Anyone got a hostile alien race for rent?

I'm reaching the point in my plug where humanity needs to run into some enemies.
I have a cool alien race all worked out, but halfway through writing my description of them, it turned out they weren't hostile! Heck, they're practically pacifists!
(Any author can tell you about a character that insisted on rewriting the story their way... same general idea, except that they outnumber me by several billion to one, so I can't really argue the point).
So now my poor, pathetic human race needs someone to deliver a swift kick to their collective asses, and I can't think who it's going to be. Any ideas I can steal?

Just come up with a name that could be an offshoot of your cool alien race. Like Romulans, who are an offshoot of the Vulcan race. Then give them similar or completely different tech, and make them the bad guys. To come up with race names, made weird sounds, try to spell those sounds, and put them together, possibly separated by apostrophes.

Example:

Ghu'ka
Fik'la
Qaz'mny

etc.

Maybe you could make the humans the hostile alien race to them? That'd be a twist on things.

How about the Girion Hegemony? A group of massively built, warlike aliens with double jointed legs. They are primarily carnivoures, and have prominent tusks. Their favoured weapon is the handheld gattling gun, a massive weapon that no human could ever hope to use.

@joshtigerheart, on Sep 18 2007, 10:44 AM, said in Looking for a little inspiration:

Maybe you could make the humans the hostile alien race to them? That'd be a twist on things.

Sadly, my humans are so busy killing off each other that they very well might not notice an alien race unless said race made it's presence felt with a blaster cannon. Thanks for the idea, though.

This post has been edited by Otter : 18 September 2007 - 10:01 AM

All the aliens I have ever seen in the media fall into 3 categories:

1. Humans have resources the aliens want. (aliens from Independence Day)
2. Humans are a source of food. (H.G. Wells War of the Worlds, Wraith from Stargate)
3. Humans are to be used as slaves. (Goa'uld from Stargate, Irkens from Invader Zim)

If you can, try to think of something different. Maybe the aliens are afraid that once the humans have finished fighting each other, humanity will rise against the aliens for one of the reasons above.

This post has been edited by scienceguy8 : 18 September 2007 - 11:40 AM

@joshtigerheart, on Sep 18 2007, 07:44 AM, said in Looking for a little inspiration:

Maybe you could make the humans the hostile alien race to them? That'd be a twist on things.

I wish I'd thought of that before I went and developed AG. Things might be a bit different now.

For names, anything with an apostrophe is good. For example, in Nebula you have the Va'Sim. In Marathon you have the S'pht. This also works good for planets. Another Marathon example is the planet Lh'owon. I'd suggest random sounds with Gs, Zs, Vs, and other uncommon letters. Of the top of my head: Ga'hava, Ne'lichta, M'niva, K'fiva (Marathon refrence :D). I hope this helps.

I personally try to avoid extraneous apostrophes; it just seems too cliché to just throw them in. But I have seen a few really good uses of then, such as in the Dragonriders of Pern series by Anne McCaffery in which a person has a letter removed from their name and replaced with a ceremonious apostrophe.

One more common alien complex is the Covenant from Halo: everybody else is evil and we're good. So die.

Something you may consider for alien mentality (or human first-contact mentality) is the There Will be War complex, in which basically a mentality of mutual suspicion that leads to an escalation of conflicts. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy of distrust. It gets around a few of the cliché aspects of many sci-fi aliens' aggression by removing the exhausted "we are mindless parasites that destroy everything" from the alien psychology. It also puts both on relatively equal (or equally dubious) moral ground, so it eliminates the "battle of everything good and righteous against everything evil and diabolical."

There's one other idea that I have for an alien race's conflict with humanity, but only Cosmic and I know what it is, and it's being used in the sequel to Anathema, so you can't have it!

:laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

This post has been edited by Archon : 18 September 2007 - 12:44 PM

Quote

Something you may consider for alien mentality (or human first-contact mentality) is the There Will be War complex, in which basically a mentality of mutual suspicion that leads to an escalation of conflicts. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy of distrust.

I like that. I like that a lot! I think that I'll have to find a way to use that.

Glad to hear! (Man that was quick, you responded in the time it took me to edit the post). There are a few sci-fi authors, like Jerry Pournelle, who explore that subject in more depth. It would probably be pretty easy to find if you wanted a little more flushed-out version of the paradigm than the 30-second one I dësc'd.

@archon, on Sep 18 2007, 01:41 PM, said in Looking for a little inspiration:

There's one other idea that I have for an alien race's conflict with humanity, but only Cosmic and I know what it is, and it's being used in the sequel to Anathema, so you can't have it!
:laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

Mwahahahahahaha! I feel so powerful and knowledgeable. I know the secrets of the universe and/or Anathema's plot!

Proof
|
|
V

Picture_3.gif (59K)
Number of downloads: 38

I also composed a poem for this very occasion:

Just beyond the misty haze
Lies the story that you want
You may look for many days
But wont unveil the mysteries of oops that was close...

Rhymes with "want"

This post has been edited by Cosmic_Nusiance : 18 September 2007 - 02:04 PM

Aliens, aliens, aliens. Look to Star Trek. The Borg, why do they do what they do? Because they have one goal: Assimilation. I know, that isn't a very good reason, but the aliens could be like that, with that singular drive, though I doubt it. What you do with hostile aliens, is you can think about what people are like. What do we fight over? Religion, resources, fear. If you get down to it, that can be the cause of all the wars in the history of Earth. So, pick one. Say, resources. The aliens planet is dying, they say "Look at Earth! It's so shiny!". Fear? "They're so war-like, lets get them before they get us". Religion? Think Nazis, and you'll get how a hostile alien race would be motivated by religion.

As for names, I'm terrible with coming up with names, so you can take everyone else's advice.

@cosmic_nusiance, on Sep 18 2007, 05:59 PM, said in Looking for a little inspiration:

Rhymes with "want"

hmmm so it's a four letter word that rhymes with want, definetly not kont then.

@egroeg, on Sep 18 2007, 04:41 PM, said in Looking for a little inspiration:

hmmm so it's a four letter word that rhymes with want, definetly not kont then.

Kont?! Are you kidding me? Of all the four letter planets that rhyme with Want, you pick Kont? Gimme a break... LOL. Yeah. He referred to my kont ideas in there, so I had to blur it. Well, that and his story.

Kont is only the half of it though!

Actually, it's only the third of it

…and the other two thirds are Kel'ar Iy and Tre'ar Helonis, right?

This post has been edited by Nil'kimas : 18 September 2007 - 06:11 PM

I have a large number of races in my own main universe (not Colosseum, that one is unique for the TC), you could call them all aliens if you prefer. They're all a bit different on their own right. One group lives predominetely with one of the two main sects of humanity, another enslaves races to power thier industry, a third-seventh fight against them for their own freedom (or to keep it), an eighth would rather stay neutral with everyone in the interest of buisness and trade, and so on.

But for the "bad guy" aliens, everything has already been done. So just pick whichever will work best for you and go with it.

@nil-kimas, on Sep 18 2007, 07:10 PM, said in Looking for a little inspiration:

…and the other two thirds are Kel'ar Iy and Tre'ar Helonis, right?

Try... not. Guess again. :evil cryptic grin:

Like Cosmic said, pretty close.

But you'd have no way of knowing...