Alien vs Star Trek (or ) Predator vs Star Trek. What do you think?

[Pauln6]

In his introduction to the trade paperback version of Batman Versus Predator, Dennis O'Neil said, "The only test I've ever found for judging the artistic credibility of using a character from one fictional universe in another such universe is this: If the characer were presented fresh, as a new creation, would he be acceptable?"

Using this standard, the only series where a crossover with either Alien or Predator would really work is Enterprise. With TOS and the series that followed it, the tech available to the Starfleet crew makes it far too easy to locate and neutralize the intruders.

I think this partly depends on your plot and the situation in which you place your characters. A landing party can indeed be placed in peril in any itineration of Trek just by virtue of the ship being elsewhere. The Galileo Seven is one example. Perhaps kidnapped crew might have to engage in a 'Running Man' style game featuring aliens or Predators. IDW placed a landing party on a world populated by zombies and I thought the story was quite fun - or at least fun enough that a two issue story wasn't enough for my tastes! There are plenty of other possibilities although TNG replicators would make a mockery of any 'limited resources' plot - that would be the first thing I'd destroy with acid personally!

Alternatively, a cloaking device can overcome Trek scanning or transporting technology or in my story I went for a 'natural' ability to avoid detection by scanner, which leads the crew to consider how they do this, which leads them to genetic engineering, which leads them to ask who was responsible for that genetic engineering, which leads them to the next plot point and so on.

The bar to these kinds of stories has more to do with the conscious decision to make modern Trek very family friendly rather than anything inherent in the nature of the franchise itself. This is why we mourn the loss of the parasites from TNG season one.

Squirrel Girl would totally dig Chakotay.

 

[Deckerd]

There haven't been any good crossovers so far, so there's no reason to think a new variety would be any better. I don't mind references in movies though, like the BladeRunner references in Soldier (although the script/direction of Soldier was so utterly stupid it shouldn't be referring to something so vastly superior).

 

[lurok]

Fun edit and not too bad...
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIL_J499Esg[/yt]

 

[Pauln6]

Cool! Look up Star Trek the Motion Comic too.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

For Alien vs. Star Trek: In Alien we were made to believe that the alien is the first extraterrestrial creature we meet...

That implication is NEVER made. The alien ship on which the eggs are found is described as very very unknown, but nobody is surprised that it's an alien space craft. Ash even says "I've never seen anything like it," and everyone takes it as a foregone conclusion that it must be an alien ship. The only thing they don't know is WHOSE.

Later, Ash calls the alien "A perfect organism... its structural perfection is matched only by its hostility." He's the ship's science officer, so I should think he has a bit of experience in xenobiology in order to make that determination, android or not.

And later in Alien 2, we have that little argument with Ripley and the bean counters:
Suit1: Are there any reports about this hostile organism on LV-426?
Suit2: No, it's a rock. No indigenous life.
Ripley: Did IQs just drop sharply while I was away? Ma'am I already told you, it was a derelict spacecraft, it was NOT FROM THERE. Do you get it? We homed in on its beacon...
Suit2: And found something never recorded once on over a hundred surveyed worlds: a creature that gestates inside of a living organism and has concentrated acid for blood."

And later still, Hudson asks Sarge "Sir, is this gonna be a stand up fight or another bug hunt?"

Again, they're not speaking as people who have never encountered aliens before, but as people anything quite this weird. So with a bit of retcon and creative license, you might be able to interpret the the Nostromo and even the Colonial Marines as some sort of side-story shenanigans taking place in the 23rd century involving some non-Starfleet (probably civilian/mercenary) operators.

Of course, that doesn't mean it would be in any way interesting or even workable. Just kinda/sorta possible.

I would love a Star Trek vs. Star Wars one though, even a serious one, even if it means forking both universes (like Star Trek forks the real universe and takes foreign stories without affecting their universes). I think it would be rather amazing and hilarious if done properly.

Frankly, I think Star Trek vs. Babylon 5 has more potential, although Star Trek vs. Halo would be more interesting to watch. Something about the Enterprise warping into orbit to prevent the Covenant from glassing some Federation planet... it practically writes itself.

 

[HAL.9000]

I love Babylon 5, Star Wars and Star Trek equally, and putting them all in to one universe would make me sick ...

Truer words were never spoken.

 

[Pauln6]

I come at this concept from a different perspective. I love the other franchises (Babylon 5 is a flawed masterpiece) but Trek is my first love. However, one of the things that I find most irritating about Trek is its reliance on allegorical aliens of the week and an absence of political intrigue. The Klingon episodes were great fun, as were the Andorian & Vulcan episodes in Enterprise and the Bajoran/Cardassion/Dominion development in TNG & DS9. I always thought the Romulans were rather shoddily developed though. The Borg were great fun, although perhaps a tad overused as an unstoppable force to the point where they had to be neutered so that they could be developed.

By contrast, Babylon 5 kept a tighter reign on its aliens and their polictics (even if the Vorlons and Shadows did end up boiling down to allegories it was fun getting to that stage). It's 'all powerful' First Ones were not the 'godlike yet strangely human' beings from Trek and there was a genuine sense of wonder about the way the aliens' non-human psychology affected their world view. V'ger and the Prophets (and to a lesser extent Vulcans and Borg) were probably as close to this as we got in Trek (and I love all of them). I think it would be fun to import the alien races from B5 into Trek to bring more intrigue. Since they are horror villains, I'd only use 'Aliens' or 'Predators' as footsoldiers in the wider war between the older races, akin to the Drakh. I also much prefer B5's approach to telepathy, which coincides more with early Trek (Miranda Jones) and less with the deplorable Betazoid telepathy from TNG.

 

[137th Gebirg]

I've always been a sucker for cross-overs. Always have, always will. Although, I'm going to add that tried and true genre trope/caveat of "as long as it's well written", 'cause there is some real crap out there too.

IIRC, MANY years ago, there was a TOS/Alien crossover where a Xenomorph got on the Enterprise. They ran into the Space Jockey ship and brought an egg back for examination. The usual Nostromo-like carnage ensues and an Alien gets loose on the ship. They figured out the acid blood thing pretty quick and Spock designs a way to lure it down to the ship's swimming pool - where the acid would be neutralized and harmless in the water - and that it could be killed efficiently without doing further damage to the ship's infrastructure. I have no idea who wrote it or when, but this was LONG before the days of the web and fan-fiction (early 80's), so I'm thinking it was a short story in a book somewhere. Cool solution to the X'morph problem.

I always think of the BJ Henry ST:TNG/TOS BSG cross-over stories (Dark Dawn & Deceptions) as the early benchmark for that kind of storytelling. VERY well written and managed to incorporate two very different universes into the same one, almost seamlessly. Unfortunately, the third story in the trilogy was never written and it's been about 15 years.

 

[Pauln6]

Hmm, might have to keep an eye out for those stories. I will hold my hands up and confess though that my story isn't well written - lol. When I started it I had a rough idea of the plot, no specific script, and no idea how hard it might be to cut and paste parts of images to create new images. Plus I wanted to use images from TMP because it had the most diverse crew and the coolest version of the Enterprise, and the problem there is that there are no action shots, nobody shoots a gun or gets into a fight. I was hoping to subscribe to Star Trek Online and use screenshots for action but my PC is too stupid to run the game and I will have to wait for an upgrade. I'm supposed to be working on the finale next month and I still have no action shots! I wonder if I should put Rand in her bra and pants and just hope for the best?

 

[137th Gebirg]

There is another series of stories called "Evolutions" by Albert Green that also successfully pulls together all the Trek franchises, plus Battlestar PLUS Babylon Five. It's a huge series, some of which can be found here: http://galacticafanfic.com/stories/bsgcross.html - The BJ Henry stories can also be found here.

 

[YellowSubmarine]

For Alien vs. Star Trek: In Alien we were made to believe that the alien is the first extraterrestrial creature we meet...

That implication is NEVER made.

Actually with AvP the opposite implication is made, however knowledge of previous contact will take away from the film. We saw no other alien races in none of the four films, the ship was configured to divert their course automatically should a contact be made, etc. Everything works better if it is the first, and it kinda suggests it. But yeah, there is also the lack of surprise by the crew, but I'd say that the surprise was there, it just wasn't depicted, also miners aren't going to be excited about aliens as much as, say, explorers.

 

[PopBoy]

I do know that Alien fans/followers are incredibly passionate about their franchise and many were upset/angry when Fox decided to create the "vs" universe. Many refuse to accept it even exists. Compared to Aliens, Predator has always been considered to be a much more inferior sci-fi series. And indeed, one might say the films are nothing more than brainless action films.

Alien on the other hand has gore and terror, but also renewed the genre of sci-fi and indeed constantly ends-up in the prestigious "best ever top 20 films" of all time lists. As such, I imagine Star Trek (another incredibly prestigious sci-fi series) be a better suitor to Alien rather than Predator.

I can imagine Alien running around Enterprise/DS9/Voyager. Re-defining the very notion of first contact and what a alien might be. How would a Starfleet crew deal with a species like the Xenomorph on their ship and still uphold their moral compass. The Xenomorph, for all its terror, runs on instinct and bitter survival. It is doing what it has to do. Not for territory, politics, greed or dominance. It is an enemy of a very unique kind.

 

[Pauln6]

How would a Starfleet crew deal with a species like the Xenomorph on their ship and still uphold their moral compass. The Xenomorph, for all its terror, runs on instinct and bitter survival. It is doing what it has to do. Not for territory, politics, greed or dominance. It is an enemy of a very unique kind.

This is an interesting plot point. How intelligent are the aliens? Do they have a language? Are they open to negotiation? Are they driven purely by instinct and if so, what instinct? Procreation? Self-defence? Hunger? This approach conjures images of the President in Mars Attacks but we mustn't forget the horta. Starfleet crews are not bloodthirsty and reactionary.

I think this thread has inspired me to feature a predator in my second Trek crossover story.

 

[PopBoy]

How would a Starfleet crew deal with a species like the Xenomorph on their ship and still uphold their moral compass. The Xenomorph, for all its terror, runs on instinct and bitter survival. It is doing what it has to do. Not for territory, politics, greed or dominance. It is an enemy of a very unique kind.

This is an interesting plot point. How intelligent are the aliens? Do they have a language? Are they open to negotiation? Are they driven purely by instinct and if so, what instinct? Procreation? Self-defence? Hunger? This approach conjures images of the President in Mars Attacks but we mustn't forget the horta. Starfleet crews are not bloodthirsty and reactionary.

I think this thread has inspired me to feature a predator in my second Trek crossover story.

The Xenomorph in the Alien set of films is a mixture of all these aspects of survival: procreation and hunger. The Alien doesn't have a language per se. Not that we know of. It is blind however so it runs of a number of differing senses that we as humans don't have.

It hasn't been explored in the 4 movies currently available on DVD. Ridley Scott is directing a "sub"-pre-sequel at the moment called Prometheus that is set in the Alien universe but not quite a pre-sequel/alien movie so more answers might be explained come 2012 on its release.

Ultimately there is little known/elaborated about the Xenomorph species and their abilities of communication. A truism that the producers have been very keen on upholding (less is more, the less we the audience know the better+more frightening, etc).

The alien is symbolic. In the sense that the Xenomorph is really there to explore humanity, its boundaries and its own fragility in the face of the terrible unknown. The alien movies tells us more about the humans surrounding "it" than the alien itself. There are no tricorders to research this species. You get that close and they'll kill you. They are unreadable and unable to assimilate. The more you learn about them, the closer you get...the nearer you are to your death. This is the ultimate terror of the alien. What we do know is that they driven on the ultimate requirement of other species for its own survival. Without hosts it cannot come to be.

So it throws up so many problematics if it were to arrive on a Starfleet ship. It is highly intelligent, it communicates "within" itself and perhaps beyond its own species - no one can say for sure (maybe the new movie might just shed some light on that).

The issue of negotiation. I will try and answer that best to my knowledge/understanding. It doesn't negotiate through the same forms of (political) discourse that we encounter in a Star Trek kind of trope. Instead, in Aliens (by James Cameron) we see the Alien Queen note the peril her species were in when Ripley threatens her and eggs with a flamethrower. She and the Queen seem to recognize each others interests of survival in the said scene. Ripley promises the queen she wont use the flamethrower on the Queens young and as a trade-off the Queen mentally orders her soldiers to move off and not kill Ripley+Newt thereby guaranteeing safe-passage out of the Queens nest.

This is probably the only example I've ever seen of negotiation. It is a treatise based on instinct and survival. The Queen breaks the treaty when one of her eggs produces a facehugger in an attempt to catch Ripley as she departs. Ripley then scorches everything in sight as she escapes. Both species doing their very best to kill each other in an attempt to survive.

*I say kill in respect to the Alien. This strictly isn't the case. The Alien doesnt kill so to speak. To survive it requires hosts. So for instance, the audience is led to believe in the first film that the Xenomorph kills its crew one by one. That isn't so. It impregnates Kane, Dallas and Brett are cocooned for future use+Ripley is ignored as she's not a threat (at the time). The only two that are actually attacked and killed are Lambert and Parker. It feels much more but hey, that's the cleverness of the script and Ridley Scotts direction.

 

[Pauln6]

The alien is symbolic. In the sense that the Xenomorph is really there to explore humanity, its boundaries and its own fragility in the face of the terrible unknown. The alien movies tells us more about the humans surrounding "it" than the alien itself. There are no tricorders to research this species. You get that close and they'll kill you. They are unreadable and unable to assimilate. The more you learn about them, the closer you get...the nearer you are to your death. This is the ultimate terror of the alien. What we do know is that they driven on the ultimate requirement of other species for its own survival. Without hosts it cannot come to be.

I agree - this is the basis of all decent horror movies. I think Star Trek is at its best when it understands that its purpose is to explore humanity. Its weakness has often been that its allegories were too often rather tepid or occasionally clumsily obvious. In fairness, Trek produced a lot of episodes and they couldn't all be gems.

Predator seems to be coming at the genre from a very different viewpoint, particularly in the more recent movies. As with many of this style of US action horror, once you've established who the 'main' characters are, it's just a matter of guessing the order in which the others are going to die. Alien successfully toyed with those expectations, as did 28 days later. The sequel 28 weeks later fell into the trap of being too obvious in its plotting.

For any kind of cross over to work for me, you have to blend the genres to keep key elements of both without letting either one be too overpowering. So Alien and Predator have to be about placing individuals in peril. A political crisis for the Predators requiring negotiation just wouldn't work - except maybe in a Galaxyquest sequel.

 

[Deckerd]

This is probably the only example I've ever seen of negotiation. It is a treatise based on instinct and survival. The Queen breaks the treaty when one of her eggs produces a facehugger in an attempt to catch Ripley as she departs. Ripley then scorches everything in sight as she escapes. Both species doing their very best to kill each other in an attempt to survive.

*I say kill in respect to the Alien. This strictly isn't the case. The Alien doesnt kill so to speak. To survive it requires hosts. So for instance, the audience is led to believe in the first film that the Xenomorph kills its crew one by one. That isn't so. It impregnates Kane, Dallas and Brett are cocooned for future use+Ripley is ignored as she's not a threat (at the time). The only two that are actually attacked and killed are Lambert and Parker. It feels much more but hey, that's the cleverness of the script and Ridley Scotts direction.

I think you need to separate Ridley Scott's film from the others because it was much more subtle. The direction left as much as possible to the imagination, which is why it was so effective.

In other films he Alien does kill for reasons other than procreation. Why do you think Ripley says the Alien will be "where the meat is"? But even in the Scott film, nobody really believes it can grow from newborn to full size predator in the space of 24 hours without any fuel. Do we? It's a living, breathing animal and requires the same things all living animals need.

Also as regards negotiation, Ripley tries very hard to rile it in 3 when she realises she is doomed but it won't play until it is completely enraged. The animals might be purely instinctive but this doesn't mean they aren't capable of problem solving. I don't mean velociraptors cutely working out how handles work but they clearly communicate with each other, they clearly work as a hive or as an individual, depending on the circs they find themselves.

 

[PopBoy]

This is probably the only example I've ever seen of negotiation. It is a treatise based on instinct and survival. The Queen breaks the treaty when one of her eggs produces a facehugger in an attempt to catch Ripley as she departs. Ripley then scorches everything in sight as she escapes. Both species doing their very best to kill each other in an attempt to survive.

*I say kill in respect to the Alien. This strictly isn't the case. The Alien doesnt kill so to speak. To survive it requires hosts. So for instance, the audience is led to believe in the first film that the Xenomorph kills its crew one by one. That isn't so. It impregnates Kane, Dallas and Brett are cocooned for future use+Ripley is ignored as she's not a threat (at the time). The only two that are actually attacked and killed are Lambert and Parker. It feels much more but hey, that's the cleverness of the script and Ridley Scotts direction.

I think you need to separate Ridley Scott's film from the others because it was much more subtle. The direction left as much as possible to the imagination, which is why it was so effective.

In other films he Alien does kill for reasons other than procreation. Why do you think Ripley says the Alien will be "where the meat is"? But even in the Scott film, nobody really believes it can grow from newborn to full size predator in the space of 24 hours without any fuel. Do we? It's a living, breathing animal and requires the same things all living animals need.

Also as regards negotiation, Ripley tries very hard to rile it in 3 when she realises she is doomed but it won't play until it is completely enraged. The animals might be purely instinctive but this doesn't mean they aren't capable of problem solving. I don't mean velociraptors cutely working out how handles work but they clearly communicate with each other, they clearly work as a hive or as an individual, depending on the circs they find themselves.

Naturally, each movie is different. However...

"But even in the Scott film, nobody really believes it can grow from newborn to full size predator in the space of 24 hours without any fuel. Do we? It's a living, breathing animal and requires the same things all living animals need."

Yes. But the alien is not an organic beast so to speak. It is a biomechanic organism. Ridley Scott (as well as its creator H.R Giger) have answered the issue of how the small alien grows into the large monster it evolves into in that short time. They both said that the alien "kid" feasts on material+wire lying about the ship. It will eat whatever it must to survive. And it as evolved so become an animal that doesnt always depend on other beings. Rather it will utilize whatever is lying around.

--

"The animals might be purely instinctive but this doesn't mean they aren't capable of problem solving."

Yup, you see this in Aliens too (in the example i gave..where the Queen orders her soldiers away from Ripley when she threatens the eggs with her flamethrower). It is clear she acknowledges the threat, Ripley's desire to survive with Newt and communicates to her soldiers they need to leave Ripley be. And they consequently back-off.

--

"In other films the Alien does kill for reasons other than procreation."

Sort of. Yes and no. In Aliens...if you actually break it down the aliens rarely attack and kill the humans in the vein of Lambert & Parker. The Marines are wiped out by their own shock and panic at the beginning once the aliens swoop down on them in their horrific manner of taking bodies/hosts back to the nest to be impregnated. Indeed, after the initial shock Hudson realizes a number are still alive only to be informed by Ripley of what exactly is happening. Strictly speaking very few are attacked and killed. For the sake of just killing. Most of the humans are approached by the aliens in the second movie to be used as hosts.

I think actually its only the Queen that attacks just to kill (Bishop, Newt and Ripley) in the final act of the film.

The 3rd movie is weird one. It had some 3 directors and a number of re-writes. During production. That shut down a number of times. Nightmare. The alien in this movie was utterly different to the alien we see in other movies. It kills for the sake of killing and/or it kills to protect Ripley (who it knows it "pregnant"). Fincher argued the high body count was down to the fact it "came" from a dog rather than a human being.

The fourth installment was a total mess of a film. And I might say that the subtelties of the first three films, so cleverly interwoven, were unraveled. After three brilliant standalone films, the 4th movie was simply and utterly bad science-fiction. One could say that the species and we their very basic "just kill" approach encountered in the fourth film
was down to the fact they were "invented" in a lab on a ship and essentially offspring of a clone.

But...........that gives the creators of the fourth film far too much credit. The aliens in fourth film are written to be basic killers of the action movie-kind.

--

If there was to be a cross-over I hope the aliens a starfleet
crew encountered would be from the first two films as that would, i feel, raise more questions to the crew than simply running for your life/to the escape pod that is essentially the low-down of Aliens Resurrection.

 

[Navigator_NCC2120]

How would a Starfleet crew deal with a species like the Xenomorph on their ship and still uphold their moral compass. The Xenomorph, for all its terror, runs on instinct and bitter survival. It is doing what it has to do. Not for territory, politics, greed or dominance. It is an enemy of a very unique kind.

This is an interesting plot point. How intelligent are the aliens? Do they have a language? Are they open to negotiation? Are they driven purely by instinct and if so, what instinct? Procreation? Self-defence? Hunger? This approach conjures images of the President in Mars Attacks but we mustn't forget the horta. Starfleet crews are not bloodthirsty and reactionary.

I think this thread has inspired me to feature a predator in my second Trek crossover story.

We also must not forget the Salt Vampire in "The Man Trap". Granted it was an earlier episode than "The Devil in the Dark", but I don't think Spock or any Vulcan would attempt to mind meld with HR Giger's Xenomorph. The Xenomorph is a threat as was the Salt Vampire so I don't think Kirk, Starfleet or UFP would even attempt to negotiate with it. Phaser it or beam it into space if the transporter can lock onto the Xenomorph.


Navigator NCC-2120 USS Entente
/\

 

[Lonemagpie]

Hirogen already are basically the Predators with the serial numbers filed off (and different makeup, since they already used the Predator face look on the Nausicaans)

 

[F. King Daniel]

I thought the Jem'Hadar were closer, they even had the Predator cloaking device.