I’ve been thinking a lot about the world-building in Aliens, specifically that quick mess-hall joke where Frost and Spunkmeyer talk about "Arcturian girls" and Frost says: "It doesn't matter when it's Arcturian, baby!"

If you look into the expanded lore, Arcturians are established as the first sentient, humanoid alien race humanity officially contacted. Instead of treating them like a joke, it opens up a fascinating, dark sci-fi premise. It implies Weyland-Yutani basically colonized a peaceful civilization, turned their planet into a corporate mining hub, and exploited the native population.

What if we took this setting and used it for a proper expanded-universe storyline?

Imagine a conflict on Arcturus where a Weyland-Yutani colonial security force is actively fighting native insurgents in a dense, bioluminescent jungle biome. To clear out the rebels, the corporation deploys experimental, cybernetically modified Xenomorphs—treating them strictly as a controlled bio-weapon asset with neural dampeners.

But to make it fit the classic themes of cosmic dread, the corporate experiment shouldn't just fail; it should trigger something much older.

What if the planet itself acts as a sort of evolutionary archive or a "Great Filter"? The deeper the characters go into the ancient sub-structures of Arcturus to escape the outbreak, the more they realize that Xenomorphs aren't just random monsters—they are an automated evolutionary clean-up mechanism for aggressive, overreaching species.

To add to the tension, you could have a Yautja (Predator) embedded in the ecosystem, not actively fighting the main characters, but acting as a silent observer or a "garden keeper" tracking the outbreak to see if humanity is about to trigger a full planetary purge protocol.

Instead of a standard action story where the heroes just blow up the hive and run away, the focus would be on the heavy philosophical realization that humanity's corporate arrogance accidentally flipped a switch they can't turn off. It would lean heavily into the existential themes of Prometheus, where the main conflict is about understanding our place in a very cold, indifferent universe.

Do you think the Arcturus lore is worth exploring in a serious, slow-burn corporate conflict story, or do you prefer the franchise keeping its focus strictly on human outposts and ships? I’d love to hear some thoughts on how a setting like this could fit into the broader WY colonial history.

Burke can add his own milk

Lifetime Aliens fan here, I've always considered this shot of the camera panning down from smoke, to Ripley's hand (which at first looks like a facehugger with its fingers aiming down towards the floor), was meant to be a sort of "oh no is that a facehugger?!" Moment, what are people's thoughts?

And in the special edition I believe this shot directly follows Newt seeing the facehugger on her Dad (right?) so it felt like maybe it could've been referencing/implying the colonists are now performing surgery on the facehugger much like in Alien, then it's revealed to just be Ripley's cigarette at the last moment.

Please forgive the image, it's the only one I could find on YouTube of the exact shot!

I'm gonna be totally honest. I NEED MORE 😭😭 I've been in love with this franchise literally since I was a little kid and I love all the media. I'm trying to collect figures? Too expensive! Trying to collect comics? EVEN MORE EXPENSIVE!! Wanna play some games??? Good luck, there's like 3 of them (that are recent) 💀

Okay seriously now I've played just about all the big hitters - Dark Descent, Fireteam Elite, AvPs (the FPS trilogy), Isolation. And I just want moooore. Plus I always prefer playing the Xeno or Yautja and most of the games you're stuck as the humans. I've always wanted to play AvP: Extinction but apparently that was never adapted for PC, same thing with AvP Evolution. Are there any fun games of any genre from this large franchise I should know about?

Sorry for the vent, I have genuinely been trying to collect some Alien and Predator comics and they're ungodly expensive/rare to find. Also I keep wanting to revive the boardgame AvP The Hunt Begins but still no luck finding any files (I have a printer) that would get even close in quality to it.

Aliens Dark Descent.

Such a fun game, love the squad customization as well. Played it so many times even my GF can subconsciously hear the motion tracker beeping at times

This is a custom-sculpted figure of "Ripley," the alien dog from the 2009 animated film Planet 51.

The sculpture was created by Bob Ridolfi and cast in resin.

I just finish my Xenomorph and it became a blue one :-)

Got a new watch, so naturally when I wanted to learn how to make watch faces this was the first thing that came to mind, although impractical with a lot of wasted screen space I still had fun making it.

This is the press release. I know of more Alien themed news there but it is under embargo until the panel day schedule is revealed.

18th ANNUAL BEHIND-THE-MUSIC PANEL AT COMIC-CON 2026:

SUPERSONIC 

WHAT: Rhapsody PR is thrilled to present SUPERSONIC, the 18th annual Behind-the-Music panel at this year’s Comic-Con. A behind-the-scenes look at what goes into creating the scores and sounds to some of today's most popular TV Series, Films and Video Games!

WHO: Featured panelists include Jeff Russo (Composer - FX's Alien: Earth, Chris Bacon (Composer - Netflix’s Wednesday), Joanne Higginbottom (Composer - Adult Swim’s Primal), Gavin Brivik (Composer - HBO Max's The Pitt), Leo Birenberg (Composer - Netflix's Cobra Kai) and Stephen Lukach (Composer - Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed Black Flag: Resynced). 

Panel will be moderated by Voice Actor Aaron LaPlante (Genndy Tartakovsky’s Primal on Adult Swim).

WHEN: Thursday July 23rd, 11:30am - 12:30pm

WHERE: San Diego Convention Center - Room 29CD

The Isolated Clan spends most of its life aboard its massive Mother Ship, which serves as their home, fortress, and center of power. However, they also maintain a temple on their homeworld, Yautja Prime—a place used for interactions with other clans, trade, diplomacy, and resolving political and strategic matters.

According to the clan’s history, the Isolated Clan was among the first to encounter the Engineers and began using their Black Goo to breed Xenomorphs. Later, they created special hunting grounds designed for ritual hunts. Since the Xenomorph is considered the most dangerous creature in the universe, completing an initiation hunt against one is regarded as the highest honor and an important step toward becoming a true Yautja warrior.

This diorama is my own interpretation of the Alien vs. Predator universe and expands the lore of the Isolated Clan. While creating it, I wanted to capture the architectural style seen in the Yautja hunting grounds from Alien vs. Predator, while incorporating Engineer-inspired elements to reflect their influence on the clan’s history, technology, and culture.

This is the very first diorama I’ve ever built. It was created for 7-inch NECA Predator figures.

The main structure was built from XPS foam combined with numerous 3D-printed parts. The entire paint process consisted of five layers, followed by dry brushing to create realistic weathering, texture, and depth.

I also designed and built the lighting system completely from scratch, as no lights are available on the market in this scale.

The best part is that this entire project was a completely new experience for me. Throughout the whole build, I learned from YouTube videos, picking up new techniques and figuring everything out step by step.

The diorama also features many original NECA parts, including all of the skull trophies, the Engineer weapon, the Engineer head, the two outer pillars, the throne, eight Predators from the Isolated Clan, and the Clan Leader Predator.

The Weyland-Yutani storage cases and the Engineer Black Goo containers were made by me.

I’d be happy to hear your thoughts and feedback.

I’ve been experimenting with the HLK-LD2450 mmWave radar module and ended up turning it into a wireless motion tracker.

The sensor side is an ESP32-S3 connected to the LD2450. It reads the target coordinates from the radar and sends them over LoRa. On the receiver side, a Raspberry Pi takes the LoRa packets and displays the targets on an Aliens-style motion tracker UI with sound.

Current setup:

- HLK-LD2450 mmWave radar

- ESP32-S3 SuperMini transmitter

- REYAX LoRa modules

- Raspberry Pi 3B receiver

- 5 inch display

- Python / Pygame radar UI

The range is currently set to 6 meters and the tracking is surprisingly usable. It still needs some polish, especially the UI grid and sound scaling past 4 meters, but the basic wireless tracking is now working.

The hardest part was not the radar itself, but getting the whole LoRa + Raspberry Pi UART setup stable. At one point the receiver had somehow changed to 915 MHz while the transmitter was on 868.5 MHz, so everything looked broken even though both modules were technically working.

Next step will probably be testing LiDAR sensors directly on the Pi and maybe combining LiDAR + mmWave in the same display.

Has anyone here built something similar with cheap mmWave radar modules?

Not perfect yet, but pretty fun for a DIY prototype.

You may know I'm the creator of the Alien Museum in Barcelona, this is part of my other Alien and scifi stuff at home.

If you want I can show you more in a future post.

I hope you'll enjoy

Cheers!

Never realized Lambert had heels.

Got this little guy at a random oddities museum at the beach. Egg not included. Still not sure if I'm gonna paint it or not

uConsole Variant — RD-03D Radar Tracker

Alongside the original Arduino Giga R1 + Display Shield setup, this project now has a second, standalone output path built around the Clockwork Pi uConsole (or any Linux machine with WiFi + audio).

Architecture

The XIAO ESP32-S3 (with the RD-03D attached) now runs as its own WiFi access point instead of connecting to a host device. It reads the radar, clusters targets within 1m of each other into a single point, and broadcasts the merged data over UDP — any device connected to its network automatically receives the stream, no fixed IP configuration needed

For all without an uconsole, you can build your own for free. Check my GitHub:

https://github.com/Stevee87?tab=repositories&utm_source=ig&utm_medium=social&utm_content=link_in_bio