Vampire Idea

[Rossum]

hmm, maybe the infection is intelligent and alters the subjects reproductive system? As in, it infects a life form from a new planet (like humans or dogs or whatever) and then alters their physiology in an attempt to change the next generation to be more beneficial to the alien virus? So if it infects a female of a species then the virus tries to impregnate her so that her children will be stronger or more alien.

First generation vampires (the infected) are just like they were before but with some enhancements and a fear of sunlight because that damages the parasite. Second generation vampies born from the first would be even stronger and possibly resistant to sunlight due to tougher skin or whatever (human skin protects humans but isn't strong enough to protect the parasites inside, the second generation vampires are tougher and can protect the parasites inside). Further generations get stronger and more powerful and getting the nutrients to produce them requires consuming more blood and flesh.

So the parasites plan of attack is to infect humans to create first generation vampires (these are cheap and easy to make but weak since it just involves converting existing humans instead of growing a full new vampire). These turned humans then work together and try getting blood to the females so they can give birth to second generation vampires that are stronger and more resistant to damage then the human ones. The second generation vampires can then produce stronger third generation ones and so forth.

It's kind of a reversal of the normal "older vampires control the younger ones" in most vampire stories. In this case, all the vampires are more or less dedicated to creating the next generation of vampires who are stronger than the older ones. Human vampires might not have to drink much blood but the nutrients are needed to get the proteins to make the new stronger vampires. So, there are many disappearances across the city as the vampires capture victims either to turn them into vampires or to harvest their blood. The guys investigating this might come across some weird human trafficking rings and think its all just normal human crime.

Then, they come across some second generation vampires who are strong and weird and alien. Encountering these second gen ones is tough not only because of the second gens being strong but also the human vampires are fanatically devoted to protecting them at all cost.

Then they learn that the second gens are planning to produce a third generation vampire that's even stronger than them! As each generation comes across they get so powerful that they should be treated almost like elder gods or the like. Its a race against time to stop the creation of them or kill it while its not yet mature.

Basic rundown:

First Gen (converted humans): Increased agility and strength, possible biological immortality. Basically increases human abilities to a degree. Makes them telepathic and the parasite controls their actions to a point to get them to collect blood and more victims. They are afraid of sunlight, antibiotics, or anything that could damage the parasite. Fanatically devoted to protecting any later generation vampires there are.

Second Gen (Dhampyr): A modified human form created when a first gen vampire gives birth. The parasite inside is the same it just modified the body and DNA of it. It is stronger, faster, has greater telepathic abilities, and is more capable of protecting the parasite inside so it lacks the fear of sunlight that first gens have. There are many different 'types' of second gens, basically when first gens have children the child can have any variety of mutations (almost all of them beneficial since the parasite weeds out bad mutations somehow) so no two second gens are the same. Each has their own particular strengths and possible weaknesses (or just areas they aren't as strong in). Second gens command the first generation and work to create the third generation.

Third Generation (Cthulhu): When a large number of second generation vampires for a species exist (there could be vampire dogs or rats or whatever and they have their own versions of these stages) then they all come together and share their "DNA". This process collects all the information they've gathered... what the environment is like, how terrestrial biology and society works, which mutations are beneficial and what are not, etc. This is then used to create a third generation larva that feeds on blood. The vampires then bring in lots of human sacrifices to it to speed its growth. Once the third gen is fed enough it undergoes metamorphosis (like a caterpillar forming a cocoon) while the vampires protect it. Once it reaches maturity it breaks out and "shit gets real". It commands terrifying psychic powers, is incredibly tough and regenerates, and plans to create many more of its kind and conquer the world. Its mind is enhanced far beyond that which humans can comprehend and enjoys sucking information right out of peoples brains (if is sees you, it can read your mind, if it can read your mind, it sucks out everything you know and uses that information to further its goal of world domination).

Forth Generation (???): You really don't want to know.


So, basic idea is that the alien parasite infiltrators are here to infect and adapt terrestrial life and conquer the planet. The first generation vampires seem like your traditional vampires although they don't seem to need human blood for themselves... they just seem to collect and infect humans. Once someone finds out that the captured victims are being used to feed and create the second gen vampires then things get weird. The second gens may seem like "mutants" like in the marvel universe where each has special powers that make them unique, they aren't super powerful but are obviously a cut above humans or first generation vampires.

The Third generation vampires are the big bad things you don't want to be created. Once you learn that they exist you should kill them before they get too powerful. Guys might find a huge 'cult' of vampires and second gens sacrificing scores of humans to this big worm thing, then the worm turns into a cocoon. Human scientists find it and any vampires they may be working with want them to keep it or study it (hostile vampires will fight to reclaim it, friendly vampires will try to stall the humans till the Third gen awakens). Even in its cocoon, the Third gen uses its psychic powers to probe the minds of those outside, influencing them to protect it or drive them mad if they resist.

Once the third gen gets free, you basically have to nuke it or use some heavy artillary at long distance (until it starts creating force fields or the like). Humans might run into the dog or rat versions of these things which are weaker but still dangerous (and give a clue as to what the human version would be like).


All through this, vampires might not even know why they are doing things... you could have various human vampires who range from greedy murderers to fairly decent folks. Even decent vampires who restrict their own diets to animals are unknowingly just creating animal vampires or whatnot. Could be that the parasites reason for seeking blood is both for nutrients and getting genetic data from other life forms... each time a vampire drinks blood from another human (either fresh or 'from a bag') then the DNA gets scanned by the parasites to get more info on terrestrial biology. The parasite then uses this to enhance the vampire host or as data to create the second gens. Vampires have no idea about this, they just follow the emotional in instinctive nudges the parasite gives them.

A big plot point might be some vampire villain who's got his own agenda like making money, being a star, or forming some kind of self-aggrandizing religion. He could be a total sleezebag or self-centered and think the whole thing is his own idea... but his actions are unwittingly helping with the parasites plan for world domination. Once he realizes what's happening, that the condition that gives him these powers and lets him manipulate others was manipulating him, that all his grand plans for getting rich or getting tail were just a means to an end for what is essentially a weird exotic alien disease... he has a breakdown. The parasite cares nothing for his grand plans for power, it just uses what he's done to get blood to create the Third Gen vampire so it can wipe humanity from the earth.

Then comes the question if a vampire can learn what the parasite truly wants, can it resist its instincts and fight against its goals. Its not a case of a villain switching to the side of good, but a villain at least trying to succeed at his own goal when the parasite that gave him his power plans to unleash a world-devouring super-being that would erase all of his own accomplishments.

[cadbrowser]

Wow Rossum, you put a lot of idea into this. You should see some of the material I have written down with regards to the Nius that I developed for an RPG I'm working on. You'd probably like them. They are pretty gross..."wormy".

I am curious as to what you could extract for the 4th gen vamp...would they be like a full blown adaptive version of the original alien species from where it originated? Or something worse?

Since they would appear imortal from the beginning (1st gen) then it would take a while for the second gen to come about. Maybe the first generation is what humans have experienced say for the last 100,000 years (or so) and only now (when the story begins) that their evolution and adaptation to our environment has given them the ability to reproduce here on Earth forming the second gen...then as the story progresses, you can introduce 3rd Gen intermmitenly.

[Rossum]

Hmm, I'm imagining that the alien races themselves are basically the virus itself. Like, the was a planet somewhere where intelligent life didn't evolve like how it did on Earth, but there are animals who gain intelligence when a certain virus (or parasite) infects them and messes with their body chemisty. The orgional aliens where therefor a combination of maybe one or more animal races (resembling gorillas or dogs or bats or something) and the parasites that infct them and boost them into intelligence.

Thing is, in the average aline gesalt body there is one base animal and then thousands or millions of the little parasites. So the parasites reproduce and evolve much faster. Perhaps even gained their own sort of intelligence faster. Eventually they adapted and learned how to manipulate their hosts on the genetic level. But each individual parasite is pretty simple and they need lots of them communicating for the real crazy stuff to happen.

So, these parasites decide to explore the galaxy (and had modified themselves to survive in space... kind of like the 'water bear' microbes). They land on a planet and start infecting animals and modify their hosts to better survive and carry them. These hosts can survive for centuries if not more (if you're feeling humerous imagine something like that episode of Futurama where Fry ate an egg sandwitch with worm eggs in it and the worms cleaned up his body and rewired his brain to make him smarter and more charismatic) all this time the host is feeding on the blood of other creature, both its own species and of others.

In addition to the nutrients helping feed the parasites (okay, I guess its more of a symbiosis now... but their ultimate plan is to eat everyone on Earth. The benefits they provide are only there because strong hosts can preserve and serve the parasites better) every drink of blood gives genetic information for the parasites to process. Drink blood from a bear, they have bear DNA to process, blood from Einstein, they have Einstein DNA to process. When they process new DNA it lets them adapt to live in the new organism and they can synthesize protiens to better enhance their host.

So, it could be that ancient vampires were ugly brutish mutated things because the parasites modified their human hosts as best they could using what knowledge they had of their own freaky gorilla alien hosts. As time went on, they had their hosts drink blood from animals or 'the most beautiful and greatest of humans'. So vampires tend to seek out the best of society to feed on, this gives the parasites new data so they enhance their host to be smarter, more charismatic or beautiful. That could also be why 10,000 year old or so vampires look like modern day humans, the parasites get the new blood proteins and then modify their host to blend in with modern society. Could be an odd situation where formerly black vampires start feeding on white humans and find that their skin fades and their features change until it looks like they 'turned white' (Hmm... maybe a Micheal Jackson reference would be in o... don't hurt me!).

But as it turns out, all the thousands of years of vampires laying low is mostly due to humanity being in various seperate nations or isolated groups. There are vampires all over and they have their own adaptations over the eons, but until humans started moving around all that data was isolated as well. Now, vampires from all over can find and feed on new people and creatures and thus the amount of 'data sharing' has increased exponentially! The parasites have now collected enough data and there can be enough of them in an area to start making the 2nd generation.


As for what the 4th gen might look like... I dunno, I'm tempted to say something like the Reavers from the Mass Effect series. Basically, living starships. I don't think the parasites really care about their origional ecosystem or hosts any more than human would once we start traveling the stars. The parasites probbaly don't think of humans as slaves or anything, they just see muliticellular life as resources to mine, lige geography or something. Problem is that humans have brains and minds and have their own 'alien' motives that could involve getting stabbed with swords or shot or getting injected with drugs (that's why the parasites start eliminating the urge to do drugs... they don't like that shit).

Could be that at first the parasites didn't know how to create telepathy that could effect humans and it took centuries for them to get the data and processing to put it into their hosts. For ages they had to blindly modify human hormones in an attempt to keep their host doing stuff for them, then once they develop telepathy they could better control and understand what their humans were up to. The parasites might have a rough idea of what the world looks like on the multicellular level (from how they manipulated their origional hosts and developed space travel). But when interfacing with terrestrial life they had a hard time interpreting the data from eyes and ears and stuff to see what was going on, they were literally in the dark riding a big bag of blood that kept eating and mating and fighting with them barely being able to influince it or understand what it was doing out there.

So... the parasites really really really want to put a stop to this whole 'human free will' thing, that would be like if humans had to live on islands they kept getting up, walking around, and getting into fights. Tame that stupid horse as soon as possible. It was probably okay with their origional hosts since they were just animals and with the parasites were the masters of their world, but on Earth humans are the top predator. Vampires may infect other animals but those get hunted down and killed my humans, rats can slip around undetected but get hunted by everything else. Parasites had to infect humans because they were the 'safest' things but had to endure riding around on a beast that has its own plans.

They tried lobotomizing a few vampire hosts to bet better control, but the result had next to no social skills and was easily detected by other humans who hunted it down. Even today, shooting a vampire in the head has a chance that the parasites keeping it alive will take over the body, heal the wound, and awkwardly try to pilot the body until they can get the brain properly repaired. Telepathy helps here... they could try something like copying a vampires brain pattern into the empty brain of a lobotomized vampire. Could be interesting if they choose 'sucessful' vampires to be the one to copy, the good guys find some crazy serial killer vampire, kill him and burn the corpse, then find him seemingly alive and well somewhere else when it turns out the parasites uploaded his brain into a lobotomite. Could be his appearance 'changed', but the bastard is still alive.

The funny thing could be that said villain thinks this is a sign that he's truly immortal! That his ghost is somehow able to survive death or something. None of them stop to think that the parasites in him just had a brainless body laying around (because maybe its former user got in an accident, played the 'choking game' a bit too much, drowed enough to cause permanant brain damage, or its a prostitute who was shot in the head by her pimp or somthing) and they repaired the brain in there and needed to reinstall an OS to make their body presentable to the world. It just so happened that this guys brain pattern was the one most recommended by the parasites in the area who had a working body and the telepathic processing power to send his brain pattern over to them. Fortunatly, this guy isn't foolish enough to take his new body for granted and some well-timed endorphins keep him from questioning how exactly he came to be in the body of an abused prostitute while his 'real' self is out confronting the heros.



Lesse... did I mention the 4th gen... shit, got sidetracked. Anyway, I imagine that the various vampire generations are basically the parasites making new bodies to better help them control the physical world. The 1st gens are a necessary evil since that lets them survive in earths armosphere. 2nd gens have increased durability and are designed so that they are much easier to control and to see things using their senses. 3rd gens are basically the parasite equivilent of a Nuke, no more screwing around and playing by human rules, this monster is pure parasite ingenuity and designed soley for the purpose of wiping out as many human minds as possible and making the world more suitibale for parasite habitation.

4th generation are space ships. Once the parasites get enough processing power, resources, and the information necessary to get things into space then they start making 4th gen ship. I imagine that on the outside these things look like weird bioships that use psychic powers and telekinesis to operate (unless they can get stuff like teleportation or other neat tricks). The base 4th gen body looks like a big boney bloody... thing that is full of blood and organs but protected by endoskeltons and endoskeletons to give it shape. It uses incredible psychic powers to manipulate the world around it mentally and physically. Of course, it also dons armor and weaponry, covering its boney surface with armor to give better protection from radiation an impacts.

Could be that the parasites originally got here in a similar ship but their reliance on organic technology resulted in their ship getting fried by solar radiation, damaged by micrometeorites, and all manner of other things. Their first ship that got them here was thus some squishy bioship that wouldn't stand up against something like a Star Destroyer or even the Enterprise... but it was enough to get them here to Earth. Could even be that their navigation system and weird psychic teleportation derived FTL drive were kind of crummy in that they really have no idea where they are in relation to their original homeworld. I mean, they've been on Earth for thousands of years trying to manipulate the local bloodbags and nobody from their homeworld sent another ship to investigate why they didn't hear from the first. Obviously the parasites on Earth aren't just stranded... they are horribly off course and nobody here or back home knows where they are.

So, the parasites here are survivors of a crash that resulted from the deficiencies of their organic technology. Now, they have been investigating human technology and knowledge and have decided to incorporate it into their next ship. So, 4th gen vampires should look like some kind of weird bioship that isn't too proud to incorporate traditional technology into its design. Heck, they might even have a few human scientists on board... as screaming faces fused with the ship while the parasites use their brains as computers to make sure this one doesn't screw up like the first one.


On that note, there could also be a variety of animal vampires running around. Wolves that are bigger and stronger than normal, scary monsters that inhabit the darkest of jungles. And sea monsters... really if these are going to be alien parasites who are hurt by the sun then sea monsters would make sense. Could be that when the crash happened and scattered parasites all over then some landed in the ocean and managed to infect some sea life there. They've been spending their time adapting to the ocean (sea water could very well be toxic to them normally like how its not good for humans) and over the centuries finally got to adapt their own host species for their purposes and set up bases of operation somewhere. Maybe something like dolphins or squids. Anyway, once they got a reliable host body down there and work their way up the aquatic food chain then they can go to town and start harvesting blood for their own operation. They could start our coincidentally around the same modern time as people start discovering the oceans being depleated of fish and them catching strange creatures.

Aquatic parasites likely don't know about humans or life on the surface, they've got the ocean to deal with. Left alone, they will just conquer the oceanic ecosystem, make their own 2nd and 3rd gen vampires. And eventually try making a 4th gen to get into space.

Note that parasites that primarily deal with animal life will likely not develop the telepathy needed to control or affect humans, they have to analyse the species brains to develop telepathy for it. So, when the oceanic vampires start shaking things up then they won't be able to take control of human minds but they could manipulate animal minds to do things like create massive fish migrations or send sharks after people (however much good that would do against ships and guns).

The human vampires might learn about this and attempt to communicate with their long-lost parasite brethren. Since the ocean parasites likely didn't maintain contact or develop telepathy for humans, the surface vampires would be forced to drastic measure like hunting down vampire fish and share blood so the parasites inside can share information. Or they infect a bunch of humans, fill them with genetic information, and send them into the ocean (in boats, subs, or nothing at all) where they may get picked up by the ocean parasites to be examined. Feel free to make these strange acts look like something out of a lovecraftian cult as the human vampires hear strange voices in their heads as the parasites tell them to gather up people and feed them to giant sea creatures (so that the ocean vampires can develop human telepathy).

The surface vampires have centuries of data on human biology, psychology, and technology but are subject to the dangers of human discovery. Ocean vampires may be the top dogs of their ecosystem but lack understanding of humans and what they are capable of. Thus, the surface vampires start work to try to communicate with their ocean brothers and get them up to date on what's happening. This would likely require quite a few human and vampire sacrifices (or the creation of an amphibious 2nd gen who could meet the ocean vmapires on their own turf). If they succeed, the shadowy creatures beneath the waves that control the fish of the sea will awaken and turn their attention to the tiny naked apes on the surface. Ocean vampires can control far more resources than the surface world can dream of and its only their ignorance of humans that prevents them from stepping up their activity and conquering the world.

[gamer]

Wow!

Rossum that is probably one of the unique portrayals I've seen of vampires you certainly put alot of work into it you could write a novel with that.