Harvester (Independence Day)

The Harvesters are a race of sapient, space faring creatures which travel from planet to planet like a galactic swarm of locusts, devouring each world's natural resources before moving to the next one, bringing their entire civilization in massive ships.

History
Though it is unknown what time they came into existence, the Harvesters however were found to be the threat of the universe. This was due to their plague-like behavior and their need to harvest the resources of the worlds they encountered, leading to the extinction of the planet's inhabitant's. The creatures would eventually find themselves in an intergalactic war with a trans-sentient species who fought them for thousands of years. The Harvesters eventually fought the beings to the brink of extinction, but one survived and it begun forming a rebellion of surviving aliens whose worlds were obliterated by the Harvesters.

Since then, these creatures have searched for the surviving member of their all but extinct species and gain knowledge of the sanctuary planet where the rebellion is located. In 1947, an Agile fighter crash landed on Earth in Roswell, New Mexico and three pilots were found. Two died in the crash and the other died a few weeks after. Their ship was taken and undergone repairs, however no technology was taken from the vessel as no mothership was nearby to activate the vessel.

Overview
Physically, they are no more durable than a Human, but they do possess far superior technology, including enormous fleets of ships; defense fields to prevent missiles from reaching their ships' hulls; highly destructive weaponry and protective biomechanical suits.

The aliens have a slender, quasi-humanoid body with three-jointed limbs and only two digits on their hands and feet. Their head is enlarged. They have large, pupil-less reflective silvery eyes (or eye-like organs) and a number of long, grasping tentacles protruding from their suits' backs. Lacking vocal chords, they communicate using a form of telepathy. They are also able to control other beings, at least partially, by attaching tentacles to their necks. They apparently do this in order to communicate with non-telepathic species.

They travel around the galaxy in massive motherships, with the vessel from the War of 1996 was around 550 km (341.75 mi) in diameter. This ship can deploy numerous smaller, city-sized spacecraft. When invading an inhabited planet, the aliens' military tactics consist of large-scale attacks, destroying the major cities around the globe simultaneously and then heading to the next largest, presumably going on until there is nothing left. This species breathes oxygen and requires similar environmental conditions to humans, which is possibly the reason why they became interested in Earth in the first place. Although a single alien ship crashed on Roswell in 1947, the actual invasion only started in 1996. At the end, the attacking alien swarm was defeated but not before they were able to send out a distress signal notifying others of their species to their plight. Subsequently, the nations of Earth would establish new technology based off that left behind by the aliens. Ground battles would continue for another ten years until the last alien holdouts in the Congo were defeated. In 2016 the aliens returned to Earth to seek out revenge for their lost swarm.

Notable Members

 * The Mother

Technology
The technological standpoint of the aliens is clearly far more advanced to those of the humans and even their past enemies. They have mastered the usage of energy based weapons, deflector shields and even city destroying spacecraft. Despite their technological advancements, the computers have not been outfitted with anti-virus software which is what caused them to lose against the remaining human forces. The virus caused a major flaw in their systems which crippled the shields on all their vessels, even their mothership.

The technology of the species however is highly remarkable as it was designed not, in any way, to be dissected, but built upon. This is how humanity harnessed their technology to create what they call "Hybrid Technology". The aliens have also apparently have created ways to travel faster-than-light travel by either creating or harnessing wormholes to travel from solar system to solar system. One bit of technology they possess is the use of a cloaking device which was never seen on ships in the previous film, however the massive harvester ship possessed a cloaking device. The bio-mechanical suits of the aliens are also known to give them some durability, however the weak spot is their back where the tentacles are located. Hitting this with anything from a machete to an agile fighter blaster will cause the suit to open up, leaving the alien inside exposed to attack.

Behind the scenes
The aliens were designed by Patrick Tatopoulos. The movie was created by Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin, the same creators of the Stargate franchise. The creators stated that they wanted to create a different sort of alien invasion. While in most films the invasion starts furtively, with the aliens hiding in the countryside or secretly assimilating people with spores; the aliens from Independence Day are confident in their superiority, and start off in a real large scale assault, literally destroying all the world's major cities.