Talking about these gribbly omnicidal species probably deserves its own category of discussion. There are a lot of them out there after all. Might be fun comparing and contrasting them and their biology, origins, how they spread and grow and fester and infect et cetera.
But yeah like I said earlier Brethren Moons and Gravemind types are pretty Eldritch on their own and in how they propagate. Their infection/space zombie effects meanwhile could be comparable to Cultist/hybrid type of stuff from Lovecraftian settings I suppose. It's just blasting away the minions tends to dull that eldritch unknowable luster.
Some may dispute this example of an Eldritch Horror, but my candidate is this fellow, and specifically this scene.
Say what you want about the rest of the movie, but this opening was... I mean, look at it. Some thing from deep space comes upon an inhabited planet (albeit one inhabited by sapient robots) and devours them without warning. He doesn't even speak to them. They're just a meal he's come across, and they are utterly helpless to save themselves.
Edit: I know it's five beings, but others have only offered one...
Gonna hit you up with the ultimate Eldritch Horror tier list:
5. Those huge dudes from One Piece, for somehow bringing cosmic horror to my fun pirate annie-may.
4. The concept of nonexistence itself. No link here, because it's meaningless and everything is meaningless and all our works shall turn into gravitic soup.
3. GOD HIMSELF. Not spooky enough for you? You follow one of those fancy religions where God is not to be appeased through human sacrifices? Fun fact: the Abrahamic god (aka jewish, christian and muslim) is omnipresent. He's not just everywhere in the Universe, He IS THE UNIVERSE. What a lad.
2. Hellstar Remina. She's just spooky.
1. Me.
Jokes aside, these are all the cosmic horror characters/concepts that have actually unnerved me. The only one whom I didn't include was the Party from 1984, because at least that one could feasibly be inconvenienced for a couple seconds before it retconned your entire existence.
Flood are neat and all but I put them in the similar category as Tyranids and Zerg and Necromorphs and the like. Some parts of them seem like they could be Eldritch but if we allow the Flood, then there's a whole host of other species that can 'flood' (hurr hurr) into that category. Maybe some parts of the Flood, like the Gravemind and the like can be considered particularly eldritch but it feels like a pretty broad brush. Most of our interaction with the Flood is almost like a 'space zombie' equivalent as it were anyhow and you interact with them by plodding through the cosmic horror tedium that is 'The Library' among other things.
Personally I feel as a species as a whole the Flood and similar other species like the ones I mentioned above are kind of their own category. They just don't as neatly fit into the idea of cosmic horror that is almost incomprehensible or unknowable by our puny human minds. That's just me though. Just feels too real and definable and conventional for me to be spooky eldritch.
Actually, I just realized that a lot of those species, except the Zerg are eldritch once you get beyond the horde of mooks. Really, I am not sure if you at all right, species that seem to just be some regular horror, are actually something quite eldritch (e.g. Orz), either the servitors or even some element, part, aspect of them, etc.
Just look at this clip from this TTS side video, and how it presents the Tyranid hivemind, or something...
I found the Crystalline Entity to be the best Eldritch or at least unknowable entity in Star Trek universe at least. But only in the second episode. I liked it's portrayal, especially towards the end with the climatic confrontation with the entity and how it played out. Despite the creature being a mass killing monstrosity, the way the episode managed to shift the narrative from me wanting to kill the creature to me wanting to see how it could turn out otherwise was quite dramatic.
Being able to open a line of communication is a pretty big thing to overcome the fear of the unknown, especially when the unknown entity has killed thousands.
The major drawback to the Crystalline Entity is I still remember it's first appearance... and how it kinda ruins the second one with how the ever affable Lore managed to simply communicate with it directly.
I found the Crystalline Entity to be the best Eldritch or at least unknowable entity in Star Trek universe at least. But only in the second episode. I liked it's portrayal, especially towards the end with the climatic confrontation with the entity and how it played out. Despite the creature being a mass killing monstrosity, the way the episode managed to shift the narrative from me wanting to kill the creature to me wanting to see how it could turn out otherwise was quite dramatic.
Being able to open a line of communication is a pretty big thing to overcome the fear of the unknown, especially when the unknown entity has killed thousands.
The major drawback to the Crystalline Entity is I still remember it's first appearance... and how it kinda ruins the second one with how the ever affable Lore managed to simply communicate with it directly.
I agree that the plot with the Crystalline entity was brilliant, but also fell short of its potential... I haven't seen those episodes in a long time since first seeing them on reruns while watching TNG while my dad was doing his psychology reports up late at night and letting me stay up past my bedtime... But I still vividly remember the Crystalline entity, which considering all since then, is an accomplishment to its beauty and also fearful uncertainty. Some of the best star trek monsters did that, and then they brought it back! Which is rare for what's usually a monster of the month.
I agree that the plot with the Crystalline entity was brilliant, but also fell short of its potential... I haven't seen those episodes in a long time since first seeing them on reruns while watching TNG while my dad was doing his psychology reports up late at night and letting me stay up past my bedtime... But I still vividly remember the Crystalline entity, which considering all since then, is an accomplishment to its beauty and also fearful uncertainty. Some of the best star trek monsters did that, and then they brought it back! Which is rare for what's usually a monster of the month.
Yes watching through TNG I know I benefited a fair bit because I'm sure I saw the remastered series since apparently the original Season One Crystalline Entity didn't look that good at all.
The Lore episode was probably my favorite episode of Season One of TNG (not that it's saying much) but that was wholly due to Lore doing Lore stuff, the Crystalline Entity was yes... just another monster of the week.
But when it suddenly returned like in Season Four or whatever, I slowly found it more interesting to the point I actually regretted the fact we had encountered it in Season One, because the fact Lore could communicate with it so readily was just so disappointing and clashed with what was going on here in trying to interact with it.
But yeah, remastered though it might have been, the Crystalline Entity looked pretty nice onscreen, even now (according to Memory Alpha it was remastered in 2012 for the home media release) and yeah, it was a good episode. Not only the shift in my own opinion of how to view the Crystalline Entity and how I went from agreeing it should die to... not wanting that outcome but a lot of character development as well and other moral quandries with a Star Trek context.
But yes, the Crystalline Entity could've been even so much more.
As a kid, from the random TNG episodes I had seen... obviously Armus made an impression on me... but as I grew up it I did see it as how most adults did, just a very powerful and petty, petulant ooze. And of course... the Borg... who were awesome before steadily becoming less so. Now I'm kinda bummed I never saw the Crystalline Entity when I was a wee lass... or don't remember it. Would've been interested thinking of how I would've thought of it then and now... especially if I only saw its second appearance.
The MUF from the Space:1999 episode Dragons Domain.
The background starts off with a failed deep space mission, yet the entity is never picked up on the flight recorder, so the sole survivor of the mission, the Mission Commander is not believed. It is instead believed that he blew the docking procedure of the ship and caused the deaths of his crew and is trying to shift the blame.
And this is a time stamped clip in this video showing it more effectively
They just couldn't help themselves with ruining the Borg, could they? They were one of my favorite things in Star Trek. A superpredator 'species' that was on a whole different level and motivation from all the rubber forehead alies. An existential threat that wanted to not kill you but steal everything you are, destroying your sense of self in the process.
Then they made Star Trek: First Contact. That wasn't the only thing that destroyed what made them great, but that was the high point of cringe. I don't think most of the writers that used them ever really understood what made them interesting in the first place.
They just couldn't help themselves with ruining the Borg, could they? They were one of my favorite things in Star Trek. A superpredator 'species' that was on a whole different level and motivation from all the rubber forehead alies. An existential threat that wanted to not kill you but steal everything you are, destroying your sense of self in the process.
Then they made Star Trek: First Contact. That wasn't the only thing that destroyed what made them great, but that was the high point of cringe. I don't think most of the writers that used them ever really understood what made them interesting in the first place.
Yeah as a movie on its own First Contact seemed to work and the Borg Queen thing was kinda taken in stride but it did lead to an awful rabbithole which Voyager dipped into a great deal... to the qualitative benefit of no one.
Guillermo Del Toro's Instagram released a CGI Test of Mountains of Madness based on the HP Lovecraft work of the same name. Del Toro has been wanting to make that film for a while but it has remained unproduced.
Guillermo Del Toro's Instagram released a CGI Test of Mountains of Madness based on the HP Lovecraft work of the same name. Del Toro has been wanting to make that film for a while but it has remained unproduced.
And speaking of which, neither the Flying Barrels nor the Shoggoths are Eldritch. They are Spacemen and malfunctioning construction equipment respectively. Now, if you want Eldritch, try whatever that thing was behind the mountain...
And speaking of which, neither the Flying Barrels nor the Shoggoths are Eldritch. They are Spacemen and malfunctioning construction equipment respectively. Now, if you want Eldritch, try whatever that thing was behind the mountain...
While there are strict definitions, I think Eldritch can be a YMMV thing like discussed earlier with the Tyranids and Flood etc. I don't think of the latter as eldritch but some do.
Plus I needed a place to post that clip since it didn't seem worthy of its own thread.
While there are strict definitions, I think Eldritch can be a YMMV thing like discussed earlier with the Tyranids and Flood etc. I don't think of the latter as eldritch but some do.
Plus I needed a place to post that clip since it didn't seem worthy of its own thread.
It is very much a YMMV, because there are more shades than just the binary is Eldritch/is not Eldritch...and plenty of Eldritch or quasi-Eldritch things can be punched in the face even in Lovecraft (see Dunwich Horror or The Shunned House). So, I'd say the Tyrranids and the Flood are not Eldritch...but the intelligences behind them are. I'd say TTS did a pretty good job in representing the sheer...magnitude of what the hive mind is....
This is tricky for me. I really don't do cosmic horror much because the base assumption that the Universe is an uncaring place isn't horrifying to me, it's my normal outlook. A cosmic horror that's dangerous but not actively malevolent isn't actually all that different to me than a bear, or a corporation dumping waste, or the US government. Any of them could destroy me without ever caring but... that's life. I have no reason to gibber in horror and smear myself with feces over it... actually I prefer the government stay away and not care about me at all, come to think of it.
1. Aboleths
Huge, ugly, betentacled, all these are standard for Eldritch Horrors but the Aboleth kick it up to the next level. Every Aboleth is born with all the memories of every ancestor it's ever had, every secret any previous Aboleth in its line knew is bared to it. It further also has every memory of anything it's ever eaten. When bored Aboleths sometimes simply relive some of their memories and can experience everything that happened as if it was happening fresh at that very moment.
Aboleths have no lungs and breath through a slimy mucus their skin is covered with. If a drop of it touches your skin, you'll start mutating, your skin becomes transparent and soft and you become amphibious, requiring constant moisture to survive which coincidentally means you're going to have to now stay in the water with the Aboleth. They sometimes perform a ritual on victims in this state that consumes their mind and makes them a servitor, unable to every disobey the Aboleths.
Aboleths mostly ignore humanoids because they're up to bigger, more important things than the mere scurrying of ants on the surface, but they might change their mind if something interesting happens. The oceans beneath the Abyss have prisons where Aboleths keep straight up Demon Overlords they force to act as their maids and butlers for the lulz. Oh yes, and they're both powerful psionicists and come in powerful wizard varieties just in case they weren't already awful enough.
2 Inhumanoids
Freakin' Inhumanoids man. It was the Cthulhu Mythos turned into a Saturday Morning Cartoon and... they didn't really dial the horror down much. That Cthulhu expy in the center was by far the least dangerous and malevolent of all of them. Just building a translating computer to try to communicate with him caused the computer to somehow evolve into an AI, go mad and name itself Cypheroid, and begin trying to destroy all humankind. The entire planet right down to its core is chock-full of these kaijuu-sized horrors and the only reason human civilization existed in the first place was because they had been stalemated by another set of monsters for the past few hundred thousand years.
3 The Jokester (Isaac Asimov)
We have no idea what or who the Jokester is and it's never revealed. But all humor and jokes flow from the Jokester as something it did to humanity for some reason, and the second somebody figures it out, Jokester withdraws that gift and mankind loses the ability to joke or have a sense of humor anymore. Why? Who knows.
4 Humans (Watership Down) Watership Down does a fantastic job of making rabbits into protagonists without excessively anthropomorphizing them. Humans are well done as eldritch horrors in the setting, dangerous things beyond comprehension that may destroy your entire civilization for no apparent reason (They put in an apartment complex where the rabbits had a warren) one day and carefully feeding you delicious food and returning you to your home the next, with no way for the rabbits to understand which will happen this time or why.
5 Centzon Tōtōchtin
Mexica mythology is weird. They have 400 gods of alcohol, all of which are non-anthropomorphic rabbits that are constantly having drunken parties.
The MUF from the Space:1999 episode Dragons Domain.
The background starts off with a failed deep space mission, yet the entity is never picked up on the flight recorder, so the sole survivor of the mission, the Mission Commander is not believed. It is instead believed that he blew the docking procedure of the ship and caused the deaths of his crew and is trying to shift the blame.
And this is a time stamped clip in this video showing it more effectively
The MUF from the Space:1999 episode Dragons Domain.
The background starts off with a failed deep space mission, yet the entity is never picked up on the flight recorder, so the sole survivor of the mission, the Mission Commander is not believed. It is instead believed that he blew the docking procedure of the ship and caused the deaths of his crew and is trying to shift the blame.
And this is a time stamped clip in this video showing it more effectively
