Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Alien Predators

Building your sci fi or even fantasy world? Need a predator that scares the living shit out of the heroes? Want one that continuously picks off members of a team with absolute crushing power only to vanish into the mist? Look to our own natural world. Now, don't describe one of nature's predators by statistics, but more like what they do and how they accomplish the hunt. Common boring predators relate physically to our own world. Add a couple of extra legs or perhaps a second row of teeth. Put on some bug details and WHAMO! You got yourself an alien beast right? NOPE!

Building an alien takes a bit more than that. Now I will agree the the original Alien series made for one kick ass and scary as fuck predator. But where did the creator get the idea? I'm not sure, but the real task is defining our own alien predator.

Going about it takes a bit of research. Look around you. Do a bit of that evil thing called reading about our natural world.

One example is below. I saw this stalk and hunt and about shit my pants. My jaw certainly hit the floor at the implications. Now I suck at embedding videos so please hit the URL, it's a fun surprise, I promise! Without further a due I present the Jaguar at it's primal best:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eu1by5-BpTA


Right, that was some bad ass stuff! Now, do a little exercise. Don't describe the Jaguar and it's super sexy face. Instead, list what it DID to close in for the kill. Realize that it took on another dangerous predator like it was going to take down a little deer. Look carefully at it's kill technique. See how it could silently swim to it's target, make a last second crazy ass pounce and notice something that is VERY different about it's strike compared to other big cat hunters. Did ya see it? That's right! Most big cats strike for the throat! This little bad ass went straight for the skull to literally crush it. Fun fact, The pounds of crushing pressure a jaguar has out performs both the tiger and the lion. Ye the jaguar is smaller than both. It can literally lift the cranial cap off the skull of an animal with one bone crushing strike.

So take away the fur, take away the gorgeous coat. Now develop the analytical statistics of what it did. Watch it carefully from the very beginning of it's stalk to the final killing blow. Describe the action without describing the beast.

After this put the beast in the world you desire, but look into the evolutionary environment you put it in. Atmosphere, prey availability, terrain, etc. Think on the biology of it. Once this is done, start developing the physical characteristics that actually count. Leave a bit of mystery to the actual predator so the reader can in fact use their imagination to finally put the puzzle pieces together.

Final point to re-iterate Our own world has a dynamic and diverse set of species we can look at for ideas. A little research, a little creativity and BOOM MUTHA FUCKA! You got the Samual L motherfuckin Jackson of predators! Ok, nuff said for now. Have a great field day in the writing.

No comments:

Post a Comment