Could we have an alien thread? For pictures and discussions about aliens

...

...

These are great. Everything else I think is too similar to terrestrial creatures. I feel like aliens should be as different to us as we are to moss.

I like the fact that even if is so alien, is still clearly a pretty cool guy. Is a bit like the aliens in Arrival.

Guys, what if we make our own alien?!

>1d4chan.org/wiki/Creature_Feature_Creation_Table_for_/tg

KeK. First thing I thought off when seeing the alium in OP.

That's kind of a contradiction though isn't it? Defining what is alien solely by how different it is to us? That's indicative of having your own preconceived notions of alien and terrestrial.

Rolled 15 (1d100)

Eh, I'm bored so why not, rollan

...

Jungle - "It thrives in a dense saturated jungle filled with diverse wildlife."

>What is the creature's food habits? (d10)

Rolled 1 (1d10)

That alien is dying of a conditional spinal disease.

Poor thing.

Try some of the stuff on herder's island.

Anyone else ever see the movie version of Solaris?

That is probably the worst movie I've ever seen. Way to kill Solaris forever.

Watch the Tarkovsky version.

Carnivore - "The Creature is a natural carnivore killing prey outright when given the chance."

>How does the creature reproduce? (d10)

Is it as arthouse-y as Stalker? I wasn't too keen on that one.

...

Rolled 6 (1d10)

Not that arthouse-y, no, but still pretty intellectual. I'd argue Solaris as a concept is pretty arthouse-y to begin with though.

...

...

Are you braindamaged? Maybe you should stick to Star Wars and capeshit.

Well I'll give it a watch then.

Ok.

Also, can you really predict how an alien species will think? I guess there would have to be some similarites to the way our brains work.

We can kinda understand the way a lot of really intelligent animals on Earth think. Problem solving is problem solving. Culturally they could be totally foreign, but presenting a human and an intelligent alien with a logic puzzle should result in the same answer for both.

True, I suppose that makes having a central nervous system of some sort necessary then. Is there's any viable alternatives?
Plants can react seemingly intelligently to their surroundings with chemical signals but maybe that's not really viable for a reactive, mobile species.

Even without a nervous system, problem solving is problem solving and physics is the same everywhere. Tool use is inevitable, and the optimization of tool use is inevitable. Ergonomics and the progression of technology would be different, but ultimately they'd probably come to make stuff not too dissimilar to ours.

but that makes sense, considering they'd have a totally different evolutionary pathway and different environments.

it is very likely that any alien life would not resemble anything on earth, except maybe in color.

Does it? We have a huge variety of life on Earth. Even things that look suitably alien.

I'm not saying aliens out to look familiar, just that the design motivations when making them should be thinking about how and why they evolved, not just making them as different from Earth life as possible.

Must have seen it at least twice and I remember nothing.

There would probably be lots of similarities too.

THICC

>High test alpha

"the blood is rushing toooooo my head/blacking out blacking out blacking out"

Hell yeah. I love aliens. How human/weird do you guys like your aliens, on a scale from vulcan to hooloovoo?

Interestingly enough, some scientists have done virtual simulations before where geometric lifeforms seeking resources have gone through many generations, and the resulting most successful lifeforms usually resemble earth-life forms alot.

Keep in mind for animals, form basically always is related to function. There is a reason fish look like they do, its streamlined and good for swimming, there's a reason trees look like they do, or men like they do.

Any truly alien alien has to be the result of either a very different environment then Earth, or have a body plan that can compete with earth-style life.

Things don't just grow eye-stalks and tons of limbs just because they can. It has to provide an advantage, or at the least NOT provide a disadvantage.

Well, then how different do you think they'd look, within the same sorta bracket as terrestrial lifeforms?

Mammalian bipeds, for instance?

>Things don't just grow eye-stalks and tons of limbs just because they can.

Unless you're The Thing.

About as different as marsupials are from placentals, assuming the environment is completely earth-like.

Most differences would be at the genetic level, not the level of morphology.

Fascinating.

What environment do you think would allow the largest divergence from terrestrial morphologies, without being, like, bacteria that use arsenic instead of carbon, or whatever?

The ocean, and planets with differing gravity. The key here is understanding that biology is architecture.

Look at an elephant, the way its built. Big heavy body supported on big heavy legs. That isn't just there for aesthetics, its supporting all that weight, distributing it so it doesn't collapse. A deer, with its thin legs and comparatively big body, would collapse like twigs at that scale, just as a building made of blocks can without supports easily look like a skyscraper, but an actual skyscraper requires steel framing to just stand standing. The forces at work on the architecture are not the same in differing environments or sizes.

So the key to alien life, is allowing for new forms of weight distribution, and situations where novel features are USEFUL for survival. Putting your eyes on stalks is really just begging to get that cut off for a predatory quadraped [for instance].

In the ocean, or in planets with less or more gravity, the "rules" are different. You can easily have enormous creatures in a low gravity world, but comparatively weak and fine for their size, like elegant lumbering trees. Or at sea, where weight is less of an issue, and almost anything that can move through water can survive. Compare modes of locomotion.

On land, almost everything has legs. At sea, there is fins, there is squirting, there is tendrils, there's whatever the hell seahorses do. There's more variety in motion, because there's more equally efficient modes of locomotion. Whereas on land, basically nothing beats legs [besides wheels in speed, but those suck for maneuverability by comparison]

D'you think it's possible for life to evolve in a zero-gravity environment? Like, some sort of anaerobic lifeform inside an asteroid, for instance.

>Spore sequel

Only if all the things necessary for life are there. Water and heat are needed to drive the chemical reactions for instance, so if there's not a constant source of both, the answer is no. Oxygen of course is needed.

Supposing you had all of those things, there is no reason you couldn't have zero-gravity life, though their resulting morphologies would be extremely weird, since there would be no practical limit to the size they could grow other then their metabolism's requirements.

I imagine some of the lifeforms would look like anchored "trees" that simply grow like coral along the asteroid walls, while others would move by pressurized air shot out of their anus.

The question for "What kind of life would exist in this environment?" can usually be answered by "What kind of life would survive and thrive in this environment?"

Something that looks cool, but is clearly disadvantaged would easily get BTFO by a more efficient species who occupied the same niche.

Also keep in mind that we see similar forms evolving convergently on earth. Those common traits might just be hidden in the DNA of our common ancestor and of all those hidden traits they happen to be the best suited to survive in certain conditions but not the best trait that any creature could mutate.

But we don't have any evidence to suggest that a better trait could be evolved than what we've seen on earth.

Any alien/cthulhu monster design with human/terran creature features completely kills it for me

>eyes
>head
>nose
>mouth on head
>teeth
>4 limbs
>long prehensile limbs for that matter

That's just humanity projecting its fears on the design of a creature. You might as well put a big red "A human created this" stamp on it.

Very, very few artists can design the truly alien, they always end up designing just a reflection of ourselves. Even Giger never did it.

>physics is the same everywhere

In a scifi you could totally play with that and maybe make them from a place in the galaxy where physics isn't strictly the same?

>Water and heat are needed to drive the chemical reactions for instance

GURPS space has a couple of very nice chapters on alien creation and among other things they go into that assumption and discuss replacing water with ammonia.

Can a smarter man than myself explain the difference between Carbon-based life forms and theoretical Silicon-based ones?

As far as I know, silicon based life would grow and live very slowly compared to Earth life. And it would be more crystaline. Carbon is known for being a very "flexible" element, as in carbon bonds are more malleable than silicon ones, meaning silicon based creatures would most likley be more rigid. Lot's of crystal-trees, saltators (running animals) would be harder.

Also, take into account that any world with silicon based life would probably be in the realm of "extremophile" environments for us. Extreme hot or cold, unbreathable air, so on...

Yeah yeah, speculative sci-fi loves shoving the carbon-silicon duality down everyone's throats, but it doesn't HAVE to be based on just those 2 elements.

That's the thing, we just don't know. Mercury or argentum-based life might be possible with the right compounds.

While I never said silicon was the only other element that could make life, you are correct. Didn't scientists find an arsenic based lifeform a few years ago?

It used arsenic in place of phosphorus for DNA, which most life isn't equipped to handle. It generally replaced all the arsenic with phosphorus when given the chance, which suggests it's suboptimal, but it's something.

That's not really fair. We want something that's the alien equivalent of an animal, not something sessile, and it's pretty hard to think of good ways of being a thing that moves around in an atmosphere (or in a liquid) under gravity -and survives- that Earth life hasn't tried.

How do I make aliens for my setting Veeky Forums?

Making them humanoid makes them relatable, but then people complain about it not being alien enough. Making them weird makes people complain about them not being relatable. What do?

The issue with ammonia-based life is that, at the very low temperatures needed for ammonia to be liquid and therefore viable, chemical reaction would proceed incredibly slowly. As well, the bonds that ammonia forms with other chemicals are weak when compared to water; and ammonia being flammable when exposed to oxygen means that it couldn't exist sustainably in an environment suitable for aerobic metabolism (e.g., the ability of cells to create biochemical energy from nutrients).

Biology is basically just applied chemistry. If life is out there at all, it is overwhelmingly likely to be broadly chemically identical to that of Earth. A few higher parts per million in one area, a few lower parts per million in others, but basically the same.

>but it doesn't HAVE to be based on just those 2 elements

The thing is, it really sorta' does. Again, biology is just applied chemistry. Carbon is the basis for life on Earth because of a combination of how common it is in the universe, and how chemically reactive it is with other basic elements in the universe. Silicon is seen as a potential replacement due to it being able to create molecules sufficiently large enough to carry biological information.

The issue is that it's a very, very distant second. Of the varieties of molecules identified in the interstellar medium as of 1998, 84 are based on carbon while only 8 are based on silicon - and of those 8, four of them involve carbon anyway.

Get any more massive than silicon and the number of potential chemical bonds just decreases even further. It's pretty much carbon, or nothing.

>Didn't scientists find an arsenic based lifeform a few years ago?

Nope.

news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/07/120709-arsenic-space-nasa-science-felisa-wolfe-simon/

Do what you want because the galaxy is big.

Include 30 foot tall bug people.
Crystal like people who can fly through the cosmos are a must.
Don't forget to add ponies. Or deer.

Sci-fi deer are cool.

Make them look weird, but care about some of the things that humans care about.

"They might be 12 foot tall insectoids from the Trailing Expanse, but the Anoi can definitely appreciate a good tune"

Oh, and for maximum reliability, make sure it's something cultural or sentimental, like art, music, or friendship.

I just realized this dude is like the species' equivalent of a yuppie.

>Colourful wifebeater
>Smoking three joints at once
>Flip flops
>Zero concern with outward appearance; just look at those ungroomed legs

*relatability
also try and have more than one thing

Generally speaking, most species with two legs and arms are some offshoot of humanity in my setting. Most of the other galactic powers tend to look rather weird.

He's actually a drug dealer. He's also got a phone with "ear"buds, which is a cute detail.

... How in god's name do they dress themselves, let alone make the clothing in the first place???

It's a cool picture, but unless they have a benefactor species, big time, I can't wrap my head around how it would work. Unless maybe if they have retractable prehensile tentacles or something.

Tarkovsky said he made the first half as boring as possible to keep the Plebs out.

Either way, Lem hated both movie adaptations.

It would be quite similar to Earth animals.

I mean look at how many damn times Earth animals evolved wings completely independently, wouldn't be hard to guess an alien flying animal would have wings.

Incomprehensible aliens, who can create humanoid avatars for interacting with us, are the best.

Prehensile tongues are a hell of thing, man

No one in this thread seems to be discussing intelligent aliens, it's just alien fauna

I'd bet intelligent aliens would end up looking a lot like humans because evolution often finds the same solutions for the same problems in different species.
Like, they'd probably be capable of something like speaking since you can't transmit complex ideas otherwise, and something like gestures can't be used for warnings and such.

...

>Should they look and act like humans?
Absolutely not. Unless they're modified humans, something which will obviously occur by the time space opera is real, and most likely long before. The elite of Earth will be an immortal separate species by the time humanity spreads itself across the galaxy.

>Or be completely alien?
Not COMPLETELY, I like them to be carbon-based lifeforms with DNA that survive on biomass.

Bump.

>considering they'd have a totally different evolutionary pathway and different environments.
The range of environment hospitable to life is very small. It probably wouldn't be all that different

Is it even possible to do a decent Lem movie? I mean, you could produce a visual rendering of the events in, say, Peace on Earth, but I can't imagine it capturing the feel of the book. Maybe Pirx the Pilot would work.

I encourage you to give the book a shot. If you get through ten pages and decide it's too dry for you, okay, fair enough. But it really is a good book.

It doesn't have to be "hidden in the DNA of our common ancestor" so much as a developmental bias towards a particular sort of adaptation imparted by pre-existing genetic regulatory pathways.

The term for this is "parallelism," and it's hard to say exactly what its role in evolution is.

Evolve, certainly. Originate, though—that's a harder question, because we're not sure how life on Earth originated. Once we get a really good handle on that, many questions of this sort will become easier.

You certainly can get (relatively) complex organic molecules in space. Dunno whether anyone's going to publish a plausible pathway that takes you to RNA, say, but this whole topic is not especially well resolved.

Sadly, this finding has been all but discredited at this point.

...

these are the only things that truly appear alien to me in this thread. the rest of it seems more terrestrial, fantasy. I'm not here to dictate people's settings or anything, but I'd cut my dick off if any alien life we ever found looked as similar to stuff on earth as a lot of the art here.

think silicate organisms evolving in ethanol pools shit.

Who wants to make an alium?

2d6.

Rolled 6, 4 = 10 (2d6)

I do!

Environment: Exotic

This species evolved in an exotic environment, something way outside the bounds. Roll another 2d6 to determine a starting point, and then we can add some exotic flair to it.

Rolled 4, 5 = 9 (2d6)

What creation table are you using user?

Lets go down the list of things you listed and explain why you're fucking retarded, because most of those things have an entirely practical purpose which could easily apply to an alien eco-system
>eyes are for seeing, visual sensors are useful and the eye is a pretty good design, in fact its one of the more interesting examples of convergent evolution having been designed from the ground up several times over, which shows you just how good it is at its job.
>Head a rotational device that allows you to move the sensory organs without having to turn your entire body around, pretty useful
>Nose another sensory organ, useful in any situation where anything ever has a smell, which organic life does since all organic life has some excretions of one kind or another, they're tubes so you can point 'em mate, they help direct, they're useful if you're a predator since you can then track shit using the direction of smell
>Mouth on head again a matter of flexibility, you want to be able to move the mouth in as many directions as you can so that clever fuckers can't hide in awkward places from you
>Teeth are literally made for grinding food up for greater surface area for digestion and efficiency, saying 'I want my aliens without teeth' is like saying 'Yeah but we all know mines in the future won't grind up the rock! BECAUSE HURP'
>4 limbs, fair enough on this one, not much to say
>Long prehensile limbs, are useful for fucking everything, Jesus Christ nigger, they're actually built for a purpose, because resources are sometimes hard to reach.
I say this as someone who is personally really fond of gas giant based life forms just because they're so alien, alien for the sake of being alien isn't realistic, all life strives to be practical first and foremost for its environment.

Too often a writer/artist will attempt to come up with an alien species whose sole evolutionary purpose seems to be radically different from humans. Any alien that does not make "sense" should be discarded. If they have extremely poor locomotive functions based on their 5½ legs, it probably sucks as a species. If its head is five times the size of any other bodypart torso included, it probably sucks aswell. If it doesnt have any eyes it probably sucks. Infact, if it lacks any of the senses humans have, it probably sucks.

Well you could make allowance for some ineffective atavisms - intelligence can cover for weaknesses. But not a lot of them.

Not the same guy, but allow me to bend you over for being so fucking smug.

>eyes

Useless if the organism lives in an environment where it's dark or the atmosphere is foggy. Echolocation is a better tool for those places.

>head

Extendable sensory organs can fit better, if the environment results in regular risk to body parts when exposing them. Lose a head, you're dead. Lose one of many sonar stalks, you're still alive.

>nose

Unless the place has such strong winds that it would be better to have a small series of grooves for air to blow through, not part of a head or connected to a respiratory tract.

>mouth

Mobile hyperdermis may be a better option. If prey is out of reach but a thin fang on a tentacle can slip in, then it's a better option.

>teeth

Again, not required. The alien could feed on liquids within its prey, or it spits out acid that dissolves its prey.

>4 limbs

Finally, you're thinking outside of mammals.

>long prehensile limbs

Snakes are doing pretty well without them.

If you weren't such an arrogant twat, I wouldn't have needed to point out all the ways in which you lack imagination, but you were so I did.

One from the old Star Wars game.

Ok, so our environment is an exotic type of Plain. Large flatlands, lots of open space, but with an unusual quality that would make life difficult or unique.

2d for our species origin.

>True, I suppose that makes having a central nervous system of some sort necessary then.
Nope. There are plenty of hard scifi stories about weird hypothetical intelligent lifeforms that have no central nervous system.

Rolled 5, 4 = 9 (2d6)

You'd probably end up dickless for many reasons already mentioned in the thread. Carbon life is OP, silicate a shit

snakes are long prehensile limbs

>a body is a limb