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Fight Potential (while staying true to the Giger Drone/Jungle Hunter)

-Bloo-, Xenomorph, 10 years ago

(Sorry, this is half topic/half rant, and it's way longer than I thought.)

This is something that I've been thinking about for a long time. When we see any Predators fighting in the movies, they move like dudes in suits - sluggish and, honestly, kind of boring. Now, I know why they move like this - they ARE dudes in suits. And we don't want ridiculous Crouching Tiger/Spidey Predators made from poor CGI, right (although I'm open to good CGI)? So there's gotta be a middle-ground.

If they weren't played by guys in suits, the Berserker/JH fight in Predators would have been a lot more amazing. For example, the Xenos in ACM/AVP3 were a lot more agile than their film counterparts, and I prefer it that way (though I can do without the sometimes wonky animation). Same with any Predator seen in the games. But I'm still not fully impressed. What I mean is, I think they need to be a lot more intense. But what would that even look like?

I know "you need to be more intense" is a lot to demand of creatures that are already pretty goddamn hardcore, but I just think the reason why no one cares about AVP is because, together, they make for some really lackluster action. I think it's because people aren't very imaginative with the actual AVPing. But how DO you make an AVP fight unique? Monsters slashing away at each other with nothing more than brute strength (Celtic VS Grid, any Praetorian fight) is more boring than fucking a tree. And you gotta be honest with yourself, the most exciting thing about Ripley VS the Queen was her (awesome as hell) pre-mortem one-liner and the fact that she even had the balls to fight it, not the actual fight itself. But it was the '80s, what could you do?

I'm not saying the action should have priority over the story. If we got an awesome Queen fight but a weak reason for it to happen (Ripley fearlessly proclaiming she's manly rather than Ripley doing it to save Newt regardless of her fear), that'd suck just as much. So how do you make an in-character AVP fight more exciting?

With Predators, they're naturally slow and mysterious, but I don't think that's the height of their speed at all, even when they're still shown to be rather slow when fighting (even against other Predators). Again, refuse to believe that's anything more than the limitations of a dude in a suit.

I think they're more like certain reptiles in terms of upfront behavior. They should get into it while calculations are being made in the back of their heads, circling/stalking each other very slowly... only to strike all at once or in several well-placed moves. They're hunters. They think about all sorts of things and they're shown to be extremely intelligent. So why does all that intelligence fly out the window when they're actually fighting?

I always imagine them fighting more intelligently than any Predator has on-screen. They should let their environments fight FOR them. They need to think ahead HUNDREDS of steps rather than going with the flow. They'll see your weapon and use it against you without laying a finger on it. Let's say you have a sword to combat their wristblades. They won't even extend the blades - they'll perform a maneuver to get you to stab yourself. If it DOES come to fighting head-on without the use of the environment, they'll still provoke you to act first. If you DON'T act first, they WILL, and rather than outright slashing at you, they'll do SOMETHING that'll make you go "holy shit." I dunno, obviously I haven't thought about it in TOO much detail, but do you see where I'm getting at? (Maybe these "Sherlock Predators" stray too far from the idea of the Predator...?)

And Aliens, holy SHIT this is a problem. They suffer the "Multiple Demon Syndrome" of Supernatural - extremely cunning/dangerous when alone, shitty when in a group of 2 or more. Like the "dude in a suit" thing with Preds, this isn't the Xeno's fault - it's more to do with the fact that writers can't include gamebreakers (in this case, the gamebreaker being the Xeno's massive number) that don't have an easy fix because that's bad writing. But not many people realize that making the gamebreaker less dangerous for no reason is WORSE writing.

Admittedly I don't read much of the EU, but I've yet to hear of an instance where Xenos in massive numbers was an actual threat rather than an implied one. (ACM, one of the only canon non-movie stories we have, is also the worst (best?) fucking example of this - you can literally just run through almost every goddamn level without having to fight one of the (implied hudnreds, implied "dangerous") of Xenos coming at you.)

The way the Xenos fought in the AVP movies was really disappointing. They were small dinosaurs. What the hell happened to the Xeno that would look and sound like it enjoyed torturing you? Even the Warrior that grabbed Newt, for the few seconds it was on-screen, looked more like a sadistic kidnapper than the Xenos from Resurrection. Its posture, its lack of hissing (if I recall correctly), just... everything about it was more alien than every Xeno in the AVP films put together. If I saw Grid, I would shit my pants, sure, but I would shit my pants as if I saw a bear or something. Now, if I saw a bear that was also a kidnapping rapist, I'd probably shit my pants in a different direction.

So how do you fix that?

Honestly, I don't know the right answer. I've thought up dozens of scenarios of a Xeno fighting the aforementioned "Sherlock Predator," and none of them are satisfying. They all either overpower the Xeno or turn it into something it's not. How the hell do you make this thing a formidable fighter while staying true to the Giger Drone? Really, how?

And then there's the Queen. How the fuck do you handle this thing correctly? I can't treat it like either on-film Queen. The Acheron Queen, while cunning, would be way too slow to fight a Predator. And the AVP Queen was a T. Rex. I don't want that.

Now I KNOW you guys have thought about this at some point, maybe some more than others. Tell me, how do you make a more unique + intense AVP fight while staying true to the original iterations of the monsters? Do you agree with my "Sherlock Predator," or do you see a different way they could fight in fast-paced action? What about Xenos?

FireHunter, Xenomorph, 10 years ago

Honestly I'd think that a Xenomorph in open combat would probably fight much like an insect, dead still until it strikes, keeping its tail raised and facing the foe, twitching if the enemy makes a move, until WHAM it strikes with a crippling blow that incapacitates you and then it proceeds to do its own horrible things to you, whether that be rape, torture, or a simple murder.

OR

In cases of multiple Xenomorphs, they act like precision hunters, they'll funnel prey into a small space or into more of them, think of how a group lioness' will chase prey right to where another is hiding to strike the killing blow. I'm not a huge fan of them just swarming like insects towards their enemies only to be mown down, they're far too smart to act like that, UNLESS, when there is a group of them their self-preservation instinct is lowered because their death is not a great blow to the Hive and may in fact aid another Xenomorph in neutralising the threat.

As for Predators, I see where you're coming from, but honestly I think seeing a Predator move like that would look ridiculous, in open combat I can see them as a much more primal force instead of calm and collected like Jackie Chan. Maybe not such sluggish swings as they tend to do but you know what I mean.

-Bloo-, Xenomorph, 10 years ago

Maybe outright using Jackie's name was a mistake, I'll delete it. It's less about being like Jackie Chan in every aspect and more about just using your environment in general (like the way he'll use a revolving door do his advantage rather than running right through it just because it's on his escape path - while a Predator may use it differently from Jackie, the main thing here is that it'll be used creatively).

Anyway, that "Pride Hunt" thing is actually pretty fair, but that insect thing - I like that a lot. We know they can somehow move REALLY fast off-screen, and we've seen them be completely still on-screen anyway, so this explanation is actually plausible. Plus, it completely throws off the Predator's style of fighting, which would rely mostly on the emotions and body language of its target. Acting ahead would NOT be an option, especially for something that's fast and unpredictable.

Whether it would be narmy to actually SEE a Xeno move really fast is a different question, but in the meantime, I like this. It makes them really creepy. There's a reason humans fear insects/arachnids so much - their behavior is just way too... alien.

How do I apply this to your character, though? See, the reason I think about this a lot is because I'm eventually going to have to illustrate an AVP fight for the comic. Your character is a bulky tank. The insect thing is a lot more Dave's style, but with you, I can only imagine the whole T. Rex thing, and I don't know if you're okay with that.

FireHunter, Xenomorph, 10 years ago

I'm completely fine with the whole T. Rex thing. However if you've ever played Gears of War, if you think about the berserkers and how they move slowly until they find a target, you could try that.

Or, for example, you could have FireHunter be completely still, like a statue until whoever or whatever it's fighting gets close enough and suddenly it's tearing down the hallway at them screeching and roaring its throat out.

EDIT: I might start RPing it like that, only I won't land a hit until the last post because realistically, surviving a strike from this thing is improbable as surviving getting hit by a truck.

-Bloo-, Xenomorph, 10 years ago

I've never played GoW, but the Berserker sounds like something I should look up.

Kind of off-topic, but I have your character as one of the seven Alpha Males, who are speculated in-universe to be as self aware and as smart as humans, if not more, which is why the wild Rex doesn't cut it.

FireHunter, Xenomorph, 10 years ago

Well yeah, then the Berserker is the way to do it, or even a Handyman from Bioshock: Infinite.

DeathWraith, Xenomorph, 10 years ago

On the Xenomorph problem, I think I remember at one point arguing that they get in each other's way. Being too many makes them over-think and hesitate. Imagine a whole pack of Jackie Chans trying to fight a single Dalip Singh Rana, all trying to figure out which wall to scale so that they don't bump heads and fall to the ground like idiots, or kick each other in the nose by mistake. Now imagine that with huge penis heads and immense tails that could get stuck together.

Another case, of course, would be a hivemind situation. Assuming that the hivemind is designed to give the Queen control over the hive, this would make the drones very expendable. I seems to me that a Queen plays strategy games like an 11 year old. Sacrifices all the attack units in a stupid A move, then takes the hero who MUST survive - herself - and tries to tank the enemy as if she's getting all the glory. This may not be exactly how a Queen intends to do things, but it may turn out this way due to an incompatibility between the hivemind and each xenomorph's individuality. It is either a partial hivemind that doesn't give the Queen enough control, making it inefficient, or an uncomfortable hivemind that the drones are trying to resist, making THEM inefficient. Though I don't consider AvP to be canon, I think it's interesting to consider the scene where Grid and the Queen seem to be having a dispute over how the chains problem should be handled, and it did not look like they agreed on it, but the Queen overrode their will. On the other hand, in the scene in Resurrection when two xenomorphs decided to kill the third to make a hole in the cell, you could tell that the two had agreed on it.

This may all be bullshit though because I haven't seen these movies in almost 8 years.

-Bloo-, Xenomorph, 10 years ago

Nah, that makes sense, I've considered those possibilities before. I WANT to believe they're perfect and completely alien, but it may very well be that their hive mind makes them weak. It's no coincidence - with no one to argue with, the Giger Drone was 100% efficient and able to express itself. If the Queen DOES override their minds rather than them being submissive on their own, then the Warriors' behavior in Aliens makes sense.

I like that this was brought up. One of the ways I'm trying to fix the Zerg Rush problem (and explain it) is to include Empresses. If the Queens can't handle a single 100+ member hive adequately, controlling a planet-sized hive would be overwhelming, so the next (and final) step in the lifecycle for my universe is the Empress.

In-universe, there are around 100 Queens, all being remotely helped by 7 Empresses, who, in terms of intelligence/power, are somewhere between an Eldritch Abomination and a Gravemind. None of the Queens are story-relevent, but the Empresses are the main force behind the plot. There's an 8th that's gone rogue that's also really important, but explaining that here would be going way off-topic, as much as I already am.

Anyway, main point is, I agree with the "Weak Hivemind" thing. I think with the Empresses providing a strong Hivemind, FH's explanation for a "Pride Hunt" would be possible.

Deathdrop, Xenomorph, 10 years ago

The thing people forget about the hive from Aliens is that it was only a few weeks old. Just in the time the movie takes place, the Xenos figure out how to cut the power and outsmart the motion trackers. To me, the implication is that they're learning. And since they're a hive mind, when one figures something out, so do the rest of them. That's not too big of a deal after a few weeks, but after a few months or years? The hive would be experienced enough to adapt to just about anything we could throw at them.

Dronehive, Xenomorph, 10 years ago

Also, in "the Giger Drone" vs the "hive" you have to realize that there was a surplus of food for the Giger Drone. This probably meant a bigger brain and greater strength. However, the hive was probably out of food, leading to "mass production units". On a planet with a large food source like earth, imagine millions of Giger Drones.

ciaosarah, Xenomorph, 10 years ago

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