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Message: <blockquote data-quote="TwinBahamut" data-source="post: 4515558" data-attributes="member: 32536">I really question the plausibility of anything being too alien. Animal life on Earth developed the way it did for specific reasons, and these reasons don't change just because evolution takes place on a different world. Dolphins and whales look almost exactly like fish and sharks because that form is very well adapted to that kind of environment. Insects and Vertebrates are incredibly different in many ways, but both independently evolved heads, legs, wings, etc. This is the basic concept of Convergent Evolution, and it is easy to imagine that anything that evolves in space will, to some extent or another, have elements familiar to life on earth. If nothing else, alien life will almost certainly be carbon based, built from amino acid proteins, breathe oxygen, etc.As a whole, I prefer aliens to exist somewhere in the realm of "it could have evolved on Earth, but it doesn't look like anything on Earth". I don't like Star Trek/Star Wars/Babylon 5 (League of Non-Aligned Worlds aliens, not Vorlon/Shadows) style aliens, simply because they are essentially human cultures, and any alien elements are obscured by that. At the same time, while I like the occasional "truly alien and incomprehensible" life form, I don't think they should be common or the norm.I really like the idea of aliens that think a lot like humans, but have distinct quirks and different physiology. For example, an alien race that is a predatory species that has a body designed for stalking prey in tall grass, but is just as intelligent as a human. A pure predator/carnivore creature would probably have a different view of the world than an omnivore like humans, and matching it up with a non-humanoid form emphasizes that fact.  A species of insect-like beings that live in a hive society, but have human-level intelligence, is also interesting.Oddly enough, while I don't like Star Trek style humanoids, I love the idea of there being other actual humans out there, Stargate SG-1 style. As long as they have a common origin on a single planet and a good justification for being found out there, I really like seeing them, especially when you do things like create a group of them that have a symbiotic relationship with one of those truly bizarre aliens, creating something that is understandable but still alien...</blockquote>

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