Science Fiction Trivia

[ffutures]

In Alan Dean Foster's Humanx Commonwealth Universe (umpteen novels and stories) the most common star drive is basically a mini black hole held in front of the ship - the ship accelerates toward it but some sort of force field stops it from falling in.

[spud42]

roc doc scores the first and a few meaningles bonus points for the Gargle Blaster base...lol
Big D has number 2 , wasnt what i had in mind but it does fit the close encounter theme IE the movie.
Captain Obvious( nite owl) get3 number 3.
and FFutures gets num 4 .

1 left

[ffutures]

Well, since nobody else seems to be commenting...

Gateway (1977), The first book of the Heechee series by Frederik Pohl, ends with two ships trying a desperate manoeuvre to escape from a black hole - only one succeeds.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gateway_(novel)

Black holes are also important in later books of the series for spoilerish reasons - their properties drive major chunks of the plot.

[spud42]

and we have a winner... thus i passeth thy grail back to thee...

[ffutures]

let's get back to basics... a lot of SF is about exploring strange new worlds, meeting new civilizations... and blasting them with ridiculous amounts of fire-power. When that happens to us we call it an alien invasion, and unfortunately in SF alien invasions tend to be a bit repetitive.

So let's have five examples of alien invasions (preferably of Earth, but I'm willing to look at alternatives if humans are on the receiving end) that don't involve

1: Martians
2: Anything that looks like a flying saucer
3: Anything that looks like a Grey, ET, etc.
4: Space vampires drinking our precious bodily fluids, psychic energy, etc. (because they're silly)
5: Space parasites that can live in human hosts (ditto)

Usual rules - no two from the same canon / author / whatever

e.g., if Harry Potter was SF and you chose the Dementors as your alien invaders I wouldn't accept them because they break rule 4, or Voldemort because he breaks rule 5. If I accepted either of those I couldn't accept anything else from the Potterverse, or anything else by J. K. Rowling.

Only one answer per comment, and please wait a while between comments.

Meaningless bonus points, this time, for fun examples that I HAVEN'T thought of.

[cbr]

The day the earth stood still ( 2008 )

[spud42]

Battlefield Earth

[Nite Owl]

Invasion of the Body Snatchers - preferably the 1950's version of the movie and not the silly 1980's remake. Comes close to NOT meeting your 5th criteria. My point of contention is that they were not parasites in the true sense of the word. They did not take up residence IN a victim's body but placed that body in a pod and replaced it with a "snatched" obedient version.

Have another answer but will wait a while before posting it as per the rules.

[Disembodied]

The Kraken Wakes, by John Wyndham.

[ffutures]

The day the earth stood still ( 2008 )

Sorry, the ship is a flying saucer, so no!

Battlefield Earth

OK, I think this one counts since the spaceships aren't saucers - that's one, and have a meaningless bonus point since I wouldn't have thought of this one!

Invasion of the Body Snatchers - preferably the 1950's version of the movie and not the silly 1980's remake. Comes close to NOT meeting your 5th criteria. My point of contention is that they were not parasites in the true sense of the word. They did not take up residence IN a victim's body but placed that body in a pod and replaced it with a "snatched" obedient version.

Have another answer but will wait a while before posting it as per the rules.

Definitely yes - that's two, but you don't get a meaningless bonus point because this was one I though of when I set the question.

The Kraken Wakes, by John Wyndham.

Another good one, and you get a meaningless bonus point since I didn't think of this one! That's three, two to go.

[RockDoctor]

So let's have five examples of alien invasions (preferably of Earth, but I'm willing to look at alternatives if humans are on the receiving end) that don't involve

1: Martians
2: Anything that looks like a flying saucer
3: Anything that looks like a Grey, ET, etc.
4: Space vampires drinking our precious bodily fluids, psychic energy, etc. (because they're silly)
5: Space parasites that can live in human hosts (ditto)

OK, I'll try a little left field. In Known Space, Earth is invaded twice.
The first time was several billion years ago, by the "Slavers", who seeded the planet with "food yeast" and planted an "overseer", probably on the Moon. (The Thrint star of "World of Ptavvs", who's name I've forgotten -Powerloss!- narrowly avoids a sentence of death after a year of torture at the hands of an intelligent species of telepaths as payback for crash landing on Earth, or the overseer's base, and instead opts for a hard (~light-speed) landing on Neptune, but Neptune's moon Pluto gets in the way leading to orbital reshuffling. Interesting idea. But while in stasis, the Tnuctipun rebellion happens, the Thrint (and everyone else) die, and the yeast on many planets starts to mutate towards humans, Kzinti, Puppeters - everything but Grogs.)
The second time was a few million years ago, when the Pak protectors (more meta-yeast) colonised Earth from Pakhome, had "technical difficulties", and died leaving their idiot children to fend for themselves, eventually evolving into humans. (The common ancestor of "food yeast" explains why Kzin can eat humans (and do, whenever they get the chance - monkey-meat!) to Puppeteers (a dangerous meal!) and everything else they me(e|a)t.)

Sadly, neither invasion involved humans being eaten, from any end, since they hadn't evolved yet. But it was definitely Earth getting invaded.

[cbr]

I referred to the 2008 version which i believe has not the saucer

[ffutures]

So let's have five examples of alien invasions (preferably of Earth, but I'm willing to look at alternatives if humans are on the receiving end) that don't involve

1: Martians
2: Anything that looks like a flying saucer
3: Anything that looks like a Grey, ET, etc.
4: Space vampires drinking our precious bodily fluids, psychic energy, etc. (because they're silly)
5: Space parasites that can live in human hosts (ditto)

OK, I'll try a little left field. In Known Space, Earth is invaded twice.
The first time was several billion years ago, by the "Slavers", who seeded the planet with "food yeast" and planted an "overseer", probably on the Moon. (The Thrint star of "World of Ptavvs", who's name I've forgotten -Powerloss!- narrowly avoids a sentence of death after a year of torture at the hands of an intelligent species of telepaths as payback for crash landing on Earth, or the overseer's base, and instead opts for a hard (~light-speed) landing on Neptune, but Neptune's moon Pluto gets in the way leading to orbital reshuffling. Interesting idea. But while in stasis, the Tnuctipun rebellion happens, the Thrint (and everyone else) die, and the yeast on many planets starts to mutate towards humans, Kzinti, Puppeters - everything but Grogs.)
The second time was a few million years ago, when the Pak protectors (more meta-yeast) colonised Earth from Pakhome, had "technical difficulties", and died leaving their idiot children to fend for themselves, eventually evolving into humans. (The common ancestor of "food yeast" explains why Kzin can eat humans (and do, whenever they get the chance - monkey-meat!) to Puppeteers (a dangerous meal!) and everything else they me(e|a)t.)

Sadly, neither invasion involved humans being eaten, from any end, since they hadn't evolved yet. But it was definitely Earth getting invaded.

OK, both of those qualify but you can only claim one - I'll go with the Thrint, because he does come a fair way toward taking control of the Earth. Ships aren't saucers, he isn't a parasite, etc. Have a meaningless bonus point for another one I didn't think of. One to go!

I referred to the 2008 version which i believe has not the saucer

What 2008 version? Are you seriously suggesting that someone took one of the classic cold war era SF films and recycled it as processed turkey??? No, sorry, it's a figment of your imagination. Anyone who suggests otherwise is obviously deluded... But have a meaningless bonus point for chutzpah!

One to go!

[RockDoctor]

What 2008 version? Are you seriously suggesting that someone took one of the classic cold war era SF films and recycled it as processed turkey??? No, sorry, it's a figment of your imagination.

(Thoroughly off topic)
I don't recall the reprocessed film in question -who would?- but I'd heard that part of the justification for Hollywood reproducing classic movies is less to do with corporate fear of turkey-production ("Hey, it worked 50 years ago, so we should be able to do something better!") and more to do with "kids today!" who refuse, flat out, to watch black & white movies.
I watched Casablanca a few days ago. If people want to miss that through some prejudice against B&W movies, frankly that is their loss. I'll just flag such people with "keep away from sharp edges due to shoe-size IQ".

[Nite Owl]

The Day of the Triffids, a novel by ‎John Wyndham, or the 1962 film of the same name, classics both.