If you were an Alien with the goal to invade the Earth, how would you do it?

submitted by Leo_Littlebook from self.ScienceFiction

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[–]Leo_Littlebook[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Trading isn't invading. 3rd world countries require outside support and priestly self-restraint of the invading military power to mount successful guerilla campaigns against superior military power.

[–]NorfolkTerrier 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I guess my idea was that that's how they would move in at first, but in the end they'd have de facto control, since human sovereignty had been bargained away over time, and people had developed heavy dependence on them. At that point it would be possible to deny various civil rights, regulate birthrates, take private ownership of large segments of territory, etc.

If you want to go win the Afghanistan war, be my guest. Obviously if you don't need the territory to be livable you can just bomb it into the stone age, but for my purposes I'd assume the only reason to invade an inhabited planet would be because you value something about the way it currently is.

[–]Leo_Littlebook[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

https://blog.jim.com/war/when-the-west-started-losing-wars/

Subversion beginning with trade is part of my subversion answer.

A goldilocks planet is valuable even with significant war damage, and would probably require terraforming anyway for alien comfort.