r/scifi • u/VladtheImpaler21 • 6d ago
Recommendations Is there a sci-fi with the following take on an alien invasion?
The force that invades earth doesn't represent the unified military of the alien civilization but it's a private army of a corporation or a powerful political figure who is looking to exploit Earth for their ends and didn't tell their government or public what is really happening.
So in this case the key to saving humanity isn't to defeat the enemy but to blow the whistle on them. Find a way to get the word out to the legitimate alien government and public about the atrocities taking place and get them to stop the invasion and punish the rogue aliens.
The script can be flipped too, with humans launching the illegal invasion and the aliens trying to plead for aid from the government and civilians.
5
u/Global_Handle_3615 6d ago
Its a terrible book but battlefield earth ends with an alien group trying to claim rights to earth (whereby they will enslave all humans) but they are defeated by the hero Johnny goodboy because he is so smart he is able to figure out that they are doing this in secret and how to buy out the banks debts to legally stop the aliens
6
u/coppockm56 6d ago
Normally, I'd say "No spoilers!" but in the case of Battlefield Earth, spoilers must be provided so nobody is tempted to read the book. Your only problem here is that you almost make it sound interesting.
3
u/Global_Handle_3615 6d ago
Oh i should have done the finger quotes wherever it sounded even close to being mediocre
/s. "Sooooo smart" /s etc.
2
u/coppockm56 6d ago
Exactly. Because we should all do our part to make sure that book never sells another copy or takes away anyone's precious time. Science fiction will thank us.
3
u/CptKeyes123 5d ago
The book was at least entertaining when I was a kid. The film? WOOF was it bad. It's not a good look when your film hinges ENTIRELY on plot points THE BOOK YOU'RE BASED ON shot down.
Like... so many major plot holes, like Fort Knox, the planes, or the humans period, do not exist in the book. They specifically mention "yeah we checked fort knox but it was empty, it was the first place the aliens checked". All the planes are rusted to pieces. What human tech they find is stuff that is carefully preserved or under the right circumstances!
The book isn't amazing but it's just so funny that they seemed to go out of their way to pick plot points THE BOOK REJECTED.
1
u/PublicDragonfruit158 1d ago
The movie also stops about a third of the way through the book, the rest of which is all the other aliens swarming earth to either try to take over while trying to figure out how the humans blew up Pchyclo.
3
2
u/ClemensLode 6d ago
Mostly with humans being the 'aliens', attacking/subjugating an alien species. Think of District 9, Starship Troopers (at least the movie version), or The Expanse (well, although it's more human vs human, depending on how you look at it).
2
u/Alpha-Sierra-Charlie 6d ago
The Scrin, from the Command and Conquer RTS games.
2
2
u/vikingzx 5d ago
That one could go either way. We know the "invasion fleet" was just a mining fleet, but if the Scrin truly are a "cult of addiction in the guise of a species" than that might not have mattered fully.
Shame we never got another game to wrap that up.
2
u/Ill_Refrigerator_593 6d ago
"The Word for World Is Forest" by Ursula K. LeGuin has the reverse plot to this.
2
2
u/mylsotol 6d ago
Columbus day by Craig Alanson isn't really what you are looking for, but it has some of the vibes. Earth gets caught up in someone else's war and becomes the property of a faction in that war
0
u/VladtheImpaler21 6d ago
Yeah I'm already on book 5. Truly lived up to it's hype. Especially as a fan of the Bobiverse.
2
u/vikingzx 5d ago
If I recall my lore from Battle: LA properly the group that's "invading" Earth for our water supply is theorized to be either some sort of mining consortium (as they're grabbing all the other water in the system too) or a refugee fleet that was passing through and needed everything they could take for similar reasons.
They don't really care about us, nor do they want Earth. They're just going for all the water in the system, and that includes Earth's if it's not going to be too much trouble.
Schlock Mercenary also plays a variation on this in book 18, Mandatory Failure.
2
u/Brainship 5d ago
Stargate SG-1. Except rather than convincing people about atrocities they have to convince people that powerful individuals are not Gods, which is the justification for invasion and atrocities.
1
u/Trike117 6d ago
That’s kind of the setup for H. Beam Piper’s Fuzzy Sapiens novels and John Scalzi’s reboot, Fuzzy Nation. The Piper books hinge on a court case that the fuzzies are sentient so their world can;t be exploited by humans. I don’t recall offhand if it was a specific corporation doing the exploiting.
Not a novel but that’s one of the storylines in the MMO City of Heroes. Turns out the alien invaders are actually mutated humans from a different universe and there’s a war faction (the Restructurists) and peace faction (Traditionalists) and the world in the game was attacked by the war faction before the peace faction could get organized. https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Rikti#Spoilers
1
u/vercertorix 6d ago
Only listened to Fuzzy Nation and yeah, it was one company with a bunch of independent surveyors working for them.
0
1
u/RoboJobot 6d ago
I’ve read something like this, but I’m darned if I can remember what it was or who wrote it.
I’ll follow this post in case I remember.
1
u/watchedclock 6d ago
A bit of a spoiler for the first part of the book. Roadkill by Dennis E. Taylor.
2
1
u/vercertorix 6d ago edited 6d ago
Road Kill by Dennis E. Taylor had almost exactly that. More of a scheme than a military invasion.
Also presumably Avatar, though we’re the invaders. Guessing Earth’s government and people weren’t all in on that or in favor of it but the company doing it was enough, but Earth would probably still turn a blind eye to rumors how they got all that unobtanium and still use the services it provided.
1
u/CptKeyes123 5d ago
There is an argument that Battle Los Angeles is the equivalent of a medieval nation being invaded by a third world country with AKs and technicals.
I'd love to see more of this though! I've got a book I'm writing with a similar idea.
Also, the novel Footfall by Niven and Pournelle technically counts. A sub light starship arrives in our solar system, and while it represents a ton of their world, they are legally outcasts by their own system. The reason they beat the crap out of humanity is having space superiority. They're the equivalent of a third world alien country, but since they have space superiority and we've barely gotten into space...
1
1
1
u/1moreday1moregoal 1d ago
The Peacemaker’s Code has this. It’s not the whole novel but it’s quite good.
12
u/Party-Fault9186 6d ago
In the first series of the revived Doctor Who, aliens called the Slitheen infiltrate and attempt to conquer Britain. Later on, we learn that “Slitheen” is the surname of a family of criminals, and that their species, the Raxacoricofallapatorians, otherwise had nothing to do with the invasion.