A devastating energy beam strikes the Earth instantly killing a sixth of the world population Deemed to be a premeditated attack by aliens from a distant planet a Serbian scientist named Jsana Juric and a Japanese army colonel named Takeshi Nakamura gather a group of orphaned children who survived the disaster to become lethal soldiers trained to invade the hostile planet in hopes of preventing a repeat attack Divided into teams the children get to know each other and begin to understand that surviving the training will itself be a brutal test Lives are sacrificed and difficult lessons are learned all in the interest of turning children into hardened killing machines One such impressionable child is Jonas Meanwhile in a parallel storyline set in the future a ground invasion force reaches the alien planet from which the energy beam supposedly originated Before setting foot on the planet every soldier receives a vaccine to combat the deadly radiation on the planet a course that must be repeated every day The battles are tough and the human forces suffer massive casualties until a team of five soldiers appear and make short work of the aliens These five heroes are Jonas and his companions—the "Orphans" A massively popular series by Italian authors Roberto Recchioni and Emiliano Mammucari this series has spawned five spin-off series (or "seasons")