sonofccn wrote:
Mr. Oragahn wrote:Add that to an aim which is inferior, and the fact that unless the xenomorphs found a way to lurk around or trap the preys, they tend to avoid fire.
Xenomorphs prefer ambush tactics but they don't appear to have any hesitency about "straight brawling" should it come to it. For example the Xenomorph who tried to pry open the APC's door before Hicks blew it away with his shotgun, it may have been counting on the momentum of its attack and the confusion/disorder of its foes but it could hardly be said to be lurking or ambushing anyone.
They're still non ranged combatants and a bit more swarm like in mindset when they have the numbers, which is quite obvious. Hence "swarm".
But if you remember the scene, the creature that actually tried to get inside the APC surprised them all. The one which attacked Drake was actually waiting. Drake swiftly turned to face the creature and blew it to hell, but the acid splashed over his face and, well, he was out.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:The sentry guns scene allows to make an interesting observation: that for the complete depletion of three guns and near the entirety of the last one, that's scant corpses to be found around, like if the xenomorphs kept teasing the weapons and forcing the enemy to consume their resources.
However what little we see of the sentries in action and Hudson's comment, "they're wall to wall down there", suggest the aliens rather straightforwardly zerg rushed the guns. Further the fact the second guns in fact held, forcing the aliens to come up with the proverbial plan B, their position during the attack speaks of the Xenomorphs rushing the emplacements rather than teasing them.
Keyword is suggest. Hudson made that comment because of how fast the bullets were going down. Yet the creatures were actually strafing the guns, sort of. If they had really been "wall to wall", it would have been hugely obvious when we got to see the respective corridors around command center. There was that other darker and narrower corridor which may have not allowed the xenomorphs to draw fire and yet dodge most of it. But the point being that when they could do so, they did.
Now they're not tactical super geniuses either, but for the typical swarm monster from the 80s, that's impressive.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:Vader will have to cut holes into the base for any wall or door that is an obstacle. Xenomorphs being on standby may not even tick Vader's senses off, if he can sense anything.
Well I figure he could get a "disturbence" in the force but from range I doubt he could get any exact details unless Xenomorphs have a strong link in the force.
Oh boy, the complete disconnection to the Force. Even if we assume it's everywhere in the universe, those xenomorphs may be living forms without any connection to it (no midichlorians for example). They could be akin to complete "blanks".
Surely even the Sith Lord would be at unease facing these things. That would only add a layer of terror factor of them.
If the Yuuzhan Vong are anything to look at, then the xenomorphs may not be sensed by Vader at all, if they were outside the Force.
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Yuuzhan_Vong
Here would go the imperial troopers' main advantage in the sensor department... and not only that:
Wookieepedia: Yuuzhan Vong wrote:
Perhaps the most notable and most objectionable trait of the Yuuzhan Vong was that they were outside of the Force as the Jedi knew it. They had no Force presence that could be sensed, and were unaffected by most Force powers that were targeted directly at them. This meant that any attempt to sense their motivation, truthfulness or determine their next course of action were futile, although it did mean that one was capable of detecting them by reaching out in the Force and determining if the person had no presence within it. Even a normally powerful telekinetic blast that was capable of launching an ordinary opponent off their feet at high speeds simply caused a Yuuzhan Vong either to stumble, or lose balance temporarily. While it was not possible to affect the Yuuzhan Vong directly through the use of the Force, it was possible to use indirect means to accomplish such a task, such as manipulating an object through telekinesis and throwing it at a Yuuzhan Vong, which would injure them, or by controlling the air in an attempt to increase the pressure, thus allowing a Jedi to, in effect, crush the Yuuzhan Vong. The only known Force techniques that seemed somehow exempt from this limitation were variations on Force lightning and the Sith technique Force net.
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Midi-chlorian
Wookieepedia: Midi-chlorians wrote:
"Without the midi-chlorians, life could not exist, and we would have no knowledge of the Force. They continually speak to us, telling us the will of the Force. When you learn to quiet your mind, you'll hear them speaking to you."
Qui-Gon Jinn, to Anakin Skywalker
Midi-chlorians were intelligent microscopic life-forms that served as organelles within all living cells, existing in a symbiotic relationship with the beings they inhabited and comprising a collective consciousness among themselves. Present in all life, midi-chlorians were isomorphic on every planet that supported life. Midi-chlorians, in fact, were necessary for life to exist. They also allowed for a connection with the pervasive energy field known as the Force; in sufficient numbers, midi-chlorians could allow their symbiont organism to detect the Force, and this connection could be strengthened by quieting one's mind, allowing the midi-chlorians to "speak" to their symbiont and communicate the will of the Force.
The author of the following
post also claimed:
Common misconception. The Yuuzhan Vong had midi-chlorians. Two of them were even Force-sensitive-Vongarella and Onimi. However, Yuuzhan Vong'tar or its sister world Zonama Sekot stripped the Vong of the force centuries earlier as punishment for their genocidal actions. Therefore, any Vong born afterward would have midi-chlorians, perhaps even a large enough count to weild the force, but their midis were blocked acess to using the force, thanks to Sekot's actions.
Vongarealla and Omini aren't given any page on wookieepedia although the page about
Shimrra Jamaane mentions a Jester Omini, presumably from the book The Unifying Force".
So if the Yuuzhan Vong had midi-chlorians, and that they were deactivated and that alone sufficed to cut them off, then we can deduce that the vast amount of advantages Vader brought with him are simply gone here. This is the Milky Way, nor the SW galaxy. It's not his home turf, and there's even an universe fact that there can be ex-Force creatures or even entire areas.
Vader would therefore fail to sense Newt! They may still find her, though, if they enter the complex in a way similar to the Marines' and if she start to move around like she did in the movie.
Although the henchmen and scarry Vader will certainly not help unlocking the kid's babble.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:Vader will probably send a couple troopers for recon. They'll find the odd structures.
Either Vader sends them, they find civilians and the whole nest wakes up, but have to fight or retreat on foot, which is being to be hard or easy depending on where Vader's troops are located in the AP.
I think that they'd typically advance in a group, settle perhaps a few levels down, leave one or two men behind, find the nest and Vader would send a small recon team.
While I'd agree they'd split off into groups to more effectively cover the base once they spot the "secreted resin" I think the Stormtroopers would report and call in Vader rather than bumbling in. After all in such a scenario they wouldn't even have the lure of the colonists to draw them in, it would just be evidence of them finding "something". Vader may or may leave some troops behind to hold a secured fall back, through if I had to guess I'd hazard that like the Colonial Marines he'd be confident he could handle anything, but I don't see him trying to string Stormtroopers about the complex. Its too large with him having to few men and, by this stage, amply apparent its predominatly a ghost town negating any real need in comparison to the cost of the endeavor.
I think most of his group would go into the weird section of the processor. They know there's something up, it's precisely a ghost town, and now there's that resin on the walls, completely at odds with the architecture.
They may find some humans still alive, which is surely going to make things go all sorts of wrong, or they'll find dead bodies if they're too late, and from there, if the nest is still playing dead, it's up to Vader to decide if they go in or not. Considering their mission, they would have to, but they'd know that they're literally inside the lair. Which means being surrounded by walls within which the strong xenomorphs hide. And there were, I think, like a hundred and thirty of them.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:It's a rought comparison, also based on the behaviour .50 ammunition in long slabs of gelatin. At some distance, they start making a large cavity in soft material, because the bullet begins to shed its kinetic energy into the material as its trajectory becomes less efficient and friction increases. Against solid materials, the cratering will occur sooner and be less imposing.
The issue through is I don't see the comparison in your video. Two different things are happening in our examples, one is shattering a cinderblock the other punching holes in the wall, now it very well may be that a fifty caliber round will put a hole similar to what we see in TESB,adjusting for whatever material that wall is supposed to be, but as it is now I don't see how your reaching your conclusion.
The video gives an idea of the energy. We see what happens when the bullet goes through a material with a limited thickness. It is explosive yet not all the energy was put into the cinderblock.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:It is. How is that a problem?
Well if these explosive tipped bullets use their "warhead" as a shaped charge or what have you to facilitate peferoration they can't "delivering their energy into the target and blowing up from inside" since they'd have expended it in order to get inside.
Not sure what you mean but the energy need to get inside the target still is delivered into the target no matter what. It pushes matter aside. Then the explosive detonates and leaves a hole.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:Some sections of their body seem to be pressurized to a degree, yes, but they're not just one big bag of juice under pressure.
No but such "biological oddities" very well might be amplifying the damage. As well being shot with half a dozen projectiles, who may pierce than detonate to maximize damage to soft tissue, is a bit more demanding than being speared with a solitary, none explosive harpoon.
Well, we have Vasquez's and Gorman's guns. At a short distance, they were doing nothing against the body or the head of the xenos, some ricocheting with such violence that there were
Vasquez pined the head of a xeno against the wall and shot at the jaw, as well as behind and a bit above, several times, and that got it down.
Shotguns, such as Hicks', seemed to hurt the creatures off screen, although there's no confirmation of any kill. Considering the close ranges, it's quite telling.
I figure we could use an example from AR eventually, with Johner's bizarro pistol projectiles, slow moving really, but a single bullet hit the front of a xeno's head, penetrated by leaving a neat hole (with no acid pouring, although that part of the head doesn't seem to contain acid) and then exploded some time later.
I guess we shouldn't try to draw any parallel to Christie's hidden handgun, which fired a glowing bullet as well, but which didn't explode in the head of the man it went into.
Vriess' homemade shotgun, shot through a grider at a xenomorph standing above him, didn't kill the creature, although it wounded it. The girder would clearly deflect some shot so some firepower was most likely lost in the procedure.
The pressure isn't totally mad either, mind you. It doesn't make geysers of acid when "normal" bullets hit, but it will surely ruin anything within one meter of the wound.
The geysers were produced because of the explosive ammo.
Now, the
blasters aren't going to help here.
Now, aside from Johner's bizarre gun, all others are typical kinetic systems.
Not really telling much as far as stormtrooper blasters are concerned, although on high yield, I'm pretty sure they'll take down a xenomorph without too much problem... unless there's an exoskeleton which can sustain thermal damage better than I thought (and this is why I eye ALIEN's finale, which reveals a lot).
Mr. Oragahn wrote:Oddly enough, xenomorphs are quite heat tolerant.
Atleast adult warrior strains yes. The chestburster in Aliens the Marines flamed through didn't seem to fare as well.
Those are clearly the weakest of the lost, despite their gruesome size. But the queen... oh my, Ripley fired the gun straight into its face twice, and besides pissing it off, it didn't leave any scorch mark whatsoever.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:The first xenomorph ejected from the shuttle did crawl back into one the large thrusters and wasn't seen destroyed by the heat. It was merely ejected after struggling for several seconds. Now, those engines are quite powerful.
In Alien 3, the xenomorph survived the heat of molten lead and having said material flow crashing on its head.
At least for the short term adult strains can take extreme heating and survive yes.
But the adults are most likely around a hundred. All other colonists aside from the woman were already dead, and there were some +130 of them I think.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:Those applications of energy, at least the thermal ones, however, are not as violent as of an explosive thermal bolt, but there's clearly going to be some mitigation going on there nonetheless, with the first Alien case being quite impressive there (we're talking about the application of a jet worth several gees straight into the body of the creature).
To be fair the first Alien may very well had been dead when it was "flushed" from the ship's thrusters we don't have a comparable scene as we did in the third movie to show the creature is alright. But yes Xenmorphs may be better dealt with with kenetic impacters rather than thermal-plasma weapons which would put the Stormtroopers at a disadvantage.
Yes, it's possible it was dead. However, it did hold to the
inside of the thruster for a couple seconds before releasing its grasp.
I'm not sure I've seen any imperial blaster deliver such heat per square centimeter, aside from the often touted girder-blasting shot of ANH, which is completely at odds with even the fact that people standing next to it didn't suffer.
It's probably one of those rare cases which make just as much sense as some ridiculous figures from vanilla Trek.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:How can they know for sure that they have won?
Xenomorphs are mobile after all. And let's not talk about the hiding of eggs and facehuggers!
I think you over thinking the scenario. Its simply a forcesub to see how Vader and co would do arrayed against the Xenomorphs. Not Vader versus a fusion reactor or anything like that.
His squad's mission is to get rid of the xenomorphs. Even Ripley couldn't be sure that they were all killed by the blast. She just hoped that they all were inside the atmospheric reactor's range.
Heck, any creature moving around the bowels of the colony's hab sector wouldn't even be remotely hurt.
Worst of all, Hadley's Hope was built on LV-426, the same planet where the Engineer's carrier ship was crashed. That thing contained plenty of eggs and god knows what else (since I saw Prometheus, it's easy to speculate about the sheer amount of horrors such crafts can actually carry).
I'd be tempted to affirm that after the nuclear blast, Vader's mission has yet to be finished.