Awesome / Worldfall

Considering the nature of the story, where modern humanity pulls out all the stops to stop an alien invasion, awesome moments are to be expected.

• Gil Eastwick, later known as God-Emperor of the Waves, surfing the Footfall wave from New Orleans to Nashville. And LIVING.
• Straha, as awful as he is, still gets points for masterminding the situation where he not only figures out how and what the Foot is intended to do, but arranges the mutiny in such a way that he is now the leader of the most technologically advanced species in the Tosev System. He then uses this- and Atvar's failures- to get himself elected to leader of the Conquest Fleet, coming close to winning the war.
• The post-Footfall Race offensive is one for humanity:
  • In the Iberian peninsula (temporarily turned into an island), the Race made a large headway, even coming into Portugal from the Mediterranean coast... Before being stopped by the weakest force involved and discovering just why "guerilla" is a Spanish word.
  • In Italy, the Race invaded Sicily with two million troopmales. Turns out, two million invaders with orbital support and a volcano erupting is not enough to defeat the Italians on the terrain they prepared their armies to fight on... Especially when they know how to better take advantage of the volcano and they have prepared an insurgency. By the time Operation Earth started, two thirds of the island were under Race control, at the cost of 200,000 dead. And the Italians still hadn't engaged their forces from the mainland, or used air support.
  • In France, their offensive from the Mediterranean coast toward Paris gets repeatedly savaged by attacks from tanks emerging from the forests and other hiding places... Then they send 200,000 troopmales (10% of the invasion force) toward Lyon, and the French break out the nerve gas. The attack on Lyon is annihilated, with the few terrified survivors spreading horror stories about what the Tosevites are willing to do to each other and wondering what they'll do to them.
  • In the US the Race tries to bisect the country... Then a large part of their invasion force is lured in an ambush at Route 55, and suffers massive losses in killercrafts before the USAF brings in everything that can drop a bomb and the US Army fires every gun they have in range at the ground force, before sending in their own tanks (including the M1A5, an M1 variant with better armor, a 140mm gun, and an autoloader) and troops. The invasion of the US was stopped cold, completely with conventional weapons and a few lasers.
• Veteran pilots from the Korean and Vietnam war volunteering to participate in Operation Earth, a massive worldwide counteroffensive against the Fithp and the Race.
  • Another moment of awesome for these pilots is that they were using the very planes that they flew in Korea and Vietnam, courtesy of the 309th AMARG group in Tucson, Arizona.
  • Word of God is that everyone is doing the same, giving old decommissioned planes to their old pilots after they volunteered for one last battle they knew was a suicide mission, just to shield the more valuable planes. All along the world.
  • The US recommissioned the Iowa-class battleships. And they take part in Operation Earth.
• Operation Earth: every single surviving human military force in the world, plus civilian volunteers (Mongolian civilians on horseback armed with weapons from the armories of the former Mongolian military are specifically mentioned) and Race and Fithp soldiers that defected or mutinied against Straha joining together for a coordinated counteroffensive against the invaders to wipe them out of the surface-and destroy the Conquest Fleet and the Thuktun Flishity too.
  • The South Koreans, helped by the JSDF, of all armies, crossing the North Korean border to take on the Race forces there.
  • In Pakistan, the Race forces are scared by a simple piece of intelligence: the Gurkhas are coming.
  • When the Race forces in the US are attacked from south by the Mexicans, the Brazilians, and others, there's the problem of the Fithp anti-air lasers. How is it solved? Shelling from the battleships. By the time Straha orders an orbital bombardment and force them to retreat, not only the problem is solved, they were already hitting bases, tank columns, and everything else.
    • Why Straha ordered the orbital bombardment: the Race had sent killercrafts first, but their weapons, meant for anti-tank jobs, had no effect on the thick armor of the battleships.
    • The end of the Missouri: as the targeting lasers come down the ship charges, getting on her the entire attack and covering the retreat of the Massachusetts, the carriers, and the escorts; then the ship is hit from orbit and survives two hits; as they wait for the final attack, the crew discovers they have a Race starship and a digit ship in range, so, while most of the crew abandons ship, the remaining guys wreck those targets too before the digit ship scores the third orbital bombardment hit; as their ship survived that too but was critically damaged, the remaining crew charge into Galveston Bay, when the ship finally explodes with the force of a tactical nuke and finishes off the local base (one of the largest); as the currents had brought the crew near the shore, the surviving Race troops start shooting them, sure they were safe as the sea was too shallow for the Massachusetts to come close, and that's when the USS Constitution, brought there to symbolically start the shelling, comes for the rescue and effectively broadsides the enemy to shreds, as well as managing to pretty much tank the Race's APCs, only needing some patchwork afterwards. Ol' Ironsides indeed!
  • The counterattack in France: six millions between French, Germans, British, Russians, and Poles together against less than two millions Race troopers fighting desperately due the memory of Lyon, and giving them the beating of their lives. In particular, the Poles finally, thanks to their performance against the invaders, managed to end all the jokes about themselves and their dubious fighting abilities once and for all.
  • Planes from North Africa and the Race defectors cleaning out the skies of Straha loyalists over Spain and Portugal. At the same time, the North African forces launch their own counteroffensive, reaching up to Nigeria before the orbital bombardment starts.
  • After the first two hours, the Race manages to stop the human offensive thanks to orbital bombardment and launch a counterattack... That then suddenly stops due the real hit from Operation Earth: the spaceships have taken off. Turns out, the ground offensive was just to lure the digit ships out of position to counter that attack before it became lethal...
  • The counterattack in Sicily: between the main force of the Italian armed forces, Russian reinforcements, and fighters from Tunisia, the island was taken back before the orbital bombardment started. And when the surviving Race forces tried to take refuge in the mountains... Let's just say it hadn't been a bright idea for them.
    "Never go in against a Sicilian, when death is on the line."
  • The attack of the Earth spaceships, including the refitted space shuttles, against the Conquest Fleet and the Thuktun Flishithy, with the Michael single-handedly defeating the Conquest Fleet. But the Thuktun Flishithy is well-armed and fast, and is preparing to escape... And that's why the Atlantis rammed her in the engine at ten kilometers per second, slowing the enemy mothership enough for the warships to come into range.
  • Atvar loyalists troopers on the Thuktun Flishithy casually freeing the prisoners in the middle of the battle.
  • The exchange between Straha and the attacking ships:
    He told me to tell the ships that if they continued with their present course and failed, he would go to the asteroid belt and return with a moon. He vowed that he would rescind his previous mercy, and immediately move to scour the planet, whether it be by the remaining explosive metal bombs, or the orbital bombardment.
    The reply from the ships was 'if'.
  • As Straha has his Villainous Breakdown, Joshi, the human prisoner he was using as translator, finally has enough of him, and beats him into a pulp and almost kills him before she's pulled away. By that single act, a human woman ended the war, as the Fithp's reaction was to name her herdmaster and she immediately ordered the 'fi to surrender.
    • Examine carefully the words she used to describe what she did. It includes the words "Kicked him in the chest and stomped." The ones who pulled her off of him were 'fi. The traditional method of surrender for the 'fi is to place your foot on your opponent's chest or stomach. Joshi unintentionally becomes the Herdmaster because she followed the very rules Straha used to take control of the 'fi.
    • Also a minor moment of awesome to the 'fi, who took a big risk here. Reading carefully, the 'fi on the Message Bearer were clearly done with this ginger-addled lunatic who was screaming about glassing the Earth- the prevention of which was the exact reason that the 'fi got involved in the war to begin with, by the way- and the breakers of the prisoners clearly let the prisoners out to help in that endeavor. Then this ape starts stomping on their herdmaster's chest, and they take it as a loophole.