Alien invasion in fiction.

[Moontanman]

What is your fav alien invasion novel, series of book or even short story and why? 

Mine is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worldwar_series It is unique and hauntingly realistic IMHO! 

[Danijel Gorupec]

I did not read... Which elements of the invasion did you find unique and realistic? (I am not afraid of spoilers, but other members could.)

Do you only consider a hostile military invasion? Or you also consider a trading invasion or a scholarly invasion?

I must say that I never found a novel that, in my opinion, would depict a realistic hostile invasion to our home planet. Probably such novel cannot even exist because I think that a realistic attack would end in matter of minutes - nothing much to write about.

Interestingly, I found Predator (1987 movie) relatively realistic. It is not an invasion, but I can imagine how a macho asshole (possibly an outlaw) from a more advanced society comes here doing his macho stuff. Some people do this too.

[FreeWill]

The Edge of Tomorrow.

[Moontanman]

2 hours ago, Danijel Gorupec said:

I did not read... Which elements of the invasion did you find unique and realistic? (I am not afraid of spoilers, but other members could.)

Do you only consider a hostile military invasion? Or you also consider a trading invasion or a scholarly invasion?

I must say that I never found a novel that, in my opinion, would depict a realistic hostile invasion to our home planet. Probably such novel cannot even exist because I think that a realistic attack would end in matter of minutes - nothing much to write about.

Interestingly, I found Predator (1987 movie) relatively realistic. It is not an invasion, but I can imagine how a macho asshole (possibly an outlaw) from a more advanced society comes here doing his macho stuff. Some people do this too.

A couple of spoilers is necessary, this would be an alternate time line series of Novels, the invaders only high tech that we do not have today is Fusion, they invade during WW2 and for various reasons expect an easy victory. Their ships are sleeper ships taking centuries to make the journey. The essentially show up with technology comparable to what we currently have now but at the beginning of WW2. Expecting a medieval society and only having a limited number of high tech weapons (high tech means comparable to our current tech) and hijinxs ensues...   

[Janus]

I always enjoyed the Niven-Pournelle  novel Footfall.   It addressed the issue as to why a civilization with the resources to cross interstellar space would even bother to invade the Earth.  They also "leveled the playing field" a bit by handicapping the invaders in terms of psychology and actual intelligence (while supplying a rationale behind both.)

[Danijel Gorupec]

1 hour ago, Moontanman said:

A couple of spoilers is necessary, this would be an alternate time line series of Novels, the invaders only high tech that we do not have today is Fusion, they invade during WW2 and for various reasons expect an easy victory. Their ships are sleeper ships taking centuries to make the journey. The essentially show up with technology comparable to what we currently have now but at the beginning of WW2. Expecting a medieval society and only having a limited number of high tech weapons (high tech means comparable to our current tech) and hijinxs ensues...   

Do they travel aimlessly and accidentally stumbled on Earth (and decide to conquer) or did they come with the goal?

If a robotic probe visited Earth long time ago and recorded a primitive civilization, then it can be possible that sleeper ships arrive centuries later expecting a low-tech civilization. It is possible that someone makes such a judgement error... It is however unlikely that they won't send more subsequent robotic probes just to observe how the situation is going.

Another possible scenario with sleeper ships is that settlers arrive only to discover that the planet is already taken. Then, because they are in some sort of emergency situation and have no way back, they decide to fight.

But there is always this problem with the inter-stellar travel. It seems to me that a civilization capable of doing it (even in sleeper ships) must be far more advanced than us today. Currently we are completely unable to make even a sleeper ship. We don't know how to sleep and we don't know how to make a ship that maintains itself for hundreds of years... Maybe they can have some biological advantage that makes their ships simpler (an inborn ability to cool down and sleep infinitely long, plus a resistance to radiation)

33 minutes ago, Janus said:

I always enjoyed the Niven-Pournelle  novel Footfall.   It addressed the issue as to why a civilization with the resources to cross interstellar space would even bother to invade the Earth.  They also "leveled the playing field" a bit by handicapping the invaders in terms of psychology and actual intelligence (while supplying a rationale behind both.)

Just read the synopsis on the Wikipedia... Interesting idea of inherited knowledge... I only do not understand why did the previous civilization perish if it was capable of interstellar travel (or if it was not capable of interstellar travel, then how did those elephants develop the needed technology - it is not a small step)?

 

[dimreepr]

7 minutes ago, Danijel Gorupec said:

Do they travel aimlessly and accidentally stumbled on Earth (and decide to conquer) or did they come with the goal?

You tell me, if we're the aliens what do think is the prime directive?

Let's not forget what an alien invader actually is; a human being that has lost it's homeland but hopes its home planet has some compassion.

 

[Moontanman]

1 hour ago, Danijel Gorupec said:

Do they travel aimlessly and accidentally stumbled on Earth (and decide to conquer) or did they come with the goal? 

They came here with that goal. they would send probes to inhabitable planets, they prefered planets that already had intelligent species. Their civilization was based on conquest and domination on their home planet and they just continued that when they found nearby aliens. I think in the book Humans were the third or forth race they had invaded. 

1 hour ago, Danijel Gorupec said:

If a robotic probe visited Earth long time ago and recorded a primitive civilization, then it can be possible that sleeper ships arrive centuries later expecting a low-tech civilization. It is possible that someone makes such a judgement error... It is however unlikely that they won't send more subsequent robotic probes just to observe how the situation is going.

They had long lives and there technological progress took 100,000s of years to get to the point we were from the medieval civilization the probe found. The other races they had conquered so far shared that slow progress. They thought we would as well.. 

1 hour ago, Danijel Gorupec said:

Another possible scenario with sleeper ships is that settlers arrive only to discover that the planet is already taken. Then, because they are in some sort of emergency situation and have no way back, they decide to fight.

That is basically what happened to them

1 hour ago, Danijel Gorupec said:

But there is always this problem with the inter-stellar travel. It seems to me that a civilization capable of doing it (even in sleeper ships) must be far more advanced than us today. Currently we are completely unable to make even a sleeper ship. We don't know how to sleep and we don't know how to make a ship that maintains itself for hundreds of years... Maybe they can have some biological advantage that makes their ships simpler (an inborn ability to cool down and sleep infinitely long, plus a resistance to radiation)

Their biology made sleeper ships much easier for them, they were reptilian and naturally hibernated for long periods of time. They only traveled at a small fraction of the speed of light, several thousand years travel time was what they were used to and saw no reason to advance it any further.  

1 hour ago, Danijel Gorupec said:

Just read the synopsis on the Wikipedia... Interesting idea of inherited knowledge... I only do not understand why did the previous civilization perish if it was capable of interstellar travel (or if it was not capable of interstellar travel, then how did those elephants develop the needed technology - it is not a small step)?

 

Footfall was interesting, not one of my favs but still a great read... 

[Janus]

3 hours ago, Danijel Gorupec said:

Just read the synopsis on the Wikipedia... Interesting idea of inherited knowledge... I only do not understand why did the previous civilization perish if it was capable of interstellar travel (or if it was not capable of interstellar travel, then how did those elephants develop the needed technology - it is not a small step)?

 

I'd Have to go back and shift through the book to be sure, but I seem to remember that whatever led to the extinction of the previous civilization was not something that could have been prevented by colonizing other worlds.   Whether is was some genetic fault that occurred naturally, or an unintended result of their own attempts at genetic engineering ( I do know that the "snouts" evolved from work animals that were modified to fit their purpose), or some other cause, I'm not 100% sure. ( it may be that the novel never actually answers the question for certain).

[Moontanman]

On 8/5/2019 at 7:35 AM, Danijel Gorupec said:

I did not read... Which elements of the invasion did you find unique and realistic? (I am not afraid of spoilers, but other members could.)

Do you only consider a hostile military invasion? Or you also consider a trading invasion or a scholarly invasion?

I must say that I never found a novel that, in my opinion, would depict a realistic hostile invasion to our home planet. Probably such novel cannot even exist because I think that a realistic attack would end in matter of minutes - nothing much to write about.

Interestingly, I found Predator (1987 movie) relatively realistic. It is not an invasion, but I can imagine how a macho asshole (possibly an outlaw) from a more advanced society comes here doing his macho stuff. Some people do this too.

 

On 8/5/2019 at 11:15 AM, Janus said:

I always enjoyed the Niven-Pournelle  novel Footfall.   It addressed the issue as to why a civilization with the resources to cross interstellar space would even bother to invade the Earth.  They also "leveled the playing field" a bit by handicapping the invaders in terms of psychology and actual intelligence (while supplying a rationale behind both.)

 

On 8/5/2019 at 11:56 AM, dimreepr said:

You tell me, if we're the aliens what do think is the prime directive?

Let's not forget what an alien invader actually is; a human being that has lost it's homeland but hopes its home planet has some compassion.

 

 

The series of novels is quite long, I like to find good stories that play out over several novels and The World War series has at least 6 or more novels in two different but connected series. The best part was there was no star trek fantasy technology, the aliens had pretty much our current 21st century tech and like humans they have some serious character flaws, drug addiction, lust for power, sexual problems, and they introduced their own native animals who began to wreak the ecosystem  much like humans did when they traveled the world. The addition of real people places and conflicts added to the realism.