Posted by Pam McCaughey on
URL: https://www.shado-forum.com/Re-UFO-2-ideas-tp1491365p1491371.html

Hi Charles!
I DO recall the Trek eps "Gamesters of Triskelion"! It had yet another space
babe who was keen for Kirk.....sorry, Marc about the OT comments.....

Going back to UFO, the idea of the aliens taking what we have, as opposed to
our planet itself, makes more sense. If they are a dying race (as stipulated
in the series), then their personal resources are probably wearing thin, and
actually taking over another planet (with all the loss, expense and
logistics of all-out war and then leaving behind an occupying force) might
be beyond their current capacities or needs. A dying race is more concerned
with survival than conquest, even if they are technologically superior.
Their population may have been decimated through disease, wars, poisoning
their own environment, etc. Any number of things could have gone wrong on
their own world. The original UFO series depicts the aliens as viewing us as
cattle - something to use for their own ends. This is not unlike what human
researchers have been doing for years with lab animals. Humans also "abduct"
all kinds of animals in their own habitats, knock them out with
tranquillizer darts, perform medical experiments and tests on them, and even
"tag" them with radio transmitters to track their movements once they're set
free again. If you were a polar bear in the Arctic, and you lost 4-5 hrs our
of your day, what would you think? Especially about that weird thing that
suddenly appeared around your neck? Do these scientists worry about how the
bear is going to feel about his "abduction" dreams and flashbacks? I don't
think so.....

Soooo, if humans can do that to creatures they share their own world with,
how much easier would it be for aliens from another system to see humans in
the same light? We would become the subjects of experiments, tests, "what
have you" for them, and they wouldn't feel any different about it than human
researchers do about the bears, wolves, etc they trap for scientific
purposes.

If the aliens are humanoid, that makes their mission here even more cruel.
They are like us, and yet they are not. They don't even see us as equals.
Their technical superiority and their desperation have driven them to
consider their own needs first. Humans become incidental. And, when the
humans start to fight back (i.e. SHADO), the aliens change their tactics to
meet the change in US. Their need for survival hasn't changed. They simply
have to go about things differently.

Also, if their own ecology was seriously damaged, they might be interested
in what we are doing here to clean up our own messes. Scientific research
done by us might be applicable to their situation in some ways. But, because
they consider humans beneath them, they are not willing to place themselves
in the position of supplication to peaceably acquire what we have by making
nice deals or making friends with us. Instead, they steal whatever it is
they need.

Did the Spaniards really care about the natives when they roared into
Central and South America? They used their advanced technology to remove
them as a threat, and brought disease, a new religion and other items from
their own culture to further decimate the native populace. They didn't see
the natives as equal - they saw them as primitives. They bled them dry of
whatever the natives had of value and sent if off home by the boatload.
There are plenty of other examples in earth's history of this kind of
behaviour by humans against humans.

An argument could also be made for another alien race taking pity on us
hapless humans, and coming to assist us against the original alien threat.
Unless they've all got some sort of "Prime Directive" thing going and decide
against interfering. At any rate, I see the UFO aliens as takers who really
don't see us as deserving of their consideration.

Ciao for now - Pam