Stalkers

Introduction

"Stalker," said a recorded voice. This was clearly part of a recent entry in a database. "The mysterious alien race encountered by many spacefaring nations, but until recently never heard of due to their rather nasty habit of trying to board every ship they can and eating the passengers. Recent mind probes reveal that the aliens are smarter than usual, but they have no need to communicate with their prey. Called 'Stalkers' first by marines, these aliens hide in the shadows and pick off their prey in moments of their weakness. They leave very little trace and thus make ghost ships. However, remains of people and some spawning chambers are clearly left behind on some ships. Stalkers leave ships when their supply of prey is gone.

"Recent mind probes have revealed that the aliens are from a remote star. The Stalker mothership is hidden from sensors by the radiation the star emits. The only traces of the Stalkers are ghost ships. However, Stalkers can eventually starve to death if they don't move soon enough. Once the mothership is destroyed, it is theorized that one of three things will happen. Theory one - all Stalkers die. Theory two - Stalkers have no more command and cannot board any more ships and thus eventually starve. Theory three - all Stalkers attempt to invade a planet or moon to get a homeworld."

This chilling entry from A Scream in Space described the Stalkers very well during the time it was written. The Intrepid Incident was the first recorded encounter with these alien creatures in which the humans actually survived. The following information will describe the Stalkers and then discuss Nanakaland's Scream in Space series from which they appeared.

Stalkers, the

As opposed to the first known information published on the Stalkers (shown above in itallics), the following will be the most recent information.

There are actually three species of the Stalkers (genus Venator). The first species is the original Stalkers (Venator terra) who live on their original homeworld. A colony of humanoids once was established on the homeworld, but the Stalkers were awaken from their slumber. The humanoids were massicred and many Stalkers took over their ship that was in orbit around the homeworld. However, the surviving colonists managed to trap the remaining Stalkers, including the Stalker queen, into a temple. The Stalkers were then turned into stone. The colony of humanoids were wiped out by drought because their ship was captured and there was no way to get supplies to the colony.

The first division in the Stalker species occured. There became two queens and some slight differences. The spacefaring Stalkers (Venator stella) lost some of their intelligence and became able to breathe in space for longer periods of time than the regular Stalkers. While both Stalker species were similar and were capable of attacking in space, the differences made V. stella a more spacefaring species. The V. stella were encountered in the original A Scream in Space and A Scream in Space II: Dark Alliance. The V. stella were wiped out entirely except for one. The mothership was destroyed, too.

A scientist in Nanakaland stumbled upon the dying Stalker and cloned it making significant genetic modifications (including less intelligence and more strength). Thus the V. redux - or resurrected Stalker - was born. The V. redux was encountered and wiped out in A Scream in Space III when they tried to destroy the earth. Thus, the second two species of Stalker were annihilated.

However, the original species of Stalker (V. terra) remained on their homeworld untouched until years later in the Third Age of Nanakaland. The V. terra were stronger than even the V. redux They had to be faced and destroyed in the final part of the Scream in Space series - A Second Scream in Space.

Scream in Space Series

The summary is coming after A Second Scream in Space is over.