If there are any folks out there that recall the series “Muv-Luv Alternative: Total Eclipse”, this series is the prequel to it. “Schwarzesmarken” (“Black Marches”) takes place 18 years earlier, across East Germany, when humanity thought they still had a chance to win. Let’s back it up a bit for the new ones.
In 1958, oddities were noted on the surface of Mars, but no one paid it any heed. These oddities got to the moon by 1967, got identified and the fight began. They landed on Earth in 1973 and things really took off. And who are they? They are the BETA, which stands for “Beings of the Extra-Terrestrial origin which is Adversary of human race”. I guess. I mean, we could have easily called them “Terrible, Ugly, Rapacious, Destroying Space-types”. Anyway, there are eight caliber of these BETA, but we usually see the Grapplers, Tanks, Soldiers and Lasers. They all can be destroyed, but their advantage is sheer numbers.