The Rage War: A three part Alien / Predator epic by Tim Lebbon

[The Alien Predator]

I'm gonna put my explanation in spoilers in case of potential spoilers.

Spoiler

The Rage were originally called the Founders. Centuries before the Rage War, a Founder Synthetic broke into a human ship to steal all the data on Aliens that the crew has researched. She also released the captive Aliens in that ship, killing almost everyone except the few who reached escape pods.

She reached the last one, setting the ship to drive into the nearest star to explode. It was in Alpha Centauri. She drifted in space for decades until she was found and picked up by the Founders.

They were lead by a man named Wordsworth who had many supporters. Because their members included some wealthy and influential people, as well as scientists and engineers. They were eventually able to construct three huge mother ships with better FTL drives than those of other human ships. In the early 2400's, they blasted out of human space.

They spent centuries exploring the vast unknowns, discovering and researching fascinating new sciences. Not restricted by funds and human regulations, they were able to study forbidden sciences such as quantum quantifications and multiverse balancing among other things.

There were three ships, the Macbeth, the Othello and the Hamlet, these were the three Founder motherships.

When they blasted off with their new and incredibly fast FTL drives, only Macbeth and Othello emerged. The Macbeth had no idea what happened to the Hamlet and the Othello had no memory of the Hamlet even existing in the first place. The ones who remembered the Hamlet noted how dangerous and unpredictable going at such speeds could be.

To cut a long story short, they find an artificial world that is still growing. The ruins left behind are five million years old according to carbon dating. This was an ancient settlement of the Dog-Aliens. Here they found the Faze, a slug like creature around the size of a medium to large dog that did nothing but build or improve technology. They brought two board, one on the Macbeth and the other on the Othello. The ships eventually became unrecognizable, looking as if they were grown instead of built. They had even faster FTL, they were stronger and more advanced in every way. They were even given ship shields.

They made attempts to communicate with it, but it didn't respond. It just moved around and tampered with things, bettering them and then it'd just sit and rest until something else needed tampering with.

They also found Xenomorphs on this planetoid, and using the research stolen centuries ago, they studied them and figured out how to control them by using the Faze's nanotechnology.

The original Founders lived for centuries, having discovered an alien gel-like substance that gave them long lives, eventually this came at a huge cost as the Rage Elders all became mutated and shriveled, some losing limbs due to atrophy. Being confined to floating chairs or inside of floating orbs filled with gel, swimming in their own discarded skin, piss and crap which would have to be filtered out by their shipborn human helpers.

But before that, when they still looked human, some Founders disagreed with Wordsworth. He said they left human space to be free. Beatrix Maloney said they should go back and take it. She murdered the very old man and took over, renaming the Founders into the Rage.

They eventually made their way back, at the end of the 27th century, they launched their invasion. A Synthetic rebelled and fled into human space, the same Synthetic who started the whole thing centuries prior ironically.

[close]

[predxeno]

Still, I prefer my Arcturians to be humans (i.e. originally originating from Earth) as I'm not a fan of human-looking extraterrestrials populating the universe of Alien. Can't help but finding it cheap; doesn't matter it they're "created" by the same creators that "created" us, the Engineers and possibly the Predators. Just feels like a cop-out to me even though I get the inherent logic of it all. It simply doesn't jive well with me.

I don't like the sound of it either, for what it's worth; we already have too many Star Trek/Guardians of the Galaxy type stories to deal with.  The Alien/AVP franchise should have been it own unique entity rather than another genre stereotype.

[SM]

What about the myriad species populating the comics or adorning Predator trophy cabinets?

[j0w]

We have to get there sooner or later. Besides the idea of us being the continuous space travelling cavemen has to get old some time

perching

[The Alien Predator]

Still, I prefer my Arcturians to be humans (i.e. originally originating from Earth) as I'm not a fan of human-looking extraterrestrials populating the universe of Alien. Can't help but finding it cheap; doesn't matter it they're "created" by the same creators that "created" us, the Engineers and possibly the Predators. Just feels like a cop-out to me even though I get the inherent logic of it all. It simply doesn't jive well with me.

I don't like the sound of it either, for what it's worth; we already have too many Star Trek/Guardians of the Galaxy type stories to deal with.  The Alien/AVP franchise should have been it own unique entity rather than another genre stereotype.

Here we go again with "more aliens = Star Trek", why does everyone keep assuming that?

No, it's not the case. The Engineers didn't just create us. This is a good in-universe excuse for some biological similarities.

Even in the old EU, we had things like the Reapers, humanoid green skinned aliens hunting Xenomorphs and collecting eggs to sell in a marketplace.

We had a huge orange humanoid reptile thing putting Facehuggers on a grill.

We had a primitive tribe of humanoids encountering a Xenomorph from a crashed human space ship. And encountering a human survivor who was trying to kill the Xeno.

We had an alien who crash lands on Earth, self destructs his ship and is captured by humans who caught him just in time to witness a chestburster erupt from his chest.

We see another humanoid reptile collecting Alien eggs.

Then there's the "Cravenor" and another race in the Atari Jaguar AvP game.

Also the "Giff" from Alien: Steel Egg who mention another race that seeded worlds with Alien eggs in order to wipe out life.

And obviously the Space Jockeys and Predators were present in the old EU.

We had the Mala'kak (possibly Space Jockeys) from Original Sin (I think) set after Alien: Resurrection. They had a deal with a human organization, to be supplied with hosts for Xenomorphs.

Most of those are humanoid and a few have interacted with humans in various ways. So by this logic, Alien/Predator were "Star Trek" right from the beginning. 

And those are just from the old stuff. I remember making a thread where we would list all the known sentient races.

What's the key difference between Alien/Predator and Mass Effect/Star Trek/Wars?

The lack of unity. No galactic society. No alliances. The "peace" with the Predators in Rage War only lasted for a while and they're back to hunting us again.

Another huge difference is lack of communication. Us interacting with Arcturians makes sense because by Alien era standards, Arcturus isn't that far away. But did they come to help us during the Rage War? No. It was the Predators who had very personal reasons for doing so. It seems relations with Arcturians may have fallen by the far future setting anyway. We've yet to see one in a comic or movie or a novel, so nowhere near is this "Star Trek", because it it were, why didn't we see a crew member or an Arcturian citizen? Sea of Sorrows and River of Pain implied a friendly relationship but Rage War hints at a distancing from them to the point that if you're sick of human society, just go to Arcturus - or maybe it's too late by that point because the "Arcturian humans" we see were there long enough to become recognizable as such.

[predxeno]

^For the record, I hated all those other alien life-forms as well.  Also, the Mala'kak definitely were the Space Jockeys; the Derelict on LV-426 was said to be their ship.

[SM]

Here we go again with "more aliens = Star Trek", why does everyone keep assuming that?

Quite.  Even by the end of the 27th century, it's still really just humanity and Predators, and prior to the Rage War, encounters with Predators were very rare.

Star Trek has Vulcans, Klingons, Romulans, Orions, Gorn, El Aurians, Borg, Kazon, Ocampa, Trill, Deltans, Betazoids, etc. etc.  Alien doesn't have anything like that.

[The Alien Predator]

^For the record, I hated all those other alien life-forms as well.  Also, the Mala'kak definitely were the Space Jockeys; the Derelict and LV-426 was said to be their ship.

Fair enough.

Here we go again with "more aliens = Star Trek", why does everyone keep assuming that?

Quite.  Even by the end of the 27th century, it's still really just humanity and Predators, and prior to the Rage War, encounters with Predators were very rare.

Star Trek has Vulcans, Klingons, Romulans, Orions, Gorn, El Aurians, Borg, Kazon, Ocampa, Trill, Deltans, Betazoids, etc. etc.  Alien doesn't have anything like that.

Indeed, and all those aliens are encountered very frequently. Unlike in Alien where it's usually one-off encounters, or just rare interactions such as with Arcturians, Engineers/Jockeys and Predators.

Another unique thing is all the aliens we heard so far (Predators, River Ghost, Engineer) have their own languages and alien noises. Unlike ST/ME/SW where everyone speaks plain English and is lip synched perfectly too despite those being "universal translators" and their lips should be moving like we're watching a live action foreign movie which was dubbed badly.

The Rage War did the translating thing very believably. It was made through a study of the Predator language, and it was very flawed but slowly began to evolve over time as the books progressed. And even then, it's not like everyone has access to it. I think only Palant and James Barclay had it. I liked that you had to speak first, and then the translator processes it. Unlike in ST where it automatically knows what you will say and instantly relays it.

[SpreadEagleBeagle]

I'm gonna put my explanation in spoilers in case of potential spoilers.

Spoiler

The Rage were originally called the Founders. Centuries before the Rage War, a Founder Synthetic broke into a human ship to steal all the data on Aliens that the crew has researched. She also released the captive Aliens in that ship, killing almost everyone except the few who reached escape pods.

She reached the last one, setting the ship to drive into the nearest star to explode. It was in Alpha Centauri. She drifted in space for decades until she was found and picked up by the Founders.

They were lead by a man named Wordsworth who had many supporters. Because their members included some wealthy and influential people, as well as scientists and engineers. They were eventually able to construct three huge mother ships with better FTL drives than those of other human ships. In the early 2400's, they blasted out of human space.

They spent centuries exploring the vast unknowns, discovering and researching fascinating new sciences. Not restricted by funds and human regulations, they were able to study forbidden sciences such as quantum quantifications and multiverse balancing among other things.

There were three ships, the Macbeth, the Othello and the Hamlet, these were the three Founder motherships.

When they blasted off with their new and incredibly fast FTL drives, only Macbeth and Othello emerged. The Macbeth had no idea what happened to the Hamlet and the Othello had no memory of the Hamlet even existing in the first place. The ones who remembered the Hamlet noted how dangerous and unpredictable going at such speeds could be.

To cut a long story short, they find an artificial world that is still growing. The ruins left behind are five million years old according to carbon dating. This was an ancient settlement of the Dog-Aliens. Here they found the Faze, a slug like creature around the size of a medium to large dog that did nothing but build or improve technology. They brought two board, one on the Macbeth and the other on the Othello. The ships eventually became unrecognizable, looking as if they were grown instead of built. They had even faster FTL, they were stronger and more advanced in every way. They were even given ship shields.

They made attempts to communicate with it, but it didn't respond. It just moved around and tampered with things, bettering them and then it'd just sit and rest until something else needed tampering with.

They also found Xenomorphs on this planetoid, and using the research stolen centuries ago, they studied them and figured out how to control them by using the Faze's nanotechnology.

The original Founders lived for centuries, having discovered an alien gel-like substance that gave them long lives, eventually this came at a huge cost as the Rage Elders all became mutated and shriveled, some losing limbs due to atrophy. Being confined to floating chairs or inside of floating orbs filled with gel, swimming in their own discarded skin, piss and crap which would have to be filtered out by their shipborn human helpers.

But before that, when they still looked human, some Founders disagreed with Wordsworth. He said they left human space to be free. Beatrix Maloney said they should go back and take it. She murdered the very old man and took over, renaming the Founders into the Rage.

They eventually made their way back, at the end of the 27th century, they launched their invasion. A Synthetic rebelled and fled into human space, the same Synthetic who started the whole thing centuries prior ironically.

[close]

Ok, interesting...

Spoiler

but what's up with the name? The Rage? For some reason the name just sounds so silly to me and hard to take serious. Before I read your reviews and discussions about these books I thought the Rage was some kind of intelligent nano-virus or something like that. Some kind of alternate version of the Black Goo altering your neural capabilities, or something like that. Interesting that there is time travel involved. I always had a feeling that this franchise would get to that point at one time or another *no pun intended*

[close]

[SM]

Spoiler

It's more about humans harbouring resentment at being ostracised in the first place then having centuries to stew about it and living way longer than anyone should; once gaining some awesome power, taking it back to seek vengeance.

[close]

[SpreadEagleBeagle]

Spoiler

It's more about humans harbouring resentment at being ostracised in the first place then having centuries to stew about it and living way longer than anyone should; once gaining some awesome power, taking it back to seek vengeance.

[close]

Ok, that sounds like an interesting theme and narrative. Maybe I will give these books a try later on. T

Oh, and thanks for taking time explaining it to me guys!

[The Alien Predator]

SM pretty much covered the reason.

As for the

Spoiler

time travel, it could be, I figured it was a bit deeper than that. I thought it was something that would be more incomprehensible. The ship disappears without a trace, and only one of the two ships remembers it and had records of it while the other does not, despite all three leaving at the same time and the same speeds.

Their FTL was the fastest at the time during the 2400's. The book uses this to further solidify the dangers of FTL travel at ridiculously fast speeds.

The Hamlet may have ended up in a different universe entirely.

[close]

Speaking of

Spoiler

time travel, this isn't exactly "travel", but it's timey whimey and interesting. When Weyland-Yutani use a technology that lets them speak across lightyears in real time (which is very costly and takes up tremendous amounts of power), their holographic faces constantly distort, and keep changing age randomly, each flicker shows them at a different stage in their life. Every time they speak, there's a slight but noticeable lag. One of the CEOs keeps mentioning how it always unsettles him everytime he has to speak to another of the W-Y's Thirteen.

[close]

Spoiler

It's more about humans harbouring resentment at being ostracised in the first place then having centuries to stew about it and living way longer than anyone should; once gaining some awesome power, taking it back to seek vengeance.

[close]

Ok, that sounds like an interesting theme and narrative. Maybe I will give these books a try later on. T

Oh, and thanks for taking time explaining it to me guys!

You're welcome man.

I'd like to hear your own thoughts on it if you decide to read them.

[SM]

Speaking of

Spoiler

time travel, this isn't exactly "travel", but it's timey whimey and interesting. When Weyland-Yutani use a technology that lets them speak across lightyears in real time (which is very costly and takes up tremendous amounts of power), their holographic faces constantly distort, and keep changing age randomly, each flicker shows them at a different stage in their life. Every time they speak, there's a slight but noticeable lag. One of the CEOs keeps mentioning how it always unsettles him everytime he has to speak to another of the W-Y's Thirteen.

[close]

I loved that aspect.

[The Alien Predator]

Same. I love how this trilogy shows how humans utilize

Spoiler

other dimensions for communications or space travel, and just how unprepared our minds can be when it comes to experiencing this ourselves.

Even their dropholes, although they are physical, also have a presence in other dimensions and humans don't fully understand how their own drophole tech works.

[close]

Lebbon's really went ahead and made the universe much more mysterious and creepy than it already was as a cold and lonely place with monsters in the closet.

[Kaltes]

Just ordered the first book tonight, should be here by Saturday. Can't wait to read it.

(Yes, I realize I'm behind here, but I had other books to get through first)