# Most realistic spacealien invasion **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 21, 2006, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-realistic-spacealien-invasion/361538 "2006-06-21T04:03:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2006, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-realistic-spacealien-invasion/361538/1 "2006-06-21T04:03:47Z")
What movie, TV show or whatever has the most realistic portrayal of what an alien invasion would be like? The problem of course is that most movie alien invasions are plagued by several flaws: -Aliens that are essentially naked, humanoid, inarticulate monsters (often looking like or in fact being H G Geiger creations) or some kind of “blob” monster -Alien technology that has one fatal flaw allowing it to be taken out by F18s and shoulder launched rockets. -Aliens that feel some odd need to try to integrate into out society because we’re so damn special. In spite of it’s comedy factor, the Vogon invasion of Earth was the closest thing I would imagine an alien invasion being like. Basically one day aliens show up in ships so advanced that our weapons would be no more effective than an attack on the USS Iowa battleship by Polynesian dugout canoes and for reasons of their own, obliterate the planet. ---
**Author:** ![Corporate\_Hippie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/65b543/32.png) [@Corporate\_Hippie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corporate_Hippie)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2006, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-realistic-spacealien-invasion/361538/2 "2006-06-21T04:21:10Z")
I just watched **Invasion of the Body Snatchers** ('56) last night, and that struck me as a pretty cool invasion plan. ---
**Author:** ![Equipoise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/equipoise/32/151_2.png) [@Equipoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equipoise)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2006, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-realistic-spacealien-invasion/361538/3 "2006-06-21T04:24:38Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > In spite of it’s comedy factor, the Vogon invasion of Earth was the closest thing I would imagine an alien invasion being like. Basically one day aliens show up in ships so advanced that our weapons would be no more effective than an attack on the USS Iowa battleship by Polynesian dugout canoes and for reasons of their own, obliterate the planet. But they had a perfectly good reason, and it wasn’t their decision. An interstellar bypass was being built. Earth was in the way and had to go. The Vogons were just doing their jobs. They may have been terrible poets, but you can’t really pin the decision to make earth go kablooie on their heads. The movie may be hated, but I liked how **Signs** did it. ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2006, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-realistic-spacealien-invasion/361538/4 "2006-06-21T04:31:18Z")
_Footfall_ might be one of the best bets here. Without giving too much away, the aliens have some significant weaknesses that are exploitable, but it’s not anything cheap or easy. ---
**Author:** ![Hometownboy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/5e9695/32.png) [@Hometownboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hometownboy)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2006, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-realistic-spacealien-invasion/361538/5 "2006-06-21T04:31:21Z")
If you think your mind’s eye is better than anything yet put on the screen, then check out Larry Niven and David Pournelle’s “Footfall.” Elephant-like aliens land in Kansas using paragliders, take out tanks with crowbar-sized missles falling from space, etc. A really good ride by the real pros. Worth rereading periodically, too. For the record, I have no financial interest in their work. (Don’t I just _wish!_) My only connection is having met Mr. Niven some years ago, briefly, at a Westercon held in Portland, OR and he was very kind. ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2006, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-realistic-spacealien-invasion/361538/6 "2006-06-21T05:13:14Z")
Someone on these very boards (I can’t recall who) once brought up a story called [The Screwfly Solution](http://www.scifi.com/scifiction/classics/classics_archive/sheldon/sheldon1.html) as an example of just this kind of situation. I concur. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2006, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-realistic-spacealien-invasion/361538/7 "2006-06-21T06:11:02Z")
Another vote for _Footfall_. Another would be Greg Bear’s _The Forge of God_, mostly because they do what a real alien invasion would likely do : destroy us easily. Save for a few survivors rescued by different aliens; the Ships of the Law. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2006, 9:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-realistic-spacealien-invasion/361538/8 "2006-06-21T09:10:19Z")
The cool thing about _Footfall_ is that the aliens aren’t all that more technologically advanced than us. I’d say they have about a 50-100 year lead, no more, and they have several evolutionary disadvantages compared to humanity. 90% of their success come from the fact that they’re in space, and we’re not. (…which is what makes the ending so great.) ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Clam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3bc359/32.png) [@Happy\_Clam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Clam)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2006, 9:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-realistic-spacealien-invasion/361538/9 "2006-06-21T09:16:50Z")
I quite liked Harry Turtledove’s _World War: Imvasion_ series, about a race of repitilian invaders that have a perhaps 100-200 year advance on Earth technology, and invade in 1942. It’s quite interesting and well-thought-out, although it drags a littleas it goes on. I particuarly like how there is no “easy” answer to the invasion; in the end, The world ends up half-controlled by humans and lizards. I’ve also always had a soft spot for _War of the Worlds_; the book, not the crappy film. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2006, 10:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-realistic-spacealien-invasion/361538/10 "2006-06-21T10:09:39Z")
> [@Gorsnak](#): > > _Footfall_ might be one of the best bets here. Without giving too much away, the aliens have some significant weaknesses that are exploitable, but it’s not anything cheap or easy. I really didn’t rate _Footfall_, and I was surprised, because I’m usually quite a Niven fan. The aliens, despite being twin-trunked elephants, were just too _human_ in the way they thought and acted, their vices, failings and foibles. I know that Niven knows better than this, because he has written elsewhere “there are minds that think as well as you, but differently”. I won’t carp on about my other objections - I realise it was trying very hard to be a real-world scenario, with real-world physics etc, but I just thought it could have done much, much better. I’m not sure what I think is the most realistic portrayal, but I think one of the _worst_ was _Signs_ - the aliens travel across interstellar space and are on the brink of overtaking humanity when… They are killed off by _rain_ - yep, that’s right, they have the technology to cross the galaxy, but they failed to notice that our planet has a bit of water on it. Fucking stupid. I turned it off in disgust right then. ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Clam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3bc359/32.png) [@Happy\_Clam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Clam)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2006, 10:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-realistic-spacealien-invasion/361538/11 "2006-06-21T10:47:51Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > I really didn’t rate _Footfall_, and I was surprised, because I’m usually quite a Niven fan. The aliens, despite being twin-trunked elephants, were just too _human_ in the way they thought and acted, their vices, failings and foibles. I know that Niven knows better than this, because he has written elsewhere “there are minds that think as well as you, but differently”. I won’t carp on about my other objections - I realise it was trying very hard to be a real-world scenario, with real-world physics etc, but I just thought it could have done much, much better. > > I’m not sure what I think is the most realistic portrayal, but I think one of the _worst_ was _Signs_ - the aliens travel across interstellar space and are on the brink of overtaking humanity when… They are killed off by _rain_ - yep, that’s right, they have the technology to cross the galaxy, but they failed to notice that our planet has a bit of water on it. Fucking stupid. I turned it off in disgust right then. Yeah, I was amazed when someone cited Signs as an example of a well-executed invasion. Lesse: -Aliens with the ability to cross interstellar distances attack naked, on foot and unarmed. -Aliens allergic to water attack a planet where that is one of the chief chemicals in the atmosphere. Did I mention naked, on foot and unarmed? -Didn’t they actually want to eat us? 'Cos when I go home at night, the first thing I want to tuck into is a hydrochloric acid-steak. After slaughtering the well-armed, intelligent cow by hand. While I’m naked, on foot and unarmed. Yes, I get it, the aliens are a metaphor for Mel Gibson (sorry, Priesty McPastor) losing his faith. This does not make a crappy concept good. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2006, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-realistic-spacealien-invasion/361538/12 "2006-06-21T12:23:00Z")
It’s not an alien invasion story, but my favorite is Larry Niven’s “They’re assimilating our culture, that’s what they’re Doing!” (in, I think, **Convergent Series** , and other anthologies). The human-eating alien potential invaders _don’t_ attack us because it’s too energy inefficient and literally time-consuming to cross space and use all that energy and reaction mass to get themselves to Earth, or to bring back humans to eat on their planet. So they take samples of DNA and grow the portions of us they want to eat back home. They even pay royalties for the use of the DNA. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2006, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-realistic-spacealien-invasion/361538/13 "2006-06-21T12:27:12Z")
_Mars Atttacks._🙂 Another vote for _Footfall_. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2006, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-realistic-spacealien-invasion/361538/14 "2006-06-21T12:40:21Z")
I liked “The Day the Earth Stood Still.” Alien with superior tech comes down and lays down the rules. The humans Just Don’t Get It, so he does a few simple things to convince everyone that he has powers that far exceed ours, and we agree to go by the rules seeing as how we have no choice. The end. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2006, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-realistic-spacealien-invasion/361538/15 "2006-06-21T12:49:46Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > It’s not an alien invasion story, but my favorite is Larry Niven’s “They’re assimilating our culture, that’s what they’re Doing!” (in, I think, **Convergent Series** , and other anthologies). The human-eating alien potential invaders _don’t_ attack us because it’s too energy inefficient and literally time-consuming to cross space and use all that energy and reaction mass to get themselves to Earth, or to bring back humans to eat on their planet. “They’ll get Campbell’s and like it.” 🙂 I did like the alien “invasion” in **Alien Nation** (both the TV show and the movie). I also liked **Signs**. If you’re going to be logical about it, you’re clueless: the great thing was the emotional impact, the message about belief, and the fear in the eyes of the anchormen and women. Despite the fact the movie is utter crap, **Battlefield Earth** account of the invasion seems realistic: basically, the aliens nuke us from orbit. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2006, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-realistic-spacealien-invasion/361538/16 "2006-06-21T12:50:42Z")
> [@Evil Captor](#): > > I liked “The Day the Earth Stood Still.” That _is_ a great movie, particularly for it’s time, but: They are going to nuke the earth if the Terrans venture into space without joining their “space government”. Why? If they are so bad assed, and such Nice Guys, if they can stop electrcial power all over the world save for hospitals and planes in flight, why bother to nuke the world? That seems a rather tacky thing to do to the inhabitants because of decisions their governments, or indeed only one government, made. Station one of the Gort guys to shoot down and rockets that leave the atmosphere, or leave one of the devices running in high earth orbit. _Gort: Klatu birada nicto._ ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2006, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-realistic-spacealien-invasion/361538/17 "2006-06-21T13:02:05Z")
Well, a _real_ Alien Invasion would consist on one Space Tugboat, & one huge Colonizer Transport, with Alien Families armed with little more than hunting weapons. The Space Tugboat re-directs asteroids at Earth until we are wiped out, or can offer no reasonable resistance. The Colonizer enters orbit ( it is too big to land), & sets up colonies of Aliens all over the planet. What few pitiful Human survivors that exist trade manual labor for access to medicine/alien technology, as we cannot produce medicine or technology for ourselves, due to total societal collapse. We become their janitors, their fast-food cooks, their nannys & their migrant farm workers. We scrub their toilets, as our Human Race’s sole purpose for existing, so to speak. Eventually, we abandon our own culture, religion, technology, philosophies & worldviews entirely, becoming 10th-rate imitators of Earth’s new dominant species. Some will do this because they are sellouts; others will be young people who hold their elders’ views & values in contempt. Most are just practical. We need not ever even know that it was an act of war–the asteroids do their damage years before the Colonists land, & they were never informed. We might very well believe the World was destroyed by accident. We would be **grateful** to the aliens, for relieving us of our misery. And, since 98% or so of all Humans throughout History have held what are basically menial jobs _anyway_, most people would be content, if not fulfilled. the odd Bill Gates/Patton/Lenin/Edison types would be troublemakers, & either shunned or culled. With Humans to do the nasty job, of course. > [@](#): > > Nice roomy cages, fattening food, careful breeding, no worry. After a week or so chasing about the fields and lands on empty stomachs, they’ll come and be caught cheerful. They’ll be quite glad after a bit. They’ll wonder what people did before there were Martians to take care of them. And the bar loafers, and mashers, and singers–I can imagine them. I can imagine them," he said, with a sort of sombre gratification. “There’ll be any amount of sentiment and religion loose among them. There’s hundreds of things I saw with my eyes that I’ve only begun to see clearly these last few days. There’s lots will take things as they are–fat and stupid; and lots will be worried by a sort of feeling that it’s all wrong, and that they ought to be doing something. Now whenever things are so that a lot of people feel they ought to be doing something, the weak, and those who go weak with a lot of complicated thinking, always make for a sort of do-nothing religion, very pious and superior, and submit to persecution and the will of the Lord. Very likely you’ve seen the same thing. It’s energy in a gale of funk, and turned clean inside out. These cages will be full of psalms and hymns and piety. And those of a less simple sort will work in a bit of–what is it?–eroticism.” > He paused. > “Very likely these Martians will make pets of some of them; train them to do tricks–who knows?–get sentimental over the pet boy who grew up and had to be killed. And some, maybe, they will train to hunt us.” > “No,” I cried, “that’s impossible! No human being----” > “What’s the good of going on with such lies?” said the artilleryman. “There’s men who’d do it cheerful. What nonsense to pretend there isn’t!” **~~from “The War Of The Worlds” Book 2 Chapter 24, by H.G. Wells** ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2006, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-realistic-spacealien-invasion/361538/18 "2006-06-21T13:15:02Z")
I think _Species_, for all its faults, is on the tip of a realistic invasion plan. It has the advantage of not requiring a suspension of disbelief w/r/t FTL flight. The one thing I’d do to make it an actual invasion is: Make the DNA sequence very helpful, so helpful that all children are born with it will be nearly invulnerable to disease, live for an estimated 100’s of years, etc. But at age 10 or so, they turn into Attack Aliens from Hell, and by that time, there are too many of them around to eradicate… ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2006, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-realistic-spacealien-invasion/361538/19 "2006-06-21T13:36:05Z")
I agree with Bosda’s points on War of the Worlds. I would have mentioned WotW, except for the fatal design flaw. ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Clam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3bc359/32.png) [@Happy\_Clam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Clam)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2006, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-realistic-spacealien-invasion/361538/20 "2006-06-21T13:55:55Z")
> [@Anaamika](#): > > I agree with Bosda’s points on War of the Worlds. I would have mentioned WotW, except for the fatal design flaw. Flaw? 😕 [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-realistic-spacealien-invasion/361538.md?page=2)