Aliens
Aliens in fiction are perhaps the most overdone and trope riddled theme in the whole genre of science fiction, sci-fi horror, and fantasy science fiction. Almost every alien race in every movie, videogame, or book is exactly the same. Obviously, there are exceptions (which I will get to later) but for the most part, aliens are interchangeable from one fictional universe to another.
Aliens occupy two main roles or tropes in fiction: the antagonist and the creator. I will go over why each is incredibly cliché and snore inducing.
The most traditional position aliens occupy is that of the antagonistic force. Examples include Prometheus, Independence Day (both of them), Battle of LA, Battleship, Ender’s Game, and War of the Worlds. Even in a story like Mass Effect where mankind is friends with many other alien races, there is still another even more ‘alien’ force known as the Reapers. This antagonistic force is always highly advanced and highly evolved. Usually these aliens are so evolved that they have disregarded emotion, sex, food, clothing, normal space travel, language, religion, you name it. Anything and everything is below them.
Their weapons are ridiculously powerful, their space craft are colossal, their culture is perfect, their tactics are without flaw…yet somehow, they always lose to mankind. Why? Because mankind has to win. That is why this alien trope is so terrible. The audience is told throughout the whole story that the antagonist is perfect and cannot lose. But, every time humans somehow manage to beat the aliens by pulling out some ludicrous hail mary. This is a cheap trick of storytelling, making for a boring and uninspired story.
A personal pet peeve I have with the antagonist role of aliens is that the aliens are advanced in areas the author feels man is not. Say these hyper evolved aliens no longer use toilet paper because that kills trees. As if mankind stopped using toilet paper we could create a super weapon capable of swallowing moons.
The other trope that aliens occupy in fiction is that of the creators or progenitors of life. Some examples include Prometheus, Star Trek, Halo, Mass Effect, and Star Craft (but they get a pass because their games are hecka good). In the Darwinian worldview there is not total agreeance on what caused life on earth. Some would say that it is abiogenesis while some even say that aliens seeded life on earth. For whatever reason, that theory has made its way into fiction. The creator role of aliens in fiction is quite lazy. The alien race that seeded life is much like their antagonist counterpart; highly evolved and highly advanced. However, this trope always leads to more questions than it answers. Why did the aliens create humans? What led to their undoing? Why did they also create another alien race that could kill humans? How long is this fictional story’s timeline? It is a recipe for convolution.
The worst part of this trope is that the audience never sees this alien race. At least with the antagonist trope the audience gets to see the spectacle of the aliens’ might. With the ancient alien trope, the audience may only get some hieroglyphics on an asteroid or cave paintings of a flying saucer. This trope starves the audience of lore and does little in the realm of world building. Put simply: there is a reason why people make fun of Ancient Aliens on the History Channel.
Despite all my rantings and ravings, there are two uses of aliens in creative properties I find to be truly special. The Covenant in Halo and the Na’vi in Avatar break the mold and motifs that their genre companions fall prey to. In Halo, the Covenant is a coalition of several alien factions that are extremely religious. Instead of attacking mankind for their resources or because the plot demands it, the Covenant wages a religious crusade against mankind. Additionally, the Covenant are not billions of years ahead of man in technology so although the odds are tilted in the Covenant’s favor it is not total nonsense that mankind emerges victorious in battles. The later Halo games do employ the creator alien trope, which is a shame, but the initial games avoid the mundane. In the case of the Na’vi, humans are the ‘aliens.’ The trope of the antagonist alien force has been totally flipped on its head. Though the theme of preserving nature is beaten over the audience’s head, the setting and alien race are creative and inspired.
A final note on the two tropes I have discussed, the antagonist and the creator, is that it is possible to use these tropes effectively. Like all genres there are motifs. Otherwise the genre would be unrecognizable. Imagine fantasy without dragons or knights. Horror without monsters. A sports story without motivational speeches. All this to say, that using the antagonist or creator alien can still be good if presented well or given a twist.
