"We knew they were out there, the equations all pointed to the fact that we weren't the only ones in this universe. But we pushed it back, it was something the scientists and philosophers bothered themselves with, to us it was just another statistic, a number to remember and bury deep within our collective subconcious.
So clearly we weren't prepared for this, not even the military, not even the scientists, they were as shocked as we were.
The first contact, and on that world at that, it was an event that changed the world, and in more than a single way.
The fact that they were hostile wasn't much of a shock, all the movies and games prepared us for a big and nasty universe. What we weren't prepared for was a scouting party, that consisted of a single creature, that managed to level half a continent before being put down by several nuclear weapons.
That was the punch that sobered us, made us realize, we were nothing but a fly waiting to smack into the wrong windshield and be splattered into nothingness never to be remembered, never to be pitied.
But I guess that's the way life is, survival of the fittest, adapt or go extinct, it's just that we are so used to being the top dog it'll take us a while to get used to the bottom of the food chain."