Aliens Made Them Do It

Tropes and genres
Related tropes/genres	Fuck or Die, Sex Pollen, Non-Con, Rapefic
See also	Plot Coupon
Related articles on Fanlore.

And by 'it' we mean have sex. With each other. Sometimes the aliens are threatening them with death and/or violence, and sometimes the characters are trying for diplomatic or economic reasons to please the aliens or not to offend them. A frequent version has the characters accidentally or unwillingly taking part in a ritual as part of the aliens' religion.

Stories where this happens approach the sex with varying degrees of seriousness. Sometimes it's a major trauma and treated as a kind of rape for both parties; sometimes the situation is played for humor and the characters later get together of their own free will.

Examples Wanted: Editors are encouraged to add more examples or a wider variety of examples.

While this plot device is distinct from Sex Pollen, there's a great deal of overlap. Generally, if Aliens Make Them Do It, the characters are not in an altered state and are both under duress, while Sex Pollen focuses on at least one character being drugged or otherwise influenced. However, several Aliens Make Them Do It (AMTDI) stories involve the aliens drugging the characters, and several Sex Pollen stories involve aliens and/or alien cultures in some way.

Examples in Canon

In Lost in Space, episode Wild Adventure, a green space lady named Lorelei (who later returns renamed Athena in another episode), woos Doctor Smith into space with a siren's call, and the Robinsons must decide whether or not to sacrifice their return to Earth in order to save him.

The original Star Trek pilot, The Cage, had a basic AMTDI plot. Pike managed to escape without sex after it was pointed out that the woman involved was not, in fact, young and beautiful.

Also in Star Trek, in an episode that is commonly but incorrectly attributed as featuring one of the first interracial kisses on television (Plato's Stepchildren), the action between Captain Kirk and Lieutenant Uhura was forced upon them because of an alien (humanoid, but off-worldly) form of mind-control. Spock and Chapel are also forced into a relationship by the same influence.

A 1971 episode of UFO (The Man Who Came Back) features astronaut Craig Collins, who returns to active duty after a UFO encounter, although there are soon signs indicating that he may be under alien influence - an early indicator of which includes his attempt to reignite a romance with Colonel Virginia Lake, wherein his uncharacteristically awkward and forceful approach causes her to not only rebuff his advances, but to openly suggest to others that he has somehow changed.

The Star Trek animated series features a 1973 episode (Lorelei Signal) where space sirens (a planet full of women who lack companions and love) cause the entire male Enterprise crew to fall in love with them. Uhura leads the female-crewed rescue mission.

The Space: 1999 episode "One Moment of Humanity" (1976) features a storyline in which aliens and humanoid robots manipulate Helena and John into situations of foreplay and seduction in order to arouse their negative emotions of jealousy and anger.

In the two-part episode of the short-lived SF comedy series, Quark, (All the Emperor's Quasi-Norms, 1978), crewman Ficus sacrifices himself by undergoing romance, pollination and marriage with alien Princess Libido in order to save the crew.

The movie Star Trek 5: The Final Frontier (1989) shows Uhura, under the mind-control influence of the Vulcan Sybok, expressing romantic feelings towards Scotty.

In Babylon 5, in the second-season episode called Acts of Sacrifice (1995), Susan Ivanova is asked to do 'whatever is necessary' to ensure the agreement of an alien ambassador, only to discover that he requires an alien experience of mating with a human in order to secure the agreement. She uses his ignorance of human biology to trick him into not having sex with her.

In The Orville, the opening episode (2017) establishes that Ed Mercer divorces his wife Kelly after he discovers her having a relationship with an alien - but then circumstances throw them together again within a working relationship on board his spaceship, the Orville. A few episodes later, they are both reunited with the alien, whose sex hormones cause Ed to also fall in love/lust with him.

Isaac Asimov's short story "What Is This Thing Called Love?" (written for Playboy) involves single-sex aliens who have abducted a human couple to study their mating act. In an inversion of the trope, the aliens are unable to actually Make Them Do It, but after the aliens have left, the humans do it anyway.

In Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern series, when dragons mate their human bondmates are compelled to mate as well. A similar arrangement occurs in Sarah Monette and Elizabeth Bear's A Companion to Wolves. This could be considered AMTDI or a variant of sex pollen.

Fandom Reaction

Versions of this story trope have been around since pon farr in Star Trek, with a noticeable increase in popularity since the reboot movie was released.

The trope became incredibly common in Stargate Atlantis fic. In response to the increasingly clichéd use of this plot device, stories have been written where aliens pointedly don't make them do it, or wherein characters comment on the endless fertility rituals to which they're subjected, where the aliens force them to do other things instead, where the aliens theatrically show them how they could be doing it, or where the characters somehow make the aliens have sex instead.

While the trope remains popular, some fans object to a perceived racism in the unexamined use of generic "primitive tribes" and "fertility rituals" as plot devices. This is part of a larger issue with how science fiction and fantasy fandoms, in particular Stargate Atlantis, depict alien cultures in fanfic. In SGA, the "Aliens" in question are nearly always humans in the Pegasus galaxy, who both canon and fandom often portray as othered from the main characters from Earth. (find examples of discussions)^{[citation needed]}

Examples Fanworks

• "Another Mountain to Climb" by Carolyn McTarrell in Naked Times #14, Star Trek: TOS. An imprisoned Kirk and Chapel are rescued only after being forced to have sex, and now Kirk must deal with what this will do to his and Spockʼs budding romance. (1987)
• "Two's Company" by Susan Humphries in Duet #19, Star Trek: TOS. captured and drugged, Spock is unable to resist when he and Kirk are forced to have sex with an alien ruler, but all are surprised when the woman is not the object of his affections. (1988)
• Hanging Like Bricks Don't by minglingcrab: an example of this trope in a distinctly non-scifi fandom (American Idol RPF), in which Kris and Adam are abducted for purely academic reasons (there's a research grant at stake). (2010)
• Extenuating Circumstances by rallamajoop. The xxxHolic version of Aliens Made Them Do It is "Spirits Made Them Do It." (2007)
• Mating Rituals in the Pegasus Galaxy by thefourthvine. Stargate Atlantis, McKay/Sheppard. Charitable aliens are determined to solve the Pegasus Galaxy's underpopulation problem. Using all the clichés in the book, and special jello.
• The Art of the Deal by thefourthvine. Stargate SG1, gen. "We are big or major fanatics of your Earthian artistes," eight-eyes said. "We would so like to view a skilled performance of your great Earthian art in person. In fact, it is why we have contactualized you." (2005)
• The Sound of Wind Chimes by Sarah Stegall caused a lot of controversy back in the day in X-Files fandom (written in 1993, posten in 1994)
• Hold Hands and Try to Look Sincere by minervacat. Stargate Atlantis, John/Rodney

Resources

• Fanworks tagged "Aliens Make Them Do It" at Archive of Our Own
• SG-1 - Thematic List of 74 AMTDI Jack/Daniel stories. (last updated 6/2009)
• SGA - The Ultimate "Aliens Made Them Do It" List, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5! by ellex42 of John Sheppard/Rodney McKay fics (9/2005 - 1/2007)
• SGA - Aliens Made Them Do It tag at Crossroads SGA slash fic index site