History Main / AbsentAliens

As evident by the UsefulNotes/FermiParadox , this trope appears to be TruthInTelevision. This is one of two standard solutions to the Fermi Paradox; the other is InvisibleAliens, in which aliens exist but are being hidden or removed by AppliedPhlebotinum.

One of two standard solutions to the UsefulNotes/FermiParadox; the other is InvisibleAliens, in which aliens exist but are being hidden or removed by AppliedPhlebotinum.

* The 2000s ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica|2003}}'' has no aliens[[note]]Edward James Olmos famously said if one showed up on the set, he would faint in front of the cameras and walk off the show[[/note]]: just robots, clones, and the occasional 'angel'. However, [[spoiler:the "humans" turn out to be HumanAliens]], and there is absolutely some kind of intelligent god-like being served by messengers.
* In ''Series/{{Dune}}'' and ''Series/ChildrenOfDune'' there are no sentient alien life forms in their galactic feudal system.

** ''[[Recap/RedDwarfSeasonXIKrysis Krysis]]'' reveals that the universe is intelligent and scientists have found a way to communicate with it. Uni mentions that only one of his planets ever evolved life.
* ''Series/{{Killjoys}}'' only has humans but it's set in a ALongTimeAgoInAGalaxyFarFarAway setting where Earth isn't mentioned. So it's not clear if the characters are all HumanAliens or descended from us.
* The ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode, ''[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS6E18TheChase The Chase]]'' reveals that billions of years prior to the series, a race of lonely BenevolentPrecursors seeded the rest of the races in the galaxy after realising they were alone.

* That this trope even ''is'' averted for [[spoiler:Anime/GundamBuildDiversReRise]] is actually the [[MidSeasonTwist big twist halfway through]]: [[spoiler:The characters ''thought'' they were just playing a VR game, when in actuality they'd been sent to an inhabited alien world.]]

* ''Series/{{Sliders}}'' is about travel between parallel universes or Earths. In episode "Invasion" that started the Kromag arch what it was thought to be alien invaders were actually primates from a parallel Earth, thus, not aliens. In fact they can even interbreed with humans as are part of the homo genus. Aliens do exists as confirm in one episode "The return of Maggie Becket" were they reach a world where the Roswell incident did happened (or it was made public) and TheGreys or Reticulans existence is common knowledge even though they haven't come back, however they play no role in the episode nor in the rest of the series.

* This trope is played to the letter (to great effect) in ''VideoGame/{{Starlancer}}'', which is ostensibly a retelling of World War II {{IN SPACE}}.

->''"I remember telling my college professor I wanted to study Xenoarchaeology. He laughed right in my face. 'There’s nothing to study,' he said. 'It’s all dead space. No alien life exists out in the universe.' In a way, I guess he was right..."''

* The ''Literature/InDeath'' series. There is space travel in Robb's 21st century, but it's mostly background, and there's no mention of non-human life. (Aside from the monsters Eve chases.)

* In ''VideoGame/DeadSpace'', humanity has no qualms about cracking apart planets (and thereby destroying entire solar systems) for resources, since there are no aliens around to protest. At least until the game begins, [[spoiler:and that's a bit of a cop out, since although the original [[ArtifactOfDoom Marker]] may have been created by aliens, the one in the game is a reverse-engineered human copy]], and the Necromorphs are [[ZombieApocalypse reanimated human corpses]]. In ''VideoGame/DeadSpace3'', it turns out that there's a good reason for this, as [[spoiler:intelligent alien life ''did'' happen to exist and was rather abundant at some point millions of years ago, but they, like humanity, fell prey to the Marker's influence and were all wiped out by the [[EldritchAbomination Brethren Moons]].]]

* There might not be any aliens in ''Anime/{{Vandread}}'', but that doesn't stop [[TheChick Dita]] from trying to find them. It's also played with; the people of [[LadyLand Ma-Ger]] and [[NoWomansLand Tarak]] consider each other to be hostile aliens, even though they're really just male and female humans trying their damndest to be {{One Gender Race}}s through gene manipulation.

* In ''Anime/CowboyBebop'', humans have colonized and {{terraform}}ed most of the relatively inhabitable planets and natural satellites of Solar System, but there does not appear to be any intelligent life that is not human (or genetically engineered Data Dog). There was passing reference to life on Ganymede, but nothing intelligent, and it may have only been there after terraforming. And the freaky monster thing from [[DwindlingParty "Toys in the]] [[ShoutOut Attic"]] is a mutant, or possibly a dream.

* In the universe of ''LightNovel/DirtyPair'' there is faster than light travel and humans have colonized the whole galaxy, but there are no aliens. There are two exceptions outside the series: The OVA "Affair of Nolandia" does have alien ruins and the technology that resides within, and in ''Project EDEN'' a scientist uses a dormant piece of an alien in his experiments. Everything other piece of technology or strange creature you see is man-made.

Some science fiction authors have adopted MundaneDogmatic, the the Mundane Science Fiction Manifesto, a system of self-imposed restraints devised in 2004 (with author Geoff Ryman as the sole named contributor) which is similar in spirit to the constraints of Dogme95 in film. Such settings are usually hard science fiction and have no aliens, no FTL travel, and no telekinesis (among other rules).

* Possibly averted by the "Wow! Signal". On August 15, 1977 the Big Ear radio telescope detected a signal coming from near Sagittarius and possibly of alien origin, as it didn't match any known naturally occurring radio frequency. It is generally considered the strongest evidence in support of extraterrestrial intelligence. Unfortunately, this is still inconclusive as we have never received another signal like it. [[SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale considering how big space actually is, this may not be unusual though, as we only got the signal about 40 years ago and 40 light years isn't very far in the grand scheme of things.]]

* ''TabletopGame/BattleTech'': The animated series has alien life but no intelligent nonhuman beings. See the TabletopGame entry for more details.

* Even if aliens do theoretically exist, in settings where the population is [[CorraledCosmos confined]] to a single star system (or handful) and there is no (or very slow) FTL, neither humanity nor the aliens would be in any position to encounter the other.

* Even if aliens did theoretically exist, in settings where the population is confined to a single star system (or handful) and there is no (or very slow) FTL, neither humanity nor the aliens would be in any position to encounter the other.

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

[[folder:Films]]

* Creator/IsaacAsimov: Because Creator/JohnWCampbell (editor of ''Magazine/AstoundingScienceFiction'') insisted that [[HumanityIsSuperior humans always triumph against aliens]], Dr Asimov tended to avoid the presence of alien civilizations in works which would otherwise expect to encounter them. The following examples include stories where Dr Asimov gave a reason for the absence of aliens.

** ''{{Franchise/Foundation}}'': Humanity is the only sentient species in the galaxy, unless you count [[spoiler:robots, Gaians, or Solarians]]. It's explicit (in ''Literature/TheSecondFoundationTrilogy'') that every other sentient species in the galaxy had been killed off before they encountered humans. It's implied (in ''Literature/FoundationsEdge'') that the current timeline was selected because the galaxy is absent of sapient alien species. These two facts are not exactly contradictions, because timeline manipulation would allow for a reality where aliens had been killed off before humans encountered them. However, the galaxy is not the universe.

* ''Wiki/SCPFoundation'':

* ''Anime/LegendOfGalacticHeroes'' also avoids aliens, focusing mostly on human-to-human interaction and history.

* ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'': The backstory of the franchise involves humanity going on a 230 year spree of space colonization, settling hundreds of worlds and moons, advancing technology to a level previously thought impossible, all without encountering any sapient aliens (there were alien animals on some colonies though). In-universe, a lot of characters thought that either intelligent aliens just didn't exist or that whatever ones existed were so far away that they'd never make contact (the UNSC exists in a 100 light year bubble radiating out from Earth, unfathomably large to us but minuscule on a galactic scale). Then [[ScaryDogmaticAliens the Covenant]] entered the scene...
* ''VideoGame/StarCraft'': The United Powers League colonized a significant chunk of space, while roughly 60,000 light-years away in the Koprulu Sector, their Terran offshoots only ruled a couple dozen worlds and regularly squabbled among themselves. Despite colonizing numerous worlds in a relatively large portion of the galaxy, neither faction had ever encountered sapient extraterrestrials. The discovery of the Protoss and the Zerg in the Koprulu Sector by the Terrans, and the following violent first contact, caused massive panic within the UPL who prior to FirstContact, had been keeping tabs on the Terrans without their knowledge, but had never bothered to interfere or bring them under control. However, the news of hostile alien life changed that, enough that after bringing the few remaining non-UPL Earth countries into the fold and reorganizing into the United Earth Directorate they decided to send an expeditionary force to bring the Terrans into the fold and exterminate both alien species. [[spoiler: Although, their plan never came to fruition and most of the expedition was killed, with the UED not having a major appearance since.]]

* In the shonen power-based football series ''Anime/InazumaEleven'', Japan is attacked by aliens that claim they will conquer Earth with its main method of competition: football. Just before the final match at the season's finale, it's revealed that they are only kids that were given incredible speed, strength, durability and reflexes by an evil corporation using a powerful alien meteorite as fuel.

* In ''Series/{{Dune}}'' and ''Series/{{Children Of Dune}}'' there are no sentient alien life forms in their galactic feudal system.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Outpost 2}}'' there are only humans that are trying to survive after Earth is rendered unlivable by meteorites. The conflict comes between two factions fighting over the scant resources and trying to win an evacuation race from New Terra, which is being destroyed by a terraforming project by one of the factions gone wrong.

* ''VideoGame/{{Section 8}}: Prejudice'' presents a plausible explanation for the complete absence of any alien lifeforms in the galaxy, despite humanity having spread out and colonized a huge chunk of it. [[spoiler:Long before the game, the Earth government secretly sent out an advance wave of {{super soldier}}s, whose mission was to move from planet to planet committing genocide on all potential competing lifeforms in order to pave the way for human colonization of the galaxy.]]

* Danced with by the defunct MMO ''VideoGame/EarthAndBeyond''. The 3 playable races were all factions of humans that colonized different parts of Earth's solar system. When humans left the solar system thanks to {{Precursors}} LostTechnology the only life found was [[SpaceWhale Space Whales]] [[SpaceWhale Space Whales]] [[RuleOfThree and more]] [[SpaceWhale Space Whales]]. That was until the [[SpaceWhale Tengu]] and V'rix showed up; but the Tengu came from another galaxy thanks to an [[GoneHorriblyWrong experimental new gate]] and only their leaders (who rarely showed themselves) seemed to possess intelligence, and the V'rix were an odd case. At first they seem to be insectoid aliens hell-bent on destroying humans, but [[AllThereInTheManual design documents]] revealed they were a prevented reflection of humanity sent by the same [[AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence Ascended Precursors]] that left behind the [[LostTechnology Ancient Gate System]].

->''"I remember telling my college professor I wanted to study Xenoarchaeology. He laughed right in my face. 'There’s nothing to study,' he said. 'It’s all [[TitleDrop dead space]]. No alien life exists out in the universe.' In a way, I guess he was right..."''

* ''VideoGame/StarCraft'': The United Earth Directorate colonized a significant chunk of space, while roughly 60,000 light-years away in the Koprulu Sector, their Terran offshoots only ruled a couple dozen worlds and regularly squabbled among themselves. Despite colonizing numerous worlds in a relatively large portion of the galaxy, neither faction had ever encountered sapient extraterrestrials. The discovery of the Protoss and the Zerg in the Koprulu Sector by the Terrans, and the following violent first contact, caused massive panic within the UED who prior to FirstContact, had been keeping tabs on the Terrans without their knowledge, but had never bothered to interfere or bring them under control. However, the news of hostile alien life changed that, enough that they decided to send an expeditionary force to bring the Terrans into the fold and exterminate both alien species. [[spoiler: Although, their plan never came to fruition and most of the expedition was killed, with the UED not having a major appearance since.]]

* Is consistent with the fact that no aliens have yet been found. (See SlidingScale/MohsScaleOfScienceFictionHardness.)

* Creator/StephenBaxter's ''Manifold'' series of (mostly) [[SlidingScale/MohsScaleOfScienceFictionHardness so-hard-it-hurts]] ScienceFiction revolves around the Fermi Paradox, with each (AlternateContinuity) book providing a different resolution. In ''Literature/ManifoldTime'', there really is no other intelligent life in the entire universe. ''Literature/ManifoldOrigin'' is similar, except it's set in a multiverse with an intelligent species in each universe. ''Literature/ManifoldSpace'' does have aliens, [[spoiler:but recurring natural disasters on a galactic scale keep wiping them out before they can meet.]]

* ''Series/{{Sliders}}'' is about travel between parallel universes or Earths. In episode "Invasion" that started the Kromag arch what it was thought to be alien invaders were actually primates from a parallel Earth, thus, not aliens. In fact they can even interbreed with humans as are part of the homo genus. Aliens do exists as confirm in one episode "The return of Maggie Becket" where a they reach a world were the Roswell incident did happened (or it was made public) and TheGreys or Reticulans existence is common knowledge even though they haven't come back, however they play no role in the episode nor in the rest of the series.