The Right of a Superior Species: Difference between revisions

* It is shown that the aliens behave in a more honorable manner towards those whom they believe to be their equals or superiors. A race that treats everyone badly when they can get away with it may be simply evil.

 

{{examples}}

* In ''[[Wicked City]]'', Makie's ex-lover Jin tries to make her admit this by saying, "Human are lower-class creatures than us. They're only fit for slavery. ''That's'' their heritage."

* ''[[Puella Magi Madoka Magica]]'''s [[Cute Is Evil|Kyubee]] plays with this trope. {{spoiler|He turned vunerable teenage girls into magical girls in order to fight witches, but doesn't tell them that he does so by turning them into [[Our Liches Are Different|Liches]]. Then the girls find out that if they don't keep their [[Transformation Trinket|Soul Gem]] pure, they become witches too, and it '''then''' it turns out he's doing all this to collect energy to fight the Heat death of the universe. He justifies it by wanting to prevent said heat death, and by the fact that his kind has been assisting humanity since the stone age. All this while subtly implying that his race regards humanity the way humanity regards cattle. However, Kyubee doesn't have emotions, so he doesn't do this because he thinks he superior to humanity (or at least that's not the most important reason). He does it because they need to prevent the universe ending, and this is the most efficient way to do it.}}

 

== [[Film]] ==

* Similar to the [[Avatar]] example, there's the not-well-received animation ''[[Battle for Terra]]'', where the human race stages an invasion of an alien planet. They justify this by the right of their superior technology, their view that the aliens aren't sapient, and that Earth was destroyed and they need to repopulate the species somewhere.

* Megatron (and probably the other Decepticons) in [[Transformers]], who says that "Humans don't deserve to live."

== [[Literature]] ==

* ''[[War of the Worlds]]'' by H.G. Wells. Unusual in that this is articulated by the human narrator at the beginning of the book. After reflecting on how much more advanced and intelligent the Martians are, he concludes:

* In ''[[Gor|Priest Kings of Gor]]'', Sarm justifies the Priest-King practice of [[Fantasy Gun Control|smiting humans who experiment with firearm technology]] by claiming that Priest-Kings are superior to humans in the same way that humans are superior to the animals they kill for food.

** Curiously, he claims that said animals are sentient, if not 'rational'. Of course only Priest-Kings are truly rational.

*** Which is actually accurate (animals being sentient, if not the rest). The word "sentient" technically and despite the way it's used by some SF writers implies nothing about a creature's ''intelligence'', merely its ''awareness''; a sentient creature is one that can experience sensations and feelings, but there's no requirement that it also be particularly bright.

* The Strong Races are this to the Weak ones in ''[[The Stars Are Cold Toys]]'' duology. The galactic rules are like this: if your race is powerful enough to wipe out any other race except fellow Strong ones, you can do whatever you please. If it isn't, you better possess some unique talent useful to the Strong races, or be wiped out by them to make space for new strains of evolution.

* ''[[Out of the Dark]]'' by [[David Weber]], is about a race of aliens who usually do this successfully but get way more than they bargained for with humanity.

** In [[Darren Shan]]'s vampire books, the Vampires avert this but the Vampaneze play it straight.

* The dragons from Robin Hobb's ''[[Realm of the Elderlings]]'' are like this. Even after a long absence and teetering on the brink of extinction, they fully expect humanity to serve them.

 

== [[Live Action TV]] ==

** When Daniel Jackson points out that nearly all Goa'uld technology has been stolen from other races, the Goa'uld merely shrugs and says it doesn't matter how it was acquired. The Goa'uld have the technology; the humans don't. It's as simple as that.

* The Minbari of [[Babylon 5]] believed that their status as the oldest Non-First One Space Faring Civilization gave them the right to exterminate the entire human race simply to avenge the death of their leader in a botched first contact that was as much their fault as it was the Humans.

* ''[[Star Trek Deep Space 9]]''- In the season 5 episode "Waltz", Captain Sisko and Gul Dukat discuss the Cardassion occupation of Bajor. The following exchange occurs:

== [[Video Games]] ==

* This thought is enforced by the government schools of Alfard ("[[The Empire]] of the flame") in ''[[Baten Kaitos]]''. Lyude, the one heroic character from the country, is revealed to have been homeschooled by a nanny.

 

== [[Western Animation]] ==

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Older Than Radio]]

[[Category:Alien Tropes]]