LIVE FOR THE SWARM!

They do that too.

thats the greatest description of anything.... ever XD

I am quite descriptive I know.

tis awesome

no tits?!

Nope, this one's all maget.

you mean maggot?

No I mean goddamn Maget like the Soldier says.

oh yeh, ur right!

Sexiest picture you've ever done. I'd fuck that thing so hard. I'd-- Oh wait...

Too late.

This actually looks like a monster I'd make up for my novel... If my novel didn't already have zombies made by being stabbed in the head by a walking corpse villain in Nightmare armor. >_>

Ironically enough, the Arbiter are from a novel - well, couple of novels that I'm trying to get published

Sweet! Good luck. I hope to get mine published when I'm finished writing it. The Legacy Of Kahnsonia. Catchy, eh? :3

Good luck with your endeavors, also. Your title sounds like a Fantasy novel

Sci-fi fantasy, actually...

I'm interested in this. Can you tell me more about these novels of yours?

Wow, okay - no problem I haven't got the first novel online as it's the one that my agent is submitting to various publishers for consideration (and they don't like to see freebie versions floating around for obvious reasons). But the second novel which features more of the Arbiters I've actually posted in my gallery. It's called 'Taniwha'. The Arbiters play an important part in the story, but not a large part, if that makes sense. They don't have distinct personalities as individuals, only a group presence.

Just be warned that although it's not furry, it does feature interspecies relationships, and some adult (gay) material. Having said that, it's not pure whack-off, it's more about the storyline. And it's also novel length as well, so not something you'd sit down and polish off in an afternoon.

If I am ever successful in finding a publisher for the first story, then I'll probably sit down and largely rewrite Taniwha to fix up a lot of the glaring issues with it, but as it stands, it's quite readable in its current state.

If I haven't scared you off yet, and you do ever get around to reading it, I would very much appreciate any constructive criticism you would want to throw my way While I appreciate positive comments, it's only when people provide constructive criticism that I can learn and grow as a writer. Anyway, thank you for your interest!

I'm guessing that the "important yet not large part" the Arbiters play is as the frequently invoked threat that they pose to interstellar civilization or that some creation of theirs is involved in some plot point? Or maybe it's kind of like how the Tyranids in 40k are supposed to be a massive threat but they get less screen time in preference to the threat of Chaos. Am I right or wrong?

If there are going to be sex scenes on the side, as long as you don't have anything more fetishtastic than interspecies (which I, obviously, would not be turned off by due to being a SF fan and a furry fan), I could probably just skip the gay parts easily and still enjoy it.

The only real advice I have is not to let the publisher find out about this site. Not because of the copy of your second novel being uploaded here, but for the reasons of stigmas attached to being a member of this fandom or associated with it. That fact, if publishers find out, may make it harder to get published. I'm not for sure about it, but it would be better to be safe than sorry.

Heh, yes, they play a bit of a cliched 'bad guy' background threat role (Sorry!). Not so much against any interstellar civilisation, as the story is set in the very near future (~10 years from now) and the human race has only got about the same level of technology as now (i.e. still find it difficult to get off the damned planet). The story spends equal time on both the human and the Vanguard protagonists.

Anyway, I won't plot-spoil in case you do want to read it, but I hear you loud and clear about publishers not finding out about this site. If there was any potential interest shown in the story, I would quickly remove any reference to it from this site. Not because I'm afraid it would be tarred so much with the "furry" brush, but because publishers don't like freebie versions available on the net when they're attempting to sell hard copies. Anyway, I'm targetting the adult industry publishers rather than mainstream, so slightly less of an issue there anyway.

But I appreciate the advice, nonetheless. Thank you.

As far as I can tell it doesn't seem to be quite as cliched as most "Bug War" setups since you've still got humans on Earth alone and First Contact being with a friendly species first. Plus most bugs in Bug Wars are more nimble-looking, like Xenos and the Arachnids from the Starship Troopers movie. Is the reason they're called "Arbiters" covered in what you have published in your gallery? Seems like an odd name for a hostile race of hive aliens.

Vanguard are those huge humanoid draconic-looking aliens like one of your gallery pics has, right?

And you're welcome.

Well, the Vanguard are more desperate than friendly, trying to find any allies they can against the Arbiters, and yes, they're the more reptilian looking guys. The Vanguard aren't really the 'good guys' either, they're only slightly less 'bad' than the Arbiters. They were aggressively expansionist and arrogant and ended up spreading themselves too thin. Because of this they became weak and their own interstellar society started breaking down with civil wars and infighting (think a technological alien equivalent to a decadent and failing Roman civilisation). The Arbiters are taking advantage of this weakness in their old adversaries.

Only they didn't quite realise just how primitive (and therefore useless) humans were when one of the colonies sent an expedition to Earth hoping to recruit humans to assist. Even worse, they inadvertantly attracted the attention of the Arbiters also. Anyway, enough of plot spoilers, said I wasn't gonna do that.

The naming conventions I've used (also measurement systems) are all English. While I could invent strange looking words, it makes more sense to just convert to generic English terms - it's the storyline that's important, not confusing the reader with stupid words that mean nothing. Species names were chosen a little more carefully. Vanguard because they consider themselves the forerunners, the leaders (as befits their arrogant and expansionist tendencies). Arbiters because they are the be-all and end-all of existance. There will be only Arbiters, everything else is a threat and using resources that prevent Arbiter dominance. Arbiters have NO imagination, are single-minded (as a whole) and will stop at nothing until there is nothing else in existance that can pose any sort of threat. Think Army ants.

There are a third race of aliens, one of which plays a much more subtle, manipulative role in the storyline called Observers. Wont talk too much about them because of spoilers, but suffice to say they're an elder race who take a much more long-term approach to things, and are generally loathe to interact or interfere with anyone else after a series of bitter lessons in the far past.

The idea for these particular critters (Arbiters) came to me several years ago after reading some speculation by biologists and science-fiction writers that if there are intelligences out there, it is highly possible a significant number of them would take the form of some sort of hive-intelligence. Both ants, bees and termites form colonies, can build, even have primitive forms of agriculture (ants farming fungus for example). Imagine a few millions/billions of years of evolution of something like that.

So yeah... while a lot of the real alien aliens in mainstream fiction tend to be portrayed as nimble, quick little suckers, if you have overwhelming numbers on your side, what need is there for speed? And what is more creepy than something that vaguely resembles an armoured maggot? (cliche's R'us)

Now if you really wanted cliches, you'd have to add in the little gray guys somehow.

...and a stargate?

Don't forget the Enterprise and the Death Star..

Aaaaaaaaaaaand that about wraps it up for the three main franchises, doesn't it? Unless you count a Dalek or Tardis... But that may be a little stiff-upp-lip old chap British for you?

'Scuze me for a minute, I need to go water my big black Monolith...

It's not British enough. We should add the Red Dwarf to the ante pile.

And I'll see your 2001 Monolith and raise you a T-800 and some Xenomorphs.

Oh-ho! Out come the heavy guns!

Fine. I might have to break out the Orac and throw around some Liberator or Scorpio at you, then. But don't make me break out the Lexx, or His Shadow might get grumpy with me.

I can't quite decide anymore whether we're trying to trump each other in the obscurity or power of the things we're summoning.

So to hedge my bets... I'll call up the 109th Branch, 7th Sector Armored Division, the 56th Emperor Jossano in response to your use of Blake's 7 ships and the Lexx. Oh, and the Moya while I'm at it, just for kicks.

I surrender, I surrender! You've both out-trumped me, and out-obscured me, also! Well done that, Sir! Had to go scurrying for the search engine to look up your first three references there. Although I am familiar with Moya.

PS: Andromeda

/me runs away screaming into the nigh... err, afternoon

Darn, that was too easy. I was hoping to be able to call up the entire 425th Bodol Main Fleet and the rest of the Big Four Imperial superweapons.

PS: Shadow Battlecrab and Galactica. There, that's pretty much all the really big TV and movie scifi universes represented now.

Holy crap, how did we both leave BG out of this until now? Bit of an oversight. Did we ever bring Babylon 5 into this?

Shadow Battlecrab from my previous post is from B5.

You know, the ancient evil spider aliens?

Oh, gotcha now. Yes, I remember those. I was thinking of His Shadow's flagship from Lexx, used just before the Lexx escaped into the Dark Zone. It's kinda spidery and crabby, but not quite like those creepy lookin' ships from B5.

That's a pretty complex looking gun he's got there, considering maggots don't have fingers.

It has tentacles, see?

Ah, so I see. Now that I look closer, it doesn't really seem to have a trigger, either. Probably easier for him to just squeeze it.

How rude, I forgot to mention: It's a very nice looking pic, and a very fearsome looking monster.

You don't really have to give asspats with every comment you know, just regular thoughts are fine.

Yes, there's probably a button under there somewhere.

... NO TITS?!

Is it really that surprising?

No. I just like stating the obvious and already stated... loudly.

O I C

Beautifully designed armored larvae of doom!

I think that's their final form actually. He didn't specify so I called em magets.

Nifty. Definitely nifty.

Anyone else worried that it wants to exterminate them?

I reckon that's what they do.

Haha, better not fuck with these guys. XD Nice work. :3

They are pretty nasty looking.

I was going to make a "faget" joke, but really, it looks more like a caterpillar.

Which, by the way, doesn't make this any less awesome.

A caterpillar is nothing but a colorful maget.

PHEAR THE DOOM PILLARS!

Huh...looks like a pretty fun mount, all I have to do is amputate those tentacles and I have a maggot mount....

Maybe there were more caterpillarey in their early evolutionary forms?

I don't see that working out too well.

well actually they bear strong resemblance to monster rancher's worm monster.

Must be convergent evolution, I've never seen/played Monster Rancher. I actually based them loosely off of a type of armored caterpillar.

fuggin sweet dude!!!!

Thanks. :lincard1000: provided the description to go from, so it's just as much his design as mine.

Thanks, Oniontrain - this came out very, very well - extremely happy with the results. First time anyone has drawn one of my Arbiter aliens. And for anyone interested, they never change how they look after chewing their way out of their eggs. They just get bigger, moulting occasionally until they kark it ~ 4 - 5 years later (if they last that long). Arbiters are really dumb. Like a chicken. However, they are a hive-mind species, you get more than a few together in relatively close proximity and the IQ starts to quickly add up. When you've got 100,000 or more of them swarming over a planet, they're anything but stupid.

Mystery solved

It would be nice to be big enough to step on it :( I wonder if it would go squish or crunch... or maybe a combination of the two.

Inquiring minds would like to know

Zap

Heh, you would have to have a rather large foot to step on one of these. In Soviet Outerspace, Alien steps on YOU!

You should draw the deer god from mononoke hime, with boobs

The creepy one or the blobby one? Wait this has nothing to do with this image.

MAGGET.

what? no tits onion?

Not this time!

Looking at all the "No tits?!" comments, I think you may have shoehorned yourself into that particular niche a little hard.

Interesting pic. You don't see aliens like that using technological guns much in science fiction.

If only... I get plenty of commissions for other awful stuff as well.

Thanks though, it was Lincard1000's design and description.

I know. It's still an interesting design though. If he manages to publish those novels, I'll probably try and buy them.

I think I you!

Don't love me yet, not until you manage to publish it and I manage to buy a copy.

Good luck getting it published. Though I'm sure that if Stephanie Meyer can get her shit published, you can do so just as easily if not more so.

Heh, it's your professed intent that makes me want to love you Tough times for publishers at the moment with the financial issues that many countries are suffering. Not to mention tough competition from other writers who have better material and more skill. Not that I'm worried. I started writing stuff for free on the 'net, and I'm happy to keep doing that. If I ever got published, that would be just gravy.

Not familiar with Stephanie Meyer... Gonna have to run away and do some searching on the series of tubes for her stuff now. You didn't think much of her efforts, then?

Stephanie Meyer is the woman who wrote Twilight. It's basically published Mary Sue shipping fanfiction about a vampire from a family of "vegetarian" vampires falling for the (author character) girl. And the vampires in the book don't disintegrate in the sun like the're supposed to, they sparrkle. And a plot point in a later book involve their unholy hellspawn having a soul bond or some rubbish with a teenage werewolf when she's still a baby, which may or may not eventually involve pedophilic acts iniotiated by said werewolf later or something like that. I am not making this up. I wish I was. And that's just the Executive Summary; the details get worse from there. And the interviews with her confirm the author insertion factor. It's actually a common feature of her shit. One of her other books is also SI.

The worst thing is, not only did it and some sequels get published, but the books have developed a rabid fanbase of tweenage teenyboppers with no taste in literature. There's even a movie, with more on the way. D:

I wish I had a time machine. Fuck killing Hitler, I'm going back in time and preventing Anne Rice from writing shit. This is her damn fault for making vampires into sympathetic characters when they're not supposed to be.

You've hit on something there... I think ever since Anne Rice published those original Vampire novels portraying them as being almost 'noble' creatures, they've captured the public imagination like never before. I've heard peripheral info about this "Twilight" fever that seems to be catching, and it sounds... ugh, unimaginative and more than a little trite. Just more of the same that we've had already? And as for the storyline you describe - mate, that sounds messed up and kinda, well... dumb, really. Why am I not surprised there are werewolves involved?

Anyway, appreciate the warning. Suspect I'll steer clear of these books/movies in order to preserve my sanity and taste.

A solid decision.

You know, I don't disagree with you at all, and Hitler was pretty bad.

It needs boobies! And it's maggot, not maget xP

Ua maget.

haha, thats awesome!
i like your style ;)

Thanks. I like your cat icon.

welcome^^
hah, i cant see my icon D:<

It is a cat moving around.

i know, i can see it now x]

Id like to buy this guy a drink

this is awesome 8D I really like the chunkyness of everything...

I dunno if you've ever read the 1950's novel of 'starship troopers' but I'd imagine some casts of the bugs looking alot like this :3 (they weren't anything like they there in that movie , they had guns and everything too X'D) btw i'm not saying 'woo you R rippiin offf stuff' it's supposed to be a massive compliment 8D

Your comments are TL;DR so I don't know if this has been mentioned but it reminds me a lot of the Blue from the anime Blue Gender.

This is pretty kickass! I love the creature :)! Only thing is it would have been better to see more movement of the legs... but maybe it was intended for him to just appear to be standing.

It's meant to be a character reference, so I opted to have it standing there kinda.

MAGGOTS!