Best and Most Terrifying Sci-fi Antagonist "Group"

[Zantos]

The big difference is that they can't lose. The Chaos Gods of WH40K are kept in check by the Emperor's psionic powers

In 40k that is (or was) at most a temporary thing, sooner or later He would die and chaos would win.

In GW more generally, it's hinted that Chaos could win whenever they wanted to, but a destroyed world/galaxy is no fun. So they give limited power to mortal champions and send them off, because it's more amusing than playing on literally god mode all the time. As such, they can't lose, the world only has a chance of surviving until they get bored with it, and it's only a chance even then.

Every faction has a "If something happens they'd win" clause though. If all the Orks united for a WAAAAAGH! they'd win. If the Tyranid hive fleet actually arrived they'd win. If the necrons all awoke they'd win. If the Imperium stopped fucking around for five fucking minutes and got it's Divine Avatars together they'd win. I'm going to assume since I know nothing about the filthy xenos other races that they have a similar principle. Presumably if everyone lined up within shooting range of the Tau in a nice orderly fashion they'd win. But that is of course, all heresy.

Everything in 40k is pretty bad, it's usually torture, torture, killed, brainwashed, killed, tortured, killed. Sometimes by your own team. But that has all been said.

I'm going to go with the dark ones from Metro 2033. If you played the games you know them as the creepy looking ones that keep chasing you, not too scary. I read the book, and the description of the sheer inhumanness of them in the first few chapters is the only monster in my adult life to give me nightmares. I hope one day to actually continue reading it.

Also I didn't play much of the Resistance series before my PS3 died, but the Chimera. Wow. I mean, Grimsby is already a factory for soulless non-humans anyway, but still.

 

[Thaluikhain]

The big difference is that they can't lose. The Chaos Gods of WH40K are kept in check by the Emperor's psionic powers

In 40k that is (or was) at most a temporary thing, sooner or later He would die and chaos would win.

In GW more generally, it's hinted that Chaos could win whenever they wanted to, but a destroyed world/galaxy is no fun. So they give limited power to mortal champions and send them off, because it's more amusing than playing on literally god mode all the time. As such, they can't lose, the world only has a chance of surviving until they get bored with it, and it's only a chance even then.

Every faction has a "If something happens they'd win" clause though. If all the Orks united for a WAAAAAGH! they'd win. If the Tyranid hive fleet actually arrived they'd win. If the necrons all awoke they'd win. If the Imperium stopped fucking around for five fucking minutes and got it's Divine Avatars together they'd win. I'm going to assume since I know nothing about the filthy xenos other races that they have a similar principle. Presumably if everyone lined up within shooting range of the Tau in a nice orderly fashion they'd win. But that is of course, all heresy.

Back in the day, the eventual victory of chaos was assured. No matter what happened, sooner or later the Chaos gods would overrun the galaxy. The Imperium might fall under the weight of various alien menaces beforehand, and Chaos would eat whoever was left after that, but it'd still happen (I think there was mention of all the orks uniting, but that was impossible, just a hyperbolic comparison of total numbers).

 

[Zantos]

Back in the day, the eventual victory of chaos was assured. No matter what happened, sooner or later the Chaos gods would overrun the galaxy. The Imperium might fall under the weight of various alien menaces beforehand, and Chaos would eat whoever was left after that, but it'd still happen (I think there was mention of all the orks uniting, but that was impossible, just a hyperbolic comparison of total numbers).

To be honest, I'm relatively new to the whole thing. Though that seems to be the way the Tyranids are at the minute, these fleets are only the forward tendrils of an unimaginable horror that will arrive eventually and consume all. To which Kharn replies "They can fucking try", or more likely "Blood for the blood god!"

Though are you talking before Tyranids? Were Squats still a thing at the time?

 

[Thaluikhain]

To be honest, I'm relatively new to the whole thing. Though that seems to be the way the Tyranids are at the minute, these fleets are only the forward tendrils of an unimaginable horror that will arrive eventually and consume all. To which Kharn replies "They can fucking try", or more likely "Blood for the blood god!"

Though are you talking before Tyranids? Were Squats still a thing at the time?

Well, back when nids were new, squats had been quietly forgotten (actually "They were eaten by the nids" was one explanation given for why the suats no longer existed). They were introduced fairly naturally into the fluff, the people in this galaxy didn't know anything about what was beyond, the nids came out of somewhere else.

There was some talk of other hive fleets, but it was only relatively recently that there were all-powerful hordes of them. There was some idea that they might eat everyone, but that wasn't anything concrete, just a hypothesis. Then the C'tan got crowbarred into the fluff in a terrible way (though their fluff wasn't otherwise that bad), and they'd eat everyone for sure. Got a bit tiresome for quite a while, then it got silly, not in an OtT dystopian way, but in a Michael Bay sorta way.

 

[Daverson]

Metro 2033's Kremlin monster. The game didn't really do it justice, which is a shame, because it was (for me at least) the most memorable part of the book D=

(Though I'm not sure if the Amoeba plant thingy was supposed to be it, since something a lot more like the creature in the book appears in Last Light.)

 

[NihilSinLulz]

Probably the Borg for my money, though their menace maybe got a bit diluted over time. Just the concept alone is scary as hell though.

Neither the Borg or Cybermen have the personality of Lexx's 791
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAUfJi8ijCo

My vote goes to the kids in Who Can Kill a Child? They can spread their murderous urges to other children and even the unborn and unlike other evil kids movies, they seem totally normal. So when you shoot them, they cry and plead like real children would making it so much more unsettling...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoZs9d0qt_k

 

[Fractral]

Just waiting for Lovecraftian references...

Err, I'm gonna go with the 'The Beyond' from the Night's Dawn Trilogy.
Tormented and insane souls from a kind of accidental purgatory? Check.
Power of possession, and almost insane desire to do so? Check.
Elemental, telepathic, and metaphysical powers? Check.
Ridiculous amounts of involuntary body modification and horror? Check.

It's basically zombies in space. Except altogether more horrible.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/TheNightsDawnTrilogy?from=Main.NightsDawn

I came in to say this. They sound like some kind of awful B-movie enemy, but the way Hamilton writes makes them seem truly terrifying. Other than the ending, which was pretty retarded, the only times they're really beaten is through a huge ground campaign costing millions of soldiers and eventually destroying half a continent, and when Valisk shifts itself into a lower energy universe, which ended up as a pretty Pyrrhic victory seeing as they all die anyway when they hit the melange.
Plus by the end Quinn Dexter is pretty much satan himself, to the point that the government actually sacrifice a whole city to try and kill him, which fails anyway. I was disappointed with how in the end he's not really given any kind of punishment.

 

[SadakoMoose]

Nazis, whenever they show up in space.
Unlike Reavers, Reapers, Lovecraftian Deities, or the Inhumanoids from the deep, the Nazis are actually very plausible.

So Plausible, in fact, that they actually exist and were able to set the world on fire for basically a decade.
On one hand, they represent everything horrid about civilization. Exclusion, persecution, oppression, war mongering, hatred and industrialized murder. There's a reason that people compare "the other side" to Nazis, when it comes to political discussion, regardless of whether or not that person is liberal or conservative. It's because the Nazis represent everything that could go horribly wrong in the industrialized world.

"Scientific" racism, "scientific" management, rabid militarization, inhuman industrialization.
They are the dark side of the progress we've made in the last two centuries.
So, in a way, they're the perfect science fiction villains. They're both the product of a rapidly mobilizing world, full of daring new ideas and concepts, and yet they are also a force that destroys that world.
The idea of having Nazis or Nazi like organizations in space is frankly horrifying. What it means is that despite our best efforts, despite years of progress and innovation, our warp drives cannot escape the looming threat of fascism. Food replicators won't eliminate social darwinism. A post scarcity society could be scientifically possible, but rendered impossible by the society that possesses those advances. It's like the Earth Empire from Star Trek. They have replicators and advanced medical technology, but why would they let "undesirables" use them.

The idea of people with such horrific ideas in possession of that kind of tech is the most frightening thing I can think of. They could abuse science and technology to engineer their "perfect world", waging some of the bloodiest wars and committing some of the worst atrocities a man can think of.

In that way, the Colonial Marines from Starship Troopers are some of the best villains I've ever seen.
By the way, check out The Iron Dream sometime for an interesting perspective on modern sci fi.

 

[Super Kami Guru]

Nazis, whenever they show up in space.
Unlike Reavers, Reapers, Lovecraftian Deities, or the Inhumanoids from the deep, the Nazis are actually very plausible.

Space Nazis you say?

 

[Hugh Wright]

Would a Grey Goo scenario count as a group? Billions of rogue nanomachines eating up the world.

I see your grey goo and raise you the Phalanx [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phalanx_(comics)], a sentient grey goo virus.
Another 'good' one is the Yuuzhan Vong [http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Yuuzhan_Vong]who are religious zealots that genetically engineer and grow all of their technology organically and have sadomasochistic beliefs.

 

[MASTACHIEFPWN]

Spoiler: Only for the bravest amoung us

Sure, the Empire's soldier's couldn't hit the broad side of a moisture evaporator, but that didn't stop them from conquering the galexy, did it?
And that's the scary part...

 

[Vicarious Reality]

I'm going to go with the dark ones from Metro 2033. If you played the games you know them as the creepy looking ones that keep chasing you, not too scary. I read the book, and the description of the sheer inhumanness of them in the first few chapters is the only monster in my adult life to give me nightmares.

That just gave me chills remembering it
Also those damn dogmen outside
I have to read my book sometime

Also the damn trigen monkeys from Far Cry
Pink monkeys with huge claws that jump and kill you in about two seconds out of the jungle and sound like they are decapitated

 

[Hero of Lime]

The Flood from the Halo games.

The covenant are great bad guys but when it comes to sheer terror?

They want your body and your memories, which they will use to their full advantage. Their goal? Assimilate all life in the universe, their origins, unknown.

The only enemy to actually make the Master Chief just a LITTLE afraid.

Even the Forerunners could not stop them.

I'm 100% certain even the reapers couldn't stop them. It just takes one spore and then its all downhill for them. Actually, come to think of it, a flood infested reaper? Holy shit that sounds even more terrifying. The borg could still be infected by them (Any biomass means the flood win, the only thing I could think of at all that stops them is Skynet)

Pretty much this, just the concept of the flood (hive-minded parasitic zombie producers with a clear, intelligent goal) is just terrifying. Also the places they take over just look so nasty.

OT: Similar to the flood, the Ing from Metroid Prime 2 are inter-dimensional beings who can infect living and dead beings, and can possess machines all while making them 2x stronger and durable as well. It doesn't help that their home dimension is deadly in every way you can imagine. I would love to see the Flood and Ing duke it out, both sides in a frenzy trying to possess and kill each other.

 

[SuperFrankieLampard]

The HK-50'S from KOTOR 2's Restored Content Mod. Threatening, yet hilarious at the same time.

 

[WhiteFangofWhoa]

Was focusing on TV and Literature since Video Games have more doomsday hive mind-type races than they know what to do with, but I should mention the X Parasites from Metroid.

They fly pretty fast, and as energy beings they can phase through most types of walls and are immune to most weapons (laser weapons stun, but don't kill). They cause instant infection upon contact, with death shortly after, and in environments identical to their home world they reproduce at a rate of about 1 every 10 seconds. That's before you factor in their ability to replicate the appearance and abilities of any biological life form they've previously consumed, and killing that just reverts them to their base state.

If Samus didn't have the Fusion suit she would have died about sixty seconds into her mission to the BSL.

 

[kannibus]

The Borg the first two times they appeared, and never again.

Yeah, I agree with this. The Borg were kinda done to death by ST:V. Although they were cool in First Contact.

As to my most scary race, it would probably be the Zerg or the Tyranids. Zerg a little less because despite everything, they still have fine taste in sexy women.

Mmmm Infested Kerrigan....

 

[TheUsername0131]

Love the Lovecratian themes cropping up here, and the other tropes.


"Imagine momentarily that your (hardly) peaceful world was only a smudge of what?s truly there. Like the world unseen without aid of insight or instrument (microscope, telescope, etc.)

And that something slumbered beneath its hidden ?depths,? something that is being stirred awaken by the incessant meanderings of life? It?s now awake, and it hungers."


http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=srTh3SMrE4o


"2:51 is the moment that always gets me, when he goes from a degenerating mind to chilling clarity."



"Now all my tales are based on the fundamental premise that common human laws and interests and emotions have no validity or significance in the vast cosmos-at-large."
? HP Lovecraft



Is anyone conflicted by the Replicators as mentioned in the opening post "robotic lego spiders from space."

I mean, that is just awesome, you feed them raw material, instant 'lego' capable of constructing all manner of intricate machinery.

Sure, the whole world being consumed around you (and then yourself,) isn't a comforting notion. But come on, the landscape gets dissolved and is reformed into a myriad of 'lego' constructs.



As for 'Best and Most Terrifying Sci-fi Antagonist "Group"'

I don't have a best one, but one that I feel is rather horrifying in its subtlety is the enigmatic G-Man from the Half-life game series and by extension the mysterious benefactors that he refers too. The way he is responsible for orchestrating the Black Mesa Incident, and involvement in other plot contrivances is as unsettling and his sinister demeanor.

To what purpose, and too whose benefit?

He's either an Eldritch Abomination like Nyarlathotep, Tzeentch, The Outsider, or a sufficiently advanced alien like the Flintstone's 'The Great Gazoo,' Zarn, etc.

 

[Eddie the head]

I would say Hal but that's not a group. And he is not scary because he is so inhuman like most of these. He is scary because he is so human. The idea that we all have a grate capacity for evil inside of us is just plain terrifying compared to anything else I can think of.

 

[TheUsername0131]

I would say Hal but that's not a group. And he is not scary because he is so inhuman like most of these. He is scary because he is so human. The idea that we all have a grate capacity for evil inside of us is just plain terrifying compared to anything else I can think of.

If its HAL 9000, then the supposed 'evil' was the unanticipated resolution of conflicting directives.

What humans indent a machine to do, and what they program a machine to do is NOT equivocal.

As for the human capacity of evil, to put back that inhuman horror, then please DEFINE EVIL.

Suddenly all comfortable human notions breakdown as EVIL is subjective to those that hold particular values.

Within the horror experience there lurks perhaps a catharsis, or perhaps an examination of the human condition and the nature of evil.

'Evil' is either pragmatic, or a discernible lack or diminished empathy and by extension compassion. Worse still is when those notions are perverted, skewed, distorted and such.