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Bluffing the Advance Scout: Difference between revisions
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== [[Literature]] ==
* "The Best Policy" by [[Randall Garrett (Creator)|Randall Garrett]]: Alien advance scouts kidnap a human, stick him in a [[Lie Detector]], and order him to describe Earth. He manages to give them a description in which every sentence is [[Exact Words|technically true]], but the overall effect is a misleading picture of humans who possess [[Sufficiently Advanced Aliens|immense, even supernatural powers]], and the aliens are frightened off.
* "Ginger's Secret Weapons" by Peter Wingham, originally published in ''Story Teller'' magazine: A schoolboy named Ginger is abducted by froglike aliens, and uses the contents of his pockets -- which include itching powder, a [[Hyper
* ''The Demon Breed'' by [[James H Schmitz]]: Aliens planning an invasion capture a remote scientific outpost to study what humanity is made of. The scientist at the outpost tries to sell them a story about humanity having secret mutant warlord protectors. This being a more dramatic take on the trope, the aliens don't immediately buy it, even though it was ''their'' theory in the first place, and it's up to the heroine to cause enough of the right kind of trouble to persuade them it's true.
** And inverted in ''Geest Gun'' by the same author: the advance recon party has come and gone--finding the world easy pickings--and the protagonists essentially have to blackmail the government into getting the fleet ready.
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[[Category:Speculative Fiction Tropes]]
[[Category:Bluffing The Advance Scout]]
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