I've seen plenty of alien invasion stories where humanity and the many different nations of earth set aside the conflicts and differences to unite and create a common front to defend themselves from invasion and extinction.
Are there any books where, despite aliens coming in to invade earth, humanity and the different nations and factions of earth don't/can't unite and are still squabbling and warring against each other? And maybe the aliens start playing these nations/factions against each other?
Also it doesn't have to be literal space aliens from outer space specifically, something like Pacific Rim's extra dimensional kaiju or the salvation war's literal armies of heaven and hell would be fine too.
by aftertheradar
3 Comments
Might be a bit off from what you’re thinking, but War of the Worlds: Goliath (2012 movie and novelization by Adam Whitlach) does something along these lines. Some of Earth unites as an anti-Martian alliance, and the rest of it decides to give World War One a go.
**Roadside Picnic** by the Strugatsky brothers puts an interesting spin on alien invasion stories: the aliens just didn’t care. They landed, dumped their trash at the landing zones, and took off again on their way to somewhere else. Governments have shut down the zones because now they’re littered with powerfully dangerous alien artifacts that no one comes *even close* to understanding. Meanwhile, a black market trade flourishes for items that have been illegally taken out by desperate scavengers.
The Fear Saga has some of this, due to the early landers inserting themselves into various militaries.