Five Great Science Fiction Villains

The Daleks

“Exterminate!”

From: Dr Who.

What’s the story?

One man can be blamed for unleashing the Daleks on the universe- Davros. They originated on the planet Skaro, a world ravaged by a millennia long war between two peoples, the Kaled and the Thal. Over the course of the long conflict, chemical, biological and nuclear weapons where used by both sides. The Kaled where starting to suffer from mutations, and Davros, their chief scientist decided to capitalize on this. He began analyzing their mutations, identifying the strongest and encouraging them, assuring the Kaled commanders that it was to predict what they might one day become. What he was really doing was preparing to create a new master race to enslave the planet is his own image.

He isolated all the characteristics he needed in his new perfect race- Ruthlessness, lack of emotion and a burning hatred for anything that was different from them. Once this was achieved, he designed the “Mk III travel machine” (Part life support system and part armored tank) to house them in- and the Daleks where born. They then promptly began to kill everything in their path, a genocidal campaign that was not confined to their own planet. They soon spread to the stars, and even killed Davros in the process (though through various time tampering he was saved). The rest of Dalek history is the subject of many episodes of Dr Who, so I won’t say too much more for fear of spoilers.

What makes them great villains?

The Daleks are ruthless, uncompromising, and genocidal. They don’t believe they are the supreme beings, they know it. Killing anything that isn’t either: A) Dalek, or B) Useful, is as natural to them as breathing is to humans. Daleks are devoid of almost all emotion and conscience, the one exception being fear- and even that is only brought out in situations where defeat is almost certain (It stops the Dalek’s hubris from destroying them by ensuring they are wary of superior foes).

Aside from being tenacious to the point where the entire race has rebuilt itself from one survivor, they also have the technology and skill to carry out their campaign of genocide very successfully. Daleks are one of the few races capable of time travel (Leading them into a great war against the time lords), their ships are powerful, their knowledge of biotechnology is supreme (At one point they bred a clone army), and the individual Dalek is easily a mach for a squad of human soldiers. Even when their chassis are destroyed, if the Dalek survives it will go to ground and fight on, using its toxic bite and small size to slowly pick away at the enemy. And each Dalek itself is a certifiable genius.

Do they have a weakness?

Daleks have two main weaknesses. The eye piece on the top of the Dalek can be destroyed, blinding the creature inside. Later Daleks used energy shields to protect themselves, but if enough bullets are concentrated, at least one should get through.

The other is the Movellan virus. The first crushing defeat the Daleks had was against the Movellans. The story goes that the Daleks and Movellans where in a stalemate. Their battle computers where perfectly matched, and neither could outthink the other. So the Movellans went and devised a new strategy independently of the computer. They created a virus that specifically targeted and killed the Daleks. A large number of the race was infected, and the kill rate was 100%. The effects where so devastating it caused the Dalek Empire to fracture, but again, spoilers.

With the destruction and rebirth of their race with a new genetic code however, it seems the Daleks are now immune to it.

They can be killed using the standard approach though. Guns. Lots and lots of guns. Make them big guns. Lots and lots of very big guns.

“The Daleks are the supreme being! We do not require assistance!”

Rating: Nine out of 10 death rays.

Cherubael.

“Shut up so I can hear myself kill you.”

From: The Eisenhorn trilogy (Warhammer 40,000).

What’s the story?

He’s a Daemon prince from the 41st millennium, serving the powers of chaos. Cherubael has existed for a very, very long time. Known by many names, Cherubael has appeared throughout history, and throughout the imperium of man, subverting faith in the God emperor and turning the faithless to his will. He met his match on the world of Clanar II, where a radical imperial inquisitor found him and bound him into a body. Cherubael was

reduced from a Demi God, to become a daemon host, the weapon of a madman. But he had a plan, oh yes, he had a plan. For in the realm of the daemons (the warp) time has no concept. He knew in the future there would be a man who would defeat his master, and set him free from his prison of flesh. Slowly, piece of piece, Cherubael put a centauries long plan into motion. And it came so close to working too…

What makes him a great villain?

Cherubael is ludicrously powerful. Even when bound within a physical body, he’s capable of feats of extraordinary destruction and chaos. In fact, even by daemon prince standards he’s as hard as nails. At one point in the trilogy, he takes out a battle titian- a friggin’ titan. Feel free to Google “Warhammer 40,000 battle titan”, and realize he basically killed a mile tall walking tank.

But in the entire trilogy, we rarely see him use this level of power. Like many great characters, Cherubael’s true greatness lies in subtlety. Everyone’s heard of the stories of deals with devils, and the sweet temptations of evil. Cherubael plays up to these stories magnificently, forming long complicated plans to get even the most devout and pious individuals to do exactly what he wants, and corrupting other, easier targets to his will. Although in the end it could be argued that he succumbs to his nemesis/chief pawn, Inquisitor Gregor Eisenhorn, Cherubael can at least claim a moral victory on account of the fact that he turned Eisenhorn from a devout puritan “All chaos is evil!” type of inquisitor, into a radical “We shall use chaos and control it!” type.

But perhaps what makes Cherubael such a great villain is the fact he rarely takes centre stage. He’s a controller and manipulator, a puppeteer running everything from behind the scenes. In all the Eisenhorn books, he only features prominently in a few key scenes. In each book the “true” enemy is always someone else, but Cherubael is always there, always watching, always pulling the strings…

Does he have a weakness?

Like all Daemons, Cherubael is repelled by symbols of faith in the hands of the truly faithful. But not for long, as he can quite happily summon enough power to destroy them once he’s got over the initial shock.

If the body he is bound into is injured, it means little to Cherubael. He can regenerate it quite happily. Even if it is destroyed, Cherubael remains bound to his master, waiting to serve in a new body.

Delivering a large psychic shock, or the appropriate rituals can release a daemon host from its bonds, but then you just have it wondering around obeying no orders, and with no limits put on its power.

Theoretically, there’s one way to “kill” a Daemon. Deliver a MASSIVE psychic charge into it. The kind of power required to enslaves the minds of an entire city. That might, theoretically, annihilate it, rather than send it back to the warp. Maybe.

The only way to really ensure Cherubael isn’t a problem is to bind him yourself, and then lock him up somewhere, never to be seen again. But having all that power at your disposal… sometimes there’s no other way out of a situation other than to make a deal with the devil.

And then he’s got his chance.

“Cut me free from these pentagramic bindings and we’ll call it even…I’ll go, and we’ll never bother each other again… I promise…”

Rating: Eight out of ten tormented souls.

The Jem’Hadar.

“I am First Ikat’ika, and I am dead.

As of this moment, we are all dead.

We go into battle to reclaim our lives.

This we do gladly, for we are Jem’Hadar.

Remember: Victory is Life!”

From: Star trek (Deep space nine)

What’s the story?

The Jem’Hadar serve the founders, a race of shape shifters who spend all their time in what they call “the great link” (half hive mind, half opium trip), to fight all their wars on their behalf.

The Jem’Hadar are all genetically engineered monsters who rapidly reach to maturity, at which point they are sent into battle to build the dominion; Empire of the founders. Their ranking system is simple with the “first” at the top, the “second” below him and so forth. Controlling the Jem’Hadar are another species of genetically engineered aliens, the Vorta. The Vorta are the officers and diplomats, keeping the Jem’Hadar in check and distributing the means by which the dominion control and feed them, the Ketracel white, or “White” for short.

What makes them such great villains?

In many ways, the Jem’Hadar are similar to the Daleks. They are bred for battle and born for war. Every aspect of the Jem’Hadar physiology and psychology is geared to one simple thing. Serving the founders, and more often than not in the case of the Jem’Hadar, that means killing lots and lots of people.

Examples of Jem’Hadar physiological advantages include chameleon like colour shifting they can use as camouflage (Which they rarely do, they are shock troopers rather than commandoes), enhanced muscles, endurance, enhanced senses, tough scaly skin and a fearsome appearance to demoralize their enemies.

Jem’Hadar have a life expectancy of nil. Few live past fifteen years, twenty years is an amazing feat, and thirty years is unknown. You see, despite the fact they are so tough, the dominion use the Jem’Hadar as a steamroller. It only takes three days for one to grow to maturity, so for every one that falls, there are another dozen ready to take its place.

They don’t eat. They don’t sleep. They don’t take time out. In this respect, they’re a lot like professional chefs. They pretty much share the same temperament as well, grouchy, violent and aggressive, with a dash of psychosis.

The Jem’Hadar are very well equipped, their clothing meshes with their physiology so when they “shroud” (think active camouflage), their clothing shrouds with them. Their weapons have three settings; stun, kill, and vaporize. Oh and the kill setting causes any wounds it administers to bleed profusely, so if the beam doesn’t kill you, the blood loss will.

Do they have a weakness?

Only one: the white. And even then, it’s hard to use this weakness against them, except on a strategic scale. The Jem’Hadar are bred to lack the ability to produce certain enzymes essential to life. These are present in the white. The white itself is also the only nutrition the Jem’Hadar require. So, in theory, you can starve them to death by stopping the flow of white, right?

More or less correct. You see there’s one little problem. They don’t starve to death quietly. A Jem’Hadar deprived of white behaves a lot like a heroin addict going cold turkey at first. They twitch, they mutter, they loose hand eye coordination and the ability to do their chameleon trick. But then afterwards they fly into a berserk rage, killing anything they come across, friend or foe. Given the fact that the dominion can simply abandon the Jem’Hadar as easily as anyone else abandons a tool, the berserk monsters then become the problem of the enemy again, even if the dominion where forced to retreat from the theatre of war. Finally, after the berserk rage, the Jem’Hadar croak.

The only other thing you can do is keep shooting and praying, as while each individual is tough, they are far from invincible.

Rating: Eight out of 10 prisoners of war.

“Obedience brings victory. Victory is life.”

The Terminators.

From: The TwoTerminator Movies. No, there was no third movie. There was no third movie! Lalalala I can’t hear you!

“I’ll be back.”

What’s the story?

This one really is a classic, everyone, even people who don’t normally like science fiction have seen the terminator. The story goes like this. A computerized defensive system called Skynet is built in America, in the near future. The only problem is Skynet becomes self aware, and when it does the controllers try to “pull the plug”. Needless to say, Skynet does not appreciate an attempt on its “life” and strikes back, nuking all the major cities of the world. The survivors call is judgment day, but the horror doesn’t end there. Skynet unleashes its foot troops, the metallic skeleton like robots called the terminators.

The humans fight back and are on the verge of defeating Skynet when it decides it’s had enough. It starts to send terminators back in time to try and kill the leader of the human resistance, John Connor, and/or his mother Sarah. The idea being if the humans don’t have a figurehead to gather around, then history will be different. Paradoxes aside, the rebels send one of their men back in time to protect Sarah, and a reprogrammed Terminator back to protect John.

The Terminators in the films come in two flavors, the T-800 which is the bad guy in the first film and John’s body guard in the others (Not that there was more than one other film!). These guys are your basic metal terminator, but then overlaid with living tissue. It’s almost impossible to tell them apart from a real human unless you cut them open. They where originally designed for infiltration, but Skynet’s time portal could only transfer living things, so suddenly they took on a new purpose. As the terminator was housed INSIDE living tissue, the machine COULD send it back. And send it back they did…

The Next is the T-1000, which was sent after John Connor. This badass was made of living metal. Think of mercury which could think and pull itself into any shape it wanted. It could mimic different humans right down to the voice, and turn parts of its body into knives and other instruments of destruction. Blowing holes in it doesn’t do much good either as it’s like trying to stab water.

What makes them such great villains?

They just don’t stop. They are as inevitable as the tides and moon; they just don’t stop once set on a task. Between them, T-800 and T-1000 have been shot, burned, beaten, frozen, melted, blown up, skinned, crushed and God knows what else. Only a couple of these things proved to be anything more than a mild irritation.

Terminators are very good at what they do, they have a knowledge of human anatomy so they know how to kill with maximum efficiency, they are proficient with any weapon they pick up, can drive any vehicle, they let no one stand in their way, and simply take whatever they need as they need it, all the while marching relentlessly towards their target.

You can run, you can hide, but in the end you are only human. Sooner or later you’ll need to stop to catch your breath. Sooner or later you’ll need to sleep. The terminator doesn’t. The only way you will ever be safe if a terminator is set on you is to either re write history, or find a way to kill it. And with the latter, you’ll probably get another one sent after you anyway.

Do they have a weakness?

Only Arnold Schwarzenegger’s acting skills. No seriously, by conventional means, the T-800 is VERY tough to beat. In theory it’s still only a robot, so you can put it down if you can get your hands on armor piercing weapons or explosives. You can however beat it if you get creative. For example, crushing it in a metal press.

The T-1000 is even more of a nightmare. Conventional weapons do little more than annoy him, blowing him up just causes him to recombine slowly and even hiding is next to impossible as it can look like anyone, and pour itself through tight gaps to get in anywhere. Extreme cold (Being frozen) seems to cause it to go a little haywire, only extreme heat (thousands of degrees c) seem to be able to actually kill it.

Rating: Nine out of 10 lever action shotguns.

“I need your clothes, your boots, and your motorcycle”

The Xenomorphs.

From: The alien films.

“It’s got a hell of a defense mechanism, you don’t dare kill it.”

What’s the story?

There’s not much of a story to tell with these guys. They’re aliens but unlike many aliens in science fiction, these guys are not super intelligent, they have an animalistic mind, but can learn surprisingly complex tasks if trained properly. While not as smart as a human, the average alien drone can think its way around problems with basic animal logic, which can be scarily effective. The two aliens escaping from the cell in alien 4 anyone?

The alien life cycle begins as an egg laid by the queen. From the egg comes the face hugger. This little thing scurries around looking for a large animal, say… a human. When it finds one, it jumps on the target’s face and forces a large amount of flesh down your gullet (Like porn but scary) -and then dies.

Now that you’ve been implanted, your death is almost certain. In the space of only a few hours, the fetus (for lack of a better word) grows into the aptly named “chest buster”, a large grub/snake like creature that eats its way out of you, then scurries off looking for a hiding place.

The chest buster then eats, and molts. And eats and molts, and so on until it grows into the most common alien, the drone. The drone will then hunt and feed, and then start a colony.

Where the drone goes from here varies depending on the amount of aliens present. Some will continue to mutate and become praetorians, the guardians of the queen, some may even become queens themselves. Many will stay as drones.

They’re animals though, they don’t hunt because they want to destroy the world or enslave you, they’re just hungry- and need you to breed. It’s this strange thing that makes the Aliens at the very least an interesting concept in science fiction, a predator above humans in the food chain, not due to technology or flinksome super powers, but simply being more evolved and better suited to do what they need to do.

Plus their look was designed by HR Geiger! What more could you ask for?

What makes them such great villains?

The alien drones are very fast, very agile, can climb walls, rip apart metal with their claws, have a highly corrosive acid for blood and swim like fish. In short, they are almost perfectly evolved as the top of the food chain.

It’s hinted that they are slightly telepathic, and can sense each other’s presence and state, creating a sort of hive mind within the colony, so if one sees you, they all know where you are. Ever poked a wasp’s nest? Imagine what happens when the wasps are eight feet tall and have a second mouth on the end of their tongues.

Even one of these things is a problem. It’s smart enough that it won’t jump out in front of you when you’re carrying the BFG, and stealthy enough to instead lurk on the ceiling and then drop down on you. Plus if there is a well established colony in the area, they will zerg rush you, swarming you with dozens of high speed, chitinous snarling horrors.

Do they have a weakness?

Yes, standard weapons do work on them. for all their speed, strength and agility, the individual alien drone is quite fragile. Being insectoid, they have a tough exoskeleton, but once this is breached their insides will leak out through the hole if it’s large enough. The exoskeleton isn’t exactly bullet proof either, and the standard weapons everyone seems to be toting round can quite happily put a hole in an alien.

The problem arises though because the aliens will rarely give you a chance to shoot, swing your wrench, or do anything in response to an attack. They ambush you when you are at your most vulnerable, or least expect it. Perhaps the best defense therefore, is a sharp set of eyes and ears.

The other weakness is the fact they need to use another species to procreate. If they don’t have a being of large enough mass, they can’t breed and the colony goes into a sort of hibernation. Problem with that is that any disturbance and you wake them up.

If you can kill the colony queen, then you deal the aliens a seriously blow as they can no longer get fresh eggs and it takes a lot of time and energy for a new queen to mutate.

Oh, and they REALLY don’t like fire. A flamethrower will keep a wall between you and the alien, and is great for clearing out rooms willed with eggs. A word of warning though, an alien on fire goes berserk. Be somewhere else.

Rating: Nine out of 10 mangled corpses.

“If they’re going to be anywhere it’ll be… here. Where the meat is.”

So, don’t forget to pack your ray gun next time you go out people! You have been warned!

Need some heroes to protect you? Look no further than here!

How about some weapons and kit, soon to be reality?

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