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One of the many books I plan to write is one about aliens invading a medieval nation like England or France but peacefully enough to help one nation wage war against another rather than all nations combining to fight off the alien threat. But would that be wholly realistic?
I know I'm missing something crucial here - I just don't know what it is.

At the first UFO sighting I imagine a pope or an archbishop looking up into the crimson sky and praising the arrival of an auld saint shining brilliantly until the flaming ball smacks the palatial cathedral and seven generations of stonemason back sweat is tossed into the pisspot when all the holy, hand-carved blocks of the archbishopric collapse into dusty heaps. In outrage, knights of the shire ride out to attack "the slimy purple men whose blood is orange and thick like Bertha's marmalade."

The realistic medieval universe the alien invasion will be happening in relishes in its unique affection, yea, affection for detail; 'cus forget attention when shimmering swords are slicing through alien extremities, causing horrendous screams to cascade from hamlet to hamlet - news of a bizarre invasion is spreading! Will the king call off his war to deal with the new threat in his homeland or will he cower like the cat who let its kitten freeze in the cold when there was only enough room in the bolthole for one? How would this alien landing in a generic medieval-land go down?

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  • $\begingroup$ Reminder to Close Voters: The OP can't fix prolems if he is not aware of them. Please give completely new users some feedback when voting to temporarily put their question on hold. @FantasyFan: If 5 community members vote accordingly your question may be put on hold until you edited it to fit the sites guidelines as shown in the tour and the help center. If that happens any edit from you automatically sends it to a reopen review queue where it takes 5 other members to reopen. $\endgroup$
    – Secespitus
    Commented Jan 4, 2018 at 8:38
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    $\begingroup$ If you reworded your title to something that shows that you care about "How would kings in the medieval age react to a threat in their country while fighting an external war" this should be easily answerable by looking at historic examples. Currently you have some keywords that make me think about this being opinion-based - "How would they react to aliens?" is entirely subjective and depends on your characters. Which means we can't objectively compare answers against each other, so it should be closed. It takes some time to get used to the site. BTW: I like your writing style. Have fun! $\endgroup$
    – Secespitus
    Commented Jan 4, 2018 at 8:39
  • $\begingroup$ As realistic as the OP wishes it to be, as far as I know we have no idea about the looks and bearings of a "realistic" alien. They could be anything from wise and loving, to rednecks out of space. Also, why would they need to crash-land on Earth, rather than try and gently descend from the sky? $\endgroup$
    – NofP
    Commented Jan 4, 2018 at 9:41
  • $\begingroup$ @NofP I read the fireball destroying the cathedral as an alien weapon in action not a spacecraft crashlanding. $\endgroup$
    – a4android
    Commented Jan 4, 2018 at 11:31
  • $\begingroup$ There's an episode in Star Trek (original) that's essentially this: the Federation and the Klingon Empire fight a proxy war on a primitive world, each space empire giving "their" side stronger and stronger firearms. "What if the Klingons give them phasers?" "THEN WE'LL GIVE OUR GUYS PHASERS!" $\endgroup$
    – Azuaron
    Commented Jan 4, 2018 at 13:17

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First of all, if the aliens are indeed powerful enough to traverse solar systems, they probably will have technology powerful enough to achieve their goal without ever revealing their existence to humans. If they wanted to destroy a town, country or similiar, they would simply manipulate the forces of nature or even drop a guided asteroid to the target location. If the target is near enough a large body of water they could create an artificial tsunami to wipe it out.

It would be fairly unwise for aliens to descend down and create contact with humans. Why? Bacteria and microbes. They'd risk wiping out both themselves and the humans by simple infections that their immune system would not be familiar with. Of course, the aliens might adapt quickly with their technology but they can never be 100% safe. Not to mention, it would be another unnecessary waste of resources.

If however you truly insist on mutual contact, the humans would probably create or modify a religion because of aliens. You'd see a lot of murals being painted, books being wrote about these "angelic" visitors and "messengers of God", churches being built in their name with painted glass windows picturing the first contact etc. If they truly came to assist a country, that country will do everything in it's power to make the people believe the aliens are awesome.

not-so-soon, the aliens influence and popularity would spread, more so because the victors write history and the aliens would be looked up to as gods.

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