History Main / PlanetLooters

To {{Handwave}} that problem, they often need some particular resource which is supposedly rare. [[MarsNeedsWater Water is apparently one of them, and countless aliens have needlessly lost their lives in futile attempts to steal our oceans.]] For some reason they overlook comets, dwarf planets and moons in the outer solar system which are not only made of mostly water in convenient prepackaged frozen form but don't have anyone out there to stop them from simply flying away with it.

At other times, [[HumanResources we are the resource]], and they want to take us as [[WeWillUseManualLaborInTheFuture slaves]] or [[ToServeMan tasty, tasty food]]. If they need food, they might as well go steal the cattle equivalents on several planets that ''should'' be much closer, with even ''less'' native hostility. As for slavery, it's hard to imagine any sufficiently advanced race that has figured out interplanetary space travel would ''need'' slaves for any reason other than to fulfill a [[ScaryDogmaticAliens cultural, religious or egotistical need]] to conquer the galaxy's "weak". Although maybe they'd make good pets.

Another way around the question is to make Earth's abundant ecosystems and temperate climates the resource. In this version, the aliens simply view primitive humans as unworthy pests infesting an ideal new home or vacation spot. This variation may be InvadingRefugees.

It's fairly popular to make ''humans'' [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters fill this role]] (to the horror of the SpaceElves), as a GreenAesop about exploitation of natural resources.

* According to some {{Ancient Astronaut|s}} theorists, a race of aliens called the Annunaki, who were worshiped as gods by the Sumerians, came to this planet to mine for gold and created mankind to use as slave labor.

* The end result of the Decepticon's Infiltration Protocol in [[ComicBook/TheTransformersMegaseries IDW's early Transformers work]] is stealing the resources of any planet they come across, in-between burning the planet to a cinder. They've been at this for several hundred years, and in several cases they've ''[[TheBadGuyWins succeeded]]''.

** Race X from the ''Opposing Force'' expansion for ''VideoGame/HalfLife1'' are suggested to be similar: they intended on colonizing/looting Earth the same way the Combine did. However, when Shepard killed the Gene Worm, they were cut off from Earth... or perhaps they saw the Combine coming and said "Screw this!"

!!Examples

[[folder:Film]]

** This was the original motivation of the Cybermen -- though their choice of victim was somewhat understandable, as ''humans'' were among the resources they wanted to strip-mine.
** For that matter, a lot of aliens liked this plot. It turned up in "The Pirate Planet" (where quartz (!) was unique to Earth) and "The Dalek Invasion Of Earth" (where Earth is the ''only planet in the universe'' with a magnetic core).
** The first series of the revived Who returned to this trope immediately. The very first episode had a baddie, the Nestene Consciousness, who wanted to feed on the Earth after its own worlds were destroyed in the "Time War". In the episode "Aliens of London", an alien criminal family called the Slitheen took over [[{{Whitehall}} 10 Downing Street]] as the first step of a plan to melt the Earth down into a source of radioactive fuel for spacecraft. The titular Dominators of "The Dominators" tried to do the same thing to the planet Dulcis in the Second Doctor era of the original show. In that case the choice of planet was motivated by a conveniently thin crust.
*** The Sontarans also do this, as it's very easy to turn Earth into a breeding planet for their species. How easy?[[spoiler: They even get the humans to install ATMOS systems on their vehicles, which are designed to wipe out humans and prepare the atmosphere.]]
** In "Horror of Fang Rock", the Rutans (eternal enemies of the Sontarans) mention that Earth is valuable because it is strategically placed, rather than anything on the planet. This explanation is as good as any until we get to the subject of all those other rocks that are pretty much in the same place but put up less of a fight.
*** However the planet being inhabitable and having so many potential slaves may make it better.

* The motive behind the Cardassian's expansionist, militarised society seen in ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine''. One Cardassian claimed that they were once a spiritual and peaceful people, but their native solar system is so mineral poor that it was either this or literally have their species starve to death. Their occupation of Bajor in which they enslaved the planet's citizens and strip-mined many of the planet's resources is the catalyst for a lot of the backstory and worldbuilding for Deep Space Nine's earlier seasons and its effects are felt right up until the final episode.
* ''Series/StargateSG1''
** The Goa'uld ''already'' looted Earth thousands of years ago -- to acquire humans as slaves and hosts, as well as resource wealth -- then subsequently lost control of the planet in a revolt.
** The [[HumanAliens Aschen]] are worse about this. They're strong enough to fight off the Goa'uld and often use it as a pretext to begin the covert process of turning populated worlds into giant farming fields with a fraction of the original population via the use of sterility viruses. This also serves to eliminate any potential competitor.
* The Wraith, in ''Series/StargateAtlantis'', are constantly trying to get to Earth--because all the Hives are awake now, and the carefully-managed and tiny populations of humanoid life in the Pegasus galaxy are too scattered. A single world filled with six billion people, and hundreds if not thousands of other worlds also heavily populated with humans, Jaffa, and others, just makes it all the more appetizing.
* The final episode of ''Series/TheTimeTunnel'' had aliens trying to steal all the oxygen from Earth for their own world.

[[folder:Web Comics]]

* In the old '80s version of the ''Franchise/{{Transformers|Generation1}}'', their energy source "energon" could be created by converting practically any source of energy, and was amazingly efficient. Yet the villainous Decepticons only tried to get it by stealing electricity from human energy plants and similar schemes.
** The Terrorcons in ''Anime/TransformersEnergon'' were just as bad, draining entire planets dry of their natural Energon ore, often to the point of destabilizing them into an EarthShatteringKaboom.
* The ''WesternAnimation/InvaderZim'' episode "Planet Jackers" takes this idea to the extreme, featuring aliens who steal entire planets, throwing them into their sun to keep it from dying. They specifically prefer planets full of "critters," because "critters burns ''good.''" Aliens who are loosely based on the crooks from ''Film/{{Fargo}}'', no less. And, since this is a CrapsackWorld where nobody thinks things through, don't bother wondering why [[FridgeLogic they don't just use their planet-moving technology to move their own planet to another star]].
* Brainiac in ''WesternAnimation/SupermanTheAnimatedSeries'' is a purely intellectual looter. He would examine planets for all their knowledge, and then destroy them and all inhabitants on them so he can be the sole holder of that knowledge. Of course, when Superman learns of this method of cornering the information market, he responds with an outraged "YoureInsane" and leaps into battle to stop the robot.

* An episode of ''{{WesternAnimation/Superfriends}}'' featured lion-like aliens who were plotting to chop the Earth into chunks, which would then be sold to various other races (all wanting different things, iron, water, etc.). Of course, the Super Friends have a little problem with this kind of entrepreneurship...
* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/MightyMax'' features aliens who invade Earth to steal its toxic waste, which apparently they can use for beneficial methods. When Max eventually figures that out, he pretends to surrender and agrees that Earth will give them a periodic tribute, figuring that it makes no sense to fight over something humans don't even want anyway.

* The Diamond Authority in ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'' colonizes planets and pillages them for badly needed resources to make more Gems. By the series' present, this strategy seems to be facing diminishing returns and the next generation of Gems are weaker than those that came before. This makes it all the more glaring that [[spoiler:Yellow Diamond wants the Earth destroyed. She knows it's lush with resources, but she's putting RevengeBeforeReason and wants it destroyed for all the trouble the Crystal Gems have given her, and for being where Pink Diamond died.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsRebels'' shows the Empire doing this to numerous planets, although more gradually and cleverly than most cases. They convince the leaders to let them in to stimulate the economy and provide opportunities, then slowly take over until every last resource (including the [[EvilColonialist native population]]) is used up, whereupon they pack up their people and move onto another planet leaving the citizens to die on their now lifeless planet. [[spoiler:This actually works against them in the series finale, as the rebels trigger the order to leave early then blow up the Dome with the entire occupation force onboard. Since they hadn't finished stripping it, the planet was able to recover.]]

* In something of a subversion, creatures capable of interstellar space travel who were only looking for raw materials would probably steer clear of Earth. The tiny moon of Titan (one of Saturn's 62 moons) has hundreds of times the hydrocarbons (oil and gas) that Earth has, Europa (one of Jupiter's moons) has twice the volume of water Earth has and is one of many tiny moons to have more water than we do, and even our own moon is amazingly rich in titanium. And this is only what we have in our comparatively tiny solar system, all of which is uninhabited (and unguarded[[note]]Well, ''almost'' unguarded if you include space probes studying some of them[[/note]]) ''except'' for our home.

* ''The Secret of the Ninth Planet'', a sci-fi juvenile by Donald A. Wollheim. Aliens have left automated Sun-Tap stations to drain energy from the Sun, which will cause it to go nova in a few years. In this case they've planted them all over the solar system, not just Earth. Fortunately human scientists have just invented an anti-gravity drive, enabling the protagonists to track them down and NukeEm with tactical A-bombs.

* ''The Secret of the Ninth Planet'', a sci-fi juvenile by Donald A. Wollheim. Aliens have left automated Sun-Tap stations to drain energy from the Sun, which will cause it to go nova in a few years. In this case they've planted them all over the solar system, not just Earth. Fortunately human scientists have just invented an anti-gravity drive, enabling the protagonists to track them down and NukeEm.

* The [[ScaryDogmaticAliens Scrin]] from ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquer'' seed planets with [[AlienKudzu Tiberium]], then they wait for the Tiberium to reach the planet's mantle and liquefy from the heat. Because Liquid Tiberium a RidiculouslyPotentExplosive this invariably triggers a Liquid Tiberium explosion for their scanners to pick up, signalling the Tiberium is ready for harvesting. As an added bonus, Tiberium is ''ridiculously'' valuable since it drains minerals and metals from the mantle and presents it for easy harvesting by the planet's population, which invariably leads to warring over the substance. Once the explosion happens, there's thus little in the way of viable resistance that the inhabitants can offer for the harvesting fleets. Then they begin collecting up the Tiberium and leave behind a dead world. Unfortunately for them, they didn't expect GDI and Nod to still be - in their own words - 'Dangerously viable' when they arrived on Earth. [[spoiler: Because Kane Liquefied Tiberium artificially specifically to lure them to a still very much alive planet, just so he could steal their technology. [[XanatosGambit The whole series was a plan by Kane to make this happen.]]]]

* The [[ScaryDogmaticAliens Scrin]] from ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquer'' seed planets with [[AlienKudzu Tiberium]], then they wait for the Tiberium to reach the planet's mantle and liquefy from the heat. Because Liquid Tiberium MadeOfExplodium this invariably triggers a Liquid Tiberium explosion for their scanners to pick up, signalling the Tiberium is ready for harvesting. As an added bonus, Tiberium is ''ridiculously'' valuable since it drains minerals and metals from the mantle and presents it for easy harvesting by the planet's population, which invariably leads to warring over the substance. Once the explosion happens, there's thus little in the way of viable resistance that the inhabitants can offer for the harvesting fleets. Then they begin collecting up the Tiberium and leave behind a dead world. Unfortunately for them, they didn't expect GDI and Nod to still be - in their own words - 'Dangerously viable' when they arrived on Earth. [[spoiler: Because Kane Liquefied Tiberium artificially specifically to lure them to a still very much alive planet, just so he could steal their technology. [[XanatosGambit The whole series was a plan by Kane to make this happen.]]]]

* For unexplained reasons (but given the demeanor of President Skroob, most likely government mismanagement), the denizens of planet Spaceball, from the Mel Brooks sci-fi spoof ''Film/{{Spaceballs}}'', must steal air from other planets to supply their world's thinning atmosphere. Or as the song goes, "'Cuz what you've got is what we need and all we do is dirty deeds, ''we're the Spaceballs''!"

* In something of a subversion, creatures capable of interstellar space travel who were only looking for raw materials would probably steer clear of Earth. The tiny moon of Titan (one of Saturn's 62 moons) has hundreds of times the hydrocarbons (oil and gas) that Earth has, Europa (one of Jupiter's moons) has twice the volume of water Earth has and is one of many tiny moons to have more water than we do, and even our own moon is amazingly rich in titanium. And this is only what we have in our comparatively tiny solar system, all of which is uninhabited (and unguarded) ''except'' for our home.

* The [[ScaryDogmaticAliens Scrin]] from ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquer'' seed planets with [[GreenRocks Tiberium]], then wait for the spread of the material to drive the planet's inhabitants into extinction. Then they begin collecting up the Tiberium on the now dead world. Unfortunately for them, they didn't expect GDI and Nod to still be existant when they arrived on Earth. [[GambitRoulette The whole series was a plan by Kane to make this happen.]]

* The Evronians from Disney's ''ComicBook/PaperinikNewAdventures'' series use weapons that drain all emotions from a sentient victim and convert them into energy (the will-less victims are then used for menial labor). However, since their whole infrastructure is built on using this emotional energy, and you can only ever drain one victim ''once'', they are forced to conquer new planets constantly. Their own scientists know this is unsustainable, but few dare voice that opinion.

* Creator/StephenHawking believes that these would be the only aliens who would ever visit Earth. After all, this is what humans have been doing to each other's countries: colonization.

* The smelly and fish-like Plutarkians from the 1993 ''WesternAnimation/BikerMiceFromMars'' series are a very fine example of this trope. Most of them were named after cheeses (e.g Lawrence Limburger, Lord Camembert, Napoleon Brie, Gutama Gouda). The Catatonians in the 2006 remake are almost as bad; they're after a new replicator/{{terraform}}ing device invented by the mice so they can use it to turn Earth and other planets into new ''kitty litter boxes''.

* The Reapers in the ''Franchise/MassEffect'' universe convert many sapient species into mindless cybernetic horrors to fight their grounds wars; the rest are [[spoiler: liquified into goo and used to build new Reapers.]]

* Inverted in ''Anime/MacrossFrontier'', [[spoiler:where, due to the severe damage suffered by the Frontier fleet, and the dwindling resources (it's stated that they will last for two or three months maximum), the government decides to attack the Vajra homeworld and break through the Vajra defenses, hoping to colonize it. At one point, one of Alto's wingmen deliberately comments "This planet is ours!" while blasting away at the local inhabitants. Once peace is established with the Vajra, they willingly give up the planet and leave the galaxy for unknown reaches.]]

* {{Inverted|Trope}} in ''Film/{{Avatar}}'' and ''[[DuelingMovies Delgo]]'', where [[HumansAreBastards militant Earthlings]] are looting an alien planet for literal {{Unobtanium}} and a place to live, respectively, after making their own planet a CrapsackWorld. Diplomacy was attempted in ''Avatar'', but by the time the film starts it's broken down.

* OlderThanTelevision: The UrExample is ''Literature/TheWarOfTheWorlds'', by Creator/HGWells, published in 1898. The book depicted a Martian invasion with overt analogies to European hegemony. The invaders have perfectly good reasons: according to contemporary theories, outer planets are the first to form and the first to die. With spaceflight in the Creator/JulesVerne steam cannon stage, the aliens have nowhere to go but inward. The novel heavily implies that when the invasion of Earth doesn't go well, the Martians take over Venus.
* Inverted (perhaps deliberately) in Creator/CSLewis' ''Literature/OutOfTheSilentPlanet'', which has humans as the planet looters trying to conquer Mars -- even though the solar system runs under the same theory as Wells', and the Martians point out that their world will die ''before'' Earth.

* The Goa'uld from ''Series/StargateSG1'' ''already'' did it to Earth thousands of years ago -- to acquire humans as slaves and hosts, as well as resource wealth -- then subsequently lost control of the planet in a revolt.

* According to some [[AncientAstronauts Ancient Astronaut]] theorists, a race of aliens called the Annunaki, who were worshiped as gods by the Sumerians, came to this planet to mine for gold and created mankind to use as slave labor.

* The Dark Eldar from ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'', who pillage planets for HumanResources, meaning, in this case, fleshy meatlings to play with.

** The [[OurOrcsAreDifferent Orks]], at least to an extent. Orks are primarily interested in fighting and conquest. But in doing so, they will loot whatever isn't nailed to the ground for their own purposes. They will, for example, raid a Forge World in order to steal tanks, vehicles or vehicle parts in order to use in their own vehicles. An Ork Trukk could use the turret from an Imperial tank, while a [[HumongousMecha Gargant]] could sport weaponry from several vehicles up to and including the BFG from an Imperial Titan.

* The Combine in ''VideoGame/HalfLife2'' and its episodic sequels hijack worlds across dimensions rather than space, but the idea is the same. The native life-forms are used to construct bio-organic combat units, the most successful of which are exported to use on the next world; humanity seems to be in the process of becoming the new fodder units as the game opens. The physical material of the planet itself is also exploited: supplemental material explains the barren coastal areas in the game are a result of the Combine teleporting away a fair fraction of the Earth's ocean water over the past decade, lowering global sea levels by several feet.
** Race X from the ''Opposing Force'' expansion of the first game are suggested to be similar: they intended on colonizing/looting Earth the same way the Combine did. However, when Shepard killed the Gene Worm, they were cut off from Earth... or perhaps they saw the Combine coming and said "Screw this!"

* {{Inverted}} in ''VideoGame/{{Albion}}'': You start out as a shuttle pilot on a giant strip-mining-colony ship from Earth that's on its way to extract all valuable raw materials from a planet that turns out to be inhabited...
* The Reapers in the ''Franchise/MassEffect'' universe do this, and they're of the "using humans/other sapient races as resources" variety. They convert many into mindless cybernetic horrors to fight their grounds wars; the rest are [[spoiler: liquified into goo and used to build new Reapers.]]

* In a twist, humans themselves could be considered Planet Looters, Peak Oil and all.

* In the old '80s version of the ''{{Transformers|Generation1}}'', their energy source "energon" could be created by converting practically any source of energy, and was amazingly efficient. Yet the villainous Decepticons only tried to get it by stealing electricity from human energy plants and similar schemes.

* Exeter and his men in the disputed classic ''ThisIslandEarth'' needed uranium to power their energy shield...[[Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000 but they aren't aliens!]]

* Creator/StephenBaxter uses Planet Looters in ''ManifoldSpace'', but the aliens attack any planetary bodies they come across. It's just that there are so many of them (with so many different needs) that sooner or later they'll get to the inhabited ones. All of known space has been picked over repeatedly for hundreds of millions of years.