History Main / SufficientlyAdvancedAlien

Compare to HigherTechSpecies, when the aliens are more advanced, but not quite SufficientlyAdvanced to count as this. Contrast with GodGuise and AncientAstronauts. See also PhysicalGod, for an approach from the other side of the spectrum, and NoSuchThingAsSpaceJesus, which is how stories of this ilk avoid the theological implications of the trope. Naturally, they are nothing like the InsufficientlyAdvancedAlien.

*** [[Literature/RamaII Before that]], however, one can see other evidence of their presence in the robots which tend to the second ship. Specialised robots perform duties from cleaning to working with the delivery systems to repairing damage the astronauts cause to the ship (unwittingly). One kind, built in the form of a crab, [[SufficientlyAdvancedAlien was not obviously non-human]] at fist glance; they all impress the scientist and engineers, in particular Wakefield (who builds less advanced robots [[GadgeteerGenius himself]]).

* Practically every alien that the protagonists encounter from the Chinese novel series ''Literature/TheAdventuresOfWisely'' is an example of this trope, having evolved to the point that [[SuperiorSpecies every one of them invariably possess abilities]] [[PunyEarthlings that make them demigods by our standards]] -- PsychicPowers, [[{{Teleportation}} instantaneous travel]], [[{{Immortality}} effectively unlimited lifespans]], [[IntangibleMan the ability to phase through solid matter]], [[SelfDuplication can exist in multiple locations at any given time]], [[NighInvulnerability and are virtually impossible to kill using means available to us]], and this is by no means an exhaustive list; thankfully the protagonists tend to pull through either by virtue of having a friendly SufficientlyAdvancedAlien on their side, or by [[TalkingTheMonsterToDeath talking them down]] via finding loopholes in their often [[BlueAndOrangeMorality bizarre reasoning and code of ethics]].

* Rick of ''WesternAnimation/RickAndMorty'' is a rare example of a sufficiently advanced ''human''. Not only does he travel between universes on a regular basis, but he's also able to create new ones and populate them with sentient life ("[[Recap/RickAndMortyS2E6TheRicksMustBeCrazy The Ricks Must Be Crazy]]"), has created a species of roughly equivalent complexity to humans ("[[Recap/RickAndMortyS1E5MeeseeksAndDestroy Meeseeks and Destroy]]"), and has described his power as the ability to "do anything, but only if I feel like it" ("[[Recap/RickAndMortyS3E4Vindicators3TheReturnOfWorldEnder Vindicators 3: The Return of World Ender]]"). He's been described as a god in-canon at least twice, once by Morty ("[[Recap/RickAndMortyS3E1TheRickshankRedemption The Rickshank Redemption]]") and once by the President ("[[Recap/RickAndMortyS3E10TheRickchurianMortydate The Rickchurian Mortydate]]").

What actually ''separates'' Sufficiently Advanced Aliens from genuine gods can get a little vague, especially with the likes of the [[Series/StargateSG1 Ori]], or for that matter [[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration Q]], who ''do'' [[GodGuise claim to be deities]], or, for that matter, [[Anime/TenchiMuyo Juraian royalty]], who don't, but ''are''. Usually, [[NoSuchThingAsSpaceJesus being found in space]] and/or opposing the heroes' lack of belief is considered enough reason to [[VillainByDefault reject their claims]]. One possible distinction between the two is that gods are believed by their followers to actually be above the laws of physics (though there are plenty that aren't), whereas sufficiently advanced aliens have just figured them out enough to manipulate them to their favor (and again, plenty of exceptions there, too).

* Most of Creator/IainBanks's science fiction repertoire involves Literature/TheCulture -- a confederation/polity of hyper-advanced AIs and the pets they carry AKA [[CallAHumanAMeatbag fleshy humanoid lifeforms like us]]. The technology The Culture possesses allows them to achieve godlike feats, like manipulating the entire electromagnetic spectrum of Earth from Betelguese (600 light years away) with their Effectors; rearranging stellar constructs like [[RingWorldPlanet ring worlds]] and stars with incredible precision despite using what amounts to a dimensional fissure with an universe of energy as “blades”; and even teleporting micro black holes into planets as ammunition. It’s to the point that their large-scale “battle” takes place in terms of microseconds and their “obsolete” pistol is considered WMD! A character explicitly compares them to gods in-universe, only to be reminded that the Minds have [[BlasphemousBoast surpassed such definitions long ago]]. And as if this wasn’t enough, their entire civilization can [[AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence Sublime]] any time they wish, becoming even more godlike in the process. What makes them stand out among other examples of this trope is their moral compass -- they chose not to Sublime due to their attachment to the material universe and their commitment to uplifting younger civilizations than them.

* [[EldritchAbomination Lavos]] from ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger'' is a sufficiently ''evolved'' alien; his species has developed a life-cycle that works on an interplanetary scale. As such, he has enough power to make a barren planet fertile, and vice versa, and was once worshiped as a god.

* ''Anime/{{Daltanious}}'': Both Helios and Zaal have made such great breakthroughs in technology that they can turn ordinary animals into mechanical monsters. They can also travel through space on a whim, track down people a planet away, and create Super Robots. Unfortunately, at the start of the story, Helios has fallen and the evil Zaal Empire has already conquered Earth.

* ''Anime/RobotRomanceTrilogy'':
** ''Anime/VoltesV'': Boazanian technology can teleport objects, imitate voices, and turn animals into massive, ruthless beasts. They also have a vicious military that has a reputation of conquering planets all over the galaxy. [[spoiler: Not to mention, the titular robot was also created by a Boazanian]]. Despite this, the Planet's aesthetics are taken from 17th-Century UsefulNotes/{{France}}.
** ''Anime/{{Daimos}}'': Planet Baam is Ancient Rome JustForFun/InSpace, complete with large [[{{Robeast}} Robeasts]], kinetic guns and multipurpose military spaceships.

* Some of the most advanced technology in ''WebOriginal/OrionsArm'' is referred to as "clarktech" or "clarketech" in reference to this. Although it's not created by aliens, but by Sufficiently Advanced ''Terragens'' -- the Archai and the higher Transapients.

* ''WesternAnimation/Ben10Omniverse'' had the Contemelia, a race of aliens from the fifth dimension [[AFormYouAreComfortableWith that we can't even perceive]] who had technology so advanced they were able to create entire ''universes'' ForScience

* Discussed in ''Film/ShinUltraman''. Extraterrestrials such as Zarab and Mefilas have capabilities way beyond human understanding (e.g. both can manipulate digital data without much more than a wave of their hands) while Ultraman's ability is physics-breaking by human standards. Humanity end up having to rely on Ultraman for their safety as if they worship him, leading to the human characters talking about how godlike the Extraterrestrials are. However, Ultraman himself denies this, sending a message in the climax that Ultraman is ultimately just another lifeform, not an all-powerful god, [[spoiler:and needs humanity's research on the Beta System to take down Zetton]].

* The Xel'Naga from ''Franchise/StarCraft''. They're all about cosmic cycles, "star-forging", and re-creating themselves out of separate species that they engineer and eventually unite.[[spoiler:That is, until one of their own violated their AlienNonInterferenceClause and corrupted the Zerg, using them as a weapon to wage a civil war that killed all the others.]]

* The Xel'Naga from ''VideoGame/StarCraft''. They're all about cosmic cycles, "star-forging", and re-creating themselves out of separate species that they engineer and eventually unite.[[spoiler: That is until one of their own violated their AlienNonInterferenceClause and corrupted the Zerg, using them as a weapon to wage a civil war that killed all the others.]]

* ''Franchise/StarTrekExpandedUniverse'': In the 'Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' novel ''Metamorphosis'', Data is transformed from an android into a human being by the "gods" of Elysia in an alternate timeline. These "gods" later admit to Data that they are not actual gods but advanced lifeforms who are neither immortal nor infallible before transforming him back into an android and sending him back into the past to prevent the alternate timeline from happening.

* Most of Creator/IainBanks's science fiction repertoire involves Literature/TheCulture -- a confederation/polity of hyper-advanced AIs and the pets they carry AKA [[CallAHumanAMeatbag fleshy humanoid lifeforms like us]]. The technology The Culture possesses allows them to achieve godlike feats, like manipulating the entire electromagnetic spectrum of Earth from Betelguese (600 light years away) with their Effectors; rearranging stellar constructs like [[RingWorldPlanet ring worlds]] and stars with incredible precision despite using what amounts to a dimensional fissure with an universe of energy as “blades”; and even teleporting micro black holes into planets as ammunition. It’s to the point that their large-scale “battle” takes place in terms of microseconds and their “obsolete” pistol is considered WMD! A character explicitly compares them to gods in-universe, only to be reminded that the Minds have [[BlasphemousBoast surpassed such definitions long ago]]. And as if this wasn’t enough, their entire civilization can [[AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence Sublime]] any time they wish, becoming even more godlike in the process. What makes them stand out among other examples of this trope is their moral compass -- they chose not to Sublime due to their attachment to the material universe and their commitment to uplifting younger civilizations than them.

* Creator/ArthurCClarke's novels feature this as a constant theme -- not surprising given that he's the {{trope namer|s}}.

** Clarke's Third Law is the template for "Shermer's Last Law" as given in the page quote. It states '''Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic'''. It has as an immediate corollary, '''Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced'''.
* Creator/StephenBaxter is possibly the ''king'' of sufficiently advanced aliens as most of his famous works depicts aliens that are essentially God with the capital G:
** Literature/XeeleeSequence: The titular Xeelee are a race of space-time defects in symbiosis with Bose-Einstein Condensate creatures. Born during the Planck Epoch, these guys are so up the food chain that they are called the ''[[Main/RedBaron Baryonic Lords]]'' for a good reason; able to master absolute control on all things baryons ''including'' time and space on a ''multiversal scale''. To give you a sense of scale on how powerful they are, when Transcendent Humanity (Which were considered to be ''more'' powerful than [[Franchise/StarTrek Star Trek's Q]]) went to war with them, the Xeelee immediately [[Main/CurbStompBattle curbstomped them back to the stone age]] throughout every single timeline faster than you can say Fatality. And even ''then'', the Xeelee was actively ''losing'' against the Dark Matter Photino Birds who they themselves are weaker than the god-like Monads who dream entire realities into existence.
** Literature/ManifoldTime, Literature/ManifoldSpace and Literature/ManifoldOrigin: Stephen Baxter manage to ''somehow'' one-up himself and made a trilogy even ''more'' powerful than the Xeelee called the Manifold Trilogy which consists on a race of posthumans called the Downstreamers which are living quantum substrates so ''absurdly powerful'' that they are liken to an entire race of the One Above Alls. Feats include being invulnerable to all forms of reality warping attacks that can punch holes the size of the ''entire Universe's circumference'', creating an infinite number of multiverses just because they ''can'', and being omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent to its truest term on a ''omniversal scale''.
* Most of Creator/HPLovecraft's aliens fall into this category: Cthulhu and his ilk do not even have ''hidden'' technology. They just ''are''. In fact, Lovecraftian characters' tendency to consider the aliens gods extends to the fans as well. Ask a general Lovecraft fan, and he will very likely tell you, "Cthulhu is a god."

* This is the central conflict of ''Literature/{{Contact}}'', both the novel and the [[Film/{{Contact}} movie based on it]], by Creator/CarlSagan. The main character is an atheist and believes in rational explanations for everything, but at the end her journey to the center of the galaxy is revealed to be in every respect a religious experience.
** The book is even more explicit; the journey is to an artificial world where the aliens are researching physical constants looking for messages written into reality itself -- ''[[ThatsNoMoon a church the size of a planet]]''. And once they return, the main character is able to find one of these messages herself (in ''pi''). Thus, Sufficiently Advanced Science is indistinguishable from '''religion'''.
* In Creator/StanislawLem's ''Literature/TheCyberiad'', a scientist called Klapaucius theorizes that there must exist a civilization that is on the highest possible level of development. He eventually finds it, but he's shocked to see that they do absolutely nothing. This is because they think doing anything when you're perfect is pointless; "You climb to reach the sum­mit, but once there, discover that all roads lead down!"

* In ''Design for Great-Day'', Creator/AlanDeanFoster features humanity (or to be more specific, the Solarian Combine), as a super-advanced multi-species who are on the brink of transcending matter itself and becoming Sufficiently Advanced Aliens.

* Creator/CharlesStross:
** ''Literature/TheEschatonSeries'': The [[AIIsACrapshoot eponymous AI]] can scoop up a large chunk of humanity and scatter it both across lightyears of space and centuries of time. It's also been known to wipe out entire solar systems that mess with time travel.
** "Literature/MissileGap": The civilization that built the disc was capable of, as several characters put it, peel the Earth like a grape, take its surface and denizens outside the galaxy, and plate them on the surface of a construct that modern physics says cannot physically exist without anybody noticing. Whatever these entities may be, they operate entirely outside of human comprehension, and probably have as much in common with humanity as humanity does with termites.

* In ''Literature/{{Flatland}}'', the Sphere is this from the narrator's perspective, having unusual powers deriving from existing in another dimension, i.e. the third.
* The Priest-Kings of ''Literature/{{Gor}}'', who for some reason, kidnap humans from Earth, [[FantasyGunControl remove any type of firearm]], dump them on the eponymous planet and have them create a society that would make the Dark Ages look feminist. Their reasons are unknown, maybe they're just [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential really bored]], [[Rule34 or just that into human porn]].
** It's implied in ''Priest-Kings of Gor'' that they're motivated largely by intense boredom (Misk has to be physically restrained from committing suicide when the opportunity arises) and that they just [[HumansAreSpecial think people are interesting]].

* The ''Literature/HumanxCommonwealth'' series by Creator/AlanDeanFoster features a vast array of alien species of varying technology levels, but this particular trope belongs solely to the Xunca. Living a billion years ago, they dominated the entire galaxy and regularly converted entire planets into machines for various projects. They fled to AnotherDimension after encountering an [[EldritchAbomination unstoppable galaxy-devouring horror]], but not before leaving behind a superweapon ''built out of'' the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_attractor Great Attractor]], to which the main protagonist, Flinx, is the key. That's galactic-scale engineering for you.
* Robert Sheckley's short story "Hunting Problem" is about one of these who is the worst member of his [[ScoutOut scout troop]] and desperately needs to win a merit badge before the upcoming Scouter Jamboree. To this end, he engages in a [[HilarityEnsues hilariously inept]] attempt to obtain a [[spoiler:human]] pelt using "colonial" methods such as shapeshifting and summoning objects out of thin air.
* In Dan Simmons' ''Literature/HyperionCantos'' saga, we have various examples:

%%* Tuffy in Creator/JohnRingo's ''Literature/IntoTheLookingGlass'' series. Unless, as hinted, [[OurAngelsAreDifferent he's something even stranger]].
* In Creator/LarryNiven's ''Literature/KnownSpace'' stories, the Outsiders have technology that the other species -- even the Puppeteers, who are at least ten thousand years ahead of humanity -- cannot even begin to ''comprehend'', much less replicate.

* The eponymous aliens of S. M. Stirling's ''Literature/TheLordsOfCreation'' series alter environments on a planetary scale and create interdimensional gateways with ease.

* ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'': In the [[Franchise/StarTrekExpandedUniverse novel]] "Metamorphosis" Data is transformed from an android into a human being by the "gods" of Elysia in an alternate timeline. These "gods" later admit to Data that they are not actual gods but advanced lifeforms who are neither immortal nor infalliable before transforming him back in to an android and sending him back into the past to prevent the alternate timeline from happening.
* The Spindle aliens in Creator/TerryPratchett's ''Literature/{{Strata}}'' had the technology (which we retroengineered from artifacts of their dead civilization) to create planets from scratch and extend life into the realm of centuries ([[WhoWantsToLiveForever although few humans go beyond the three century mark without directly or indirectly committing suicide]]).
** Subverted with the later discovery that [[spoiler:they never existed, and neither did their precursors, or the ones before that. All ancient aliens were discovered due to everyone who can engineer planets inevitably deciding at some point to put their signature on it somehow, with the human example tending to be things like hiding a boot in a coal seam. It turns out that all the evidence of ancient aliens is itself apparently a metaphorical boot hidden by the creators of the universe]].

* The Leatherfaces in ''Literature/UnderTheDome'' are [[spoiler:the children of a sufficiently advanced alien race]]. They exist outside of normal time and space, don't even seem to remember what corporeal bodies ''are'', and [[spoiler:play with humans the same way that human children might "play" with ants using a magnifying glass]]. Although they do use machinery, an invincible box the size of a Tivo set that can [[spoiler:project a five mile high dome capable of stopping a cruise missile]] is definitely pretty advanced.
* The Precursors of Creator/DavidBrin's ''Literature/{{Uplift}}'' series who are directly or indirectly responsible for the existence of all but a tiny fraction of a percentage of intelligent species. That tiny fraction apparently includes us, although there is debate about it that eventually becomes a multi-sided holy war.
* Uriel from Clive Barker's ''Literature/{{Weaveworld}}'' is probably one of these, although it's bought into its own hype and thinks it's an angel.
* ''Literature/YouCanBeACyborgWhenYoureOlder'' by Creator/RichardRoberts: The Enchanted use advanced technology to live out their High Fantasy lives. The thing is that they can afford to do it and its fantastically rich members fund its poorer members to live like elves and undead.
* The Presger from the ''Literature/ImperialRadch'' trilogy sits somewhere between this and HigherTechSpecies. They produce technology that they export to humanity (like highly advanced correctives), but on the other hand they made ArtificialHumans in an attempt to communicate with humanity because it would be impossible for them to comprehend them otherwise. Before they determined humanity was "Significant" they would pull human starships apart for fun (and no-one who isn't a Presger really knows what "Significant" means, apart from the fact it means the Presger will stop killing you), and it's implied the Presger wouldn't even register it if humanity ever turned hostile towards them. No Presger are ever shown on-screen, and only the aforementioned ArtificialHumans have ever communicated with them and claim the Presger don't really 'get' many things humanity takes for granted, such as the idea that two distinct people can exist at the same time.

You know the type. Sooner or later one shows up on every SpaceOpera or WagonTrainToTheStars. They're the alien being that can do ''anything'' with the [[HandWave wave]] of a {{h|umanAliens}}and (or [[StarfishAliens tentacle]], or [[PlantAliens tendril]] of {{energy|Beings}}). Sometimes they're hostile, sometimes they're benevolent, sometimes [[AboveGoodAndEvil above it all]] or just... [[BlueAndOrangeMorality different]], but regardless they can really cramp the style of a young, expanding race looking to make a name for itself on the galactic scene. Usually, though, they tend to just be omnipotent jackasses, looking for a cheap laugh. More often than not, they tend to be [[CantArgueWithElves egotistical and haughty, thinking little of]] [[PunyEarthlings humans and "lesser beings"]]. Sometimes you can exploit their sense of honor or fair play, or their desire for solitude, to make them go away. Or maybe you just have to wait for their parents to come and take them home. Unfortunately, you can't always get rid of them -- just ask [[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration Jean-Luc Picard]] (and don't even get his colleague [[Series/StarTrekVoyager Capt. Janeway]] ''started'').

* ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'': In the [[Franchise/StarTrekExpandedUniverse novel]] "Metamorphsis" Data is transformed from an android into a human being by the "gods" of Elysia in an alternate timeline. These "gods" later admit to Data that they are not actual gods but advanced lifeforms who are neither immortal nor infalliable before transforming him back in to an android and sending him back into the past to prevent the alternate timeline from happening.

* The Preservers of Paul J. [=MaCauley=]'s ''Confluence'' series are worshiped as gods by the inhabitants of the title construct, a literal space needle several thousand kilometers long which they built and populated with genegeneered species of their creation. [[spoiler:Subverted in that in the second book it is revealed that they were actually Suficiently Advanced Humans and that the series takes place millions of years in the future]].

* Gemkind in ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'' definitely fall under this; they're essentially living rocks, able to project a ShapeshifterDefaultForm made of HardLight, can regenerate said forms if wounded enough, can ''[[FusionDance combine]]'' their forms, have access to an interplanetary teleportation network, and live on a geological time scale. Even their millennia-old technology and abilities have yet to be even closely replicated by modern humanity.

* Rick of ''WesternAnimation/RickAndMorty'' is a rare example of a sufficiently advanced ''human''. Not only does he travel between universes on a regular basis, but he's also able to create new ones and populate them with sentient life ("The Ricks Must Be Crazy"), has created a species of roughly equivalent complexity to humans ("Meeseeks and Destroy"), and has described his power as the ability to "do anything, but only if I feel like it" ("Vindicators 3: The Return of World Ender"). He's been described as a god in-canon at least twice, once by Morty ("The Rickshank Redemption") and once by the President ("The Rickchurian Mortydate").

** "Bem" has probably the only instance in the entire franchise of a powerful alien looking after a planet of primitives, who appears to be genuinely wise and benevolent enough that Kirk ''doesn't'' automatically object to the situation on principle. Bonus points because the alien was voiced by Nichelle Nichols (Uhura).
** Also the zookeeping [[StarfishAliens Lactrans]] in "The Eye of the Beholder,'' who aren't exactly godlike, but are still an order of magnitude beyond Federation tech.
*** Ditto for the Vedala in "Jihad", described as the oldest known space-faring race.

** Averted and subverted with every other race. In ''Revelations'', the Turians just before the First Contact War described as being on roughly the same technological level as us. Most other races also dance on that line, and then there are some races like the Krogan, Vorcha, and Drell that "hitchhiked" into space for one reason or another. Which is in turn justified because [[spoiler: all advanced space technology is based on the technology of the previous spacefaring civilisations, all of which had a finite time to develop their technology before being harvested by the Reapers. Basicaly, having everything incorporate Mass Effect technology puts everything on an even playing field, at least until the masters of that technology come knocking.]]
** [[spoiler: The Asari got a massive boost from the Protheans in the past when they began uplifting the primitive asari by teaching them the basics of civilization such as mathematics and argirculture, as well as genetically augmenting the asari to have natural biotic abilities and leaving them a Prothean Beacon to help boost their technological progression. All of this allowed the asari to become the first spacefaring species following the Porthean extinction and go on to more or less become the dominant race of the Galaxy, thanks to being the first to rediscover the Citadel and being the founders and leaders of the Galactic Council.]]

* The final boss of the first ''VideoGame/ShadowHearts'', Meta-God, is explicitly described as an alien so powerful humanity is on the level of ants compared to it. The purpose of TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon is to call it to Earth so that it will lay waste to the planet.

* ''LightNovel/NyarukoCrawlingWithLove'' takes the ideas about Creator/HPLovecraft (see Literature below) and runs with them, outright stating that the Franchise/CthulhuMythos is based off of stories told to Lovecraft by aliens. By extension, the gods of the Mythos were inspired by members of alien races; the title character, Nyarko, is '''[[AKindOfOne a]]''' Nyarlathotepian, but it's unclear if she's '''the''' Nyarlathotep or if it's just a nickname.

* ''VideoGame/MOTHER1'' has Giygas, who is a sufficiently advanced alien -- advanced enough to where the form of his attacks are incomprehensible, even to psychics. The sequel, ''VideoGame/EarthBound'', upgrades Giygas to CosmicHorrorStory status.
** In Mother, he is also [[ContractualBossImmunity completely immune to harm]].

* In ''Fanfic/{{Fractured}}'', a ''Franchise/MassEffect''[=/=]''Franchise/StarWars''[[spoiler:[=/=]''[=Borderlands=]'']] [[MassiveMultiplayerCrossover crossover]] and its sequel ''Fanfic/{{Origins}}'', the "Local Cluster Council" and "Federated Cluster Union" are actually this, pretending to be an OmniscientCouncilOfVagueness. Their mastery of FasterThanLightTravel is shown to be much higher than the heroes' civilizations, and indeed is the only way to do FTL that doesn't cause [[NegativeSpaceWedgie rips in space]]. This becomes important later since said rips are letting in an AlienInvasion, [[spoiler:Flood mixed with Reapers]].

** About a million years later, humans and Minbari become this too.

* ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'' parodied this trope for everything it was worth in the Sci-Fi era with the Observers, a race of [[BrainInAJar disembodied brains]] carried around in bowls by bodies that they claimed didn't exist. Despite claims that they were possessed of all knowledge in the universe, they are an omnipotent race of morons -- assuming that Tom Servo was one of them because he did well on an IQ test and he started carrying an olive in a dish and pretending it was his brain, and finding chili dogs an incredibly fascinating concept, to name just two instances.
** Pearl also wound up babysitting some bratty Sufficiently Advanced alien kids in a parody of ''Star Trek'''s Trelane.

* It seems like ''Franchise/StarTrek'' had dozens of these buggers running around the edges of the Federation: The Cytherians; the Organians; the Melkotians; the Q; the Thasians, who reared Charlie "Charlie X" Evans; The Companion; Nagilum; the Caretaker; the Douwd (one of whom wiped out an expansionist empire in a fit of anger); Bajor's "Prophets" (even though they never came out of the wormhole); Apollo and the other Olympians; even Quetzalcoatl (in an episode of the animated series). It's implied that Wesley Crusher [[AscendedToAHigherPlaneOfExistence became one]] when he was PutOnABus, as did Kes from ''Series/StarTrekVoyager''.

** Played with in the case of Squire Trelane of Gothos: in the ''TOS'' episode [[Recap/StarTrekS1E17TheSquireOfGothos "The Squire of Gothos"]] he did need machinery to perform his magic tricks, but later spin-off novels established him as a rogue Q.
** The Metrons, from the famous ''TOS'' episode [[Recap/StarTrekS1E18Arena "Arena"]] in which Kirk fought the reptilian Gorn.
** Also the Guardian of Forever (or alternately, the ancient race that created said Guardian).
** Humans can be this to a sufficiently primitive race if first contact is sufficiently bungled as both Picard (in the TNG episode "Who Watches the Watchers?") and Kirk (in "The Paradise Syndrome" and ''Film/StarTrekIntoDarkness'') discovered.

* Nagato Yuki of ''LightNovel/HaruhiSuzumiya'' is a prime example of this. By ''chanting computer code'', she can manipulate matter and space with great precision and scope.

* The Visitors from ''LightNovel/WorldEndWhatDoYouDoAtTheEndOfTheWorldAreYouBusyWillYouSaveUs'' are implied to be this. They are immortal beings of extraterrestrial origin who arrived via starship after a long journey from their homeworld. Nostalgic for their lost home, they shaped the world they found into something similar and created the races that now inhabit it.

** ''Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy'' introduces Celestials, mentioned in the ComicBook section and pictured above. There is even a cameo of Eson the Searcher [[spoiler: obliterating a failed experiment]].

* The Priest-Kings of ''Literature/{{Gor}}'', who for some reason, kidnap humans from Earth, [[FantasyGunControl remove any type of firearm]], dump them on the eponymous planet and have them create a society that would make the Dark Ages look feminist. Their reasons are unknown, maybe they're just [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential really bored]], [[{{Rule34}} or just that into human porn]].

* ''Videogame/{{Destiny}}'':

* In ''Videogame/{{MARDEK}}'', every other race, especially the Annunaki. However, they are weak enough that they can be defeated outnumbered and forced into a situation where they are forced to fight out of their element. Moric, the first you fight is a necromancer, and is forced to fight himself, first drained of energy after being interrupted in the middle of casting a massive necromantic spell, and then again in a place where he didn't have any dead to raise. Qualna, the second, had powers mainly based around manipulation, deception, and, if necessary, combat from a great distance away. He never expected to be in a real fight at all.

* In ''Videogame/{{Rimworld}}'':

[[folder:Film — Live-Action]]