History Main / HumansNeedAliens

* ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'': All life on Earth would have been wiped out by [[HostileTerraforming Gem colonization]] if a Gem hadn't formed the Crystal Gems and started a civil war to stop it. Said war happened during the early Bronze Age, when humans would be especially helpless (though the technology gap [[HigherTechSpecies has remained enormous]]). Subverted concerning gem monsters: The Crystal Gems are the best equipped to fight them, but they don't ''need'' to. The monsters more or less ignore humans in favor of attacking other gems, and the Crystal Gems hunt because they're {{Tragic Monster}}s whose suffering they try to alleviate by putting them in stasis.

Humans are almost always {{Muggle}}s; occasionally {{Badass Normal}}s, but very rarely stand a chance against all the evil that is out there. Evil aliens? Interdimensional {{Big Bad}}s? [[TheEmpire Intergalactic Empires?]] {{Eldritch Abomination}}s?, {{Evil Wizard}}s? [[HumansAreBastards Other humans?]] You name it.

Thankfully, there are special/superpowered nonhumans out there willing to defend humanity from threats that they wouldn't otherwise stand a chance at fighting. Usually these heroic aliens are the LastOfTheirKind or agents of an [[TheFederation Intergalactic Federation]] and are the only ones willing/able to protect humanity. Aliens may also protect humans from themselves if HumansAreWarriors or to invoke a GreenAesop. This may lead to TakesOneToKillOne when the heroic alien is the only thing that can stop his fellow, but evil, aliens.

Thankfully, there are special/superpowered nonhumans out there willing to defend humanity from threats that they wouldn't otherwise stand a chance at fighting. Usually these heroic aliens are the LastOfTheirKind or agents of an [[TheFederation Intergalactic Federation]] and are the only ones willing/able to protect humanity. Aliens may also protect humans from themselves if HumansAreWarriors or to invoke a GreenAesop.

* In ''Series/DoctorWho'', as much as the Doctor thinks that HumansAreSpecial, humanity (and reality itself for that matter) would have perished without his intervention long ago. Lampshaded in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E11TurnLeft "Turn Left"]] when the world starts to decay and even reality itself ceases to exist without the Doctor's intervention. Though in this case it's a mutually-beneficial/symbiotic relationship, the whole ForWantOfANail alternate timeline was spun off not ''because'' of the Doctor's death, but rather his death and the subsequent consequences were the result of ''one human woman'' not being there to help ''him''.
* The Aegis (Gary Seven's alien overlords) in ''Series/{{Star Trek|The Original Series}}'' routinely protect civilizations from destroying themselves. FridgeLogic issues arise, as they are only ever seen in one episode, in which they operate in the past (20th century).
** The Vulcans serve as something like this between First Contact to a couple of decades or so before ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'' -- things were in a pretty darn rough shape after World War 3, and some of the civilizations in the neighbourhood were not so benevolent as the Vulcans. Had they not helped humanity get back on its feet from the Post-Atomic Horror and provided protection from other interstellar cultures, human civilization might well have ended up collapsing or been subjugated under the heel of (to take one example) the Romulans, despite Cochrane's invention of the Warp Drive.

--> '''Sam''': "There must be something more you can do."\\
'''Thor''': "I assure you, we are providing you with all the latest Asgard technology, as well as a knowledge base, including our entire recorded history."\\
'''Sam''': "That's not what I was talking about."\\
'''Thor''': "Everything that can be done, has been done. The final attempt to solve our physiological degeneration has left each of us with a rapidly progressing disease."

* All life on Earth in ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'' would have been wiped out by [[HostileTerraforming gem colonization]] if some gem hadn't formed the Crystal Gems and started a civil war to stop it. Said war happened during the early Bronze Age, when humans would be especially helpless (though the technology gap [[HigherTechSpecies has remained enormous]]). Subverted concerning gem monsters: The Crystal Gems are the best equipped to fight them, but they don't ''need'' to. The monsters more or less ignore humans in favor of attacking other gems, and the Crystal Gems hunt because they're {{Tragic Monster}}s whose suffering they try to alleviate by putting them in stasis.
* ''Franchise/{{Transformers}}'' is all about Earth getting caught between the two sides of an alien civil war. By the third season, we've taken a bit of a [[TookALevelInBadAss Level In Badass,]] but for the first two seasons we're almost totally dependent on the Autobots to defend us from the Decepticons.

->''"They can be a great people, Kal-El; they wish to be. They only lack the light to show the way. For this reason above all, their capacity for good, I have sent them you...[[Franchise/{{Superman}} my only son]]"''

* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Gargoyles}}'' without Goliath's clan intervention humanity would have been long gone extinct, specially from Demona's genocide tendencies. Then again, Demona herself is from the ''same'' clan, so most of the time it's not really the humans ''needing'' gargoyles to protect them, it's gargoyles protecting us from their own kind.
** Gargoyles are instinctively protective, having evolved from cliff dwelling creatures. Goliath's Clan specifically protects the castle because humans built it against their cliffs. Since humans are active during the day, Gargoyles struck a deal to protect them during the night... of course, this goes the opposite way as the Gargoyles need humans to protect them during the day. In fact, the second half of the first season deals with Goliath struggling with the Modern world and concludes with Hudson recognizing its because Goliath doesn't have something to protect in the modern world.

* Ditto for ''WesternAnimation/ChallengeOfTheGoBots,'' although our technology improves a lot faster than it does on ''The Transformers''.

* [[BigBad The Incubator]] of ''Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagica'' claims to be this. [[spoiler: Kyubey provides teenagers with special powers in order to feed on their negative emotions to preserve the universe's dead heat phenomenon, whereas those teens use the obtained powers to rack up humanity's civilization. A gag 4koma depicted Madoka becoming a cavewoman when she wishes Kyubey's existence out of the face of Earth.]]

->''"People of Earth are different from us, it's true, but, ultimately, I believe that's a good thing. They won't necessarily make the same mistakes we did, not if you guide them, Kal, not if you give them hope."''
-->-- '''Jor-El''' to [[Franchise/{{Superman}} his son]], ''Film/ManOfSteel''

-->-- '''Jor-El''' to [[Franchise/Superman his son]], ''Film/ManOfSteel''

** Also {{Inverted}} in the backstory: when the Dilgar invaded the League of Non-Aligned World only the Drazi could hold the line away from their own homeworld, and even they would have ultimately been overran had Earth Alliance not intervened.

* In Creator/SergeyLukyanenko's short story "Evening Conversation with Mister Special Ambassador", the alien representative wonders why Earth has remained unconquered despite all the big alien empires in our vicinity. At the end, he finally gets it. Humans are ''mentally retarded'' race of the galaxy, so everyone else feels pity for us and leaves us alone. An inversion of HumansAdvanceSwiftly and an interesting take on [[HumansAreSpecial Humans Are "Special"]].

Please, do not, confuse this with HumanAliens, although overlapping is possible.

* In Creator/SergeyLukyanenko's short story "Evening Conversation with Mister Special Ambassador", the alien representative wonders why Earth has remained unconquered despite all the big alien empires in our vicinity. At the end, he finally gets it. Humans are ''mentally retarded'' race of the galaxy, so everyone else feels pity for us and leaves us alone. A brutal inversion of HumansAdvanceSwiftly and an interesting take on [[HumansAreSpecial Humans Are "Special"]].

* ''Franchise/StarCraft'':

* ''PhantasyStarII'', The greatly advanced civilization of Algo is completely based on some super computer nobody give a damn where it comes from. Inverted as the Computer comes from Earth. Such civilization goes downhill very fast when the protagonists defeats Mother Brain and the aliens who are behind her creation. Fortunately, [[PhantasyStarIV people recovers rather fast after a 1000-year time skip.]]

** In the ''Comicbook/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths'' she saved ''an infinite number of Earths'' when she took the Anti-Monitor on. Even although she died, her sacrifice gave the surviving heroes time enough to fight back. When human Supergirl Linda Danvers tried to take Kara's place to save her life, she unfortunately found she couldn't hurt the Anti-Monitor because she ''couldn't'' punch so hard like Kara (who was an [[PhysicalGod Earth-One Kryptonian]]).

* ''PhantasyStarII'', The greatly advanced civilization of Algo is completely based on some super computer nobody give a damn where it comes from. Such civilization goes downhill very fast when the protagonists defeats Mother Brain and the aliens who are behind her creation. Fortunately, [[PhantasyStarIV people recovers rather fast after a 1000-year time skip.]]

** Humanity can only guarantee {{Pyrrhic victor|y}}ies at best against [[ScaryDogmaticAliens the Covenant]], until circumstances cause [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy the Elites]] to secede and ally with humanity. With their union the Covenant is defeated, but humanity rushes to rebuild itself quickly, because there is little guarantee that the Elites can protect them forever, especially since not all agreed with allying with humans in the first place.
** Inverted in the backstory. In prehistory humanity had an interstellar empire that beat back the Flood. They then tangled with the Forerunners and were forcibly devolved, only for the Forerunners to encounter the Flood and discover that without the humans, they were screwed.
*** Said "tangling" involved sterilizing Flood-infested Forerunner worlds... ''without'' telling the Forerunners what they were doing. Little wonder the Didact blamed humans for everything.
*** Actually this was explained Halo 4. When the Flood first attacked Forerunner planets, prehistory humanity had already fallen into a desperate state of anti-Flood scorched earth tactics, which worked so well that the Forerunners knew NOTHING about the Flood until their return. Coupled with the fact that prehistory humanity's end was capped off by a 50 year, last stand siege made it bluntly clear that the Forerunners, nor the Didact, were not interested in whatever humanity had to say.

* In ''Literature/{{Expedition}}'' by WayneBarlowe, the aliens called Yma are there to protect humanity from itself. We'd destroyed the environment almost beyond repair before they showed up, and they're helping us put the world back together.

* Literature/CreationManAndTheMessiah: Implied and exaggerated with the spirits Abiriel and Ohebiel, who ensouls Adam and Eve, thus giving the entire human race a share of an older heritage. Abiriel is "alien" after the normal fashion: His original self was born and bred on another planet (obviously UsefulNotes/{{Mars}}). When he ensouls Adam, and getting a new body for his spiritual self, Ohebiel laments that humanity is doomed unless she intervenes, and then ensouls Eve. Ohebiel is not far from invoking the trope directly.

* In Creator/MikhailAkhmanov's ''ArrivalsFromTheDark'' series, the Exile is a member of a race of [[VoluntaryShapeshifting shapeshifters]] who infiltrate other races and monitor/guide them. Unlike others of his race, the Exile has a birth defect that forces him to remain in human form for the rest of his (possibly immortal) life and only be able to affect small changes in appearance. He has been on Earth since the 13th century and played an instrumental role in warning humans about the incoming [[HumanAliens Faata]] starship. However, even then humans couldn't fight off such an advanced enemy, and Earth was about to be conquered and humans enslaved when the Exile gave a human the means to destroy the ship in such a way as to leave its remains for human scientists to study and reverse-engineer. He continues to covertly provide assistance and intel to human authorities, who, for their part, suppress any attempts at investigating the origin of this assistance (i.e. "don't scare the goose that lays golden eggs"). He shows up once again a thousand years later to help prevent a war with another HumanAlien race.