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 Post subject: you are the nightmare fuel race

Posted: 2012-04-16 02:08am 

ok, you are the nightmare fuel race, your pheromones cause hallucinations, in order to reproduce you have to implant your embreoes into another creature to grow up and eat thier way out of the host, your appearance look like something out of HP Lovecraft. so how do you treat your "Outside Context" problem of humans?

 Post subject: Re: you are the nightmare fuel race

Posted: 2012-04-16 02:33am 

First step is, "don't be evil". If your race is a parasitoid, reproduce using non-sapient creatures or not at all.

Second step is, communicate in a way that avoids the usual "Aah! Kill it!" response. If you look like a monster and your scent causes hallucinations, communicate from a distance (or wear some form of environment suit) until you're confident that they're used to the idea. Let them see photos or other depictions of your form before you take your helmet off. Things like that.

 Post subject: Re: you are the nightmare fuel race

Posted: 2012-04-16 03:06am 

only a wasp like parasite in terms of reproduction, the host must be of sufficaint mass and meat but needs not be sentient, but the bad sci fi history of aliens and other horror will make that bit of your biology difficult for others.

 Post subject: Re: you are the nightmare fuel race

Posted: 2012-04-16 03:44am 

Do your reproducing on another planet, and use the local equivalent of cattle. We will probably not pry too deeply into that if you don't volunteer information.

 Post subject: Re: you are the nightmare fuel race

Posted: 2012-04-16 04:18am 

yes, pretty much, the aliens in question also have one coulcha style oriface for eating,, excreating, sex etc, the females don't nessesarily have to lay the embreoes as soon as they are fertilized, however waiting too long can be fatal.

 Post subject: Re: you are the nightmare fuel race

Posted: 2012-04-16 06:30am 

In the Known Space series of books, there is a race called the Piersons Puppeteers (I think). They look pretty odd with three legs (two front, one back) and two heads each with one eye and finger-like lips.

Anyway, their method of reproduction isn't really discussed all that much but they claim to have three genders, two 'male' and one female. Turns out the two male genders are the traditional male/female that we know, but the 'female' gender is another nonsapient species that they implant their eggs into.

As for interacting with other races, probably best to just keep your space suits on when dealing with other races and use a preferred nonsapient race for reproduction. If anyone asks, you can claim that your biology is different and you can't breath the air (or more appropriately that your pheromones have negative side effects on other races so its best to keep your atmospheres separate). Just take to wearing aesthetically pleasing suits of a universal design when on other planets and it should be fine.

Depending on the exact effects of these pheromones, it could be that some mean humans might actually try capturing members of your race to harvest chemicals from them to get the next weird recreational drug/spice. Even if they don't, try to figure out how that works and use it to your advantage, partiularly working with human governments to prevent humans from abusing your people for their pheremones and making a show of cracking down on anyone selling the stuff illegally.

Might be best if the general public of both races think that their atmospheres must remain seperate to prevent contamination between the two (like germs, allergens, or whatnot). Then keep careful control on any foods, medicines, or other consumables that pass between worlds. If the general public things that even simple dishes have to be carefully processed to be safe for the other race to eat then nobody will think about anyone implanting eggs anywhere. Communication face-to-face would often involve the suits with possibly customized outer apperance and something covering the face.

People more used to aliens could then request looking at their real face on video or using clear glass visors. Inter-cultural examinations could help make it so you can 'smile' or frown or make the varous facial features that humans are used to.

 Post subject: Re: you are the nightmare fuel race

Posted: 2012-04-16 11:04am 

We need more data on the creature. And on how many of our kind do we have there? Is it just us or is it a whole lovcraftian colony?

Either way this is my plan. Step one, set up shop somewhere where there are plenty of people that no one really cares about (in the sense that there is no organized state to set up a monster hunt) like say Somalia or some darker parts of Asia. You know, somewhere where the worst threat that can conceivably come after me is a bunch of villagers with pitchforks or a stray AK. Naturally, avoid war zones since there will be a higher ratio of AK's to pitchforks there. Once I find a cozy place make sure it has access to drinking water and either hunting or farming appropriate areas. These will be extremely important in the next stage of my plan. Once the whole place is set up comes the acquisition of hosts stage.

In this stage, I must acquire a sufficient supply of hosts. And in my case hosts means children. In the kind of places I set up child mortality rates will be high. Ideally it would be a place where it is not uncommon for a child to get lost in the jungle or savannah. That way I can snatch away a child or two from different villages from the region and not alert too much suspicion. Now, children will most likely be too small to be hosts. But that is ok. For I don't need them to be hosts right now. Instead I plan to use them to start my own cattle herd. The idea is to enslave the children and force them to create a self sustaining village that I can than cull for hosts when ever I feel like it. Some of them will be culled, others (those that work hard or are exceptionally fertile) will be kept for breeding to ensure long term stability. During this stage I would most likely try to feed them some sort of cultist religion based around believing that it is a honor and great joy to be the chosen ones that get to give birth to the eldricth.

After a few generations the tribe would stabilize into a remote and isolated cult herd for me and my offspring to enjoy our selfs with.

 Post subject: Re: you are the nightmare fuel race

Posted: 2012-04-16 05:28pm 

Wait, seriously, what the hell? Why using children as hosts? Are you just... disturbingly evil and crazy?

 Post subject: Re: you are the nightmare fuel race

Posted: 2012-04-16 06:25pm 

No, I would be using adults as hosts. But children are easier to kidnap (due to the reasons I explained) and due to them being physically weaker and thus putting up less of a fight. Plus children are inherently easier to indoctrinate than adults are. But I would not be harvesting them until they reach a ripe age. I explained as much. Don't get me wrong thou. It has nothing to do with petty human morality. I just doubt that a small child has the necessary bio mass to ensure optimal nutrition for my potential offspring. Better to grow them to a more ripe age (say 14-15) and fatten them up before impregnation. The whole cult aspect would help with that too as the lucky chosen one gets access to the best food and stuff as part of the honor of being chosen to bear the offspring of god.

As for why humans and not animals, the question you are actually asking but don't know it. The answer is simple. Humans are sentient. They are the only animal on this planet that is capable of founding tribes and societies. In other words, they are a form of livestock that can take care of them self completely with only minimal input. The ideal farm animal.

You have to realize here that he is asking us to act from the perspective of a lovcraftian monster. A creature whose very evolution will have imposed upon it the view that other creatures are little more than hosts for its offspring. Such a creature will most likely NOT hold the same moral qualms of the type you or me would when it comes to things like this. And so, I just described the most logical thing for a creature of that type with a practical mindset and proper intelligence of our planet to do.

 Post subject: Re: you are the nightmare fuel race

Posted: 2012-04-16 06:49pm 

No you didn't.

Purple, I don't think your assessment works, simply because intelligent beings are far less likely to be docile.

Docility is the supreme virtue in a domestic animal. Any other trait can be bred in over time, but if you can't make them docile you can't keep them under safe control. Period. There are reasons many large fauna were never domesticated- they can't be tamed.

A herd of cattle in an enclosed perimeter are perfectly able to take care of themselves with minimal supervision, and far less likely to do things like, oh... attempt to escape. Or commit suicide to spare themselves the pain of having alien chest-bursters pop out of them, and take the alien's larva with them.

Moreover, you're neglecting entirely the problem of public relations, as usual, assuming you can behave as horribly as you like and no one will mind as long as you are Stupid Evil "practical" about things.

 Post subject: Re: you are the nightmare fuel race

Posted: 2012-04-16 07:07pm 

Hence the cult aspect. The idea being that I would create what is basically a religion for them. After all, people have done things like sacrifice each other, rip out their herds and thrown people down pyramids etc. without the benefit of an obvious alien god telling them to. I mean seriously. As far as violent religions go my cult would probably even be on the weak side. If modern day idiots can be seduced into an end of the world cult or what ever garbage is happening now, and if history of religion is any indication my idea should work out just fine. Seriously, humans are docile sheep when it comes to things like that.


What are they going to do? Seriously? Send a bunch of villagers afte me? After all, my place of choice would ensure that I have picked a spot that is suitable.


Also, another benefit to having a human herd is that since only 1 or 2 out of every few generations get harvested the rest can be harnessed into providing for me and my offspring. Happy little cultists growing gifts for their gods. Although I will concede that if the group grows large enough to hold larger pack animals I can just harvest those for reproduction instead. Still, I'll want the slave labor force.

 Post subject: Re: you are the nightmare fuel race

Posted: 2012-04-16 07:28pm 

Get the rest of the world worried about your cult that someone starts investigating. Once word gets out about you enslaving and sacrificing humans to grow your population, expect them to respond with force. Your pheromones will cause problems for anyone trying to put boots on the ground, making it worse for you as it forces them to escalate to airstrikes, missiles and maybe nukes.

 Post subject: Re: you are the nightmare fuel race

Posted: 2012-04-16 08:44pm 

Word gets out to the outside world ONCE about what is happening here and you will face an exterminatus. Dumb idea.

 Post subject: Re: you are the nightmare fuel race

Posted: 2012-04-16 08:57pm 

When did this move to the WH40K universe? Anyway, given what happened the last time I bred, I just don't.

 Post subject: Re: you are the nightmare fuel race

Posted: 2012-04-16 09:42pm 

yes, and besides as the OP was trying to imply, the Tentecled scary aliens know that humans are out there, they know that they are something that they don't want to fight to extinction, even evil, they aren't stupid enough to waste that many resources, (so this is taking place in a Sci-Fi envioirnment), They know that humans represent an OUTSIDE CONTEXT PROBLEM to them. Sure they have weapons, but that probably won't work out too well.

 Post subject: Re: you are the nightmare fuel race

Posted: 2012-04-16 09:44pm 

Is my race more or less powerful than the human race?

If I'm less powerful, the "cattle and spacesuit" solution sounds good.

If I'm more powerful, I use any damn solution I please; and if anyone says "Hey! That's evil!", well, I'm an alien race. My morals don't have to be the same as yours.

 Post subject: Re: you are the nightmare fuel race

Posted: 2012-04-16 09:53pm 

Suffice to say, you DON"T KNOW, and the conquest option most likely won't work.

One of the things that they have going against them, is that their Homewolrd qualifies in most any Sci-Fi universe as a Death/Hell world, I mean how else would someone have developed weaponized fear musk.

 Post subject: Re: you are the nightmare fuel race

Posted: 2012-04-16 11:37pm 

Regarding Purples brilliant idea of starting a cult and using children to grow larva... congratulation, you're the guy the US will hunt down in the next war!

Seriously, the US military has soldiers, ships, nukes, intelligence, and big military industrial thing that ensures that in any war there will be loads of people trying to make money off of it. They need to justify starting a war, make no mistake, but once the political climate reaches some point then someone is going to want to start a war for votes/money/whatever. In previous wars they had the Nazis and Communists, nowadays we've got terrorists. Once anybody even gets wind of horrible nightmare fuel chestburster aliens capturing children and starting cults, they're going to start sending people over with machine guns to liberate the hell out of whatever corner of the world you've set up shop in.

If you've got scary pheremones or super powers then they military will just hire more people to make countermeasures to this, use your powers to make propaganda, and basically exploit the situation to make money and get votes. Expect lots of religious fundamentalists to think you're demons (or hell, even evil spirits, vampires, wendigoes, Djinns, or whatever the hell else kinda monster they think you resemble). Pretty much every culture in the entire world has stories of horrible monsters that are evil and if you're a Nightmare Fuel Race then you've just labeled yourself an inhuman boogeyman the second anyone hears about you.

So yeah, once you start eating people or laying eggs in children then you've pretty much labeled yourself as fair game for anyone who needs a scapegoat or enemy who needs to justify a war. You might get some people who find cartoonish monsterdom to be attractive... but I wouldn't count on those sorts of people to be useful or sane. Really, your cult would probably consist of... hell, I don't know... some kind of weird neo-nazi cannibals who's blood is 10% meth.

I understand there have been like... two documented cases of people being sexually attracted to the idea of being eaten and then went onto finding a friendly cannibal to slowly torture, dismember, and devour them for sexual gratification. I think one guy signed a document letting the police know it was consensual and it was agreed that anyone who would willingly have that done to themselves was too messed up to be in the right mind to sign anything.

So yeah... you might find some people willing to work for a child-bursting nightmare monster but they would either be too messed up to be useful or they'd belong to some really weird and evil religion already and you'd find yourself being chained to a wall in a pit while they feed you babies in an attempt to summon Sploranoth the ancient got of pedophilia.

Either that, or you get found by drug lords who lock you in a steam room and harvest your sweat to sell as hallucinogens.


That's basically why I'd prefer to act as nice as possible and keep my horrifying nature a secret. Even if my race is spacefaring or whatever. Humans already tend to attack, demonize, and dehumanize eachother for skin color, gender, language, and other things. Once they encounter anything with an actual legitimate reason to hate or fear them then you'll find black and white ganging up on green.

 Post subject: Re: you are the nightmare fuel race

Posted: 2012-04-17 12:00am 

OK, we need more information.
Any official contacts made would be in a very disguising suit, something that looks very important for life support even if all it really does is hide what we look like. If it looks like we're about as capable as an early dalek rock-climbing, so much the better.
And we gather information. We infiltrate. We insinuate our tendrils into the underbelly of human society.
We start secret operations. People go... missing... all the time. No-one will miss them, A few here, a few there. So a few people rave about alien abductions. No one will listen. So a few cattle get mutilated. No one will care.
Soon we have our mind-controlled agents in every facet of government and big business. We can track everyone via the metalic strip in the money they carry. Whenever someone is put under for surgery in hospital, a little chip is put into their heads. Some few suspect. They are ignored, or they... disappear... Soon, it will all be too late for the human race.

This is all fiction, of course.

...of course...

 Post subject: Re: you are the nightmare fuel race

Posted: 2012-04-17 12:34am 

Actually, if my race is space-faring then just stay in environmental suits and make it a point to keep most communication on a ship-to-ship basis instead of bringing people on board. Maybe build robots to handle stuff outside our ships, no need to make them complicated, just have them carry communication screens or do manual labor while my people stay on the ship.

It would make sense if alot of communication and dealing between races take place using robot intermediaries. They would act like exploration probes but more advanced and commercialized. Why get off your ship, get in a shuttle, travel to a planets surface, face various red tape, wear protective suits and risk infection, when you could just stay on your ship and use a computer to control a robotic avatar on the planet so it can look at stuff for you? If you need to be on the surface then pay the expenses but the robot could be a much cheaper alternative.

Use the robots and advanced tele-presence technology to keep a decent amount of communication with humans (for examining their technology, buying useful stuff, and basic diplomacy). Everything else about yourselves keep done behind closed doors. My race could put on a general air of "automated helpfulness" or whatever. Basically if human ships need to stop at a refueling station, buy materials from a factory, or have a colony set up somewhere then they call us up on the phones and transfer the money, then we get stuff done using robots or whatever it is we use. The humans walk away with whatever they asked for and everyones happy. They look at us and see aliens in space suits... might see some artwork, our robots, and other signs of our aesthetic tastes but they never see what we are like in the suits or how we live.

The cattle used for reproduction should be non-sapient and relatively plentiful (and hopefully monitored by health and safety people to ensure the young grow up healthy as a result). May be some experimentation with different species of 'cattle' to see if that can result in better developed young but keep it all safe. If we hear about anyone wanting to capture or use sapient creatures for this purpose or they publish pornography depicting laying eggs in humans than quickly put a stop to them. Contact should be limited enough but in the event of such a thing happening then work with whoever needs to be worked with to put a stop to it (I assume that females could lay their eggs in other members of their species but such a things is frowned upon like cannibalism or bestiality. If that's the case then just put humans on the "don't impregnate" list as well).


If our race and humans have to compete for dominance in the galaxy then just start large farms to grow more 'cattle' and make it easy for females to lay eggs in them. Add a decent educational system and this increases our birth rate to let us potentially outpace humans. As long as we can keep our economy, defenses, and appearance up to prevent conflict then keep expanding to outpace humans while engaging in fair trade to keep abreast of whatever technology they might develop that we could use.


Soo...

1. Keep our dirty secrets out of sight so they have no reason to fear or hate us.
2. Develop robots and telepresence devices to we can give off a decent face to them when communication is needed or we need to work on anything in an Earthlike atmosphere (if someone calls one of our guys for maintenance work then it should be easier for him to do the repair through a remote controlled robot then going there in a suit).
3. Maintain good legal relations with humans in case anything bad happens.
6. Set up something like fuel depots, factories, or space power plants so we can gather resources and sell it to humans for business. Avoid any artwork that might freak them out. And make sure to keep abreast of any new technology they might develop that we could use. Keep our business profitable enough for both sides that nobody wants to start a war.
5. Maintain a military in case the above things fail.

And after all that, once our relation between our races is good enough, let some of the humans in charge know about our nature and reproductive habits (keep it on a professional level). So that if the cover is ever blown then we won't have a bunch of people running around like its all a big conspiracy.

 Post subject: Re: you are the nightmare fuel race

Posted: 2012-04-17 01:16am 

Such hubris. Ranting about alien abductions is a lot less crazy when there are actual real aliens around and people are being abducted (and not returning).

 Post subject: Re: you are the nightmare fuel race

Posted: 2012-04-17 01:32am 

Ok, true, there may be a subtle flaw in our evil plan to subjugate and feast upon the human race. I'll get back to you after I communicate with my overlords and they relay instructions.

 Post subject: Re: you are the nightmare fuel race

Posted: 2012-04-17 06:37am 

@SJ, bilateralrope

Did you two miss the part where I specifically said I would be setting up shop some place distant from civilization with a sparse population density, no organized government and a culture of children going missing for the explicit purpose of attempting to minimize the chance of drawing attention to my self? Seriously, who is going to notice or care about a very small village of maybe 50 abducted children farming a small farmstead somewhere remote like say the Himalayas near the poorest region of India/Pakistan or somewhere similar like say the deepest part of Somalia? I'd just be another cause of sudden baby disappearance along side with tigers and other wild animals, disease and other stuff. I mean, when it comes down to it. Do you seriously think the American army or someone similar is really going to care if a couple dozen more children per year disappear or die in those regions than they usually do?* The whole point is to stay well under the radar.

Hell, since I am from outer space I might even just abduct these guys and ship them off world somewhere nice, or keep them in a faux biosphere on my starship. I newer thought about that.

Edit:
Example Note:
* Source: http://slatest.slate.com/posts/2011/08/ ... der_5.html


29 Kilochildren / 90 days = 322 children per day
322 children per day x 365 days
117'611 children per year

I think they won't care if I give or take a couple dozen to that.

And yes, I know the article is a bit dated. But it serves well to reinforce the point I am making.

 Post subject: Re: you are the nightmare fuel race

Posted: 2012-04-17 08:09am 

What I still don't understand is, if this isn't about you gloating over how 'rational' it is for you to act like a cartoon villain, why implant larvae in people at all? Why not, say, have the enthralled minions tend a herd of cattle and use them for the implantings? Qualities like sheer mass and size and docility would matter in a host, wouldn't they?

It's like that bullshit 'bioelectric' stuff in the Matrix. It doesn't make sense, if all you need is some raw animal property of human beings, why use human beings and not cows?

 Post subject: Re: you are the nightmare fuel race

Posted: 2012-04-17 10:18am 

I believe you missed the part where I outlined that as the most likely end result of my project. I just dislike having enthralled minions and prefer religious cultists instead. They take less tending to.


You are looking at this from a purely human morality standpoint. A standpoint that begins with the emotional attachment for humans due to being one combined with a misguided empathy for animals. The aliens meanwhile will have evolved into lacking said sympathy for animals (they have to lest reproduction becomes mental torture for them). And once you don't have sympathy for animals there is no reason to feel it for a random alien creature just because it is sapient. The aliens are far more likely to say "who gives a shit about those ugly naked monkeys". And once that is accepted as a base premise the question becomes, why have an extra step and herd cattle when you can just impregnate your thralls. And depending on your morality and the extent of the powers you could just (if you are that kind of kinky moralist) make the victims hallucinate something nice or knock them out or something to stop them from struggling and disrupting the larva.