Planet Looters: Difference between revisions

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* In the Wildstorm comic ''Majestic'', it's discovered that the [[Sufficiently Advanced Alien]] Kherubim seeded many worlds with Planet-Shaper Engines, which terraform the surface and allow life to evolve; when that life becomes smart enough to do useful work, the Planet-Shapers will generate a flood of genetically recreated Kherubim to conquer said planet and enslave said life, thus spreading the race across the galaxy. Earth is one of those worlds, with a ticking Planet-Shaper under the mantle just waiting to unleash an army of superbeings (luckily it gets dismantled by Majestic). Ironically, their supposed homeworld Khera was also the result of such a seeding; the Planet-Shapers there did their thing millions of years ago.

* The Evronians from Disney's ''[[Paperinik New Adventures]]'' series use weapons that drain all emotions from a sentient victim and convert them into energy (the will-less victims are then used for menial labor). However, since their whole infrastructure is built on using this emotional energy, and you can only ever drain one victim ''once'', they are forced to conquer new planets constantly. Their own scientists know this is unsustainable, but few dare voice that opinion.

* The Horde from ''[[Strikeforce Morituri]]''. All of their technology was stolen from others, and the only reason they got off their homeworld in the first place was by stealing from (and slaughtering) the alien ambassadors who visited them.

* The Horde from ''[[Strikeforce: Morituri]]''. All of their technology was stolen from others, and the only reason they got off their homeworld in the first place was by stealing from (and slaughtering) the alien ambassadors who visited them.

* Calvin from ''[[Calvin and Hobbes]]'' once wrote a poem about such aliens visiting Earth. It's too large for the main article, but can be found on the quote page.

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== Literature ==

* [[Older Than Radio]]: The [[Ur Example]] is ''[[The War of the Worlds]]'', by [[H. G. Wells]], published in 1898. The book depicted a Martian invasion with overt analogies to European hegemony. The invaders have perfectly good reasons: according to contemporary theories, outer planets are the first to form and the first to die. With spaceflight in the [[Jules Verne]] steam cannon stage, the aliens have nowhere to go but inward. The novel heavily implies that when the invasion of Earth doesn't go well, the Martians take over Venus.

* [[Older Than Radio]]: The [[Ur Example]] is ''[[The War of the Worlds (novel)|The War of the Worlds]]'', by [[H. G. Wells]], published in 1898. The book depicted a Martian invasion with overt analogies to European hegemony. The invaders have perfectly good reasons: according to contemporary theories, outer planets are the first to form and the first to die. With spaceflight in the [[Jules Verne]] steam cannon stage, the aliens have nowhere to go but inward. The novel heavily implies that when the invasion of Earth doesn't go well, the Martians take over Venus.

* Inverted (perhaps deliberately) in [[C. S. Lewis|CS Lewis]]' ''[[Out of the Silent Planet]]'', which has humans as the planet looters trying to conquer Mars—even though the solar system runs under the same theory as Wells', and the Martians point out that their world will die ''before'' Earth.

* In a rare example of humans doing it to other humans, the [[People's Republic of Tyranny|People's Republic of Haven]] from ''[[Honor Harrington]]'' regularly conquers and loots other planets simply to prop up their own failing economy. Things turn ugly when they try to do it to the Star Kingdom of Manticore and their Short Victorious War turns into a long and bloody one. Making matters worse for Haven is the fact that unlike a lot of nonhuman Planet Looters, the Havenites build their newly conquered planets into their own empire. Which means that each looted planet eventually becomes a new drain on the budget, because the cost of keeping it under control will sooner or later be higher than the rewards of looting whatever is still left after ten or twenty years. The parallels to [[Ancient Rome]] may or may not be deliberate.

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*** The Sontarans also do this, as it's very easy to turn Earth into a breeding planet for their species. How easy? {{spoiler|They even get the humans to install ATMOS systems on their vehicles, which are designed to wipe out humans and prepare the atmosphere.}}

** In "Horror of Fang Rock", the Rutans (eternal enemies of the Sontarans) mention that Earth is valuable because it is strategically placed, rather than anything on the planet. This explanation is as good as any until we get to the subject of all those other rocks that are pretty much in the same place but put up less of a fight.

* 1983's ''[[V]]'', as well as the sequel miniseries ''The Final Battle'' and eventually ''The Series'', had aliens not only intent on strip-mining the planet (of water), but considered humanity as a food resource (along with small birds and rodents). The [[Novelization]] makes a rather worthy attempt to [[Justified Trope|justify]] it - it's not so much plain water and food they are after, but ''relatively pure'' water and ''meat''; in their experience, all civilizations [[Green Aesop|pollute their worlds irreversibly]] in the process of developing interstellar travel, and recycling technologies have trouble efficiently supporting millions, let alone billions of people. Starfaring civilizations are thus constantly warring over what little clean water and produce remains. When the "Visitors" discovered a life-sustaining world that had not yet developed even basic spaceflight... well, OM NOM NOM NOM.

* 1983's ''[[V (TV series)|V]]'', as well as the sequel miniseries ''The Final Battle'' and eventually ''The Series'', had aliens not only intent on strip-mining the planet (of water), but considered humanity as a food resource (along with small birds and rodents). The [[Novelization]] makes a rather worthy attempt to [[Justified Trope|justify]] it - it's not so much plain water and food they are after, but ''relatively pure'' water and ''meat''; in their experience, all civilizations [[Green Aesop|pollute their worlds irreversibly]] in the process of developing interstellar travel, and recycling technologies have trouble efficiently supporting millions, let alone billions of people. Starfaring civilizations are thus constantly warring over what little clean water and produce remains. When the "Visitors" discovered a life-sustaining world that had not yet developed even basic spaceflight... well, OM NOM NOM NOM.

* The Goa'uld from ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'' ''already'' did it to Earth thousands of years ago—to acquire humans as slaves and hosts, as well as resource wealth—then subsequently lost control of the planet in a revolt.

** The [[Human Aliens|Aschen]] are worse about this. They're strong enough to fight off the Goa'uld and often use it as a pretext to begin the covert process of turning populated worlds into giant farming fields with a fraction of the original population via the use of sterility viruses. This also serves to eliminate any potential competitor.

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== Tabletop Games ==

* The Dark Eldar from ''[[Warhammer ~~40000~~]]'', who pillage planets for [[Human Resources]], meaning, in this case, fleshy meatlings to play with.

* The Dark Eldar from ''[[Warhammer 40,000]]'', who pillage planets for [[Human Resources]], meaning, in this case, fleshy meatlings to play with.

** To a lesser extent, the regular Eldar before the fall. One codex mentions them doing things like stealing other species' suns for no discernible reason.

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[[Category:Military and Warfare Tropes]]

[[Category:Speculative Fiction Tropes]]

[[Category:~~Planet Looters~~]]

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