Dek's mother lumbers out of her ship, eyes blazing. Her quills cascade over her massive shoulders, mandibles clicking furiously as she speaks, deep and terrifying:

"Your father was one of the few males who I've let live after mating. Who are you to deprive me of one of my favorite play things?"

not only did we get Yautja culture, we got Yautja singing #PredatorBadlands

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULuB...

I was literally JUST saying this exact thing to someone (tho I attributed it to the MCU, not the prequels… but I think you’re correct on the timeline; the MCU wouldn’t exist without the prequels)

Dan Trachtenberg I am begging you that if (when?) we finally see Dek’s mother that she is an absolute behemoth that dwarfs his dad #PredatorBadlands

these numbskulls think that artificial sentience is what allows a post-scarcity civilization in Iain M Banks' Culture novels, not realizing it's the massive, massive infrastructure required for that level of energy harvesting (at least a Kardashev II or III society) that enables it.

details:

- it's harder to control an energy source like the sun

- if an energy source is harder to control, it's harder to exploit/withhold

- if you can't exploit/withhold a thing, it's harder to enrich yourself from it

(it always comes down to money/corruption)

reminds me of this ('If the Chicxulub Asteroid Had Hit Somewhere Else, Dinosaurs May Never Have Gone Extinct'): www.newsweek.com/if-chicxulub...

yup.

see also: finding a mythical M class planet orbiting a nearby star, colonizing Mars... basically any pie-in-the-sky fantasy that involves us finding a shiny, new 'Garden of Eden' after we've sucked this one dry.