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While we wait for V8, I thought it would be fun to guess at the motives behind the alien invasion. I'll give my somewhat serious answer to start, as I'm sure there will plenty of amusing theories. First, we can take a look at what little we already know and draw some conclusions. They are obviously highly advanced, having presumably mastered FTL speed and interplanetary travel, as well as a host of other futuristic technology. Therefore, I doubt there is anything resource or technology wise they want from us (but I wouldn't rule out the possibility.) They are obviously warlike. Either they don't do diplomacy, or don't think that it's worth it with humans. There are some interesting possibilities depending on which one it is. Maybe they have a culture that favors war to settle disputes, or they don't negotiate with us, because they see humans as mere bugs. They may have highly limited resources, or are in a state of distress in which case invading Earth may have been a last resort. Otherwise, I think they'd launch a War of the Worlds style invasion (leading to a very short game ) Because they are in a low scale war with us, it might suggest they are incapable of a grander operation, or the smaller operations benefit some other motive. They see us as a potential threat to them or their long term goals, necessitating an armed response. Either they want to prevent us from challenging them in space one day, or they want our planet and don't want us on it. Here are some other factors to consider: the Rare Earth hypothesis (habitable planets are extremely rare, and may be the most valuable resource in the universe to spacefaring civilizations). The Drake equation, which attempts to estimate how many advanced races may exist (in my experience, it would suggest a lot) and Stephen Hawking's belief that if an alien race visited Earth, it would likely want to take it over. My guess: The invaders represent a small portion of a considerably populated galaxy, with depleting resources and almost no uninhabited Earth-like planets to move to. An alien astronomer gets lucky, sees the Earth on the outskirts of one of the Milky Way's spiral arms, informs their superior, which kicks off an invasion to grab the prime real estate before anyone else. Considering their tech level, they have no qualms invading us because to them, we're semi-intelligent apes (which I guess is pretty accurate ) And they are trying to invade us quietly, because a large scale invasion could tip other races off to their plans and they want to keep the Earth a secret and all to themselves.