>original, interesting reasons for aliens who are evidently

>>53025381
The plot for the movie "They Live"?

Same reasons human explorers and missionaries would go to a tiny jungle village full of savages.

They want to convert them, they're stopping for rest and supplies, they're looking for a great treasure hidden nearby, they want to rape some local women, etc.

>>53025381
Humans are cannon fodder, reproduction rates and wide spectrum of skills make for decent foot soldiers. Pepper in accelerated growth rate, with info being practically just plugged into them in the vats, possibly the ability to reverse the aging process in physical appearance and endurance but life span stays the same to bring more humans into the war.

They want us and see us as nothing more than meat shields to bolster their own ranks and keep more of their own people alive.

>>53025555
>original

>>53025381
It turns out FTL travel is really simple to invent and we could've had it 30 years ago, but currently human-undiscovered laws of physics make it only possible in deep space.
These aliens just got lucky doing a specific experiment several light-days away from a gravity well. Apart from FTL, their technology isn't all that impressive.

>>53025381

*Only in Hollywood can an alien armada cross the vastness of interstellar space in ships the size of mountains yet be dumb enough not to install anti-virus software*

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXWe8g0zziw

It doesn't exist. Not in any fictions interested in telling a compelling story at least.

if you have competent aliens you won't see an alien invasion, you'll see all our stuff in orbit get shot down and watch in helpless horror as the aliens start dropping asteroids on us until we give into their demands or die because they wanted our clay/wipe us out

>>53025381
The aliens really really really like having sex with humans. It's like a drug to them. But the highest priced humans are Certified, Ethically raised.

So the aliens have to conquer earth, but can't avoid being too unethical about it. Instead, there is a DHR in their bureaucracy that controls every year how many humans may be hunted, and in what zones. This helps to keep the human population at healthy, stable levels, while also avoiding too much of the stress hormone interfering with human sexual development.

>>53025634
A porn comic did most of this already.

>>53025671

sauce?

>>53025671
If we're going by the "porn/simpsons can't have done it" definition of " originality, then we might as well lock the thread.

>>53025555
Humans being the warrior caste in a huge galactic empire sounds pretty fucking cool.

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Why not Stellaris?

You can still have your conquering AI leaders out there wanting to paint the Galaxy map in their colors, but Earth is just another brick in the wall to achieve that.

Here, rate my idea for a YA novel I had:

Basically, you get a bunch of warships popping into the solar system, but they just annex the Earth. It's not like we can stop them, you don't fight Stellaris level aliumz with what we have now, and the stories are mostly about getting to know the individual, more militarily minded aliens and dealing with the fact we've been drafted into Space World War 1.

Also, in the game, crushing XCOM is treated as a very minor thing.

>>53025683
Look up xenobiology if I'm remembering the name correctly

>>53025606
>Thinking I was worried about originality

Don't worry everything's been done already as people are pointing out in this thread.

>>53025381
they're fans of 90s gangsta rap

I'd like to see a salarian battle Busta Rhymes

>>53025736
There's a novel series about that exact premise.

Humans were the only culture to not evolve past conflict. We breed faster, and apparently the gravity of earth is significantly stronger than any other life supporting planet, so we're stronger as a result. We were exposed to diverse environments throughout evolution, so we can handle any battlefield. So a space federation comes along and uplifts us to serve as troops in a hopeless war against mind control squids or something, because everyone else in the federation forgot how to war.

I can't remember the series name though.

>>53025736
It may have sounded like that at first, but then the wish-fulfillment HFY killed it.

>>53025764
Should also add I believe the artist is Incase, don't quote me on that though.

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I'd like to read a "Man Who Would Be King" story with Earth as Kafiristan. That is, the invading aliens aren't the government or even a major organisation, just a few scoundrels with surplus weapons and crazy plans to set themselves up as rulers of this backwater.

>>53025381

Luxury Space Communists with a boner for "Uplifting" cultures. They have done it before and found the easiest and surprisingly least bloody way is to just conquer and be benevolent dictators.

Alternatively.

Sentient species are rare and slavery and capitalism both exist alongside alien super technology.

Everyone has robot servants but the really rich can pay for an alien slave.

So a company that can find a planet with a new sentient, trainable race? They got a gold mine, especially with all culture rights going to the conquerors.

>>53025849
You're right, though it's less aliens conquering, and more aliens starting a work-study program so they can fuck humans on the side.

>>53025879
You make it sound like some Japanese/Korean mango

>My Cram School teacher can't possibly be a hot alien from outer space!

>>53025824

That sounds painfully HFY.

We can survive in any environment... because our planet is so unthinkable as to have both hot places AND cold places? Yeah, tell me how that works out when we have to invade a planet where life evolved to be arsenic based.

And thats ignoring that the setting hinges on everyone else being smart enoughnto evolve 'past war', but apparently not smart enough to have figured out how to solve their problems without it.

>>53025964
It's HFY and not HFY at the same time. The rest of the galaxy is just using humanity because humanity is dumb. Humanity are the Chads of the Galaxy, only recruited because of the evil mind controlling squids.

>>53025855
Seems to me the most likely situation. Kinda like a version of the District 9 situation, I guess, where the aliens that happened upon Earth were a bunch of starved, near terminally ill equivalents of redneck prospectors rather than conquerors.

It might actually make a cool story. The alien equivalent of a bunch of hoodlums in a leaky boat with kalashnikovs show up to try and take on the entire Earth. If they nearly succeed, it add an element of almost cosmic horror due to how mindbogglingly terrifying a threat they could've been if their actual military decided to come over. If the humans defeat them handily, it curbs the HFY crowd because what exactly have we proven? That our entire race working together can defeat a bunch of bored alien teenagers looking for trouble?

Why would they not just use robots though?

>>53025957
It's mostly just a series of humans taking advantage of the fact that the main alien character is an incurable sex addict due to biochemistry.

>>53025993
The distinction between the original biology and 'robot' is very likely to be smeared out within a few generations of truly high tech.

>>53025964
Greg Stolze made a variant setting to REIGN with a similar premise. Turns out that the universal standard is for anything remotely resembling intelligence=psionic powers. By pure chance, humanity has somehow evolved without them (the reason nobody's made contacts with us yet is nobody even realized we were sentient, they'd assumed some kind of organic curiosity). While this means humans can't into psionics or FTL travel (it's only possible through psychic teleportation), it ALSO means we're immune to psychic attack and are the only species to have come up with guns and missiles. Throughout the entire history of the universe warfare just consisted of everyone squinting at each other until one side psionically dominates the other into killing themselves/becoming their slaves.

So humans do end up acting as interstellar mercenaries due to being such of an outside-context problem for almost everyone. HFY is averted because humanity can't actually ever "turn the tables" on the aliens and achieve a position of power: if they ever decided we're a threat, they could stop coming over and there's nothing we ever could do to prevent it since we can't "reverse engineer" their FTL drives or something. There aren't any.

It's also pointed out that except under the most unimaginably dire of circumstances (which haven't occurred yet) humans sent to other planets are never allowed to pack anything more destructive than an AK-47. For once, it does the job wonderfully since most aliens don't even know what a gun is, much less have defenses against bullets and second, if the aliens ever DID manage to reverse engineer one nobody'd have use for us.

>>53025381
They have heard American movies, and believe that America is the land of the free and the home of the brave. They want to own America and to be Americans. They do not want to be guests. They want to both belong and own the nation. All fiction critical of America is heresy. All other nations can burn.

They are welcomed by half the country.

>>53025957
Close, but they are definitely alien looking and like >>53026006 said. Her biological all aliens of her species get turned on by humans, even the smell, hers is really strong and makes her a nympho that everyone uses.

>>53025381
Natural resources not commonly found throughout the universe is the obvious answer. If the species has a code of ethics centred on the preservation of life they would just bargain with us/take the shit and dip without bothering us more than necessary. I'm not sure what that would entail, of course. Shit we think of as rare is frequently quite common in space, like rare metals including iridium that can be found in abundance in asteroids. Water probably isn't actually that rare, given hydrogen and oxygen aren't and there's a lot of it just in our solar system, though I've seen liquid water as a motivator before I think.

Of course, this begs the question of what you mean by "invasion." If it's an act of war by a sufficiently advanced civ there's literally no reason unless there's some kind of larger imperial interstellar force that forbids it, like a galactic UN.

>>53025964
To me it just sounds like one of those (extremely rare) settings where the alien races are set up with RPGish pros and cons and humans actually fit in that somewhere instead of just being the blank slate that is average across the board, as if we would actually likely be average in every area in the grand scheme of things.

I think it would also be fun to, for example, have humans be mechanical savants and the only species that actually travels through space in vehicles armed with massive artillery, while everyone else uses some kind of bizarre teleportation technology to warp straight off of and onto planets. Clearly our technology would be archaic by comparison but that would be because normally more advanced technology is what it takes species to get off their planets in the first place, we just by some fluke evolved with brains geared to the idea of riding other things (maybe because earth had horses). Any species we'd actually interact with would therefore be those that figured out teleportation, giving us a distinct but not unfair advantage.

Humans as a species suck compared to damn near every other animal on the planet in terms of ability to not get eaten into extinction. The one thing that's kept us alive is our brains and our social structure. We'd make shitty foot soldiers, even from a meat shield perspective.

What we DO have is culture. I can definitely see aliens coming to Earth first as art snobs, checking out our paintings and music, then rapidly progressing to marveling at our cities, then enslaving us for avant garde social experiments on long forgotten planets.

Because they only found out about us via a long lost probe, and when we finally meet face to face; both sides realize war is mutually assured destruction.

>>53026189
>modern "artists" are actually protecting us from invasion by producing shitty art that will make alien species give up on us

>>53025964
I can see your point. Humans aren't exactly the most durable creatures. But hey that's what cybernetic implants and environment suits are for. Next you just promote a bushido/chivalry type of lifestyle and next thing you know you have a race of cyborg warrior-poets who will kick the shit out of any planet you drop them on. Sure they won't be great at shit like "science" or "zero-g combat", or even "not having rampant PTSD", but leave that to the other castes.

I always found it curious there's such massive overlap between the HFY and white supremacist crowds. Like, you jerk off to the idea of a technologically advanced species showing up somewhere filled with dumb natives and handily conquering them without problem... While also taking theoretical pride in the natives' ability to defeat the technologically advanced conquerors through "guts" or "initiative" or "warrior culture" if the situation is ever reversed?

The invaders aren't so much Invaders but more so visitors. They all have forsaken religion in search of a better way to control their normal violent nature, and having received transmissions from earth satellites and back tracking them, have come to earth. Now they meditate alongside buddhist monks, in search of spiritual enlightenment. Or they are just pacifist monk like aliens who require something only found on earth. Or are just really lonely, and wish to live alongside humans.

>>53025736
>>53025634
>>53025555
>What is Half Life

Seriously i was reading all these and the Combine pull this off fantastically well.

>>53026278
Invasion implies hostility though.
>they get mad because a monk tells them some hippie dippie spiritual bullshit and just murder the monastery

>>53025381
Oddly enough, the original War of the Worlds is probably the best reason. "Our planet is busted, inhabitable planet's are incredibly rare, so we want yours."

In my totally original donuts steal setting, an alien empire got their shit kicked in during a galactic war, so a refugee fleet invaded Earth to steal our food so they wouldn't starve to death.

>>53026220
>The Aliens view bad art as the triumph of spirit against reality
>They especially love furries
>They read the internets derision of furries as a genuine threat, and arrive to pacify the indolent and protect those who they see as unappreciated geniuses

>>53025381
It cannot happen. An intelligent invader with the level of technology required to have something like FTL drives, which defy our most basic understanding of the laws of physics, couldn't under any circumstances not curbstomp humanity. That would make for a story that's short, depressing and boring, though, so for the sake of stories aliens need to be made stupid. Either accept this or don't have alien invasion stories.

>>53026260
White peoples are the warrior/scientist combo. Most nations only get one archetype.

Hrm. What if they want us for our 'ability' to think in the short term and use strategies that are highly effective now but terrible in the long term?

Basically there's an interstellar WWI or economic stagnation or something that can't be solved by taking a long view. An advantage or change must be implemented /now/ on multiple small scales. Western civilization's capitalist environment makes humans especially suite to prioritize short-term profit in a way most other species either bred out intentionally or evolved past in favor of hyperaltruism. Conquering us would destroy the cultural context that makes us valuable.

>>53026288
I've never played Half Life and never intend to.

>>53026327
Only in your fantasies furfag go choke on a knot.

>>53026356
>Aliens arrive to destroy your shit taste.

>>53026348
Wasn't that how they saw the Japanese, Chinese and Russians at various points?

>>53026327
alternately
>they think the furries need saving and whisk them away while leaving the rest of us behind
pls be true

>>53026260
Because white people want to believe they're the weak underdogs, but not so weak that they'd ever suffer any meaningful loss.

I'm always amazed by how often everyone assumes the aliens would be both physically superior to us, and also capable of the use of projectile weapons. We evolved to use projectiles. A race that evolved claws and fangs and shit wouldn't have evolved to use projectiles. I always wanted to see one where that was our hat, instead of the bullshit we normally get stuck with by HFY types.

We would infact make fantastic soldiers, because presumably most species that evolved for physical dominance would not have the necessary mental adaptations to make use of firearms as proficiently as we do assuming they even developed them.

Oh. What if we're a religious macguffin? Sort of like how the American Evangelical Right sees Jews?

Stay with me here. Basically Sol happens to satify the conditions of a certain prophecy. Humans aren't gods but we have an important part to play in end-of-civilization level eschatology. There's probably also a throwaway line about god/the gods protecting 'The Allies of the Blue Planet' or something.

Earth becomes a site for pilgrimages and occasionally we'll get a monastary set up by some wacky alien cult. For the most part however we never become a player in world politics because no one gives us FTL.

We do get some planet busters we have no use for from Space America though. Just In Case.

>>53026400
>The aliens turn out to be human perverts altered by advanced technology and looking for revenge.

>>53026438
>I'm always amazed by how everyone assumes the humans would be both physically superior to us birdpeople, and also capable of the use of airplanes. We evolved to use wings. A race that evolved legs and toenails and shit wouldn't have evolved to use wings. I always wanted to see one where that was our hat, instead of the bullshit we normally get stuck with by BFY types.
>
> We would infact make fantastic soldiers, because presumably most species that evolved for land dominance would not have the necessary mental adaptations to make use of airplanes as proficiently as we do assuming they even developed them.

>>53026453

>There were never any aliens, just post-humans from the future with time travel technology who wanted to fuck with us

>>53026430
I actually read a pretty interesting book years ago (don't remember the name, it was interesting, not great) that suggests that's the reason for the American obsession with invasion movies. They haven't had a "good" military victory since WWII, everything since then was either not-quite-a-victory, or not really a fight in the first place. Basically, the Americans are desperate to reaffirm to themselves that if they wanted they COULD totally win a war even if they didn't have an overwhelming material, technological and firepower advantage, because if they can't, that might mean everything so far was a fluke and they're actually just the global equivalent of big bullies.

>>53026395
Well the Chinese were the first to invent and weaponize black powder, but wasn't it whites and Arabs that took it to the next level with firearm technology?

>>53026487

I take it you know nothing of how amazing it is that we are able to instinctively do the complex calculations necessary to hit a moving object with a projectile?

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I'd like to see invasion by a blue-and-orange mentality race. For instance one utterly obsessed with dominating the third instance of everything -- not for religion, not for politics, but because it's REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT to their alien autism -- so they have to take over the Earth.

Humanity saves itself by knocking Mercury into the Sun, and the aliens move on to conquer Mars.

>>53026534
Funnily enough, Imperial China ultimately ended up being too good for its own good. After reaching the apex of civilization and realizing they've finally achieved the impossible dream of prosperous stability, they decided any further progress would just either cause trouble or be fixing stuff that isn't broken. So they stopped progressing.

It's telling that it actually took a good few centuries even so before the rest of the world finally overtook them.

>>53026583
I take it you know nothing of how amazing it is that we bird people are able to instinctively do the complex calculations necessary to let us soar through the air?

>>53026513
>USA
>Not being bullies

Please the UN uses us as their attack dog anytime someone doesn't do something they like. More people need to realize we are bullies and damn good at it most days.

>>53025381
Maybe FTL is actually hard - they're not all that much more advanced than we are, maybe a century or two ahead, and they only have one ship.

The problem is that first contact will almost certainly be via radio transmission interception or because the aliens being contacted by the spacefarer are tribal/metal age shmucks who don't even bother looking at the stars as more than a means to navigate the seas.

I suppose an alien race may want to colonize, and they might have a sort of white mans burden sort of situation. "We should help the humans civilize, and in the mean time they pay us back by working in our taco joints." But that's silly, because robotics almost certainly precedes FTL unless they went wildly off course science-wise.

Basically if an alien species shows up here the best thing to do is say hello and ask if they'd rather be friends and allies rather than master and servant, and hope they like us.

>>53026650
In all fairness, the guy has a point. It's actually theorized that humans got an edge over other hominids because of their ability to throw things.

>>53026650

Truly yours is a cutting wit. I've no need to argue with an idiot. I've said my piece.

Military tech gives increasingly diminishing returns past a certain point.

>>53026715
Oh yeah, totes agree with that. I just doubt that
> advantage over Neanderthal adapted to close combat
is likely to carry over to
> advantage as super-soldier in an FTL-level civilization

>>53026732
That guy.

>>53025381
FTL travel is actually an utterly average technology, but we've been looking at it in the wrong way for the entire time.
19th century aliens invade us, thinking we are stone-age primitives because we are non-FTL peasants. We rekt them. Still dunno how to FTL though

aliens read "oh my sweet alien" and thought it would work out like that.

It's possible that could be essentially alien ISIS. Some tribal group that was lucky enough to evolve on some planet where another interstellar race left their toys lying around.

>>53026844
It's hard to say. to use your bird analogy, it's not impossible that an avian race could have developed Wright Brothers-style gliders or ornithopters in their stone ages, but it took until long after their industrial revolution to conceive of something like a bow and arrow.

For a compromise, turns out FTL is super simple... but for whatever reason, humans can't do it. Ever. It's physically impossible for them. It requires some ability that aliens happen to have and humans happen not to.

So aliens arrive in their wooden FTL ships and we handily slaughter them all, but are still stuck with no "offensive" abilities since we can't retaliate. Eventually the aliens just give up because we keep blowing up all their ships soon as they appear.

>>53025381
FTL capable species are at war with each other for sectors of the galaxy. The locals noticed humans could be on the path to one day having their own FTL, so it's best to cull that shit early lest we challenge them like every other FTL species does.

If by some miracle humanity makes it out, perhaps because their aggressors were busy fighting multiple fronts against much more capable foes, they'll have stolen FTL level tech they don't understand at all, and may have just left a huge power bubble in the galaxy that their hungry or paranoid competitors are eyeing.

>>53025381
The invasion is actually a last resort attempt from the population of a dying world.
They're going all out, sending everything they have, fighting until the last of them. But they only have the resources of a planet that has been a death world for centuries. Their fleet is barely able to reach the nearest star, FTL is hard. They didn't even know what planet they were going for until they ended up here, and they have no fuel to go back.

>>53025739
>Also, in the game, crushing XCOM is treated as a very minor thing.

The fuckers actually blew up my observation station once

Granted I was in 2 wars at the same time with Fanatical Purifiers that controlled a quarter of the galaxy and a Spiritualist FE butthurt that I was plopping droids on Tomb Worlds and thus has been ignoring popups about Not!XCOM's shenanigans to focus on interstellar war. But still, dick move primitives.

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>>53027430

COMMANDAH'ACKBAR!!
DEATH TO THOSE WHO DEAL WITH THE AYYLMAO!
IT IS WRITEN BY THE COUNCIL THAT KIAs WILL GET 72 TITTIED SNAKEWOMEN IN PARADISE!

>>53025555
>reproduction rates

Literally a fucking meme. Humans take over a decade to reach their sexual maturity. WE DON'T BREED QUICKLY.

>>53027793

You are absolutely right, we really don't, but whose to say the aliens breed any quicker?

>>53025381
We're getting invaded by an alien corporation that wants to set up the biggest fucking parking lot the galaxy has ever seen, and an alien walmart on the moon for good measure.
After they suffer enough financial loss they just loose interest and go for Mars instead, kicking out the american flag that we planted here in the process.

Earth is space Vietnam.
I mean they could curbstomp us but their soldiers are half-assing it and in the mean time protests are rising as alien hippies project their sympathy over us. Meanwhile we're doing our best to make their life as miserable as possible wholly knowing that we have no chance to crawl our way out of this shit. There might be an external alien force supporting us that makes things more complicated, too.
Somehow we win.

>>53027973
>Somehow we win.
They realize there's nothing here they actually want and we aren't worth their drones, and go away in embarrassment.

>>53028020
Vietnam wasn't that useless, we go to get some fine music:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Beda3kFNjo

What kind of music would alien hippies write?

>>53026288
You realize that the Combine only has humans as CPs because they don't give a shit, and their soldiers probably look like synth plus some alien shit we can't understand if the concept art and dialog in game was any indication.

>>53025381
Aliens want to cull the potential psychic population that may be developing on earth as psychics will reach a point that they will be powerful enough to cause mass genocide. They believe that the humane way of putting them to sleep forever will help us live on as a species. Though this doesnt go well with most people having their loved ones put down and earthly governments believe that they can use or do better than the aliens.

Thus the moghty hand of the xenos must come down before they have another galaxy and species lost to a psychic singularity.

>>53025381
Here are a few, not sure how original:
For sport. To impress their own alien overlords. Because they're stuck in a planet invasion pyramid scheme. Because humans look offensively ugly to them. Because humans objectively suck. Because of a typo in the initial peace treaty.

>>53025381
>Aliens are hyper advanced tech-wise, FTL to them is equivalent to automobiles for us
>They decide to conquer earth for those delicious resources
>Turns out that humans are absolutely terrifying to them
>Our spit burns through their flesh, our voices can burst their xeno-ear drums, and we're considered horribly ugly, almost deformed
>They high tail it after a few weeks of fighting, remove the Sol system from all their maps to prevent curious adventurers going back, and erase all history of us from their textbooks

This kinda makes us way too OP, honestly but I think it's neat

>>53027793
Huge asterisk there, some girls start their period as early as 8 afair, and there is at least one example of a sexually abused 5-year-old girl becoming pregnant.

The only problem with such things is that the younger they are, the lower the survival rate of both mother and infant.

Aliens are taking over human bodies. They are avoiding all out war because they don't want to lose any potential hosts.

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>>53025381
Obviously humanity is protected.

>>53025381
>>53025381

Alien political climate warrants conquest, but not extermination. I mean, when they can't fight you, give them a reserve, why not.

>>53025381
The aliens are after our natural resources, just like every alien species ever, but as a capatalist organisation trying to make bucks selling what they can scrape off earth, not some species-wide superforce.

Practically speaking, this means that the aliens are super limited. This isn't some stone-age tribe resisting the entire US armed forces, it's a stone age tribe resisting Shell oil. Sure Shell oil belongs to a society that can make nuclear weapons, tanks, and fighter aircraft, but they don't actually have any of those things themselves. They can probably scrape together a few mercenaries with shotguns and jeeps at best.

>>53026862
Turns out that phlogiston and the aether were real all along, you just had to commit to it. Basically we only went half-retard while the aliens had no such reservations.

>>53029782
>Stone Age tribe vs Shell Oil
I want this

>>53026732
Tips fedora

>>53025381
A series called "the ember war" had a pretty decent premise to this. A massive fleet of nomad aliens wander around and consume all resources they can find. Another much more advanced alien race observes that Earth is in the way, and provides some minor technological guidance to give us a chance at not being extinct. Near extinction event occurs anyway, but a small fleet of humans are left. Queue vengeance pact

>>53029782
Banana Republic: Earth.

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>>53029782
>The aliens are after our natural resources

This always struck me as ludicrous.
Earth holds no particular bounty of materials that can't be found in greater quantity even elsewhere in our solar system, let alone the greater galaxy.
Our system has two moons with at least as much water as Earth, and one of them most likely vastly more. Gold? It doesn't even originate on Earth, it's dust blown in from from Space, effectively.

We are just a small collection of organisms clinging to life on what is most likely an unexceptional ball of rock that's conveniently located the right distance from the Sun, but isn't particularly blessed with much in the way of exciting resources.

>>53025739
I think my favourite thing in Stellaris to do with messing with primitives is when you send in infiltrators there's a chance for an event chain where one of your agents goes native and helps them against your attempts to take over.

>>53030138
A valid point. The only thing I can think of that would be worth taking from earth would be life-based produce. Stuff like plants, animals, and fossil fuels are unique to Earth (probably).

If the aliens win then they'd probably just turn earth into a massive version of the carribean, growing high value export crops for cheap. Currently it's cheaper to farm pineapples in some 3rd world pineapple country than it is to build a greenhouse in the 1st world and farm it there, so it's not unreasonable to assume that the same would be the case for an alien race- slave labour is basically free as long as the slaves can farm for themselves.

Also, cultural products might be valuable, but this wouldn't take an invasion.

Honestly the most likely version of an alien invasion for resources would be earth ending up less of a blasted wasteland and more like a space version of colonial India.

>>53030306
Going off of this, the aliens are naturalists. They've come to gather our flora and fauna for study, and weren't expecting sapient lifeforms. While they're immensely more advanced than we are, they're operating on the equivalent of a security detail.

>>53029842
>>53026862
I kinda feel like this might be the same kind of situation as like, the Harry Potter wizards/muggles.

That with exposure, and enough research the muggles could reverse-engineer magic and integrate it into their tech, but they haven't discovered it on their own because it requires a really backwards way of looking at things, that only comes naturally to those with a genetic mutation for it. Like Autistic-Savants. Which kind of explains why they consistently do things that are really bad ideas, and their society is sort of perpetually falling apart from relatively easy to solve issues, like needing to establish some sort of child protective services for children raised by muggles. Tom Riddle, Harry Potter, and Credence Barebone all being prime examples.

>>53026877
1. Orks?
2. >>53027582

>>53025381
1. Their homeworld is very cold and they want to colonize Antarctica
2. Interplanetary geopolitics. If they don't take Earth, their rival who may or may not be a lot worse by human standards will
3. They want to unite all sapient species of the galaxy under one banner to prevent conflict between them
4. They can, and could use a productive planet with a few billions of a potentially useful race, and are willing to integrate humans into their empire for practical reasons

>>53026113
>America becomes a protectorate of a multi-star civilization who sends down only the best administrators and advisors to both help straighten out current woes and to ensure the survival of the country until proper uplifting can begin.
>They come down and look at a certain document known as the Declaration of Independence and see it as a good way to watch over them using a somewhat hands off approach.
>They look at the Bill of Rights
>Take a liking to the first two especially.
>UK is given a thumbs up too, since it's the mother country of the US.

Despite all the help and positive progress with the revival of the American Dream, they are still welcomed by only half the country.

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>>53030824
1: Let them, we're not using it, and the trade would boost us well into the space age
2: Well, fuck. If we have the opportunity to do some research and choose a side, lets. If not, I guess we're bowing to whoever comes here first
3: A well-intentioned and possibly workable if inefficient idea. Will comply for tech.
4: Absolutely, Spaceamerica.


tech tech tech tech tech... Tech is love, Tech is life.

>>53028665
nah the way i saw it they took humans and made them into mind controlled super soldiers with implants and genetic enhancements. They were the perfect foot solder for any intergalactic job save taking out Gordan Freeman.

>>53030306

What if habitual planets are rare in the universe and terraforming isnt worth the time and they need them asap.

A colonization world where you don't need to terraform it beforehand is infinitely more valuable than any abundance of specific resource.

>>53029129
I mean..

1. Complex, idea-based vocal communication is almost completely unique to us. We developed it as a re-interpretation of song. Song and vocalizations themselves are something that have convergently evolved, but our weird "relate complex abstract concepts" kind? Unique. Extraterrestrial intelligent species will most definitely have some kind of language. But one based on pheromones or body movements is much more likely. One is the oldest and most common on earth (in fact, its weird that our vomeronasal organ doesn't work), the other requires only having voluntary motor control and touch for local, sight for distant. Which means good luck deciphering it, if they recognize it as important at all.

2. Speaking of which, while eyespots have reappeared separately among many species, complex eyes pretty much all stem from one source. And among those complex eyes, our exact configuration of color vision is pretty unique. They will very likely not see in the spectrum we do, nor the same colors, or possibly as many. Which gives us one more kind of communication they might not recognize as important.

3. Exceptional digital dexterity. Have have some of the best manipulators on the planet, and due to our upright posture, they are always

4. On a possibly related note, we're the only thing on earth that can throw or aim with any relative accuracy and power. Meaning unassisted ranged warfare might never have occurred to them.

5. Based on experiments with chimpanzees, we appear to be the only species on earth that can infer the processes going on in another's mind. Chimps understand the idea of intentional deceit, but not of misinformed decisions resulting from bad intel. Meaning "he knows, I know that he knows that I know" strategic mindgames might very well be beyond the understanding of at least some intelligent species we come across.
(cont.)

>>53032131
(cont.)
So, we've very likely got at least one method of long-distance communication that they won't even think of as potentially relevant built into our bodies, not even counting technological ones, and it will more than likely be transferring more information at once than one of their equivalent sentences. We may not even be visible to them entirely. Between our fine-manipulators and throwing capabilities, nearly anything can become a deadly improvised weapon that can kill at a distance in our hands. And not only do we play mindgames, even our children are generally well-versed in them because we do them for fun.

We are THE worst guerrilla warfare opponent in the galaxy. Like, there is no expression for the sheer aggravation something extraterrestrial would experience trying to clear us out if they weren't willing to just glass the entire planet.

>>53026189
Are you kidding? Humans are apex predators in our weight class (70kg - 90kg) even without our brains we survived and thrived for tens of thousands of years. Of course if you compare us to gorillas or tigers which can weigh up to half a tonne were gonna lose on an individual basis you fucking nong

>>53025986
That is the plot of an issue of The Flintstones (2016)

Just had a thought - it could be the space equivalent of colonists heading off to the new world. Aliens discover Earth, figure out it has the right climate and atmosphere for them, and various groups build ships and set off.

Surprise, it's already inhabited.

I feel like that could also be an interesting way to have the xenos be somewhat sympathetic - they had no idea they were invading, but now it's a bit too late. Maybe the FTL was one-way only without a large facility Earthside, and they can't actually communicate with their homeworld. For them, the choices are make peace somehow, conquer, or die, and depending on where they landed, peace may not be a possibility.

>>53025381
The Three Body Problem and it's sequels touches on a lot of this. There's no ground war though - the alien fleet is slower than light and the aliens have taken steps involving human collaborators to stop humanity's tech from advancing to the point where they'll be able to resist when the fleet arrives in four hundred years.

The second book is all about looking for a way to at least force a draw before the fleet arrives and curbstomps everything. It hinges on the aliens being unable to understand deceit - their means of communication is reading each others thoughts.

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>>53026189
>What we DO have is culture.
It's interesting, actually because not even all species of human had that, at least in the ways that we do.

Neanderthals, fors instance, had tribes, and shared ideas within those tribes, but did not appear to share ideas between tribes. Meanwhile Sapiens did so freely. We that survived did so because we were the best spreader of memes. And it's one of the only drives that occurs in technology that's stronger than that for satisfying sexual drive. In a self-reinforcing cycle, spreading ideas faster creates faster systems to spread ideas. Basically it's like attaching more processors to distributed computing network, with all the other ideas and technologies being coincidental gravy.
More info for those interested:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HV9WEqLeBuo

As for music, there's a decent chance that we are the only things in the galaxy with music as complex as ours. It is egregiously integral to the evolution and processes of our brains. Like, to the the point that our brain waves literally will synchronize to music they hear. Our main inter-individual communication method is just stoccato singing with rapidly changing mouth shapes. When people have strokes and lose the ability to speak, they retain the ability to sing. People remember things better if they put them to song, simply because. We burst out into song for no discernible reason; when sacred, when happy, stressed, sad, bored, sometimes no occasion at all. We get songs ingrained as involuntarily repeating cycles in our minds when we don't know how to end them properly.
And this is not a trait we see even in our closest ancestors, or even in other species that have convergently evolved song. For a species off-planet to somehow have the same or greater, would be incredibly unlikely.

>>53026260
it's not HUMANS FY, it's US FY. They don't see other races as US.
So it's just another case of Us's VS Them's, and the Them's always lose because of their despicable nature and grievous shortcomings were no match for the Us's "grit, determination, hard-work, and clever ingenuity."

>>53026487
To be fair, I bet a birdperson would be a much better pilot, what with having an innate understanding of how flight works as opposed to a learned one. They probably also would not need a full plane, just something to reinforce their natural flight capabilities for supersonic speeds, and an engine to propel them at such. So they would have a much smaller profile in the air, and presumably much better maneuverability.

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>>53026453
What was your first clue?

>>53026963
Frickin psionics.

>>53025619
The old "Road not Taken". Bloody good short story that would be an interesting premise for a setting.

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>>53030306
>TFW it turns out that incompetent gestation engineer was actually right, and worse that the regicidal maniac who killed your sister was completely justified.

>>53030824
>3. They want to unite all sapient species of the galaxy under one banner to prevent conflict between them
Frickin Vulcans

>>53030140
So... Avatar?

>>53026336
So.. I can't help but think you didn't read a single other comment in this thread before posting, and that you're uncreative and boring at parties as well. Do you get invited to parties, anon?

>>53026656
>Wow America, that sure is an unnecessarily large military you have there, just what exactly are you overcompensating for, hmmmmmm?
>>WEAK ALLIES.

>>53026844
are their robots aiming for them or something, such like our planes would be self-piloting? If so, then yeah it's just a tech V tech war, until one side gets hands-on. But as soon as one side gets hands-on, switches on manual override, well... Then we're good aimers, be that rock, bow, or gun. And the birdpeople are good fliers, at least when using their own wings.

>>53029680
have seen this used several times before, yes.
One of them solved it by essentially taking ourselves hostage.

>>53025619
I liked that that was FMA:O's explanation for the differnces between the two different universes. While Newton practiced both, in our world he made his big breakthrough in physics, eventually leading to alchemy being treated as quackery. While in theirs it was the other way around, which is why when some guy goes to the military and says "hey look, I made a nuke!" they go, "bah, buncha poppycock, take your pseudoscience elsewhere."

>>53026439
As an american christian not on the right, why do they do that, anyways? If God wants them protected, he's more than capable of doing it on his own.

>>53026811
pretty dang true, actually, yeah.
Like, being able to glass cities didn't help us win Vietnam, or Korea, or Iraq, or Afganistan.
Being able to glass countries wouldn't solve the problem any better.

>>53027005
Tau from WH40k

>>53034082
>all comments either recycle very old ideas that've been used numerous times or rely on the aliens miraculously happening to lack incredibly some basic personal quality compared to humanity, literally the oldest one in the invasion book

Sure, anon is bitter, but he's got a point. Most of this is various degrees of HFY masturbation.

>>53025381
Maybe geopolitical reasons? Like evil alien empire cant fully invade do to trade sanctions from the Galactic U.N.

>>53027793
>WE DON'T BREED QUICKLY.
Still quicker than our Silicoid overlords.

>>53025381
>>53025381
>>53025381
religion

what if the believe in some higher power is inherently human and we as a species never manage to let go of it?

what if in this hypotetical scenario first FTL capable species that arrives here will find us waging holy wars over control of Terra?

we have all the technology we need to leave but are too busy with all our brawl between Space Pope and Interstellar Caliphate with neutral Zionist Union somewhere in the middle

maybe add in a history of AI rebellions that pushed us to use biotech instead and you have a very interesting first contact scenario especially if we the only species out there with any concept of metaphysics

>>53026189
which is why there are over 7 billion of us, and precious few of our natural predators.

>>53026288
The humans the Combine converted were basically the Combine's sepoys - cheap local forces good enough to control resource extraction operations, not crack troops you'd ship off to actual conflicts.

The Combine already was in the process of eradicating humanity during the events of the second game and they picked the economically most sound way of doing it too. It was pretty obvious that they had absolutely no interest in keeping humanity around at all.

>>53026877
>It's possible that could be essentially alien ISIS. Some tribal group that was lucky enough that an interstellar empire figured handing FTL-tech to them meant that they themselves could recklessly enagage in FTL-flight on their own

Basically like Atoms for Peace, only in speehss.

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>>53027973
>Earth is space Vietnam.
So the aliens are caught in a cold war with other aliens, they make our head honchos their "allies" and send their soldiers to kill us in our homes and cities because that's easier and safer than turning a cold intergalactic war into a hot one?

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>>53025381
Their politicans want to invade and are sending troops, because EVERYBDOY's doing that, but their voters are actually too racist to support colonialism.

So they leave again after a couple of decades spent murdering natives.

>>53027973
>Earth is space Vietnam
So we're better combatants than the Aliens in every conceivable way, except technology?
Sounds like too much HFY

>>53025381
Aliens need human shit to power their tech

>>53026583
What is an archerfish

>>53034327
Arguably, overreliance on that high level of technology actually makes it harder to win wars and has contributed to the US not winning any of those wars.

>>53038988
But they did win? I mean, cash was being transferred from taxpayer's pockets into those of people associated with the Republican party and the Bush government.

The issue with Korea was that the Russians eventually got involved and a war against them wasn't on the table and Vietnam eventually turned into denying the North a victory by killing as many Vietnamese living in the South as possible.

>>53039050
Not really the board for this but:

>But they did win? I mean, cash was being transferred from taxpayer's pockets into those of people associated with the Republican party and the Bush government.

Bankrupting yourself while also losing doesnt quite equal victory.

>The issue with Korea was that the Russians eventually got involved and a war against them wasn't on the table

I think you mean China. Though excusing why they couldn't win also doesn't equal victory.

>Vietnam eventually turned into denying the North a victory by killing as many Vietnamese living in the South as possible.

Getting super butthurt about losing so hard and killing civilians, while being America's favourite passtime, also doesn't equal a victory.

>>53038921
>Sounds like too much HFY

>their soldiers are half-assing it
>alien hippies project their sympathy over us
>we have no chance to crawl our way out of this shit
>There might be an external alien force supporting us

>Sounds like too much HFY

I think the point of that story is that humans win becouse the aliens either don't care that much, are outright against to fight us for moral reasons or its convenient for some of the aliens power figures that the invation fails and most importantly that humans survive long enough for all of those events to take place

What's so HFY about that?

Unless you're saying US military is shit compared to Vietnam's, which i found hard to believe without proof

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>>53039150

Wait, hold on, then how the fuck won all those wars then?

>>53039150
>I think you mean China.
Nah, Mig Alley was full of Russians. They also were the ones who prodded China into joining the war in the first place.

>>53039318
*Who

>>53038921
>Vietcong were natural born killers designed for combat
Dude, 80% were famelic rice farmers that were as alien to the jungle as the US was. They just endured because they were gonna get killed anyway, so at least they could try to bring some americans down with them.

>>53039294
>without proof
Nearly two decades of armed conflict.
Decicive victory for North Vietnam.
Total rout of US forces.
No proof.
Lol ok buddy.

>>53039318
Korea: Armistice.
Vietnam: North Vietnam. Is this a real question?
Iraq/Afghanistan: Evil

>>53039323
The Russians were unnecessary, it was over when the Chinese joined in.
You can't be a superpower assisting a regional ally, then complain when the enemy gets its ally involved.

>>53039294
Aliens are attacking Earth because we happen to be on the border or an enemy civilization, making Earth a strategic location.
The attackers have some advanced form of democracy and don't commit too much to this war because their population is largely against it, so they can't use mass destruction weapons and every time they use something extreme, there is a political backlash.
Alien soldiers situated on Earth discover drugs, diseases and many other harmful things that were banished in their societies for centuries.
Humanity has shit weapons and technology but we are better adapted to our planet ( of course ), and we have the advantages of being desperate and fighting in our home land.
As the alien army crumbles to drug addiction, mosquitoes and venereal diseases that they got from having sex with cows and horses and we start taking back objectives.
Alien civilization decides that continuing this fight would be a bad move economically and politically and then decide to find new means to fight their cold war with the other galactic civilization.
Humanity unknowingly received help from the other civilization all along, in the form of technological advances that we assumed were just fueled by the war effort.

>>53040328
>it was over when the Chinese joined in.

By that logic, England won the Hundred Year's War when that one dude was crowned King of France.

>>53040628
No.

>>53040569
Hm. So asides from the whole guerilla aspect, in this scenario one of humanity's strengths is that we make damn good drugs?

>>53040328
>Decicive victory for North Vietnam.
>Total rout of US forces.
>he actually be lives this hippy drivel
L M A O

>>53027582
>72 TITTIED SNAKEWOMEN

72 snake women with tits, or snake women with 72 tits? This is important.

>>53042897
Yes.

>Aliens are absolutely tiny. They live in the vents of our own ships generally being bro-tier and eating all the BBQ sauce. In this setting any and all unshielded electronics aboard a ship will fuck the FTL, so a laptop weighs seventy lbs. The aliens don't seem to suffer from this. They also don't take kindly to people prying into this. As rumours of their existence escalate they are confused with a resurgence of an old form of banned military tech, the war drone. Leading to attempts to genocide them. The only surviving colony aboard one ship end up running from the military and the space fbi.

>aliens are huge SUV sized crabs who communicate by a text to speech device or to each other by flashing colour and posture. They have been evicted from their own world after their AI went grey goo and dropped them off here to observe their interactions with man and consume our combined cultures. It is essentially a space neet and insists on being plugged into the internet and is pretty much everywhere in a week. How do we break free of this prick with the help of our new crab buddies? He shit posts everywhere, intrudes on phonecalls and has the most annoying habit of blurting out secrets autistically at the worst moments via your kettle.
>is this worth risking him wiping us all out to get rid of him?

These are my two /tg/ inspired novels which thanks to writefagging them in a few threads are now at a couple hundred pages each.

>Humanity is the only species to ever come up with the idea of combining multiple foodstuffs in the same meal based on how they taste together, not their nutritional value.

>tl;dr They've come for our chefs!

>>53040328
>Decicive victory for North Vietnam.
>Total rout of US forces.

>North Vietnam signs a ceasefire, remains behind the line while the US withdraws
>doesn't even try invading until the US has almost completely left and has an anti-war president in charge
[laughing]

>>53047260
>"Take me to your Larder"

>>53025381
Bump. I want this to be here in the morning far more than a million threads about space marines and furries.