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[-] [email protected] 13 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago)

That was the original idea for alien. The aliens are actually this advanced cultured race. But they get crazy in childhood and puberty.

[-] [email protected] 10 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago)

That's also kinda the explanation for the velociraptor behaviour in the second Jurassic Park book. They were a social species and the lab-grown ones grew up to be absolute sociopaths.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 8 hours ago

That seems more like a retcon when the author of the book found out they didn't actually behave like they do in the movie 😅

[-] [email protected] 3 points 8 hours ago

This idea is somewhat present in the ending of the first book already, the second one just spells it out, but the second book has a character shitting on Alan Grant for his ridiculous idea that a predator wouldn't see you if you're not moving, speculating the T-Rex was probably fed at that moment (which is accurate). And the whole idea of there being a second island for growing the dinos is treated as obvious by the same character, since the small lab they were shown in the first one is obviously just theatre for the visitors. So yeah, Crichton was not above correcting his earlier mistakes.

I highly recommend both books. They're awesome, and they diverge from the movie in many ways - notably not all survivors from the movie make it and vice versa, so it's still very suspenseful even if you know the movies.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 5 hours ago

The T Rex literally ate a goat right in front of them.

[-] [email protected] 8 points 10 hours ago

Like those hunters in the USA that go out in the wild and get attacked by grizzly bears and almost nobody with any sense has sympathy for them because at the end of the day the hunters put themselves into the bear's habitat and then weren't savvy, educated, vigilant, or concerned enough to stay the fuck away from the apex predators with knives built into their mouths and feet.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 8 hours ago

“Who would win, me or an Austrian with plot armor and a hyper myostatin disorder that makes them naturally huge?”

“I mean, the Austrian, obviously. Don’t they usually travel in packs?”

“I don’t know, man, I’m built different. Plus I just got that new load out from space cabellas’s that makes me invisible and shit. I’m not saying it would be easy, but I could do it, I just know I could.”

“Sir, this is a space Wendy’s.”

“Alright, what if it’s normal non-Austrians, like a tribe of some sort? Hear me out…”

[-] [email protected] 3 points 9 hours ago

Or the assholes like Jimmy John who go out and shoot Elephants.

[-] [email protected] 23 points 17 hours ago

I know it's an important literary device in sci-fi but it always bugs me that whole planets are mostly mono-cultural with usually only up to 3 different governments.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 5 hours ago

Star Trek crew arrives at a planet. Meets a group of aliens. Meets another group of different aliens. Both aliens are literal opposites of each other. Doesn't agree about one issue. Crew fixes issue. Star Trek ship leaves.

[-] [email protected] 6 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago)

The US, Japan, China, India and Europe all watch the same major block buster movies. We can talk to each other about the MCU and at least have some idea what each other is talking about. There are only a hand full of religions left in the world unless you want to counter obscure ones and each sect and even then three of those big ones are basically branches of the same religion. the most common language in the world is spoken by a large variety of people all over the planet while the second is pretty regional.

An advanced society would probably end up being monocultured going by the one model we have. Though it could depend on if they are a space fairing race and how long it takes to travel between 'settlements.'

[-] [email protected] 1 points 8 hours ago

Also how much they share media and communications between the different settlements, which would probably depend on if they're at war or opposed ideologically.

[-] [email protected] 13 points 16 hours ago

Wait you read sci-fi where a planet has THREE governments?

Maybe I'm reading bargain bin material but the stories I see is a mono-culture, with a mono-religion and if I'm extra blessed, a single ecosystem like frost planet, or sand planet.

[-] [email protected] 8 points 16 hours ago

This is why I could not get through Xenocide. I absolutely loved Ender’s Game and Speaker For The Dead, two of the all time greatest, but xenocide was so flawed I just couldn’t keep going with the series. Also, fuck Orson Scott Card in general.

[-] [email protected] 4 points 16 hours ago

But what if the species is genetically/psychologically inclined to a single form of governance?

[-] [email protected] 6 points 15 hours ago

How convenient for a lazy writer

[-] [email protected] 73 points 1 day ago

I love this idea so much. The Predators we see in movies are literally trophy hunters, and maybe their home society views them the same way the majority of humans view human trophy hunters.

[-] [email protected] 19 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Think about how much infrastructure and support it would take to bring a civilization up to the level of "interstellar exploration."

It takes an UNGODLY amount of logistics and technologies and resources moving around and compiling and colliding with other technologies, just to make [ONE SINGLE TECHNOLOGICAL MACHINE], and it takes all of that times a thousand to make a spaceship. Now lets talk about the people who work in each of those industries, the people who drive the boats or trains to get the stuff to the place. The people who manage those machines that drive to the place, the people who manage the factory that makes the fuel that powers the machine that drives the stuff to the place, and the countless people who keep the floors clean in those factories, and so on.

I scream at the screen (internally) every time I see some really stereotyped "space species" being portrayed as homogeneous and identical in their values and goals, particularly if it's some kind of "honorbound violent tribal" species. I appreciate the work that went into overhauling the Klingons a little. I love how Space Orks are explained. But there's been some other really goofball aliens that remind me that our species is kinda... you know, racist. (1-dimensional perspectives of different cultures.)

People screaming about "DEI" remind me of this all the time. We simply do not progress without a vast, diverse population who have all degrees of values and motivations.

[-] [email protected] 9 points 1 day ago
[-] [email protected] 35 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

This is a well known concept in sci-fi where civilizations massing in the tens of billions will have all kind of weird outliers. But at such a scale, even the really weird ones can form groups of tens of thousands or even larger. In sci-fi storytelling this is often used to explain weird behavior that probably wouldn't make a lot of sense otherwise.

It also comes up in the fermi paradox a lot. For examples aliens always want to stay at home and not be noticed or interact with anyone. But at a certain scale of civilization that doesn't hold water. Even if 99.99% of a given alien species think that way, there would stil be at least a million of them that think otherwise and would be willing and able to act on it.

So it makes perfect sense for all the Predator people to be really normal and the hunting cult is a hobby that got out of hand.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 10 hours ago

I also listen to Isaac Arthur.

[-] [email protected] 11 points 1 day ago

Yeah I’m gonna need examples. I read a shit ton of science fiction and can’t recall having encountered this.

[-] [email protected] 9 points 1 day ago

Check out the works of Alastair Reynolds, he loves to apply this principle in his books. Great on world building and describing the weirdest parts of large civilizations.

For more a meta/review/fermi paradox talk point of view check out the content from Isaac Arthur, he also likes to point out this when discussing things like the fermi paradox and sci-fi in general.

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[-] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago

The Dark Templar in Starcraft are outliers.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 10 hours ago

...and they are not even the edgy dark ones any more.

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[-] [email protected] 9 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I've read a lot of sci fi but I'm not familiar with that concept, but it makes more sense than thinking of a whole culture as weirdly sadistic etc.

[-] [email protected] 75 points 1 day ago

Predators are just extreme doomsday preppers, setting up on their own planets and killing any trespassers. The rest live in a post-scarcity society and have no interest in convincing those weirdos to come home.

[-] [email protected] 61 points 1 day ago

Predators are like humans going to Africa for big game hunting.

[-] [email protected] 36 points 1 day ago

They're mostly dentists, Fortune 500 CEOs, and children of dignitaries. Every time we kill a predator, their planet's stock market is affected or a bunch of parents have to negotiate a new provider with their insurance.

[-] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago

They literally use the phrase 'on Safari' in the second predator movie.

[-] [email protected] 49 points 1 day ago

The Predator version of the Office would be pretty funny.

[-] [email protected] 34 points 1 day ago

Predator Jim pranking Dwight by leaving a xenomorph egg in his bottom drawer.

[-] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago
[-] [email protected] 32 points 1 day ago

“Oh, that guy? He’s just a douchebag failson of the third richest asshole on the planet.”

[-] [email protected] 11 points 1 day ago
[-] [email protected] 16 points 1 day ago

It's like their version of guys who spend a fortune on gear and tactical everything to go weekend paintball shooting in the woods.

[-] [email protected] 19 points 1 day ago

Those predators are just the offspring of the predator oligarchs.

[-] [email protected] 12 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Every "big game hunter" ever.

Nothing screams baby dick energy like killing an animal from a distance, using advanced weapons designed and engineered by people far more intelligent than you are.

[-] [email protected] 18 points 1 day ago

What's the yautja word for "ammosexual?"

[-] [email protected] 13 points 1 day ago

Weekend warriors on a men’s retreat. Anything to avoid going to therapy.

[-] [email protected] 11 points 1 day ago

I want to see a romantic comedy, where in the background the TV is playing a news report about how Tokyo is being attacked by Godzilla again. No one in the foreground acknowledges it, probably because it's so common you may not comment on it. Still some people in the background are looking concerned. Maybe a poster for donating to rebuild Japan.

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this post was submitted on 30 May 2025
905 points (99.8% liked)

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