SO, obviously one of the planks of a good RPG is the faction system.

 

Right, so in an Alien setting, we can have a couple of factions of people, sure, and then the Xenomorphs on the other side, right?

 

What about having a couple of different Xenomorph factions?

 

Just like ants and termites, or even red and black ants, when two different types get together it is an ancient blood feud. This could be handled similarly to the Demons/Devils in DnD, of course, but I think it adds some interesting potential for the player ... dare I say there might be a Xeno queen with a less-than-total-ethnic-clensing opinion of the humans (maybe as food, like humans keep cattle, or just reproduction: perhaps people are a better medium for the Xenomorphs); and perhaps another competing queen who has a different view.

 

I dunno if this has been covered in the comics as I don't read them.

It's a stupid idea. Humans are food. Full stop.

 

Although the workings of Alien society should definately be explored. The interdependence and competetiveness as well as the strict behavioral codes that drive insect societies are fascinating.

 

I can think of several interesting chains of events that might be interesting in the Alien context.

 

 

Africanised honey bees hatch faster than European bees, and so their queens are able to canibalise any other queen cells thus eliminating the competition. Much like shark fetuses eating eachother while still in the womb.

 

A virus turns spanish honey bees into individualists, as it negates the effects of the queen phermone which is what keeps the colony together. Without it the bees get more and more lazy and eventually just feed themselves, and the colony slowly dies out.

 

The movement of ants as one entity, grouping together tigthly enough to float on water while protecting their eggs, or serving as their own bridge over hard to cross areas. more closely coordinated than any human army company.

 

The swarming of millions of termite males over the span of a few days.. ect ect.

 

Rather than having red Alien vs Black Alien, have the plot revolve around a hive event. As being able to grasp the finer points of Alien politics might be a little much to expect, and to be able to pull off.

Edited June 7, 200718 yr by Gorgon

Yes!

 

You've shown me the way. Now, to learn modding.

 

Oh good God. Don't make me get out my "I hate Vincent Ward" frame of mind.

 

Stick to the very original Alien 3 if we're doing that. Aliens 2. Far better.

It's a stupid idea. Humans are food. Full stop.

I never said anything about humans. I was talking about different factions of xenomorphs.

 

-- READING COMPREHENSION -1 --

Although the workings of Alien society should definately be explored. The interdependence and competetiveness as well as the strict behavioral codes that drive insect societies are fascinating.

 

I can think of several interesting chains of events that might be interesting in the Alien context.

 

 

Africanised honey bees hatch faster than European bees, and so their queens are able to canibalise any other queen cells thus eliminating the competition. Much like shark fetuses eating eachother while still in the womb.

 

A virus turns spanish honey bees into individualists, as it negates the effects of the queen phermone which is what keeps the colony together. Without it the bees get more and more lazy and eventually just feed themselves, and the colony slowly dies out.

 

The movement of ants as one entity, grouping together tigthly enough to float on water while protecting their eggs, or serving as their own bridge over hard to cross areas. more closely coordinated than any human army company.

 

The swarming of millions of termite males over the span of a few days.. ect ect.

 

Rather than having red Alien vs Black Alien, have the plot revolve around a hive event. As being able to grasp the finer points of Alien politics might be a little much to expect, and to be able to pull off.

Now you're getting it.

 

My intention was to add some depth to the Alien role; rather than just being one (hoard of) Big Bad

You did say

dare I say there might be a Xeno queen with a less-than-total-ethnic-clensing opinion of the humans

however.

 

Okay people, you do not manipulate aliens. You don't play them against each other. These Aliens are not idiots, in fact they are smarter than you. If you try playing them against each other, they'll realize it, kill you even quicker, then go about their lives as if you'd never existed. If you infect them with something in an attempt to alter the politics of the hive, only one will become infected (who will not be anyone important in the hive), the rest will be mysteriously immune, they'll kill you and then once again go on about their lives as if you'd never existed.

 

Here's the lowdown. Unless there is an explicit weakness mentioned and exploitable in the movies, they don't have it. And even if they do, the movies are somehow, in some way, probably wrong about it. Maybe the Aliens were tricking people, who knows. It's what makes them the ULTIMATE killing machines.

 

You don't kill all the aliens and then throw a parade. You run like hell to the nearest ship, fly away, nuke them from orbit, and they still get to kill you on your way home.

Edited June 8, 200718 yr by Tale

Well, that might be true. I doubt it, though.

 

Firstly, it's really boring. No, really. (One of the best scenes in any of the Alien films is when Ripley is confronted by the xenomorph in Alien

Adding in weaknesses and such is just trivializing them. The big thing about them is that they're a giant unbeatable threat that can wipe out all of humanity. You start taking away from that and they end up being little more than sewer crocodiles. Ash calls them "perfect" and "survivors." Bishop merely calls them "fascinating," but Ripley iterates "IF JUST ONE OF THOSE THINGS GETS DOWN HERE..." Alien3 has one surviving molten lead. Resurrection shows us that an attempt to control them will backfire. They have two weaknesses, nukes and armor piercing bullets and that's all they need.

 

Weaknesses only lead to trialization with time. They have dimensions, but a weakness needn't be one of them. Intelligent, strong, adaptive, tactical, mysterious are all dimensions to examine them under.

 

Saying that them being supernatural killers doesn't have much scope is like saying the movies have no character development. These are creatures capable of wiping out humanity and everyone with a military or money wants one. The drama of Aliens comes in having to deal with other people who will sell you out amd risk everyone's life in order to get one.

 

I have to wonder, could that be what Ash meant by "purity?"

Edited June 8, 200718 yr by Tale

'They don't eat, apparently; they gain sustenance from electromagnetic fields'.

 

ehh ?. Any biological entity needs energy. The bioelectrical fields produced by brain and muscle activity can't possibly be converted into protein. I seems more logical to me to assume that they are simply efficient in consumption as in everything else. A crockedile can survive 6 months to a year without eating anything. It's efficiency comes from being geared toward bursts of energy consumption followed by periods of minimal usage.

 

 

I seem to recall the dog Alien in Alien 3 feeding, and one in resurrection as well.

 

I still don't like the notion of different Alien queens have differing philosophes regarding the human species. In a sense this approach was tested in Mark Verheiden/Denis Beauvais' Alien series. Alien resurrection owes a lot of it's premise to this series. In it a maveric colonel attempts to field a platoon of Alien wariors in an attempt to take back earth which has been colonised by Aliens.

 

On one hand you have the elaborate plans to behaviorally modify the Alien species, and on the other you have Murphy's law, and the ultimate Darwinian survivor. The Aliens show themselves to be every bit as effective as thusands of years of accumulated technology, and resist any attempt to divide their motivation.

 

 

In Kelly Jone's Alien Hive a dying scientist comes up with a daring plan to steal a quantity of queen extract which enables one to enter a dream-like meditative state where seconds seem like years. To pull this off he employs a professional thief and a cybernetic Alien, as well as all his knowledge of Alien society. On top of this he has to fend off a crew of mercenaries intent on robbing him of his prize. If you get just one Alien comic, get this one.

Edited June 9, 200718 yr by metadigital

'They don't eat, apparently; they gain sustenance from electromagnetic fields'.

 

ehh ?. Any biological entity needs energy. The bioelectrical fields produced by brain and muscle activity can't possibly be converted into protein. I seems more logical to me to assume that they are simply efficient in consumption as in everything else. A crockedile can survive 6 months to a year without eating anything. It's efficiency comes from being geared toward bursts of energy consumption followed by periods of minimal usage.

 

 

I seem to recall the dog Alien in Alien 3 feeding, and one in resurrection as well.

I can't claim any knowledge apart from the films, and I beleive the third film had the doggie eating things ... or at least mauling them to death. I was acting on intel from the Walsh:

The basic problem with teh alien is that they're just damned tough. They don't eat and they don't breathe. They derive energy trhough sympathetic electrical currents. This is why they ahve acid for blood. They're bloodthirsty coppertops. Then they have an inert exoskeleton made from (if memory serves) silicon. Combine that inert skin with the fact that they don't ingest or respire and chemicals just wash right off. the only way to get them is to physically dismember them.

 

The facehuggers are probably the most important phase in their lifecycel to target and may be more vulnerable.

So, even using this description, if the electric currents could be interrupted, then we might be able to disorient / immobilize / kill the xenomorph ...

Two particles of unlike (or like) charge, at rest, attract (or repel) each other with an electric force that is proportional to their product of their electric charges divided by the square of their separation.

stationary electric charges ⇒ electric forces

[quote name='Hans Christian Oersted / Andr

They're uncomplicated. That's what makes them pure.

and here I thought that Aliens could be burned down by flamethrowers.

and here I thought that Aliens could be burned down by flamethrowers.

I've been curious about that. We see people using flamethrowers, but the only thing we see affected by them are eggs and facehuggers.

The amniotic fluid (plus the amnion) and the facehugger are all probably highly flammable. I imagine the imago stage is a lot more resilient (Silicon being "less reactive than its chemical analog carbon").

 

How do we know that the xenomorphs are susceptible to nuclear radiation? There's not a lot that could survive the blast waves of a nuclear explosion, but that's just brute force. My point is that this doesn't mean that they couldn't survive long-term in a nuclear detonation zone. So we could have a post-apoc setting ...

It would be odd for such powerful and highly evolved creatures to be too vulnerable to something as common as fire in their adult phase. A bit like Martians and bacteria, or triffids and water.

I always enjoyed the Alien movies, but I think the Aliens idea creates an opponent too powerful for a good RPG. It's a game about winning against all odds. It's a game about surviving a few more minutes. It's Call of Cthulu on steroids.

 

I can see trying to learn more about the Aliens, meta, but I just don't see the benefit, on the story side, of accomplishing much to understand the Aliens. They must remain a mystery. We can find out useful information to use against them, but nothing that allows us to truly understand them beyond what we know already. They are killing machines who mean to destroy us. That's the extent of understanding Aliens.

 

Anything we learn about the Aliens in the game must be entirely functional (by using this device or weapon, a human might kill and Alien) or simply lead to more mystery. There must be a net mystery balance regarding Aliens at all times.

 

...And anything that anthropomorphizes them in any way is a mistake. No petty jealousy between queens. No desire for personal profit. No disagreement from the peace and freedom party. These notions and grasping desires on the part of humans was one of the things that stood in stark contrast to the Aliens in the movies. Tale is right. Aliens are pure.

I'm not sure what ideas you are responding too ... because I don't recognize any of them. In fact, I agree with just about everything you posted.

 

I never suggested there would be a political struggle between dove and hawk xenomorphs. Nor did I suggest that petty jealousy or profit would feature in their decisions.

 

One ant colony doesn't want to hoard gold, minerals or even food: they just want to thrive and out-populate any rival life, whether that life is animal, vegetable, something else or even other Hymenoptera Formicid

I probably wasn't expressing myself well. I don't think we should "terrestrialize" the Aliens any more than we should anthropomorphize them. The point being that the writers should not spend time trying to develop the Aliens as characters or even the Alien character. The Aliens aren't characters. They present an environmental factor. Anything to delves far beyond the idea that the Aliens are going to kill everyone and create more Aliens detracts from the story. Thinking of the Aliens as oversized ants with acid blood not only overcomplicates their role in the human drama, but it is an insult to Aliens everywhere. ...And ants. The Aliens must not be a faction and must not have factions. The air might have different characteristics, but it doesn't have factions and we're fools to think it does.

 

Frankly, I think there's an argument to be made that the Aliens are no more alive than a fire or a virus.

 

I guess, if we boil it down to the bare facts, I don't disagree with your notion that there might be something more to the Aliens than killing and mayhem, although I think that pollutes their purity, but I completely disagree as regards to counting them as a faction and vehemently disagree with the notion of creating separate factions within the Aliens.

But why?

It cheapens the Aliens. The more we understand the Aliens, the less terrifying they are.

so

 

 

Aliens=Borg?

If that's what you want, I say go for it. It's certainly not what I want in Aliens. I just hope we have sufficient warning about this so I'll know to avoid purchase.

Flamethrowers are used against the adult aliens in practically all the movies, and yet one survies being immersed in molten lead. I guess the jury is out on that one. Maybe they instinctively retreat from fire like any other animal even though it can't hurt them that much.

Maybe they don't like the light much, either.

If that's what you want, I say go for it. It's certainly not what I want in Aliens. I just hope we have sufficient warning about this so I'll know to avoid purchase.

actually i was referring to the fact that the borg are similar to how tale desecribes the aliens. Unstoppable killing machines that not much was known about, then in Voyager we learned a ton about them and ended up hating the borg as a villian.

Ah, I see. I never really watched enough of the new Star Trek to get much about the Borg. I saw the movie where they fought the Borg, though.

 

Anyhow, this is my day to step on toes and argue with folks, apparently, but I just think the Aliens make a more compelling character the less we know about them.

Anyhow, this is my day to step on toes and argue with folks, apparently, but I just think the Aliens make a more compelling character the less we know about them.

Yeah, you might as well bring Eldar back! >_

 

I don't have to be nice, so I can agree (sounds odd, doesn't it?), the overdone elaborations and trivialisations of horrors are bad for suspense. Once something that caused terror becomes familiar and "quantifiable", it's just a question of finding the right tool and strategy to combat it. Fear becomes less of a factor. It may be a one-shot wonder to get attention for a release: "Aliens exposed! Read all about it in todays issue!" but it makes it hard to keep up any interest afterwards. One reason why I think creating comics for popular franchises is a sucky idea.

 

Go play Starcraft instead and kill some Zergs.