Of course, then we run into some problems with our space dragons because they’re not especially likely. While the Tyrannosaurus Rex is a real, genuine creature that roamed the Earth, there wasn’t really a creature much like it before the era of the dinosaurs, nor one like it since, though some of the ice age megafauna get close. Indeed, most giant animals are herbivores rather than carnivores. Furthermore, a giant predator doesn’t necessarily have the physical might to bash through the sort of extreme, collapsitronium hyperarmor that most ultra-tech characters wear, nor the sort of armor necessary to stand up to their smart-tracking assault death beams.
So while the results of this will likely disappoint excited space knights in diamondoid armor hoping for a good fight, pondering what a giant predator might look like acts as a starting point for some genuine space monsters. After all, we can take such a monster and make it a psychic mega predator, or a cybernetic mega predator, or a mutant mega predator.
Mega Predators in GURPS Space
So, obviously a mega predator is a carnivore. What sort of carnivore, though? Well, if look at it honestly, the easiest way to get a giant carnivore is the same way we get a giant herbivore, we eat lots and lots of small kills and the Trapper is the best option for that. But that’s… lame, because we’re picturing a predator, not an especially large filter feeder (technically the Blue Whale is the largest carnivore to ever exist, as it eats teeny tiny shrimp, but we tend not to think of them as carnivores).
That leaves us with pouncer, chaser and hijacker. I find it hard to imagine such a massive creature as a Pouncer, as you’d see it coming from miles away, and a hijacker is a given, but we might expect that hijacking would be a secondary tactic, though a “giant scavenger that sometimes helps things die when the opportunity arises” isn’t a terrible tactic for mega predators: the largest predatory birds in the world are scavengers! Chaser is worth a close look, though. While a mega predator isn’t an especially efficient design, the amount of energy it can spend during a chase makes the energy spent by smaller prey looking like a rounding error in comparison. And if we’re going to make this a scavenger, it may need to travel for considerable periods of time anyway, because there might be quite some space between kills, so these mega predators might be optimized for extremely long endurance, spending very little energy while moving, and with their very long legs, able to move extremely long distances on very little energy. This suggests something of a hybrid between a scavenger and a persistance hunter.
It should be noted that we should at least give a little through to the prey of our predators. Predators don’t become gigantic on a whim. Selective pressure pushes them to these large sizes, and they need to available calories to grow to their massive size. The gigapods of the cretaceous allowed the Tyrannosaurus to feed on enough concentrated calories to grow to its huge size. So a giant predator may feed on even larger prey. On the other hand, some predators seem to focus on smaller prey in which case they favor quantity over quality (with Blue Whales being the most extreme example) and need to be in an environment rich in smaller animals and have some means to capture large numbers of them at once. It also raises the question of why they need to get so big in the first place, but it may have to do with dominating a particular set of terrain, or a feedback cycle in its mating patterns. Still, for this version, I’m going to assume either relatively large prey that moves in large herds, of extremely large prey.
When it comes to terrain, the terrain most suited to large (land) animals is Plains, and this fits for a variety of reasons. First, it has the caloric content necessary to support the super predator and its prey (unlike deserts, mountains or arctic terrain, though it should be noted the arctic terrain has other pressures that push for gigantism and is home to some of the largest living predators in the world), and the space for them to move (unlike forests, jungles or swamps). GURPS Space gives plains dwellers a +1 to size, which is precisely what we need. It also fits with the predator that moves over huge swathes of terrain with its persistence hunting or scavenging, as that’s more efficient to do on relatively flat terrain with few obstacles, and its enormous size allows it to peer farther over the horizon.
When it comes to mobility, we’re discussing Walking. Winged fliers are very difficult to get to these massive sizes; digging seems to be possible but doesn’t entirely fit what we think of as a “predator” (though a digging pouncer or a digging trapper might make sense in terrain like a swamp). Slithering is very inefficient at large sizes. So, that leaves us with walking, which is not only possible for giant creatures but benefits their size. If we assume the largest possible SM in GURPS Space (+6 or 20 yards) gives is a basic move of sixteen according to the stride rules of GURPS Space, which gives a base movement or 30+ miles per hour. It might not move faster than a walk or a jog, but with those long legs, it might be enough.
The point of a megapredator is to be as big as possible. That clocks in at SM +6 and 100 tons, though SM +5 and 40 tons might be more plausible: if our largest prey is 100 tons, we might want to be smaller to conserve calories. And, indeed, GURPS Lands out of Time clocks the T-Rex at a mere SM +5 (and up to 8 tons), while the Giganotosaurus clocked in at SM +5 and up to 15 tons. The dinosaurs here seem quite light for their size, but I want it noted that dinosaurs had some phyisological quirks that kept them light for their size (which likely contributed to their huge size) and GURPS Template Toolkits 2 suggests about 20 tons is more reasonable for SM+5 than 40 tons. So SM +5 it is. That gives us an ST of about 90, if we go with the 40 tons number (despite it being “too heavy”) or 75 per Template Toolkits.
When it comes to Symmetry, we expect it to be bilateral, as usual. The average result would also give us 4-6 legs. So why did the T-rex have two? One of the main advantages of bipedalism is it frees up the forelimbs for other purposes, but the T-rex, and most carnivorous therapods, had vestigial forelimbs. Another advantage is it allows the creature to raise its head, but therapods have a horizontal posture: a head balanced by a tail. The most likely explanation is that bipedalism, while lacking the higher maximum speed of quadrupeds, is more efficient. Humans, for example, excel at persistence hunting. This might suggest that our megapredator is also bipedal. This leaves our tail for balancing or striking if we want, and we can use our remaining forelimbs for grasping, but it seems unnecessary.
We expect our critter to have an internal skeleton and likely a robust one, given the square-cube law.
For covering we might expect nearly anything. A skin-covered megapredator might regulate its heat well, but you might only expect it to get to Hide (DR 1) or Normal Skin. A scaled megapredator would resemble more reptilian creatures, and likely have normal (DR 1) scales, though heavy scales aren’t impossible. Fur is more likely if the region is cold and evokes the idea of an arctic megapredator once again. Normal fur is more likely, though as we see with megafauna, unless the environment is especially cold, larger creatures tend to shed coverings in favor of the heatloss of bare skin; this is especially true of persistence hunters. Features have a similar (arguably worse) problem; the t-rex probably wasn’t feathered (and if it was, it was only in a few selective patches). Finally, while GURPS Space allows exoskeletons, they’re very unlikely: it should be relying on its internal skeleton for structural support, and all that exoskeleton would get extremely heavy very quickly.
For temperature, such a creature is almost certainly warm-blooded, and GURPS Space pushes us towards Metabolism Control; a hibernating megapredator makes a lot of sense. The largest living land predators, bears, hibernate: they use their massive frames to store extra calories for the winter, and then hibernate when all the choicest prey are unavailable. We might expect megapredators to do the same.
When it comes to sex, there’s no particular to expect anything particularly unusual about megapredator reproductive strategies. We might expect Strong-K reproductive strategies, however: it will take a lot of time to reach that full size, and finding all those calories will be hard too.
When it comes to senses, we might expect very sharp vision. They are carnivores living on the plain who have a commanding view. While they don’t exactly need the visual acuity of hawks, peering to a remote horizon and resolving a distant creature on the plains has a lot of value. Hearing isn’t nearly so important, though they might be capable of subsonics, given their size. Touch isn’t especially important either. Smell, however, may be. It will help them find mates and if they also double as scavengers, smelling a dead animal over the winds of the plains would be extremely important, or tracking prey for a long set of persistance hunting. We might expect discriminatory smell.
For special senses, the most likely is Nightvision; Infravision or Detect (Heat) is also an interesting possibility (especially if the push towards arctic anegironments). Peripheral Vision is also a possibility, interestingly. If they do a lot of migration, they might also have Absolute Direction, though it’s not as necessary for them as for other creatures.
When it comes to Alien Minds, the average roll gives us Low Intelligence, which fits what we know of the T-Rex, but High Intelligence isn’t out of the question. They might plausibly have long life-spans, we know they probably have Strong-K reproductive strategies, and they likely have the skull capacity necessary for a larger brain, so a very clever megapredator is totally plausible.
For mating, some sort of Pair-Bond seems highly likely, and a Harem strategy is quite plausible. When it comes to social organization, though, we don’t expect large groups: these are predators who need considerable calories to survive! Chances are, they won’t want to share, and we might expect on average to see a Solitary creature. It should be noted, though, the Giganotosaurus seems to have been a social hunter: yes, packs of T-rex sized hunters hunting their prey. If you add persistence hunting and intelligence, pack tactics start to make sense, though you need the sort of prey to make it worthwhile. I would struggle to see something larger than a Small Group (and that’s a roll of 11-12, so just barely possible, though live-bearing megapredators with harem strategies can get small packs on a roll of 10-11 and a medium group on a role of 12).
This gives them a generic Psychological Profile of Chauvinism -2 (Broad-Minded, if we assume solitary and split the difference on scavenging), Concentration +2 (Single-Minded), Curiosity +1 (Curiosity), Egoism +2 (Selfish), Empathy +1 (Responsive), Gregariousness -2 (Loner), Imagination +1 (Imaginative) and Suspicion -1 (Fearlessness).
Generic Megapredator Stats
It should be noted that GURPS Lands out of Time have excellent SM +5 mega predators on page 27 and 28. Pizard has some alternate version of various Allosaurs available here. These are probably the ideal version of a Megapredator.
What does SM +5 mean anyway?
So since we’re going to be making a bunch of massive, SM+5 monstrosities, what does SM +5 even mean in the context of a fight? Well, per “Combat Writ Large” in GURPS Pyramid #3/77: without long reach weapons, you can only attack the megepredator’s legs and feet, and the megapredator will have to reach down to bite the target, and the SM +0 target defends at -3. The Megapredator’s bite can attack any hit location and cripple or dismember anything and their bite counts as a two-handed grapple and can pin a standing foe (and have a +15 to said pin!); given that most megapredators also have Born Biter, their bites probably inflict Large-Area Injuries. They block line of sight, the can trample standing foes and their tramples inflict large area injuries. They can also just “evade” SM +0 targets with a +1 to movement. By the same token, SM +0 targets get a +5 to evade the megapredator. The Megapredator might choose to “attack an area” for a +2 to hit, rather than the -5 to hit a target explicitly, and a +4 to “grapple” a target (a bite probably counts as a grapple).
Variations
Massive Megapredator
The Giganotosauraus and Tyrannosaurus are excellent depictions of a megapredator, but per GURPS Space, too light. This likely comes from an extraordinary economy of muscle and bone to get at those sizes, and certainly isn’t unrealistic. But if we assume our megapredator is actually 40 (or 100) tons, then the numbers change.
Lens (Massive): ST 90; dmg 10d/12d;
Lens (More Massive): ST 120; dmg 13d/15d; increase SM to +6
Vulture-Beast
The Giganotosaurus or Tyrannosaurus Rex are probably the best example of a megapredator (no surprise, then, that the same body plan evolved over and over again) but some of our findings pushed us in slightly different directions, and we might want to emphasize a rather alien creature.
First, I noted that we might have a highly intelligent Strong-K species that engages in pack tactics. This is a bit of a problem for such a large predator, though, unless they can travel extremely long distances, which we’ve noted they will tend to do anyway (they’re likely a persistence predator). We might combine this with some level of metabolism control, which we treat as a form of voluntary torpor: the Vulture-Beast simply relaxes into a semi-slumbering rest state where its body temperature drops to near-ambient and it minimizes its caloric consumption. During this time, its pack mates rove the area (the tundra? The desert?) in search of interesting prey or the dead. They likely have excellent noses to help them find their prey. Perhaps they also have excellent eyes too. If we make them quadrupeds, they can have their rear legs more to the back, which would allow them to “rear” for truly prodigious heights. If we add a long neck (useful for a tall quadruped to attack lower targets anyway) it can reach enormous heights to scan the horizon. If we add telescopic vision and some visual means of detecting dead bodies (vision sensitive to the specific wavelengths of phosphorescence or other decay products?) they can spot a dead body from miles away. Once they detect a dead body or an interesting herd of prey, they can issue great subsonic calls to their pack, which will wake them from torpor and draw the pack to them. The scout can seize control of the corpse, or continue to follow the herd. Once the pack arrives, if they need to hunt, they can coordinate via their subsonic calls and perhaps, as quadrupeds, put on brief bursts of speed.
We might imagine them to have a bare head like vultures, to fit their scavenger nature, and we might cover them with a thick coat of fur with a great ruff near their neck. This suggests an arctic animal, which might also explain their considerable size.
ST: 90 |
Basic Speed: 6.5 |
SM: +5 |
DX: 12 |
Basic Move: 15 |
|
IQ: 5 |
Perception: 12 |
|
HT: 14 |
Will: 11 |
DR: 5 (hide) |
Traits: Born Biter 2; Detect Decomposing Bodies (Visual); Discriminatory Smell; Enhanved Move 1 (Ground; Costs 2 fatigue per second); Extra Legs (4); Fur; Iron Stomach 3; Laziness; Metabolish Control 2; No Fine Manipulators; Penetrating Voice; Semi-Upright; Sharp Teeth; Stretching (Neck; Always On); Subsonic Speech; Telescopic Vision; Temperature Tolerance 1 (Cold); Wild Animal;
Bite (12): 10d cut; reach C-4
Stomp/Trample (12): 10d+10 cr; Reach C
Doom-Toad
I noted early on that digging was a possibility, especially in a place like a swamp, which has the biomass necessary to support a truly massive creature. It also has a lot of water, which also supports a truly massive creature. If we cheat a little and make our megapredator amphibious, or some sort of mud-dwelling creature then we can more plausibly support some of the heavier biological options, such as an exoskeleton.
Such a creature would almost certainly be a pouncer rather than a chaser. It would rely on its abilit to vanish in the mud and/or water to hide it, and then suddenly erupt to attack its target. This suggests hours of lying completely still, which might imply a cold-blooded creature not built for extreme speed, which also fits its semi-aquatic nature. We might expect short legs with digging claws and a long, strong tail capable of helping it swim, but wouldn’t get in the way of burrowing.
But if we’re slow, how do we pounce? Well, we’re also going to be hijackers, naturally, so how can we help our prey die? Why not poison? We might imagine something like a frog with a long, darting tongue, but instead of making it a tongue that captures its prey, it has a dart that stabs the prey with a poison stinger and allows the prey to slowly die. As reasonable as that is, a sticky tongue might make for a more fun encounter.
Once it has killed its prey, it would want to dominate it, perhaps dragging it back into its burrow or simply squatting on its prey and consuming it. Since we can afford the extra weight, we might cover it in a dense exoskelton, especially its head, as when it burrows, its head is likely to be facing forward. As a tunneler, it likely has a long and sinuous body: not quite a snake (slithering is very inefficient for such large creatures), but the sinuous form would help it swim too. Taken together, what we get is something akin to a giant xenomorph from Alien crossed with a giant salamander.
All of this might be plausible, but what pressure would be on it to make it so big? Well, spinosaurus got to this size, and several sea predators did as well, so it might simply be the case that with sufficient available biomass, it grew to this size, especially to outperform competition. After all, being a massive hijacker has its benefits!
ST: 90 |
Basic Speed: 6.25 |
SM: +5 |
DX: 14 |
Basic Move: 4 |
Water Move: 4 |
IQ: 2 |
Perception: 10 |
|
HT: 11 |
Will: 12 |
DR: 7 (exoskeleton) |
Traits: Amphibious; Badsight (Nearsighted); Blunt Claws; Born Biter 2; Camouflage (Swamp); Coldblooded; Colorblindness; Combat Reflexes; Digging Claws; Doesn’t Breath (Oxygen Storage); Enhanced Move 1 (Water); Extra Legs (4; Short); Extra Attack 1; Hamfisted; Iron Stomach 3; Loner; One Arm (Extra Flexible; Tongue); Regrowth (Tongue only); Sharp Teeth; Stretching 2 (Tongue Only); Striker (Tail, Crushing); Subsonic Hearing; Tunneling 1 (Mud and loose sand only); Vibration Sense (Ground); Wild Animal;
Bite (14): 10d cut, reach C
Claws (14): 10d+5 cr, Reach C-4.
Tongue (14): Grapple Only; Reach C-7; (optionally, it may have a stinger, in which case treat it as a striker with the same reach that has some sort of follow-up venom).
Tail (14): 10d+10 cr, reach C-6.
Spider-Tree
I have to do something asymmetrical, don’t I?
We’ve got a few options. One topic I haven’t explored, though, is a branching creature. Large creatures often have continuous growth of “branching” structures, and this makes sense: you reach huge sizes by having no upper limit on your final size. Mostly, we just imagine creatures somehow remaining the same, but getting bigger, but what about a creature that has a different sort of body plan, a branching plan similar to trees or certain sponges, and just keeps adding more and more segments and never dies of old age until they become truly prodigious?
This sort of plan assumes some sort of “self-similar” fractal pattern, similar to trees or, and this a better metaphor for what I have in mind, a bush-robot. We have some sort of central body that has a mouth and sensory organs and some sort of grasping tentacles, and from this central body, four spiny, bony legs radiate out. These start small, a bit like a spider, but they grow and grow in size until they reach a size where they become a central trunk, at which point this trunk begins to act like a new body, with its own mouth and sensory organs and radiating out some new legs. Eventually, this thing would become a massive web of legs and eyes and legs that roams the land in desperate search for food until it eventually starves to death. It might have an unusual breeding strategy where it “pollinates” with other spider-trees and these impact the genetics of the latest branch, and these branches might “fall off” so the central “body” might have this broken, jagged connection atop it from where it origionally broke from its “parent”.
ST: 90 |
Basic Speed: 6 |
SM: +5 |
DX: 12 |
Basic Move: 16 |
|
IQ: 1 |
Perception: 9 |
|
HT: 12 |
Will: 12 |
DR: 10 (Bony Carapace) |
Traits: 360 Vision (So many eyes); Bad Sight (Nearsighted); Colorblindness; Extra Attacks (4); Extra Arms (at least 4; Extra Flexible; Short); Extra Mouths (at least 4); Extra Legs (Many); Fragile (Brittle); Regrowth; Sharp Teeth; Talons (Impaling; Legs); Universal Digestion; Weak Bite; Wild Animal;
Bite (12): 10d-20 cut, reach C
Impaling Legs (12): 10d imp, Reach C-5.
Grasping Tentacles (14): Grapple Only; Reach C-4;.
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