# After the alien invasion.



## Scifi fan (Apr 8, 2009)

The alien invasion is a staple of the genre, but I don't think I have ever seen a story focusing on the aftermath of an alien invasion. Perhaps the only one, peripherally, is the Stargate series - the series starts after some of the bad guys go through the Stargate, which leads to the program being started and the series picking up after the movie. Another one would the Star Trek: Enterprise, which deals with what happens after First Contact and also after some Klingons land on Earth. But these don't deal with what humanity would do after it repulses an alien invasion. 

I think this would be an excellent premise. Earth's disparate nations would realize they have to band together, but the issues that divide them would still remain. And their scientists and engineers would also have the problem of trying to decipher advanced alien technology, even as they try to withhold secrets from each other, for reasons of national security. And there would also be the issue of how the soldiers train together when they hate each other and, before the invasion, were trying to kill each other.


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## the smiling weirwood (Apr 8, 2009)

Well, actually this_* is*_ explored in the Ender's Game series by Orson Scott Card.


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## dustinzgirl (Apr 8, 2009)

Roddenberry focuses several shows/books on the aftermath of the invasion. 

Earth Final Conflict was about the invasion, but it was more about what happened after they invaded, than the initial war like in say, War of the Worlds. 

Also, don't forget good old Alien Nation...and...They Live!...and..countless Outer Limits episodes, my favorites being Promise Land (mom killing aliens to feed her kids) and the best one ever The Deprogrammers with Brent Spiner (Data from STNG), which is awesome because 'data' is such a...cuss word...

Of course there is always Battlefield Earth (book version, altho the movie didn't make me want to kill anyone, which is probably the best review I could give it, considering.)

And on the lighter side, there's Transformers and Men In Black (which I actually LOVED, amazingly enough), or Ben 10 Alien Force (you have to watch that cartoon!)

Ooooh and um, er, some other one's I can't think of right now.


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## Scifi fan (Apr 8, 2009)

Enders Game is a VERY good example. 

Men in Black is more of a satire, though it fits my definition. The Outer Limits are good, though I'm thinking of what we would do after we beat them off, as opposed to living under occupation. 

Transformers weren't really alien invaders, because they just came and stayed. Same with Alien Nation - not invaders at all. Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End is another good example, now that I think of it, but it wasn't really an invasion. 

But none of them deal with how we disunited nations deal with each other and the common threat. And that would be a good story. I've never read or seen anything along this line of thought.


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## dustinzgirl (Apr 8, 2009)

So, you mean to examine what happens after we kick their butts and they leave, rather than they stay occupied?

That's easy. We go back to killing each other.


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## Dozmonic (Apr 8, 2009)

The tripods books were focused on a post-invasion world ;-)


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## Dave (Apr 8, 2009)

There are numerous TV series!


dustinzgirl said:


> Earth Final Conflict was about the invasion... Also, don't forget good old Alien Nation...


I was going to mention those, and also *V* (the Visitors).


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## Scifi fan (Apr 8, 2009)

> So, you mean to examine what happens after we kick their butts and they leave, rather than they stay occupied?
> 
> That's easy. We go back to killing each other.



I'm not so convinced that would be so. If we knew they were out there, and they might come back, we might have second thoughts about killing each other - especially when we can band together and kill others. 



> I was going to mention those, and also *V* (the Visitors).



V never dealt with us chasing them out. They occupied us, and we had to form the resistance to chase them out. 

I don't know anything about the tripods trilogy, but it sounds interesting.


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## Urien (Apr 8, 2009)

I always wondered what we would do with the alien technology left lying around after War of the Worlds, and indeed the subsequent knowledge that there could be a war of the worlds. 

I doubt we would go back to killing each other. I suspect we would find new and entertaining aliens to kill. Pax Terra.

I suspect attitudes to each other's nation would change quite markedly.


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## dustinzgirl (Apr 8, 2009)

Scifi fan said:


> I'm not so convinced that would be so. If we knew they were out there, and they might come back, we might have second thoughts about killing each other - especially when we can band together and kill others.



Yeah, I don't think so, for a few reasons: First off, peaceful cooperation is the opposite of chaotic change. Human development, evolution, technology, and even our basic food supply is based on chaotic changes. So, if we ever become wholly peaceful our race will not evolve, therefore violence is a precursor to evolution. We don't see it in the small scale of our lives, but over the last fifty thousand years of human history chaos and change is the only constant, peace and cooperation is not constant. 

Secondly, there has never been anywhere in history that I can think of where two or more nations banded together, fought a common enemy, and remained friends in the long term history (example, Russia and the USA).


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## Shadow Trooper (Apr 8, 2009)

I am reading a set of books by EE Knight entitled Vampire Earth series.

It's not so much a horror than an adventure tale where Earth has been conquored and there are resistance groups fighting against the invaders. The level of weaponary and story telling has more an American Civil War era type feel to it, but then throw in some creatures called Reapers (huge fast werewolf like creatures that like ripping humans apart) and some weird humans that I can only describe as some kind of post-apocolyptic survivors (mutated). Not bad.


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## Scifi fan (Apr 8, 2009)

dustinzgirl said:


> Secondly, there has never been anywhere in history that I can think of where two or more nations banded together, fought a common enemy, and remained friends in the long term history (example, Russia and the USA).



US and Britain.


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## ktabic (Apr 8, 2009)

dustinzgirl said:


> So, if we ever become wholly peaceful our race will not evolve, therefore violence is a precursor to evolution. We don't see it in the small scale of our lives, but over the last fifty thousand years of human history chaos and change is the only constant, peace and cooperation is not constant.



I think you are confusing evolution with natural selection. Now I'm pretty certain that you aren't wrong, in that violence has been a primary source of evolution for the human species for vast periods of human history. 

This is no longer true. In western countries, where violence isn't that prolific, evolution is progressing at rates faster now than at any other time in human history. Natural selection is being bypassed, because of medical science and . Embryos that could never have been conceived in nature are being mixed in the lab. Babies are being born that wouldn't have survived to birth. Adults are alive, and having kids themselves, that have conditions that would have been fatal. More people surviving to breed is more mutations, and evolution is in the mutations.



dustinzgirl said:


> Secondly, there has never been anywhere in history that I can think of where two or more nations banded together, fought a common enemy, and remained friends in the long term history (example, Russia and the USA).



And I thought I was pessimistic.

May I try a couple:
Britain and France (conflicting for centuries, hated enemies for awhile, banded together to fight a common enemy, not once but twice. Then proposed and full fledged unification of the two countries (this was pre-EEC/EU.)
Britain and USA (breakaway colony that then went to and lost a war, took part together in a couple of wars, then moved on to an on-going friendship.)


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## dustinzgirl (Apr 9, 2009)

ktabic said:


> I think you are confusing evolution with natural selection. Now I'm pretty certain that you aren't wrong, in that violence has been a primary source of evolution for the human species for vast periods of human history.
> 
> This is no longer true. In western countries, where violence isn't that prolific, evolution is progressing at rates faster now than at any other time in human history. Natural selection is being bypassed, because of medical science and . Embryos that could never have been conceived in nature are being mixed in the lab. Babies are being born that wouldn't have survived to birth. Adults are alive, and having kids themselves, that have conditions that would have been fatal. More people surviving to breed is more mutations, and evolution is in the mutations.
> 
> ...



Yeah, OK, but nobody is afraid of France, and everyone loves their clothes and cooking.


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## the smiling weirwood (Apr 9, 2009)

Maybe no one is afraid of France because the French aren't ones to go about being threatening(unlike ourselves)?

 I'm not so sure the ferocity of the French people is something I'd want to rile up. Look what they did to their own people during the Revolution. There isn't a cathedral, royal monument, or noble house that wasn't defaced, defiled, decapitated, or otherwise rendered deceased. 

Besides, who would want to piss off the makers of Champagne?


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## Scifi fan (Apr 9, 2009)

France and Germany are now good allies. So are Britain and Germany. So is the US and Japan. So is Canada and the US (after having fought the War of 1812). 

History is full of countries that were enemies and then became allies.


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## dustinzgirl (Apr 9, 2009)

Scifi fan said:


> France and Germany are now good allies. So are Britain and Germany. So is the US and Japan. So is Canada and the US (after having fought the War of 1812).
> 
> History is full of countries that were enemies and then became allies.



And allies that became enemies. 

But, we can only talk about recent history, so who knows in the all encompassing future? 

OK So I'm just running my mouth lol. I do that a lot. 

But, once a common allied-related factor is gone, be it a common enemy or economic factors or whatever, do nations remain allies?


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## Shadow Trooper (Apr 9, 2009)

Only the cover and title of the book says Allies. 

Inside it explains more clearly these are just words and a 'cover' Nations use when it suits/benefits them and keeps opportunities open for them.

I'm gonna go kill myself now.....LOL only joking 


no really, you can stop cheering


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## ManTimeForgot (Apr 11, 2009)

There is a very good reason why there aren't any (or very many) stories focused on the aftermath of an alien invasion is because realistically speaking there won't be an aftermath.  Humanity is inevitably and irrevocably wiped out.  We don't come back.  We don't pull together and win.  We kick the bucket and nothing short of some other advanced species coming in to save the day would be able to pull our fat out of the fryer.

An intragalactic civilization (never mind an intergalactic one) is capable of energy generation and computation (and therefore weapons and travel capability) that would be staggering by our current standards.  Lob several extra solar objects at us with a mass of 1/10 mars at about .25 C and we are screwed.  We won't detect the things until they start glowing and by then its too late to redirect the suckers.  We would be royally boned.

But on the plus side (for the aliens of course) the planet earth is still pretty much here.  Most of the biomass is gone, but the new alien masters of planet earth have the tech to artificially seed the planet.  No problems there.  And earth's abundant natural resources are now theirs for the taking.  No self-respecting intragalactic civilization is going to even bother trying to enslave us, not when automated manufacturing and slave robots (semi-organic ones are best) are SO MUCH more efficient.


MTF


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## Dozmonic (Apr 19, 2009)

But can they make Belgian truffles?


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## Rodders (Apr 20, 2009)

There were a series of V books in the 80s. And i believe that there is a new V Book out now. I've yet to pick it up, but it's supposed to be quite good. 

Personally, were we to survive such an event, Xenophobia would be rife. I think that there'll be a massive arms race to defend ourselves from any perceived external threat. Populations will be forced to work in conditions of slavery to create these weapons. We will always shoot first. 

Just my opinion.


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## ManTimeForgot (Apr 20, 2009)

Shooting first is almost certainly a hugely stupid maneuver, and probably reason enough for a sufficiently advanced race of beings to avoid all contact with the people of earth.


MTF


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## Vladd67 (Apr 20, 2009)

There are Harry Turtledove's World War and Colonization series of books, these deal with alien invasion and its aftermath.


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## chrispenycate (Apr 21, 2009)

I thought of the Turtledove "balance" books too, but the lizards never actually _won_. There are lots of books(like "Footfall" about invasions that nearly succeed, but fail at the last minute; you can even include Wells' "War of the worlds" But I can't think of a convincing, non-pulp story where humanity was defeated and overcomes its overlords without external aid. 

Of course, the external aid could always give us William Tenn's "the liberation of Earth"…


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## Scifi fan (Apr 21, 2009)

Well, if the aliens won, then there would be no story. But what if the aliens were beaten off? Earthlings would now know they would be facing a greater threat, which could come back at any moment, and they would have to unite to face a second round. 

There would be a lot to explore in something like this.


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## ManTimeForgot (Apr 21, 2009)

What exactly constitutes external aid?  In Battlefield Earth humanity is pretty thoroughly trounced and later overcomes their conquerors with a minimum of assistance from any of the Cyclos.


MTF


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## Scifi fan (Apr 21, 2009)

> What exactly constitutes external aid?



That's up to the writer. But I would be concerned about external aid becoming the convenient deus ex machina.


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## ManTimeForgot (Apr 22, 2009)

The question was largely rhetorical actually; Chris made the claim that there wasn't any major novel in which humanity lost and then overcome their conquerors without external aid.

But I think you are right; magic technology is something that should be used in moderation.  A little bit of applied phlebotinum is cool, but too much and no one really cares if humanity beat ET using the combined effort of 489 black holes converging on their sector of space.

MTF


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## zachariah (Apr 29, 2009)

_Independence Day_ fits the bill...We just have to hope any invading aliens have 

a) left us a serviceable craft of theirs decades ago, to use as a trojan horse

b) computer systems identical to our own but with no network security


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## Shadow Trooper (Apr 30, 2009)

zachariah said:


> _Independence Day_ fits the bill...We just have to hope any invading aliens have
> 
> a) left us a serviceable craft of theirs decades ago, to use as a trojan horse
> 
> b) computer systems identical to our own but with no network security


 

 Too cynical zachariah! 



But so right LOL


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## chrispenycate (Apr 30, 2009)

ManTimeForgot said:


> The question was largely rhetorical actually; Chris made the claim that there wasn't any major novel in which humanity lost and then overcome their conquerors without external aid.
> 
> But I think you are right; magic technology is something that should be used in moderation.  A little bit of applied phlebotinum is cool, but too much and no one really cares if humanity beat ET using the combined effort of 489 black holes converging on their sector of space.
> 
> MTF



Actually I claimed "I can't think of a convincing, non-pulp story where humanity was defeated and overcomes its overlords without external aid.", not that one didn't exist. I've seen several unconvincing ones, and could probably work out a usable scenario, but the idea of a conquered people rising to drive out the invaders who beat them when they were fully armed is a bit like the cockroaches taking over the house. 

If the invaders hold Earth, they can't use their really big weapons for fear of damaging their own people; and if they can't tell one human from another…


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## ManTimeForgot (May 1, 2009)

Well there is good reason for this; in reality the chances of intra-galactic (never mind inter-galactic) overlords losing to us _after_ we had already been successfully defeated the first time is so small that I'm sure the universe ignores probabilities that small...

MTF


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## Chirios (May 6, 2009)

I don't think it would be possible. I think that if aliens invaded, the only option would be sustained rebellion; a war of attrition, until the aliens decided that we were too troublesome to hold onto. But that's assuming that they had no way to control us externally; and that we would be able to keep the rebellion going.


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## Scifi fan (May 7, 2009)

Harry Turtledove's Worldwar series deals with this, but it doesn't deal with what happens AFTER. 

That said, perhaps an intervening third force could solve things, as in a second benevolent alien race to help the Earthlings beat off the attackers. This has been used in a variety of ways in various novels that I know of.


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## reiver33 (May 7, 2009)

I would say the 'what happens next' after an unsuccessful alien invasion really depends on how it failed. 

If we defeat them in a straight stand-up fight then you're talking about the major (aerospace) world powers, with everyone else hunkering down/shouting encouragement from the sidelines, then losses may be 'crippling', depending on duration and the ability of a given nation to kick its defence budget through the roof. Any kind of protracted conflict would have an extreme effect on the world economy such that the ‘major world powers’ would (justifiably) be demanding access to war materials/resources without redress.

If the bad guys stomp us into the dirt but we subsequently pull out something sneaky (say, render the planet uninhabitable by them due to a virus), then you can expect them to be a bit peevish and indulge in the odd bit of orbital bombardment rather than ‘Well done, noble enemy! We will now leave you in peace..”

Any alien technology acquired in the aftermath of an invasion would, of necessity, be analysed by those nations best suited to understand and/or duplicate it – but of course they would share their findings with the rest of us via the UN!


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## Scifi fan (May 7, 2009)

> I would say the 'what happens next' after an unsuccessful alien invasion really depends on how it failed.



Excellent point! 



> If we defeat them in a straight stand-up fight then you're talking about the major (aerospace) world powers, with everyone else hunkering down/shouting encouragement from the sidelines, then losses may be 'crippling', depending on duration and the ability of a given nation to kick its defence budget through the roof. Any kind of protracted conflict would have an extreme effect on the world economy such that the ‘major world powers’ would (justifiably) be demanding access to war materials/resources without redress.



Harry Turtledove's Worldwar series. But it depends on where the fighting was. If the fighting was in the desert or other uninhabited plains, then that would be a different matter. And it also depends on our technological prowess at the time - would we have been at the present-day technology, late 21st century technology, or pre-1950's technology? That would deal with how we deal with resource demands in rebuilding our society. 



> If the bad guys stomp us into the dirt but we subsequently pull out something sneaky (say, render the planet uninhabitable by them due to a virus), then you can expect them to be a bit peevish and indulge in the odd bit of orbital bombardment rather than ‘Well done, noble enemy! We will now leave you in peace..”



War of the Worlds, V, Independance Day. 

In both types of situations, the response then would be to prepare for a future invasion and perhaps find a way to take it to them. Ender's Game touched on this to some extent.


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## reiver33 (May 7, 2009)

I'm assuming that any nominal defence would require some degree of high altitude/orbital military capability - or the bad guys can just stooge around and drop garbage on us - so we're talking current or near future levels of technology. 

Of course there is always the 'bloody-minded' approach which just hunkers down and hurls defiance until there is zip, nada, nothing worthwhile left to defend - you let them trash your planet rather than surrender in the hope they don't want the hassle of a full-blown occupation.

Look at it the other way; what level of military disparity would we find acceptable if contemplating a military occupation? The US v Iraq had, on paper, the capacity to turn quite bloody if the Iraqi military could utilise its numerical advantage (in certain areas). In practice it was a non-event as American technological advantage proved overwhelming, so for something like Independance Day to be 'credible' (as a story line), you have to have the all-too-familiar situation where the bad guys can't shoot straight.

One get-out, of course, is to hamstring the invasion by making the primary objective seizure with minimal damage - to the environment, industrial/economic infarstructure or whatever - thus sidestepping any alien weapons of mass destruction. Independance Day, V and (to a lesser extent) War of the Worlds all do down this route.

The nightmare scenario for any failed invasion would be leaving behind enough technology such that we can, within a generation, return the complement. 'Vengence is mine, sayth the Lord' - which just means we'll be doing God's work!


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## Scifi fan (May 7, 2009)

> The nightmare scenario for any failed invasion would be leaving behind enough technology such that we can, within a generation, return the complement. 'Vengence is mine, sayth the Lord' - which just means we'll be doing God's work!



Nightmare scenario? That depends on your point of view. From their point, it could be a nightmare; from ours, a dream come true. 

This was hinted at in ST:TOS episode, "A piece of the action".


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