Over the past few days, I’ve been diving deep into creating a new piece of lore that’s been bouncing around in my head for a while, and I finally decided to put it all together. The story takes inspiration from Warhammer 40k, Hearts of Iron IV: The New Order, and Star Trek’s Mirror Universe. I also drew a little from the Independence Day saga to add that sense of alien threat and large-scale conflict. The goal was to imagine a timeline where humanity faces an overwhelming alien invasion, fights back with every ounce of strategy and willpower, and ultimately transforms itself into a galactic power. Hope you enjoy my ideas.

The Lore

In 1942, during the middle of World War II, a race of Reptilian warrior aliens, known as the Saurak, discovered Earth. Seeing that humans were too busy waging war against each other, they decided to take advantage of the situation. Humans didn’t even have time to stop fighting each other and try to unite into a common front before the Saurak had already conquered nearly the entire planet. The invasion was rapid and effective.

The occupation lasted for about thirty years. It was marked by mass killings, forced labor, and systematic exploitation of Earth’s resources. Entire industries were repurposed to serve the Saurak. Human workers were forced into mines, factories, and construction projects designed to fuel the occupiers’ war machine. Deportations of entire populations took place, with people relocated into controlled zones or work camps. Public executions, mass disappearances, and constant surveillance were part of daily life. Cities that resisted too openly were bombed into ruins and then rebuilt as military garrisons. By the late 1940s, humanity lived under total control.

In 1957, Dimitri Yazov, a former Red Army Cornell who had served during World War II, founded an underground resistance movement called the Human Black League, establishing its headquarters in Omsk, deep in former Soviet territory. The ideology of the Black League was militaristic, based on total war and the extermination of the Saurak. According to this ideology, humanity had to pass through a series of trials in order to ascend to greatness:

1. The First Trial: World War I.
2. The Second Trial: the Saurak invasion and occupation of Earth.
3. The Third Trial, also called the Great Trial or the Galactic Trial: the planned war of extermination against the Saurak across the galaxy.

Throughout the 1960s, the Black League expanded across occupied Earth. Underground networks grew larger, with cells in Europe, Asia, the Americas, and Africa. Smuggling lines were established to move weapons and information. The League eventually succeeded in stealing and capturing alien technology, including energy weapons and small vehicles. By the mid-1970s, the League had transformed itself into a global underground army.

In 1975, the League launched a worldwide uprising. Coordinated attacks erupted in dozens of major cities. Saurak strongholds were destroyed by explosives and captured energy weapons. Human militias rose in the countryside, cutting supply lines and targeting smaller Saurak garrisons. The rebellion quickly turned into a liberation war. The Black League enforced strict policies: no prisoners, no mercy. Every Saurak encountered was to be executed. After decades of oppression, humanity answered with absolute vengeance. By 1982, after years of bloody fighting, the Saurak were finally defeated and forced off Earth.

After liberation, humanity was united under the Terran Reclamation Government, a global militaristic authority. Its first priority was the systematic reverse-engineering of alien technology. Teams of scientists and engineers examined captured spacecraft, weapons, and power systems. Factories were rebuilt to produce energy-based weaponry, advanced vehicles, and experimental propulsion systems. From the early 1980s through the late 1990s, Earth’s industry was reorganized entirely for war and expansion.

With this new technology, humanity began constructing large-scale orbital facilities, shipyards, and military bases on the Moon and Mars. Fleets of starships were assembled, ranging from smaller strike craft to massive warships equipped with advanced energy weapons. Alongside these fleets, new weapons were created specifically for planetary assaults: orbital bombardment systems, armored landing vehicles, and automated drones. By 1999, humanity had become a spacefaring civilization prepared for interstellar war.

After years of preparation, the Terran Reclamation Government launched the Galactic Trial in 2000. Human fleets attacked the nearest Saurak colonies, targeting their military outposts, mines, and industrial centers. Each conquest followed the same principle: no survivors. Entire colonies were eradicated. Populations were wiped out, and the territory was taken under Terran control.

Over the following two decades, the campaign expanded deeper into the galaxy. Human fleets fought large-scale space battles against Saurak armadas. Planetary sieges were conducted, where human forces blockaded entire worlds until they were ready to land and exterminate the inhabitants. Former alien slaves belonging to other species that had been enslaved by the Saurak were liberated, armed, and integrated into the growing Terran war machine. The alien races who had been enslaved by the Saurak were seen by the League as reflecting humanity’s own past suffering under oppression, so they were welcomed, though inter-species relationships were forbidden in order to preserve humanity’s purity.

By the late 2010s, the Saurak Empire was collapsing. One stronghold after another fell to Terran forces. Their industrial bases were destroyed, their fleets annihilated, and their ruling structures dismantled. Humanity’s determination, combined with the systematic militarism of the Terran Reclamation Government, ensured that no Saurak survived.

By 2020, the Galactic Trial was complete. The Saurak species had been exterminated, their empire destroyed, and humanity had risen as a galactic power under the Terran Reclamation Government. Shortly after the completion of the Galactic Trial in 2020, Dimitri Yazov died of old age. He was given a State funeral with full honors and was proclaimed the greatest hero of humanity. Following his death, the Great Terran Empire was proclaimed, encompassing all the former territories of the Saurak Empire that had been conquered and purified by humans. The trials had been completed, and the ideology of the Black League had been carried to its final conclusion: the total destruction of Earth’s former oppressors.