Race Military

"If you must blame anyone, blame the planners who sent a probe to this miserable world sixteen hundred years ago and assumed it would not change in the meanwhile. A probe a hundred years before we set out would have warned us and saved us much grief. I have already recommended that this be made standard practice in planning any future conquest fleets."

- Fleetlord Atvar, on the failed invasion of Earth

The Race, often referred to by humans as “Lizards”, are an intelligent species of bipedal reptilians from a planet in the Tau Ceti system, known simply as “Home” to the Race, who play a major role in Harry Turtledove’s “Worldwar” series of novels. The Race have existed as a unified one-planet empire for over 50,000 years, and are extremely conservative, viewing change as inherently bad, and embracing technological advancements only at a glacial pace. The Race are also highly imperialistic, having twice conquered alien races, the Hallessi and Rabotevs, both of which are of similar biology and were only at a medieval technology level when they were encountered. As such, while the Race have some more advanced technologies, such as cryostasis and sublight spaceships, their weapons have remained the same for 50,000 years, at a level roughly equivalent to Earth in the 1990s.

In 1141 CE, the Race launched a space probe to Earth, and discovered it to be a habitable planet with an indigenous species at a medieval technology level. Because of the slow pace of Race society, the longer lifespans of the race, and the amount of time needed to traverse the vast distances of space at sub-light speeds, the Race Conquest fleet did not arrive at Earth until 1942, where they were shocked to find that humanity had advanced significantly in the centuries since they launched the probe. While the Race won some early victories against the human countries, who quickly ended their World War and united against the race, the Race eventually found their numbers of troops and, in particular, advanced weapons, attritted by more numerous human forces. The war ended when the US, USSR, and German Reich developed nuclear weapons, and forced the Race to settle for a peace in which the Race retained some territories on Earth, but the US, UK, USSR, Germany, and Japan, as well as few smaller countries, remained independent.

The Race and humanity would co-exist on Earth for at least the next century, as the Race technological advantage began to slip, with the Race fighting a destructive nuclear war with Germany in 1965. Around the turn of the 21st century, the US launched a starship with similar capabilities to that of the Race on a decades-long journey to the Race homeworld, with a similar one later being launched by the Soviets. In 2031, the US designed a faster-than-light starship, which arrived at “Home” after fives weeks’ travel, proving humanity had definitively surpassed the Race.