Advanced aliens didn't invent/discover this one basic thing.

[u/HotUKTakes]

1. The Santi, from The Three Body Problem, are masters of dimensional engineering. They can build an AI computer the size of a planet, and fold it into the size of a photon.

But they never invented the concept of lying.

1. The Asgard, from Stargate, are an advanced civilization with FTL travel capable of spanning different galaxies. But they need the help of humans to fight their enemies the replicators, a mechanical lifeform comprised of replicating lego blocks, because human guns can blow the blocks apart, while Asgard energy weapons are just absorbed.

The Asgard say the idea to use chemical reactions to launch a blunt object at high velocity never occured to them.

1. Despite having the ability to build a simulated beach, complete with simulated earth atmosphere, The Eridians didn't discover relativity and radiation.

2. The aliens from War of the worlds just lick everything, clearly having no concepts of germs. Which is what kills them in the end.

3. Despite having FTL travel, the Havesters from Independence day, never invented network security, as they are hacked by a human macbook.

[u/Glass-Pomegranate724]

War of the worlds makes sense, as they're from Mars apparently. The martian surface is bathed in UV radiation and will quickly kill any bacteria. The Martians must live underground in quasi-sterile environments with bacteria that was never a threat to them biologically. Pretty much everything in their cave, home, or tripod would be in a symbiotic relationship to survive in that environment.

Come to Earth, our fuzzy wet rock and pretty much every square inch has another colony of completely novel bacteria to them. It makes sense they never thought about bacteria being hostile.

[u/Super_XIII → u/Glass-Pomegranate724]

Yeah, and I believe it was explained that the Martians knew what bacteria was, but on their homeworld had eradicated illness so long ago that they basically didn't even have immune systems anymore. the concept of Earth being not just covered in bacteria, but the bacteria also being capable of killing people was foreign to them and something they never thought of.

[u/teknojo → u/Super_XIII]

So they were essentially natural anti-vaxers. As with them, they forgot what illness is and looks like, to their detriment.

[u/Glass-Pomegranate724 → u/teknojo]

They were technically Vax-maxxing but it went full circle as they eliminated their problems and genuinely forgot that bacteria could even be a problem.

Its the Vax-Max to Anti-Vax pipeline.

[u/bookhead714 → u/Glass-Pomegranate724]

Which is basically why being anti-vax is making such a comeback these days. We've forgotten that measles kills children.

[u/AunMeLlevaLaConcha → u/bookhead714]

The Martians probably had a very stupid fucking leader with a very evil fucking cabinet and a massive stupid population and that's how we got the invasion.

By 2026, some media plots don't seem that stupid anymore.

[u/keeper0fstories → u/Glass-Pomegranate724]

Reminds me of the Hitchhikers Guide series. Species sends everyone they think unimportant like public telephone cleaners into deep space. Species is then annihilated by disease spread on the public phones.

[u/teknojo → u/Glass-Pomegranate724]

I like your take better. :)

[u/MagentaHawk → u/Glass-Pomegranate724]

Yeah, they probably thought, "Any reasonable species will have eliminated all negative bacteria on their planet".

[u/SensitiveSyrup → u/Super_XIII]

That's not exactly accurate to the original book. Well's explains it like this:

These germs of disease have taken toll of humanity since the beginning of things... But by virtue of this natural selection of our kind we have developed resisting power... But there are no bacteria in Mars, and directly these invaders arrived, directly they drank and fed, our microscopic allies began to work their overthrow.

It's valuable to understand that Wells was originally a biologist by training. And Germ theory was a relatively new development (last 20 years or so). So the solution was rather novel and 'sci-fi' by standards of the time.

[u/rathemighty → u/Super_XIII]

I am having a hard time coming up with an equivalent. Light breeze? That's poison gas. Sunshine? That's radiation. Hmm... an outside force about which we wouldn't think twice and wouldn't be prepared for, which would then kill us on another planet... Maybe sound?

[u/Super_XIII → u/rathemighty]

I mean, the Challenger blew up because it was a bit too cold on launch day. We've made such oversights before. Sound is a good one though, and really hard to observe since sound can't travel through space, so space probes would have no way of knowing how loud or intense sound is on a planet.

[u/rathemighty → u/Super_XIII]

Yeah, but we know other planets vary in temperature, so we'd prepare for that. It's gotta be something we wouldn't expect to be deadly on a different planet, because we brush it off as a non-issue here. That is interesting about the Challenger, though.

[u/BlueHero45 → u/Glass-Pomegranate724]

Ya they are not an interstellar race they don't actually have space ships but rather big hollow bullets they launch at earth with martians riding inside

[u/ZoidsFanatic → u/Glass-Pomegranate724]

So that’s the original WotW novel. The Martians had eradicated all diseases on their home world so their immune system essentially stopped working. Making matters worse is they don’t eat, they use blood transfusions. The “cattle” that they use is rather similar to humans in appearance, so they just assume we humans are like their cattle without taking into account viruses or bacteria.

Now the aliens in the 2005 WotW movie are just idiots. Bacteria/viruses still kill them, and they’re still using human blood, but we don’t have a proper explanation as to why they went down so fast. Or why no one ever bothered to bring an environmental suit.

[u/Glass-Pomegranate724 → u/ZoidsFanatic]

Im gonna be 1000% honest, and I alluded to it in my first post.

For 27 years of my life I thought War of the Worlds: The Book and War of the Worlds: The Movie were COMPLETELY different with loose tie ins and nods and suggestions to War of The Worlds... imagine my surprise like two weeks ago when I found out.

[u/peepmet → u/Glass-Pomegranate724]

No offense my dude but you're overthinking it. The whole book is a an allegory against Imperialism and the whole "aliens dying from disease" thing was inspired by Europeans dying like flies in the tropics.

[u/ProfessorSur → u/peepmet]

I mean, why can’t it be both? It can serve as an allegory in the meta sense, and the bacteria angle can serve as the in-universe lore explanation.

[u/Serbia_X_AlbaniaLOVE → u/peepmet]

It’s about cool vampire aliens actually 

[u/BoonDragoon → u/peepmet]

Had to scroll pretty far to find a competent literary analysis of a 130 year old book

[u/NickTM → u/BoonDragoon]

Neither are incompetent literary analyses, they're just from different perspectives. Watsonian vs Doylist.

[u/Beacon_0805 → u/Glass-Pomegranate724]

so like, Quarians but ugly

[u/patchyj → u/Glass-Pomegranate724]

Still though - guys, send an advance scouting party of something?! Or a drone to collect samples maybe

[u/Grug16 → u/patchyj]

The Martians' belief in their absolute superiority is the whole point of the book. Why would they be cautious when there's no way they could possibly lose against inferior life forms?