History Main / TheyLookLikeUsNow

** late in the series, after Xadhoom (a Xerbian who wasn't on the planet for the invasion due an experiment that [[PhysicalGoddess gave her godlike powers]]) has reduced the Evronians to a few scattered remnants, another one infiltrates the US Army to prepare an invasion. He's arrested as a spy... But he's ''never'' outed as an Evronian;

* In {{Vathara}}'s ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/2698347/1/Walk-Through-the-Valley Walk Through the Valley]]'' has a rare heroic version. Hiko's people, the Confederacy, are at war with TheFederation, which insists on tearing its women and children screaming from their homes, battering them and turning them over to the [[HumanSubSpecies merrows]] for a form of MindRape called conditioning, which [[GettingSmiliesPaintedOnYourSoul leaves you]] [[HappinessInSlavery happy to do and be whatever they want to be]]. It's implied that it leaves you without compassion. The reason they take slaves is to restore the genetic diversity they lost when they became chronically inbred because they were such a small, isolated population. They tell themselves that these gene donors are willing. They also do it to Confederate soldiers, who are dropped back into the units they were pulled from to wreak havoc on their comrades. The only way to prevent yourself from becoming conditioned is to temporarily become a LittleBitBeastly with the help of LegoGenetics, which entails government-approved DNA sequences and extremely complicated life-support equipment that no one uses for anything else. Using claws, etc., means modifying the brain. Ensuring that alterants know when to use them means adding instincts from the species used as a source of DNA. This makes alterants easy to spot, no matter how well the alterations are hidden. They cannot make alterants in mind only; volunteers go mad in weeks. This is where the ookamimoya alterants come in. The ''ookamimoya'' are a species of [[{{EMP}} EM]]-sensitive, lupine predators that live very long lives, have few offspring, which they cherish, a pack with which they share a PsychicLink, extreme distrust of outsiders, incredibly durable bodies, InnateNightVision, AlienHair in the form of sensory tendrils with which they pick up emotions and which move on their own; pelt tendrils that don't; and hidden claws. Ookamimoya ''alterants'' will have sensory tendrils on the scalp the thickness of human hair, eyebrows and eyelashes with tendencies of both pelt and sensory tendrils, zero hair or not-hair elsewhere, KaleidoscopeEyes with exotic colors that shift to golden/amber at night/low light conditions, the ability to sense ''ki'', lack of aging, hidden claws and a strong killer instinct that drive them to kill the conditioned.

** ''{{Transformers}}'' in general is clearly in the same spirit.

->'''Kyle Reese:''' [[TimeTravelTenseTrouble Not yet. Not for about 40 years]]

->'''Sarah Connor:''' Look... [[GenreSavvy I am not stupid, you know.]] They cannot make things like that yet.\\

[[caption-width-right:319:Zentraedi spies [[RealMenWearPink blending]] in [[HumansThroughAlienEyes seamlessly]] and [[CrossDresser without]] [[CrossCulturalKerfluffle drawing attention.]]]]

* Creator/TerryPratchett has the Auditors do this in ''Discworld/ThiefOfTime'': one takes the form of a woman much of the time in order to ensure the building of a glass clock that will stop time (and thereby make their job much tidier). When she starts acting too human, others join her to ensure that it gets completed and started.

* ''WesternAnimation/RoughnecksStarshipTroopersChronicles'' had the Imposter Bugs (a subspecies that could fit inside the Mobile Infantry's PoweredArmor to evade detection, and later the Infiltrator Bugs (full-on shapeshifting in and out of human form).
* TheFlintstones: "Ten Little Flintstones" has an alien ship landing in Bedrock and creating a series of Fred clones to learn about Earth prior to a pending invasion. The clones simply march around smiling vacantly and saying [[CatchPhrase "Yabba-Dabba-Doo"]] ad infinitum, and everyone thinks each is actually Fred.
* TomTerrific: The story arc "Million Manfred Mystery" dealt with some impressionable aliens who mistake Mighty Manfred the Wonder Dog to be Tom (he's wearing Tom's funnel cap while he's off at the store), so they make a plan sheet of Manfred and the entire alien race duplicate themselves as Manfred. The base reason is that Tom is so likeable that the aliens want to be just like him so Earth people will like them as well.

* ''VideoGame/StarCraftII'' will feature a Zerg unit called the Changeling, which possess the ability to take on the shape of a human marine or a Protoss zealot.

[[quoteright:319:[[Anime/{{Robotech}} http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ZentradiSpies.jpg]]]]

* A recurring theme in ''SuperRobotWarsOriginalGeneration''. Even when not deliberately trying to disguise themselves, most of the alien monsters they fight seem to get [[BishonenLine progressively more humanoid]] [[SortingAlgorithmOfEvil as the game goes on]]. Actually inverted with the two main alien factions, though, similar to the Nadesico example. One turned out to be human abductees brainwashed by an alien MasterComputer, the others (& by extension the creators of the aforementioned computer) were actually descendants of a lost starfaring civilization from Earth. Played straight by the {{Eldritch Abomination}}s known as the Einst, however, who can create copies of people they've encountered & whose supposed Ultimate Lifeform is an enhanced clone of one of the main characters.

* ''Film/{{Mimic}}'' was basically about this -- the giant roaches may not have a perfect disguise, but if you're in poor lighting and not paying attention, they look a ''lot'' like a tall man in a trenchcoat.

* In ''TerminatorSalvation'', this is the first time they go ''from'' "noisy clanking machines" to "RidiculouslyHumanRobots" in a Terminator film. Skynet explicitly went through several Terminator design evolutions to do this, reaching the fleshy T-800 and ShapeShifter T-1000 and T-X.

* This was eventually used as part of the FantasticRacism angle in Marvel, to better justify the SupernaturalAngst of the ''Franchise/XMen''; mutants got a bad enough rep when they were all believed to be deformed and unsightly, but then the humans figured out that some mutants looked perfectly human whilst having superhuman powers... Needless to say, ItGotWorse.

* This has always been the approach of the [[VoluntaryShapeshifting Skrulls]], the antagonistic alien race found in Marvel Comics, but most of all in the SecretInvasion CrisisCrossover.

[[quoteright:319:[[Anime/{{Robotech}} http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ZentradiSpies.jpg]]]]

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* ''StarCraftII'' will feature a Zerg unit called the Changeling, which possess the ability to take on the shape of a human marine or a Protoss zealot.

* This has always been the approach of the Skrulls, the antagonistic alien race found in Marvel Comics, but most of all in the SecretInvasion CrisisCrossover.

* In ''X-COM: Enemy Unknown (2012)'' the Thin Man alien units would count as this. Their disguise is pulled off pretty good as well... thin men! Until they pull out their alien weaponry and start doing back-flips in business suits that is. Also their eyes if studied are reptilian in nature. Which would explain why they wear dark glasses.

* The Waster necromorphs from {{Dead Space 3}} looks like a human DualWielding icepicks, but when you shoot it centre-of-mass, it's upper body drops off and it unfurls three melee tentacles. Chop off its legs? unfurls two tentacles that shoot spikes.

Expect small groups to [[ParanoiaFuel tear each other apart over mutual accusations of alien-ness]]... just what TheMole wants. For a measure of {{irony}}, the aliens infiltrating humanity to rip it apart from the inside may discover that HumanityIsInfectious... and not in a ''WarOfTheWorlds'' sense.

* This is by far the most significant difference between the ''WarOfTheWorlds'' film/radio show/whatever and the later [[Series/WarOfTheWorlds TV show]] -- in the latter, the Martians are able to [[KillAndReplace posess human bodies at will]].

* ''[[StarshipTroopers Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles]]'' had the Imposter Bugs (a subspecies that could fit inside the Mobile Infantry's PoweredArmor to evade detection, and later the Infiltrator Bugs (full-on shapeshifting in and out of human form).

** This trope is outright exploited by the Founders in ''[[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine Deep Space Nine]]'': One reveals himself to [[TheCaptain Sisko]] to gleefuly reveal that there are only three Founder infiltrators on the ''entire'' planet Earth, center of TheFederation, and look what they've accomplished! [[spoiler: In fear of the possibility of Founder infiltrators amongst them, Earth declares martial law, and a series of events nearly leads to an outright military coup of the civilian government.]]

* The eponymous robots in ''{{Screamers}}'' started off as small, subterranean weapons; they were deployed on a desert planet torn by war between rival factions. The screamers were produced en masse in an underground, automated facility, which eventually began to develop more advanced models; Type Is were still small robots, but more streamlined. Human models were also developed, including small children, a male adult, and a female adult. Becker, a Type II (adult male), claims he can change his appearance by carving off the faces of humans.