Benevolent Alien Invasion: Difference between revisions

** 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 [[Discount Lesbians|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''...

 

 

* The elves, trolls and preservers in ''[[Elf Quest]]'' (originally {{spoiler|[[Sufficiently Advanced Aliens]] and their servants}}) 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.

 

 

== Film ==

* 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 [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExWfh6sGyso "What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?"] segment from [[Monty Python]]'s ''[[Life of Brian]]''.

 

== Literature ==

*** According to the Overlords themselves, if they hadn't interfered with humanity, it would have become {{spoiler|[[Eldritch Abomination|a destructive hive-mind akin to a cosmic cancer]]. With their aid the children of humanity can become one with a benign cosmic hive-mind instead.}}

**** The flip side is that it is beneficial to the universe at large, but not humanity. {{spoiler|Because humanity is 'eaten' by the Overmind and only exists as knowledge within the Overmind.}}

* 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 [[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.

* ''The Gardeners from Orion'' is an interesting subversion. It's an interesting [[Doorstopper|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 [[Nuke'Em|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 {{spoiler|"inventing" and selling stuff, creating dummy corporations, and basically end all wars and improve the standard of living to where no one is poor and we are terraforming Mars and colonizing the Solar System. The story ends where they get the parts they need, and contact their boss, who then bitches at them for "ruining" the [[Noble Savage]] human culture}}.

** 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?

** 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.

** 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.

* 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 {{spoiler|the Quozl, whose ability to offer violence is bound by very formal doctrine, intend to use humans as warriors to conquer in their stead-- indeed, they believe they've ''enslaved'' us without us being aware of it.}}

** 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.

* Inverted in ''[[Ender's Game|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 {{spoiler|was a mistake. The buggers mistook humans for <s> wild animals</s> [[Blue and Orange Morality|drones in a hive mind like their own, the losing of some being akin to our losing a few skin cells or a hangnail while shaking hands]], and were really very sorry about killing them. Unfortunately, [[Starfish Aliens|they]] [[Starfish Language|got their apology across]] too late.}}

*** 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 ''[[Doctor Who]]'' story "The Unquiet Dead" used the same idea. Although {{spoiler|while they feigned harmlessness, in fact the aliens revealed themselves as prepared to kill to get more bodies.}}

* ''[[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.

** 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|the Federation's]] entire ''raison d'etre'' to be this, comparing them to the ''[[You Will Be Assimilated|Borg]]''.

{{quote| '''Eddington''': You [[Not So Different|assimilate]] people... ''and they don't even know it.''}}

* 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 {{spoiler|the goal of Dr.Zee -- to get Earth's technology to a point to fight off a Cylon invasion.}}

* 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 {{spoiler|Kzer-Za}} believe themselves to be benevolent dictators who are protecting the galaxy from far worse forces {{spoiler|mainly their opposite faction the Ur-Quan Kohr-ah, who believe [[Omnicidal Maniac|all other life should be killed]] rather than simply enslaved}}.

** That creepy interdimensional bureaucrat seems to think otherwise though...

* 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 [[Our Dragons Are Different|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.