Alien Invasion - Television Tropes & Idioms

So, do you think they're friendly?

If you were going to take over the world, would you blow up the White House Independence Day-style, or sneak in through the back door?

— Casey, The Faculty

One of the oldest stories in Speculative Fiction: Beings from space come to Earth to conquer.

There are three main forms of this:

The All-Out Attack. Technologically superior forces aim their weapons of war and three legged walkers at Earth, which bravely fights back, driving them off through cunning, bravery, or just dumb luck... most of the time.
The Infiltration. Aliens are replacing, brainwashing, or controlling humans in order to take over from within. Generally, the populace at large doesn't even know it's happening. May involve The Virus.
A combination of the above, with an infiltration paving the way for an all-out attack.

Sometimes, there are good aliens that help us against the invaders; unfortunately, they tend to be much weaker and/or less numerous, since if they were equally or more powerful, the focus would be taken off humanity. Then there's the Benevolent Alien Invasion, where the invaders are the good aliens.

Often an allegory for some Earth-based conflict, either one that's happened in the past or one that people fear may happen. The Infiltration is especially popular as a metaphor for Communism.

This trope, in its modern form, was created by H. G. Wells's novel War of the Worlds. It was actually a variation on another theme popular at the time, the "invasion story", where another country's army, usually France or Germany (depending on who relations were worse with at the time), would try to conquer Britain. Then World War I happened. Today, similar themes are found in techno-thrillers, and crop up in works like Red Dawn and The Tomorrow Series.

A common Tomato Surprise nowadays is for the invaders to be human.

Examples:

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Anime & Manga

Project B Lue Earth SOS is essentially a homage to 1950s/1960s-style science fiction shows, with two kids acting as the main protagonists and finding out about the incoming invasion and doing everything they can to stop it.
Probably tied with "Revolution IN SPACE" for the most popular plot in Real Robot Genre Humongous Mecha anime (Super Robot Genre shows veer toward Monster of the Week, which may or may not be a succession of aliens). Usually an All-Out Attack, otherwise why would they be using enormous war machines to fight it? Super Dimension Fortress Macross is probably the most iconic member of this subgenre.
- Macross is also a deconstruction of this trope; it shows what would actually happen if a vastly superior alien race (which spends the majority of the series showing restraint, gathering intelligence, and generally being more reasonable than the Earthlings despite being genetically programmed for war) decides that Earth is a threat. Earth gets slagged, wiping out all of humanity in a single barrage. Only the titular Macross and her crew and refugees survive
- Maybe the earliest example in Super Robot Anime is UFO Robo Grendizer, the third series of the Mazinger Z trilogy: The Vega homeworld had became unstable due to the radioactive materials within it, and the King decided to expand his militaristic empire fo find a suitable planet to settle on. The main character lived in Fleed, one of the first planets the Vegan army attacked, and was forced to run away. He landed on Earth and had settled peacefully in there... when two years later the Vegan army struck his new homeworld.
The aliens in Blue Drop are quite special in that they are all female and use their own people as explosives during their attacks.
The second series, Zoku Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei dealt with an actual alien invasion and the issue of alien infiltration.
- The alien invaders attacked Tokyo using loads of Humongous Mecha, luckily for everybody, Chiri with the help of a magical stone mask was able to defeat them with ease.
- Kafura explained how aliens can successfully infiltrate human society slowly but surely so they can use us humans for mincemeat as this video shows.
The Scab Coral in Eureka Seven TV series literally drove humanity out of Earth for 10,000 years (unintentional) when it arrived. It grew and formed an outer layer around earth, fooling humanity into thinking its another planet when they settled in. The Scab Coral later spawned human Coralians to live among humans to study and communicate with them. The Big Bad uses this planet takeover history to justify his actions against the Scab Coral which was just trying to communicate with humanity.
The aliens from Gantz. It is not known when, how and why the aliens appear on Earth. The last arc of the story fits this trope.
The plot of Hetalia: Paint It White involves an alien invasion of Earth in which about 90% of the global population and their countries are transformed into what looks like white featureless humanoid clay, known as the Pict. In the final scene of the movie, ~~millions~~ billions of converted ~~humans~~ Pict can be seen walking into a giant mothership which then departs Earth after our heroes save the day. So even with the "happy" ending, there are still only a few hundred million people left on Earth. And the Swiss. And Iceland.
- Not true. The lead pict said that they would repair all damaged caused and restore earth, which probably includes the population.
- This troper thought they were just turned back offscreen.
- I'd imagine those departing as the actual Pict.
  - A scene in the middle of the movie features converted humans entering a mothership, the same ex-humans later attacking the heroes in the island. So they aren't the actual aliens.
- There's also the Fridge Horror implication that not only is the world now in shambles, but that the surviving Nations would have to face a new threat...Switzerland.
Rayquaza thinking this is what caused the events of Pokémon: Destiny Deoxys.
Parasyte is about aliens named parasites who are worm-like creatures that enter human bodies and transform their brain, killing them. They then go about disguised as their host, secretly eating other humans.

Comics

The Italian Disney series Paperinik New Adventures features the Evronians, a hostile species of H.R. Giger-inspired aliens, planning the invasion of the Earth. The main thing standing in their way? Donald Duck in a superhero suit. No kiddin' here!
Superheroes face these frequently. Usually it's infiltration, while major open invasions are saved for Crisis Crossover or at the very least superhero teams like The Avengers or the Justice League of America. In fact, the Justice League of America is usually formed because of a alien invasion, although the exact circumstances have varied based on what version or continuity is being discussed.
Inverted in Ultimate Thor, where the Nazis use a lost technology to teleport to Asgard and lay siege to it, with modern tanks and machine-guns. Sure, they got help from the Frost Giants, and Baron Zemo was actually Loki infiltrated among the Nazis, but still... Asgard besieged by tanks is not a common sight.

Fan Works

In Kyon: Big Damn Hero it's in one character's backstory. It's the reason Michikyuu Kanae started sliding.
- In Open Battle Arc IV, it finally happened in the current world.
In The Man With No Name, according to the Doctor, Earth was being hit with several of these right after the colonies left. He also claims it's probably why they have been cut off for so long.
The Axis Powers Hetalia fic Invasion, has one that took place in contemporary times...before the story actually begins. Humanity, or what's left had banded together and the surviving Nations find themselves struggling to stop the aliens even as the odds go in favor of them. Though they do win, the world's been thrown back to 1910, large parts of it are in ruins and America dreams of returning to the Moon.

Film

Avatar: Inverted. Or played straight, depending on your view (nobody said the target had to be humans).
Battle: Los Angeles, In an unusual example, both the aliens invading and the humans fighting them are shown to be technically and tactically competent.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers is probably the most famous version of The Infiltration as Communist metaphor.
Independence Day is a modern example of the All-Out Attack.
Mars Attacks! which drew its ship designs from the older Harryhausen Movie Earth vs. The Flying Saucers.
Subverted in It Came from Outer Space (1953) where the aliens appear to be carrying out a classic Infiltration-style attack, but are only trying to quietly repair their spacecraft which crashed due to a malfunction.
Monsters vs. Aliens
In Signs the aliens use type one except without the technological superiority. And with a crippling vulnerability to water.
Several Godzilla and other Kaiju movies, sometimes infiltration, sometimes all-out... and then there is Destroy All Monsters, which is kind of both (the Aliens themselves don't really go all-out, but they capture and mind-control the Kaiju and make them do all the work).
District 9: Leaves a Sequel Hook for one that most viewers will agree that we deserve.
- Or...not, because humanity does not equal the MNU, thank you very much.
  - Exactly. Despite the fact that all nations have some degree of racism, the aliens chose apartheid-era Johannesburg, of all places, to land.
  - Hey now, the film also shows that South Africans aren't exactly all MNU agents either, so except if you're saying that South Africans deserve it but nobody else does ...
  - Christopher is an intelligent, sophisticated being so he'd probably do his best not to associate all humans with MNU when he returns to his home planet or grandmothership or wherever. No guarantees that the prawn decision-makers will be as sophisticated, though.
The Thing, although whether it intended to go to Earth in the first place is unclear. It still threatens to take over.
They Live is a good example of the second type.
Starship Troopers inverts this, where humans are invading the alien planet after coming up with a vague, dishonest justification.
Slither. Includes a homage to the above Thing, by naming the town's mayor after Kurt Russell's character, R. J. MacReady.
War of the Worlds. When all is thought to be lost, the aliens died on their own due to their bodies' inability to adapt to Earth's environment
In the film Knowing, aliens have been secretly visiting Earth to prepare themselves in advance to extract the choosen life forms from Earth in light of the Earth's destruction by the Sun. They disguise themselves as humans to do so (though they never speak human language).
Skyline
The 2008 The Day the Earth Stood Still remake.
In Transformers: Dark of the Moon everyone's favorite evil robots the Decepticons decide to give the All Out Attack a shot. The Autobots are of course the good aliens helping out humanity here.
- Except they only take over one city. They don't really have the manpower to take over the entire planet, although they keep talking about it. Sure, the space bridge technology gives them a major advantage, but they're still talking about taking over a world of billions with a force of a few hundred. And we can make more people faster than they can make more bots.
Little Shop of Horrors

Literature

The Trope Maker, and indeed one of the first sci-fi novels, ever, is H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds
Animorphs is an Infiltration, with only five kids armed with alien technology and one helpful alien available to fight the threat.
Prophet's House is dark fantasy/steampunk, and the Big Bad is a flesh-eating angel from space. Yes. That's right.
Second Apocalypse is a fantasy series with an invasion by ray-gun wielding aliens in its backstory.
- It deserves mentioning that since the whole thing is told from an in-universe point of view, it can take a couple readings to notice if its not pointed out. The "spears of light" are lasers, and the "weapon races" are bio-engineered soldiers.
Robert A. Heinlein's The Puppet Masters, a good novel made into several movies. Of course, one of the major problems with making it into a movie is that near the end everyone walks around naked all the time, as it is a defense against the aliens. The aliens use, if you haven't guessed, the infiltration method.
The 1985 Larry Niven/Jerry Pournelle novel Footfall has a hard science look at this trope; the elephant-like Fithp ruined their own planet and have come in a SleeperShip to claim ours.
- Somewhat now has also become a case of Alternate History, as it portrays a 1990s with the Soviet Union around.
The Posleen War Series by John Ringo. Initially presented as an invasion of the benevolent kind, but not too far into the first book of the series, hints start showing up that the Darhel, the putative leaders of the Galactic Federation, have other plans, which aren't terribly beneficial to mankind.
The World War series by Harry Turtledove is a variation: the aliens invade during World War II and this forces the warring sides to unite against them. Also, the aliens are deliberately given contemporary (at time of writing, i.e. 1994) levels of technology plus a little extra to allow them to travel between stars, rather than the usual insanely advanced aliens vs. present day humans. They are also really, really, reeeeeealy conservative. Like, they've been ruled by the same dynasty for tens of thousands of years and are surprised that humans have advanced from the medieval era to the present in only a few hundred years, conservative.
- To the point where an American character points out that even the most radical alien is still more conservative then the most devoted Southern Republican.
- As in, they react to discrimination blow "That's a human", mammalian reproduction, and any government that isn't a full blown monarchy with the same levels of horror.
Battlefield Earth has two: one a thousand years before the book takes place when the evil Psychlo took over the planet, and a combination of other races swooping in after humanity retakes Earth. Thought its more of an Alien Incursion or Alien Fracas than an all-out invasion in the second case... (The alien alliance doesn't want Earth per se, just the Psychlo technology left behind there.)
- And then there are the alien bankers who come to repossess the Earth because the Psychlos stopped making payments on it when the humans destroyed them. Probably the best, most original part of this 1000-page-plus hunk of pulp.
In Pamela Service's young-adult novel Under Alien Stars, the planet is annexed as a military base by magenta-skinned Humanoid Aliens who are fighting a Bug War. Although generally arrogant, callous, quite willing to wipe out whole neighborhoods, and by no means a Benevolent Alien Invasion, they're by far the lesser of evils compared to their foes. Not that humanity doesn't have to find that out the hard way before the two races finally team up against the common enemy...
The New Jedi Order novels show the extreme end of this - how can there be an alien invasion when the entire galaxy is populated and civilized? With aliens from another galaxy of course...
The Greks Bring Gifts has a unique form of The Infiltration; they make humanity dependent on their deliberately-flawed technology.
Several of the all-out invasion variety occur in the Bolo stories, one ultimately resulting in a near mutual genocide of humanity and their alien opponents.
When The Tripods Came
Inverted in Ursula K. Le Guin's novella The Word for World is Forest.
Alien Invasion: How to Defend Earth, by Travis S. Taylor and Bob Boan, is a nonfiction look at the possibilities of an alien invasion of Earth, the technologies on both sides, and how to defeat an actual invasion.
Mikhail Akhmanov's novel Invasion details the arrival of a giant Human Alien starship from another galactic arm in order to conquer and enslave humans, who only have a tiny fleet of ships with no shields, Anti Matter, or FTL capability. After the humans barely survive (thanks to another alien), the following novels chronicle humanity using the leftover technology to build an interstellar empire (well, more of a federation but with Gunboat Diplomacy).
Happens in one of the books in Andrei Livadny's The History Of The Galaxy series, but with a twist. For one thing, it's not Earth they're invading, but one of the core worlds of the recently-dissolved Confederacy of Suns (Earth is no longer important by that time). Also, the aliens, despite being several millions of years old, are not more advanced than humans, as they have stagnated about 3 million years ago due to Immortality Immorality and have lost a number of technological advantages over time. When they find out about humans, they freak out at their rapid expansion and development. During the invasion, they use exclusively human military technology, as theirs is much more inferior. When a group of humans manages to drive them off and locate their homeworld, the reverse-invasion isn't even described in the book. The characters simply mention that they obliterated their source of immortality with barely any resistance, pretty much destroying that culture. On the upside, the invasion convinces the colonies to once again band together into the new Confederacy.

Live Action TV

War of the Worlds, a television sequel to the 1953 film adaptation of the trope-making novel, showing heavy influence from Invasion of the Body Snatchers
The BBC series The Tripods, based on the Tripods book trilogy
V is about a Villain with Good Publicity form of The Infiltration, with familiar overtones.
Ironically, in Stargate SG-1, the protagonists spend all their time trying to stop aliens from destroying Earth (and the Galaxy in general), only to end up with a Goa'uld infiltration of the NID on their hands. Several characters comment on this, citing the low priority this infiltration has compared to more pressing matters, such as the building of the McKay-Carter Intergalactic Gatebridge.
- Several episodes show us alternate universes where the aliens do succeed in taking Earth.
Doctor Who, of course, has both. In some cases, it's not necessarily Earth that the aliens want to invade, nor is the species invaded human at all. In many future-based stories, humans are themselves the invaders. We're usually not outright malicious, but we're often quite destructive to native species, paralleling historical imperialism and colonization.
- And in "The Impossible Astronaut" and "Day of the Moon," the first two episodes of series 6, it's not an invasion, it's an occupation!
From the Star Trek franchise:
- Star Trek: Voyager shows the Borg launching the invasion of a planet with an armada of cubes ("Dark Frontier"). As one cube was enough for the Federation this change in tactics looked particularly chilling - already hinted at in "Hope and Fear".
  "The outer colonies were the first to fall - 23 in a matter of hours. Our sentry vessels tossed aside, no defense against the storm. And by the time they had surrounded our star system - hundreds of cubes - we had already surrendered to our own...terror."
- The Borg invasions of Earth in Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: First Contact are arguably better examples, with lots of Shout Outs to The War of the Worlds (e.g. one of the ships fighting the Borg is named Thunder Child).
- The parasites in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Conspiracy", who were originally meant as the advance force of the Borg, then conceived as insectoids. The switch to assimilating cyborgs resulted due to budget constraints.
First Wave presents a textbook infiltration. The Gua aren't quite sure what to expect from humans, and are trying to find ways to weaken Earth's defences and turn humans into slaves, in preparation for an all-out attack.
- One episode revealed that the government was secretly preparing for an alien attack, building a series of satellites armed with nukes which were set to face away from Earth.
In the backstory to Babylon 5, the Minbari annihilated humanity's entire defense fleet—causing 250,000 casualties—but ultimately surrendered after reaching Earth orbit and did not invade or bomb the planet. The Minbari were expected to exterminate humanity but this was not foreshadowed by their tactics up to the point of their surrender.
- They actually bypassed several major colonies on the way to Earth in order to eliminate the center of the opposition first, before "mopping up".
The 2005 ABC show Invasion is a bizarre case of the infiltration type in which the main aliens are seen only as glowing orange lights in the water, but the infiltrating "hybrids" have the exact appearances (sans scars or other non-genetic marks) and memories of the dead humans they replace. This makes (most of) them unaware that they are are infiltrating aliens. It was cancelled after one season, so the actual goals of the invaders are never made clear.
The upcoming NBC series Day One appears to be the latest example.
The standard source of villains for Power Rangers from Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers through Power Rangers In Space (Power Rangers Lost Galaxy had alien enemies, but they weren't invading Earth), as well as Power Rangers Ninja Storm and Power Rangers S.P.D..
The Invaders, starring Roy Thinnes was this trope (version 2), crossed with You Have to Believe Me.
Ocean Girl 's Neri was stranded on Earth after an expedition to assess Earth for colonisation went wrong. Unusually, her people weren't interested in conquering Earth, just using the bits we didn't want.
The Fox series Dark Skies was pretty much a textbook type 2, infiltrating with parasites and (at the end) electronic implants.
- The point of the series was that many of the events of the 20th century were secretly part of the infiltration, such as the Kennedy assassination.
The Monkees episodes "The Monkees Watch Their Feet" and "The Frodis Caper".
The Twilight Zone did several Alien Invasion plots.
Both versions of The Outer Limits did several infiltration plots.
- One episode dealt with a group of people locked in bunkers completley unaware of what was happening in the world. The last thing they heard was that a fleet of alien ships was heading for Earth with suspicions that they were here to colonize. The episode ends with only one of these people alive, as he is preparing to be rescued, unaware that the invasion has already succeeded.
The TNT show Falling Skies takes place about six months after an alien invasion devastates most major cities and wipes out a large percentage of the population. The show describes a ragtag group of survivors trying to find food and shelter to get by, while avoiding murderous aliens and roving bands of outlaws and trying to survive and fight back. While the series avoids showing the actual invasion (the background is told by a child and a series of drawings in the pilot), it involves huge circular Ominous Floating Ships appearing over major cities. They hang there for a while, but the world leaders decide not to strike first, hoping the aliens are friendly. They aren't. The ships emit powerful EMP waves, shutting down power grids and defense systems before proceeding to obliterate most major cities. They land ground troops with infantry and mechs (the survivors note that the mechs are bipedal, despite the aliens having 6 legs) that proceed to wipe out much of the adult population, while capturing children and putting Mind Control harnesses on them (presumably, to make them slaves). The large ships depart, while the invading forces begin constructing large structures in places of destroyed cities. The human survivors are forced to retreat and use only basic weaponry (rifles, machineguns, and C4), as any heavy munitions tend to piss off the aliens, and their bombers simply level the entire area.
When Aliens Attack was produced for the National Geographic Channel, and takes a look at the trope, using input from scientists, military personnel, and various other professionals. The book Alien Invasion: How to Defend Earth, mentioned above, was the basis for the show.

Music

Running Wild's "Iron Heads" from the Death Metal split-album and Masquerade is about version 1.
Weird Al wrote Slime Monsters from Outer Space, which is a version 1.

Tabletop Games

Monsterpocalypse has two extra-terrestrial factions, both launching All-Out Attacks at the same time. The Martian Menace uses Tripods and Flying Saucers whereas the Planet Eaters use Kaiju and a Horde of Alien Locusts.
The point of the Alien monsters in the Yu-Gi-Oh! Card Game.
Happens all the time in Warhammer 40,000 but nobody cares.

Video Games

Marathon: The Pfhor attempt an all-out attack, and do, in fact, manage to completely destroy one of humanity's colonies.
Halo follows the "All-Out Attack" example, with The Covenant attacking Earth colonies before finally taking the fight to Earth. In order to prevent an alien invasion, all ships that are losing a battle are commanded to wipe their memory banks and self-destruct, denying the aliens knowledge of human colony locations, as well as Earth. In the end the Covenant find Earth anyway though they were looking for something else, but this particular strategy allowed humanity to fight for years, when otherwise they would have been defeated in weeks or months.
Universe At War: Earth Assault features the first kind of this. In a subversion, humanity fails utterly at repelling the invading Hierarchy and are reduced to bit players, forced to watch as a race of mechanical Laser Guided Tykebombs arrive on Earth and the ancient Atlanteans awake, both species intent on bloody revenge against the Hierarchy for crimes committed against them in the past.
The Scrin from Command & Conquer are something of an odd example: although they do land an "All-Out Attack" in Command&Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars, they did so only because they mistakenly believed that their terraforming agent, Tiberium, had completed it task of eliminating the indigenous population.
The main plot Mario RPG game Mario and Luigi: Partners In Time has the Mario Bros. team up with their infant selves to thwart the invasion of the alien Shroobs.
The first Half-Life is about aliens coming through a portal to Earth, albeit unintentionally (though given the chance, the Nihilanth was more than happy to conquer, or try it anyway). The second is set in a dystopia where different aliens came through and defeated Earth.
The second novel based on the Doom series, Doom: Hell on Earth, as the name implies, is about the aliens and their genetically-engineered-to-scare-humans creations attacking this planet.
The plot premise of Duke Nukem 3 D. In Duke Nukem Forever, the aliens come back. And they come back angry...
The various aliens in the X-COM game series are generally set on utterly destroying humanity. The infiltration method they attempt in the first game was merely a tactic toward the goal of total destruction.
- The novelization of the first game by Vladimir Vasilyev reveals that the aliens move from system to system building temporary bases from which to launch invasions. One such race is encountered during the conflict, who arrive to Earth seeking help. Unfortunately, the trigger-happy X-COM soldiers shoot them all before realizing they look different.
Starcraft: the Terrans are facing two invasions: the Zerg and Protoss (who incidentally are not the Tyranids and Eldar. Just don't go there.) The Zerg favor infiltration (actually, infestation) as a way to soften up targets for the Swarm. The Protoss, on the other hand, employ a range of tactics, from "shoot missiles at it" through "shoot more missiles at it" past "throw in lasers for good measure" and on to "screw it, let's just sterilize the planet". Notable in all of this is the Battle of Tarsonis, where the Zerg, Protoss, and Terran rebels all try the All-Out Attack on the poor planet at the same time.
- It should be noted that the Protoss were not as much invading the Terrans as they were containing the Zerg, who would then perform an all out invasion on the Protoss.
World of Warcraft has multiple (some connected) alien invasions.
- The Old Gods invaded Azeroth and corrupted it with The Curse Of Flesh when the world was still being shaped.
- The deep backstory has the Burning Legion attempting to invade Azeroth 10000 years ago.
- The Orcs were recruited (OK, tricked) by the Burning Legion as cannon fodder to soften up Azeroth for their return.
- Most of the Burning Legion are various aliens converted into demons by the one or two genuinely demonic races that Sargeras originally used to build it, and have been invading and destroying planets across the universe, trying to undo all the works of the Titans.
- The Scourge counts as an infiltration, since the Lich King was sent by the Burning Legion to raise an army of undead to destroy all life on Azeroth, but succeeded in rebelling (but still seeks to destroy or convert all life to it's service, then apparently plans to destroy the Burning Legion and replace it in the quest to destroy all life and undo the works of the Titans).
City of Heroes takes place in the aftermath of an extradimensional alien invasion, which was hard-won and remnants of the Rikti forces still infest the world. And of course, it turns out that the Rikti are mutated humans. BUT, that leads into another possible future invasion by different aliens... The Rikti's weakness? Magic. The Shiva in Bloody Bay are the remains of a planet-devouring entity that was destroyed in deep space but is now trying to rebuild itself by conquering Earth for its resources.
This is more or less the main plot device of the first Mega Man Star Force game, with interesting concepts to the invasion. In the story, alien life forms, called FM-ians, must fuse with humans who are very lonely thru manipulation in order to attack other people. This is because being energy waves, they have no physical form and thus can't harm physical beings under normal circumstances (They can't even be seen normally), fusing with humans allows the FM-ian to materialize and thus cause physical harm. They can also disrupt electronic devices or, if there is enough electromagnetic energy being emitted, turn people into energy waves to attack them.
- Kid Hero Geo Stelar and a renegade FM-ian, Omega-Xis, merge into Mega Man to defend the Earth from the FM-ians who, in turn, attempt to draw the pair out in order to defeat them and reclaim an item Omega-Xis has to unleash their Dooms Day Device on Earth.
Both Ecco The Dolphin storylines involve aliens. In the first game, the Vortex aliens have been content to just suck up critters from Earth's seas every 500 years, but after Ecco beats them, their Queen follows him back to Earth in the second game, where she and her children proceed to mess everything up. Eventually, she flees back in time to infiltrate Earth from there. Word Of God has it that it worked, but not the way she wanted it to; the Vortex lose their identity as a species and give rise to arthropods. The third game involves some completely different aliens called the Foe; their time travelling shenanigans actually work to change Earth's future, until Ecco stops them.
In Metal Slug 2, the Mars People arrive - War of the Worlds-style aliens who attack using flying saucers. When they're driven off, one of them impersonates Morden and tries to use the Rebellion Army as a weapon in Metal Slug 3. Once that's uncovered, the heroes attack their mothership and destroy their leader, Rootmars. Properly chastised, the Mars People become a bit more peaceful, and serve as allies in the sixth game to fight an invasion from Beneath the Earth that considers them snack food.
Iji starts six months after the almost all-out attack has succeeded. Then looms the danger of a really all-out attack...
Gungrave has the "infiltration" method, in the games at least. A race of parasitic aliens called "Methuselah" came to the planet eons ago and just wanted to infect all living things with the substance that the main characters know as the designer drug called "Seed", which then turns humans/animals into mindless mutants subservient to the alien consciousness. It was these beings that manipulated and corrupted Harry in the original game, provided the technology that created the Necrolization Project, and gave Garino, the Big Bad of Overdose, power beyond imagination. Garino was even planning to leave the planet to continue spreading seed.
The Conduit starts off with an invasion by the Drudge, a race of Big Creepy Crawlies. Later, it is revealed that the invaders are actually human-created clones as part of a Government Conspiracy.
Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy IX, and Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within all deal with Type 1s. Kuja of IX attempts a Type 2 by selling weapons and helping one country start a world war.
- Final Fantasy IV also involves a type 2. With an alien villain using mind control and political manipulation to release an ancient Humongous Mecha. Though he's the only member of his species involved in the plan; he wiped out most of the others with an Earth-Shattering Kaboom.
The plot proper of the Shadowgrounds series kicks off with an Alien Invasion of a colony on Jupiter's moon Ganymede. It turns out to be a Benevolent Alien Invasion aimed at wiping out the colony so the scientists there won't use an experimental weapon that would destroy the solar system and directly cause the extinction of humanity. The heroes of the original game manage to discover this just in time to prevent said weapon being used in a last-ditch effort to halt the invasion.
In the first chapter of Doctor Who: The Adventure Games, City of the Daleks, the Doctor and Amy arrive in London to discover it has been conquered by Daleks, and have to travel back in time to stop the invasion.
Destroy All Humans! subverts this trope: YOU are the invading alien.
Mass Effect is a space opera, so humans are already integrated into Council Space's community. But the threat of the Reapers is an Alien Invasion on a galactic scale.
Communist Mutants From Space is about aliens from the planet Rooskee who invade democratic planets to convert their inhabitants into communist mutants.
Hello Kitty Roller Rescue has this as the plot.

Webcomics

Dresden Codak. However, rather than actual aliens, as such, Earth is attacked by time colonists. It still fits the All-Out Attack version of the trope.
The other dimension seen in the Sluggy Freelance chapter "Aylee" is in the middle of one of these, though few people know that this is the origin of the "ghouls".
Subverted in The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob!, where the Nemesites have legally owned Earth since before mankind even evolved. Until we develop good enough technology to leave Earth, they don't particularly care whether or not we know they own the planet. Space Pirates do attack Earth once, not to conquer it but to randomly steal stuff. Nemesite Princess Voluptua comes to stop them, informing them, "Earth is a nature preserve, you feebs! This isn't even piracy—It's poaching!"
ps238 examines and lampshades this trope (along with Planet Looters). As pointed out, 'Alien invasion' isn't a very applicable term when a portion of the planet's superheroes have alien origins.
The main plot in It's Walky! is that the Walkyverse is being invaded by two races of Aliens: the Aliens, who prefer a subtle/overt combination of abductions, mind-control, and a giant Ape Robot, and the Martians, who are sending a really big force to wipe humanity out.

Web Original

Red Panda had to worry about a magical one in "The Gathering Storm"

Western Animation

The original The Transformers cartoon and comic focused more on the giant robots, but newer stuff, like the IDW comics and the 2007 movie, take it from the invasion aspect. It's a rare case where the good aliens are equally powerful as the bad aliens.
- Most versions just give a nod to the Infiltration before discarding it, but the IDW series focuses on it. (In fact, Transformers: Infiltration was the name of their first miniseries.) "Robots in Disguise" takes on a much more sinister tone.
- From a presentation at BotCon '95, a rejected premise for the Beast Wars cartoon would have the Transformers use their animal and insect forms to infiltrate and influence the course of human history. What if the shooter at the grassy knoll was a Decepticon...?
The Grand Finale of Kim Possible had the previously once introduced Scary Dogmatic Aliens invade Earth, for rather no real reason at all. And all they did was send in Humongous Mechas while the 2 aliens just sat and relaxed.
- Rather than an "official" government-backed invasion, it appears that the whole attack was simply a private vendetta against Drakken/Earth on the part of Warmonga.
Used several times in Justice League and Justice League Unlimited.
- The very first story arc, "Secret Origins", sees the Justice League come together for the first time to combat shapeshifting aliens. Initially, the aliens infiltrate society to undermine Earth's defense systems, then they begin their All-Out Attack. The Good Alien role is filled by J'onn J'onnz, the sole survivor of a Martian civilization that these invaders had destroyed centuries ago.
- The Season Two Grand Finale "Starcrossed" sees the League nearly destroyed by another invasion. The Thanagarian infiltration was far more effective, because they had a Mole in the Justice League itself, providing them with the information to neutralize its members. These invaders initially present themselves as the Good Aliens, claiming that they're fortifying Earth to defend it from their enemies; the real Good Alien turns out to be their Mole, Hawkgirl, who learns of their true intentions for Earth and is unable to go through with it.
- The JLU episode "Dark Heart", in which the League faces Grey Goo from outer space.
- The JLU Grand Finale "Destroyer" has Darkseid leading the forces of Apokolips on an All-Out Attack on Earth. The League is forced to temporarily team up with the remaining members of the Legion of Doom in order to fight them off.
  - That was the third time in DCAU continuity that Apokolips had tried to invade Earth. You'd think he'd learn...
Happens from time to time on Futurama. To paraphrase a Futurama comic:
Fry: So what, Earth gets invaded twice a week. It's how I remember to brush my teeth.
- The professor actually looks forward to them. According to him, the last invaders made all the smart people screw each other.
In the episode "Troq", the Teen Titans invert this and launch a preemptive against the robotic, alien menace on their own, alien planet. And our heroes succeed in killing the entire planet's population off! Then they tell off the guy who brought them there for being a racist douche. It's better than it sounds. Probably.
Invader Zim is about an alien using the infiltration method. He's really bad at it.
The Little Audrey cartoon "Dizzy Dishes", in Audrey's dream, has alien invaders attacking with a disintegrator.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2003 had the 3-part episode "Space Invaders", which centered on the Triceratons invading Earth in their frantic search for the Fugitoid.

Real Life

The "Great American Interchange" was Nature's version of an Alien Invasion, that took place when the Panama land bridge between North and South America formed during the Ice Ages. It was South America's ecosystem that got the worst of it, with whole families of native mammals, birds, and plant life driven to extinction by the arrival of North American predators and competitors. Only a few southern species (opossums, armadillos) were able to migrate in the other direction.
Humanity originated in Central Africa and spread outwards across the other continents.

The War on Terror

Military and Warfare Tropes

Always On Duty

Alien Autopsy

Speculative Fiction Tropes

Alien Kudzu

Adventures In The Bible

Arab Israeli Conflict