Basic Trope: A race of aliens supposedly from outer space, who turn out to be from far closer to home.
- Straight: The Malachim are Advanced Ancient Humans from 400,000,000 years ago who escaped to the exoplanet Kepler-22 and decided to invade Earth to take it back from the Humans.
- Exaggerated: The Malachim are descendants of Ur-Malai, who are humanoids that possessed advanced civilization some 100,000 years before the Malachim.
- Downplayed: The Malachim are one of the hominid races that vied with the modern humans before retreating underground.
- Justified: The Malachim were advanced beings who consider the Earth as their holy land.
- Inverted:
- Humans are an ancient race in this setting, and when they get back to Earth, another species has taken their place.
- The alien planet turns out to be Earth.
- A species previously believed to have been native to Earth turns out to have originated from another planet.
- Subverted: But in fact they are really delusional Human Aliens from Kepler-22 which they believe it is their holy land.
- Double Subverted: But it turns out that the species in question is a race they created which rebelled against them and drove them form Earth, and the belief in the holy Earth is a product of millenia of homesickness, loss of historical information and natural religious development.
- Parodied: The Malachim lived beneath the earth for 800 million years and didn't notice any of the changes because they were so addicted and distracted that they failed to notice not only time sparse grand geological events but atomic tests far too frequent to be anything natural.
- Zig Zagged: The Malachim are originally from Earth, but they were seeded there by ancient astronauts, but then so were humans, but then it turns out that they mated with an alien species after leaving Earth and don't resemble their earthly forms. In the end, it's fairly confusing whether or not they have a legitimate claim as Earth life forms or not.
- Averted: There are no Malachim other than the humans.
- Enforced: There needed to be a plausible explanation for No Biochemical Barriers and earth was similar enough to it.
- Lampshaded: "Of course they are from earth. There are just too many similarities."
- Implied:
- The oldest Malachim art often represents a holy planet with a continental makeup similar to how the Earth looked like 800 million years ago.
- The Malachim are set up as aliens, but then scientists discover an ancient fossil of a Malachim skeleton on Earth. It could be Ancient Astronauts, or their native home, but it's never revealed exactly what.
- Invoked: The Malachim knowing the earth would be sterilized by cosmic radiation take measures to ensure that life would eventually develop once the events abate.
- Exploited: ???
- Defied:
- Humans drive away the Malachim and claim the Earth for themselves.
- The Malachim spitefully obliterate the entire Earth as soon as they realize they have to leave.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
- Deconstructed:
- After presumably 800 million years of development, the Malachim are presented as either long-since becoming extinct.
- The Malachim fall into deep despair upon getting within probe range of earth and find out that it changed enough to be incompatible with their form of life and even less hospitable to them than Kepler-22.
- Reconstructed:
- After 800 million years of development, the Milky Way galaxy is teeming with civilizations descended from the Malachim. Earth has been recolonised a number of times, but due to the passage of time, virtually no clue remains about the various civilizations by the time modern Humans arise.
- The Malachim realize it's time to move on as a species and stop clinging to their ancestral home. A couple of them visit the Earth or even move there wearing eco-suits, but most of them begin a search for a more suitable planet, perhaps even with human help.
- Played For Laughs: The Malachim return to Earth after millions of years and act like snotty suburbanites absolutely disgusted by the humans' "landscaping."
- Played For Drama: The Malachim must return to Earth or face extinction, but there isn't enough resources for both humans and Malchim, and their preferred environments are completely incompatible. The conflict over Earth thus presents a bleak situation with no one clearly in the right and no easy solution available.
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