Basic Trope: Evil extraterrestrial lifeforms.
- Straight: A race of aliens known as the Gukk invade Earth to pillage its resources and subjugate/annihilate its native species.
- Exaggerated: The Gukk conduct a protracted campaign of wanton slaughter across all available universes as part of their bid to annihilate all non-Gukk life.
- Downplayed: While not evil per se, the Gukk are neither pleasant nor reasonable and strive for dominion rather than coalition building, making them de facto enemies to other races.
- Justified: Planet Gukko is a nasty place, and the Gukk evolved to reflect that.
- Inverted: The Norm are practically angelic in terms of appearance and morality, to the point where other races treat them with disdainful envy.
- Subverted: The Gukk's evil acts are circumscribed, directed only at those they deem mortal enemies or obstacles to their race's survival. On other occasions, they're noble and occasionally even friendly, and have standards.
- Parodied: Wherever they travel in the galaxy, the Gukk make a big show of violating other races' norms and customs, partly because they don't care and partly because pissing others off gratifies them.
- Zig Zagged: The Gukk are only evil from the human point of view, and consider our morals unimportant to their goals, inscrutable as they are.
- Averted: The Gukk are a pack of rowdy meatheads, but otherwise tolerable.
- Enforced: No member of the Gukk is capable of being good by even the broadest definition.
- The story requires a driving conflict, and, to avoid the possibility of Alternative Character Interpretation,
Unfortunate Implications stemming from the Genocide Dilemma, or even Draco in Leather Pants, the writers decided that the Gukk needed to all be completely and utterly irredeemable.
- The story requires a driving conflict, and, to avoid the possibility of Alternative Character Interpretation,
- Lampshaded: The Gukk are great students of other races' most brutal members, going so far as to declare some of them "honorary citizens".
- Invoked: The League of Planets uses the Gukk to distract their citizens from internal strife.
- Defied: Instead of bringing death and destruction, the Gukk improve upon and advance the species they subjugate, to the point where other races willingly join their empire.
- Exploited:
- Despite appearances, the Gukk are a fairly weak species. They leverage their fearsome reputation for all it's worth to avoid being attacked themselves.
- The Syndicate or The Empire needs cheap labor, and where else to get it other than by enslaving a species that everyone hates?
- Discussed: A contingent of xenosociologists and xenobiologists join forces to uncover the origins of the Gukk's malformed collective psyche.
- Conversed: An interview with a Gukk Torture Technician reveals the Gukk propensity for violence and destruction stems from an overwhelming self-preservation instinct spurred on by severe culture shock in the face of exposure to an impersonal and intermittently hostile galactic community.
- Implied: Nobody who goes into Gukk space ever comes back out.
- Deconstructed: Every other alien race teams up to hunt down and destroy the Gukk as a matter of survival.
- Reconstructed: Destroying a sentient species, no matter how vile, leaves the survivors morally compromised, and the legacy of the Gukk endures to ensure their cruelty will inspire others down the line.
- Played For Horror: The Federation is first introduced to the Gukk by a broadcasted movie giving horrifically detailed descriptions and demonstrations of the atrocities committed by them round-the-clock, punctuated by them flaying the ambassador alive and psychologically torturing them.
"Pathetic main page! Who can save you now?"
