bitch be cray • gale

They called themselves the Shepherds, and by the time they came, humanity had already lost.

Perhaps it was people's ingrained idea of what an alien invasion would look like. Perhaps the movies had given us the wrong expectations, prepared us in the wrong scenarios. Perhaps it was another thing they had taken into account. Because when the Shepherds came, it became evident they had been among them for a long while already. See, the Shepherds disliked open conflict (regardless of how good at it they were), so their invasion methods were geared towards minimizing the resistance of their prey as much as possible. Years before they showed their faces, decades even, they would ingrain some of their members into society, take control of the higher echelons, the movers and shakers, slowly undermining the structure in which everyday life was supported. Only when they were certain that their control was absolute would they appear in broad light, systematically destroying opposition from within. It had worked before. It worked on Earth.

Or it worked to an extent. While the Shepherds excelled at controlling the big, important variables, they had little to no experience in the smaller, wilder, harder to control ones. It so happened those hadn't mattered much before, the past civilization they had conquered had all but relied exclusively on their bodies of government, their economic titans, and as they reached higher levels of technological advancement they had forgone individuality. Humans weren't the case, and apparently among the few intelligent species capable of subversive behavior once the pillars that made their world fell. But for this the Shepherds had also a solution of sorts; as their ultimate goal was to collect and experiment in as much diverse genetic content as possible, they offered those that had been in power before the chance to regain their lost luxuries, even to improve upon them. All they needed to do was help them hunt and catch their more rebellious peers.

And so human turned against human, one side becoming the self-denominated High Ones something between pawns and prized possessions of the Shepherd, elevated to floating cities where compliance was the key to bliss. Some also took part in the Shepherd's experimenting, gaining new and strange abilities, turning less and less human in the pursue of power. The other side retreated to the remains of their destroyed civilization, barely scrapping by and succeeding only at not being wiped out, yet not at causing any real damage.

It's been thirty years and two generations of this losing war and for the first time a semblance of unity among the subversives is visible on the horizon. Technology from the floating cities has fallen into their hands. For the first time, the chance to actually hurt their oppressors, both human and alien alike seems a reality.

It should be understood that even if there is a resistance, there is no such a thing as a single united body, an identity that ties them together. There are factions, splinter cells, local groups that sometimes even fight among themselves. Even if the world has gone to shit, the human nature of infighting and backstabbing remained alive and well. Sometimes they would unite for the sake of reaching a singular goal, but for the most part the diverse factions remained separated and barely civil at best.

One of such factions is that of the so-called Orphans. True to their name, the Orphans are a group comprised mostly of the remnants of families that have fallen victim of raids and attacks from the High. A group mostly comprised of young people and a short life expectancy of its members, the Orphans easily ranked among the most violent and vicious groups, understandably so.

Assholes, the lot of them.

Or are they?

Yes they are.

Creepy calamari people.

No, not really.

I don't know.