Another odd little concept...

[IamLEAM1983]

That's mostly for way-down-the-road stuff, but what if Mentalor's species was actually a kind of species-wide hunting and poaching-centric society? I don't mean this in the Predator-esque "killing or enslaving people is part of our rite of passage" way, but more in the sort of grossly offensive and super-distinguished Colonial White Hunter sense. Mentalor would actually be a sort of straggler who got stuck on Paradise after a catastrophic ship malfunction, so he would've tried to flex his culturally reinforced superiority complex on the locals. The Wardens shut him up way back when Before the Riot.

If you're lucky enough to exert proper deference or sound remotely interesting in his presence, you're worthy of being considered as an individual. If you haven't, then you're game. If he likes the cut of your species' jib and you end up being a decent example of its physical and mental capabilities, he might decide to try hunting you down. As far as he's concerned, all he has to worry about is how he's going to convince the local savages that he really is the superior being onboard Paradise, and how many skulls or hides his eventually current tech-compatible ancient wreck of a spaceship is going to hold.

I guess that we'd later learn that in a weird Douglas Adams sort of way, Earth just happens to be in the outer rim of Mentalor's culturally-defined galaxy-wide hunting preserve. We haven't been poached or hunted to extinction by his species because we're not challenging enough, even with our dragons, immortals, cybernetically augmented people and various other freaks.

We're not worth the bother, but then again, that far-off alien empire is severely lacking in terms of preserved human heads adorning alien hunting lodges... So maybe once he wakes up and gets tired of pushing against Paradise's fairly resolute hardasses, he'd try his luck on Earth.

I figure he'd be really condescending, basically Rendell without the control fantasies and delusions. "I've just crowned myself as your king, now kneel or start running." Textbook Loki School of Wanting to Rule but Not Really Giving a Fuck.

If he manages to take anything, even if it's just Hope or America, and only for a few months, he'd be content to just sit there, being treated like some sort of Roman emperor cranked up to eleven, and would let things be, generally. He'd only get violent when an effective resistance would build up. Basically same as ever, except we'd be stuck with daily Imperial TV public addresses and a forced cult of personality that would make Kim Jong-Il wet his pants.

[TennyoCeres84]

Interesting. That's suitably villainous. I take it he'd wouldn't be a Karthian anymore?

[IamLEAM1983]

Yeah. The more I think about him, the more he's coming across as Something Else. Been reading up on the general moral beliefs that were standard as of the late eighteen-hundreds in the Colonial elite, and there's some pretty chilling stuff. It's weird, really. Darwin comes up with a perfectly natural and rational explanation to the origin of species as we know them and that should more or less render racism completely moot as a concept - but things wouldn't really improve until a century after his death.

I've read some pretty ridiculous stuff that claims that Lincoln's win over race-based slavery marked the beginning of the end for discrimination and the general belief that some breeds are purer than others, but that really strikes me as being way too optimistic. People forget a lot of Western nations were in complete agreement with Eugenics as a scientific concept until we saw what the Nazis had implemented in Germany.

The Colonial mindset's only really been dead for about fifty years, if you think about it. Things start looking up with Martin Luther King, then Britain releases its hold over Hong Kong... Now we've got globalization and the Internet making the issue of race a non-issue - unless you're a complete dick.

What would've happened if another civilization had allowed for an empire to grow, without ever relinquishing its grasp over the conquered territories? What happens a couple million years down the line when privilege and notions of good breeding more or less ended up killing off a large swath of your population and shrinking your gene pool to almost nothing? If you have the technological means to avoid basic collapse, you'd maybe start to look for other corners of the universe that can help you legitimize your empire's existence.

Look around the the inspirations behind characters like Allan Quartermain, then. Back when Africa was being trawled by self-styled or royalty-funded researchers, hunting permits were off the charts. Today, you're maybe allowed five deer per season in the local preserves. In 1909, a permit with the East Asia Protectorate gave you access to two buffaloes, one eland, twenty-two zebras (?!), six oryxes, four waterbucks, one Greater and four Lesser Kudus, ten topis, twenty-six hartebeests and a whole lot more... There's, like, a ton of this stuff on Wikipedia. It's insane. Goes to show how animal conservation is a fairly recent concern.

So a futuristic civilization with that mindset wouldn't think much of purging planets of entire spans of advanced life forms. Not necessarily because of held beliefs of superiority, but just because they can, and the targets are game.

[TennyoCeres84]

Yeah, he should be a good villain. When I initially read your concept, it made me think of Van Pelt from Jumanji. He's the walking British Aristocratic Big Game hunter trope. That's definitely another source of inspiration.

[IamLEAM1983]

Pretty much. :D

That begs the question, though: do I alien-ify British Colonial hardware and clothing for the sake of the species' concept, or take it in another direction entirely?

I'm trying not to copy the "piecemeal alien high-tech" look from Predator, but I also wouldn't want to take it in Star Wars' direction and go with an alien in a pith helmet. I'm trying to visually conceptualize an average member of the species, but all I'm getting is a jumble of clichés and tropes.

[TennyoCeres84]

Well, I'd personally start out with the planet of origin. Any species needs to be adapted to its environment. That might also lend to how he was captured in the first place. His home planet would likely have been pretty tough. Clothing would apply to the needed conditions. Secondly, a hunter would at least try to make do with what he has on hand. Whatever clothes he had might have decayed and he needed some impromptu wardrobe. It might hurt his ego a bit to dress in rags, but it'd do the trick. Upon his arrival on Earth, I figure he'd probably just go with The Perfectly Tailored Suit mish-mashed with some alien trinkets/trophies when he's ruling.

I think the principle would somewhat apply for tech. He'd have basic stuff like bladed weapons, probably some forms of rifle or other firearm, but also things he picked up from Paradise. I think you could use Predator tech as an inspiration, but also consider what his past prey has been.