Science fiction in movies tends to be very soft. This isn't a bad thing really, the job of a movie is to tell an exciting story. If in doing so spaceships make nascar noises as they roar through the vacuum of space, well so be it. Still sometimes I watch something and an idle thought will bubble up. This time I was rewatching Predators and wondering about their culture and history.
Now, I'm not going to make too big a deal on their hunting and general Machismo they exhibit in the films. It could after all just be a skew in the sampling data. If aliens managed to only visit Earth on Christmas Day, wouldn't they have a rather odd view of humanity? No, my question comes from a more nuts and bolts consideration; predator vision.
It's very well established that the predators see deeply into the infrared ranges, also generally known as heat vision. It's a very useful adaption for a hunter to be sure, but if you look at the movie the vision tends to lack detail and resolution.
My question is: Given this type of vision would early predator culture be able to effective have a literate culture. The current Predators use electronics that are able to display information within their visual range, but before that could one form a style of writing that would work in the infrared? I suppose different combinations of inks could when warmed form a significant difference in temperture between ink and paper to be read, but it doesn't seem something that would convenient or easy. Perhaps instead they didn't have a visual form of writing but did a version of braille. Still a little awkward but would be far easier to use. I like the idea of "ghost" writing.
Another thing is perhaps they didn't have a written language. In our culture people memorized huge amounts of poetry to pass it on to the next generation. Perhaps predators were able to do this even more creating a vast oral history. In any case, any of these options would have consequences to the development of predator culture.
Something to think about.
STRANGE SPANNERS being an accounting of strangeness of the warp and woof of my mind For those of you new here, think of this as 1/2 "Night Gallery" Our Motto: Nos somnium quisnam es futurus fatum quod insolitus tutus vos!
Now that they have the suits down, it would be an interesting and much easier task to go visit them on their home world...plus CGI couldn't do too much damage. Perhaps a big wig will get the bug.
ReplyDeleteAlso begs the question about Alien as well. The bugs from Starship Troopers were telepathic, had the hive consciousness, but what about the acid blooded Aliens? All instinctual queen control/pre-programming or an intelligent species capable of independent thought?