Two primal, dark forces pitted against each other in an epic battle to the death! Who do you choose?
First, if we're talking a head-to-head matchup between one alien and one Sith fighter, I'd go Sith. The Force tricks, the speed, the intelligence, the fact that Sigourney Weaver beat one, all make me lean that way.
But the real power of the Aliens is when they swarm. So if we're talking about an Alien invasion of the Vader-era Empire, that gets a lot more interesting. Take the Death Star -- that thing has ducts and little hidden corridors all over the place. The Stormtroopers would, obviously, be meat. But then you've got a few Force-adepts running around, who can more than hold their own against some. But a whole ship full of gape-jawed, razor-taloned killers genetically designed to be the ultimate hunt object? I'd pay to see that!
Which would you choose in those scenarios?
I have to disagree with you about the xenos. In my opinion their biggest strength is the fact that most people who encounter them don’t know their capabilities. If you look at the first three movies (and even the AVP movies), a lot of the kills were people who unwittingly wandered into a xeno nest, got face-hugged and unknowingly brought an infant xeno back with them, got nailed with acid blood when someone tried to kill a xeno, etc.
So in my opinion, it comes down to a simple question: How much do the Sith know about the xenos before the fight goes down? Do they know to kill anyone who has been face-hugged? Do they know not to bother trying to capture a xeno alive? Do they know about the acid blood?
If they don’t know, then their chances of winning are about the same as any of the protagonists in the movies. The best they can hope for is that 1-3 people make it out alive, and I would still classify that as a win for the xenos.
If they do know what the xenos can do, then they’ve got a pretty good fighting chance. For instance, the Empire would have no qualms about summarily executing anyone who was exposed to a face-hugger. Nor would they have a problem with destroying a ship full of innocents or bombarding a city from space if they even suspected that xenos were present. Hell, some Imperial captains would not even be averse to blowing up their own ships (with them inside) to stop the spread of the xenomorphs. I give an Empire that knows everything there is to know about the xenos a 50/50 chance of beating them.
By my math, the Empire either has a 0% chance of defeating the xenos or a 50% chance of beating the xenos, depending on how much they know about their enemy. So barring a miraculous discovery by the Empire of some incredibly effective anti-xeno weapon, the xenos still win 2/3 of the time.
Sith wins until an alien impregnates one of them and then it’s “Game over, man, game over….!”
The Sith absorb the xenos into their army, genetically engineering them into Sith Xenos that they can use as foot soldiers and biological weapons.
After all, there’s nothing to say that the xenos are immune to lightsaber cuts, telekinesis, Sith lightning, or even Mind Tricks! (See why I think that the Sith could command them?)
And that’s just the Sith. The Clone Troopers probably beat hell out of the Colonial Marines as soldiers, have more advanced weaponry, and wear helmets that would at least partially block facehuggers. But there would be a fight, and plenty of carnage, and that’s why I think that the Sith/Empire would prefer to absorb the xenos as a weapon.
Ams has a point. Remember that the aliens take on capabilities of whatever they use to incubate their young. One Sith and it’s over. Forever. Even for the Predators.
One on one, Sith. Hands down.
Swarmed, Xenos.
@Nick Hentschel you’re forgetting that facehuggers can cut through helmets as seen in Alien…
about the mind tricks, I think that xenos are to alien to be affected let alone to make one of them stand, in the open and wait to be taken over by a Sith…My money goes to the Oh, so adorable, Aliens.
I agree with Nick Hentschel about the sith recruiting the aliens instead of wasting their resourses trying to destroy them. Maybe they would even try to form sort of a symbiont relationship with them… (I’m referring to Darth Bane novels and those bug-creatures whose name I cannot remember right now, but which Bane used to form a living armour for himself)
Dionne Jinn (7) You’re thinking of Orbalisks.
I guess we really need to see how many against how many. I think Darth Maul could even take on a small swarm (less than ten). The thing with the acid blood doesn’t matter when your primary weapon tends to cauterize blood vessels as it cuts. But an Xenomorph queen and her brood against Maul and an installation of whatever faceless soldiers that the Galaxy Far, Far Away pits with him would probably not go well for the Sith apprentice.
The point that really makes it weird is what faceless army that ends up being. If we were to strictly work from what era Maul appears in in the movies, he’d actually be working with the Trade Federation droid army. And despite the sheer incompetence of the droids, this might work slightly in Maul’s favor, as the only organic around to be facehugged would be Maul himself. I’m still not giving it to him. I’m just saying he might be able to hold out longer.
Orbalisks, yes. Thank you, Myro.
Well, the thing about this poll is that Darth Maul wasn’t a member of the Sith species. He was a Zabrak. I’m not sure if that’s what the poll is for, but I thought that should be taken into account. Maul was still an apprentice, but he could probably take on a single Xenomorph, or maybe even a small group easily. The problem is that Xenomorphs try to work in packs, swarming on an enemy en masse to overpower it before moving in for a kill. Or that’s in combat, at least. A more powerful Sith Lord might be able to do better and last longer, but if the Xenos kept on coming, the Sith would definitely get his rear kicked.
By the way, I just asked this question in a Star Wars chatroom. Immediate debate ensued. Oddly, most people are in favor of the Xenomorphs.
Sith cuz aliens never had a sequel
The Sith have a habit of taking already dangerous creatures and mutating them into something even worse. They’d love Aliens
The Sith would win every day of the week, and twice on Tuesday.
The aliens’ only real power is, as Jeff put it, in their numbers. We’ve seen, countless times, how easy it is to cut them up like a Christmas ham with metal bladed objects. I seriously doubt a lightsaber would have any problems, plus, being a highly heated blade, as we have also seen, a lightsaber blade not only slices, dices, chops and lops, but they also cauterize. And with the elimination of their acid blood spilling all over the place that’s one strength eliminated. Their claws and tails can be sliced clean off, and with little effort on the Sith’s part, due to their uncanny agility to whip about avoiding the claws and tails while slicing them off in the same maneuver. Two more strengths removed. Let’s examine their strength in numbers. As a swarm, they can easily over-run a space station/star craft and tear through a pack of humans, even well-equipped humans. What happens when you introduce a gale storm of lightening? Then what happens if that lightening is being controlled by even just one Sith? The swarm of xenomorphs is fried to a crisp. They die from a little fire, so certainly lightening would not be an issue.
The xenomorphs simply do not have the capability or adaptability to stand up against even a couple of well-trained Sith. Vader-era “might” give them a slight advantage, but place them in Revan-era, Bane-era, Naga Sadow-era, Exar Kun-era, or Freedon Nadd-era and the xenomorphs would have eliminated so fast they wouldn’t have even been a smudge of trouble on the windshield of the universe. Any era that predates Sidious/Palpatine-era would have easily cut through a swarm of aliens, and either hunted them down to the last throughout the universe, or better yet, corrupted them through the Dark Side of the Force, like they did with the Hssiss, and presto! You have an instant inter-galactic army of Force controlled xenomorphs with an unrelenting desire to kill.
By means of combat or conquest, the Sith would win a universal war against the xenomorphs.
Sith, because you guys are forgetting one thing… Where there are Sith, there is an Empire! Imperial Biowarfare labs coming up with all sorts of anti-Alien poisons: Can you spell “Raid”? Imperial Star Destroyers with huge numbers of TIE fighters and Turbolasers. AT-AT Walkers and ARMORED Stormtroopers! Not to mention which, the Empire has conducted more than a few “Bug Hunts” before, including enslaving the Wookie homeworld! The Bugs might menace a single base, but a whole Empire? Forget about it!
Being as fair as I can to the Xenomorphs for the sake of this debate, let us assume a substantial number of them manage to get on an Imperial Ship like a Star Destroyer or the Death Star. On a planet’s surface, they are merely bait for bombers, even in caves they would be vulnerable to things like the seismic charges we saw in Episode II, or the Death Star if the infection was considered severe enough. Further, Xenomorphs lacking independent space travel prevents them from becoming a major menace.
In a large imperial installation they won’t have a numerical advantage, even if we were to drop the Sith aspect (as Sith during the Vader Empire era were invariably attached to) and their stealth tactics likely won’t work either. If they were to have a numerical advantage, odds are pretty good the Empire would nuke the place just to be sure. To make matters even worse, Bacta stands a good to excellent chance to be able to destroy a chestburster before it can kill the host and escape, and failing that, it would still keep in contained in a big fish tank. Imperial vessels have internal defense systems and internal sensors that are extremely sophisticated and would likely be able to root out any Xenomorph infestation quickly and exterminate it without involving any actual Sith.
One unresolved question is whether their blood would pose a threat to the ship, that probably would result in some minor hull breaching unless it happened to be on a major system, which could destroy the vessel. Further, even if by some stroke the Xenomorphs do manage to overrun the ship, the Empire could easily abandon it and destroy it from the outside to prevent the contamination from spreading. I just don’t see a feasible path to a Xenomorph victory condition here, them being alive and the Empire forces dead or incapacitated. At best I see a draw, but more often just varying levels of cost for the Empire to pull out a victory. I don’t think the Xenomorphs really have much of a shot here.
I say “Sith”, because I believe that one fully trained Sith could hold himself against a dozen of Xenomorphs. While the Aliens would have their predatory instincts and their strenght and agility, a Sith would have his meditative training that would allow him to fight without fear and with the precision of a machine and conter pain, plus intelligence, creativity and the ability to use the force.
I have to agree with what others wrote: It depends on the numbers. One Sith can hold himself against several Xenomorphs, but against a whole station like the Death Star inffected with them? I think even ten Siths couldn’t handle thousands of Xenomorphs. However, they would probably be the ones who blow the place up and survive in the end.
I don’t understand how this would even be a contest really. I am a horror movie fanboy pretty much and as much as I love aliens their tactics don’t speak well for their survivability against more intelligent and technologically advanced foes.
Aliens are aggressive and careless with their numbers often (as seen in Aliens when facing the turrets). Tactically they rely more on stealth to achieve success then direct conflict, using tunnels, vents, and other hiding places to pop out and kill their targets. If you pay attention to the movies almost all of their kills are stealth related and they show extreme difficulty in succeeding in head-to-head conflicts with people who are armed.
Sith on the other hand, well… they’re tactically superior in multiple forms of combat. They could meet a larger force on the battlefield, they can duel one on one, or even deflect multiple, skilled assailants. And that’s not counting force abilities. Even without the the ‘telekinesis’, lightning, mental tricks, et cetera, they’re superior in every way to the xenomorph who relies on sneaking up on you or just bleeding on you when it dies.
The only scenerio the xenomorph has a chance in, is close quarters with lots of dark places to hide and vastly superior numbers (which is why they’re sci-fi horror). The second they are out in the open it wouldn’t matter how many xenomorphs there were, unless you started throwing out ridiculous numbers like one vs. one million.
Just theoretically, however:
A lightsaber should cauterize wounds limiting acid blood.
If you can block a laser, you can block a face hugger.
Even if a sith was impregnated and could not use the force to eject or abort the egg, it wouldn’t have force powers because it would take on the physical properties of the host. Unless we’re assuming that they absorb every mental faculty that the host possesses as well, most importantly the years of training required just to do anything force related.
True Sith lords can use the force to move stars, cheat death through nothing more than force of will and a single one can enslave an entire bestial race with a simple thought.. that was Freedon Nadd. Xenomorphs have no hope against that power. Empire and clone wars Sith are hollow copies of that, And the only sith lord to exist in that time was Sidious. Xenomorphs would “win” any engagement against forces in this time, but Sidious would manipulate events to ensure casualties would be disloyal forces and use these defeats to engineer the survival of his order. Sith win… everytime.
I voted for the HR Giger thingies because the only way a Sith would have to deal with ’em is if they’re rampant in that galaxy far far away. I mean, it’s not just Ewoks and Wookies out there, y’know. Sith gets swarmed. Kenobi giggles.
I think light sabers are a definite plus when fighting an enemy with acid blood. Thing is, aliens absorb characteristics from their host (AVP: that little alien at the end had the classic Predator jaw. They also possessed more intelligence and Predator characteristics in the sequel to AVP, but I’m still in denial about that film actually existing). So if a face-hugger gets a Sith, which, I will admit seems a bit difficult, but IF … then you’ve got one scary alien about to hatch.
Basically, I give it to aliens for their cockroach-like ability to survive anything.
Hey, Jeff, this inspires another versus, one my ex and I never could agree on: Alien Versus Predator. Yeah, there was the movie, but what do the GEEKS think?
Lol, this is starting to sound like ‘Deadliest Warrior’ (Great show, especially since they’ve been doing the ‘off’ match ups like Vampires vs zombies)
“This week on deadliest warrior, Aliens! They are the scourge of the galaxy in the not to distant future, infesting planets and planting their eggs in unsuspecting hosts.
Versus Sith! Arguably one of the greatest evils to ever inhabit a Galaxy Far far away.
Will the Sith’s formidable Dark side powers be enough to take on a horde of relentless killing machines?
Find out next on Deadliest Warrior!”
In the end, I’d give it to the Sith, either way. One on one it wouldn’t be a fight. A handful of Sith against a Horde of Aliens would be difficult, but in the end I think the Sith’s Skills and powers would overcome.
three words why the Sith would win: Chop, Chop, Chop.
The original movie “Alien” scared the $#@! out of me. Darth Maul, by contrast, did nothing scarier than jump around swinging a baton.
I vote Aliens
But consider this…
You are armed with a heavy machine gun (ala Space Marine from Aliens) and you can choose to face Darth Maul or a classic Xenomorph. Which situation would you have a better chance of surviving?
Although I would be soiling my pants over both, I would consider my chances 0.01% with Darth Maul and around 50% with the Xenomorph. I don’t think watching a family friendly movie from the safety of the theater can capture the true terror of facing down a Sith hellbent on killing you.