The Monstrefact: The Yautja of Predator

In this episode of STBYM’s The Monstrefact, Robert discusses the ritual Yautja aliens of the “Predator” universe…

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Hi, my name is Robert Lamb, and this is the
Monster Fact, a short form series from Stuff to Blow
Your Mind focusing on mythical creatures, ideas, and monsters in time.
As we're slap dab in the middle of a Stuff
to Blow Your Mind series on the dog days of Summer,
I figured, Hey, it's time to finally talk a little

(00:32):
bit about the Yaptja, the central extraterrestrial hunters in the
Predator universe, and of course sometimes crosses over with the
Alien universe as well. I've talked about numerous organisms from
the Alien universe already, and I've actually talked about the
Callusk from Predator bad Lands, but this is the first
time I'm really zeroing in and talking a bit about

(00:53):
the Yoptja. I guess one of the things about them
is that they're very technologically inclined culture in the films
and in the related media, So I almost would need
to come back and do a sci fi artifact episode
on the various weapons of the Yatja, So maybe I'll
do that in the future, but hey, let's talk about
the organism here in case you need a refresher the

(01:15):
Predator films, beginning with the nineteen eighty seven sci fi
action Testosterone Fest. These revolve around technologically advanced bipedal alien
hunters who periodically ventured Earth to hunt dangerous human game.
Decked out with everything from plasma canons and cloaking devices
to wrist blades and spears, the hunters, who have eventually

(01:39):
come to be known canonically as the Yatja, seek out
areas of intense human conflict so as to hunt only
the most dangerous and violent humans against the chaotic backdrop
of warfare and violence. The first two Predator films also
firmly established that the Predators visit Earth only in the
hottest times the year, during extreme heat waves, and nineteen

(02:03):
nineties Predator iiO leans into the heat aggression hypothesis, the
idea that intensely hot temperatures drive human aggression and violence.
In the film, all of this, of course, plays out
in the then future setting of sweltering nineteen ninety seven
Los Angeles, engulfed in both a heat wave and a

(02:24):
crime wave involving rival gangs feuding with each other, so
we don't really get into heat aggression hypothesis specifically, in
our Dog Days series is currently airing, unless we end
up getting into it later in the series, and we
haven't recorded those yet, but the idea sets pretty snugly
alongside the idea of the dog Star that hot temperatures

(02:46):
may be linked to high levels of human violence in
general aggression, and when you dig in deeper into the topic,
there are generally a lot of different factors to consider. So,
for instance, the July fourth holiday is statistically one of
the deadliest in the United States, with spikes in violent crime,
and heat waves may well factor into it, but you

(03:07):
have to factor in other things like increased in widespread
alcohol consumption, increased outdoor activity, bigger crowds, increase traffic on
our roadways, on our waterways, and the complete array of
factors underlying any level of crime or societal unrest. So
there does seem to be correlation there to be sure,

(03:28):
but there are also just multiple factors involved, so I
don't know. Maybe the yachtjas do recognize this correlation as well,
factoring it into their vacation planning, but what other factors
might underlie their timing. One of the big possibilities, of course,
is that and this is one that's frequently explored in
the literature and online is that the yachtas prefer or

(03:49):
even require, a much hotter climate. Now, they're certainly armored
in the movies, but they typically forego extensive clothing and
seem capable of breathing Earth's out atmosphere as well when
they're unmasked. There's some quibbles that are had here and
there regarding what we see in the film, particularly in
Predator too, but for the most part it seems agreed upon,

(04:12):
maybe just for ease of storytelling, that they can breathe
our air and we don't have to worry about them
wearing masks, and likewise we don't have to worry about
wearing masks if we're aboard one of their ships. Just
makes it a little easier to tell the story. But
at any rate, within the context of the thing, yeah,
they don't require environmental protection suits, they don't require any
thermoregulation gear, or at least none of this that we

(04:35):
could identify from our own much lower place than technological ladder.
So it goes that the Yachtja's possibly cold blooded or
simply evolved to thrive in hotter climates, just prefer tropical
jungles and urban heat environments urban heat islands for the
most part, and choose those as the destinations for their

(04:58):
hunting excursions. Now Here on Earth, it's pretty common for
creatures to base their activity levels on thermal conditions. In
hot environments, organisms may avoid the heat of the day
and venture out during the cool of the night to
hunt forager feed. In colder climates, they may do the reverse,
only emerging during the warmest part of the day. But

(05:19):
there are exceptions because sometimes it is advantageous to seek
sustenance during the extreme heat of the day. Consider the
desert iguana. This is Dipsosaurus dorsalis of southwestern United States
and northwestern Mexico, the most heat tolerant of all North
American reptiles. Its adaptations enable it to remain active in

(05:44):
one hundred plus degree fahrenheit weather after other reptiles have
already called it a day. As pointed out by the
Phoenix Desert Botanical Garden, which I've been to a lovely
place in the article Iguanas in the garden, these character
colored lizards may do this in order to ai their digestion,

(06:05):
but also to avoid the bulk of its many predators.
Just go out when it's so hot that you just
don't have to deal with as many predatory threats to
your presence. Now, here's another interesting example from the insect
world in which we have organisms venturing out in the
extreme heat of the day. It's the Saharan silver ant,

(06:25):
and this is a cataglyphous bombasina. These ants forage in
the full mid day sun of the Saharan Desert, surviving
temperatures of up to one hundred and fifty eight degrees
fahrenheit or seventy degrees celsius, which they accomplish via a
combination of enhanced optical reflection and radiative heat dissipation, according

(06:48):
to a twenty fifteen study from the US Department of Energies,
Brookhaven National Laboratory. From you at all, these adapticians give
the silver ants first dips on any insects and other
arthropods out there that have already succumbed to the boiling
heat of the mid day Sahara. So in a sense,
they kind of let the heat do the hunting for them,

(07:08):
and they are the first to pick up the scraps
because they can endure the heat and move swiftly enough
that they don't succumb to it themselves. So neither example
here is directly applicable to the Yatja, of course, who
have other ways of avoiding unwanted attention and have no
interest in carrying. But if we're going to stick to
the preferred temperature range interpretation, yeah, it seems reasonable Earth's

(07:32):
high temperatures might match preferred mid range temperatures on their
home world. We might roughly compare this to observations that
the conditions on Mars, for example, along the equator, these
can reach eise of like seventy degrees fahrenheit or twenty
degrees celsius, which in and of itself that sounds quite

(07:54):
hospitable for human life and human beings like ourselves. Unfortunately,
the Martian atmosphere certainly is not hospitable to us, among
other factors. So that's all I have to say today
about the predator. But we could come back again and
discuss their weaponry in greater detail. I think there's a
lot more to discuss there. Tune in for additional episodes

(08:16):
of The Monster Fact The Artifact for Animelius Stupendium each week.
As always, you can email us at contact at stuff
to blow your mind dot com.

Speaker 1 (08:32):
Stuff to Blow your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
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