Alien races: The Bizzarre form VS the vaguely humanoid form

[Set]

For games, it seems that 'men in funny suits' work better. Throw some Klingon style 'aliens' that are little more than humans with bumps on their foreheads and exemplarize one human trait taken to an extreme, and that seems easy to identify with. Ferengi - short people, obsessed with money! Vulcans - pointy-eared people, super-logical!

'Bending' the concept, it can be fun to play a completely human looking alien, who is *vastly* alien in temperament, 'vast, cool and unsympathetic,' (or just some guinea-pig-swallowing horrorshow) or a squiggly terrifying-looking freak who is capable of mimicing in all aspects a human personality (a 'mental shapeshifter' able to emulate / model the psyche and personality traits of others), and chooses to do so to 'get along with humans.'


For my sci-fi reading, I prefer extremes.

David Brins Startide Rising / Uplift Wars aliens are, if anything, a little too 'mundane' for me, although I do love the fact that while every other sci-fi setting out there promotes humanity as 'the adaptable ones,' Brin blew even that out of the water by having the Tymbrimi be a species entirely built around the concept of adaptability.

Jack Chalkers Demons of Rainbow Bridge books (Quintara Marathon trilogy) also have some really amazing and unique aliens (although his writing takes some getting used to, and he doesn't quite go so far as to have a hyperintelligent shade of the color blue...).

Charles Sheffields 'The Mind Pool' has some incredibly 'alien' aliens. One is a hive-mind swarm of beetles, for instance, while another is a strange fusion of vegetable and mineral.

Peter Hamilton, in the Reality Dysfunction, manages to introduce a human society of biotechnicians that are as alien, if not more so, than the aliens introduced later in the book. That's a pretty neat bit. Dave Wolverton in On My Way to Paradise, does a similar trick, again using humans who have embraced biotechnology and begun rampantly modifying themselves.

 

[Set]

It was posted in an earlier post that competition and predator/prey relationships would happen in any type of system (environment, planet, etc.) and regardless of type of creatures (carbon based, silicon based, etc.). I would add that sentience is probably not even possible without competition. Of all of the intelligent species of the planet, it seems every single one is a predator. The indicators we use, communication, cooperative interaction, and "play" are all traits of predators.

While this may be true, it would make for an interesting critter design to break that assumption and have a world where the predators are mostly instinct-driven and sub-sentient, not rising above the level of tooth and claw, while a species of herd herbivores have developed ever more sophisticated strategies to avoid being eaten, and ever more sophisticated *cooperative* strategies to ensure the survival of their herd / extended family group / genetic pool, until it is the prey that become sentient, while the predators are left behind (and end up subsisting on the prey animals that don't develop the ability to build walls between them and the predators!).

 

[Mallus]

When designing aliens I like to start by working out what their pre-sentient ancestors were like and extrapolating from there. Consider how they got food, avoided predators, etc and build that into their instincts and behaviors in the present day setting.

I'm guessing this process is informed by real biology/zoology? Which is what I meant by SF aliens having "extrapolated behavior based on non-human terrestrial zoology".

 

[Mallus]

Jack Chalkers Demons of Rainbow Bridge books (Quintara Marathon trilogy) also have some really amazing and unique aliens (although his writing takes some getting used to, and he doesn't quite go so far as to have a hyperintelligent shade of the color blue...).

I'd swear Chalker has something really close to the hyperintelligent shade of blue in his Well World novels, something from one of the more exotic hexes.

Peter Hamilton, in the Reality Dysfunction, manages to introduce a human society of biotechnicians that are as alien, if not more so, than the aliens introduced later in the book.

What did you find so alien about the Edenists?

 

[Shades of Green]

If you want both a more or less plausible setting and human-like aliens, you could always use genetically engineered (or otherwise biomodified or cybered) humans to fill their role. This works best when each biomodded kind of humans was sent to colonize a different world (probably biomodded to better fit that world in the first place) using sub-light ships; this way each would have some time to develop its own culture before faster-than-light drives are invented and the various colonies are re-contacted.

 

[Tetsubo]

For me I want the full range. From near-human (genetic variations of humans themselves), to semi-human (moreaus, Klingons, etc), to the absolutely alien. I like options.

 

[El Mahdi]

While this may be true, it would make for an interesting critter design to break that assumption and have a world where the predators are mostly instinct-driven and sub-sentient, not rising above the level of tooth and claw, while a species of herd herbivores have developed ever more sophisticated strategies to avoid being eaten, and ever more sophisticated *cooperative* strategies to ensure the survival of their herd / extended family group / genetic pool, until it is the prey that become sentient, while the predators are left behind (and end up subsisting on the prey animals that don't develop the ability to build walls between them and the predators!).

Oooh, I like that. It still requires a predator/prey relationship to achieve sentience, but it's the prey that acheives this. Very nice. It would be important to keep these defensive strategies from being adversarial or they would just be a sentient version of terrestrial herbivore herds. Maybe the insight into non-adversarial defense is what tips their evolution towards higher sentience. Terrestrial herds survive through numbers and adversarial defensive adaptions. Other than domesticated herbivores, I don't think their are any on earth that don't use some form of adversarial defense (horns, antlers, hooves, sheer bulk, etc.). Any predator of these animals knows not to take on healthy adults, that's why they mostly predate on the sick, weak, and young. They may go after a healthy adult, but usually only if it's isolated and they can bring sheer number to bear upon it.

In a way this could be applied to humans also. Humans were probably prey almost as much as predator. Maybe as far as sentient development, being on top of the food chain, all of the time, may actually lead to mental stagnation rather than continued improvement.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Traveller has always been fairly good at this. See if you can find any information on the less Human major and minor races of Traveller like Hivers, K'Kree, Newts (Bwaps), Crenduthaar, Vegans, the Devi and numerous others are great examples of strange appearences and strange attitudes combined. Of course Traveller also has Humans transplanted to other worlds by a highly advanced species of alien Ancients.

Traveller: 2300 was also very good at showing creatures that were alien in appearence yet very human in their thinking and somewhat humanoid aliens that were on a different plane of thought all together. Check out the Kafer, Pentapods, Ebers and Xiang. All are good examples of how divergent evolution might generate very different social dynamics for an alien intelligence.

Quoted for support.

The Traveller basic races were good because they concentrated on culture rather than appearance. I'm only including the major star-faring races here, of course (Their 'alien' modules dealt in detail with each of them). They started off with usual furries (Aslan = lion people, Vargr = dog people) but then started getting really interesting with the K'Kree (militant aggressive vegetarian herds... you would literally play a herd of K'Kree rather than an individual) and the Hivers (starfish aliens whose highest art form is the manipulation of others, and who are squeamish about physical violence but would have no qualms about nuking from orbit).

The Traveller:2300 aliens were interesting because they started from the basis of their biology and went from there. The adventure which introduced the Ebers in some depth was really interesting, because their biology dependened upon their multi-lobed brain, and they normally needed rituals to move themselves from one way of thinking to another (giving a new meaning to 'he is not in his right mind yet' ).

I like races with alien thought and culture patterns foremost, and then with some variety in shape after that.

Cheers

 

[The Green Adam]

The Traveller:2300 aliens were interesting because they started from the basis of their biology and went from there. The adventure which introduced the Ebers in some depth was really interesting, because their biology dependened upon their multi-lobed brain, and they normally needed rituals to move themselves from one way of thinking to another (giving a new meaning to 'he is not in his right mind yet' ).

I like races with alien thought and culture patterns foremost, and then with some variety in shape after that.

Cheers

Thanks for the support PS.

This is also how I go about designing my species for SF campaigns. I begin with culture and thought process, figure out what kind of condition both environmental and biological might generate such thinking and then extrapolate an appearence based on those elements.

The result is some near humans, a small number of vaguely recognizable as terrestrial animal inspired (though no true anthropomorphs, I just can't take those seriously*) and a few truly bizarre aliens whose home and outlook are very, very different from ours.

AD
"Never Give Up, Never Surrender!"

*It should be noted that while I don't like to generate anthropomorphic aliens on my own, I thoroughly embrace those created by others. I love Traveller's Aslan and Vargr, created a fairly detailed cultural background for Star Trek's Caitians and even enjoy a good Ewok now and then. On my own, I've general animal-like creatures but with less obvious origins...

"Wow it's like a...it's a...bird...no...well it's avian and...with a pouch...it's...a kangaroo? No...a...what the heck is this thing?!"