ALIEN - The Silent Dark 'The Lander'

Yeah that was my one gripe with the film (from a writing perspective) A:C didn't give us many answers to work with. Especially the outcome of David's actions and how it affects the progression of AI's and synthetics moving into ALIEN.

I'm intrigued to find out what David plans to do next with his new cargo....

I absolutely love the new Neomorphs! They are missing the link to the Xeno's only real weakness! I'm definitely going to explore them!!

I don't know if you read my Life History traits topic between the two species, but it pure genius what Ridley and his writers have done there.

IRaptus

Yeah, there's a whole bunch of blanks to fill in from that movie! BUT, gives me tons to work with as well as every other writer who wants to try tackling it. :)

I'm Intrigued about David's story-arc and plans, but kind of dreading it as well...

I don't do a lot of work with AI, as the whole sci-fi genre is already handling it, case in point ALIEN: Covenant. I've always liked that Ash was a surprise, but I've never liked how Synthetics have been steadily becoming more and more the focal point.

Neomorphs!! Kitten-sized-Krazy-Killers!! Love them for that!! As for weakness...heh...imagine what would happen if say a large expedition tromped blithely through the sporepods Ledward tromped on? Say a group of a dozen people? All infected? That kind of sudden population explosion is a quite stunning advantage in itself, right?

I haven't yet but will have a look!! :)

Yes!!! To me that is the perfect niche for the Neomorph. Easrly infestation, weaken the intruders so that the Xenomorph can establish and dominate.

The Xeno Chestburster is the most vulnerable stage of its life cycle, and they are much slower to populate (or at least should be if gestation time-length weren't convenient to the plot!!!!)

I think the way forward is to differentiate the two species even more and play on their strengths/weaknesses. Perhaps the Xeno has the Eggmorph in its life-cycle and the Neomorph has a queen or something similar/equivalent to lay spores down.

IRaptus

Those are all extremely solid, and good points!! Neomorphs in a swarm situation would be just absolutely devastating.
A thought about Neomorph reproduction: They eat, grow and 'bud' off spore pods. Each and every one of them. You want mass-saturation and absolute domination of an area, a queen won't do it.
Say each one can 'bud' a mature spore pod once every day, times say 4 days, times say, 3 Neomorphs. Now each pod can potentially infect say, reasonably, 6 people/animals.
Now there's a terrifying, powerful and 'Alien' lifecycle system. ;)

For me however, I've got a LOT of work invested in The Alien and it's Origins (NOT David and NOT the Engineers) and it's lifecycle as well as establishing Set but reasonably-flexible time-lengths regarding the stages of it's life cycle that hollywood loves messing with.
Chestburster stage, my take on it, it's not as vulnerable as people think.
Consider the sheer strength needed to force it's way out through a human body? Now it's also Fast, and I'm pretty sure those jaws it has can partially unhinge like a snake's, yet still be able to support and conduct a LOT of muscle force for a truly horrible bite radius that'd likely go through a spacesuit gauntlet with NP.
It's also possible that Chestburster can spit acid, or something different but equally nasty.

I set up the Facts first. Then the story I write, like Life, has to work around them ;)
helps me avoid plotholes and such. :D

Blackwinter-witch wow that's a fantastic idea about the Neomorph's "budding" spores instead of a Queen, LOVE IT! Perhaps they can bud some spores when they die too. Imagine in A:C after a certain neomorph scene Daniels & Tennessee found the dead Neomorph covered in spores. That would be almost as creepy as an eggmorph, but more efficient. Again working to the strengths of the Neomorph life-cycle! 

Great points about the chestburster. I must admit i write them off as weak, but you are definitely correct they are not completely helpless, quite the opposite! Thank you for pointing that out. I do hope they keep it as the most vulnerable part of the xeno life-cycle however and offset it against the more formidable Neomorph juveniles. It works well.

Yeah I do hope "Awakening" or whatever it ends up being called doesn't go to David/Synthetic heavy. A:C was David's film. Now the focus needs to go back on the First Bio-mechanical Xeno and setting up That Space Jockey scene leading into A L I E N.  

IRaptus

Glad you liked my thoughts about the 'budding' concept and I have to say that your idea of posthumous budding is truly insightful and splendid idea!! It fits so perfectly to the rest of the Neomorph lifecycle aspects and is ruthlessly efficient!!

In the lander, I had a chestburster demonstrate what I figured would be a reasonable capability in very rapidly chewing through a vent grille to escape.
I agree in the overall that a chestburster is indeed the most vulnerable stage, and definitely prefers to escape/evade/hide rather than fight...but if cornered, it'd be an extremely nasty creature to deal with I suspect.
That said, while it's the most vulnerable stage, that doesn't equate to 'helpless', of course.
I treat the chestburster as an 'ambulatory stomach', it has one job, to eat as much as it can to fuel the upcoming maturation. In ALIEN: Manticore the crew finds damage to some areas of a ship's kitchen-waste repository in the recycling systems, suggesting that something small got in there for some reason. ;)
This neatly solved where Chestbursters get the mass and energy supplies needed to become an 8 foot tall Nightmare. :D

TOTALLY agree with you regarding 'Awakening' or whatever it ends up being called!! Folks WANT to know the Tale Of The Space Jockey, and David's had his time in the limelight, now we need to have the story-linkage of Space Jockey and Biomechanoid Alien, definitely!!

Sorry I have been meaning to tell you I finished reading The Lander. Damn! That is some fine work!! 

What truly stands out are your characters. They are very well thought out, fleshed out and contrast beautifully against each other. None of them seem like fodder; like the type you know is going to die because the author hasn't invested time in them. They all have personalities, agenda's, traits, flaws and strengths. 

I especially liked Meer's character. So broken, and he's the captain! gives so much danger and unpredictability to the story.

If there is one sentence that sums up the Alienverse in your story it is:

"She tried to stop them from launching without the rest of the crew and had ended up with the business end of Meer's gun pressed to her left eye."

Excellent!

IRaptus

Very glad you enjoyed it!! :D

Thank-you also for the compliments!!

I wrote it as an 'experiment' of sorts, and also I wanted to develop two of the characters outside the main story, and just felt that the best way to keep the 'seperate' feel was to try a tie-in short-story. :)

Glad to know it worked!

Meers, I enjoyed developing him as there's only one thing worse than being stranded...it's being stranded with someone like him in charge. ;)

ALIEN: Manticore is proceeding quite well, i'm integrating things now and building up what was formerly a very weak, threadbare section of the story with Discoveries...and some Unpleasant encounters. :D

@Blackwinter-witch I've stickied this so more people can see it. It was Roger55 's suggestion. :D

Lilly (Svanya)

Roger55

THANK-YOU!!! :D

What do you think about  a remake of  "Robinson Crusoe on Mars" but on LV-223?  (Guess that's been done with "The Martian" - :) )   You're stuff on a planet trying to survive and you have alien technology that you might adapt for that use.   And Elizabeth becomes a sort of MacGyver on LV-223.  Hey, "The Martian" didn't have facehuggers, and xenomorphs to contend with!

cryofodder

The Martian did it, and did it very well, adding in alien tech could make such a tale into an entirely new story, so it's an idea worth exploring, although David already did that somewhat as seen in ALIEN: Covenant.

At the risk of a 'spoiler' their survival entirely depended upon what happens after this short story ends. ;)

Facehuggers and Xenomorphs and Hammerpedes, oh my!!

...and that is just the beginning. This story is set in 2137 and Prometheus occured in 2093....consider what's been happening with all that black glop oozing from the Urns in the chamber Shaw and company visited?
Think about the native bacteria and micro-organisms in the soil they trod into it, and as they were breathing in an out sans helmets, add that into the mix.
Now, they did leave Milburn's body in there as well, so factor that in.

Let steep for 40+ years....factor in natural-selection and hyper-fast evolutionary adaptations.

Big things have small beginnings, indeed. ;)

*bump* *bumpity-bump...crash....smashsmashsmash....dripdripdroooool*

*Looks up*

"Okay, if you're gonna be all creepy and hang out on the ceiling, that's fine, but keep your damned tail away from the fireplace mantle. And mind your drooling, it's murder on the rugs."

*Looks around*

"Now where the hell did The Deacon wander off to...."

Just my version of a Thread-Bump. :D

This is awesome (what I've read so far). You should try to get in touch with ADF and collaborate on something! Having this story as part of the canon would be beneficial to the series as a whole.

IndyFront

Glad you're enjoying it!! :D

ADF has no real say about anything in the ALIEN franchise, when they want him to do something FOX approaches his agent through Titan Publishing, and they won't even reply to my emails with even so much as an automated reply.

Thank-You very much for what you said though!! I do sincerely take that as a VERY significant compliment!! :)

Blackwinter-witch !!

I often wondered what this topic was - I'm a bit slow on the uptake u know ;)

Anyways - I clicked on it on Tues and read it in 2 parts over 2 days.

I love the Chimera idea. I read through some comments on here and found your description of them and what they are about.

Real gritty feel going back to that Alien vibe is what i got from it. Yet it was so much more and i was so happy that i clicked and read.

I will read Manticore when it arrives and if this is a bench mark then i am excited going forward.

Great read. Great knowledge of the franchise. Thank You ;)

sherris

Thank-YOU!!! and you are quite welcome!!! :)
I really appreciate your comments, sincerely and greatly!!

Very glad you liked the story!
ALIEN: Manticore is coming along, and it won't be too much longer as the vast majority of it is done, so it just needs finishing-up, then a final edit-pass to make sure all's good and, then it'll be out. :) I'll be making sure it's links will be easy-to-find. :)

Very happy you like my Chimerans!! :) More information will be coming out about them in the near future. ALIEN: Manticore has a good chunk of their history and such as well.

VERY glad the 'Feel' came through, because to me, it's that gritty 'Feel' of the ALIEN universe that is so important and that is what I seek to protect and preserve in my stories. :)

Blackwinterwitch - 

If your aim was to keep that gritty feel of Alien then you have exceeded your expectations as it was the first mental note i made regarding the story on first read.

How you have managed to capture that is quite remarkable!

I also love the fact that you have not only intertwined "Manticore" into the story but you also managed to keep it directly associated with the Alien story.

Given the 28 page length you should take great pride in that you have managed to do so. 

I found myself making mental visions while reading your story and had the bonus of seeing some of the franchises direct elements unfolding and the two merged quite brilliantly thus giving it the "feel" and authenticity that we crave, at the same time!

Wow !!

sherris

That was indeed my aim, to keep the gritty 'Feel' and atmosphere of what ALIEN is as a key and dominant element in both The Lander and ALIEN: Manticore. :)
Both are labors of love for this franchise, and I'm not afraid to dismiss 'canon' if need be as it's a BIG universe, and given how folks have reacted to PROMETHEUS and ALIEN: Covenant, I will continue to focus on the hallmark elements that have such great and untold stories. :)
I am very glad it came through quite well from the sounds of your compliments!!
TY again for taking the time to post, as it's always nice to know that my works are indeed on-track as was my intent in keeping the flavour of the franchise directly involved in it's theme. :)
I really do appreciate it!!

Thank-you again for saying!!
I am proud of The Lander as it was a quickly-done work that came from my inspiration being spurred by a convo on a thread somewhere in here. I forget which one, unfortunately, but the Animated Story vids found here had a LOT to do with it!!
Thus a good part of the credit goes to the people who do the Animated Story!!
Introducing Alien: Covenant The Unofficial Animated Series!

From the start, it was meant as a tie-in or 'companion' story to ALIEN: Manticore, but at the time I just wanted to get it done and posted up where people could enjoy it as the story was burning a hole in my brain, so it's nice to know it turned out well enough it seems! :)

I have posted some Excerpts from ALIEN: Manticore here on this site. You'll have to endure some scrolling, but they're all there. :)
Just keep in mind that all the Excerpts are First-Draft 'Raw' material, and that some are pretty old (relatively). :)
ALIEN: Manticore

"Your topic, 'ALIEN - The Silent Dark 'The Lander'' was just replied to by htmlcolor!"

Got this in my email, but I can't find any trace of such a reply...