Are Sci Fi monsters and aliens too hard to kill?

[Pixelbrick]

Spiders actually have lungs (well, some of them), but it isn't helping them much; they don't have the proper blood circulation system to make use of it. To put it simply, it would took too much efforts to turn spider into anything even remotely as efficient as fish or toad (not even talking about gecko or mice).

Vernor Vinge had a fun go in 'A Deepness in the Sky.' The first two in this series are great.

A Deepness in the Sky

The prequel to A Fire Upon The Deep, this is the story …

www.goodreads.com

 

[Arjen]

abomination that this socalled "cultured" country unleashed on planet Earth

I'm rather fond of Rote Grütze and Ostfriesentee. Enjoyed separately. They don't mix well

 

[Justo Miranda]

I'm surprised that none of Nigel Kneale's aliens from the four Quatermass series have cropped up in this thread yet.

The Quatermass Experiment (1953)
A British spaceship (designed and built by Dr Bernard Quatermass, launched from Woomera) crash lands near London on its return to earth, only one of the astronauts aboard is left and barely alive. The other two have vanished. An alien lifeform had infiltrated the ship, it can absorb plant and animal cells for energy to grow and mutate and somehow stores the consciousness of its victims. The surviving astronaut Victor Caroon slowly mutates into a plant-like alien form, should it spore then it could absorb all living matter on earth. It's killed in Westminster Abbey - in the original BBC TV series Quatermass convinces the consciousness of the three crewmen inside the creature to turn against it and destroy it; in the 1955 Hammer film version (The Quatermass Xperiment) its killed with the electrical output of Battersea power station to burn it alive whilst it hangs around on some scaffolding.

Quatermass II (1955)
Dr Bernard Quatermass is now attempting to get a Moon base built, but instead comes up against Whitehall red tape and his prototype nuclear-powered rocket blows up on the pad at Woomera. He becomes drawn into strange events as strange small meteorites land across Northern Britain. When picked up they spray ammonia gas and a distinctive mark appears on the victim. Again the alien lifeform is an infiltrator, taking over its human host by some form of collective consciousness that binds all the aliens. The alien uses the hollow meteorite as a protective shell, the ammonia inside is their usual atmospheric environment (Quatermass deduces they come from a Saturnian moon) and they die when exposed to Earth's atmosphere but not before they take over the host's mind. The meteorites are launched from a larger asteroid which orbits earth every 14 hours.

It turns out that many government members have been taken over by the aliens and have the mark. Under the alien consciousness they are building a "synthetic food plants" (it is reported others have been built around the world implying a global invasion) but which are actually producing ammonia, hydrogen, nitrogen and methane in giant domes as biospheres where the collected meteorites are emptied safely, growing into massive creatures. Quatermass succeeds in destroying the dome, killing the alien inside on exposure to oxygen and then launches his remaining unsafe nuclear rocket to destroy the asteroid which frees all the infiltrated people, presumably having destroyed the centre of the collective alien consciousness.

Quatermass and the Pit (1958)
During excavations in London a prehistoric humanoid is discovered dated, as 5 million years old. Then an unexploded bomb is found, which actually turns out to be a crashed spaceship and more humanoids are discovered. Dr Quatermass gets involved and dead 3-legged insectoid aliens are discovered in the spaceship. This is linked to supernatural events which occur (and which have always occurred in the area of the spaceship whenever the ground is disturbed). It turns out that the insects are Martians and that they had taken apes and primitive pre-humans and genetically altered them to give them abilities such as telepathy, telekinesis and other psychic powers, before returning them to Earth in an attempt to reshape man into their own minds and abilities as life on Mars dies as its climate changes to ensure their race lives on in some form but they become extinct before completing their work but some imprints remain in humans, supernatural beliefs and the devil being a folk remembering of the aliens.

An accidental discharge of electricity into the spaceship brings it to life, rekindling the dormant psychic powers in humans leading to killings of those without the alien genes. Eventually a mass of iron grounded to wet earth is thrust into the mass of energy which was the spaceship (Quatermass remembers that water and iron defeats the devil), which discharges and breaks the psychic powers.

Quatermass (1979)
We never see the alien in this series. The danger is an alien spacecraft/satellite which harvests crowds of young humans for human protein for an alien civilisation. Beacons were buried into the earth millions of years ago, which can detect the noise, vibration and scent of masses of humans, which activates an energy beam which vaporises the humans and takes the protein. These beacons lay underneath stone circles, megaliths and other prehistoric temple structures around the world, which were built by humans as markers of the dangers (Quatermass deduces that what are thousands of years on Earth might only be seconds for whatever alien life the beam is operated by). Not only that but the spaceship has the ability to psychically affect the young, making them angry and violent but anti-technology and anti-civilisation (think hippies crossed with punks) who then gather at the hidden beacons and are harvested. Quatermass sets up a dummy gathering, using synthetic noise and scent of a massive gathering of youths to lure the beam, exploding a 35kT nuclear bomb under it - not to destroy it, but to send an energy wave that makes the spaceship stop its task by alerting it to some kind of danger to warn it off.

So four very different aliens, lots of psychic stuff but killing them is usually elemental stuff - electricity, iron, water and oxygen.

Hi

 

[Justo Miranda]

Is there a reason we couldn't imagine insects or spiders that evolved lungs?

Both the water scorpion, Nepa cinerea, and the water stick insect, Ranatra linearis, use Schnorkels.

Insects in the Dytiscidae group store a reserve of air between the elytra and the abdomen.

They can also store air in other areas of the body with water-repellent hairs

Some species of beetles belonging to the families Elmids (Elmidae) and Dryopidae (Dryopidae) have managed to create a permanent bubble. that communicates with the and is maintained thanks to water-repellent hairs. Either of these methods could evolve into the creation of a lung due to environmental pressure or an unfortunate mutation.

And then... they would begin to grow.

nope the crew of UFO breathe oxygen rich liquid, do fast acceleration of the UFO Drive.
Side effect the liquid dye their skin green.

If you not know Gerry Anderson's UFO, its dam good TV show, years a head of it Time.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2PoXfZdYVU

for more look on YouTube

Hi

 

[Brickmuppet]

Love the Nehru jackets, and the silver Moonbase outfits with the purple wigs!

I believe they were rationalized in show as "anti-static-wigs"

 

[The K2]

Gabrielle Drake as Lt Ellis….sorry, I digress.
The Martian energy creature in the film version of Quatermass and the Pit (1967) scared the crap out of me as a kid, and still gives me the creeps.

 

[Michel Van]

As a native German born in the very same year that Perry Rhodan first reared its fugly head, I would characterize its socalled "space opera" penny dreadful novellas as 100% pure drivel. Next to Germans letting a native Austrian monster like hitler come to power, it might just be the second largest offensive abomination that this socalled "cultured" country unleashed on planet Earth. But I'm not bitter, oh no, siree...

yeah, like we German say "über Geschmack last sich Streiten" (There is no argument about taste)
i don't make dispute about Perry Rhodan literary quality, its pure dime novel entertainment.
However a very successful dime novel series: 63 years and 3280 issues...

but in defence the authors of series explored every aspect of Sci-fi and our society over the 63 years,

 

[Michel Van]

There used to be the Eagle Transporter Forum where we discussed all the tech from the Anderson shows. Members included some of the production crew. I did a lot of tech stuff for the UFO vehicles based on what was seen, written, or alluded to during the show’s production. Love the Nehru jackets, and the silver Moonbase outfits with the purple wigs!

I miss deeply the Eagle Transporter Forum.
is there any successor Forum about Anderson hardware ?

 

[The K2]

I miss deeply the Eagle Transporter Forum.
is there any successor Forum about Anderson hardware ?

Unfortunately, no. Former members have tried to get hold of the original owner to see if the site could be brought back with no luck.

 

[Rhinocrates]

I miss deeply the Eagle Transporter Forum.
is there any successor Forum about Anderson hardware ?

Keep an eye out for this.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HBchDwnXBU

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHPJukB2yTI

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A94hBP06odI

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_b8aE0efyfU&t=628s

 

[The K2]

Was there much on the mark 9 Hawks?
My five year old self fell in love with those the minute I saw them in the opening minutes of the War Games episode.

There was. There was discussion how they launched, if they had landing gear, etc. All of it speculation, of course. David Sisson was a member. He has built replicas and restored many of the surviving FX models. Check his website:

Mark IX Hawk

and this fansite:

Space: 1999 Catacombs- Hawk

Moderators: sorry this thread went off subject.

 

[Orionblamblam]

Hi

It's always impressive seeing *old* SF movies where aliens are more than a dude in a rubber suit, even if it's just an inert "dead body." SF literature has always been filled with the truly alien, but actually attempting to depict such has often been a rarity.

 

[publiusr]

Hoyle's Black Cloud would look at a Ramscoop like Jaws.

 

[Hood]

It's always impressive seeing *old* SF movies where aliens are more than a dude in a rubber suit, even if it's just an inert "dead body." SF literature has always been filled with the truly alien, but actually attempting to depict such has often been a rarity.

The middle still is of the discovery when the membrane around the control cabin compartment breaks down and reveals the aliens. The model alien jerks forward as the structure corrodes away (probably some guy tweaking a wire somewhere) and the two actors visibly flinch as it moves and they are not acting I think!

 

[Arjen]

Babylon 5 had several dude-in-rubber-suit alien races, with the Vorlons being an exception. They played mind tricks with all the other races, appearing as whatever-the-observer interpreted as angels. This tied in with one of the B5 themes, with 'superior' races interfering in other races' development.

 

[Justo Miranda]

It's always impressive seeing *old* SF movies where aliens are more than a dude in a rubber suit, even if it's just an inert "dead body." SF literature has always been filled with the truly alien, but actually attempting to depict such has often been a rarity.

Humanoid form is the result of hazard and millions of random mutations. The reason why the Hollywood ETs are humanoid is economic, a guy disguised with a rubber head. Actors wish to show their faces to increase their popularity and for that reason the aliens in the TV series are almost human.

If there are intelligent creatures somewhere in the cosmos, the only sure thing about them is that they will not look like us.

ET may have any shape except that of a pretty girl: Gestalt organisms, smart clouds, natural computers integrated by metallic particles in a magnetic field, flying plants, organic film on water, metallic skeleton creatures, giant sponges, planetary wide fungus, energy balls, solar parabolas, insects evolved in low gravity, organisms made of neutron matter, alive comets, wave vortices, thinking crystals and six meters long caterpillars may be shaped by the evolutionary pressures of another world.

They may swim in liquid methane oceans, breathe a mixture of chlorine and ammonia, be able to see the heat, communicate by means of luminous pulses, or develop senses that we cannot understand such as telepathy, especially useful to small Gestalt organisms such as colonies of insects with a powerful collective mind.

They could be like gigantic jellyfish floating in the toxic atmosphere of their world, or worm-like beings carrying an incomprehensible underground existence, or aquatic creatures that have evolved into an ocean-planet, with no possibility of access to fire, metals and technology but with great abstract intelligence and interesting musical culture.

They may live in space cities, away from the inconveniences of a planetary surface with earthquakes, volcanoes, hurricanes, tsunamis, and problems with local wildlife, or simply live in the interstellar space feeding on ionizing radiation.

Perhaps biological intelligence is just a transient phenomenon in evolution. A very advanced society can achieve immortality by transferring the personality and memory of its individuals to eternally self-repairable quantum devices, as time crystals or spheres of energy. In that case they would prefer to inhabit the cold outer regions of the Galaxy and even intergalactic space, away from stellar disturbances, supernovae, and gravitational waves, which could cause interference in their computer systems.

They may despise societies made up of biological organisms and avoid any contact, as we do with mites. Why would those higher entities bother to establish a communication with us? What could we tell them?

 

[Deltafan]

I discovered this topic.

I immediately thought of the films Starship Troopers and Alien Covenant, where, at the beginning, the aliens are very difficult to kill with long guns and, towards the end of the film, are very easy to take out with the same weapons...

Which seriously harms the interest of the scenario, even if these films can have a lot of interest elsewhere (at least for Starship Troopers, since I found no interest in Alien Covenant...)

 

[Archibald]

My favorite scene in Starship Troopers

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiUMMWrl1qE


(And I readily share Verhoeven opinion about the novel and Heinlein : accordingly, I fully support what he did to it.)

 

[sferrin]

It's always impressive seeing *old* SF movies where aliens are more than a dude in a rubber suit, even if it's just an inert "dead body." SF literature has always been filled with the truly alien, but actually attempting to depict such has often been a rarity.

 

[sferrin]

Humanoid form is the result of hazard and millions of random mutations. The reason why the Hollywood ETs are humanoid is economic, a guy disguised with a rubber head. Actors wish to show their faces to increase their popularity and for that reason the aliens in the TV series are almost human.

If there are intelligent creatures somewhere in the cosmos, the only sure thing about them is that they will not look like us.

ET may have any shape except that of a pretty girl:

You mean they won't look like this?

 

[Orionblamblam]

I immediately thought of the films Starship Troopers and Alien Covenant, where, at the beginning, the aliens are very difficult to kill with long guns and, towards the end of the film, are very easy to take out with the same weapons...

Same thing happened with the Borg: at first they were an unstoppable force of nightmare only held back by luck; by the end they were nerfed into being a "meh"-level threat.

 

[Orionblamblam]

You mean they won't look like this?

View attachment 732974

That's it, then. I don't want to be invaded by space vampires.

 

[Justo Miranda]

You mean they won't look like this?

View attachment 732974

In this case there are some doubts....would it be possible to see the whole picture?

 

[Justo Miranda]

That's it, then. I don't want to be invaded by space vampires.

Space vampires can't digest alcohol, if they invade us they'll die like Lemmings.

 

[sferrin]

In this case there are some doubts....would it be possible to see the whole picture?

I'd probably get a tongue lashing if I did.

 

[Justo Miranda]

My favorite scene in Starship Troopers

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiUMMWrl1qE


(And I readily share Verhoeven opinion about the novel and Heinlein : accordingly, I fully support what he did to it.)

A society with FTL technology sends its best young people to be eaten by insects so that the survivors acquire the right to vote.

Insects without technology that destroy battlecruisers located in orbit.

If Earth have orbital superiority... Why don't they send robots, insecticides, asteroids or nukes?

Another good idea of Heinlein's completely prostituted by an infamous screenwriter.

 

[Scott Kenny]

Spice by any other name. I think the relevant termini technici of the entertainment industry are, depending on the circumstances, "MacGuffin" or "Red Herring".

Macguffin is the item around which the plot revolves.

Red Herring is a distraction.

Fishnet shirts.

A popular outdoors BASE LAYER for deep cold at the time. Wear a tshirt over that and it traps a lot of air in the open weave.

 

[martinbayer]

Macguffin is the item around which the plot revolves.

Red Herring is a distraction.

I've seen plots that revolved around distractions...

 

[1635yankee]

You mean they won't look like this?

View attachment 732974

Life Force, a very cheesy movie where the only positive is Mathilda May's severe lack of costume.

 

[Orionblamblam]

Life Force, a very cheesy movie where the only positive is Mathilda May's severe lack of costume.

And the "Churchill." That little ship was awesome.

 

[Orionblamblam]

I'd probably get a tongue lashing if I did.

I see what you did there.

 

[Michel Van]

Humanoid form is the result of hazard and millions of random mutations. The reason why the Hollywood ETs are humanoid is economic, a guy disguised with a rubber head. Actors wish to show their faces to increase their popularity and for that reason the aliens in the TV series are almost human.

The truly alien vision was made by hans rudiger Giger for Movie ALIEN
But again humanoid form was taken, do fact they needed a actor in Alien Suit in 1978.
with CGI this change to better, but were the budget is low there again actor with rubber heads...

Spoiler: Denis Villeneuve Arrival show truly alien life form

The Movie Spaceman with Adam Sandler show Alien that is not human.
I hope they manage this also in upcoming movie adaptation of Andy Weir Project Hail Mary.

Spoiler: Alien from Spaceman (see on own risk)

Spoiler: Gerry Anderson UFO made interesting twist with there Aliens

There Humans abducted by aliens, adapted, there Mind removed and replaced by Alien mind.
The aliens keep there host body operational by organ transplant from abducted humans...

 

[BlackBat242]

Fishnet shirts.

A popular outdoors BASE LAYER for deep cold at the time. Wear a tshirt over that and it traps a lot of air in the open weave.

I've seen too many on males on beaches or in gyms.

 

[dumpster4]

Id monster from Forbidden Planet. Quite tough indeed:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0n1nsTAzJ4

 

[martinbayer]

Nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

 

[Scott Kenny]

Nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

Always.

 

[Justo Miranda]

Nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

I do not agree, some species of underground insects will always survive, in my opinion, the only sure way to kill them is the impact of a Chicxulub because the shock wave that propagates several kilometers deep surrounds the entire planet and creates a second focus of destruction by converging in the hemisphere opposite the impact creating eruptions of magma for thousands of years.

 

[Justo Miranda]

Id monster from Forbidden Planet. Quite tough indeed:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0n1nsTAzJ4

Hi

 

[Justo Miranda]

And the "Churchill." That little ship was awesome.

Hi

 

[Orionblamblam]

I do not agree, some species of underground insects will always survive, in my opinion, the only sure way to kill them is the impact of a Chicxulub because the shock wave that propagates several kilometers deep surrounds the entire planet and creates a second focus of destruction by converging in the hemisphere opposite the impact creating eruptions of magma for thousands of years.

Insufficient. No cometary impact since Theia has wiped out the surface life, much less subsurface. You need to liquefy the entire crust, which is no mean feat.