What is your fave alien race?

[Knightfall]

The Fraal, as they were originally done for the Alternity RPG. A close second are the Shantha from the Skyrealms of Jorune RPG.

Shantha
The recognized original inhabitants of Jorune, the eyeless Shantha are an object of terror or awe for the other races. They are not dependent on their personal isho levels to weave massive dyshas, or create new isho constructs on a whim. They prefer walking through warps to get where they want to go and will only be seen in other forms of transportation for special reasons. Shantha live underground and belong to one of the seven Lih-al by birth. Their underground cities are usually built where a skyrealm is about to break free of the ground - Shantha stabilize the birthing skyrealm and create homes and civic centers in the huge caverns opened beneath the crystal rich mountains.

Shantha see by isho and can observe you without facing you, which can unnerve some travelers. Ud Sho Gobey is the current speaker for the Shantha and lives with a resident Tra- Shantha in Ardoth. Desti is an island west of Temauntro where Shantha keep the old ways. Travelers are not forbidden, but no provision is made for those requiring non-shanthic foods.
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[DMH]

There are several of the 10 races from Mechanical Dream that can be used as aliens and my favorite is the yaki. They have enchanted armor (with many options) made from their afterbirth. Instead of magic, I see biotech.

Zin were created as supersoldiers and can not congregate since an hardwired desire to kill each other is used to keep them from taking over. Their standard form is rather small and not particularly powerful. In combat, they use a psionic construct- a 20 meter tall death dealing beast.

 

[cmrscorpio]

Nearly any of the creatures from Call of Cthulhu are great aliens; from alien planets, times, or dimensions.

Predators and Aliens are cool, as long as you disregard the movie AvP. They, as well as the Thing, can be found in d20 versions here.

[edit]
oh, and Farscape had some really cool aliens
[/edit]

 

[Presto2112]

I emjoy the Ferengi from the Star Trek universe the most; they be my favorite aliens. I mean, come on! A race of profit hungry merchants are too good to pass up.

Who do you think is running WotC?

 

[Mieric]

My favorite aliens? Why the Leather Goddesses of Phobos of course.

The game begins in Upper Sandusky, Ohio, in 1936 and is presented in the manner of a science fiction serial of that time. The Leather Goddesses of Phobos are just finalising their plans for the invasion of Earth. The player's character has been abducted by the Leather Goddesses for the final testing of the plan which will enslave all of humanity. Unless this nefarious plan is stopped, the Earth will be turned into these twisted vixens' pleasure dome.

 

[Slife]

Maybe the AAnn (not a typo) or the Thranx.

I just like Foster's stuff.

 

[Herzog]

The Orz, and various other races from Star Control (game) are interesting enough to use in a game I think, although most of them might need some extra background.

However, if you need aliens to fill up your universe, they do just nice!

Herzog

 

[diaglo]

Apts, Banths, Thoats, Calots, Orluks, Sith, Darseen from Booklet 3 The Underworld and Wilderness Adventures (1974)

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

One of my favorite sci-fi novels was Permanence by Karl Schroeder.

The aliens are so alien they cannot communicate with humans except through AI. And even then, the AI always gives multiple translations and you pick the one that seems right.

According to Permance theory, aliens cannot get along because they don't share anything in common.

Here are examples of aliens that are rather ... nasty.

Humans landed on a planet that bore life but no sentience. Lots of plants, animals, microbes, and everything you'd expect. They found weird radio signals that didn't make sense.

The humans started building their colonies while scientists did things like collect samples of life. Looking at the DNA (despite the obvious differences, they shared the same genetic stuff we're made of), the scientists discovered that all living things on that planet had the same DNA! What. The. Heck?

Eventually they DNA tested humans and found a number of pregnant women with "alien" babies. The babies, when born, looked and acted just like humans but had the alien DNA. (The women were not sleeping with aliens, by the way!)

It turns out the aliens don't like the idea of adapting their environment to suit them. They adapt themselves to suit their environment. And now there were changeling babies causing panic.

They figured the radio waves were the way the "different" alien species communicated with each other. They managed to communicate the aliens through the changelings (whose human brains were not connected to the alien communication network and had no loyalty issues). Upon discovering the human philosphy, the aliens declared war on the humans. It's not good when the very plants around you try to kill you! Nor the alien bear-like creatures. Etc. The humans were forced to evacuate and nuke that planet.

They knew there were the same aliens on other planets, some also colonized by humans. These planets didn't know what had happened to the nuked planets and were unaware that humans were anything but a resource to be colonized, in effect. The humans are slowly withdrawing from those other planets.

Another race were autotrophs. Humans colonized their planet, unaware of the autotrophs, who (though they had AIs) refused to communicate with anything that killed plants or animals for food. Some monks found out about the autotrophs and actually created green-skinned humans that didn't eat anything (instead using photosynthesis, so they're human autotrophs) to communicate with the autotrophs. The experiments went a bit too far... the human autotrophs refused to live with regular humans, although they were (barely) willing to communicate with them. Travellers (namely the heroes) wanted to visit the autotrophs, and eventually got their wish. They found themselves in a cave with lots of green things. They asked the human autotroph which ones were the intelligent autotrophs. The human autotroph responded: "An autotroph is not a thing. An autotroph is a system."

In another sci-fi novel, one species of aliens consisted of a colony of less intelligent beings, that together added up to something a bit more intelligent than a human. Can you imagine an alien taking off a piece of itself and giving it to you as a gift, so you'll never miss them?

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Upon discovering the human philosphy, the aliens declared war on the humans.

I think you used this description somewhere else, and I had one question ever since.
Does declaring a war really fit this philosophy:

It turns out the aliens don't like the idea of adapting their environment to suit them. They adapt themselves to suit their environment.

Essentially, the slowly "assimilation" of humans (human population slowly changing into the alien race) seemed to be the only type of reasonable warfare they would try, but not outright attacking humans. Unless open warfare is their type of "adapting to the enviroment" - but aren't the humans not also a part of the enviroment?