History Main / PlanetLooters

* In one issue of the ''General Mills' Justice League'' comic, aliens find the fact that their planet barely has any water while Earth is covered in 70% of the stuff [[InsaneTrollLogic a heinous crime]], and attempt to steal half of its oceans. When they're thwarted, they decide Earth is more evil than they thought and attempt to [[FeelingOppressedByTheirExistence blow it up than fail to get more water.]]

* General Zod and his band of Kryptonian exiles attempt this in ''Film/ManOfSteel''.

* The space vampires from ''Film/{{Lifeforce}}'' come to Earth to harvest the eponymous [[LifeEnergy life force]] from humans to power up their EldritchStarship. They have been doing this since ancient time, hiding within the tail of Halley's comet, to the point that's theorized within the film that their past visits [[DoingInTheWizard gave birth to the legends of modern vampires]].

* In ''ComicBook/AstroCity'', the Mrevani are primitive scavengers who steal their technologies from other, more advanced, civilizations, then use it to conquer them. The Astro-Naut fears that humans could do the same if they [[TheWorldIsNotReady used his discoveries prematurely]].

* In ''ComicBook/AstroCity'', the Mrevani are primitive scavengers who steal their technologies from other, more advanced, civilizations.

[[folder:Radio Series]]

* The Zudjari/Outsiders in ''VideoGame/TheBureauXCOMDeclassified'' have built an entire empire on this. They use [[PortalNetwork Venn Gates]] to travel to other worlds and conquer them, strip-mining them for resources (both mineral and biological). The natives may be forced into the role of BattleThralls via [[HiveMind Mozaic]]. Since they rapidly go through the resources, they need to constantly seek out new worlds to conquer, lest their empire collapse on itself ([[spoiler:which it likely does after their invasion of Earth fails, and their leader is destroyed along with Mozaic]]).

* ''Anime/DarlingInTheFranxx'': VIRM are a race of energy beings joined together in a HiveMind who seek to assimilate every intelligent species they discover. If they are refused, the VIRM will wipe out that civilization and plunder its technology and resources.

* In the Wildstorm comic ''Majestic'', it's discovered that the {{sufficiently advanced|Alien}} Kherubim seeded many worlds with Planet-Shaper Engines, which terraform the surface and allow life to evolve; when that life becomes smart enough to do useful work, the Planet-Shapers will generate a flood of genetically recreated Kherubim to conquer said planet and enslave said life, thus spreading the race across the galaxy. Earth is one of those worlds, with a ticking Planet-Shaper under the mantle just waiting to unleash an army of superbeings (luckily it gets dismantled by Majestic). Ironically, their supposed homeworld Khera was also the result of such a seeding; the Planet-Shapers there did their thing millions of years ago.

* ''ComicBook/PS238'' examines and {{lampshades}} this trope (along with AlienInvasion); Herschel [[http://ps238.nodwick.com/?p=192 explicitly points out]] that the only reason why any aliens would choose to invade a world would be if the planet contained ''something'' that can't be found anywhere else. Raw materials are far more efficiently gained by mining asteroids, planetoids, moons, and other celestial bodies without an atmosphere, high gravity and a local population. The Earth is invaded by a species of planet looters later, however: [[spoiler:The aliens, for whatever reason, cannot breed on their own and unleash a bio-plague on the planet intended to rewrite all human DNA and turn all following generations of humans into their species.]]
* ComicBook/TheDefenders occasionally squared off against an alien conquistador who called himself Nebulon the Celestial Man. In his first appearance, he was conned by a team of super-villains into "purchasing" the Earth and its mineral rights and subsequently had to be stopped from melting the polar ice caps in order to terraform the planet into something more hospitable for his species. (Later appearances dropped this angle from the character, as his government disavowed him and he settled on getting revenge on the Defenders.)

* For unexplained reasons (but given the demeanor of President Skroob, most likely government mismanagement), the denizens of planet Spaceball, from the Creator/MelBrooks sci-fi spoof ''Film/{{Spaceballs}}'', must steal air from other planets to supply their world's thinning atmosphere. Or as the song goes, "'Cuz what you've got is what we need and all we do is dirty deeds, ''we're the Spaceballs''!"

* The plot of ''Film/StarTrekInsurrection'' revolves around TheFederation trying to loot a planet of its FountainOfYouth {{Phlebotinum}}. Whether you side with the villains or the heroes on this issue is YMMV.
* In ''Film/{{Avatar}}'' and ''WesternAnimation/{{Delgo}}'', [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters militant Earthlings]] are looting an alien planet for literal {{Unobtanium}} and a place to live, respectively, after making their own planet a CrapsackWorld. Diplomacy was attempted in ''Avatar'', but by the time the film starts it's broken down.

* ''Film/CowboysAndAliens'' reveals that the aliens are on Earth to mine gold. It's not entirely clear why they need it, but they have no problem destroying entire planetary civilizations to do that. [[spoiler:They have already destroyed at least one other civilization]].
* In ''Film/TheMatrix'', Agent Smith claims humanity is somewhere between this and a HordeOfAlienLocusts, using up whatever organic and inorganic resources are available in a region, or planet, then moving on to the next target.
* General Zod and his band of Kryptonian exiles attempt this in ''Film/ManOfSteel''.
* The {{Kaiju}} that attacks humanity in ''Film/PacificRim''? [[spoiler:Their job was getting rid of the "vermin" - humans - so their creators can take Earth's resources before moving on to the next planet.]]
* The InsectoidAliens in ''Film/{{Laserhawk}}'' seed habitable world with life, so they can come back in a few billion years and feast on the inhabitants. The DistantPrologue shows the seeding ship in a battle against their HumanAlien enemies, who attempt to prevent the seeding. The humanoids fail, their ship crashes, and the crew dies... to be reincarnated in three modern-day people, just in time for the hungry insectoids to return.
* ''Film/JupiterAscending'' has a similar premise as ''Laserhawk'' mentioned above, only that it's an advanced human civilization that's seeding habitable worlds with human life. When the human population is ripe for the harvest, they're rounded up (it's implied that this is done almost overnight) and [[HumanResources processed into an expensive substance]] that [[ImmortalitySeeker rejuvenates the user by decades, making frequent users practically immortal]]. The film's [[ImmortalityImmorality villains are an ultra-rich and incredibly old family]] that wants to do this to Earth.
* The space vampires from ''Film/{{Lifeforce}}'' come to Earth to harvest the eponymous [[LifeEnergy life force]] from humans to power up their EldritchStarship. They have been doing this since ancient time, hiding within the tail of Halley's comet, to the point that's theorized within the film that their past visits [[DoingInTheWizard gave birth to the legends of modern vampires]].
* The invaders in ''Film/HighPlainsInvaders'' are here to steal uranium. They seem to eat it and/or use it as a narcotic.

* ''Literature/TheWarOfTheWorlds1898'' depicts a Martian invasion with overt analogies to European hegemony. The invaders have perfectly good reasons: according to contemporary theories, outer planets are the first to form and the first to die. With spaceflight in the Creator/JulesVerne steam cannon stage, the aliens have nowhere to go but inward. The novel heavily implies that when the invasion of Earth doesn't go well, the Martians take over Venus.
* ''Literature/OutOfTheSilentPlanet'' has humans as the planet looters trying to conquer Mars -- even though the solar system runs under the same theory as Wells', and the Martians point out that their world will die ''before'' Earth.

* Creator/LRonHubbard's {{doorstopper}} novel ''Literature/BattlefieldEarth'' is unusual in initially deflating the usual egotistic view of Humanity's place in the scheme of things: the Earth is one of hundreds of thousands of casually conquered and strip-mined planets, marginally notable for having plenty of gold.
** The Psychlos in the FilmOfTheBook specifically mention how much they hate Earth with its blue skies, low gravity, and poisonous air (for them). Their homeworld is shown to be a large planet with purple smog-filled skies almost entirely covered by structures.
* Seriously explored, and eventually subverted, in Creator/HBeamPiper's novel ''Space Viking''. The Space Vikings of the title aren't much interested in raw resources; those are cheap. They want manufactured goods, the more sophisticated (and therefore valuable) the better. The only problem is that a planet with enough of an economy to have good loot can, by virtue of that self-same economy, also field a decent space navy, which can generally beat off a Viking raid, resulting in no loot, but lots of expensive damage to the Viking ships. The protagonist over the course of the novel gradually changes from plunder to peaceful trade mainly because it's more profitable (although he is troubled by [[WhatTheHellHero the doubtful--to put it mildly--morality of it all]], too).

* In Peter F. Hamilton's ''Fallen Dragon'' the mega-corporations on Earth which funded the establishment of intersteller colonies are beginning to decline, so they now make a profit by 'asset realization' -- turning up in orbit and implying they'll blast the colony if the colonists don't hand over various manufactured goods, leaving information on the latest Earth technologies as compensation, then returning several years later to do the same thing again once the colonists have upgraded their technology and gotten back on their feet.

* The Yeerks from ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}''. {{Justified|Trope}} in that what they want from Earth is something that can only be found on Earth. ''Us''. Or more specifically, our bodies with our big, fat brains ripe for infestation. Every other species the Yeerks had found were some combination of ineffective (Taxxons and animals), extremely low population (Hork-Bajir), or advanced enough to counter them (Andalites). Humans are numerous enough for every Yeerk in the invasion force to have a host, while also being strong enough to use tools and technology.

* Subverted in Creator/DougalDixon's ''Man After Man'':[[spoiler: the invaders in the end are ''humanity's descendants'', which recolonized the Earth after re-engineering themselves beyond recognition for life on distant worlds, which they've also stripped of their resources]]. Guess what happens afterwards.
* Creator/NealStephenson's ''Literature/{{Anathem}}'': The Geometers/Cousins, in a roundabout way. Their actual goals are way too complicated to cram into a small example.
* Creator/ElliotSMaggin's novel ''Literature/LastSonOfKrypton'' includes a scene in which ComicBook/LexLuthor explains why so many aliens want to conquer the Earth. If you take over Earth you get six billion Earthlings to use as soldiers -- so you can then conquer all the ''other'' planets in the Galaxy because HumansAreBastards.

%%* Creator/CharlieJaneAnders's "Literature/TheFermiParadoxIsOurBusinessModel": Readable [[http://www.tor.com/stories/2010/08/the-fermi-paradox-is-our-business-model here]], an interesting and unusual, yet chillingly ''extreme'', example. %%Please add context.
* Creator/IsaacAsimov's "Literature/TheGentleVultures": The alien herbivorous primates maintain an AlienNonInterferenceClause until a species has destroyed itself in [[WorldWarIII nuclear war]], then it arrives to repair the damage in exchange for a resource that world has in abundance. They don't even do the looting themselves, making the devastated world pay tribute to the Hurrians. They take everything from [[SlaveRace slaves]] to steel, from manganese salts to processed lumber.
* Creator/JohnStith's novel ''Literature/ManhattanTransfer'' begins with aliens tossing a dome over and ripping out [[UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity Manhattan Island]] without any obvious explanation, then stowing it inside their massive spacecraft. The people in Manhattan think they have been looted, but it eventually turns out [[spoiler:that the race which stole Manhattan is trying to save a sample of humanity from a soon-to-arrive PlanetKiller.]]
* In the ''Literature/GauntsGhosts'' novel ''His Last Command'' we are told that Chaos uses jehgenesh, massive warp beasts, to strip resources from worlds closer to the front for backline worlds.
* A humorous short story by Creator/RALafferty called "Land of the Great Horses", published in ''Literature/DangerousVisions'', pretends that the UsefulNotes/{{Romani}} are nomadic because extraterrestrials ''took their homeland'' (ripped it loose, apparently, right down to the bedrock). They weren't actually looters, though, but ''scientists'' who took it for geological examination, instilling a compulsion to wander so the Romani wouldn't settle anywhere else. When the aliens bring the land back in the late 20th Century, everyone with a significant degree of Romani blood feels impelled to return to India. "It's come back, you know." An epilogue reveals that the extraterrestrials sampled UsefulNotes/LosAngeles next -- and haven't brought it back yet three centuries or so later.
* A central theme of the ''Literature/PlanetPirates'' series by Creator/AnneMcCaffrey, using the third variation (the planet's colony-safe environment is the resource).

* The Literature/{{Lensman}} universe has the Nevians, who use allotropic iron as a source of atomic power and are beginning to run out (with racial extinction implied to be the ultimate result). When they stumble across Earth's space fleet in the process of battling the megalomaniacal Grey Roger, they (regretfully) decide that a race thus bent on destruction is so useless that they might as well take without asking, especially given the stakes for the Nevians themselves. After much mutual destruction, the humans and Nevians come to an understanding, though it helps that Earth's solar system has a superabundance of iron and there's no need to quibble over the relatively trifling needs of the Nevians. (The fact that physics doesn't work this way, and that you actually CANNOT use iron as a source of nuclear power, was something Smith either overlooked or decided to ignore for plot reasons.)
* The final novel of the [[Film/ColossusTheForbinProject Colossus trilogy]] ''Colossus and the Crab'' has Martians seeking to steal our oxygen. Humanity has to reactivate Colossus (the MasterComputer that had [[TheComputerIsYourFriend taken over the world]] until overthrown in the second novel) as a GodzillaThreshold.
* ''Literature/ForWeAreMany'' gives us the Others, who do this to whole systems. Why? [[spoiler:They don't want to colonize any other system but need lots of resources for the DysonSphere they're building for their [[HiveMind hive]]. They don't care if a system is inhabited. They will take all the metal regardless. They've gotten so good at it they can strip-mine a system within a year. All organics get wiped out with radiation weapons. They don't even have a word for enemy, just "food".]]
* ''The Secret of the Ninth Planet'', a sci-fi juvenile by Donald A. Wollheim. Aliens have left automated Sun-Tap stations to drain energy from the Sun, which will cause it to go nova in a few years. In this case they've planted them all over the solar system, not just Earth. Fortunately human scientists have just invented an anti-gravity drive, enabling the protagonists to track them down and NukeEm with tactical A-bombs. Turns out the villains are on the [[HistoryMarchesOn planet]] Pluto, and the Sun going nova is actually the whole point, so it would bring the suns' light closer to their world.

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

* ''Eco Fighters'' is a 1994 sidescrolling shooter by Creator/{{Capcom}} where you pilot the Eco Fighter SpacePlane to stop Goyolk, a CorruptCorporateExecutive who intends to strip your planet of all its natural resources and turn it into a lifeless, polluted "Doom Sphere."

* In ''VideoGame/KidIcarusUprising'', the three-way war between Skyworld, the Underworld, and the Forces of Nature draws the attention of an alien race known as the Aurum, who [[GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere appear rather abruptly]] to steal the planet's resources. This brings the main story to a grinding halt and forces the three main factions to [[EnemyMine team up]] in order to stop the planet from being totally destroyed. Aside from a few Aurum enemies (or at least really good imitations of them) appearing in late-game chapters, [[BigLippedAlligatorMoment this is never brought up again.]]