History Main / PlanetLooters

* The Blastula in ''WesternAnimation/MenInBlack'' as said to be this. Examples of the planets they looted (deserted wastelands) are shown on video. As they live in very hot environments they first increase the planet temperature to unbearable levels for more life forms before looting it and planned to do the same to Earth until the Men In Black acted.

* ''WesternAnimation/SheRaAndThePrincessesOfPower'': [[Characters/SheRaAndThePrincessesOfPowerHordePrime Horde Prime]], the final BigBad, has apparently made a habit out of stripping the planets he forcibly integrates into his galaxy-spanning empire for resources.

* 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 motive behind the Cardassians' 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/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'': [[EarlyInstallmentWeirdness In their first appearance]] in "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS2E16QWho Q Who]]", the Borg are presented this way. They are described as tearing through civilizations and stripping them of any useful technology, and we see mighty craters where they've torn entire colonies from the ground. After this, however, they're more interested in [[TheAssimilator assimilating people]] into their HiveMind, which they even [[ObliviouslyEvil regard as a benevolent act]].

* Just like the [[VideoGame/{{Defender}} video game,]] the aliens in ''Pinball/{{Defender}}'' are out to capture humanoids and turn them into Mutants.

* ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration''. [[EarlyInstallmentWeirdness In their first appearance]] in "Q Who", the Borg are presented this way. They are described as tearing through civilisations and stripping them of any useful technology, and we see mighty craters where they've torn entire colonies from the ground. After this however they're more interested in assimilating people into their HiveMind, which they even regard as a benevolent act!

[[quoteright:200:[[ComicBook/MysteryInSpace https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mysteryinspace.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:201: Yeah, but continents have horrible resale value.]]

[[quoteright:201:[[ComicBook/MysteryInSpace https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Image_change__802.jpg]]]]

* ' ''Literature/OutOfTheSilentPlanet'' 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.

* ''Literature/TheWarOfTheWorlds'', by Creator/HGWells, published in 1898, depicts 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.

* ''Anime/DarlingInTheFranxx'': The Virm are depicted as very much so this, and have destroyed at least one prior civilization.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Amphibia}}'': It's eventually revealed that King Andrias' ancestors did this ''routinely'': [[spoiler:using the Calamity Box, they invaded neighboring dimensions and stripped them for resources and any valuable specimens, exterminating the sapient inhabitants along the way. In the present, after Andrias and the Core have reclaimed the Music Box, they intend to resume Amphibia's old way of life and make Earth their next conquest]].

* ''Series/{{V 1983}}'', as well as the sequel miniseries ''The Final Battle'' and eventually ''The Series'' were specifically a case of MarsNeedsWater, though Earth's massive reserves of animal protein(QED [[ToServeMan humans]]) were a definite bonus.

-->'''Clank:''' There ''must'' be a better way to find a home for your people.
-->'''Drek:''' YouFool You think ''that's'' what this is ''about''?! Who do you think polluted the ''last'' planet? ''I did''. This is about one thing and one thing only: ''cash'', and lots of it. See, I've been ''paid'' for every inch of my new world. Once the inhabitants move in, I'll begin polluting that planet as well, and the whole thing starts ''all over again''. Ah... brilliant.
-->'''Clank''': Y-you ''evil'' [[CurseCutShort little]]--
* This was why the Strogg in ''VideoGame/QuakeII'' and ''[[VideoGame/QuakeIV 4]]'' invaded Earth. Like some of the other examples, they were seeking ''humans''. As cyborgs, they wanted to convert humans into new Strogg... and additionally, they used them as food, and the raw materials for medical treatments to maintain their organic components.
* ''VideoGame/Prey2006'''s aliens have similar motivations. Life on Earth was actually seeded by them, and every few thousand years they come to the planet so they can abduct a few million humans to use as cybernetic biomatter source and extra energy.
** [[spoiler:Rumor has it that in sequel Tommy would have been informed that the Keepers lied about seeding the galaxy with life.]]
* The Hierarchy from ''[[VideoGame/UniverseAtWar Universe at War: Earth Assault]]''. Their predations of inhabited planets is mainly because they also require biomass, and because they are a warrior culture that regularly nips any sentient species that might challenge their supremacy in the bud before they can become a credible threat.
* ''VideoGame/{{Defender}}''. The resource was humans, the abduction of which allowed the enemy to create dangerous mutant ships.
* ''Franchise/DeadSpace'' mostly averts this, as the Planet Crackers are used on uninhabited planets and there's no sign of nonhuman life. With one massive exception: [[spoiler: when a Marker outbreak reaches convergence the planet's population is siphoned off of it to form a new Brethren Moon.]]
* In ''VideoGame/NoMansSky'', you can become a planet looter yourself and collect commodities and resources from planets to planets.
** Likewise in ''VideoGame/{{Starbound}}''. In fact, this is the best way to collect fuel from moons: run along the surface, dig up any easily accessible fuel, then teleport out [[RubberBandAI before the fuel-guarding monster catches up]]. But in general, exploring and looting planets for raw materials and unusual parts is a major part of the gameplay.
* ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWars'' features a few of these among its original villains: The Ze Balmary Empire of ''VideoGame/ShinSuperRobotWars'' and the ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWarsAlpha'' series seeks to turn Earth's population into mind-slave soldiers, the Ruina in ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWarsDestiny'' looks to use humans as cattle, the Fury in ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWarsJudgment'' want to eradicate humanity and use the planet as their new home, while the Database in ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWarsW'' take the Brainiac route.
* 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 crust 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.]]]]
* Although Lavos from ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger'' is more of a PlanetEater, there are shades of this in Lucca's analysis during the final battle sequence, which suggests that it is [[spoiler:collecting and analyzing the planet's evolutionary history in order to make itself more powerful.]]
* The Angel Cartel and Serpentis in ''VideoGame/EveOnline'' are interplanetary [[TheSyndicate syndicates]]. They don't explicitly loot, just [[ShameIfSomethingHappened "protect"]]. Also, the Amarr Empire used to organize slaver raids against Minmatar planets. In the Incursion ExpansionPack, Sansha's Nation restarts it's own [[HumanResources "recruiting drive"]].
* ''VideoGame/EccoTheDolphin'' kicks off with the title character's entire family being swallowed up by a typhoon that sucks everything from the sea and seafloor, including seashells and rocks. Ecco eventually discovers these storms are caused by a nightmarish alien species called the Vortex that uses Ecco's homeplanet as food source every 500 years, since they've lost their own ability to produce food.

* In ''VideoGame/SwordOfTheStars'', the Zuul use the resources of their worlds at an unsustainably high rate, called "overharvesting". While all races can do this, it is only compulsory for the Zuul. According to AllThereInTheManual, however, the Zuul's greatest pillaging goal is slaves: Zuul use other races' bodies for food and manual labour, and their minds for technological advance and other... [[MindRape Recreation]]. And they obtain them by raiding other species colonies, or colonizing a planet whose civilian population partially survived the OrbitalBombardment.
** There's also mining ships, which strip-mine planets for resources they can feed to other worlds to permanently increase their resource stocks -- this is an especially good thing to do against worlds you can't colonize due to planet hazard. The hivers, due to their PortalNetwork allowing them to jump dedicated strip-mine fleets all around their empire in a single turn, do especially well at this.

* 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 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.]]
** The kett of ''VideoGame/MassEffectAndromeda'' are strip-mining Eos and Voeld, but it's secondary to their main goal of [[spoiler:exalting the locals, as evidenced by the fact they've been there eighty years and there's still lots of both planets left.]]
* The Vaygr from ''VideoGame/{{Homeworld 2}}'' are stated to be this in some of the background lore.
* The Zudjari/Outsiders in ''VideoGame/TheBureauXCOMDeclassified'' have built an entire empire on this. They use [[PortalNetwork Venn Gates]] to travel to other worlds and conquer them, strip-mining them for resources (both mineral and biological). The natives may be forced into the role of BattleThralls via [[HiveMind Mozaic]]. Since they rapidly go through the resources, they need to constantly seek out new worlds to conquer, lest their empire collapse on itself ([[spoiler:which it likely does after their invasion of Earth fails, and their leader is destroyed along with Mozaic]]).
* In ''VideoGame/{{MDK}}'', you fight against aliens who use massive, city-crushing minecrawlers to gather resources for their own purposes.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Spore}}'', pirates will occasionally raid one of your planets, or one of your allies, and try to steal spice. You can also do this to other empires, but doing so, of course, will anger them.
* In ''VideoGame/KidIcarusUprising'', the three-way war between Skyworld, the Underworld, and the Forces of Nature draws the attention of an alien race known as the Aurum, who [[GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere appear rather abruptly]] to steal the planet's resources. This brings the main story to a grinding halt and forces the three main factions to [[EnemyMine team up]] in order to stop the planet from being totally destroyed. Aside from a few Aurum enemies (or at least really good imitations of them) appearing in late-game chapters, [[BigLippedAlligatorMoment this is never brought up again.]]

* ''Eco Fighters'' is a 1994 sidescrolling shooter by Creator/{{Capcom}} where you pilot the Eco Fighter SpacePlane to stop Goyolk, a CorruptCorporateExecutive who intends to strip your planet of all its natural resources and turn it into a lifeless, polluted "Doom Sphere."
* ''VideoGame/KirbyPlanetRobobot'': In Rhythm Route, Susie reveals that the company is harvesting Pop Star's resources for their own creations. WordOfGod even states that this is the HWC's M.O. and the reason Popstar is being targeted is because it is rich in resources.

* ''Anime/DarlingInTheFranxx'': The Virm are depicted as very much so this, and have destroyed at least one prior civilization.
* The Gatlanteans from ''Anime/SpaceBattleshipYamato2202'' are this in that they have managed to have broken away sections of planetary crust from other planets in order to use them to cut off Terezart from the rest of the universe in a bid to try harnessing [[PhysicalGod Teresa's]] power without having to worry about interference by outside forces. [[spoiler:Near the end of the series, it's revealed that Gatlantis' White Comet is actually a PlanetSpaceship that is roughly the size of Saturn that has four terrestrial bodies trapped in the center, and that they plan to add Earth to their collection due to the [[YearInsideHourOutside Time Fault that the UNCF used to create the countless ships of their Wave Motion Fleet.]]]]
* ''Franchise/{{Naruto}}'': [[spoiler:It turns out that this is the origin of ninjutsu. It's revealed near the end of the sequel series and the transition to the third series that there are a race of humanoids that travel to habitable worlds, planting a tree [[PlanetaryParasite that'll suck all the life out of it]] so they can consume the fruit it bears to increase their own power. It went off the rails on Naruto's world when an agent went rogue and decided to live as a goddess and bore hybrid children that inherited her powers. These children defeated her when she went back on mission, and proceeded to share with the world the techniques to manipulate chakra as she had. This, along with passing on their unique genetic abilities through various lines, created the ninja clans of the present.]]

* ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}''

** The Tyranids are a HordeOfAlienLocusts who use a multi-stage infestation. Once all resistance is eaten, the tyranids assemble in reclamation pools, where all the ingested organic matter is dissolved (that is, the 'nids themselves throw themselves into the pool). Then the main hive ships suck up the soup in the pools and atmosphere. The result is a completely barren and airless rock undergoing volcanic activity due to tectonic imbalance.
*** The 'Nids' mechanics of their interstellar travel are elaborated upon. Rather than traveling through [[HyperspaceIsAScaryPlace the Warp]] like most starfaring races, the final stage of their absorption of a world's resources involves the hiveships using a highly advanced biotechnological organism called a Narval to manipulate the local sun's gravity well in order to launch them at the next inhabited system over, collapsing the star and blowing up everything else in the immediate vicinity in the process. That's right, their planet looting techniques are so refined they can even steal ''gravity''.

* ''Franchise/{{Naruto}}: [[spoiler:It turns out that this is the origin of ninjutsu. It's revealed near the end of the sequel series and the transition to the third series that there are a race of humanoids that travel to habitable worlds, planting a tree [[PlanetaryParasite that'll suck all the life out of it]] so they can consume the fruit it bears to increase their own power. It went off the rails on Naruto's world when an agent went rogue and decided to live as a goddess and bore hybrid children that inherited her powers. These children defeated her when she went back on mission, and proceeded to share with the world the techniques to manipulate chakra as she had. This, along with passing on their unique genetic abilities through various lines, created the ninja clans of the present.]]

* [[spoiler:It turns out that this is the origin of ninjutsu in ''{{Franchise/Naruto}}''. It's revealed near the end of the sequel series and the transition to the third series that there are a race of humanoids that travel to habitable worlds, planting a tree [[PlanetaryParasite that'll suck all the life out of it]] so they can consume the fruit it bears to increase their own power. It went off the rails on Naruto's world when an agent went rogue and decided to live as a goddess and bore hybrid children that inherited her powers. These children defeated her when she went back on mission, and proceeded to share with the world the techniques to manipulate chakra as she had. This, along with passing on their unique genetic abilities through various lines, created the ninja clans of the present.]]

->''"They're like locusts. They're moving from planet to planet, their entire civilization. Once they consume every natural resource, they move on. And we're next"''

* ''Men in Black''

*** The 'Nids really take this UpToEleven in recent editions, where the mechanics of their interstellar travel are elaborated upon. Rather than traveling through [[HyperspaceIsAScaryPlace the Warp]] like most starfaring races, the final stage of their absorption of a world's resources involves the hiveships using a highly advanced biotechnological organism called a Narval to manipulate the local sun's gravity well in order to launch them at the next inhabited system over, collapsing the star and blowing up everything else in the immediate vicinity in the process. That's right, their planet looting techniques are so refined they can even steal ''gravity''.

->''"They're like locusts. They're moving from planet to planet, their entire civilization. Once they consume every natural resource, they move on."''

* It turns out that this is the origin of ninjutsu in ''{{Franchise/Naruto}}''. It's revealed near the end of the sequel series and the transition to the third series that there are a race of humanoids that travel to habitable worlds, planting a tree [[PlanetaryParasite that'll suck all the life out of it]] so they can consume the fruit it bears to increase their own power. It went off the rails on Naruto's world when an agent went rogue and decided to live as a goddess and bore hybrid children that inherited her powers. These children defeated her when she went back on mission, and proceeded to share with the world the techniques to manipulate chakra as she had. This, along with passing on their unique genetic abilities through various lines, created the ninja clans of the present.

* ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'': The Diamond Authority 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. Though Pink Diamond’s absence is also implied to be a major factor in newer Gems being weaker, as Era 2 began after her shattering]]

* ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'': The Diamond Authority 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.]]

* Arguably, Medical Mechanica from ''Anime/{{FLCL}}'' fits this category.
* The Saiyans and their employers, the Frieza Force in ''Anime/DragonBallZ'' regularly ravage entire worlds of their population for sale to the highest bidder. And destroying them if they think it won't sell well enough.

* In ''Anime/DarlingInTheFranxx'', the Virm are depicted as very much so this, and have destroyed at least one prior civilization.

** In ''ComicBook/AdventureComics'' #408-409, ComicBook/{{Supergirl}} has to drive out an army of alien Mermen who intend to stealing the Earth's whole water supply to save their own homeworld.