text: The cities continue to fall. For aeons, we have fought the invaders. Our cities were great metropolises when they first arrived, and it seemed that we could fight them off. With our superior numbers and their small societies, we were sure their days were numbered. They could not communicate with our efficiency. Our networks allowed coordination of great armies against them, and they were confined to simple, local communication. Surely, victory was assured. But they were such giants. Even the great armies of entire city-states could only take down a few before they would escape. And they eventually learned to avoid them. We could send out expeditionary forces against them, but we would be lucky to strike down one or two of the massive aliens. And then the weapons came. We thought they were stupid beasts and that their only advantage over us was size. We had thought their poor communication was a sign that they lacked the intellect to construct more than the simple tools they so often used. We were wrong. They had incredible firepower at their disposal. Our expeditions grew less successful as they began to strike out at our forces with heat enough to cook them in their armor. Had that been all, it would have been a formidable threat. But they had more. They were able to reshape our lands with ease. They directed massive floods into our greatest cities, wiping the proof of their existence from the land in mere moments. We learned to move our cities underground. We left what proof of their existence we could not hide. Fresh air is necessary for life, and food suppliers needed to be able to ship in goods. But the smaller we could make ourselves appear, the more likely the aliens would leave us alone. Some of the great city-states still remain. They are isolated to the few parts of the world that have not been completely overtaken by the invaders. As for the colonies we have formed underground... When they are found, the invaders continue to find new ways to annihilate our people. Fire, flood, even landslides and great earthquakes... but it is the bioweapons that are the greatest threat. Our food supply routes can be tracked down. When they are, the invaders can arrange for poison to be introduced into the food supply without notice. Until it is too late. The birthing centers and government officials are the first to go. Then the rest die out. So many peoples lost. We remain. It is clear the aliens do not consider us a threat, but a nuisance. Our armor is useless against the kinetic force of their attacks. Our own attacks have become less effective as they have developed armor against them and treatments against the injuries left by our forces which would once have driven them to madness. The juveniles are more vulnerable, but it is rare to be able to mount a sufficient force even for one juvenile in most places. But they do not eradicate us, either. They have taken our world and consider us beneath them. Oftentimes, they are right in a literal sense. We have tried to go after their own food supplies, but their ability to bring in more, and so much, is beyond the abilities of all but our greatest legions. It doesn’t make sense. We have better armor. We have better communications networks. We have better trained militaries. But they have the better weapons. They have more food. And above all, they have size. Those great, heaving, horrific forms can stand taller than most of the cities that remain. We aren’t sure how gravity allows for such monstrous forms, but they have clearly paid heavy costs for their size. They are covered with huge musculatures and move so slowly. Most are unable to lift even half their own weight in our gravity. They communicate by great explosions of pressure rather than sophisticated speech like our own. Their senses are less acute, as well. They are not stupid, but their brains are certainly limited in processing speed by the sheer size of the bodies which must transmit the same neural signals our much smaller forms can do so much more quickly. But they are winning. They *have* won. We continue to fight, but we are beaten. Beaten by these brutes who move so animalistically, so stupidly. But because they are the victors, they think us the stupid ones. And they have a word for our people. It is small, like us, which is fitting. They call us, “ants.