Sufficiently Advanced Alien: Difference between revisions

[[File:Celestials 6610.jpg|link=Marvel Universe|frame|Now all it needs is some water.<ref>See that small figure with flaming hands defying the Celestials? That's ''[[Doctor Doom]]''!</ref>]]

 

 

You know the type. Sooner or later one shows up on every [[Space Opera]] or [[Wagon Train to the Stars]]. They're the alien being that can do ''anything'' with the [[Hand Wave|wave]] of a [[Human Aliens|hand]] (or [[Starfish Aliens|tentacle]], or [[Energy Beings|tendril of energy]]). Sometimes they're hostile, sometimes they're benevolent, sometimes [[Above Good and Evil|above it all]] or just... [[Blue and Orange Morality|different]], but regardless they can really cramp the style of a young, expanding race looking to make a name for itself on the galactic scene. Usually, though, they tend to just be omnipotent jackasses, looking for a cheap laugh. Sometimes you can exploit their sense of honor or fair play, or their desire for solitude, to make them go away. Or maybe you just have to wait for their parents to come and take them home. Unfortunately, you can't always get rid of them—just ask [[Star Trek: The Next Generation|Jean-Luc Picard]] (and don't even get his colleague [[Star Trek: Voyager|Capt. Janeway]] ''started'').

What actually ''separates'' Sufficiently Advanced Aliens from genuine gods can get a little vague, especially with the likes of the [[Stargate SG-1|Ori]], or for that matter [[Star Trek: The Next Generation|Q]], who ''do'' [[God Guise|claim to be deities]], or, for that matter, [[Tenchi Muyo!|Juraian royalty]], who don't, but ''are''. Usually, [[No Such Thing as Space Jesus|being found in space]] and/or opposing the heroes' lack of belief is considered enough reason to [[Villain by Default|reject their claims]]. One possible distinction between the two is that gods are believed by their followers to actually be above the laws of physics (though there are plenty that aren't), whereas sufficiently advanced aliens have just figured them out enough to manipulate them to their favor.

 

 

See also [[Great Gazoo]] and [[Energy Beings]]. When ''humans'' are treated like this, it's [[Humans Are Cthulhu]] or [[Thank the Maker]]. Conversely, if these beings are far enough removed from human understanding, they can be considered [[Eldritch Abomination]]s, in which case they at least have the decency to take on [[A Form You Are Comfortable With]].

 

{{examples}}

== [[Advertising]] ==

* In a UK advert for Carling beer, a group of astronauts have a [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7AM49svaGQ rather amusing encounter] with one of these chaps. Overlaps with [[Energy Beings]] as well by the looks of it.

 

== Anime and Manga ==

** Yuki also has a superior, the mysterious {{spoiler|Kimidori Emiri}}, and two [[Evil Counterpart]]s: {{spoiler|Asakura Ryouko}}, a superpowered, ''really, really freaking scary'' [[Uncanny Valley Girl]] {{spoiler|who tries to kill Kyon without even losing her cool and nice attitude}}, and Kuyou Suou, an [[Emotionless Girl]] whose alien race is at war with Yuki's.

** Also includes a bit of a [[Starfish Aliens]] touch, in that they had to create humans in order to try to understand them (the "alien" characters would be more accurately described as [[Artificial Human|artificial humans]]) and are rather interested in the fact that mere matter can apparently have intelligence.

* The [[Precursors|Golden Tribe]] of ''[[Heroic Age]]''. They were reputed to be able to create planets and predict the future (though whether these tasks required the use of machines or not is never explained), and are treated as gods by the Silver Tribe.

* In ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]'', the giant monsters attacking Tokyo-3 are called Angels and seem ''akin'' to gods, but are actually ([[All There in the Manual|according to one of the supplementary sources]]) expressions of one of a pair of competing "world seeds" launched eons ago by unknown [[Precursors]]. {{spoiler|What Shinji does at the end also seems to lean towards religion, although it may be interpreted as just science, putting the right objects in the right place and having the desired reaction.}}

** We refer you to Clarke's third law for debate.

* It turns out that this is the backstory of Kyuubey from ''[[Puella Magi Madoka Magica]]''. Kyuubey is otherwise a [[Magical Girl]] mascot character, and is capable of teleportation, telepathy, some form of [[Invisible to Normals]],<ref>it's unclear if it's actually tied to magical potential, or if Kyuubey just doesn't want to be seen by them</ref> and turning people into [[Magical Girl]]s, among other things.

 

== Comic Books ==

** The Celestials and the Watchers both answer to the same boss, the Fulcrum, who runs the universe (the Celestials created life, The Horde destroys life and the Watchers record it all).

* In the most controversial ''[[Tintin]]'' comic, ''Tintin in the Congo'' (rife with [[Unfortunate Implications]] and [[Values Dissonance]]), the Congolese natives end up worshiping idols of Tintin and Snowy because of the extreme [[Mighty Whitey]] factor in Tintin's visit.

 

== Fan Works ==

* Shag and Varx in ''[[With Strings Attached]]'' are of some “lizardy, birdy” race with technology sufficiently advanced to shuffle people from one dimension to another for an undergraduate class project, to bestow people with considerable power, and to maneuver those people into annoying situations. Jeft, who is a [[The Greys|Grey]], pretends he's a god, but the others are quick to distance themselves from that definition.

 

== Film ==

* In John Carpenter's ''[[Prince of Darkness]]'' it is revealed that the {{spoiler|Church}} has hidden the truth for 2,000 years -- {{spoiler|that Jesus was an alien}}.

** And there are apparently some who believe this to be [[Truth in Television]].

* The Asgardians in ''[[Thor (film)|Thor]]'', though their power actually seems to be a mix of this and genuine [[Magitek]].

* In ''[[Contact (film)|Contact]]'', a central theme is science versus religion. The main character is an atheist who looks down on her lover's blind faith, and in the end {{spoiler|she is the one who has an essentially religious experience with an advanced alien that everyone else can only take on faith.}} Makes you wonder, if there really is a God, is he perhaps just a really advanced alien?

** In the original, Klaatu claims the awkward, lumbering robot Gort could "destroy the universe", and he likewise brought Klaatu back to life (with the help of some technology).

* Jeff Bridges's species in ''[[Starman (film)|Starman]]'' might count—there seems to be nothing his [[Applied Phlebotinum|magic balls]] couldn't do.

* {{spoiler|The Strangers (who even [[Rule of Symbolism|resemble angels]] in their true form!)}} in ''[[Knowing]]'';

 

== Literature ==

* The Gods (or "Ymirian Guards") in ''[[Nerh Ã]]»n'' are actually highly advanced aliens from the nearby planet Ymir who used [[En Ã]]´r as an experimental location for genetic modification. [[It Got Worse|It got slightly out of hand, though...]]

* The eponymous aliens of S. M. Stirling's ''[[The Lords of Creation]]'' series alter environments on a planetary scale and create interdimensional gateways with ease.

* The Priest-Kings of ''[[Gor]]'', who for some reason, kidnap human from Earth, [[Fantasy Gun Control|remove any type of firearm]], dump them on the eponymous planet and have them create a society that would [[Unfortunate Implications|make the Dark Ages look feminist]]. Their reasons are unknown, maybe they're just [[Video Game Cruelty Potential|really bored]], [[Rule 34|or just that into human porn]].

** It's implied in ''Priest-Kings of Gor'' that they're motivated by a largely by intense boredom (Misk has to be physically restrained from committing suicide when the opportunity arises) and that they just [[Humans Are Special|think people are interesting]].

* [[Michael Moorcock]]'s ''Dancers at the End of Time'' are [[Reality Warper|reality warping]] sufficiently advanced ''humans''. They reached godhood one million years before the beginning of the story, which, ironically, caused humanity to fall into decadence by boredom (omnipotence can do that apparently) and by the beginning of the first book, only a few hundreds of them still exist on earth, yet, even diminished as they are, they are still by far the most powerful race in the universe (well, the fact that their technology is so costly in energy that it is dramatically speeding up the heath death of the universe means that there are not that many potential rivals anymore) and are still able to understand their own technology, the problem is that they use it to built [[Great Gazoo|pink suns on a whim]] or tinker with the space-time continuum to [[Incredibly Lame Pun|pass time]] instead of trying to fix the mess they created. It is even implied that some of them actually {{spoiler|go to [[Canon Welding|other universes]] and start insanely destructive wars against gods}} because they have nothing better to do.

* Tuffy in [[John Ringo]]'s ''[[Into the Looking Glass]]'' series. Unless, as hinted, [[Our Angels Are Different|he's something even stranger]].

** It's actually a bit debatable whether they're truly [[Sufficiently Advanced]], because while they're even more godlike in achievement than many others on this list, they ''do'' use recognizable tech... With the exception of the Anti-Xelee's [[Deus Est Machina]] schtick, at any rate. Thus they shade between this and being more a hyper-extreme case of [[Higher-Tech Species]].

* Langhorne and the other founders of ''[[Safehold]]'' are this to the unwitting colonists. Shan-Wei, a founder who resists the idea of setting themselves up as "Archangels" is defeated and becomes the planetary religion's equivalent of Satan.

 

== Live-Action TV ==

** ''[[Star Trek V: The Final Frontier|What does God need with a starship?]]''

** The Metrons, from the famous ''TOS'' episode where Kirk fought the Gorn.

** Also the Guardian of Forever (or alternately, the ancient race that created said Guardian).

** One ''Next Generation'' episode played with the trope, with the antagonist claiming to be a mythological figure (or several, from different worlds and cultures, claiming they are all one in the same—we "know" her as [[Satan]]) that a low-tech civilisation made a literal [[Deal with the Devil]] with a few thousand years earlier. {{spoiler|She turned out to be a con-artist whose technology was Sufficiently Advanced that it ''almost'' fooled the crew of the Enterprise-D into thinking she was the genuine article, and it wasn't until near the end that they managed to conclusively prove she wasn't.}}

* ''[[Babylon 5]]'' had the First Ones. The Vorlons and the Shadows were almost but not quite [[Sufficiently Advanced]]. (If you have to travel through space in a ship, you're probably not ''Sufficiently'' Advanced. After all, what does a God need with a starship?)

** Somewhat lampshaded by the fact that despite being looked upon as technologically transcendent beings the Vorlons are often treated as if they were ordinary schmoes. A couple of miscellaneous aliens accost him with a medical ethics quandary in "Believers" only for an (irritated?) Kosh to dismiss them, saying "the avalanche has already started; it is too late for the pebbles to vote."

** And then there's Lorien, ''the'' first one, and who can essentially ''become'' his own spaceship.

** Lorien and the rest of the First Ones aren't in the same league as the other Sufficiently Advanced Aliens listed here. The B5 heavies can conjure matter using their own thoughts, but this is a parlor trick compared to the kind of universe-wide reality bending abilities demonstrated by the truly [[Sufficiently Advanced]].

**** To put this in context: Vorlons in the ''Babylon 5'' card game have a 'military' score, which is a stat normally reserved for planets and fleets capable of military action. A Vorlon (singular) [[One-Man Army|can take on anything up to the third human battlefleet and win]].

* ''[[Mystery Science Theater 3000]]'' parodied this trope for everything it was worth in the Sci-Fi era with the Observers, a race of [[Brain In a Jar|disembodied brains]] carried around in bowls by bodies that they claimed didn't exist. Despite claims that they were possessed of all knowledge in the universe, they are an omnipotent race of morons—assuming that Tom Servo was one of them because he did well on an IQ test and he started carrying an olive in a dish and pretending it was his brain, and finding chili dogs an incredibly fascinating concept, to name just two instances.

* In ''[[Stargate Universe]]'', when the Destiny comes across a planet that shouldn't be there that looks as if it was built for them, they theorize all-powerful aliens must've built it, especially because of a huge monolith with strange writing. A theory that gains more credence when {{spoiler|a group of people left behind on that planet suddenly and inexplicably show up a galaxy away... after freezing to death.}} Also the "all-powerful aliens" bit is not too outlandish in the Stargate verse, what with the Ascended (it would be well within the power of the Ascended to create a perfectly habitable planet).

* In ''[[Smallville]]'', a Kryptonian man visited Earth about 500 years ago, where he was worshiped by a Native American tribe.

 

== Tabletop Games ==

** The Necrons themselves also would fall into the category of being Sufficiently Advanced Aliens. Necron technology is capable of the following:

*** Lasting over 60 million years buried and neglected all over the galaxy, yet still capable of being reactivated without a hitch.

*** Merely looking at complex Necron circuitry has caused epileptic fits.

*** Immortality via [[Brain Uploading|patterning of a biological brain into a machine]], though with an admittedly variable success rate (Necron Lord self awareness vs your average Warrior or Flayed One).

*** Handheld weapons of the necron army have been seen penetrating both faces of opposing factions' heaviest supervehicles.

** The Old Ones were Sufficiently Advanced Aliens long before the C'tan decided to stop ignoring sentient races and start eating them. They seeded worlds with life, created safe realms within the Warp, and created the Eldar (who later ascended to this position themselves) and the Orks.

*** Eldar were this during their peak. They would move the stars for the view.

** Karn the Silver Golem was a sufficiently advanced ''robot'', an assembly of artifacts indistinguishable from an old-style [[Physical God|Planeswalker]]. He even created his own world.

* The {{spoiler|ETI}} from ''[[Eclipse Phase]]'', for a more [[Eldritch Abomination]] style advanced alien, there's.

 

== Video Games ==

* [[Precursors|Forerunners]] and ''their'' forerunners, [[Abusive Precursors|The Precursors]] fit the bill neatly. A list of the Forerunner's works include:

** The ''[[Halo (series)|Halo]]'' Array: 7 (originally 12) ring habitats that act as fortresses and weapons of a kill-all-life-in-the-Galaxy-bigger-than-a-microbe scale. Had the original 12 been activated all at once, the kill-effect would have gone ''far out into the Local Cluster''. The rings themselves have almost the radius of the ''Earth''.

*** The Ark itself comes with its own small star that moves around it.

** Shield Worlds are essentially hollow ''[[That's No Moon|planet-sized artificial structures]]'', comparable to what we might call a "small Dyson Sphere". They ''might'' serve as shipyards. One of them, the "Sharpened Shield", is actually housed in a [[Pocket Dimension]], the gateway to which is ''inside'' another Shield World built out of Sentinel robots (i.e small UCAV units). The Sharpened Shield itself has multiple [[Pocket Dimension]]s of its own, to store a big starfleet.

** At one point in the series, the Vortigaunts are shown to at least have ''some'' kind of power over the G-Man when they manage to successfully hold him off and keep him away from Gordon for some stretch of time. But what exact implications this has on the limits of the G-Man's power is never explained.

* The Val-Fasq in the ''[[Galaxy Angel (video game)|Galaxy Angel]]'' Gameverse.

** In Mother, he is also [[Contractual Boss Immunity|completely immune to harm]].

* The Mother of ''[[La-Mulana]]'', who descended to our planet aeons ago and {{spoiler|begat all mortal life as helpers to aid her in returning to the stars. [[Tear Jerker|She cannot return]]; the human [[Player Character]] has to [[Mercy Kill]] her as the [[Final Boss]].}}

* The [[Eldritch Abomination|Rea]][[Sapient Ship|pers]] from ''[[Mass Effect]]''. {{spoiler|They built the Mass Relays and the Citadel.}}

** Averted and subverted with every other race. In ''Revelations'', the turians just before the First Contact War described as being on roughly the same technological level as us. Most other races also dance on that line, and then there are some races like the krogan, vorcha, and drell that "hitchhiked" into space for one reason or another.

* The Entity from ''[[Nexus the Jupiter Incident]]'', an ancient AI capable of reshaping reality.

* The Wave Existence from ''[[Xenogears]]'', an energy being from another dimension that somehow created our own. It believes it is what the inhabitants of this dimension would regard as "God" but doesn't think of itself as such. Probably because it spent billions of years trapped in the Zohar Modifier.

* [[Eldritch Abomination|Lavos]] from ''[[Chrono Trigger]]''.

* The Titans from ''[[World of Warcraft]]''. They travel across the universe, shaping worlds to fit their idea of order.

** And to a certain degree, the Draenei.

* Tuatha De Dunaan from ''[[Metal Slug]] 3D''.

* In ''[[Assassin's Creed]]'' {{spoiler|the surviving members of the First Civilization ''were'' the basis for the deities of most religions, both due to their technology and the fact that they ruled over humanity before humankind rebelled.}} The Pieces of Eden have effects considered explicitly to be "magic" by those who witness them, though Altair concludes that it is simply sufficiently advanced - and supremely dangerous—technology. Among the noted abilities of the Pieces of Eden are mind control and immense amounts of technical knowledge (the Apples); telekinesis and mind control (the Staff); resurrection of the dead (the Ankh); healing severe wounds, disease, and genetic disorders (the Shroud); and telepathy (the Crystal Skulls). Some of the artifacts are capable of temporal distortion (the device responsible for the Philadelphia Event) or outright seeing into the future; {{spoiler|one of the "senses" of the First Civilization was "knowledge" which apparently allowed them to know things that would be impossible to understand otherwise, and this apparently included the ability to see the future}}.

* ''[[Asura's Wrath]]'' has the Shinkoku Trastrium civilization, which are actually super-powered human cyborgs descended from Genetically altered humans, have a lot in common with this trope, with a [[Hinduism]] and [[Buddhism]] twist.

* ''[[Galactic Civilizations]]'' has the {{spoiler|Mythralar, who existed long before any other sentient life and one of whom created the Precursors: Arnor and Dread Lords. One of them is also indirectly responsible for the Altarians being [[Human Aliens]]. What happened to them is not known.}} Two different Victory Conditions result in your species becoming Sufficiently Advanced: either by absorbing enough Ascension Crystal energy or by doing so much research that you learn the secrets of the universe and ascend naturally.

 

== Web Comics ==

* In ''[[The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob]],'' Galatea expresses profound disappointment that Fructose Riboflavin [http://bobadventures.comicgenesis.com/d/20091205.html isn't one of these.]

* ''[[Troops of Doom]]'' has the Legonians, masters of the nigh-magical, [[Clap Your Hands If You Believe]]-fueled [[Built With Lego|Legotech]].

 

== Web Original ==

** Inverted for a period of time as well. Once humanity organizes a counterstrike against the demons and absolutely slaughters them, some of the demons begin to believe that humans have figured out how to use impossibly powerful magic and cannot be defeated.

 

== Western Animation ==

* ''[[Star Trek: The Animated Series]]''

** "Bem" has probably the only instance in the entire franchise of a powerful alien looking after a planet of primitives, who appears to be genuinely wise and benevolent enough that Kirk ''doesn't'' automatically object to the situation on principle. Bonus points because the alien was voiced by Nichelle Nichols (Uhura).

 

== Real Life ==

* [[Cargo Cult]]s prove that people are already sufficiently advanced.

** Just to make sure you fully understand the implications, before the Arabic numerals (which actually were invented in India, but never mind) came along, the Europeans had no concept of zero or positional notation.

** This is also, funnily enough, the origin of some of the ideas concerning the [[Ancient Astronauts]] trope. I.e. supposely "advanced" Western people who can't figure how something sometimes as simple as a stone pyramid was built come with the "obvious" explanation that it had to be the work of superior beings from outer space rather than, say, fellow humans with Bronze Age tools. While we could make something like the pyramids today, it wasn't always known how the builders did it at their generally lower technology level. For example, rather than bringing in surveying equipment to get the foundation level, they flooded the foundation and then moved dirt around until the depth was consistent; rather than using cranes to lift multi-ton stone blocks to the higher levels, they dragged them up earth ramps which were dismantled after construction finished.

* Physicist Frank J. Tipler advocates Omega Point theory, in which it is ''necessary'' that Sufficiently Advanced Aliens (or Sufficiently Advanced Humans) are not merely indistinguishable from gods, but become/create (it's complicated) God.

* [[Stephen Hawking]] himself has suggested that aliens may have already become immortal, live in fast spaceship colonies and suck up entire suns for fuel.

 

* Mormonism teaches that God at one time existed in a mortal form similar to that of humans but was eventually "exalted" and now possesses a physical body similar to that of humans, but immortal and invulnerable to injury or disease. In the Book of Abraham, Kolob is described as a star that is "near unto [God]" and that has been set to govern all celestial bodies similar to Earth. (See [http://www.lds.org/scriptures/pgp/abr/3.3?lang=eng#2 Abraham 3:3]) God is the literal father of our spirits and of those on all the other worlds that he created, which are described as being "without number" ([http://www.lds.org/scriptures/pgp/moses/1.33,35?lang=eng#32 Moses 1:33,35]). After the second coming of Jesus Christ, everyone who has ever lived or died will be resurrected with perfect, immortal physical bodies similar to God's, but only those who have fulfilled all of the requirements of the Gospel and faithfully endured to the end will obtain "exaltation", entering into the highest degree of Celestial Glory (i.e., the kingdom of God, or "the glory of the sun") and in effect become "gods" themselves, possessing all of God's wisdom and power and becoming able to create their own worlds. ([http://www.lds.org/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/76.50-70?lang=eng#49 D&C 76:50-70], [http://www.lds.org/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/76.92-96?lang=eng#49 92-96]) This doctrine, known as "eternal progression", was summarized by former President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and Mormon prophet Lorenzo Snow as: "As man is, God once was; and as God is, man may become."

 

[[Category:Alien Tropes]]

[[Category:Sufficiently Advanced Alien]]