Cmdr. of His Supremacy's Armed Forces
Then when the aliens killed the first human, his DNA was taken-Same with attack dogs.
the Praetorians are scared of attacking any other organism aside from dogs and humans, as they have no reason to attack cats or lizards, for instance.
FIMFiction Account MLPMST Page
Actually, you'd need the tissue samples some weeks (or months) ahead of time to experiment with, and then probably some live humans to ensure that what you're doing is not just engineering another common cold. The same for dogs, and you'll be getting all canines (from Great Danes to Chihuahuas and from Wolves to Dingoes), not just a breed of dogs.
edited 8th Jul '11 2:16:29 PM by MattII
Well first of all what organs does the toxin affect in dogs and humans?
Hi
Well, given that all alien invasion scenarios are inherently soft-science to begin with, I see no major plot killers here. How are your aliens ultimately defeated?
In answer to your original questions:
1. Unless you intend for the specific words or rules of the Praetorian's language to actually have an impact on the story (someone mishears or misunderstands something a Praetorian says, and makes a wrong move), or you plan for people reading through a second time to be able to read and understand the alien's language and gain some extra context (turns out, that Praetorian who held Protagonist at gunpoint before Protagonist disarmed and shot him, was actually trying to suggest that Protagonist just walk away, and the alien would pretend he didn't see him), then making up a conlang is nothing but a massive waste of time.
Either make up gibberish based on certain rules (lots of "s" sounds mixed with hard "k" and "g" sounds, for instance), or else just describe the alien's speech without transcribing it ("Protagonist froze in place. He could hear voices outside, softened by the walls. Two voices, one slightly higher in pitch than the other. He could make out no words, but he didn't need to; by the percussive clicking that punctuated their speech, the speakers had to be Praetorians. And any Praetorians out in the wastes had to be hunters.").
2. Are the specific mechanics of the aliens' guns, and their effectiveness compared to human weapons, actually going to matter to the story? No? Then who gives a damn how they work? They're space-guns made by aliens - you can justify their weird designs however the hell you please.
3. I don't know, you tell me! You're the one who came up with the suits in the first place! For all I know, they could be made of some special space-metal that human bullets can't penetrate or something!
Do you need the aliens to be killable by a single shot for your story to work? Then make them killable by a single shot! Jesus Christ.
4. Again, I don't know. You're the one who came up with this fighter - whatever you say, goes. If you say it can beat three F-15s, then it can beat three F-15s. If you say it can't, then it can't. If it serves your story, make it so.
And if you want to avoid writing yourself into a corner, by defining that the Praetorians work one way, then putting your characters in a situation where all the rules say they can't win? Well then, why don't you decide how you want the story to go down ahead of time, and leave figuring out how the aliens work for afterwards?
edited 13th Sep '16 8:27:52 AM by Tungsten74
A weapon that only kills humans and dogs is pretty implausible. Heck a weapon that can only kill humans is pretty implausible unless they've actually got samples (of our tissues, or human-specific viruses) already.