I'm sure this has been posted in some thread somewhere, but I figured it deserved a thread of its own.
https://twitter.com/tristans_bones/status/1604938388444172288
This draft looked very good. I would have loved to see it as a novel or as a comic.
So basically he was trying to create a comic continuation of the prequels? Damn it Disney/Marvel. I think I would have liked going on with life not knowing he wanted to do that lol. Honestly my only two complaints of it is the queen just being a mutant and Amanda still being around by then. I like the idea of trying to make things more like Alien and not Aliens but I think the queen still works with it
It has everything you want in an Alien story, even a Blade Runner-esque location.
I'm intrigued by the idea that the Queen could have been an aberration. It's not something I've ever thought about, and I'm not sure I'd have liked it - but it's definitely intriguing. I do love Tristan's idea of making the Aliens rarer, and special. Also loving his bad guy being actually right.
Another great idea is the intention to explore the Engineer civilization, something that was unfortunately scrapped in
Covenant.
Quote from: Corporal Hicks on Dec 23, 2022, 09:13:01 AMI do love Tristan's idea of making the Aliens rarer, and special. Also loving his bad guy being actually right.
Yes, that makes the world not seem like a Kenner-land where there are millions and millions of Aliens, variants and sentient species. I mean, it's not Star Wars for a reason. After all, it's supposed to be a dark & gritty universe.
Yes
I love Engineers!
And happy what they Back!
Too bad it didn't get anywhere. Tristan definitively gets the Alien universe.
I love his art, but some of the ideas are too far out there. Having the Queen be a mistake, a one time thing and making every other piece of material non canon would be horrible. The Queen is awesome and can be used in horrific ways if done right. I'm glad this didn't get made, his art is awesome but his distaste for anything Aliens puts me off.
It could have just been a thing unto itself though. Obviously I do not mind a little distaste for Aliens, because of how other entries have been treated from time to time.
I have a little distaste for people having a little distaste for Aliens
Let's cut the diversion off before we get there. Back on topic folk. :)
Super interesting and really gutted we won't get this.
I always loved the design of the Queen but quite hated (and still hate) the concept of the Queen, so this "one-off" really jives with me. Even so, the Queen has become such a major aspect of the Alien universe, so by writing it off like that, great bodies of work would be written off as well, which in a way would be kind of shitty, to say the least. Only Ridley Scott could get away with something like that.
Other than that I do like Tristan's idea on how to wrap it all up.
I'm glad this never happened. I really don't get the point of stepping into an established IP and shitting on half of it because it's not to your tastes.
I absolutely love the ideas presented here in the summary- it wasn't all that long ago I suggested something very similar in these forums (or was it on the Reddit?) about the queen being a one-off which then became the norm in its own lineage onwards (Alien 3 /Resurrection) but was not a 'thing' before Hadley's Hope. I like the Xenomorph being unpredictable, the big chap form being a result of ovomorph from eggmorphed space jockey + human host for example. The idea of the superfacehugger aberration in Alien 3... if we look at the xeno as chaotic and unpredictable as the pathogen, it's becomes so much more interesting..but with each new 'form' or 'evolution' (depending upon circumstances of its creation) able to continue that lineage so you can still have (for example) the classic 'Aliens' life cycle continue, or a totally different cycle continue from another source etc... I'm disappointed we didn't get this.
I like the ideas too. I wish it had been done.
"Chaotic and unpredictable" is shorthand for "can do whatever we want whenever we want", and is usually awful, lazy writing.
Quote from: SiL on Jan 01, 2023, 05:22:10 AM"Chaotic and unpredictable" is shorthand for "can do whatever we want whenever we want", and is usually awful, lazy writing.
That's one interpretation. Another interpretation is that it keeps the Xenomorph 'Alien' and doesn't reduce it/ simplify it to an oversized bug. The thing is about lazy writing, especially in this franchise, is it's only ever a problem if the majority don't care for that particular movie / story (insert media format here) - if it's liked, people are more than happy to overlook, or make up head canon to 'make it work / fit' - if it's disliked, then every single one of those things will repeatedly be cited as reasons why it's terrible.
Therefore, I'd argue that the concept of a diverse biology of the Xenomorph doesn't go hand in hand with 'lazy writing' - on the contrary, it requires good writing to ensure it is done tastefully.
Just wanted to say a quick thanks for the cheers this got... It would've been fun! Didn't expect a thread about it but figured I'd address the unsurprising...
Quote from: S.E.B. on Dec 29, 2022, 10:14:24 PMI always loved the design of the Queen but quite hated (and still hate) the concept of the Queen, so this "one-off" really jives with me. Even so, the Queen has become such a major aspect of the Alien universe, so by writing it off like that, great bodies of work would be written off as well, which in a way would be kind of shitty, to say the least. Only Ridley Scott could get away with something like that.
Other than that I do like Tristan's idea on how to wrap it all up.
Cheers! For clarification -- I'm not writing it off. I'm reimagining its origin and evolution. Doesn't change the queen. Or any other queen. I just wasn't planning on using anything but the films and Isolation as canon.
Quote from: Still Collating... on Dec 28, 2022, 11:33:05 AMI love his art, but some of the ideas are too far out there. Having the Queen be a mistake, a one time thing and making every other piece of material non canon would be horrible. The Queen is awesome and can be used in horrific ways if done right. I'm glad this didn't get made, his art is awesome but his distaste for anything Aliens puts me off.
Queen would still exist, and in my eyes made more horrifying. But again, you're basing everything off dot points in a tweet. I love Aliens. Just nowhere near as much as other films in the series. My problem with Aliens has always been logical inconsistencies and de-alienating the alien. It's still a fun movie with cool shit in it, but people act like it's infallible.
Quote from: MaineXeno on Dec 22, 2022, 06:20:32 PMSo basically he was trying to create a comic continuation of the prequels? Damn it Disney/Marvel. I think I would have liked going on with life not knowing he wanted to do that lol. Honestly my only two complaints of it is the queen just being a mutant and Amanda still being around by then. I like the idea of trying to make things more like Alien and not Aliens but I think the queen still works with it
Sort of, but not quite. I wanted to find a way of readdressing the continuity as a whole. Aliens changed Alien (for better or worse), Alien 3 did the same, Resurrection did the same, the prequels went a whole length further. My idea was to essentially reconcile all of those ideas my own way and show you that through Amanda, who I think is the best twist to the series yet.
Quote from: SiL on Dec 31, 2022, 11:32:47 PMI'm glad this never happened. I really don't get the point of stepping into an established IP and shitting on half of it because it's not to your tastes.
Well, that's because you didn't read it TO get it, because I wasn't shitting on anything, actually. There's a SLEW of stuff in there that directly plugs into Aliens and Alien 3, but that doesn't matter because it never happened and you can continue being glad. Re-presenting ONE idea from ONE out of 6 films to make it line up more with an actual half of them is barely there mathematically speaking, too, but again... didn't happen.
Quote from: Acid_Reign161 on Jan 01, 2023, 03:00:30 AMI absolutely love the ideas presented here in the summary- it wasn't all that long ago I suggested something very similar in these forums (or was it on the Reddit?) about the queen being a one-off which then became the norm in its own lineage onwards (Alien 3 /Resurrection) but was not a 'thing' before Hadley's Hope. I like the Xenomorph being unpredictable, the big chap form being a result of ovomorph from eggmorphed space jockey + human host for example. The idea of the superfacehugger aberration in Alien 3... if we look at the xeno as chaotic and unpredictable as the pathogen, it's becomes so much more interesting..but with each new 'form' or 'evolution' (depending upon circumstances of its creation) able to continue that lineage so you can still have (for example) the classic 'Aliens' life cycle continue, or a totally different cycle continue from another source etc... I'm disappointed we didn't get this.
That's kind of it -- the Hadley's Hope nest ultimately becomes a whole other thing. That's a whole new strain of animal right there. Just like how David's Alien is a whole new strain, and the Deacon, the neomorphs, etc. but there's a core. Even the Dog Alien is likely creating a new strain. There's a thing all of this has splintered off from. The pathogen is kind of key to it. Or at least A strain of it is.
Quote from: SiL on Jan 01, 2023, 05:22:10 AM"Chaotic and unpredictable" is shorthand for "can do whatever we want whenever we want", and is usually awful, lazy writing.
The alien is anything but chaotic and unpredictable, but reducing it to an insect is also lazy writing.
Still waiting for an explanation as to why literally nobody got left onboard the Sulaco during Aliens, beyond simply allowing for the plot to happen, so I agree with your view that it is not as infallible as people tend to make it out.
As for your ideas, it is a in my opinion a very interesting creative endeavour that I am sad did not reach any fruition, particularly when I am enamoured with your visualisations of the Engineer concept.
As for the reception to Desolation on here... Like Prometheus to Alien, the Pilot in the original did not suddenly become a man in a suit, it is still what it is...
Likewise with your idea... it is just a new take on the Alien Mythology, not the new take that overrides all others.
Quote from: BlueMarsalis79 on Jan 05, 2023, 01:56:12 PMStill waiting for an explanation as to why literally nobody got left onboard the Sulaco during Aliens, beyond simply allowing for the plot to happen, so I agree with your view that it is not as infallible as people tend to make it out.
THIS. I agree wholeheartedly, it makes zero sense other than "plot requires it, else another drop ship would be sent down". Can you imagine an aircraft carrier sailing into foreign waters, and the entire crew disembarking and just leaving it afloat unattended? 😂 Is there even any point to the ship having a bridge (beyond potential space battle with another ship?) we see the whole crew wake up from cryo and dine together, including the one synthetic on board (which according to new entries in the franchise didn't even need to be in cryo- Ash only did so to hide who he really was) - nobody is doing system checks, nobody is trying short range comms with the colony, no kind of manual helm control to take the ship into orbit required..it's simply wake up, corn bread, and drop prep... same with drop prep really...the crates etc all had to be loaded on the ship to begin with, so didn't need to stay in the loading bay, they could have already been where they were supposed to be, but it was a plot requirement to show Ripley's new forklift and loader skills to set up the final act... but shhhh.. we're only allowed to pick holes in Alien 3 onwards 😂🤫
Quote from: tyrannosaurusjones on Jan 05, 2023, 12:02:23 PMJust wanted to say a quick thanks for the cheers this got... It would've been fun!
Thank you for taking the time to address some of our comments! 😁
So, ballpark figure, what's it gonna set us back to commission this as a complete story / unofficial fan comic? 😂😂😂😂
Quote from: BlueMarsalis79 on Jan 05, 2023, 01:56:12 PMStill waiting for an explanation as to why literally nobody got left onboard the Sulaco during Aliens, beyond simply allowing for the plot to happen, so I agree with your view that it is not as infallible as people tend to make it out.
Why haven't Narcissus had enough cryotubes other than because plot required it ?
Spoiler
Yeah, I'm totally being snarky here
Because the company does not even do the bare minimum when it comes to keeping the employee safe.
Quote from: tyrannosaurusjones on Jan 05, 2023, 12:02:23 PMThe alien is anything but chaotic and unpredictable, but reducing it to an insect is also lazy writing.
"Insect" in terms of "mindless swarm", absolutely, but that's on many later writers not bothering to put any effort into it, not on the existence of the Queen.
The entire unique selling point of the Alien was its lifecycle, which was taken directly from insects. Insects such as the praying mantis informed its movements. It makes gooey insect like nests.
Adding the Queen didn't reduce it to being an insect any more than making it an interstellar wasp made it an insect in the first place. Lazy writers saying "Well that funny line said bees and ants and when I see them I just see swarming masses so I guess I'll call it a day" did.
QuoteRe-presenting ONE idea from ONE out of 6 films to make it line up more with an actual half of them is barely there mathematically speaking, too, but again... didn't happen.
I'm not sure what you're saying here. The Queen is in 3 movies and a key point in all of them.
Quote from: Kradan on Jan 05, 2023, 07:14:51 PMQuote from: BlueMarsalis79 on Jan 05, 2023, 01:56:12 PMStill waiting for an explanation as to why literally nobody got left onboard the Sulaco during Aliens, beyond simply allowing for the plot to happen, so I agree with your view that it is not as infallible as people tend to make it out.
Why haven't Narcissus had enough cryotubes other than because plot required it ?
Spoiler
Yeah, I'm totally being snarky here
Because space is big and the concept of a lifeboat on an interstellar ship is actually kind of ridiculous.
Quote from: BlueMarsalis79 on Jan 05, 2023, 08:02:36 PMBecause the company does not even do the bare minimum when it comes to keeping the employee safe.
One might suggest that overconfidence and budget cuts are why the Sulaco didn't have any redundancy of personnel.
It's almost like it's a recurring theme that large faceless organisations are indifferent to the suffering of individuals.
(https://s9.gifyu.com/images/dribbble_2x.gif)
Quote from: Local Trouble on Jan 05, 2023, 09:33:55 PMQuote from: BlueMarsalis79 on Jan 05, 2023, 08:02:36 PMBecause the company does not even do the bare minimum when it comes to keeping the employee safe.
One might suggest that overconfidence and budget cuts are why the Sulaco didn't have any redundancy of personnel.
Even so, what harm would leaving any one of the faceless marines onboard do just in case of this exact scenario?
It is just f**king nonsense to get the ball rolling.
Yeah Crowe on his own would absolutely save the day?
To avoid the issue you'd have another squad and to have another squad you're going to end up with more money on what was a modestly budgeted film.
EDIT
Ripley's superhuman arm would be a better example of a lazy out. She can suddenly hold up a 14 foot Alien being dragged by the escaping atmosphere? Come on.
And for what it's worth I didn't accuse Tristan of being lazy, that was directed elsewhere.
I'm guessing that they figured they brought enough redundancy with them. If the first dropship was shot down or disabled, Bishop could remote-pilot the second dropship from the APC.
Not only did they lose the first dropship and the APC, they couldn't even use the colony transmitter from the relatively safe confines of the operations center.
Quote from: Local Trouble on Jan 05, 2023, 11:28:34 PMI'm guessing that they figured they brought enough redundancy with them. If the first dropship was shot down or disabled, Bishop could remote-pilot the second dropship from the APC.
Not only did they lose the first dropship and the APC, they couldn't even use the colony transmitter from the relatively safe confines of the operations center.
It's also not like having the second squad would actually change the film that much. They'd get picked up slightly quicker and not have the final showdown with the Queen (or at least, it would be different). That's more or less it.
The second squad would hear about the hive, and that the first squad were evacuating. When they went quiet they'd probably start refuelling and head down to assist. Have the Aliens breach Operations in the time it takes them to realise, refuel, and go down and you've got the same movie without Bishop going to do it remote.
They probably wouldn't let Ripley go back into the hive though so RIP Newt.
Quote from: SiL on Jan 05, 2023, 10:49:35 PMEDIT
Ripley's superhuman arm would be a better example of a lazy out. She can suddenly hold up a 14 foot Alien being dragged by the escaping atmosphere? Come on.
Makes sense!😅 haha
(https://s3.gifyu.com/images/lv_0_20230105211940-1.gif)
There are lots of those moments throughout the film (and the series). "The monster is whatever I want it to be whenever I want it to be" ala Prometheus though, that's a whole other level of ugh.
Quote from: BlueMarsalis79 on Jan 05, 2023, 10:02:45 PMQuote from: Local Trouble on Jan 05, 2023, 09:33:55 PMQuote from: BlueMarsalis79 on Jan 05, 2023, 08:02:36 PMBecause the company does not even do the bare minimum when it comes to keeping the employee safe.
One might suggest that overconfidence and budget cuts are why the Sulaco didn't have any redundancy of personnel.
Even so, what harm would leaving any one of the faceless marines onboard do just in case of this exact scenario?
It is just f**king nonsense to get the ball rolling.
If I remember rightly, they did actually leave Bishop on the ship in the original treatment as he was attached to the ship rather than the marines.
Yeah he basically did what we see David do in Prometheus prior to the crew waking up.
I remember in the Colonial Marines comics, i think they left one or two members of the team on the main ship.
So something like that could have worked.
But yeah Tristan's idea and concept would have been something amazing. Maybe instead of having the Queen as a one off abberation, you make them super, super rare
As I recall, there was no queen in Aliens Labyrinth either.
Quote from: Local Trouble on Jan 07, 2023, 08:38:39 PMAs I recall, there was no queen in Aliens Labyrinth either.
None that we see, but the story is told through very limited perspectives.
And for what it's worth in the "making Aliens insects is boring" department, what the Aliens do in that story is kind of just a f**ked upped version of ants farming aphids.
Over the years after learning more about insects I've started saying the problem wasn't "turning" Aliens into insects - it's not going far enough into the horrors that actually presents. Insects are f**ked up.
Quote from: SiL on Jan 07, 2023, 10:49:40 PMOver the years after learning more about insects I've started saying the problem wasn't "turning" Aliens into insects - it's not going far enough into the horrors that actually presents. Insects are f**ked up.
Sure, but there's the implication that the aliens in Labyrinth are working differently anyway on a number of levels, which was something I'd bring up and bridge between Prometheus and the Alien director's cut. The horrors of what nature does to other things in it isn't remotely lost on me, but I'm just personally of the opinion that the creatures are scarier when they DO that horrific shit and you don't have a solid reason for it. The more you demystify the thing the more it just kinda becomes mundane. Personally, I think eggmorphing is a way more horrific thing than the "sting, coccoon, impregnate" cycle, but I've never had any intention of negating one or the other, simply presenting another way of looking at how those things fit together.
There are three very key things you see in Labyrinth that I think make the alien more interesting than almost anything else, which I'd planned on bringing back up sort of quietly. And even leaning into that, and the things from Prometheus or Covenant or Isolation or even the footnotes for Aliens and Alien 3 -- the key thing about the whole pitch was that all I needed anyone to have seen was Alien. The intention would be that someone completely cold to the expanded universes or whatever else could just pick it up, follow along, then MAYBE if they pick up Prometheus, Covenant, Isolation, Aliens, 3 or Resurrection, Labryinth, Salvation and f**k, even any of the Predator films, there would be things were you'd go "oh shit!" and HOPEFULLY make you think about them differently without affecting the narratives per se.
I'm not in the business of trying to please everyone, I know I never will. I just put forward what I found interesting and challenging, the guy at Fox at the time loved it, Dark Horse were on board, but as evidenced, it didn't happen. My biggest problem with so many franchise or legacy narratives these days is the insistence on everything being connected or referencing another text in a direct sense. Just find interesting stories and tell them.
Quote from: SiL on Jan 05, 2023, 10:49:35 PMRipley's superhuman arm would be a better example of a lazy out. She can suddenly hold up a 14 foot Alien being dragged by the escaping atmosphere? Come on.
Yeah, that bugs me every time. I feel like even half-Bishop would have been able to hold on to her, especially after they sort of set up him having somewhat above average abilities as a synth. But even that feels sort of trite.
Quote from: SiL on Jan 05, 2023, 10:49:35 PMAnd for what it's worth I didn't accuse Tristan of being lazy, that was directed elsewhere.
I never read it as that, so hopefully you don't think I did!! I appreciate you saying it though...
Quote from: Acid_Reign161 on Jan 05, 2023, 03:08:01 PMThank you for taking the time to address some of our comments! 😁
So, ballpark figure, what's it gonna set us back to commission this as a complete story / unofficial fan comic? 😂😂😂😂
I'd be lying if I said I hadn't seriously considered it, but I work two jobs right now so time is not on my side at all (ask anyone wanting commissions...)!
While I'm not too fond of
@tyrannosaurusjones bashing Aliens I always enjoy hearing from people who are enthusiastic about all the crazy-ass lore prequels brought us. People like you, Clara of Yutani Blog and Patrick from PO ppodcast gave me an extra appreciation for Prometheus and Covenant
I think it is not exactly "bashing Aliens" more just criticising it, and then getting backlash, because how dare ye.
Quote from: BlueMarsalis79 on Jan 08, 2023, 01:00:36 PMI think it is not exactly "bashing Aliens" more just criticising it, and then getting backlash, because how dare ye.
Fine, then I'm not too fond of people criticising Aliens, sorry
Quote from: tyrannosaurusjones on Jan 08, 2023, 11:22:35 AMI'd be lying if I said I hadn't seriously considered it, but I work two jobs right now so time is not on my side at all (ask anyone wanting commissions...)!
That wasn't a definite "no." I'll take it!! 😂
Quote from: tyrannosaurusjones on Jan 08, 2023, 11:22:35 AMThere are three very key things you see in Labyrinth that I think make the alien more interesting than almost anything else, which I'd planned on bringing back up sort of quietly.
So would it be fair to say that Labyrinth was an inspiration for this?
Quote from: tyrannosaurusjones on Jan 08, 2023, 11:22:35 AMI'm not in the business of trying to please everyone, I know I never will.
And you shouldn't be, you're an artist.
This sounds so good to me. I have found the Alien content we have had these last 2 years so boring and uninspired. It almost pisses me off not getting this lol
These past 2 years have had too much focus on the Pathogen, writing synths wrongly and stumbling upon Engineer ruins left and right without any meaningful story progression (cause of fears of Scott's potential next movie making new material non canon). Only now that the RPG exists has there even been an effort to progress things. Though the first two novels of this new wave are a miss to say the least, especially when it comes to portraying the effects of the Pathogen. Alex White and the RPG tried to tackle this smartly, yet here we are back again at the level of "does whatever the writer wants" that was first seen in Fire and Stone.
Kinda liked it more what the old waves of Dark Horse comics/novels did with the EU. Too much focus on the Pathogen and Engineers now without knowing how to handle them correctly or what to do with them at all for the most part.
I agree that Aliens is not perfect by a long shot and I do see the criticisms of specific scenes and writing decisions. But the Queen is not one of them. And she has been an integral part of the movies, timeline and EU ever since.
Again, to each their own, everyone has a part of the story they like more or less, I do get that. But if I understand things correctly, I personally would not be in love with the idea of having each Alien be a unique variant strain, never to be seen again. Cause that would again open the gates to writers to do whatever they want, make crazy mutant Aliens as chaotic as the Pathogen's treatment as of late. Just my opinion of course.
I do appreciate Tristan's art to an immense degree though.
I'm with SiL on this one, writers have mishandled the use of the term "bugs" and how they like to write the Aliens as thick as a brick sometimes. Insects are horrifying and alien to us and fascinating. I wish writers would go down that path without writing them as "bugs" in a derogatory way.
And Labyrinth had a Queen in the preview/flashback comic and she was awesome. The all out hive attack scene was really memorable. Humans trying out new tech and failing spectacularly.
Quote from: Still Collating... on Jan 11, 2023, 02:14:59 PMThese past 2 years have had too much focus on the Pathogen, writing synths wrongly and stumbling upon Engineer ruins left and right without any meaningful story progression (cause of fears of Scott's potential next movie making new material non canon). Only now that the RPG exists has there even been an effort to progress things. Though the first two novels of this new wave are a miss to say the least, especially when it comes to portraying the effects of the Pathogen. Alex White and the RPG tried to tackle this smartly, yet here we are back again at the level of "does whatever the writer wants" that was first seen in Fire and Stone.
Kinda liked it more what the old waves of Dark Horse comics/novels did with the EU. Too much focus on the Pathogen and Engineers now without knowing how to handle them correctly or what to do with them at all for the most part.
I agree that Aliens is not perfect by a long shot and I do see the criticisms of specific scenes and writing decisions. But the Queen is not one of them. And she has been an integral part of the movies, timeline and EU ever since.
Again, to each their own, everyone has a part of the story they like more or less, I do get that. But if I understand things correctly, I personally would not be in love with the idea of having each Alien be a unique variant strain, never to be seen again. Cause that would again open the gates to writers to do whatever they want, make crazy mutant Aliens as chaotic as the Pathogen's treatment as of late. Just my opinion of course.
I do appreciate Tristan's art to an immense degree though.
I'm with SiL on this one, writers have mishandled the use of the term "bugs" and how they like to write the Aliens as thick as a brick sometimes. Insects are horrifying and alien to us and fascinating. I wish writers would go down that path without writing them as "bugs" in a derogatory way.
And Labyrinth had a Queen in the preview/flashback comic and she was awesome. The all out hive attack scene was really memorable. Humans trying out new tech and failing spectacularly.
Backsplash was a fantastic story indeed
Can't agree on the RPG being written 'smartly." Gaska seems like an enthusiastic fan of the franchise, but the RPG's back story reads like bad fan fiction, or like it was written by an author desperate to create reasons for the RPG to exist, rather than creating a near-future world that has a rational, logical back story to it.
I always go back to the dialog from the Marines in the movie. They are profoundly bored. They talk like they were recruited with the promise of space action and being badasses, but rarely, if ever, actually get to do anything interesting. Their dinner conversations are about space prostitutes, they complain in briefings about not getting in real fights, and they are utterly unconcerned about some nasty alien that killed some space truckers. They literally named their dropship, a spaceplane covered in missiles and a rotary cannon, "Bug Stomper." You don't give your spaceplane nose art likening it to a pest control company if you're using your missiles and guns on actual bad guys.
"Is this going to be a stand up fight, or another bug hunt?"
The RPG, by contrast, especially in the Colonial Marines book, sets up this goofy Call of Duty In Space setting where there are these big battles between governments, who, with 300 surveyed worlds, are having costly wars over resources as opposed to just looking for new planets to get them from. Space travel in Alien is slow and expensive. Weyland Yutani and the ICC are incredibly concerned with how much the Nostromo and its cargo cost. Burke is incredibly concerned with how much their colony cost, which is likely factored in with Van Leuwen's description of it "takes decades" to terraform. I mean, think about how rare a planet like LV-426 might be. It has near-Earth gravity and a stable atmosphere. And yet it doesn't even rate a garrison or any planetary defenses and nobody is worried that it might have gotten attacked, because they send a dozen Marines to check it out when it goes quiet, lol. And the Marines are only told there's an armored mountain lion that some woman says her ship picked up there once.
The RPG is trying to turn the Alien universe into something closer to Firefly, but with more shooting. Bears no recognizable likeness to what we saw in the original films. Not to mention turning the Arcturians from transgender prostitutes into actual human-adjacent aliens. I mean, think about how stupid that is written in the RPG. The discovery of near-human aliens who worship "sky gods" that close to Earth? That's a paradigm shifting scientific discovery. Shatters everything we have assumed about evolution and our place in the universe. The RPG treats Arcturus like it's a scientific novelty that Weyland Yutani just kinda holds on to and lets pesky scientists journey to. And that's because, to the RPG, it's just "a place you can go" for an adventure, and not part of a coherent, well-thought-out RPG setting. I mean, Arcturus is own entire RPG setting, but to the Alien RPG, it's like 4 pages of text in a book about the Colonial Marines so your characters can also have sex with Arcturians and some of them will not worry if they are male or female. Destroyer of Worlds is legitimately one of the dumbest RPG adventures I've ever read, with its incomprehensible back story and faction motivations, battles lacking any coherent depiction of a battlespace to the point they'd make 40K authors embarrassed, and a railroad plot designed only to reach the next action setpiece.
William Gibson's Alien III had some interesting ideas for space politics, but even Gibson was like "Nah, nobody would actually have real wars in the future. Just more space posturing like the Cold War." The RPG took Gibson's idea of the UPP, scraping up the 3WE from an old Ron Cobb sketch (amusingly a short-lived political alliance that was already defunct by the time of the first movie), and hit the ground running with a plot taken from a first person shooter game so that your RPG Marines actually have things to do other than complain about cornbread and brag to civilians about how cool your guns are.
Can't get much more "does whatever the writer wants" than that.
I love the RPG, and you are absolutely completely correct.
Most Alien media doesn't quite get what makes the Alien franchise fairly unique in scifi.
Quote from: VeteranSergeant on Jan 11, 2023, 07:26:12 PMCan't agree on the RPG being written 'smartly." Gaska seems like an enthusiastic fan of the franchise, but the RPG's back story reads like bad fan fiction, or like it was written by an author desperate to create reasons for the RPG to exist, rather than creating a near-future world that has a rational, logical back story to it.
I always go back to the dialog from the Marines in the movie. They are profoundly bored. They talk like they were recruited with the promise of space action and being badasses, but rarely, if ever, actually get to do anything interesting. Their dinner conversations are about space prostitutes, they complain in briefings about not getting in real fights, and they are utterly unconcerned about some nasty alien that killed some space truckers. They literally named their dropship, a spaceplane covered in missiles and a rotary cannon, "Bug Stomper." You don't give your spaceplane nose art likening it to a pest control company if you're using your missiles and guns on actual bad guys.
"Is this going to be a stand up fight, or another bug hunt?"
The RPG, by contrast, especially in the Colonial Marines book, sets up this goofy Call of Duty In Space setting where there are these big battles between governments, who, with 300 surveyed worlds, are having costly wars over resources as opposed to just looking for new planets to get them from. Space travel in Alien is slow and expensive. Weyland Yutani and the ICC are incredibly concerned with how much the Nostromo and its cargo cost. Burke is incredibly concerned with how much their colony cost, which is likely factored in with Van Leuwen's description of it "takes decades" to terraform. I mean, think about how rare a planet like LV-426 might be. It has near-Earth gravity and a stable atmosphere. And yet it doesn't even rate a garrison or any planetary defenses and nobody is worried that it might have gotten attacked, because they send a dozen Marines to check it out when it goes quiet, lol. And the Marines are only told there's an armored mountain lion that some woman says her ship picked up there once.
The RPG is trying to turn the Alien universe into something closer to Firefly, but with more shooting. Bears no recognizable likeness to what we saw in the original films. Not to mention turning the Arcturians from transgender prostitutes into actual human-adjacent aliens. I mean, think about how stupid that is written in the RPG. The discovery of near-human aliens who worship "sky gods" that close to Earth? That's a paradigm shifting scientific discovery. Shatters everything we have assumed about evolution and our place in the universe. The RPG treats Arcturus like it's a scientific novelty that Weyland Yutani just kinda holds on to and lets pesky scientists journey to. And that's because, to the RPG, it's just "a place you can go" for an adventure, and not part of a coherent, well-thought-out RPG setting. I mean, Arcturus is own entire RPG setting, but to the Alien RPG, it's like 4 pages of text in a book about the Colonial Marines so your characters can also have sex with Arcturians and some of them will not worry if they are male or female. Destroyer of Worlds is legitimately one of the dumbest RPG adventures I've ever read, with its incomprehensible back story and faction motivations, battles lacking any coherent depiction of a battlespace to the point they'd make 40K authors embarrassed, and a railroad plot designed only to reach the next action setpiece.
William Gibson's Alien III had some interesting ideas for space politics, but even Gibson was like "Nah, nobody would actually have real wars in the future. Just more space posturing like the Cold War." The RPG took Gibson's idea of the UPP, scraping up the 3WE from an old Ron Cobb sketch (amusingly a short-lived political alliance that was already defunct by the time of the first movie), and hit the ground running with a plot taken from a first person shooter game so that your RPG Marines actually have things to do other than complain about cornbread and brag to civilians about how cool your guns are.
Can't get much more "does whatever the writer wants" than that.
Yup.
As much as I love incredible the effort, the pretty artwork and all the hard work that has been put into the Alien RPG, I must agree that they kind of made the Alien universe a little bit too goofy, simplistic and generic. I don't think that that was their original intention, but their mission to somewhat compile and unite as much of the Alien media as possible into one neatly wrapped up package, inadvertently and unfortunately, had that negative effect on the final product.
I also absolutely revile and abhor the idea of the Arcturians being actual extraterrestrials and not just a large population of sexually alternative and surgically altered humans having llllooootttttsss of fun-fun on the colonies and outposts in the Arcturus system.
There's a thing called Desolation?
This sucks. That was the name of my fan project.
This pitch sounds great, although I'm not a fan of Amanda meeting her end like this or completely writing off the Queen as a one off thing.
In my own opinion, if the Queen was to ever be retconned, she should be in a way that didn't make her a "leader", they are a hive mind, but if they are to be made to have self awareness like the Queen, then all of them should be made self aware like her instead of her being the only one, the Queen shouldn't be a one per hive kind of deal, but rather a common breeder made to preserve hosts instead of continuously wasting them with eggmorphing, and she should be born completely out of it too, rather than being a normal Xenomorph that eventually turns into a one to lead a hive
Hate the idea of the Queen being a one off mutant.
I would prefer the idea of a Queen Alien to be the result of the situation the Alien is in.
So in Aliens...lots of hosts in a close environment theyd need an egg making machine and a hive because you need alot of eggs faster.
On a desert planet you'd need faster aliens with an adapted method to get face huggers onto humans.
I don't mean Kennet type variants just different society's with subtle differences.
A decade from now they will probably release this as an alternative what if like they did with Gibson's Alien 3.
I like a number of things (like the black ooze being derrived from the Alien, which I've often theorised), but, yeah, the Queen is too obviously a part of the default reproductive system to be dismissed like that, in my view. Especially since she's clearly optimised, symmetrical, etcetera. That's far from what a cancerous-style genetic mutant would look like.
I still say there's room for a future story to depict egg-transformation as an emergency method to obtain, specifically, Queen-hosting facehuggers. That makes everything fit together.
Amanda suffocating to death on LV-426 would have been... Hmm... I don't know. Like, there's some interesting poetic irony in there, but it would have also felt like it cheapened Ellen's discovery about her in the film, because we'd know, in hindsight, that she's heading off to where her remains would be and just has no idea, which would have weird vibes. Depends how it's executed.
I mean, I personally don't embrace the EU version of Amanda as canonical, regardless. But in a comic, could have been an interesting hypothetical, depending on the eventual execution.
A rogue biologist declaring it's ridiculous to try and weaponise the Alien, I would disagree with. So long as the controlled laboratory conditions are there (and protocols are followed), without cutting corners, the Alien should be a lot easier to manage than, say, ebola, anthrax and all the other crazy plagues which have been kept in isolation in special facilities for decades. Especially if you do it on something like an orbital platform. They wouldn't even need a live creature. 'Resurrection' depicted a fairly incompetent operation and not how it would realistically be handled.
Heck, by that point in time, it would probably just be run by droids, anyhow. Zero human employees. Entire sections able to be flooded with radiation, ultrasonic countermeasures and a lot more. We only ever see very superficial, cartoonish depictions of how handling the Alien (or, at least, the DNA) would really be done.
Now, warning against an organisation trying to get ahold of them, which doesn't exactly have a great track record in safety? The 'wrong' people? Now you're talking! :) There are even some real historical examples of stuff like that to reinforce their point.
I loved the idea of the queen being a varient. I hated the queen but I loved the design. I totally wish this could have been made.
Just to clarify -- I'm not trying to write the queen out or off -- I'm just putting a different take forward. I LOVE drawing that thing and it would've ABSOLUTELY appeared, it just would've been posited as something else.
I kinda have to agree with the notes on the RPG. I admire the work that's gone in, but far out it reeks of grandiose deep dives. Clara's map is fantastic, but it lost me a lot in the connective tissues and trying to tie things together. My personal opinion has always been to make the alien as alien as possible. It's about how people deal with what's going on, and an RPG is about people playing out and reacting to those situations. Problem with playing an ALIEN RPG is that you know how the aliens work as a player, so it kinda stilts the experience in a sense. It's the same as when you read the books or comics or watch the films. You know what to expect now. I wanted to try and do something that made the experience feel fresh. Like you're watching a sequel for the first time and it's adding those new ideas in and building in new surprises. I feel like a lot of Alien EU stuff, as fun as it is, lost that.
Quote from: PAS Spinelli on Feb 05, 2023, 04:21:57 PMshe should be in a way that didn't make her a "leader", they are a hive mind, but if they are to be made to have self awareness like the Queen, then all of them should be made self aware like her instead of her being the only one, the Queen shouldn't be a one per hive kind of deal, but rather a common breeder made to preserve hosts instead of continuously wasting them with eggmorphing, and she should be born completely out of it too, rather than being a normal Xenomorph that eventually turns into a one to lead a hive
This is kinda what we figured with "big ugly" in Defiance. Aliens would evolve into something else if they weren't around a queen. Aliens with a queen were simple minded because they didn't need to be anything but protective monsters. Aliens without a queen became smarter, aggressive, and would either eggmorph until a queen came biologically, or evolve into something that either created or became a queen.
Quote from: Kimarhi on Mar 05, 2023, 09:52:00 PMA decade from now they will probably release this as an alternative what if like they did with Gibson's Alien 3.
As long as I'm involved...
Quote from: dnicholson277 on Mar 02, 2023, 11:17:01 PMHate the idea of the Queen being a one off mutant.
I would prefer the idea of a Queen Alien to be the result of the situation the Alien is in.
I mean... You're kind of proposing the same thing, though it leans closer to the above.
Quote from: Xenomorphine on Mar 06, 2023, 05:12:08 PMI like a number of things (like the black ooze being derrived from the Alien, which I've often theorised), but, yeah, the Queen is too obviously a part of the default reproductive system to be dismissed like that, in my view. Especially since she's clearly optimised, symmetrical, etcetera. That's far from what a cancerous-style genetic mutant would look like.
Obvious is my problem. Nothing about the original alien and its lifecycle is remotely obvious in my eyes. Something that makes more sense to me is that the queen is either an engineered factory-creature or a genetic evolution from parasitism. Both of which would've played into what was meant to be one of my Predator stories...
Quote from: Xenomorphine on Mar 06, 2023, 05:12:08 PMI still say there's room for a future story to depict egg-transformation as an emergency method to obtain, specifically, Queen-hosting facehuggers. That makes everything fit together.
That's what big ugly was doing in Defiance. Been on record about that a few times and its why the eggmorphing was in Defiance. Best of both worlds.
Quote from: Xenomorphine on Mar 06, 2023, 05:12:08 PMAmanda suffocating to death on LV-426 would have been... Hmm... I don't know. Like, there's some interesting poetic irony in there, but it would have also felt like it cheapened Ellen's discovery about her in the film, because we'd know, in hindsight, that she's heading off to where her remains would be and just has no idea, which would have weird vibes. Depends how it's executed.
That last bit is key. Isolation changed the entire emotional core of Aliens in the same way, so...
Quote from: Xenomorphine on Mar 06, 2023, 05:12:08 PMA rogue biologist declaring it's ridiculous to try and weaponise the Alien, I would disagree with. So long as the controlled laboratory conditions are there (and protocols are followed), without cutting corners, the Alien should be a lot easier to manage than, say, ebola, anthrax and all the other crazy plagues which have been kept in isolation in special facilities for decades. Especially if you do it on something like an orbital platform. They wouldn't even need a live creature. 'Resurrection' depicted a fairly incompetent operation and not how it would realistically be handled.
Right, but you're talking about a guy who has watched the company he worked for do exactly what you're talking about... and though he says it's ridiculous there's a lot in the details about that character's actions I didn't mention in the tweet...!
Quote from: Xenomorphine on Mar 06, 2023, 05:12:08 PMHeck, by that point in time, it would probably just be run by droids, anyhow. Zero human employees. Entire sections able to be flooded with radiation, ultrasonic countermeasures and a lot more. We only ever see very superficial, cartoonish depictions of how handling the Alien (or, at least, the DNA) would really be done.
Yeah, but also I disagree, even with self check-outs at supermarkets, you still need staff on hand. And Alien is cyberpunk at its core so... I know plenty of scientists in a lot of fields, and you wouldn't have synths just doing this remotely. We've also seen the problems with synths at this point... because... literally every Alien film!
Quote from: Xenomorphine on Mar 06, 2023, 05:12:08 PMNow, warning against an organisation trying to get ahold of them, which doesn't exactly have a great track record in safety? The 'wrong' people? Now you're talking! :) There are even some real historical examples of stuff like that to reinforce their point.
EXACTLY. I might be leaning away from SOME tropes, but at the end of the day, this is what the Alien saga is ultimately about in my mind, and in my notes it still makes sense that they're dealing with a pandora's box created from something not even the potential creators understood, creators of which the humans don't necessarily understand. Aliens upon aliens upon aliens trying to be interpreted by humans? HUGE margins for misinterpretation and error...
I think the queen has become too much of a staple of the franchise for the movies (or EU tied into the movies) to one off, but I like it as an alternative take fine.
After the chest bursting is done and the adult is revealed Alien is a pretty by the numbers monster flick. Even the android is just the mad scientist protecting the beast trope. People commented on it at release (some critics even called the adult the least interesting stage - even design wise!)
I always go back to Jaws when people say the beast is cooked or needs some new form or trait to keep it interesting. We know what a shark is. We know how they work. The film is scary because it's well told.
The last time I watched Alien I did so at night, with the lights off, phone well out of reach. I just watched the damn movie and nothing else. And despite knowing it backwards, I still needed to turn the lights on before going upstairs afterwards. It was great.
The Alien is an eight foot acid bleeding monster that wants to either rape you or eat your brains. It doesn't really need to be anything more than that.
Quote from: VeteranSergeant on Jan 11, 2023, 07:26:12 PMCan't agree on the RPG being written 'smartly." Gaska seems like an enthusiastic fan of the franchise, but the RPG's back story reads like bad fan fiction, or like it was written by an author desperate to create reasons for the RPG to exist, rather than creating a near-future world that has a rational, logical back story to it.
I always go back to the dialog from the Marines in the movie. They are profoundly bored. They talk like they were recruited with the promise of space action and being badasses, but rarely, if ever, actually get to do anything interesting. Their dinner conversations are about space prostitutes, they complain in briefings about not getting in real fights, and they are utterly unconcerned about some nasty alien that killed some space truckers. They literally named their dropship, a spaceplane covered in missiles and a rotary cannon, "Bug Stomper." You don't give your spaceplane nose art likening it to a pest control company if you're using your missiles and guns on actual bad guys.
"Is this going to be a stand up fight, or another bug hunt?"
The RPG, by contrast, especially in the Colonial Marines book, sets up this goofy Call of Duty In Space setting where there are these big battles between governments, who, with 300 surveyed worlds, are having costly wars over resources as opposed to just looking for new planets to get them from. Space travel in Alien is slow and expensive. Weyland Yutani and the ICC are incredibly concerned with how much the Nostromo and its cargo cost. Burke is incredibly concerned with how much their colony cost, which is likely factored in with Van Leuwen's description of it "takes decades" to terraform. I mean, think about how rare a planet like LV-426 might be. It has near-Earth gravity and a stable atmosphere. And yet it doesn't even rate a garrison or any planetary defenses and nobody is worried that it might have gotten attacked, because they send a dozen Marines to check it out when it goes quiet, lol. And the Marines are only told there's an armored mountain lion that some woman says her ship picked up there once.
The RPG is trying to turn the Alien universe into something closer to Firefly, but with more shooting. Bears no recognizable likeness to what we saw in the original films. Not to mention turning the Arcturians from transgender prostitutes into actual human-adjacent aliens. I mean, think about how stupid that is written in the RPG. The discovery of near-human aliens who worship "sky gods" that close to Earth? That's a paradigm shifting scientific discovery. Shatters everything we have assumed about evolution and our place in the universe. The RPG treats Arcturus like it's a scientific novelty that Weyland Yutani just kinda holds on to and lets pesky scientists journey to. And that's because, to the RPG, it's just "a place you can go" for an adventure, and not part of a coherent, well-thought-out RPG setting. I mean, Arcturus is own entire RPG setting, but to the Alien RPG, it's like 4 pages of text in a book about the Colonial Marines so your characters can also have sex with Arcturians and some of them will not worry if they are male or female. Destroyer of Worlds is legitimately one of the dumbest RPG adventures I've ever read, with its incomprehensible back story and faction motivations, battles lacking any coherent depiction of a battlespace to the point they'd make 40K authors embarrassed, and a railroad plot designed only to reach the next action setpiece.
William Gibson's Alien III had some interesting ideas for space politics, but even Gibson was like "Nah, nobody would actually have real wars in the future. Just more space posturing like the Cold War." The RPG took Gibson's idea of the UPP, scraping up the 3WE from an old Ron Cobb sketch (amusingly a short-lived political alliance that was already defunct by the time of the first movie), and hit the ground running with a plot taken from a first person shooter game so that your RPG Marines actually have things to do other than complain about cornbread and brag to civilians about how cool your guns are.
Can't get much more "does whatever the writer wants" than that.
This. All of this.