History Literature / BlackDestroyer

* LockedRoomMystery: Coeurl's M.O. one he's aboard the ship is to secretly leave his cage, kill a crew member and eat their id, then return to the cage before anyone notices he's gone, so as far as everyone else is concerned, it's a complete mystery how the murdered crewmen died.

* VillainProtagonist: Prior to the arrival of the expedition, the story is told entirely from Coeurl's P.O.V. He's starving and slowly regressing into a nearly feral state as the last living thing on a dead, nameless planet, without even any other Coeurls to interact with. Even after the ship arrives and the human characters are introduced, van Vogt continues telling lengthy portions of ''Black Destroyer'' from Coeurl's viewpoint as he plots, with the humans essentially [[HeroAntagonist HeroAntagonists]] to his attempt to steal the ship and leave.

* ItCanThink: Coeurl may seem like an animal, and the crew treats him like one at first, but he is actually incredibly intelligent and cunning. He doesn't start the story this way, though; when he's first introduced, isolation and the daily battle just to survive has regressed him to an animalistic state, but encountering other intelligent beings makes him remember ''he'' too his an intelligent creature, and his reasoning returns to him, allowing him to being scheming against Morton's crew.

The story was incorporated into the novel ''Literature/TheVoyageOfTheSpaceBeagle'', and both there and in its original form has been massively influential over the years. Coeurl-like creatures have turned up in everything from TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons to ''Franchise/FinalFantasy''. The plot of ''Film/{{Alien}}'' was also similar enough that van Vogt took screenwriter Dan O'Bannon to court over the matter, similar to Creator/JosephPayneBrennan's dispute with the filmmakers behind ''[[Film/TheBlob1958 The Blob]]'' over its similarity to his short story ''[[Literature/Slime1953 Slime]]''.

It also shares some similar elements with the ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode ''[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS1E22SkinOfEvil Skin of Evil]]'', right down to the antagonist, [[MadeOfEvil Armus]], being alone and abandoned on a desolate world and going to murderous lengths in his attempt to escape.

''Black Destroyer'' is a 1939 short story by Creator/AEVanVogt. Published in ''[[Magazine/{{Analog}} Astounding Science Fiction]]'', it was one of the first, if not ''the'' first, "Golden Age" ScienceFiction stories.

The plot concerns the crew of a spacecraft led by [[CommandingCoolness Commander]] [[TheCaptain Hal Morton]] landing on a DeathWorld where they intend to perform an archaeological survey. The group encounters a strange, black-furred, feline alien known as Coeurl, who is apparently the [[LastOfHisKind only living thing left on the planet]]. The creature makes chemist Gregory Kent uneasy, and he advocates eliminating it just in case it's hostile. However, as Coeurl makes no threatening moves of any kind, Commander Morton sides with the expedition's biologists who want to take "[[InSeriesNickname pussy]]" in for study.

Kent suspects Coeurl - as there is no other life ''on'' the planet that they're aware of. It turns out, of course, that he's right; Coeurl is actually the last remaining member of a species that eats the id of living things and had previously wiped out all life on this world. And now he is plotting to steal the humans' ship and escape... after he's done killing them all one by one and absorbing their id, of course!

* VillainProtagonist: Prior to the arrival of the expedition, the story is told entirely from Coeurl's P.O.V. He's starving and slowly regressing into a nearly feral state as the last living thing on a dead, nameless planet, without even any other Coeurls to interact with. Even after the ship arrives and the human characters are introduced, van Vogt continues telling lengthy portions of ''Black Destroyer'' from Coeurl's viewpoint as he plots, with the humans essentially [[HeroAntagonist HeroAntagonists]] to his attempt to steal the ship and leave.

''Black Destroyer'' is a 1939 short story by Creator/AEVanVogt. Published in ''Astounding Science Fiction'', it was one of the first, if not ''the'' first, "Golden Age" ScienceFiction stories.

It also shares some similar elements with the ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode ''[[StarTrekTheNextGenerationS1E22SkinOfEvil Skin of Evil]]'', right down to the antagonist, [[MadeOfEvil Armus]], being alone and abandoned on a desolate world and going to murderous lengths in his attempt to escape.

It also shares some similar elements with the ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode ''[[StarTrekTheNextGenerationS1E22 "Skin of Evil Skin of Evil]]'', right down to the antagonist, [[MadeOfEvil Armus]], being alone and abandoned on a desolate world and going to murderous lengths in his attempt to escape.

The plot concerns the crew of a spacecraft led by Commander Hal Morton landing on a desolate planet where they intend to perform an archaeological survey. The group encounters a strange, black-furred, feline alien known as Coeurl, who is apparently the only living thing left on the planet. The creature makes chemist Gregory Kent uneasy, and he advocates eliminating it just in case it's hostile. However, as Coeurl makes no threatening moves of any kind, Commander Morton sides with the expedition's biologists who want to take "[[InSeriesNickname pussy]]" in for study.

* ItCanThink: Coeurl may seem like an animal, and the crew treats him like one at first, but he is actually incredibly intelligent and cunning.

* VillainProtagonist: Prior to the arrival of the expedition, the story is told entirely from Coeurl's P.O.V. He's starving and slowly regressing into a nearly feral state as the last living thing on a dead, nameless planet, without even any other Coeurls to interact with. Even after the ship arrives and the human characters are introduced, van Vogt continues telling lengthy portions of ''Black Destroyer'' from Coeurl's viewpoint as he plots, with the humans essentially HeroAntagonists to his attempt to steal the ship and leave.

The story was incorporated into the novel ''Literature/TheVoyageOfTheSpaceBeagle'', and both there and in its original form has been massively influential over the years. Coeurl-like creatures have turned up in everything from TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons to ''Franchise/FinalFantasy''. The plot of ''Film/{{Alien}}'' was also similar enough that van Vogt took screenwriter Dan O'Bannon to court over the matter, similar to Creator/JosephPayneBrennan's dispute with the filmmakers behind ''[[The Blob Film/TheBlob1958]]'' over its similarity to his short story ''[[Slime Literature/Slime1953]]''.

The story was incorporated into the novel ''Literature/TheVoyageOfTheSpaceBeagle'', and both there and in its original form has been massively influential over the years. Coeurl-like creatures have turned up in everything from TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons to ''Franchise/FinalFantasy''. The plot of ''Film/{{Alien}}'' was also similar enough that van Vogt took screenwriter Dan O'Bannon to court over the matter, similar to Creator/JosephPayneBrennan's dispute with the filmmakers behind ''Film/TheBlob''.

* TrappedWithAMonsterPlot: The expedition members don't know it, but their feline companion is scheming to kill them and steal their ship.

''Black Destroyer'' is a 1939 short story by Creator/AEVanVogt. Published in ''Astounding Science Fiction'' in 1939, it was one of the first, if not ''the'' first, "Golden Age" ScienceFiction stories.

The story was incorporated into the novel ''Literature/VoyageOfTheSpaceBeagle'', and both there and in its original form has been massively influential over the years. Coeurl-like creatures have turned up in everything from TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons to ''Franchise/FinalFantasy''. The plot of ''Film/{{Alien}}'' was also similar enough that van Vogt took screenwriter Dan O'Bannon to court over the matter, similar to Creator/JosephPayneBrennan's dispute with the filmmakers behind ''Film/TheBlob''.