History Main / ImportedAlienPhlebotinum

* ''Series/EarthFinalConflict'' had a seemingly benevolent alien race as its main plot point. Their technology was equitably given to all of mankind, as they saw fit. Notably, [[TeleportersAndTransporters portal stations]] in almost all major cities allowed global travel in seconds.

* In ''Series/WarOfTheWorlds'', the Blackwood Project occasionally steals some alien toy and contrives it into a one-off device.

* In science-fiction ''VideoGame/FourX'' strategy games, it's pretty much standard to get a bonus to your research if you find {{Precursor}} artifacts. It shows up in ''VideoGame/GalacticCivilizations'', ''VideoGame/SinsOfASolarEmpire'', ''VideoGame/MasterOfOrion'' and probably many others.

** Even the non-sci-fi ''VideoGame/{{Civilization 5}}'' has a minor example. Early in the game, Ancient Ruins can be found while exploring the world. Sending a unit into the ruins will grant one of several bonuses. One of these bonuses is your unit finding advanced weapons left behind by an older civilization and arming themselves, allowing you to get more advanced military units than would otherwise be possible at your tech level.

** The biggest example is Earth Alliance, with an unspecified but large amount of their modern technology being reverse-engineered from various alien sources, either recovered by finding an abandoned piece of advanced technology (we actually see an attempt going wrong in the series. A more successful one were the Interceptors), bought or gifted to them by various aliens (the first jump drives and other technologies were bought from the Centauri, the advanced beam weapons of the ''Omegas'' were originally bought from the Narn, the {{Wave Motion Gun}}s came from the Drazi, and understanding of ArtificialGravity was a gift from the Minbari to get them to join the Interstellar Alliance), or outright ''stolen'' (Earth's pulse weapons, for example, are based on Dilgar technology captured on the battlefield, as most of Earth's job on ArtificialGravity).

[[quoteright:350: [[Franchise/StargateVerse https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/63_4_0.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:And so the decade of fiddling with unknown alien technology began.]]

* In ''Film/{{Aquaman}}'', Black Manta constructs his suit of PoweredArmor by using Atlantean technology gifted to him by King Orm. He ends up reverse-engineering an Atlantean plasma cannon to serve as his helmet's EyeBeams.

* ''Film/AlitaBattleAngel'': Alita's second body, the Berserker body, is an ancient nanotechnology and plasma-based battle body from Mars which is LostTechnology on EarthWhichUsedToBeBetter.

* ''Film/AlitaBattleAngel'': Alita's second body, the Berserker body, is an ancient nanotechnology and plasma-based battle body from Mars which is LostTechnology on Earth.

* In the ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquer'' series, the majority of the Earth is being consumed by Tiberium, alien phlebotinum crystals that appeared in Rome and began growing outwards, rendering much of the world uninhabitable. If you get close to the crystals without protection, they start growing around you, on you, and ''in'' you, and you quickly hemorrhage to death. Ironically, the Tiberium is also an incredibly efficient energy source. The aliens (known as the Scrin) that might have been responsible recently showed up and are annoyed that the human race hasn't died out yet- apparently, the Scrin wait for all life on a planet to die off before they come to harvest the "ichor" (their term for Tiberium). After a series of defeats at the hands of both Nod and the GDI, their leader has ordered a full invasion fleet to exterminate mankind.

** In ''Film/SpiderManHomecoming'', the entire modus operandi of the Vulture's gang is to steal technology left over from the Avengers' various fights, including the aforementioned Chitauri tech, which their GadgeteerGenius Phineas "The Tinkerer" Mason uses to create various weapons and other gear to sell on the black market (as well as for the gang's own use, as seen with Vulture's exo-suit and Shocker's gauntlet). The incongruity of petty criminals armed with advanced alien superweapons is lampshaded by a prospective buyer, who accuses the gang of trying to upsell him and emphasizes that he's not trying to send someone back in time.

** In ''Film/SpiderManHomecoming'', the entire modus operandi of the Vulture's gang is to steal technology left over from the Avenger's various fights, including the aforementioned Chitauri tech, which their GadgeteerGenius Phineas "The Tinkerer" Mason uses to create various weapons and other gear to sell on the black market (as well as for the gang's own use, as seen with Vulture's exo-suit and Shocker's gauntlet). The incongruity of petty criminals armed with advanced alien superweapons is lampshaded by a prospective buyer, who accuses the gang of trying to upsell him and emphasizes that he's not trying to send someone back in time.

* In ''VideoGame/XMercs'', you eventually encounter aliens who may be responsible for the arrival of [[GreenRocks advinite]] on Earth and get your hands on some of their tech, including DeflectorShields and {{Energy Weapon}}s. Notably, it takes a number of technological breakthroughs by your scientists to get shields working the way they should. For example, the first shields you get are single-use items instead of reusable generators. Those come much later.

** This trend continues in ''Videogame/XCOMEnemyWithin'', where XCOM's weakest technology is the pinnacle of small arms, aircraft, and missile tech, and everything else is reverse engineered from captured Alien technology and information gained from [[MindProbe interrogating]] captured aliens. Head scientist [[OmnidisciplinaryScientist Dr. Vahlen]] comments that they don't have time to fully understand how the technology works, her team just makes sure it does and will figure out the specifics once the war ends.

* Forms almost the whole basis of ''Franchise/Ben10'' and all it's series. The Omnitrix from ''WesternAnimation/Ben10'' fell to earth when Vilgax blew up the spaceship it was on in an attempt to seize it for himself. Given who wound up with it, it's a miracle the planet survived.

* DC's third Comicbook/BlueBeetle, Jaime Reyes, gets his powers from an advanced piece of technology that's pressmed in-universe to be magic related, but the series slowly reveals that it was deliberately sent to Earth by an unknown alien species. [[spoiler:Unfortunately, the Beetle was designed to infiltrate and slowly conquer Earth]].

* A major recurring plot point in Creator/IDWPublishing's ''ComicBook/{{Transformers}}'' series. The Tyrest Accords explicitly prohibit any alien races from using Cybertronian tech, and prohibit Cybertronians from attempting to export such tech to other races. This was agreed to very early on in the war between the Autobots and the Decepticons, and is one of the few points of agreement between the factions, because the consequences of widespread Cybertronian weaponry are too ugly to contemplate. [[spoiler: Optimus Prime recently declared ''Earth'' a colony of Cybertron, partially because Earth's governments had been scavenging Cybertronian tech and the Galatic Council would come down on them with extreme prejudice.]]