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Where are the real aliens in Oblivion? Surely with the TET destroyed they'll be coming back. Are they on Titan?

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There never were any (bilogical) aliens at all, only the TET. The message from Titan was from the TET alone, a completely artificial entity. The TET then attacked and devastated earth in order to drain its resources. The whole story about an alien attack that is told to Jack and Victoria (and all the others) was just a staging to keep him maintaining the drones and stay away from the remaining human resistance, which he thought to be the alien scavengers. The TET is the "real alien" for that matter.

As to the question who in turn created the TET (and maybe this is what you actually meant with the question). This is never adressed in the movie at all and neither are we supposed to know anything about it. All we are supposed to know is the TET alone and the fact that we don't have any background information about it adds to a large degree to its fascination. It is a completely autonomous entity appearing out of nowhere, a living machine and thus not any less "real" than you and me.

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    Then the question arises Who made TET?
    – Mistu4u
    Commented Aug 11, 2013 at 15:20
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    @Mistu4u Indeed, yet that's a question never answered in the movie, which makes the TET even more mysterious. ;)
    – Napoleon Wilson
    Commented Aug 11, 2013 at 16:51
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    To your comprehensive answer I'd just like to add that the TET in itself was "the alien". It went from planet to planet, depleting its resources to energize and fuel itself.
    – Sayan
    Commented Sep 2, 2013 at 10:57
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The director Joseph Korsinski answers the question in the link below. Basically he explains that the distance from the Tet's unknown solar system/star to Earth is so vast its unlikely that a living being could make the journey. Therefor an unmanned vehicle was more likely. It took the Odyssey at least 39 days to reach the Tet (in our own solar system) and the crew needed to be sleeping to complete that journey. Logically, I was also thinking whatever intelligence created the Tet and sent it unmanned to take over a whole planet, clone humans and design and build outpost on Earth, must have the capability to send backup. The Tet by any planetary standards appears to be very important and very expensive. It appeared to be on a mining mission. However based on the directors answer and Morgan Freeman's monologue around 1hr and 32 mins into the movie the Tet may be just be a digital community or single entity. Think the Matrix learns space travel. Which might make a nice prequel. I wonder if the Odyssey was on a mission to learn how to exploit Saturn's resources?

Check out http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Oblivion-Spoilers-Director-Joseph-Kosinski-Answers-Your-Burning-Questions-37271.html

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Simply put, Tet made an environmentally compliant invasion force of simple-minded (and presumably cheap) "Army" Jacks and unleashed them after the moon was destroyed.

Phase II involved hunting dedicated survivors and protecting the hydrogen convertrers, which required more advanced and creative Jack Clones to keep the more deadly and resource-intensive drones online.

Tet probably had a learning curve to deal with the more advanced Jacks and used companionship, sex, and the "Scav" deception to keep these newer Jacks compliant.

Whatever created Tet never invaded earth. Tet is a giant military drone that used human clones as bullets.

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From my post below: The thought was that the AI (Artificial Intelligence) theory was from another world of humans where the TET evolved from, humans ahead that of earth time. Earth obviously would be decades away from AI in 2017, a plausible prequel/sequel. These aliens were not of organic matter, they're obviously machines. Therefore, they know humans and know how to clone them. Then use the clones to do their cheap labor. Apparently, it's cheaper to make humans than create drone repairman. It seemed that the TET was limited in making parts to repair their broken down drones as Vika was told by the TET rep.  The TET has diminishing resources and therefore all the Jacks and Vikas were created from 'local resources' to continue the ops. Just my opinion.

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  • Apart from the fact that this still entirely speculative, it would have been better to add this information into your existing answer instead of making a new one and leaving the existing answer in an incomplete state. By clicking the "edit" link under the answer you can always edit your posts at any time.
    – Napoleon Wilson
    Commented May 15, 2014 at 8:04
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Thanks for the lesson Napoleon, hard to post on a smart phone. However, as spelative as it is, you've got to say it's plausible, but I see you didn't want to focus on that. The antithesis is the fact they know the language, mathematics (numbers) as we know it. Therefore, they knew because of Vica and Jack or during the invasion. They're so advanced they had to resort to primative means to attack and failed.

The thought was that the AI (Artificial Intelligence) theory was from another world of humans where the TET evolved from, humans ahead that of earth time. Earth obviously would be decades away from AI in 2017, a plausible prequel/sequel. These aliens were not of organic matter, they're obviously machines. Therefore, they know humans and know how to clone them. Then use the clones to do their cheap labor. Apparently, it's cheaper to make humans than create drone repairman. It seemed that the TET was limited in making parts to repair their broken down drones as Vika was told by the TET rep. The TET has diminishing resources and therefore all the Jacks and Vikas were created from 'local resources' to continue the ops. Just my opinion.

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  • So the wheels have turned, humans create machines, machines create humans, humans come back and destroy machines, what a story line, huh. Sort of Jurassic Parkish. I really like the movie. The thought that despite the mandatory memory wipe, it couldn't totally wipe the human consciousness and memories.
    – user9614
    Commented May 15, 2014 at 19:53
  • Are you actually the same user as Noah G and have you posted yet another (3rd) answer instead of just improving your original answer? If yes, then you might want to merge your accounts and take a further look at the Tour to see how this site works. If you are not the same person, then you might want to at least remove the otherwise confusing direct adressing in the first paragraph.
    – Napoleon Wilson
    Commented May 15, 2014 at 20:46
  • Hi - Yes this isn't a forum where the posts stay in the correct order, so its a bit confusing referring to "Napoleon" here. You're contribution is very welcome, but please register for an account so you can appear to be the same user.
    – iandotkelly ♦
    Commented May 15, 2014 at 21:12
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I'm supposing the TET is AI Artificial intelligence. Humans creation that became it's final invention. Using human clones to control it's own species.

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    Nope. The TET clearly came from somewhere else as the humans had no idea what it was, which lead the team onboard the Odyssey to try and find out. Watch the movie again :)
    – Tom
    Commented May 14, 2014 at 9:45

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