I didn't think I'd have to deal with this but it looks like I will. My WIP revolves around aliens from a parallel universe getting trapped in our world and now I have to find a way to explain how some of them, background characters mostly, got legitimate scientific and academic credentials here, without having to resort to things like "they killed people and took their identities". They have the skills, they have the knowledge, but without requiring them to have gone to college and gotten degrees, I need to have them in respectable scientific and academic professions without having those experiences. Ideas?
You see stories from time to time about people in certain professions who claim they had a degree or license when they were applying for a job, got the job, and then turned out later to have been lying. Maybe for some of them, the place they're working never followed up with the academic institutions to ensure the degrees were real.
We're talking about people who are actual academics, university professors and the like. Their degrees have to stand up to scrutiny.
What powers/technology do the aliens have? Could they hack into the computer systems of the various institutions and enter themselves?
This. I would invoke Clarke's third law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Whenever thinking about how would one circumvent some technology, just always think back a little bit. Could modern humans infiltrate the elite academic circle of Ancient Rome? Oh, it'd be no problem because there record keeping was primitive and we have lots of advanced technologies they couldn't imagine? Yeah... that's only about 2000 years ago, space is waaaaay older. Why would the alien even have to know? I'd suggest their technology could just do it for them. I imagine an alien walking into the command room of their spacecraft. "Hey, uh master computer..." "Yes?" "Can you hack into the human information network and set me up? I want to teach at Harvard." "Done." "You're creating physical stuff too?" "A trillion nanobots are on their way." "How well have we mapped the human brain?" "Completely, they're very subjective creatures; shall I inject memories of you into some of the other academics?" "Yes, yes, do that too." "Very well, you now have friends who've known you for 40 years. Shall I teleport you to your office at Harvard where humans think you've worked since retiring form NASA now?"
Unfortunately, it's not a matter of using technology, it's a bunch of biologists who get trapped in our universe, unable to return to their own and have to make their own lives here.
Does it have to be completely secret? If they have knowledge we don't, they could probably demonstrate it and be granted degrees in return for research assistance. Think of when Scotty showed how to make transparent aluminum. Had he taken that to MIT, I'm sure something could have been arranged.
I don't know. Honestly, it doesn't matter much to the story, I don't feel the need to justify it on the page, I just want to know how it could have happened because inevitably, I will get that question and want to have an answer. Maybe it doesn't matter. Thanks all.
Think Coneheads, they were from "France". Forgery for the documents, Universities no longer in existence and countries where the government has been overthrown and no records exist.
The aliens could hire an immigration lawyer and apply for a visa, there is a visa category for "alien" scientists, they must provide proof of their academic credentials and reputation in the scientific community to the satisfaction of an immigration officer.
Read Agent to the Stars by John Scalzi. It's available as a free, legit online novel from the author here.
Two. https://www.migrationsverket.se/English/Private-individuals.html https://migri.fi/en/home?p_p_id=missinglanguageversionnotification_WAR_languageversiontoolportlet&_missinglanguageversionnotification_WAR_languageversiontoolportlet_missingLanguageVersion=1 That's how they can get any papers they want and they don't need to proof anything. If you are 38-45 years old, you can get papers that tell that you are 14. No problems.
The idea is that the papers will stand up to significant scrutiny, that they will pass in-depth background checks going back as far as they want to go.
Either these aliens have some sort of technological advantage, or they come from a place so similar to Earth that they can pull the same tricks people here do. If neither is true, they will be caught in a week. Here in the real world plenty of people are in jobs that they lied their way into. The fact that most of us believe it is too difficult and dangerous to lie like that is why we are always surprised when people get away with it.
Not.... allowed.... to post politics..... outside of the Debate Room (and to be clear, that's a joke about me, not any sort of caution towards you, @Fallow )