Yautja


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The Yautja are a hunting race from the furthest reaches of the universe. The males of the species live for the thrill of the hunt.

Yautja are best classified as mammal-like reptiles; this means that they are warm-blooded creatures with a reptilian appearance, usually referred to as therapsids, which may hint at a synapsid evolution. Yautja are adapted to warm climates and can with stand temperatures up to 250°C (482°F).

Although Yautja are warm-blooded, they cannot live in a cold climate. If an unprotected Yautja were to be exposed to temperatures below 10°C (50°F) it would probably die within a few hours.

In the game Alien vs. Predator: Extinction, the spear master's Armour is made out of Vy'drach, which lives on the infernal deserts of the predator's home world, surviving heat and radiation strong enough to bake most life forms. If the predator kills the Vy'drach, its hide is made into armour that absorbs heat, plasma and acid to a degree. The average heights are between 7.5 and 8.5 feet. (2.28 to 2.59m) They are 250 to 350lbs [113.3 to 158.7 kgs] average, most of which is purely muscle.

Biology


The Yautja circulatory system can be divided in to 3 circulations:

1. From the heart to the lungs

2. From the heart to the body

3. From the heart to the brain

In the Yautja circulatory system the brain has a separate circulation. This allows for a higher blood pressure in the rest of the body without damaging the fine network of blood vessels in the brain. This allows the Yautja to live with blood pressures that would normally kill a human.

The ability to create and survive such high blood pressure has certain advantages. The blood can be transported through the body faster and thus oxygen and other nutrients are transported quicker and waste products are removed faster.

This special circulatory system is part of why Yautja are so strong. It allows the organs and muscles to work harder and thus increase the muscles capacity.

The Yautja 5-part heart consists of 2 auricles and 3 ventricles. The blood is pumped from the right side of the heart (seen on the left of the heart schematic in blue) through the lungs. From there it goes back to the heart and into the left auricle (seen on the right of the heart schematic in green). From here it goes in to the 2 ventricles that are connected to it. One pumps it into the body and the other pumps it into the brain at a much lower pressure. When the blood has gone through the body and the brain it goes back to the right side of the heart and the cycle starts again.

The Yautja skeleton is stronger than our own, although the material it's made of isn't stronger than the material our own bone is made of. The yautja skeleton is stronger however because of its firm build. The bones are much thicker than our own and also much more compact which makes them heavier.

Yautja don't seem to have the problem of calcification which makes bones more fragile. This is partially because the oxygen rich blood allows the bones to reinforce their structure naturally, and also because their body uses more carbon in making the bone which makes it just as flexible as, and stronger than, human bone tissue, but about 3-4 times more dense and 5-6 times more heavy.

The reason Yautja are much stronger is due partially to the fact that the muscles have a much more efficient nutrient and waste product transport, as well as the much higher gravity on there home planet, And that the muscle fibers are prismoidal and triangular as opposed to a humans round muscle fibers. This makes more muscle able to fit in the same amount of space, and due to the larger size attributes to the greater strength.

The greater strength is also created by the higher percentage of muscular tissue per kg of body weight and the fact that Yautja are bigger then humans.

The Yautja nervous system is almost a replica of human nerves other than DNA and a few structural changes. The nerves use a form of organic fiber optics that allow chemical and electrical signals to travel at speeds up to 20 times faster than a human. Also instead of remaining relatively close enough for signals to take place, the nerve endings grow past eachother and intertwine, allowing for much faster communication.

An interesting thing of the Yautja is their unique DNA structure. Instead of a double helix, The yautja have a triple helix dna form. the advantages and disadvantages of this are unknown. Also instead of 4 base pairs like humans, they have 5 base pairs in their DNA. These differences may have unknown advantages or disadvantages.

Breathing
The Yautja breathe 35% more oxygen and 15% more hydrogen than humans due to their larger muscle and metabolism requirements. Due to adverse climates and terrains on their homeworld when evolution was still to be made they evolved the ability to breathe hydrogen and a limited amount of carbon dioxide if there is a lack of oxygen in the air. But like humans, they have a limit of about a half an hour before their bodies can no longer function without oxygen, and a limited time of 10 minutes of breathing carbon dioxide. This allows them to survive in adverse climates on many worlds with limited supplies. Also due to a larger lung capacity, as an average, Yautja can hold their breath for up to 15 minutes before losing conciousness, where as a human would be unconcious in 2 minutes. So a supposed maximum of time before a Yautja would need to breath again would be just under 45 minutes.

Reproduction
Unlike humans, who reproduce the whole year round, the yautja seem to have a mating season. This makes sense since males and females live separately most of the time and males are often light-years away from home, hunting on other planets.

Interestingly, the yautja mating season does not seem to be written in stone, as both males and females are capable of reproducing outside the mating season. Normally creatures who have a mating season can only reproduce during the mating season. Yautja it seems can reproduce the whole year round but won't.

There are 2 theories as to why this behavior exists:

1. Mating season is part of their culture and is sustained for religious reasons or for the sake of tradition.

2. Mating season is simply convenient because of the earlier mentioned distances between males and females.

Mating season is a 30 day period which occurs roughly every 400 days. During the mating season the males try to mate with as many females as they can. The high ranking males will attract enough females just because of their status. The males that are lower in rank will have to fight for their females. This behavior is probably millions of years old. It dates back to a time that the first yautjaoids where beginning to evolve. It is likely that the flat crests on top of a yautja's head developed for the purpose of attracting a mate. During mating season a successful male can mate with up to 20 females. This only happens to really successful males these are real top hunters. For the overall population 2 or 3 females is really a lot. But because of this type of distribution of females a lot of males are left without females. This is also the reason most males don't mate for the first time until they are at least 50 to 60 years old and have acquired a reasonable trophy collection. Some times it doesn't happen at all, for instance: when a male is seen as unfit for breeding and he is castrated, or when the yautja becomes one of the eta because of dishonor or cowards. Sometimes the lowest hunting males are also unable to acquire a female these frustrated males may turn on their subordinates.

The yautja male reproduction system is similar to that of a human male. On the other hand, the female reproduction system differs quite a lot from that of humans. The outside appearance of the female reproductive organs is similar to that of a human, the inner workings are quite different. Although yautja give live birth the babies develop in an egg like structure. A similar type of reproduction implied by some snakes which hatch there eggs inside their bodies. This type of reproduction is called ovoviviparous (Ovoviviparous having non-shelled eggs which hatch internally of the female).

In yautja this type of reproduction has evolved it self into something much more specialized then just the hatching of an egg inside the body.

On the ovary only one egg at a time ripens. It takes 40 days and the egg will be ready to be fertilized for the next 70 days. Although the egg is ripe and ready to be fertilized it is not yet fully grown, It will only grow to its full size when it its fertilized. The egg is fertilized whilst still on the ovary which will allow it to develop further. When the egg is fertilized, the yolk, which will have to support the growing yautja fetus, starts to grow in mass. The next 80 days will be crucial. In this period of time the yolk grows to its full size and the fertilized egg starts to develop into a fetus. Meanwhile, the walls of the "womb" start to produce a thick coating of moist holding slime and blood vessels. This coating will later on provide the growing fetus with oxygen, fluids and a means of removing the carbon dioxide and other waste products. Before this time the egg gets it's oxygen and water from the albumen. After the first 80 days the egg has grown to its full size and detaches itself from the ovary. The womb coating will cover it completely within days. The fertilized egg has now become an embryo and the basic shape of the yautja has revealed itself. The embryo is attached to the yolk by an umbilical cord; It will get its food from here for the next months. From now on the embryo will keep growing until it has become a baby ready to be born.

Nearing birth the yolk has shrunk to the size of a Ping-Pong ball, although it isn't round. In the next few hours the yolk will merge with the embryo's abdomen. When the child is born the yolk can still be seen as a small elongated bump on the stomach with a slightly different color as the rest of the body.

This type of reproduction has definite advantages over actually laying eggs. The eggs can grow much larger because they don't need a hard shell. The yolk can grow much larger because the amount of albumen needed is reduced immensely. The womb coating provides the oxygen and water that used to be provided by the albumen.

Yautja lungs take up oxygen more efficiently then human lungs. This is necessary since Yautja breath an atmosphere which has 2 to 3% less oxygen then our own atmosphere; Their atmosphere is rich in nitrogen and has a high humidity, 70 to 90% humidity is normal.

Although yautja can breath the earth's atmosphere they can't breath it for very long, up to 3 weeks maximum due to its mass polution and extra elements. After the 3 weeks the yautja will become sick with a condition of the lungs that will slowly rob them of their ability to breathe by paralyzing the surrounding muscles. however a few weeks of time in their own atmoshpere will see them back at their best conditions. Other than oxygen and a few others, the atmoshpere of the Yautja homeworld has completely different elements in the atmoshpere. This is why they always have breathing gear with them.

Yautja lungs are vastly different from human lungs. They have a catilaginous tissue that forms as symmetricall bars in each lung that connect from one side of the lung wall to the next. The elasticity forces the lungs out and open causing an inhalation. The lungs are surrounded with layers of dense muscle that force the lungs and its inner structure smaller, causing an exhalation. The elasticity of the inner lung structures is amazingly strong and can resist extreme tempuratures. Other then this the Yautja have larger but similer bronchi and other lung tissues.

Yautja skin is reptilian in origin, although at first they appear to have no scales. Over millions of years the scales on them have become so fine they are now nearly invisible. Each scale is roughly the size of 100 of the Yautja skin cells layed out flat, so they are very small and impossible to see with the naked eye.

The skin is also extremely tough and can withstand temperatures of up to 250°C without being burnt. Although when faced with colder temperatures the yautja skin becomes rigid due to the scales sticking to eachother, which makes movement uncomfortable and in cold enough tempuratures can even rupture the skin at the slightest movement, causing small lacerations that cannot heal untill they reach a more normalized temperature. It also gives good protection against small caliber weapons (9mm) like a bullet proof vest. Also due to its unique structure it somehow tranfers electrical current through the bottom out of the soles of the feet. An interesting adaption but the conditions for this evolution are unknown even to the Yautja.

The skin color has many variations. Ranging from brown redish colors right through to bluish-greenish colors. This large variety of colors and patterns probably came about when the yautja started to settle on other planets. Presumably their ships where not as fast then as they are now and it would have taken some time just to get to an other solar system. Yautja on other planet would have been almost cut off from the rest of their species. These yautja would then start to adapt to this new environment producing this great variaty of colors and patterns.

Society
The yautja society is made up of different classifications, including blooded and un-blooded. Their caste includes: (All these figures are obviously estimates)

Unblooded - About 25% of male yautja are unblooded. This means that the Yautja have no distunguishable kills amongst their race, Such as killing a xenomorph. Once a Yautja kills a xenomorph and collect's their trophy and puts their clan symbol on their fore head with the blood of the xenomorph, they become blooded. All unblooded are children too young to safely hunt for xenomorphs, or they simply have not had the chance to battle a xenomorph yet.

Blooded - About 45% of male yautja are blooded. These are warriors who have gained the clan symbol upon their forehead after thier first successful xenomorph kill.

Retirees - About 10% of male yautja are retirees, yautja who have fought their time and now are too old and honoured to hunt. Females come under this section due to their roles as mothers and the driving force behind the homeworlds natural waysand systems.

Huntsmaster - Huntsmaster's are often leaders in their clan, and are only elevated to the caste of huntsmaster once they have aqcuired a queen xenomorph skull. About 15% of Yautja are Huntsmasters. Huntsmasters often become retirees after a few decades.

Clan Leader - Clan leaders are only made by the Adjudicators decision. The only way to become a clan leader is to clean out and entire xenomorph hive larger than 300 xenomorphs in population with a maximum of 2 others. When this has been proven, the three (or less) Yautja all Become a clan leader of a clan that they share. They become the Forefathers of that clan and will repopulate with Females of their choosing. In Order to be elligable for the trials of a hive cleansing, each member of the trio must have at least 3 queen skull trophies. After this point, any hive cleansings that the forefathers complete will give the clan greater honor and standing in the caste system. Clan leaders comprise 5% of the Yautja society.

Adjudicators - The adjudicators are the admin and law yautja. They are world leaders and the ruling fist in the overall scheme of the Yautja culture. Less than 1% of Yautja are adjudiucators, do to their massive worldly role. At this point they simply no longer have time to hunt anymore off planet, but often foray into the underground contained hunting grounds where younger hunters train in order to lend experience to the young ones. Adjudicators are always the leaders of a clan, And no adjudicators have ever risen to that position without first having completed at least 5 hive cleansings.

Bad Bloods - These are the criminal yautja whom have been sentenced to death and escaped. Their justice system shows that crime is very low. About 2% of yautja are bad bloods. In Predator concrete jungle on the ps2 bad bloods were also predators captured by humans and brainwashed and met honorably deaths by their clan brother the main predator in the game

The Hunt
Male Yautja hunt and in that case some people say they are predators. When a male Yautja is ready for its first hunt it is a unblooded predator. When a unblooded predator completes a hunt it is marked and is now a young predator. A predator has better hunting gear the higher rank it is. When the predator proves itself worthy enough, the elder will present the predator The Combistick which, to their culture is a very rare item. Other rare items include stronger plasmacasters, the laser-guided smart disc, and Razor whip. Male Yautja hunt on Earth every 100 years. when they kill their first Vy'drach they use it's acid in the tail to form a mark on their helmet and on the head.

Technology
See: Yautja technology