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<blockquote data-quote="Plane Sailing" data-source="post: 5021231" data-attributes="member: 114">Forwards' books are definitely worth reading, and highly non-traditional aliens. The cheela live on a neutron star at a vastly accelerated timescale (and are very tiny). The flouen are surfing mathematician amoeboids.Traveller actually had some very decent aliens - at first glance they fell for the 'bipedal animals' approach, but they actually went quite a lot further than that in considering their societies.Aslan ('cat people'). Sexually dimorphic, the males are aggressive territory based sapients who are not good with abstract concepts. The females are good with abstract concepts like money. This means the sexes take very different roles in their society.Vargr ('dog people'). Least interesting to me, they are easily swayed by charismatic leaders, and don't like authority figures, the more remote they are the less they pay attention.Centaurs ('aggressive herbivores'). Always travel in herds, with defined roles for each herd member. Extremely conservative, and they sicken and die if separated from their fellows. Aggressively stamp out carnivores whenever they smell meat on your breath...Hivers ('starfish'). They take pride in manipulating others, whether other hivers or other alien races. They find the moral repugnancy of violence is inversely proportional to the distance from the victim. They couldn't bring themselves to club someone, but wouldn't have a twinge of compunction about pressing a button to nuke someone from orbit.It was nice that some thought was given to making them something other than 'men in funny suits'Cheers</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Plane Sailing, post: 5021231, member: 114"] Forwards' books are definitely worth reading, and highly non-traditional aliens. The cheela live on a neutron star at a vastly accelerated timescale (and are very tiny). The flouen are surfing mathematician amoeboids. Traveller actually had some very decent aliens - at first glance they fell for the 'bipedal animals' approach, but they actually went quite a lot further than that in considering their societies. Aslan ('cat people'). Sexually dimorphic, the males are aggressive territory based sapients who are not good with abstract concepts. The females are good with abstract concepts like money. This means the sexes take very different roles in their society. Vargr ('dog people'). Least interesting to me, they are easily swayed by charismatic leaders, and don't like authority figures, the more remote they are the less they pay attention. Centaurs ('aggressive herbivores'). Always travel in herds, with defined roles for each herd member. Extremely conservative, and they sicken and die if separated from their fellows. Aggressively stamp out carnivores whenever they smell meat on your breath... Hivers ('starfish'). They take pride in manipulating others, whether other hivers or other alien races. They find the moral repugnancy of violence is inversely proportional to the distance from the victim. They couldn't bring themselves to club someone, but wouldn't have a twinge of compunction about pressing a button to nuke someone from orbit. It was nice that some thought was given to making them something other than 'men in funny suits' Cheers [/QUOTE]

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