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[Dash_Riprock]

This is one of the reasons why, for all its many other faults, I love the premise of the Gundam 00 movie, where the alien invasion is completely unintentional and the aliens are invading/assimilating us because we are so alien to them that they're just trying to understand us better, not comprehending that doing so kills us.

 

[Mr_Appleby]

Any more recommendations? The Word for World is Forest and Footfall sound awesome

Invasion stories? Off the top of my head there's David Brin's Existence, which is a sort of post-internet alien-invasion/Fermi paradox thing. Octavia E. Butler's "Dawn" in which the aliens turn up to rescue the remnants of humanity after a nuclear war, and Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End subverts the classic invasion narrative in a few ways.

Oh also Piers Anthony's Triple Detente which has simultaneous mutual invasions as a method of maintaining peace. Though it's not so good a novel as the others.

 

[IHaveIce]

Gonna be honest with you.

It's a reflection of human nature.

When WE develop the technology to travel to other worlds and find planets with intelligent life, WE are gonna go there and fuck with them, take their planet and go full genocide just because WE can.

This is correct

 

[GhostTrick]

Aliens would discover how to bend the laws of physics, and travel billions of miles just to fuck with a bunch of hairless bipeds?

If they wanted resources, they have FTL travel surely they can find whatever they need in easier forms out in space?

If they wanted a new home, surely it would be easier to find a place where you don't have to worry about the locals?

The only scenario that works is some "To serve man" type shit

Wtf did you say about my hair ??? :<

But yeah, as some people said, it's basically what we would do. :")
I also feel like aliens (or even zombie) are antagonists that anyone from any ethnicity can be against, without sounding a racist cliché like we'd have in the classic cinema with the native americains, the russian communist, the arab terrorist, the african dictator and such.

 

[CosmicGroinPull]

I dunno know. Whadda do you think?

 

[KO Traveling Hobo]

They come to party

why is Clark Kent dressed like Fred Flinstone
why are there modern stripper cops in Bedrock
why does that alien have spaghetti in his soda cans
is this real life

 

[Zakalwe]

Humans are arrogant and their stories are also arrogant. Human communication is basically just navigating a topology of ego.

No, but your own post is quite arrogant.

It's also very untrue. We tell plenty of stories that aren't this way.

 

[CaviarMeths]

If Alien invasion movies are often an allegory for colonialism/imperialism, how come none of the aliens ever try to convert humans to their religion?

 

[Saint of Killers]

Aliens would discover how to bend the laws of physics, and travel billions of miles just to fuck with a bunch of hairless bipeds?

If they wanted resources, they have FTL travel surely they can find whatever they need in easier forms out in space?

If they wanted a new home, surely it would be easier to find a place where you don't have to worry about the locals?

The only scenario that works is some "To serve man" type shit

They should do one of these films where it turns out we're the stopover on the way to invader's real target. I can just see certain "news" outlets losing their shit over the reveal.

 

[jwk94]

Couldn't you apply that same logic to how/why the Europeans came to the Americas?

They should do one of these films where it turns out we're the stopover on the way to invader's real target. I can just see certain "news" outlets losing their shit over the reveal.

How would that even work? Stopover for fuel or something?

 

[Steel]

Sometimes you just need to make room for a new galactic highway, ya know?

Couldn't you apply that same logic to how/why the Europeans came to the Americas?

No, not even comparable. There were definitely logical economic reasons for the Europeans to exploit the Americas. As fucked up as it all is, they didn't do it just for shits and giggles. An ftl capable race would have no use for Earth from an economic standpoint. At best they'd be able to get alien pets.

 

[caliph95]

Sometimes you just need to make room for a new galactic highway, ya know?



No, not even comparable. There were definitely logical economic reasons for the Europeans to exploit the Americas. As fucked up as it all is, they didn't do it just for shits and giggles. An ftl capable race would have no use for Earth from an economic standpoint. At best they'd be able to get alien pets.

Maybe a glactic parking spot and if they consider us lower probably zoos, parks, hunting game

 

[Shaanyboi]

Because there's nothing quite like an alien invasion movie where aliens don't actually involve themselves with humans

 

[Lupercal]

Most aliens probably need the same stuff we need, sunlight, oxygen, food.
Some defenseless humans with a perfect planet = win.

 

[Easy_D]

Most aliens probably need the same stuff we need, sunlight, oxygen, food.
Some defenseless humans with a perfect planet = win.

We got enough weaponry to ruin everything pretty good though, aliens warring with us would at best have a barren planet left to scavenge lol

 

[Deleted member 20920]

I always liked the "autonomous war machines endlessly at war even after their creators are long dead" angle

I like the idea that they're still around somewhere, but they're so remote (and there's no FTL) that they don't know or care that there is an endless war being fought on their frontier by a self replicating army, sometimes against other variations of the exact same thing.

That's similar to the overarching mythology of FFXIII.

 

[Oyashrio-Sama]

Hollywood always uses the same reasons but they make no since.

Harvest Natural Resources - Almost nothing on earth is unique. Water is like the most basic and abundant compound in the universe. There is no minerals that you could not find in more abundance in single asteroid then the entirety of earth in our own solar system. The only thing that is of any actual value to harvest is DNA and you can get that with a cotton swab. They could use nano machines to collect sample of all DNA on earth and we would never know.

Enslave us - What the hell for? We have trouble getting to our own moon but even most of our big company are replacing humans with machines. Any civilization advanced enough to have interstellar travel would have moved past having any sort of biological workforce. Humans are weak as hell. Why would you use a soft, fleshy being that could die easily when you have a robot workforce that never tires, needs to eat or sleep, and could do 100x the work in 1/100th the time it would take a human to do?

Need us for food - We can grow meat in labs, A civilization with FTL travel would have solved food problems centuries ago. They would have 3d printed super-food or something.

They want our planet - They would most likely have the capabilities to terraform any planet they choose and then clone what ever animals and plants they want. They would have to be complete dicks to choose a already inhabited world to set take. Hell they probably have nano bots that could go to an uninhabited solar system harvest all the planets to create there own artificial rouge planet to use. Why buy a used house when you can build and design your own mansion.

The whole point is that any civilization that has such advanced technology like FTL travel would have solved any and all problems with physical needs that they would have had before then. Hell, they could have ditched biological bodies altogether and uploaded there minds into a sun encompassing super computer where they have made a version of reality that is to them what heaven would be to us.

 

[Chuck Norris]

Aliens would discover how to bend the laws of physics, and travel billions of miles just to fuck with a bunch of hairless bipeds?

If they wanted resources, they have FTL travel surely they can find whatever they need in easier forms out in space?

If they wanted a new home, surely it would be easier to find a place where you don't have to worry about the locals?

The only scenario that works is some "To serve man" type shit

Even at light speed you are looking at years of travel between solar systems.

Alien life would probably detect us and confirm our existence long before travelling here. And if they did make that effort who knows what they'd want. It could be life is so rare they just want the opportunity for contact. Or if they are like humans, they would enslave us for labour and developing the area in the way they see fit. I mean finding new humans certainly didn't stop Europeans from killing and raping

 

[Chuck Norris]

Hollywood always uses the same reasons but they make no since.

Harvest Natural Resources - Almost nothing on earth is unique. Water is like the most basic and abundant compound in the universe. There is no minerals that you could not find in more abundance in single asteroid then the entirety of earth in our own solar system. The only thing that is of any actual value to harvest is DNA and you can get that with a cotton swab. They could use nano machines to collect sample of all DNA on earth and we would never know.

Enslave us - What the hell for? We have trouble getting to our own moon but even most of our big company are replacing humans with machines. Any civilization advanced enough to have interstellar travel would have moved past having any sort of biological workforce. Humans are weak as hell. Why would you use a soft, fleshy being that could die easily when you have a robot workforce that never tires, needs to eat or sleep, and could do 100x the work in 1/100th the time it would take a human to do?

Need us for food - We can grow meat in labs, A civilization with FTL travel would have solved food problems centuries ago. They would have 3d printed super-food or something.

They want our planet - They would most likely have the capabilities to terraform any planet they choose and then clone what ever animals and plants they want. They would have to be complete dicks to choose a already inhabited world to set take. Hell they probably have nano bots that could go to an uninhabited solar system harvest all the planets to create there own artificial rouge planet to use. Why buy a used house when you can build and design your own mansion.

The whole point is that any civilization that has such advanced technology like FTL travel would have solved any and all problems with physical needs that they would have had before then. Hell, they could have ditched biological bodies altogether and uploaded there minds into a sun encompassing super computer where they have made a version of reality that is to them what heaven would be to us.

What if they have a dumb ass leader who put all their money into space travel and they discovered FTL travel while other parts of their society were also destroying their own planet?

 

[Kayhan]

 

[Boss Doggie]

It's why District 9 is still the best alien movie.

 

[BudokaiMR2]

This is why the story "Roadside Picnic" (and Stalker which is based on the story) is without a doubt the most interesting alien visitation narrative ever written.

 

[family_guy]

Could be like the Reapers in Mass Effect or that movie The Day the Earth Stood Still. We became too advanced for our own good so we get purged or we end up doing too much harm to the planet that for the sake of its preservation they choose to wipe us out.

 

[Oyashrio-Sama]

What if they have a dumb ass leader who put all their money into space travel and they discovered FTL travel while other parts of their society were also destroying their own planet?

A FTL drive would require a insane amount of power. By the time a civilization would have created or harness something that they could use as power source. There own technological advances in other fields would have happened by necessity, rendered all there other needs moot.

By the time they could travel at interstellar distances, they would have the technology to solve any of there problems.

We are nowhere near that level of tech but within the next 10 to 20 years we will be eating cheap vat grown meat regularly that we get delivered to us by unmanned shipping trucks that will probably be fulling electric.

 

[MilkyJoe]

Aliens would discover how to bend the laws of physics, and travel billions of miles just to fuck with a bunch of hairless bipeds?

If they wanted resources, they have FTL travel surely they can find whatever they need in easier forms out in space?

If they wanted a new home, surely it would be easier to find a place where you don't have to worry about the locals?

The only scenario that works is some "To serve man" type shit

How do you know they didn't just leave their planet on a huge ark and traverse space towards the nearest habitable looking solar system, over a thousand years, when their sun burnt out? Why must they have faster than light travel or be able to bend the laws of physics? That said why would they even know we were here? If they did, where is the next nearest habitable solar system? Could be twice the distance. They would have no choice.

There's a lot of assumptions there OP...

 

[Stone Ocean]

If Alien invasion movies are often an allegory for colonialism/imperialism, how come none of the aliens ever try to convert humans to their religion?

Thats where the Facehuggers and lookalikes come in

 

[Frodo]

Jupiter Ascending had a good reason, me thinks.

 

[gamz]

That's what I loved about Monsters. They just wanted to chill and procreate.

 

[David Incorporated Esq.]

There are other perspectives/stories. Read 3 Body Problem by Cixin Liu, or the inversion with human as invader like Le Guin's The Word for World is Forest.

Or, less-thoughtful more blockbuster, Niven/Pournell's Footfall where the aliens do not have FTL and depend on earth as being the closest habitable planet given their technology.

But yes a lot of alien invasion stuff is rayguns-and-bikinis level.

I love Inversion so much. A brilliant alien story. I've always wondered how it would read to someone unfamiliar with Banks' work though... Would they get it?

 

[Steejee]

There are other perspectives/stories. Read 3 Body Problem by Cixin Liu, or the inversion with human as invader like Le Guin's The Word for World is Forest.

Or, less-thoughtful more blockbuster, Niven/Pournell's Footfall where the aliens do not have FTL and depend on earth as being the closest habitable planet given their technology.

But yes a lot of alien invasion stuff is rayguns-and-bikinis level.

I just finished the third book, Death's End, in that series (officially called Remembrance of Earth's Past) and I wholeheartedly concur with that recommendation. That trilogy is a page burner yet still filled with physics and motivations on the 'sorta plausible if insane' side.

On the downside, in the way the series is on whole pretty dark. I can't really go into why without sorta spoiling it but for book 2...

Spoiler

The very title of the second book is basically an incredibly depressing solution to Fermi's Paradox

 

[ArgyleReptile]

"Free Agent" scenario - It's not just alien civilisations that are dangerous. It's individual aliens who may or may not share the beliefs of their broader society. What of Little Blorbox takes his dad's spaceship for a joyride? What if a weird cult on the homeworld of an otherwise peaceful advanced civilization saves up enough cereal coupons to win a spaceship? Now what if that space ship is so advanced that it can replicate an army, forge things on a nanoscale and create microsingularities as part of it's normal science suite?

I'd like to see something like this or something more of a "Because we can" type of deal.

Like what if we were just attacked by a juvenile alien who wanted to see what it was like to "drop a rock on an ant hill"?

 

[ParityBit]

Why must they invade? What if they want the actual space earth is on.

You know .... the interstellar super highway.

 

[ThoseDeafMutes]

I'd like to see something like this or something more of a "Because we can" type of deal.

Like what if we were just attacked by a juvenile alien who wanted to see what it was like to "drop a rock on an ant hill"?

It doesn't have global stakes, but they could have gone this way with the Predator series, where the hunters weren't actually the whole culture, just like one fringe of it. Like imagine if a bunch of them showed up to interfere in a hunt on Earth because they're protesting the exploitation of primitive species and hunting for sport.

 

[ArgyleReptile]

It doesn't have global stakes, but they could have gone this way with the Predator series, where the hunters weren't actually the whole culture, just like one fringe of it. Like imagine if a bunch of them showed up to interfere in a hunt on Earth because they're protesting the exploitation of primitive species and hunting for sport.

That'd be an amazing direction to go in for the series.

 

[Boss Doggie]

It doesn't have global stakes, but they could have gone this way with the Predator series, where the hunters weren't actually the whole culture, just like one fringe of it. Like imagine if a bunch of them showed up to interfere in a hunt on Earth because they're protesting the exploitation of primitive species and hunting for sport.

that's always has been a problem for scifi and fantasy writers

see the degradation of Klingon - makes you wonder how these guys managed to do space travel with their shtick

 

[NiiloPielinen]

Work force: motherfuckers have faster than light travel. They have robots too. Good ones.

This. The idea that FTL capable civilization enslaves some biological lifeforms to do labor just doesn't hold up.

 

[Nabbis]

We don't really have a reference point on what to expect. Writers just use either people or other creatures on earth as inspiration and make them operate on some fucked up version of the human condition. Basically, nearly all Scifi aliens are funny looking people with different ideological koolaids or space ants. I would wager that post-singularity humanity would be more alien than most of that crap.

 

[gfxtwin]

Citation needed.

There are many potential earth like planets that have been discovered in habitable zones of stars from what astrophysicists have observed, but as far as I know, none have been proven to match earth in regards to the amount of potential of harboring life. In the end, it is unknown whether or not there are planets in our galaxy that are as lively as earth, but based on what is known about our observable universe, nothing does. Google it.

 

[Anton Sugar]

As many others have mentioned, Roadside Picnic sorta tackles this head on. An important character basically straight up says that arrogance makes us think there is some purpose to alien invasions, but that doesn't mean there is any. We could just be a pitstop on some galactic road trip.

Lovecraft's The Color Out of Space reminds me of this discussion, too. Alien lifeform shows up on Earth and begins corrupting and slowly killing everything around it--but it's never clear what it's actually doing, what its purpose is, whether it is actually malicious, if this is its nature, etc.

 

[Pejo]

I like to think we're just extremely probe-able.

 

[lastplayed]

There are many potential earth like planets that have been discovered in habitable zones of stars from what astrophysicists have observed, but as far as I know, none have been proven to match earth in regards to the amount of potential of harboring life. In the end, it is unknown whether or not there are planets in our galaxy that are as lively as earth, but based on what is known about our observable universe, nothing does. Google it.

So no citation, just speculation huh.

 

[UCBooties]

Why did they make Fred Flintstone hot and ripped

I seriously thought that was Superman in the first panel. He's got the spitcurl and everything. I looked at the second panel and was so confused...

 

[LoveCake]

If aliens arrived here then there would be no stopping them, the technology involved to travel the vast distances and more-so if they have faster then light travel, is something we wouldn't be able to counter, the only chance we would have is if there are a number of alien civilizations in some sort of co-operative like in Star Trek and once we reach a certain level of technology they show themselves and try to help us to transition to a spacefaring civilization because they know that life in the galaxy is so rare.

 

[Maximus.]

If aliens have such advanced travel tech, I would assume they would have advanced weapons to wipe us out easy if need be.

 

[Coriolanus]

If aliens have such advanced travel tech, I would assume they would have advanced weapons to wipe us out easy if need be.

advanced travel tech IS advanced weapon tech.

 

[More_Badass]

The whole point is that any civilization that has such advanced technology like FTL travel would have solved any and all problems with physical needs that they would have had before then. Hell, they could have ditched biological bodies altogether and uploaded there minds into a sun encompassing super computer where they have made a version of reality that is to them what heaven would be to us.

Our civilization is thousands of years more advanced than the Sumerians, the Greeks, etc., and we still commit wars and do all kinds of horrific shit to other humans. We don't even need a reason like food or material things; people kill each other over ideology or the insane belief that bald heads contain gold or whatever.

Where did this notion come from that even more advanced technology would rid a race of those tendencies? That seems more like an idyllic hope (this advanced race wouldn't be as shitty as we are) rather than the likely possibility that the race would be just as fucked up then and now

 

[ISOM]

You can make the same argument about religion and God creating human beings. You're telling me humans on earth were soley made in the image of God and no other intelligent life forms exist anywhere else? It's an arrogant view of life.

 

[LookAtMeGo]

Our civilization is thousands of years more advanced than the Sumerians, the Greeks, etc., and we still commit wars and do all kinds of horrific shit to other humans. We don't even need a reason like food or material things; people kill each other over ideology or the insane belief that bald heads contain gold or whatever.

Where did this notion come from that even more advanced technology would rid a race of those tendencies? That seems more like an idyllic hope (this advanced race wouldn't be as shitty as we are) rather than the likely possibility that the race would be just as fucked up then and now

But thats why Kevin Spacey in K-PAX wouldnt tell the doctor how to harness the energy of light. Because we would blow ourselves up or even worse someone else. We have to reach a level of benevolence before we can harness the energy of light.

 

[Air]

Yeah. I think so. But humanity is pretty arrogant so it's par for the course

 

[Boss Doggie]

Our civilization is thousands of years more advanced than the Sumerians, the Greeks, etc., and we still commit wars and do all kinds of horrific shit to other humans. We don't even need a reason like food or material things; people kill each other over ideology or the insane belief that bald heads contain gold or whatever.

Where did this notion come from that even more advanced technology would rid a race of those tendencies? That seems more like an idyllic hope (this advanced race wouldn't be as shitty as we are) rather than the likely possibility that the race would be just as fucked up then and now

In most sci fi settings that use highly advanced tech enough for space travel, it's more because people finally united to the point where we could do space travel. Very optimistic yeah, but the way I see it, it's more on "we can't reach space travel unless we cooperate and corroborate our resources". Stuff like Star Trek doubled down on it, though iirc in First Contact there were still faction wars going on in Earth.