor. Oh well, it's a work in progress. Let me know what you think in the comments!
Until tomorrow, lovelies!
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