Is there a GOOD reason for an alien invasion

[Gotham Central]

Its been more than a century since HG Wells introduced the world to the modern concept of the alien invasion. Yet, with all the invasion movies, books and TV shows that have come out since, its been rather frustrating that few writers/creators have been able to come up with a credible reason for aliens to actually invade.

The problem seems to be that usually the motivation is based largely on historical precedent in human history. The thing is that the technological hurdles necessary to cross vast interstellar distances, if overcome, would have no precedent in our history.

For instance...

Slaves: In the past, slaves were a perfectly valid reason for invaders from "advanced" civilizations to venture out into someone else's territory seize their lands, and then press some portion of the native population into servitude. After all, those "advanced" civilizations were dependent on large workforces to make their economies and societies function. Civilizations were built thanks to brute strength and access to muscle and man power. However, as has become increasingly obvious in most post industrial societies...the more advanced your technology gets, the fewer people you actually need to do the work. We have not even reached the level of an interstellar civilization and already we have the problem that we have more people than jobs. Who needs slaves when you can build machines to do most of the labor?

Procreation: This is possibly the least likely justification for an alien invasion. The idea that an alien species would turn to another alien species in order to stay viable is simply idiotic. It would be like humans turning to slugs to solve our fertility problems. At least human and slugs have common genetic material.

Water: Its everywhere...why start a costly war over a commonly available material?

Food: This is at least theoretically possible...or is it? I can't travel to certain parts of the world without some common delacacies making me sick. Would an alien with a totally different biology be able to consume ANY biological material from Earth safely?

Minerals: It seems to me that any minerals found on Earth could be just as easily found somewhere else without having to deal with crabby inhabitants that likely would not take kindly to you taking their stuff.

So really...can anyone come up with a good reason for aliens to invade?

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

The only thing I can think of is military conquest: they want Earth itself (for its strategic location), and don't really care about anyone or anything on it.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

The real value of Earth is its habitability - to the species who evolved here, that is. If there were a planet that happened to be very similar to Earth and its inhabitants messed it up or just overpopulated it, I think we'd be a natural target for extermination. And vice versa of course.

they want Earth itself (for its strategic location)

Is there such a thing as strategic location in space? Any empire would have to have FTL drive - how could any location be important to them? It would have to be next to some bottleneck in space (DS9's wormhole, or some sci fi thing like "an entrance to the slipstream") or something nearby would have to be inherently important - such as a planet that is habitable by whatever species we're talking about.

 

[od0_ital]

Boredom?

What if the aliens invadin' Earth are the equivilant of the kids who pull wings off flies or burnin' ants with a magnifyin' glass?

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Or they're Klingons, a militaristic culture in which their status is determined by killing aliens, etc.

 

[David cgc]

The only thing I can think of is military conquest: they want Earth itself (for its strategic location), and don't really care about anyone or anything on it.

If all you care about is the location in space, there's no shortage of uninhabited planets, moons, and asteroids that could be used as military bases that are effectively on top of Earth in the interstellar sense. Unless they were actually fighting Earth (and Earth had the capacity to stop them), there's no reason to go to the trouble of pacifying Earth when you could just set up a base on Mars or Ganymede or somewhere without having to deal with a native population.

 

[Kegg]

I thought this thread would be about scenarios where aliens invading the earth is basically beneficial for us... which would be something I'd be interested to see (most likely scenario there: Benevolent coercion to create a more prosperous Earth society as part of an alien network).

But as for having a credible reason to invade, Temis is right that wanting the world as living space is a good one. Another one can simply be preventive: Humans's space travel could be seen as an eventual threat to aliens (all that aggressive human expansionism gone galactic, egad!) and thus a pre-emptive strike.

The aliens could need to fight a war or slay a lot of opponents for some reason. Here the planet itself is irrelevant but the act of killing has a value to them - obvious human-like relation would be aliens who win in war could play that into political power, or they could just have a social structure that requires thinning of a large chunk of the population and doing that through war is the most socially acceptable manner.

Another one? I'm going to spitball religion here. What if the third planet of this star has a significant mythic importance in a dominant alien religion, or worse yet, aliens have converted to a human faith (or a variation on a human faith more tailored for their alien needs)? Crusades are bad enough without the Tralfamadorians staking a claim to Jerusalem.

 

[RoJoHen]

Colonization. Maybe the aliens' world is too crowded and they're like, "Hey, there's this planet called Earth that has living conditions we need. Fuck terraforming. Let's just kill the indigenous population."

Farming. Maybe the aliens discovered that humans are a fantastic source of protein and want to use us as livestock in our native environment.

Vacation Destination. "OMG, there is this great planet that is just perfect for a new theme park. It's inhabited by these weird little bipedal primates. Let's keep a couple hundred around and build a zoo for them, meanwhile turning the rest of the planet into a hot vacation spot."

 

[sojourner]

Habitat is pretty much the best rational.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I thought this thread would be about scenarios where aliens invading the earth is basically beneficial for us... which would be something I'd be interested to see (most likely scenario there: Benevolent coercion to create a more prosperous Earth society as part of an alien network).

Or perhaps something even more deadly is about to happen to Earth and the aliens want to save us from it, but there's no time to peacefully get us to cooperate. There was an Outer Limits episode from a few years ago (not the original series, the recent remake) that dealt with something like this:

Spoiler: OL

Our sun was about to go wacko and start spewing out ultraviolet at lethal levels. The aliens sent a carrier wave that caused humans to mutate into a form that could stand this extra UV radiation.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Spoiler: OL

Our sun was about to go wacko and start spewing out ultraviolet at lethal levels. The aliens sent a carrier wave that caused humans to mutate into a form that could stand this extra UV radiation.

Hey wasn't that the plotline to Threshold (the tv series)?

 

[od0_ital]

Threshold had a plotline?

 

[Klaus]

Vacation Destination. "OMG, there is this great planet that is just perfect for a new theme park. It's inhabited by these weird little bipedal primates. Let's keep a couple hundred around and build a zoo for them, meanwhile turning the rest of the planet into a hot vacation spot."

This one!!! Rod Serling would approve...

 

[ebusinesstutor]

The preemptive strike makes some sense. I read a novel once that had the premise that, once a race hit a certain level of technology, they could easily and cheaply wipe out another race by propelling asteroids with them.

So the idea was that no race could take a chance on a race that might be peaceful, you had to wipe them out before they got you.

Another possibility is religious. Missionaries came with the Spaniards to the New World to convert them to Christianity.

Perhaps a race with fervent beliefs that they were doing us a favor might arrive and save our souls by introducing us to their religion.

 

[T.Geiger]

Is there such a thing as strategic location in space?

Yes, for all the same reasons forts out on the old frontier were important to the United States government at the time. A faster speed doesn't eliminate the need for supply depots, it just moves them further down the road.

Earth might also be in the perfect spot to plant a fortified observation post to spy on the neighboring interstellar empire. Especially since the neighbor's last survey showed a bunch of meat-based lifeforms. (Who wants to meet meat? )

I mean, c'mon guys, its like you don't even watch science fiction!

 

[Silvercrest]

What about a hyperspace bypass?

 

[-Brett-]

We only have one precedent for a technological species. If ET is anything like us, he won't necessarily act rationally or even in a way that's in his own best interests.

 

[Silvercrest]

Any race that acts as irrationally as us, or as much against their own interests as we do, will never make it here to invade.

 

[Snatcher42]

I'm currently watching UFO, the 1970s Gerry Anderson series, and the reason for the alien attackers in that is pretty interesting: their biology is roughly the same as ours, but their race is dying, so they come to earth in order to harvest human organs for transplant.

 

[Myasishchev]

I thought this thread would be about scenarios where aliens invading the earth is basically beneficial for us... which would be something I'd be interested to see (most likely scenario there: Benevolent coercion to create a more prosperous Earth society as part of an alien network).

If it was out of copyright, I'd write a sequel to The Day the Earth Stood Still where Richard Nixon, Leonid Brezhnev, and Lin Biao team up to kick Klaatu's corpsy ass.

Anyway, there is very little reason to invade a planet, except possibly living space, but even then--if you have the means to move a significant population to another star system, you probably have the means to build space colonies in your own.