Post by auntym on Jul 20, 2018 14:01:45 GMT -6
The History of Alien Invasions
The History of Alien Invasions | SYFY WIRE
SYFY WIRE
Published on Jan 26, 2017
Aliens invading or attacking Earth is commonplace in science fiction, but where did it come from? And how has it evolved over time? Find out.
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More About Alien Invasions: The alien invasion is a usual part of science fiction stories and film, in which extraterrestrials invade Earth either to exterminate and supplant human life, enslave it under a colonial system, to harvest humans for food, steal the planet's resources, or destroy the planet altogether. The invasion scenario has been used as an allegory for a protest against military hegemony and the societal ills of the time. H.G. Wells' novel The War of the Worlds extended the invasion literature that was already common when science fiction was first emerging as a genre. Prospects of invasion tended to vary with the state of current affairs, and current perceptions of threat. Alien invasion was a common metaphor in United States science fiction during the Cold War, illustrating the fears of foreign (e.g. Soviet Union) occupation and nuclear devastation of the American people. Examples of these stories include the short story The Liberation of Earth (1950) by William Tenn and the film The Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956). In the invasion trope, fictional aliens contacting Earth tend to either observe (sometimes using experiments) or invade, rather than help the population of Earth acquire the capacity to participate in interplanetary affairs. There have been a few exceptions, such as the alien-initiated first contact that begins the 1951 film The Day the Earth Stood Still, and the Vulcan-initiated first contact that concludes the 1996 film Star Trek: First Contact (although after a failed invasion by the Borg in the rest of the film). In both cases, aliens decide to visit Earth only after noticing that its inhabitants have reached a threshold level of technology: nuclear weapons combined with space travel in the first case, and faster-than-light travel using warp drive technology in the second.
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The History of Alien Invasions | SYFY WIRE