Maybe some alien civilization does know about us, but it slightly afraid since we spec’ed in the war tree instead of space travel.
They kept letting us advance our war machines until one day they needed us. To help stop a greater evil; since they went space exploration instead of guns
Long ago when I had free time to read, I read a boom with a very similar plot. The aliens were soft and balloon like and couldn’t fight but they had amazing technologies. They took the world’s best special forces and went to go fight the war
During the trip to the Area of Operations, the humans hacked the aliens computers. It was easy because the aliens thought humans were stupid. Like you wouldn’t put a very complex lock on a monkeys cage right?
The humans discovered the target was actually a peaceful race that had tons of resources the balloon aliens wanted.
Cannot remember the title, but thanks for reminding me of the slightly less shitty portion of my life. Peace.
Was it “The Damned Trilogy” by Alan Dean Foster by any chance?