Line #49 Main/MarsNeedsWater


1	->''"Pure liquid H-2-0 is the rarest and most valuable commodity you can imagine. It's one of the first resources any industrial society destroys and pollutes. You've already started here, so you should know. Unlike most planets, ours included, your world has a lot more water than it has land area. We need water desperately -- for sustenance, industry... everything."''
2	-->-- '''Martin''', ''Series/{{V 1983}}''
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4	One of the more common flavors of PlanetLooters, in this case aliens are after one specific resource that Earth certainly has in abundance, water.
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6	[[ArtisticLicenseSpace Realistically, invading Earth isn't a smart way to get water]] as there are a variety of other more easily accessible locations in space. All comets and a variety of asteroids, moons, and even large, interstellar clouds have water in great abundance and are much more accessible and easy to harvest than Earth, as well as lacking those pesky hairless apes. (For instance, [[UsefulNotes/TheMoonsOfJupiter Europa]] has a water ocean ''60 miles deep''). Occasionally, this will be justified (or handwaved) through an explanation that Earth's water somehow has some quality that other sources lack.
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8	[[ScienceMarchesOn Ironically]], Mars itself has been discovered to have water in RealLife as of 2015.
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10	----
11
12	!Examples
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14	[[foldercontrol]]
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16	[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
17	* The backstory of the anime ''Anime/GreenLegendRan'' is that giant wooden monoliths called "Holy Mothers" landed on Earth and drew all of Earth's natural resources into themselves - not just all the water but most of the ''breathable air.'' Travel between "Holy Greens" is essentially space travel, with [[BaseOnWheels airtight ships]] and suits. As one would expect, those who control the Greens control the water, and thus the population.
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20	[[folder:Comic Strips]]
21	* A ''ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes'' strip parodies this with a poem Calvin wrote about a flying saucer stealing the Earth's water and air, which ends in a heavy-handed GreenAesop by comparing this to human destruction of the biosphere.
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24	[[folder:Fan Works]]
25	* Lampshaded in ''Fanfic/Plan7Of9FromOuterSpace'' (along with a number of other BMovie explanations) as to the motives of the alien invaders.
26	-->"The [[MarsNeedsWomen women]] will be held for ransom until we accede to the alien demands. That's it -- they've come to steal our water!"
27	-->"But water can be mined from the Oort cloud or the Kuiper belt," said Proton. "They don't even have to land on Earth."
28	-->"THEN THEY'RE DOING IT BECAUSE THEY'RE [[ForTheEvulz MEAN AND NASTY!]]" roared Zarkendorf.
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31	[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
32	* The people of Planet X's objective in conquering Earth in ''Film/InvasionOfAstroMonster''.
33	* ''Film/BattleLosAngeles'': The alien invaders seem to be sucking up the oceans. While little detail is given on what the aliens truly ''want'', they leave the impression that the water is more a convenient resource to be exploited, not necessarily the entire reason they are on the planet. Like arriving at a new battlefield and supplementing your existing forces with local materials.
34	* Seemingly inverted in ''Film/{{Oblivion 2013}}'' where humanity is trying to drain the Earth's water as fuel for fusion in preparation for a HomeworldEvacuation. [[spoiler: Until it turns out that the protagonist is a cloned slave unwittingly helping an alien machine drain the oceans and kill what's left of humanity.]]
35	* In the film adaptation of ''Film/EndersGame'', Colonel Graff suggests that the Formics wanted to invade Earth for water, which their desert-like homeworld doesn't appear to have much of. Though they do attack a fleet of Formic ships harvesting ice from a gas cloud at one point. Note that this was not even discussed in the book, the theory there was that they were trying to colonize.
36	* Music/DavidBowie's character in ''Film/TheManWhoFellToEarth'' is an alien who's come to Earth for water. In the brief scene we see of him at home with his family, they're all wearing skintight suits to keep their sweat in.
37	* The invading aliens in ''Film/TheFaculty'' are an aquatic species that needs a lot of water and whose original planet dried up. One sign that someone is infected by the PuppeteerParasite is a need to drink lots of water, and dehydrating them quickly via a special drug based off caffeine pills turns out to be a means of killing them quickly.
38	* While this isn't confirmed in-story during ''Film/WarOfTheWorlds2005'', director Creator/StevenSpielberg told Newsweek magazine in an interview that the aliens might be attacking for water.
39	* ''Film/TheIcePirates'': While it's not an invasion that's the key to the movie, water is indeed the most valuable substance in the universe to the point of being the movie's MacGuffin.
40	* A variation in ''Film/ItTheTerrorFromBeyondSpace''. An autopsy shows that a victim of the monster was dehydrated of water and every other fluid, and the crew speculate that the creature has to take on water by feeding on smaller creatures that collect water from the soil of a barren Mars.
41	* Koopa's trying to make his world and ours a MergedReality in the ''Film/SuperMarioBros1993'' movie so they can get access to our water and other resources.
42	* ''Film/TheMarvels2023'': After a civil war wreaked ecological disaster on Dar-Benn's homeworld of Hala, she leads her army of Kree to invade other planets and steal their resources. To this end, she attacks Tarnax for its air, Aladna for its ocean, and Earth for its Sun. However, it's made clear that Dar-Benn could've taken from any uninhabited planet, but specifically targeted these populated worlds as revenge on Captain Marvel.
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46	[[folder:Literature]]
47	* Creator/ClareWingerHarris's 1929 tale "Literature/TheFateOfThePoseidonia": The sea level mysteriously drops a few feet and an ocean liner disappears, and the protagonist seeks to find out why. The editor of ''Magazine/AmazingStories'' had created a cover showing an alien spacecraft lifting an ocean liner into the air and offered $500 for anyone who could write a story that fitted, so it's not like scientific realism was a prerequisite.
48	* Creator/JamesSACorey's ''Literature/TheExpanse'': It may not come from Earth, but the SpaceColdWar comes to a head because of water. The loss of a single ice freighter to military action from one set of absentee landlords is enough for the Belt to erupt into riots.
49	-->'''Miller''': ''Belters don't take the long view when you screw with basic resources. That water was future air, propellant mass, and potables for us. We have no sense of humor about that shit.''
50	* In Creator/OlafStapledon's ''Literature/LastAndFirstMen'' the Martians invade Earth during the reign of the Second Men in order to steal water, along with plant life and diamonds. Then again it was written back when people thought Venus was covered with oceans of water (apparently too far from Mars) instead of lava.
51	* Downplayed in ''{{Literature/Animorphs}}''. In the third book the kids see the Yeerks regularly send down supply ships to retrieve water and oxygen for their ships in orbit, but it's not the main reason for their invasion.
52	* Creator/IsaacAsimov's "Literature/TheMartianWay": In this {{novelette}}, spacecraft use water from Earth as reaction mass. To stir up anti-Martian sentiment as part of his campaign, an Earth politician named "Hilder" (though Asimov planned it as an attack on [[UsefulNotes/JosephMcCarthy Senator McCarthy]]) says that spacers are using up Earth's water. In response, the Martians go to Saturn and haul home one of the ice chunk asteroids which make up {{UsefulNotes/Saturn}}'s rings, providing them with enough water to last 2000 years. The Martians snarkily offer to sell Earth some to "make up for" the minuscule amount of Earth water they've used over the years.
53	* ''Literature/WarOfTheWorldsGlobalDispatches''. One character comes across a Martian staring rapt at a flowing stream, implying this trope as one of the reasons why the Martians invade Earth. In this case it would be a JustifiedTrope as the Martians are seeking to conquer a resource-rich planet for colonization, rather than just take the water back with them.
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56	[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
57	* In ''Series/{{V 1983}}'', the Visitors are after Earth's water, and the fact that [[ToServeMan humans are delicious]] too doesn't hurt. The {{Novelization}} has a [[JustifiedTrope justification]]; in this {{Verse}}, the industrial effort of interstellar space development [[TerraDeforming irreversibly destroys biospheres]], and they have been unable to develop water purification technologies capable of efficiently supporting millions, let alone billions of people. Thus, the resulting empires are not only constantly fighting over whatever ''relatively pure'' water remains, but ''food'' as well; maybe they could harvest water from undefended comets (after filtering out twenty percent of their weight in [[{{Squick}} ammonia]][[note]]Though in real life, ammonia is actually a very useful chemical, to the point that [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process there's an entire industrial process for making it]]. If anything, the ammonia in comets should make them ''more'' attractive to a spacefaring society.[[/note]]), but a life-sustaining world which not only has over a quadrillion tons of fairly clean water but four and a half billion two-hundred-pound food animals too stupid to colonize space themselves? The planet looks like a buffet table guarded by illiterate street punks. And the Visitors have [[SlowLaser Slow Lasers]]... which happen to be fusion powered and need heavy water as fuel. [[note]]Heavy water has deuterium instead of regular hydrogen - about 115 in every million water molecules are heavy, regardless of where the water comes from, so they could use space-harvested water for that and for at least some industrial stuff. But where's the fun in that?[[/note]]
58	* In the pilot episode of ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'', "[[Recap/StarTrekVoyagerS1E1Caretaker Caretaker]]", the Kazon-Ogla seek water because they're in a region of space without it, thanks to the environmental disaster inadvertently caused by the Caretaker. The crew of Voyager agree to trade water for information on the region, but unwisely explain that they can create water with their amazing replicator technology that the Kazon spend the next two years trying to get their hands on.
59	* One spotlight challenge on ''Series/FaceOff'' required the creation of aliens whose home planets are in great jeopardy. Naturally, one of the planets is running out of water.
60	* The second scene of ''Series/TheExpanse'' has an OPA speaker claiming that Ceres was once covered in ice, but Earth and Mars have stripped it away leaving the Belters dependent on water shipments from Saturn.[[note]][[https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/dwarf-planets/ceres/in-depth/ Ceres as a whole is about 25% water, so it actually has more water than Earth]], but it's possible that technology in the setting isn't advanced enough to economically access the deeper water.[[/note]] The loss of the ice freighter ''Canterbury'' to what seems to be a Martian attack spark riots throughout the Belt.
61	* Inverted in ''Series/BattlestarGalactica2003'' where it's the humans who need water, after the water recycling tanks on the Galactica are sabotaged. The problem is finding an ice-bearing asteroid or planet when you are in interstellar space.
62	* In ''Series/FlashGordon2007'', Mongo's water supply was contaminated by a nuclear accident and Ming uses the last pure well on the planet to control the various peoples of Mongo. Unfortunately it's running dry, so he turns to Earth.
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65	[[folder:Music]]
66	* Played with in Music/RicardoArjona's song "Del Otro Lado del Sol" ("On the other side of the Sun"), which is the narration of an alien from a planet that has no water visiting Earth to see if it's viable to contact. He is from a race of PerfectPacifistPeople, and is so horrified at how much HumansAreBastards that he reasons [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere going back to his planet to die of thirst is the better choice]].
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69	[[folder:Video Games]]
70	* Downplayed in ''VideoGame/HalfLife2''. When close to some docks, if the player looks really close, they can notice that the dock isn't anywhere ''close'' to the shore, implying that there's less water in the ocean than before. WordOfGod also states that The Combine have placed a giant portal at the bottom of Earth's oceans, which is sending the water to other Combine-conquered worlds. However, the secondary purpose was terraforming.
71	* The backstory of Alani from ''VideoGame/{{Battleborn}}'' involves this trope. [[BigBad Rendain]] decided to drain Alani's freshwater ocean planet of Akopos for a Jennerit reservoir fleet.
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74	[[folder:Webcomics]]
75	* Discussed in ''Webcomic/GrrlPower'' -- [[http://grrlpowercomic.com/archives/647 as Dabbler points out]], invading Earth and dealing with its nukes would be unnecessarily difficult compared to [[StatingTheSimpleSolution finding some anonymous undefended comets and mining those]].
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78	[[folder:Western Animation]]
79	* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/DoctorSnuggles'' called "The Remarkable Fidgety River", a race of aliens are stealing cubes of water from the ocean and taking them to their home planet. It turns out to be subversion, however, as the aliens [[InnocentAliens meant no harm]] -- they thought the water was rubbish because [[GreenAesop it had so much garbage in it]]. When Snuggles explains that the plants and animals on Earth need the water, the aliens promptly agree to give it back.
80	* The second season episode "When Strikes Mutilor" from Creator/HannaBarbera's ''WesternAnimation/SWATKats'' has a huge alien craft sucking huge columns of ocean water within sight of Megakat City. The aliens that normally man this craft are {{Technical Pacifist}}s and are being held prisoner by the SpacePirate Mutilor, who has no qualms about disrupting Megakat City's ecosystem.
81	* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/TeamGalaxy'' called "H2-Oh No!" featured an aquatic race stealing water from various planets because their own planet is in a system that has six suns, which constantly evaporate the planet's water supply.
82	* ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse''
83	** Played with in "[[Recap/StevenUniverseS1E26OceanGem Ocean Gem]]": Lapis Lazuli steals the Earth's oceans, but not for any chemical use -- she wanted to get back to her home planet, and thought using her [[PersonOfMassDestruction super-powerful]] [[MakingASplash hydrokinesis]] to build a StarScraper was the best option. It still wasn't nearly enough.
84	** Inverted by the Gem Homeworld: They tried to colonize Earth for its minerals, physically consuming the planet's mass, but water seems to be one of the few materials they ''don't'' want. Homeworld has no rain, a graphic shows a [[HostileTerraforming fully colonized Earth]] would have no oceans, their [[SiliconBasedLife biology]] requires no water, and the Diamond Authority's "extraction chamber" is the only machine that's show using any. They even appear to have created Lapis Lazuli's [[HiveCasteSystem caste]] just to use that water for terraforming (via ripping the surface of the planet apart) before disposing of it.
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87	[[folder:Real Life]]
88	* Aliens capable of interstellar space travel who were only looking for raw materials would probably steer clear of Earth. Titan (the largest of Saturn's 62 moons) has hundreds of times the hydrocarbons (oil and gas) that Earth has, Europa (one of Jupiter's moons) has twice the volume of water Earth has and is one of many moons to have more water than we do, and even our own Moon is amazingly rich in titanium. And this is only what we have in our comparatively tiny solar system, all of which is uninhabited (and unguarded[[note]]Well, ''almost'' unguarded if you include space probes studying some of them[[/note]]) ''except'' for our home.
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Context Main / MarsNeedsWater