ALIEN INVADERS!

A GALACTIC GUIDE TO INVASIONS

Are you itching to invade another planet? Have you ever wanted to shout “Resistance is useless”, but don’t know how to get started? You’ll be wanting our guide to alien invaders, then.

With this copy of TV Zone as your handbook, learn the easy way of bullying a planet out of its backward inhabitants, and make sure you don’t emulate the mistakes that some of your predacessors did. Whether you fancy invading Sarn for a bit of a tan, or taking over Chloris simply because your greenhouse is full, we’ll give you the low-down to getting it right. Happy hunting!

In print: the full set of 16 species-by-species guides

FAILED INVASION

DEFEATED INVASION

SUCCESSFUL INVASION

SHAPESHIFTERS – STARGATE SG-1

So who are they?
Although not mentioned by name, these heavily armoured aliens with cool helmets travelled to Earth via the Stargate in the episode Foothold. Their aim? Um, they don’t exactly say, but presumably taking over the world was on the list somewhere…

The Time, the Place?
Earth, the present day.

So what happened?
Why bother coming up with a new and original invasion plan, when you can use the same one everyone else uses? With clever technology, it’s pretty simple for your average alien aggressor to disguise himself as a human and infiltrate his enemies. There are usually two reasons for this seemingly flawless strategy to fail.

Firstly, most aliens don’t know how to act human and give themselves away by behaving in a suspicious manner. Secondly, they get confused as to who’s impersonating who, leading to a ‘humans pretending to be aliens pretending to be humans’ situation. The aliens in Foothold were guilty of both of these elementary mistakes and were quickly sent packing by Colonel O’Neill and friends.

Lessons to be learned:
If you want to replace humans with impostors, always make sure you kill the originals. Otherwise they’ll turn up again and spoil everything.

Overall rating:
Not good, but some of the aliens did escape back through the Stargate, and will possibly try again some day. A little more thought next time, perhaps?

GIANT BLANCMANGES – MONTY PYTHON

So who are they?
Giant tennis playing Blancmanges from the planet Skyron in the Galaxy of Andromeda.

The Time, the Place?
Earth, the mid 1970s.

So what happened?
These mutated dessert dishes had one desire above all others: they wanted to win the Wimbledon tennis tournament. To this end, they adopted a simple strategy. Reasoning that all Scotsmen were useless at playing tennis, the Blancmanges began the mammoth task of turning the world’s population into kilt-wearing bagpipe players.

At first it was just one or two people a week, but very soon the streets of England became ‘desserted’ (sorry) as everyone headed North. Despite holding 72 Championship points, the Blancmanges were unable to complete their victory, as they were all eaten by Mr and Mrs Brainsample, who had made the blancmanges in the first place.

Lessons to be learned:
Turning everyone into Scotsmen was rather unnecessary, as everyone knows that the English are just as useless at tennis. Also, being edible can seriously damage your invasion prospects.

Overall rating:
The survivors were taken into custardy.

THE TAELONS – EARTH: FINAL CONFLICT

So who are they?
Bald androgynous aliens with lots of clever technology.

Known associates:
The evil Ronald Sandoval and other humans conditioned to serve the Taelons as ‘Companions’.

The Time, the Place?
Earth, early 21st Century.

So what happened?
Ah, now this is clever. The Taelons pretended to be a friend to humanity, offering to feed the hungry and cure the sick, while secretly conducting experiments on people. The Taelons who have found themselves unable to reproduce, (what with being androgynous and all) attempted to use the humans in their war against the Jaridians. As to whether the Taelons will ultimately succeed, who can tell, but it’s going quite well so far…

Lessons to be learned:
Planets tend to offer a lot less resistance to invasion, if they don’t know they’re being invaded. So don’t tell them. (Disclaimer: This might not work.)

Overall rating:
Well done those guys, keep it up!

Compiled by Invasion Overlord Tom Spilsbury

© Visual Imagination Ltd 2000. Not for reproduction