Something NEW

But a bigger spear would be SO much better! As the ancient Greeks, and the Macedonians in particular showed us, the longer a spear, the more effective it is...

I mean, it increases the reach of your attacks, and therefore your ability to damage an enemy from afar, at a range that is safe from you. Now, a glaive or halberd is better than a spear because you can not only stab, but slash and hack as well.

I think a Predator, with a far more impressive physiology than a human, would be able to weild a simply massive halberd or glaive - and do it well!

Imagine it, a phalanx of Predators standing ready to meet the Xenomorph charge...

On the other hand a xenomorph with a very long tail.
The could use it to wrap around enemies or just attack from a far.
You see this longer spear or anything nonsense is not that stupid if you go and think of it.

This Alien would be different from the others so they are weaker at close range et cetera, that to avoid that I just created one epic Alien but just another sort of them all.

All though it would be kinda ridiculous if you say:
" Oh nooo... here come the long tailers!!"
If you work them out a bit better this could be something.

Feels so awesome when so-called Alien fans come with the suggestion for Aliens with long tails when Aliens already have ridiculously long tails. Great going.

See, this is exactly what I wanted to avoid with this topic. Dunn's suggestion was interesting, but still misses the point.

The idea is to add something new, not just making things we've already seen bigger. By that logic, AvP was strikingly original.

I'll expand on my idea.

We've seen the preds hunting with what for them must be sub-standard gear they've taken to put them on more equal terms with their prey (you don't hunt deer with a M1A2 Abrams MBT)...

In the Pred VS Space Jockey war (which we ALL know happened), what kind of gear did the preds use then? Did they wear armour? Did they have more powerful plasma weapons?

Preds geared for actual warfare instead of hunting. That'd be interesting.

Yea i know, was just saying it could be something if you do think of it probably but my idea sucked i know but just saying.

"In the Pred VS Space Jockey war (which we ALL know happened)"

No, Malus... No. There was no Preds vs Jockey war. Aliens were not made to kill Preds and Preds did not teach humans how to build. Aliens, Humans and Preds are not bound together by destiny since the beginning of time but just don't know it, they just happaned to be in eachother's ways and they'll probably be extinct before they even figure out what the hell to do with eachother. This is AvP, not Stargate.

I think the point he was trying to get at was the whole y'know preds with warfare weapons. Actually how would they fight a war? i mean they can fit nukes into incredibly small sizes...

Imagine that big laser from AvP being used a little more irresponsibly.

Something I'd like to see is how the Preds' weapons are made. It'd be cool to see a huge industrial nightmare of a factory with spaceships being assembled by hand in preparation for the next hunt.

Oh god, what if the laser missed and hit my apartment? I would be really pissed off, as for the yautja/yautjas responsible I would hunt him/them down and snatch his/their skulls out of their heads.

Hmm, something really new... well, i'd like to see a heroic Xenomorph who becomes a jedi and discovers his true destiny- to defeat our galaxys' true plague, Cthulikus the great. Imagine a xeno with an extra long lightsaber mounted at its tail. They can move their tails extremely fast and accurate, even Obi-Wan would be outmatched in a lightsaber duel.

It's quite hard to find something completely new. I'd really like to see a large-scale xenomorph infestation on a planet with 30 000+ colonists and the USMC's reaction to this threat.
With so many colonists to infest, the xenomorphs could build a very great hive with a wide variety of specialized drones who act different but coordinated. For example, a horde of weak but fast "decoy"-drones attack a heavily fortified USMC position whilst a few stronger drones uses this distraction to infiltrate the humans position in order to kill their commanding officers.
Summary: I want to see a true xeno-human war.

Predator religious rituals: I'd like to see a young hunter go through a manhood ritual wherein he breathes the fumes from a burning root and goes on a really screwed up dream quest-type thing. Maybe he has to fight the Predator death god (which I imagine would look something like a Xenomorph.)

Cetanu looking like a Xenomorph, never imagined that. Always though their gods would look either like themsevles or like animals native to their homeworld. Maybe different tribes would have different dieties, though, depending on what creatures they come in contact with. Maybe a select few specimens of the creatures they hunt can achieve diety status in their eyes, the toughest one encountered for example. Like Harrigan in Predator 2. This is one thing i's like to see, a more detailed sketch of their religious tradition.

^ It was inspired by this artwork:

http://www.avpgalaxy.net/forum/index.php?topic=34051.15

That's how I picture Cetanu.

Another cool thing about an expansion of their religion is that their animal-headed gods would be an excuse to show the actual animals. You could create a whole pantheon, and the appearance/names/etc. could change from clan to clan to provide variety (and so every writer wouldn't have to worry about getting something wrong.

Plus, all sorts of storylines could be spun out of religious conflicts. I always imagined they'd have a god that looked like a hideous, goblin-like Yautja made entirely out of corpses.

Oh shit, that looks pretty good actually, because of the Predator face. I like the idea as long as it's more Predator than Alien. Now that i see it, i'd like to see a legend of Cetanu, where he is actually a historical figure who was an Alien-Predator hybrid made in the same way as Ripley. May sound bad taste to some people. But shit, imagine him being as tall as that and wearing some awesome armor, leading a legion of predators with spears against a horde of Aliens half his hight.

Everyone stand back, because I'm about to nerdgasm all over the place...

Ok, I've heard Cetanu described as "The Black Warrior who wins all battles." In other words, death. This could explain their entire warrior culture, as all Hunters essentially strive to be like Cetanu.

Cetanu wears a thousand faces. He can appear as a Xenomorph, a Yautja, a Human, a meteorite, or even a virus. The masks could have originally been a representation of this. A warrior wears a face that isn't his own while on the hunt.

Centanu sees through all defenses. No matter how many walls you put up, no matter how powerful you make yourself, no matter how many guards you post, Centanu will find his way to you. One cannot hide from Cetanu's sight (kind of like how no one can hide from a Predator's vision modes.)

Cetanu is invisible (stealth suits.) His skill is such that he can kill you without touching you (ranged weapons)

You get the idea. Basically, all hunters strive to be as fine a killer as Cetanu. Each one swears an oath that he will one day surpass the First Killer... And each one will inevitably fail.

I think I read somewhere that Yautja language has a slur against females (child-bearer). I imagine females have a much nastier slur against males: Oath-Breaker.

That's some awesome shit right there. You just deciphered a huge cultural aspect about a civilization that doesn't even exist. And the great thing is, it probably wasn't even intended to fit together that well. What you just said would have a very big impact on understanding other aspects of their society, such as arts, liguistics... Coincidentally, a quote from Hagakure: Book of the Samurai: "The Way of the Samurai is found in death."

Thanks, I'm glad all my rambling makes sense to someone. My earlier post about the drug-induced ritual also fits in better now that I think about it...

It could be a root of some kind that is burned and inhaled. A shaman prepares it, and the young hunter goes on a dream quest.

This drug could be similar to DMT in that it causes something akin to a near-death experience. A preliminary bout with the Death God to show them what they're up against. How his face appears in this dream is probably where they get the inspiration for their hunting masks.

Speaking of which, I'd like to see them have different masks for different occasions. The masks with the vision modes and everything are for hunting, but there are also masks for rituals like scarification, manhood, rank increase, etc.

God DAMN, I'm having a blast right now.

EDIT: Wow. I just looked at one of the many Yautja language "translations" floating around, and I found something interesting things.

Mesh'in'ga - "battle dreamtime"

Also, the words "end," "fight," "coma," "death," and "The Pure Win" all have the same "-de" ending. It's really weird how this stuff can be made to fit together.

The only way i can imagine the effect of such a drug is like this: It activates parts of the predator brain in such a way that the conscious is separated from the subconscious and so the predator, during the ritual, would have two different personalities. One on the outside and one on the inside. To the outside world, the predator becomes extremely violent and no longer able to distinguish between pain, pleasure, friend or foe, thus exhibiting the symptomes of "demonic posession" (allegedly, he is being possessed by Cetanu himself).

On the inside, however, the predator find himself in a dream world where it is his quest to defeat the God of Death. Of course, the only way it would be possible to have a certain specific hallucination at this time would be if the predator had been raised since birth to focus on this one most important battle before becoming a "man". Therefore, before taking the drug he would meditate for weeks on this upcoming battle in order to train the subconscious to expect it so that the hallucination is correct. This all would be kept as very strict and important tradition.

During the ritual, the predator would exhibit unnatural strength and resillience, therefore he would be extremely hard to restrain. This would require especially trained predators to guard him, continuously provoking him and defending against his attacks so that he has something to punch at and doesn't harm himself in stead. Of course, there would be a time limit (a few days maybe) after which the predator's mind would be completely lost, signifying that he lost the inner battle with Cetanu, at which point the Elder would have to kill him.

Well, we've expanded on the Preds pretty well-Anyone want to tackle the Jockeys?