History WMG / IndependenceDay

** This would definitely have been its most likely target seeing as it houses both Pope and all of the Vactian Cardinal members, that's a HUGE target for the aliens, I can't see them targeting anything else (Roman Colosseum while iconic, is mostly made of stone meaning that it wouldn't wipe out Rome if the aliens set their city destroyer on it and like the Eiffel Tower isn't interesting enough to see blow up) other than the birthplace of modern Christianity, especially if the Pope's there, that's a HUGE loss for humanity if the Pope dies.

** Though like St. Basil's Cathedral, the Eiffel Tower and St. Peter's Basilica, Azadi Tower doesn't appear to be surrounded by skyscrapers nor is it close enough to downtown Tehran, granted it's probably the only Iranian landmark.

** Unlike the Eiffel Tower, Tokyo Tower is much closer to downtown Tokyo, and let's face it seeing the aliens park their city destroyer above Mt. Fuji (an dormant volcano and Japan's main landmark) would look absolutely silly and nowhere near as damaging, the Diet Building is a bit closer to downtown Tokyo and actually houses the Japanese government which would make it a likely target.

* Pyongyang: No clue on who they could target in terms of landmarks, seeing as most of them are done by the Kim regime.

** Depends on if they did their research. [[SymbologyResearchFailure St. Basil's Cathedral]] is not very tall (it's slightly taller than the White House), though it is taller than the much-larger Grand Kremlin Palace. The aliens seem to gravitate towards tall buildings in general (the White House in Washington being a notable exception, but D.C. deliberately lacks skyscrapers, ''Film/TrueLies'' not withstanding, keeping it in the running). If they ''are'' looking for a tall building, Moscow's Mercury City Tower (the tallest building in Europe) wouldn't be completed for more than a decade, the same is true for the next several tallest skyscrapers in Moscow. That leaves the Triumph Palace, the mega-residential complex, as a possible target (which looks like something they would target too). The Moscow White House, which currently houses parliament, wasn't in use during that time, due the 1993 Constitutional Crisis.
*** It's either St. Basil's Cathedral or the Moscow White House (they're pretty close promixinity). My best guess it would be the former seeing as St. Basil's tends to have huge gatherings on a yearly basis, making it easier to kill as many civilians as possible, they can easily wipe out the Russian government.

** Seeing as the British Parliament is housed at the Palace, makes it a prime target, though the biggest question is which one would they choose to destroy: Big Ben or the Palace? They might need a bigger ship seeing as they're connected to each other.

*** The novelization mentions that the Paris ship parked its main weapon above Notre-Dame Cathedral, it also seems to appear in the film itself in a BlinkAndYouMissIt shot if one looks very very closely enough to what appears to be a familiar cathedral on one of the news channels, confirming that Notre Dame Cathedral was their main target since it's actually closer to downtown Paris, unlike the Eiffel Tower.

* Brussels: The Royal Palace (wiping out the Belgian Royal Family), or whatever the building they use to house the European Union.
* Rome: St. Peter's Basilia, maybe? It is to the west of the center, though.
** This would definitely have been its most likely target seeing as it houses the Pope and all of the Vactian Cardinal members, that's a HUGE target for the aliens, can't see them targeting anything else (Roman Colosseum while iconic, is mostly made of stone meaning that it wouldn't wipe out Rome if the aliens set their city destroyer on it) other than the birthplace of modern Christianity, especially if the Pope's there.

* Tokyo: Tokyo Tower.
** Unlike the Eiffel Tower, Tokyo Tower is much closer to downtown Tokyo, and let's face it seeing the aliens park their city destroyer above Mt. Fuji (an dormant volcano and Japan's main landmark) would look absolutely silly and nowhere near as damaging.

** Definitely see them targeting the Sears Tower seeing as it's right smack in the middle of downtown Chicago, much like the Empire State Building in New York City and the U.S Bank Tower in Los Angeles, making the Sears Tower a high target.

*** The novelization mentions that the Paris ship parked its main weapon above Notre-Dame Cathedral, it also seems to appear in the film itself if one looks very very closely enough to what appears to be a familiar cathedral on one of the news channels.

** This would definitely have been its most likely target seeing as it houses the Pope and all of the Vactian Cardinal members, that's a HUGE target for the aliens, can't see them targeting anything else other than the birthplace of modern Christianity, especially if the Pope's there.
* San Francisco: The Transamerica Pyramid.

** Depends on if they did their research. [[SymbologyResearchFailure St. Basil's Cathedral]] is not very tall (it's slightly taller than the White House), though it is taller than the much-larger Grand Kremlin Palace. The aliens seem to gravitate towards tall buildings in general (the White House in Washington being a notable exception, but D.C. deliberately lacks skyscrapers, ''Film/TrueLies'' not withstanding, keeping it in the running). If they ''are'' looking for a tall building, Moscow's Mercury City Tower (the tallest building in Europe) wouldn't be completed for more than a decade, the same is true for the next several tallest skyscrapers in Moscow. That leaves the Triumph Palace, the mega-residential complex, as a possible target (which looks like something they would target too). The Moscow White House, which currently houses parliament, wasn't in use during that time, due the 1993 Constitutional Crisis. (It's either St. Basil's Cathedral or the Moscow White House, my best guess it would be the former seeing as St. Basil's tends to have huge gatherings on a yearly basis, making it easier to kill as many civilians as possible.)
* Chicago: Definitely the Sears Tower (middle of the city, tallest around) assuming the Aliens cared to target landmarks at that point (Definitely see them targeting the Sears Tower seeing as it's right smack in the middle of downtown Chicago, much like the Empire State Building in New York City and the U.S Bank Tower in Los Angeles).
* London: Big Ben/Palace of Westminster (seeing as the British Parliament is housed at the Palace, makes it a prime target, though the biggest question is which one would they choose to destroy: Big Ben or the Palace? They might need a bigger ship seeing as they're connected to each other).

* Rome: St. Peter's Basilia, maybe? It is to the west of the center, though. (This would definitely have been its most likely target seeing as it houses the Pope and all of the Vactian Cardinal members, that's a HUGE target for the aliens, can't see them targeting anything else other than the birthplace of modern Christianity, especially if the Pope's there).

* Tokyo: Tokyo Tower. Unlike the Eiffel Tower, Tokyo Tower is much closer to downtown Tokyo, and let's face it seeing the aliens park their city destroyer above Mt. Fuji (an dormant volcano and Japan's main landmark) would look absolutely silly and nowhere near as damaging.

* Tokyo: Tokyo Tower. Unlike the Eiffel Tower, Tokyo Tower is much closer to downtown Tokyo, and let's face it seeing the aliens park their city destroyer above Mt. Fuji (an dormant volcano and Japan's main landmark) would look absolutely silly.

We saw the White House, Empire State Building, and whatever the building was in Los Angeles. Unseen in other cities:

** Depends on if they did their research. [[SymbologyResearchFailure St. Basil's Cathedral]] is not very tall, though it is taller than the much-larger Grand Kremlin Palace. The aliens seem to gravitate towards tall buildings in general (the White House in Washington being a notable exception, but D.C. deliberately lacks skyscrapers, ''TrueLies'' not withstanding, keeping it in the running). If they ''are'' looking for a tall building, Moscow's Mercury City Tower (the tallest building in Europe) wouldn't be completed for more than a decade, the same is true for the next several tallest skyscrapers in Moscow. That leaves the Triumph Palace, the mega-residential complex, as a possible target (which looks like something they would target too). The Moscow White House, which currently houses parliament, wasn't in use during that time, due the 1993 Constitutional Crisis.
* Chicago: Definitely the Sears Tower (middle of the city, tallest around) assuming the Aliens cared to target landmarks at that point.
* London: Big Ben/Palace of Westminster (seeing as the British Parliament is housed at the Palace, makes it a prime target, though the biggest question is which one would they choose to destroy: Big Ben or the Palace?).

*** The novelization mentions that the Paris ship parked its main weapon above Notre-Dame Cathedral, it also seems to appear in the film itself if one looks very very closely.

* Rome: St. Peter's Basilia, maybe? It is to the west of the center, though. (This would definitely have been its most likely target seeing as it houses the Pope and all of the Vactian Cardinal members, that's a HUGE target for the aliens).

* London: Big Ben/Palace of Westminster (seeing as the British Parliament is housed at the Palace, makes it a prime target).

** Though in actuality, if left to the film producers, it's overwhelmingly like that the Eiffel Tower (and St. Basil's Cathedral above) would be targeted, even if they weren't ideal for the aliens.
** The news footage showed it was not directly above the Eiffel Tower. Notre Dame, maybe?
*** The novelization mentions that the Paris ship parked its main weapon above Notre-Dame.

* Rome: St. Peter's Basilia, maybe? It is to the west of the center, though. (This would definitely have been its most likely target seeing as it houses the Pope and all of the Vactian Cardinal members).

* Tokyo: Tokyo Tower. Unlike the Eiffel Tower, Tokyo Tower is much closer to downtown Tokyo.

* London: Big Ben/Palace of Westminster

* Rome: St. Peter's Basilia, maybe? It is to the west of the center, though.

** Depends on if [[CriticalResearchFailure they did their research]]. [[SymbologyResearchFailure St. Basil's Cathedral]] is not very tall, though it is taller than the much-larger Grand Kremlin Palace. The aliens seem to gravitate towards tall buildings in general (the White House in Washington being a notable exception, but D.C. deliberately lacks skyscrapers, ''TrueLies'' not withstanding, keeping it in the running). If they ''are'' looking for a tall building, Moscow's Mercury City Tower (the tallest building in Europe) wouldn't be completed for more than a decade, the same is true for the next several tallest skyscrapers in Moscow. That leaves the Triumph Palace, the mega-residential complex, as a possible target (which looks like something they would target too). The Moscow White House, which currently houses parliament, wasn't in use during that time, due the 1993 Constitutional Crisis.

Thus, ID4 is set in the same verse as the Stargate franchise, just a different alternate universe. The Harvester invasion axed the eventual activation of the Stargate and the initial mission to Abydos that followed, and the destruction of NORAD as well as Cheyenne Mountain left the Stargate buried and the program killed in its infancy. The Harvesters hail from Andromeda, a domain completely untouched from dominance by the Wraith or the Goa'uld, so that the mothership seen in the first film is not one, but many. And the decision to construct a spaceship out of naquadah is not only practical for power generation purposes, but it makes a direct assault difficult due to the superconductive effects of naquadah, for any enemy attempting to bring them down with military force would surely result in the mass detonation of the ship's naquadah and rain fiery death down on the target planet. However, the aliens in this alternate universe became overconfident due to the primitive technology of Earth, and so kept their mothership in orbit of the moon instead of closer to the planet as protocol demanded, shielding Earth from cometary bombardment. But moments before the ship blew, the last Harvester in the control room sent a subspace signal which would reach the other Harvester ships and alert them to the presence of Earth. The scariest part to this whole WMG? That while the invasion was thwarted in this alternate universe, twice, it hasn't been thwarted by the Tau'ri, and the arrival of the first scoutship is imminent, with the invasion planned to occur sometime in the next 50 years.

** The novelization also mentions the loss of {{Pittsburgh}}.

As for the part about WillSmith's Capt. Hiller being President a few terms later, it's basically been ''confirmed'' that if Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin get the go-ahead to make a sequel, this ''will'' be the case as long as they can get WillSmith to return.

* Bonus Point if they make a reference to the novelization: "That guy strapped a machine gun and a bomb to his old duster cropper, downed two UFOs with that rusted piece of metal, and won the war for us"

Think about it. With all of the chaos that occurred, the government decides "Screw repairing Manhattan!" and throws the worst offenders in it. After Snake Plissken's little adventure, they finally start fixing things again. (Creator/AlanMoore, if you're reading this, feel free to use it in a LeagueOfExtraordinaryGentlemen segment).

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* San Francisco: The Transmaerica Pyramid.

[[WMG: In the sequel, the president will have a romance with an alien princess]]
* Why? because that's the stereotype and the film is full of stereotypes. Also, he has to overcome his wife's death in some point.

[[WMG: Post war Earth is under the rule of a single world state, the Aliens living in District Nine Ghettos.]]
* Overall causalties are realitivly low because the Cities where mostly evacuated. The surviving human governments band together in a loose federation to maintain order, rebuild, deal with the refugee crisis, and prepare for the next alien attack (this never comes as the Aliens where an autonomous migrant fleet which invade a planet, loot it and then take off.) Meanwhile not all the aliens died when their ships went down, so the new Earth Government is forced to do something about this new minority, and not willing to commit total genocide, build various ghettos around the world.

[[WMG: Postwar Earth, most of humanity is still alive]]

The aliens managed to destroy the first set of cities and most of their population because of the small window of time people had to escape. However, they apparently don't get to the next set of cities (which include Chicago and Houston in the Director's Cut) till the next day, giving citizens in most major cities time to escape.

In the United States in particular, New York, D.C., LA, Houston, and Chicago are confirmed to be destroyed, but as far as we know Phoenix, either San Francisco or San Diego (depending on which California city the aliens chose to target first after LA), Dallas, and Miami are all probably still intact.

Within the USA, Florida might be the best place to live if Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, Orlando, and Tampa are still intact.

It's possible also that Canada is doing relatively well. We don't know if the aliens targeted Toronto, but even if Toronto is gone, most of the rest of Canada could still be intact.

* And it wasn't like GenreSavvy people weren't making a beeline out of their cities in the HOURS they had to do so. If Jeff Goldblum's character and his Dad were able to get out of New York and drive to Washington, millions must have gotten out of New York alone.
** I always figured that the Dad lived outside NYC (New Jersey maybe?) and David was only able to leave NYC because he used a bike to reach his Dad.

* The Hiller part is jossed, but mostly because Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin ''didn't'' get Will Smith to return (Hiller [[spoiler: died in a flight-test accident]] in 2007).

[[WMG: Post-invasion Europe is dominated by the French-Italian Empire]]
Italy and France have a ''huge'' dose of resentment against anyone who believes them [[CheeseEatingSurrenderMonkey cowards unable to fight]], and their relationship tend to be that of VitriolicBestFriends.

Assuming the aliens attacked nuclear powers first due the results of nuking ground troops and lack of knowledge on their ships' ability to survive nukes, France was hit hard but in the end triumphed on their attacker with German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and Swiss help... And then most of the world believed it was the everybody but the French and the Italians who did all the job. A few months later [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis,_Prince_Napol%C3%A9on Louis, Prince Napoléon]] is elected Napoleon VI, Emperor of the French and the Italians to serve as a common leader.

Immediately after, Switzerland is crushed by the sudden attack coming from East and South, Austria surrender to the Italians when they bomb Vienna, Germany is overran by the French (with the Italians clearing the mountains after they crossed the Alps), Spain and Portugal get spared because they publicly admitted the French and Italian valour from the beginning, the conquered populations are so stunned and terrified by having their armed forces utterly crushed by the military {{Butt Monkey}}s of Europe that they join the Empire, and the rest of the world stop making CheeseEatingSurrenderMonkey jokes for fear of being next on the list.

Then they conquer Libya because Gaddafi tried to get compensations for the Italian occupation and swears when the Empire replies he still owe them money for the nationalized Italian industries, and retake the rest of the Italian colonial empire because Eritrea joins the Empire, Ethiopia tries to stop Eritrea and Somalian pirates mistook the carrier ''Garibaldi'' for a tanker and attacked.

** Jossed. The War of 1996 website shows that humanity put aside its differences and united in the wake of the attack. In addition, it's shown that Switzerland, Spain, and Portugal are the only European countries which didn't suffer any losses in the attack. With the loss of Brussels, Geneva probably became the new center of the European Union.

[[WMG: If the sequels happen, the destroyed cities will be at least partially rebuilt]]

If, as theorized above, we reverse-engineer the alien tech, it's not hard to imagine gigantic construction robots being developed to help with the rebuilding efforts.

[[WMG: In the sequel, the remaining aliens and humans must work to fight together against the zombies created by the nuclear waste created when they nuked Houston.]]

Forced into an alliance by the swarms of zombies, can they overcome the previous epic battle?
** Independence Day 2: Aliens vs Zombies