History Main / InWorkingOrder

*** The 2012 reboot, ''VideoGame/XComEnemyUnknown'', averts this; when an alien dies its equipment self-destructs and the researchers are reverse-engineering the fragments. You still need to figure out how to capture one intact in order to use their plasma weaponry. The game also takes pains to point out that, in most cases, alien weaponry is designed for alien physiology, which is a little different from human physiology, and even then, humans can adapt alien technology to ''new'' applications, such as sniper rifles and plasma light machine guns.

* In the ''Comicbook/PlanetHulk'' storyline, basicly the whole planet of Sakaar is built on this. Every piece of technology the natives have is salvaged from crashes and wreckage that's fallen through a wormhole. Subverted, though, in that quite a bit of it is beyond their ability to reproduce.

** We're also told that while they'd been studying it for decades, it had only been ''powered'' since the mothership came into range a few days before. Which is why the guy who'd been in a dogfight with one was the only one with any real idea of it's flight capabilities.

* ''VideoGame/DeadSpace3'': {{Justified}}. The Tau Voltanis aliens anticipated that whoever came along after them to use their anti-Necromorph superweapon would be different from themselves, and therefore designed the device to be as intuitive and easy-to-use as possible.

** Also averted in the two part story, Army of Ghosts and Doomsday. The Daleks had got hold of a device called the Genesis Ark, which could only be activated by touch, a sense that the Daleks who live inside miniature tanks couldn't use. [[spoiler: This was intentional as it was a prison for Daleks built by the Time Lords, so they had a vested interest in making sure Daleks couldn't open it.]]
** Then played straight with Sontaran technology,such as their doors, which tends to be operated by a handprint scanner shaped for Sontaran hands, although it means any species with three or more fingers on their hand could also use them as Donna found out.

* In the ''Videogame/XCom'' series, it is in your best interest to quickly research alien items, and ''then'' this is in full effect. You can manufacture them after that, but why should you if you can just take them from the hands of dead aliens? Even so, some items like armor can only be used to research human-usable equivalents, and it's taken a tad far in some cases. For example, every alien enemy fought in-game that can carry weapons and grenades is at least [[HumanoidAliens vaguely humanoid]], and certainly has an opposable thumb fairly similar to ours ([[JustifiedTrope and it works pretty well, so why should we be the only ones to evolve it?]]). The fluff is even explicit about the fact that most of them are genetically engineered and/or selectively bred to be [[DumbMuscle more obedient than smart]], so their weapons having AK-like simplicity to operate would be a necessity. Your troops still can't pick one up from a dead alien grunt and use it until they've been researched.

* Zig-zagged in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/RickAndMorty''. Summer and Morty find a crashed alien spacecraft, and, not only does it still work,, but they discover that certain parts of the ship resemble Morty's game controller (allowing Morty to intuitively pilot the ship) and Summer's bong (allowing Summer to inhale the collective knowledge of the alien astronauts). Except none of this turns out to be true, as the arrangement of the buttons on the bridge is a coincidence and the cables coming from the "bong" are the ship's brake lines. They do not learn this until after takeoff.

** Once reverse-engineered somehow, any tech can be used as-is, even the titular piece of LostTechnology from ''Film/TheArkOfTruth'', which was buried for about ''50 million years''.

** A deleted scene justified the compatibility issue by claiming that most of humanity's computer technology was based on tech reverse engineered from the crashed ship.

* Creator/HayaoMiyazaki's ''Anime/CastleInTheSky,'' though not involving aliens, uses the same trope.

** A deleted scene justified the compatibility issue by claiming that most of humanity's computer technology was based on tech reverse engineered from the crashed ship

See also BlackBox, PossessionImpliesMastery, PlugNPlayTechnology.

* In the [[{{Revival}} remake]] of ''Series/TheTomorrowPeople,'' the kids use a crashlanded spaceship as a headquarters. While it cannot fly, it can act as homing beacon for Tomorrow People, heal them when they nearly drown, enhance their telepathic abilities, and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking whip up the best orange juice known to man]].

If the alien's transmogrifier has been captured--and was not destroyed in a huge explosion--you will almost certainly want to turn it on the enemy. This could, in principle, be difficult. Alien technologies are, well, ''[[ShapedLikeItself alien]]'', and it might be hard to figure out how they work, or do basic maintenance and troubleshooting, let alone repair major damage. After all, Americans have trouble figuring out how to operate a rice cooker with [[LostInTranslation Japanese instructions]], let alone an alien spaceship.

[[folder: Anime & Manga]]

[[folder: Comic Books]]

[[folder: Film]]
* In the original ''Film/TotalRecall1990'', the switch that vaporizes the frozen atmosphere of Mars fits nicely into a human palm, has no interlocks, and works immediately after half a million years. (Apparently the aliens were not concerned that a pebble would fall on the switch...) Handwaved in the novelization by having the system specifically set up by the aliens for the humans to use once they've reached Mars as part of an uplift program.
* In ''Film/IndependenceDay''. Here it has been studied for the past 40 years - but not by the person who piloted it. And the ones who did study it got the directions reversed. Note that the craft has a convenient joystick when the aliens could ''control a human brain'' by touch.
* Played with, but decidedly subverted in ''Film/{{District 9}}''. The Prawns are shaped very similarly to humans. So it makes sense that in District 9 all the Prawn-made guns were very similar to human guns. Despite picking them up, aiming them at a target and pulling the trigger being relatively intuitive for humans, firing them was impossible. Play around with it all you want, but nothing but Prawn DNA running through your blood will get a Prawn gun to actually fire.
* Somewhat inverted in ''Film/GalaxyQuest'': the aliens designed their technology after what they [[AliensStealCable saw in a low-budget TV show]] because they thought it was real, then track down the actors to help them use the technology when they get into some trouble with another alien race.
** Their pilot learns to drive the ship by... watching clips of himself, as a kid actor, pretending to drive their ship. The friendly aliens built the controls intuitively matching what they thought he was doing, and didn't bother making a manual. Luckily he actually ''did'' have a control scheme worked out in his head when he filmed it and just had to be reminded of the full details. (These are also the aliens who built a fully functional black box DeusExMachina without having the slightest idea what it did, or even what it was ''supposed'' to do.)[[note]]However, the mere ''existence'' of fan theories regarding the device means that there is at least ''some'' discussion about it.[[/note]]
* Adrian Toomes is able to make a living off of stealing, reworking, and selling Chitauri technology in Film/SpiderManHomecoming.

[[folder: Literature]]

[[folder: Live Action TV]]

* ''[[Franchise/StargateVerse Stargate]]''. Once reverse-engineered somehow, any tech can be used as-is, even the titular piece of LostTechnology from ''Film/TheArkOfTruth'', which was buried for about ''50 million years''.
** The reverse engineering does at least take a while, sometimes several years, and a lot of alien tech turns out to have a psychic component.
*** Sam did get a bunch of knowledge from the Tokra ( and once you know how to use a keyboard computers are much easier to use)

[[folder:TabletopGames]]

* ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer40000}}'': Da Orkz are the master of this trope. They can pretty much use anything made by other species. An example of this would be the Looted Leman Russ Tank, originally belonging to the Imperial Guard. {{Subverted}}, though: it's not that da orkz understand how to operate it, [[ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve they work because da orkz simply believe that they work]]. Which also means nobody else can use anything made by da orkz, because they ''shouldn't work at all''. This isn't perfect either; a looted vehicle has a 1 in 6 chance every turn of going completely out of control.

* Played with slightly in 3E ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'', which requires a Use Magic Device check to operate any magical item that's found (it's assumed that the characters are experimenting with different activation words and handgrips), but even the strangest and most alien artifacts will yield with a high enough roll.

[[folder: Video Games]]
* The Mothership Zeta mission in ''Videogame/{{Fallout 3}}''. Your character can use the guns the aliens dropped, and their shock sticks, and even explode their various engines, dismantle their Death Ray and even fight another alien warship. And then in the end you get to keep the spaceship! You don't get to fly it anywhere else though (leave the DC Wasteland? Never!)

[[folder: WesternAnimation]]

[[folder: Real Life]]
* RealLife: The US Air Force ran a program during the UsefulNotes/ColdWar codenamed Constant Peg, which basically involved Soviet aircraft, primarily of the [=MiG-21=] and [=MiG-23=] varieties, acquired from a number of sources (e.g. Egypt, which changed sides in the late 1970s) for analysis and pilot training. The pilots had to write their own checklists and one piece of advice was "You can touch the shiny switches, but don't touch the red or rusty ones". A number died in accidents.

** Just about anything made from an STC (a set of building instructions from the bygone era of highly advanced technology) will continue to work properly after thousands of years (unless they're corrupted), which is why they're of such value to the Imperium.

[[folder: Video games]]

* Averted and then played straight (for laughs) on the pilot of ''WesternAnimation/MegasXLR''. The Earth's last defense forces capture the Glorft's new superweapon prototype, the Avatar, and take some time to rebuild it into the MEGAS, which they can use. In the ensuing conflict, Megas is beheaded and then teleported back in time to the 1930s where it sits buried in a scrapyard for about 70 years. Coop has to rebuild the control panel from scratch, but he has no trouble at all interacting with partially alien technology from hundreds of years in the future, or adapting it to [[UnusualUserInterface video game controllers or the dashboard of a Plymouth Barracuda]]. He even adds new weapons of his own design. Somewhat justified in that Coop is a GeniusDitz, and subverted in that, after all he's done to it, Coop is the ''only'' one who can pilot it now.

** Played in crossover fic {{XSGCOM}}. Humans are specially designed to be able to use Ancient technology because [[spoiler: they are Ancient bio weapons, designed to fight Wraith and Ori]]

Luckily, a corollary of RagnarokProofing comes to the rescue. Captured alien technologies always work, and are usually very intuitive for humans to use. This is true even in emergencies, even after the working parts have been seriously damaged, and even after [[SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale thousands or millions of years]]. Pretty handy, huh?

* {{Averted}} in ''Series/BabylonFive'': alien technology of unknown origin or use has a tendency to either not work properly or backfire if used without understanding, as shown when someone tinkered with a device from the now extinct and was turned into a monster bent on killing everyone who didn't fit in a very restrictive definition of a "pure Ikarran" written by racists with little scientific knowledge ([[GoneHorriblyRight and now you know what killed the Ikarrans]]). [[GenreSavvy That's why government entities prefer to reverse-engineer any alien technology they find]].

** Played with by Covenant technology: While humans can use their weapons (in part because Covenant technology is mostly reverse-engineered from Forerunner relics), they never quite figure out how to reload the battery-powered ones, making them ThrowAwayGuns. Additionally, it's indicated that the reason why humans can use Covenant weapons by the time of the [[VideoGame/HaloCombatEvolved first game]] is because they've had almost three decades to study them by that point. The Covenant in turn have no trouble using human weapons, but Elites at least will refuse to do so even if it's the only option.

* Averted and then played straight (for laughs) on the pilot of ''WesternAnimation/MegasXLR''. The Earth's last defense forces capture the Glorft's new superweapon prototype, the Avatar, and take some time to rebuild it into the MEGAS, which they can use. In the ensuing conflict, Megas is beheaded and then teleported back in time to the 1930s where it sits buried in a scrapyard for about 70 years. Coop has to rebuild the control panel from scratch, but he has no trouble at all interacting with partially alien technology from hundreds of years in the future, or adapting it to [[UnusualUserInterface video game controllers or the dashboard of a Plymouth Barracuda]]. He even adds new weapons of his own design. Somewhat justified in that Coop is a GeniusDitz. and subverted in that, after all he's done to it, Coop is the ''only'' one who can pilot it now.

* In ''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundamSEED GundamSEED]]'', weapons designed for mobile suits of one side have energy and data interface plugs that can only work with HumongousMecha of that side. Some mobile suits are built later during the series that have a "Universal plug" that can allow weapons of all sides to work with that suit. A third, initially neutral side uses weapons that are compatible with one of the major combatants because they acquired that side's mobile suit technology via espionage. And in the manga side story ''[[Manga/MobileSuitGundamSEEDAstray Gundam SEED Astray]]'', one of the title "Astray" Gundams can use all sides' weapons prior to the invention of universal plugs via a cruder method: both types of plugs are mounted side by side on each hand.
* Miyazaki's ''Anime/CastleInTheSky,'' though not involving aliens, uses the same trope.
* Lampshaded in ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamUnicorn''. Both sides can equip their mobile suits with enemy weapons [[WarForFunAndProfit because they are made by the same company.]]

-->'''Justin''': Luckily one of those aliens dropped this thing and I was quickly able to figure out how to operate their advanced technology...
--><pause>
-->'''Justin''': It's a ''switch''.

* Averted (and explained) in ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerTiberiumWars''. One of the intelligence reports for GDI details how one of the [[ScaryDogmaticALiens Scrin]] [[TripodTerror tripods]] was captured: after a commando had blown up one of its legs with plastic charge, an engineer moved in and established control over it, using a computer program originally used to [[CallBack decode the Tacitus]] back in ''Firestorm''. It works just as easily for The Brotherhood.
* In the ''Videogame/{{XCOM}}'' series, it is in your best interest to quickly research alien items, and THEN this is in full effect. You can manufacture them after that, but why should you if you can just take them from the hands of dead aliens? Even so, some items like armor can only be used to research human-usable equivalents, and it's taken a tad far in some cases. For example, every alien enemy fought in-game that can carry weapons and grenades is at least [[HumanoidAliens vaguely humanoid]], and certainly has an opposable thumb fairly similar to ours ([[JustifiedTrope and it works pretty well, so why should we be the only ones to evolve it?]]). The fluff is even explicit about the fact that most of them are genetically engineered and/or selectively bred to be [[DumbMuscle more obedient than smart]], so [=AK47=] levels of simplicity to operate would be a necessity. Your troops still can't pick one up from a dead alien grunt and use it until they've been researched.

*** The 2012 reboot averts this; when an alien dies its equipment self-destructs and the researchers are reverse-engineering the fragments. You still need to figure out how to capture one intact in order to use their plasma weaponry. The game also takes pains to point out that, in most cases, alien weaponry is designed for alien physiology, which is a little different from human physiology, and even then, humans can adapt alien technology to ''new'' applications, such as sniper rifles and plasma light machine guns.

** Played with by Covenant technology: While humans can use their weapons (in part because Covenant technology is mostly reverse-engineered from Forerunner relics), they never quite figure out how to reload the battery-powered ones, making them ThrowAwayGuns. Additionally, it's indicated that the reason why humans can use Covenant weapons by the time of the [[VideoGame/HaloCombatEvolved first game]] is because they've had almost three decades to study them by that point.

* Averted and then played straight (for laughs) on the pilot of ''WesternAnimation/MegasXLR''. The Earth's last defense forces capture the Glorft's new superweapon prototype, the Avatar, and take some time to rebuild it into the MEGAS, which they can use. In the ensuing conflict, Megas is beheaded and then teleported back in time to the 1930s where it sits buried in a scrapyard for about 70 years. Coop has to rebuild the control panel from scratch, but he has no trouble at all interacting with partially alien technology from hundreds of years in the future, or adapting it to [[UnusualUserInterface video game controllers or the dashboard of a Plymouth Barracuda]]. He even adds new weapons of his own design. Somewhat justified in that Coop is a GeniusDitz.
** And subverted in that ''only'' Coop is capable of piloting MEGAS after all he's done with it.