Ranting and Raving

I actually had this dream the other night, but it has stuck with me so I figure it is worth writing about. That being the case, today’s word is Dream.

A bit of a preface first. Killer aliens and monsters freak me the hell out. I saw Aliens for the first time when I was 10 and had to watch it in the middle of the day. Same goes with Predator and Predator 2. After seeing Signs, I was freaked out walking anywhere near forested areas at night. Although I can, and do, watch any of these movies when they are TV. However, I refuse to watch any Jason or Freddie movie and don’t even get me started on zombie movies. Even though I am vehemnetly anti-zombie, I always tend to linger to long when an ‘Of the Dead’ movie is on…knowing full well that sleep will not be forth coming if I continue watching. I can handle reading about zombies though. The only side affect being compulsive ‘how would I survive if..’ thinking. For instance, after reading World War Z, I began to analyze the ability to defend any location I was in from a zombie attack. Basically I’m a sucker for most these movies, even though I end up paying some price later on.

Now that you have that relevant and world view changing information, let me create the setting for you. I will draw comparisons to movies that one might have seen to help with visualization.

Non-descript Earth Like planet. Clear blue sky, sometime about midday. Somewhere out on the open plains, with wind swept rolling green fields. You can make out hazy snow-capped mountains way off in the distance. Picture the field of battle from Phantom Menace where the Gungans are about to fight the droid army, but with less fog.

There are two standard issue science fiction transport spaceships facing each other a good distance apart, say no less than a football fields length. On one, there is a large group of Predators. Some standing in front as an honor guard, others standing watch upon the top of the ship, one or two mounted in gun turrets, and still others spread about, crouching or standing, waiting for something to go down. You get the very real feel of a tribal war culture about the group.

The other ship has a team of human military officers, soldiers and scientists arrayed in a similar fashion, but much more uptight. For those non sci-fi folks out there imagine a meeting of Native Americans and European settlers. The top brass are standing and staring, the scientists are milling about and the rank and file soldiers are guarding.

Suddenly behind the human ship, a behemoth of a ship lands, not fazing anyone on either side. It is another human ship and it is meant to be there. It is a towering ship, much larger than and taller than either of the transport ships on the ground.

The cargo bay doors open at the bottom of this new arrival and out streams what look like robot samurai (flowing metallic armor with the helmet shaped somewhat like a hammerhead shark) and they appear to almost be ‘skating’ across the field. The whole scene has a very Japanese Manga feel about it. They are not in fact robots but men in armored power suits. Think Robotech/Macross or Halo.
So this group of armored power suit soldiers create a half moon between the humans and the predators, and then all of the sudden, they all disappear and a series of red dots appear on the Predators. This is exactly what the predators do to other races that they hunt. It seems that what started as a peace accord or at least conversation to reduce hostilities has turned into a show of force.

So there is a tense few moments, and then one of the predators begins to walk forward. At this point my perspective changes slightly.

During this entire dream, I am the ‘narrator’, not associated with either side. But the tension is palpable and the fear is ever present. Like I said, at this point my perspective changes from just viewing the entire scene to viewing through an electronic infra-red scanner. I watch the predator approach and as it does, it comes close to one of the camouflaged powersuit shoulders. It begins to notice the soldier, who I can also see through this scanner. As the predator passes and turns its head, the soldier also turns his head and tracking, everyone realizes that the predator can see him. Suddenly the predator extends its wrist knife and tears into the soldier…sparks and blood and gunfire everywhere.

It is at this point that the entire situation goes to shit. Fire from both sides, with casualties mounting. The humans are retreating into the larger transport ship, and at the same time the Predator transport ship lifts off the ground (with many of the Predators still on it), and rams into the large human transport in an epic explosion.

And then I wake up.

It was 5am in the morning. I got up and went to the bathroom, but the fear was still there. When I got back into bed, I had to not freak out while my eyes readjusted. I did thankfully get back to sleep for another 2 hours.

Two days later, I still remember the dream. In all honesty, it’s pretty damn epic. 😉