Benevolent Alien Invasion

Aren't things just super since the aliens invaded? We really can't complain. They brought us Translator Microbes so there are no more misunderstandings, showed us how to recycle our own waste products into food through matter-energy conversion, and they pee gasoline.

Okay, so they don't really pee gasoline, but the first thing they did after taking over The White House was paint the fences.

The aliens have arrived and they actually are benevolent (most of the time, or at least toward humanity), and humanity is all the better for their having been invaded.

A subversion of Alien Invasion and Aliens Are Bastards. Often, the "invaders" are a Superior Species. Compare Vichy Earth.

Anime & Manga

 * Crest of the Stars. While the Abh are annexing planets, they are generally depicted as positive. They will even accept some of their subjects into their rank of nobles. It doesn't help that the Abh are a space elves Mary Sue race (including the ears).
 * The series is told from the sanitized and factually suspect perspective of the Abh royalty. I'm sure one or two of the Nazi youth were cute blue headed elfgirls too, but we are given no one elses perspective and they may be the murdering imperialist monsters that the Four Nations Alliance say they are.
 * Blue Drop deconstructs this trope hard to the point of Nightmare Fuel. Basically, the Arume are a race of lesbian aliens that invaded and conquered our Earth at some point in the past, and ever since, the Earth has been relatively free of conflicts. Not to mention bringing with them extremely useful nanomachines. But whoo boy, ain't it a Crap Saccharine World at best...
 * Gintama is arguably an example of this trope, the invading aliens, after a period of bloody war that it's generally agreed humanity lost, mellowed out and managed to time skip the entire world forward a few centuries (Japan around the 19th century there are now machines, skyscrapers, and Shonen Jump manga, which the ex-samurai protagonist loves to read)

Comic Books

 * The elves, trolls and preservers in Elf Quest (originally ) don't invade the World of Two Moons/Abode deliberately, but it's implied that tens of thousands of years after their arrival their influence has had subtle but highly beneficial effects on the planet's human society (carefully-controlled population, environmental management, acceptance of alternate beliefs and sexual orientations, female equality... need I go on?)
 * Actually, it's female superiority, as the planet is ruled by a matriarchy and women (in the military, no less) have been stated to be viewed as superior by nature, with a male officer having to "prove" he is their equal. So it's hierarchy reversal.
 * That is a case of Can't Argue With Elves on a global scale. As every faction in the series eventually gets a female leader, it seems to be a point the authors really wanted to drive home.
 * Technically, Superman is this via someone flinging a light.

Film

 * Plan Nine From Outer Space has aliens invade Earth to save the Universe....
 * One of the Ur-examples is The Day the Earth Stood Still (the original, not the remake). If you ignore the deathbots and the closing threat, the aliens are decent enough guys. It doesn't really count as an invasion, though.)
 * A humorous variant from outside of science fiction, the "What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?" segment from Monty Python's Life of Brian.
 * The movie V subverts this. The aliens appear to be totally benevolent, and indeed they appear this way to most everyone on Earth. But their intentions turn out not to be.
 * The bizarre men-in-black-alike "Whisper Men" from Knowing were this. They realized Earth was going to be destroyed by a supernova, so they decided to save the animals and humans of Earth and transport them elsewhere. Of course they were really, really creepy about it and spent most of their time scaring the shit out of everyone, but arguably that's not their fault: they apparently can't talk per se and are rather horrifying to behold.

Literature

 * The plot of Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke (Creator).
 * Subverted in two different ways: One, . Two, they come to Earth
 * According to the Overlords themselves, if they hadn't interfered with humanity, it would have become
 * The flip side is that it is beneficial to the universe at large, but not humanity.
 * The backstory of Expedition, a science fiction art book Wayne Barlowe wrote about a joint human-alien expedition to a primitive planet called Darwin IV (the aliens came and helped humanity clean up their act).
 * Played with in Worldwar (Literature). The invading Race is far from benevolent as a whole - them conquering Earth would result in a state of submission to them - but humans living under more oppressive regimes, such as Nazi Germany side with them, because even the Race is shocked by some of the things the Nazis do.
 * Played with in Bruce Coville's My Teacher is an Alien series. The various alien species are shocked at mankind's violent ways and fear what will happen if we achieve space travel. They come up with four possible solutions. The first is to leave us alone and hope we destroy ourselves. The second is to blow us up for our own good. The third is to erect some kind of barrier (or sabotage our scientific progress) so that we never escape our own solar system. The fourth proposed solution is basically this trope; the aliens will contact us and give us the technology and knowledge we need to end wars, eradicate disease and poverty, etc. However, because we are dangerous sociopaths they will need to take over the planet first to make sure we don't abuse these gifts.
 * Played with in Walter Jon Williams' Maijstral books, where the aliens did not really disturb Earth very much bar imposing their own formal culture and ideas of monarchy upon it. Humanity still didn't take this very well and kicked them off-planet before the beginning of the first novel, becoming the first and only race to accomplish this. The protagonist Drake Maijstral is the descendant of those who opposed the revolt, and honestly doesn't much care either way.
 * Doorways in The Sand by Roger Zelazny is more or less an example of this. The aliens are officially benevolent, but there's some behind-the-scenes political weirdness leading to less-than-benevolent behaviour on some of their parts.
 * Agent to the Stars by John Scalzi is a more straightforward example; the plot is about how to get humanity to accept a race of benevolent but disgusting-looking aliens.
 * Crest of the Stars. The author goes out of his way to show how much more awesome and civilized the Abh are than normal humanity. They're like a Mary Sue race.
 * To be fair, he does say in the postscript for the third book that he wanted to write about a space empire that was a "hostile nation"; he's not trying to defend their ethics, just describe them.
 * It is still worth mentioning that they are viewed as such in-universe by some of their subjects, especially when compared to their enemies, the conformist United Mankind.
 * The Gardeners from Orion is an interesting subversion. It's an interesting little book. Basically, the eponymous Gardeners from Orion are benevolent, and want to save our planet from being choked by pollution and global warming. The problem is that their main priority is the planet, not us. And apparently, the fact that there's way, way too many of us is the problem. Nothing personal, you understand. Just part of a Gardener's work - pruning the weeds. But they're really very polite and pleasant about the whole 'Annihilate 90% of humanity' thing, making sure that family-units are kept intact, and providing the survivors with the tools and knowledge they need to survive without the extended infrastructure of human civilization. Humanity is slightly less polite in their response.
 * The brilliant short story High Yield Bondage is about some aliens that land on Earth with a broken ship. To repair it, they need to improve Earth's technology to the point where we can make them the parts they need. So, they start.
 * The Tuf Voyaging by George RR Martin is a series of short stories where a benevolent "advanced" human was helping an overpopulated normal human world. First he helped them grow more food using brilliant genetic engineering, then helped them clean up some pollution using the same tech. When he came back in 5 years, and saw that things were even more overpopulated and polluted, he decided to release a bug that sterilized all the humans on that planet. That is, only about 1 in a 100 people could have children. Given that it's written by no other than George R.R. Martin of A Song of Ice and Fire fame, there's rather more than is seems from a first glance.
 * Tuf travels the galaxy, offering his services to worlds with environmental problems, and sometimes imposing solutions of his own. Some of the races he "helps" are not pleased with his solutions, although an objective observer would be inclined to agree with him that he did right.
 * In fact, this particular problem is one that Tuf refuses to solve. He has his ship set up a sterilization bug-bomb, all right, but he leaves the question of whether to push the button to the planet's ruler...who will be faced with interstellar war if she continues her planet's "free breeding" policy. It helps that he left a pair of fertile cats with her (the only ones on the planet) 5 years ago, and how many kitties does she have now?
 * Donald R. Benson's novel And Having Writ... involves a group of aliens who accidentally crash-land on Earth in 1908, and spend the next few decades reluctantly influencing the development of human technology to the point where it can build them a new spaceship. At the end of the novel they regret all the changes their tampering has forced on human society, the irony being that the Alternate History they have created is far better than the one which actually happened.
 * They were trying to start World War I early, in a bid to get the - as they saw it - inevitable violence over with quickly and with relatively minimal loss of life. They were considerably surprised when, after carefully explaining this to the leaders who would be involved and asking them to hurry it up, the leaders avoided it instead.
 * Kate Elliot's Jaran Series involves the vast Chapalii Empire, who simply absorb the Earth and humans into their Empire without effort or aggression. Even though they've received many technological benefits from being ruled by the Chapalii and very little in the way of drawbacks, the humans still rebel.
 * The body-snatching alien invaders in Stephenie Meyer's The Host see themselves this way (they cut down on crime, improved healthcare, and generally civilized those violent and barbaric humans! Isn't it great?), but the humans don't exactly agree -- however friendly and peaceful the aliens may be, they're still, well, body-snatching invaders.
 * Part of the problem is that the "souls," as they call themselves, never even conceived that their hosts may be unwilling, or that it would be wrong to take away that freedom. (Many of the other species they have gotten involved in were nonsentient or borderline intelligent, similar to dolphins or apes here on Earth.) When the main (soul) character runs into a truly altruistic human, she realizes the aliens were wrong.
 * The aliens are definitely well-intentioned. The only other race that was actually intelligent enough to possibly mind honestly didn't care, and in fact welcomed them. In fact, they were only wrong once before, out of all the other planets they tried.
 * An even older example would be the aliens from Robert A. Heinlein's The Puppet Masters, who consider themselves to be bringing inner peace to humanity. Humanity, needless to say, does not agree.
 * The Quozl, from the book of the same title by Alan Dean Foster, turned out to be quite beneficial to humans (once each species was willing to recognize the other as sentient life forms).
 * Subverted in the ending, in which we discover
 * The Monitors by Keith Laumer has benevolent aliens ruling the Earth, "opposed" by various misfit rebels.
 * Neil Gaiman's short story, "A Study In Emerald", is set in 1881, London, on an alternate timeline in which all the world leaders are Great Old Ones, risen from R'lyeh and sundry other resting places some centuries previously. Most everybody appreciates this, because when your royalty gain their sustenance by driving people mad, you don't want to be the next meal, but there are a few "Restorationists" who think humanity should be in charge of its own destiny, a pair of whom the Holmes-and-Watson-esque protagonists spend the story hunting. At the very end, the narrator mentions that he heard one of the men they were chasing on that case was named, and signs the entry.
 * Amusingly the Old Ones seem to have gone native, adapting titles and trappings of human society (the most fun title of all: The One Who Presides Over The New World - think about it), rather than imposing their order on us.
 * Inverted in Donald Moffitt's The Genesis Quest, where the benevolent aliens, rather than being invaders, find humans (or instructions on how to make them) coming to them, instead. The story still follows the usual pattern though, as even with the Nar doing their best to provide for all human needs, some humans still violently rebel.
 * The Culture, from Iain M. Banks' series of novels, does not generally invade other civilizations, but does spend half its time gallivanting through the cosmos looking for species to help out and improve (if they fall within certain criteria) through the agency of Contact. To an extent, 'helping' other species is the means by which the Culture justifies its own existence.
 * And they have screwed it up a few times, especially with the Chelgrians.
 * True. That's just acknowledging the element of chance, though; they succeed far more often than they fail. The Culture apparently has the statistics to back it up, and lest you think it's propaganda, even those opposed to intervention have never challenged their numerical basis. Even the books, which to avoid the mundane are naturally interested in exceptions to the rule, show them succeeding far more often than not.
 * Liliths Brood by Octavia Butler (also known as the Xenogenesis trilogy) is about a race of tri-gendered aliens who kidnap the scattered survivors of a global nuclear war in order to mate with them and repopulate the ruined Earth with the resulting hybrid offspring. Squicky though this may be, the author's point is that Humans Are Bastards and the only way to fix it is with a Face Full of Alien Wingwong.
 * Inverted in Speaker for the Dead- Instead of being invaded, the Humans invaded a planet belonging to a race of weird, pig like aliens.
 * Worth mentioning that in the original Ender's Game, we learn that the bugger invasion
 * An interesting example can be found in Ray Bradbury 's short story Dark They Were, and Golden Eyed. In it a group of humans flee war-torn Earth to colonize a mysteriously terraformed and abandoned Mars. After a while the idyllic climate of the planet changes the way they act and think to such an extent they forget they knew anything else. When a second expedition lands, the Earthlings assume- and aren't corrected- that the colonists are Martians. Effectively, the planet benevolently invades them.
 * Prince Roger has the Empire of Man taking over all habitable worlds in their space. Humanity though, can't help to fill all those worlds so instead the Empire culturally uplifts the worlds. The planet we see it go wonkey on shows how diverse a planet can be and why the Prime Directive might be considered garbage by everyone on the scene. After all, freedom, long life, and protection from cannibals is a good reason to give up your culture.
 * The unseen 'angels' in Deathscent by Robin Jarvis... possibly. The human characters clearly perceive them this way, but what their real motives were - to help humanity, study them, or just for fun - is left up to the reader.
 * The Time Future duology by Maxine McArthur deals with humanity several centuries after being benevolently invaded by a species known as the Invidi. Earth is now a minor member of The Confederacy of Allied Worlds, which rules fairly peacefully over most of the galaxy. However, a major theme of the books is whether or not humanity is really better off as part of the Confederacy: because only the ruling Four Worlds (which include the Invidi) have access to Faster Than Light Travel, the other races are dependant on them for interstellar contact of any kind, and are essentially second-class in galactic society.
 * In Alan Dean Foster's The Damned series, the Weave (and the Amplitur, as they perceive themselves) visit worlds populated with intelligent, civilized sentients to warn them of the intergalactic war between the two sides, share technology and invite (or "invite") them to join their side.
 * Played with in Pamela Service's young-adult novel Under Alien Stars. The Tsorians are a smug, rather xenophobic, and somewhat brutal Proud Warrior Race who turned the planet into a military outpost, don't really "get" human customs, and think we're funny-looking, to boot). Nonetheless, they turn out to be by far the lesser evil compared to the Hykzoi.
 * Played with in The Course of Empire. The invaders conquering Earth are hardly benevolent but they are no worse to Earthlings then a typical Earth conqueror would be. The planetary governor is something of a Caligula but the prince sent to be his underling admires Earthlings, tries to learn about them, and even from them, and tries to encourage mutual cooperation against a far worse enemy.
 * Older Than Radio example: The Martians in the novel Auf zwei Planeten ("Two Planets", 1897, incomplete English edition 1971) by the German science-fiction pioneer Kurd Laßwitz (1848-1910), published one year before H. G. Wells' War of the Worlds. Laßwitz's Martians are not just technologically, but morally superior, living according to Kantian tenets. It isn't quite simple though, the Martians do behave like benevolent colonialists, leading to Earth's inhabitants rising and fighting a war of independence, but it all ends with an Earth-Mars peace treaty.
 * Animorphs ultimately ends this way. The Yeerks, the only outright villainous aliens, are driven off the planet, while the Andalites, the Taxxons, and the Hork-Bajir set up a downright peaceful coexistence with us humans. The Andalites even start giving us their advanced technology, a little bit at a time.
 * A human/human example. In David Drake's Raj Whitehall books the protagonist is the top general of an Evil Empire with an Evil Chancelor and Corrupt Church, and he fights to subjugate the independant nations that border the empire. The kicker? Being a subject of the evil empire is far better than being a subject of the "feudal pigstyes" he is conquering, as the ruling classes understand that you need to treat you serfs well in order to get full value out of exploiting them.
 * Subverted in The Tripods. They set themselves up as a benevolent invasion in the minds of many (by hypnotizing them), while really having dark plans for humanity.

Live Action TV
"Eddington: You assimilate people... and they don't even know it."
 * Apparently, this was what Well-Intentioned Extremist Cylons of Battlestar Galactica wanted to do on New Caprica, but it kind of blew up in their face. Like it would have worked to begin with.
 * On the other hand, the humans certainly don't do themselves any favours, seeing as the Cylons are holding all the cards. It enters Too Dumb to Live territory when you realise that one Dying Race of around 40,000 people is suicide bombing another race that is both numerically superior and functionally immortal.
 * Technically, the suicide bombers weren't targeting the Cylons, but the human collaborators.
 * A lot of people also forget that while Cylons can resurrect, they need to die to be able to do, an experience thats been shown to be quite traumatising. Blowing themselves up is simply a desperate tactic for the Resistance once Cylons tightened security.
 * "The Second Soul", an episode of the new The Outer Limits, played with this trope when non-corporeal aliens were allowed to settle on Earth... and to inhabit the bodies of dead humans.
 * The Doctor Who story "The Unquiet Dead" used the same idea. Although
 * While not an invasion per se, the Tenctonese refugees of Alien Nation are implied to have brought several advanced technologies to Earth when their slave ship crash-landed, which are now being reverse-engineered.
 * Earth Final Conflict counts, though not all the Taelons were equally benevolent. Also a case of a relatively benevolent alien conqueror trying to protect Earth from a far less benevolent would-be conqueror. According to the Jaridians, they'd have no problem with humans if we kicked the Taelons out before they entrenched themselves in human society. They actually sent a warning message to Earth before the Taelon arrival, but the Taelons intercepted and blocked it.
 * Played with in an alternate reality explored in an episode of Farscape, John Crichton was born on an Earth that had been taken over by the Scarrans decades ago, the remaining humans apparently the product of Scarran interbreeding. While the Scarrans are brutal toward species they consider threats, or to be of some value, humans were apparently not much of a threat, so long as the Scarrans kept them confined to Earth. It was noted that the admixture of Scarran DNA had been beneficial for humans in the long run: they were healthier and enjoyed longer lives. John, however, was unhappy because the Scarrans denied humans permission to explore space.
 * In Star Trek, the Vulcans helped humanity get their shit together in the aftermath of World War Three after humanity developed warp drive.
 * As seen in the Enterprise series, this didn't go right. Many humans chafed under the well intentioned clampdowns the Vulcans created.
 * In Deep Space Nine, Eddington believes the Federation's entire raison d'etre to be this, comparing them to the Borg.


 * Perhaps the most famous subversion in history is The Twilight Zone's "To Serve Man" episode, adapted from an earlier short story by Damon Knight. The Kanamit actually manage to end famine and war, but it's eventually revealed that only way they want "to serve man" is on a plate.
 * In Babylon 5, the second invasion of Earth Alliance was a more-or-less benevolent assault--led by humans but backed by aliens--to remove an oppressive dictator.
 * In Galactica 1980 this is

Tabletop Games

 * The Tau of Warhammer 40000 claim to be this, and initially were (though providing a nicer place to live than the Imperium of Man isn't all that hard) before the rumors of concentration camps and forced sterilization started circulating. Whether the rumors are true or if it's Imperium propaganda is in this case irrelevant, since they would still be the most benevolent race in the setting if it's true. Which says something about the setting...
 * Traveller: The Third Imperium was this. Of course most of the invaders had ancestors that were from Earth anyway.

Video Games

 * In The Journeyman Project, aliens make contact with humans to say that they'll be showing up in ten years to start diplomatic relations, thus giving humanity plenty of time to get used to the idea. Agent 5 has to stop the one guy who thinks the aliens are bad, though.
 * In the Shadowgrounds series, it turns out that the aliens are invading the colony
 * Infinite Space, with the big evil empire that comes to the SMC
 * The Chenjesu from the Star Control games asked humans to join an alliance against the Ur-Quan, and in exchange shared their technological knowledge with us. The Ur-Quan themselves aren't all that bad, either; while they do prevent the species they conquered from leaving their home planet, and destroy most major cities and military installations, they evacuate said places first and make sure the species can still survive, building new cities or even finding a new planet if the old one is no longer habitable.
 * In Star Control 2 it's revealed the Ur-Quan believe themselves to be benevolent dictators who are protecting the galaxy from far worse forces.
 * In Half-Life 2 and the Episodes, the interdimensional Combine invaders attempt to play themselves up as this, going so far as to have their spokespuppet call them "Our Benefactors". Enough people buy into it that there is a significant population of collaborators and volunteers for trans-human transformation. It is played straight with the Vortigaunts, who are more than willing to help humanity out once they realize there is a common enemy in the Combine.
 * That creepy interdimensional bureaucrat seems to think otherwise though...
 * Upon leaving the train depot in the introductory level of Half-Life 2, the PC hears people make comments implying they are at least somewhat resigned to the situation, if not aware, the Combine does in fact suck.
 * The implication in Half-Life 2 is that life under the Combine started out rather better than it is at the point where Gordon shows up, but that the administration more or less dropped off after humanity was sufficiently neutered; they don't even paste up new propaganda posters any more.
 * The backstory to Sword of the Stars involve peaceful contact between Morrigi traders and primitive human civilizations some ten thousand years ago -- they apparently also had similar encounters with the primitive tarka. Ok, fine, so they didn't do much trading above the 'exchange of shiny baubles' stage (Morrigi culture is partially based around seeking out new civilizations and exchanging shiny baubles with them; not so much handing all their hard-earned technological advances to the "children of the dust"). Still, they did give the species they visited the inspirations for dragons, for which more than one RPG developer should probably be grateful.
 * The Vasari in Sins of a Solar Empire were half this. If your species hadn't mastered space travel, you were peacefully integrated and given a minimal amount of standing as a "valued citizen". If you had mastered space travel, your civilization was violently overthrown and your race enslaved.
 * In Perfect Dark, the Maians planned to do this eventually, but left the humans to develop on their own for a few millennia. The end of the main plot revolves around the Maian ambassadors finally coming down to meet with the authorities in the White House and establish peaceful connections.
 * The Praetorians in City of Heroes like to present themselves as wanting to change Primal Earth for the better. Whether they actually are is something that is up for debate.

Webcomics

 * Parodied in this strip.
 * The Cyantian Chronicles: Subverted. The Cyantians are trying to avoid doing this when they contact with earth.
 * In The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob, most of the Nemesites believe this about their relationship with Earth's dragons in prehistoric times. Many dragons see it more as a case of Vichy Earth. The circumstances of their first meeting have a lot to do with it.
 * In Sinfest, the aliens try.

Western Animation

 * In Futurama, Fry eats a rancid sandwich from a bus stop vending machine, and his body becomes infested with microscopic worms that actually do everything they can to fix up their new home, turning him super smart, super strong, and Nigh Invulnerable.
 * Also in the movie The Beast with a Billion Backs, the entire universe is invaded by Yivo, a rather benevolent alien being from another universe.
 * Then there was The Professor's recollection of the last time aliens invaded, and all they did was force the smartest people on the planet to breed with each other. It might not have been benevolent to mankind as a whole, but judging by his reactions, it sure was a great time for some.
 * Half-averted, half-played straight, in most Transformers stories when humanity has widespread knowledge of the alien self-propelled Humongous Mecha among them.
 * Usually the Autobots are the benevolent kind, the Decepticons are the other kind.
 * Notably, although they're fighting a war on our doorstep, the Autobots show no desire to overthrow Earth's governments ("Freedom is the right of all sentient beings," after all). Even the Decepticons usually don't care much about conquering humanity per se, except perhaps as a means to help them loot the Earth more efficiently (to them, humans are scarcely more than animals, and we're in the way).
 * Not only do the Autobots not try to overthrow Earth's governments, they're often shown working with them. They also do their best to keep a low profile to avoid a public panic, and sometimes help out with our planet's own problems when they're not busy protecting us from the Decepticons.
 * One episode of Mighty Max starts with reports of a swarm of beetles ruining a small village. Turns out they are actually tiny alien scouts, clearing the area for one of their diplomatic ships to land. Hey, the aliens left a note saying they would come back later (it's in a language no one alive can read, of course.) The aliens want Earth's toxic and radioactive waste; it's apparently an extremely valuable commodity where they come from. Win-win for Earth, Max, and the aliens.
 * Not an invasion, but rather a crash landing: In Justice League Unlimited, we learn that in the distant past (c. 6600 BC) two Thanagarian law officers landed in what is today Egypt. Worshipped as gods (In spite of their wishes) they used their technology to make the harsh desert bloom with life and ruled over a vast and peaceful empire as benevolent leaders. They were expansionist, yes, but only to bring their peace and bounty to their neighbors, who were primarily ruled by unjust dictators (Teth-Adam even sends an offering of horses to thank the Thanagarians for liberating Kahndaq). Unfortunately, they only educated their people to the level of tool users, not tool makers, and when the Thanagarians themselves died, their peaceful utopia crumbled in a generation. Notable, in a way, for not having aliens build the pyramids or ruling Ancient Egypt; the dates make it clear that all this occurs before the building of the currently standing pyramids and temples, and before there was even a unified Egypt at all. The remnants of their constructions and history might have inspired the Pharaohs to adopt a similar style and culture, but Egypt itself was a completely human development that arose millennia later.