Be Excellent To Each Other

Bloody hell, jihaddis have discovered how to genetic modify themselves?

I meant Jihaddis could use NV goggles to the same effect.


L-LOL

It makes parking your car a bit of a challenge though.

Not if they're working there as valets.

Which type of Alien would be best at parking cars? Drones seem a bit clumsy.

Are they Space Cars?

*Chortle*

The other things about aliens;

They're incredibly strong. Punching through reinforced doors and all that.

They have some sort of telepathy thing going on so they can happily work together to wreck your shit. They also seem to be able to hunt in the dark meaning that you can't really hide from them.

They are intelligent. Not as intelligent as suicide bombers maybe but intelligent enough to cut the power.

They've got a particularly scary way of reproducing. So once you've been gotten, things get a lot worse.

They're good at hiding despite being big things.

They have neurotoxins in their tails.

That said, I'd rate them behind Things (as in The Thing) and Terminators as things I'd most never want to run into.

Also: Predators, Proper Vampires, Zombie Hordes and Hen Parties.

The Thing is easy.

Step 1: Torch everyone and all their pets
Step 2: Have a cup of tea

That's what a Thing would say. [vote:Craster]!

::ponders:: have we had a ThingScum?

Ta. I was pleased with that one.

Keep rubbing it.

Proper Vampires are pussies, I wouldn't want to bump into an Predator while out on a stroll though.

"Oh, excuse me, I....wait, there's no-one there!"

*Dies messily*

How anybody can extrapolate that something that is that fast, strong, agile and single minded in it's approach is a pussy is wrong.

They reproduce very rapidly.

They're far far stronger than you are and they don't care about themselves.

Shoot them up close and die in the collateral damage of their acid blood.

As combat infantry they are several magnitudes better than man, even with equipment. Their tongue or tail isn't going to jam or run out of ammo.

This has a very destabilising effect on ground troops knowing that they're likely to be outnumbered by a ferocious relentless merciless animal that has no regard for it's own safety that is also stronger, faster and infinitely more ruthless than you're likely to be.

I can think of at least two instances where people are killed in Alien movies by their tongues going through the head. [edit] Dan Hedaya gets done in Resurrection by this method and I think Harry Dean Stanton does in the first movie as well.

I've watched most of them in the last six months and it's right that their power has been diminished in the films in an almost linear fashion. In the first, you have a civilian freighter crew without proper weapons dealing with a frightening entity. In the second you have a team of marines getting pwned by a horde of aliens. They really should have stopped there as by then they became too familiar.

[edit]

Both films are very careful to play with the fear of the unknown. It's human nature to have self preservation right at the top of the agenda in most conflict situations and the whole concept of the alien being so animalistic and powerful a force that has no regard for it's own wellbeing. It goes without saying that the film wouldn't work if the xenomorph didn't want to tear you apart or do nasty stuff to you, but only wanted to cuddle you.

Having said that, the deleted nest scene on the Nostromo. What use is that without a queen? Unless humans were food as well as incubators.

You're thinking of Modern Vampires, the Emo Boyfriend sort.

I'm thinking of either 30 Days of Night type vampires or the Old Castle Vampire.

Yeah, all of it.

Yeah, but they mostly come out at night, mostly.

I said "Pansy", not pussy. That was hyperbole to wind up LS and Grim....



This I'll give you, but with, say, tezzorizts they're starting from a high pool of recruits anyway.



The strength doesn't matter if you don't let them get anywhere near you, which is what guns are handy for.

Once they're up close you're as likely to die as if it were two blokes with knives in an alleyway.



top tip: Do not do this.



Granted, but enough nutters with guns, grenades, IEDs etc and this doesn't really matter.



And I thought the Marines were supposed to be tough. Tsk.



Absolutely agreed, there.

That said, in the first film it could just as easily have been the android going beserk that would cause the same problems (much stronger, faster and more intelligent than them). The alien's main shock value, for the crew, was the unknown.

As long as you're not armed, though, the Predator won't attack you*.

*I think - I've only seen the two proper films and AvP 1, though.

Yeah, they only really hunt after worthy opponents.

You're well safe Kalmar x

Chris' point is basically sound. If you give yourself 100 yards of open space between yourself and an Alien, a man with a gun is pretty well off.

Yurp.

In a labyrinthine atmosphere processing plant, of course, you're fucked. But no more than if, say, it was riddled with booby traps.

The trick is to not go in there.

SPACE GUN!


Yup, and Gollum in A³. Mr Chris said he was talking about Aliens, though, then changed his mind.

They're not particularly smart, they're a bit smarter than an average dog. The queen is smarter than most humans, though, and she can communicate with her kiddies through MAGIKS and they'll blindly follow orders, such as cutting the power.

You have fun staying in the dark.

If suppose you could have night vision (which they do show up on in most circumstances) though.

Oi meant all of them, pedant boy.


My, it's as if they've developed an analog for radio communication, which the terrorists are yet to discover. Maybe they could trade papyrus for it with their neighbours.



I'm outside. I have a torch. And a motion tracker. And NV goggles. And a SPACE GUN.

Also, I go back to my spaceship until it's daylight again.



They would absolutely show up on any light ampification system. No idea if thermal works with them though.

This is from Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson:

Well, regardless of the terrain, shooting fish in a barrel is always easy and you're essentially talking about flipping the tables on a natural born predator putting it into an ideal situation to be of maximum benefit to you armed with both weapons and the knowledge that you have to kill it. As points go it's like saying water is wet.

Quite. Sound, but largely superfluous.

So's your face.
Anyway - my point wasn't that if you take the alien out of its preferred ground, it'd be easy to squish, but that if you put a bunch of people with guns, IEDs and other booby traps into the preferred ground in substitution for the aliens, you'd have a harder challenge killing them than the aliens.

Hubris. You'd get completely monstered in any situation of you against a alien unless you were hunting it fully armed with foreknowledge of it's environment, it's movements and had enough firepower and tech to take down a small army.

Personally I think you'd be troubled by a sentient psychotic cardigan, let alone an incredibly strong, incredibly fast and agile killing machine.

I think the same goes for everyone here, actually.

But anyway, my point wasn't that if you take the alien out of its preferred ground, it'd be easy to squish, but that if you put a bunch of people with guns, IEDs and other booby traps into the preferred ground in substitution for the aliens, you'd have a harder challenge killing them than the aliens.

Your pot, sir! It is blackened!

Heh, indeed. That was a knowing comment at the time.

Anyway, it's not contrived. It (the building full of jihaddis/terrorists/upset colonists thing, which colonial marines are far more likely to face) was an example as to why there was nothing particularly special about aliens to make them all "oooh, scary" other than their ability to walk up walls. The point of the thread, in fact.

Don't you just leave out a bowl of M&S G&T then hit it with a coke can whilst it drinks?

L-LOL.

Good work.

Decent Tanqueray when I get home, though.

Spiffing.

I bet you sleep with the light on tonight x

Write the script then. It's not an original concept but then the Alien movie wasn't - it's basically a haunted house movie set in space with a fantastic concept and brilliant set design. The problem with deconstructing any movie is that it rips the heart out of it. It's probably a fair point to say that Fox ripped the heart out of the Alien concept after Aliens.

I'd still aver though, that an unknown entity would be harder to kill and you're argument is flawed because it's laced with knowledge of the beast from the movies. The original concept stands on it being alien and ergo unknown. Let's not forget that this is in no way predictable as it's unknown, it's also [repeat ad nauseum] strong, fast and ruthless, whereas any human would be predictable if you were suitably knowledgable.

Basically, you're wrong. Not entirely, for once, but still wrong.

Indeed - the impact of fear of the unknown on the combat abilities of the marines is largely ignored in what's been written here.

Watching your crew getting face fucked then chest bursted would have quite a strong impact too.

You'd have to be brain dead/Cornish for that not to effect you and any subsequent plans.

L-LOL.

Actually thinking about it, substitute 'Carrot Cruncher' for 'alien' in Mr Chris' various posts; it's actually quite apt in the most part.

Shit, your average egg-laying alien probably gets his pint of cider served quicker down there, and with a good deal more grace, than human 'grockles'.

If you're appropriately armed, a single Alien isn't necessarily much of a threat unless it's managed to sneak up on you. However if you're up against a lot of them then you're in trouble. If you're unarmed then you've probably got less chance against one of those things than any of the other scenarios.

It's like with Zombies. A singe traditional zombie is really not something to be afraid of. Slow moving and easy to destroy.

Totally. Because with Aliens, right, even if it was on its own and you were 100m away in an open field, its mate would be sneaking up on you or come bursting out of a tunnel under the ground or some shit, you know what theyre like,

They're coming out of the goddamn walls!

Bloody aliens, coming here taking our bad guys' jobs.

I've just rewatched Aliens (so you don't have to), and bloody hell, it's like Grim... has never watched it. The beginning bit where the marines storm the reactor area with the "goddamned town meeting", all of the marines who go missing other than Apone and one other whose name escapes me are expressly shown/explained as being dead - so other than the two or three blown up by the ammo explosion, the aliens killed them. Similarly, there are then several people who die after you sees the alien tongue thing come out of its head (including the female dropship pilot, and Burke). Seriously Grim,..., have you actually watched this film?

AND HOW DID THE FUCKING QUEEN GET UP TO THE SULACO?

STUPID FUCKING FILM

Whut?

Your entire belief system is broken.

Nah.