How do you make aliens alien...

How do you make aliens alien? I know that it's not really possible to get outside of the human headspace to make something truly alien, but I still think you can make something weird enough to seem that way at first.

Also, alien thread.

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Radial symmetry

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Make them all woodly and stuff.

This. Lovecraft did it once to describe the Old ones, to great effect, and GW ripped it off in the form of the most alien looking model I've ever seen.

Like in the sense of made of wood, or in the sense of mountain men?

Yes.

Read on biology of insects and non-mammals. Then make your alien based on either. Also, don't even try to make it have culture and language if you want to it stay alien.

But Giger's aliens are hardly alien. They're actually very human. They're based on our sexuality and fears. They're scary, but not due to fear of unknown, but rather fear of ourselves. It's even more obvious with space jockeys aka engineers.

Okay, theoretical xeno-soc post incoming:
What you need to remember is that every species is driven by instincts built by the conditions and survival strategies of its non-sapient ancestors. It then promptly fights these instincts when it hits sapience, while still using some, and creating others. Once we hit sapience though, evolutionary psychology is basically useless, since it typically (from what I have seen) ignore sapience and is subject to bias, belief in instinctual logic in regards to genetic optimization, and axiomatic thinking (we are like this because X was the genetically optimal thing to do is the most common statement I hear). This is when sociology takes over, because once a species hits sapience and starts creating tools to modify the environment for purposes not of immediate benefit, you have to understand them as a group that can anticipate issues (crudely anticipate), or provide an immediate response to such.
So we have some things in common with all alien species: we desire to communicate with our fellows, we desire to pass on physical and psychological traits to the next generation, we need some form of food, and a whole host of other things. What breaks commonality is the differences in expression. Just look at the differences between the Japanese and the Vikings (for a random example). Or the Koala and the Scorpion (for another random example).
So how to make an alien race? Well first, start with environment of the ancestors - a swamp creature is different from a desert creature in fulfillment of needs, even though there are common needs. Available resources drives difference. Then we can look at method of fulfillment - herbivores are different from omnivores are different from carnivores. Omnivores would be the most common of sapient aliens, by the way - double the resource availability. How they meet those needs is important: our ancestors were endurance hunter/gatherers, which is vastly different from sprint hunters, or trappers.

group interactions are important too - small group versus big group, or even mostly singular creates massive differences.
Methods of child raising can determine the typical family unit, along with total number of children per birth (and if they can have multiple parents).
You can throw even more weird shit in, but remember - for every biological imperative, there is someone who didn't get it, or rebels against it. Natural evolution never decreases diversity, and it takes deliberate effort from sapient beings to even try.

Truly alien aliens are plot devices not characters. Make them weird, gross, or spooky looking. They are not able to be communicated with. They and humanity do not have common goals, and their motives are dimly-understood at best and completely incomprehensible at worst. They are generic bad guys, looming threats, or a barrier preventing exploration into their territory.

You want something the characters can interact with in a meaningful way? You're going to have to anthropomorphize it.

The movie Alien functions on the basis of the fear of the unknown. We didn't know what the Alien was when it first hit theatres. Now there's more than half a dozen movies featuring the beast, every nook and cranny of its design and bilogy has been explored and explained. The alien is no longer alien.

Giger's design was biomechanical, covered in wormlike tubes and phalluses, and had the spine-like tail. It lacked a face to dehumanize it (this change was made quite late into the progress. it originally had a human skull under the translucent "cap".)
But most importantly, the way in which it reproduced was horrifying and inherently strange.

Other than this, yes, they are human. What is important is that, during the movie Alien, the human aspects were hidden.

As for OP's question these guys are right on the money:
I guess I could add that, to truly KEEP your aliens alien, a veil of mystery should shroud them. The more you reveal about them, the more obvious it becomes that your alien is based on earth-life.

Xenomorphs were more a tool of horror than a good representation of aliens. They have some good alien themes, and they're strange enough, but they're relatable enough to make you uncomfortable, and that's kind of the point.

Anons mentioned radial symmetry, and that's okay, but you can't use it for every alien you wanna make. One, maybe two max. Using different kinds of symmetry like that can work.

Different modes of reproduction, consumption, different sensory apparatuses(apparati?), odd methods of communication, all those can make your ETs feel alien.

Something as simple as culture or technology can work too. Having a space-faring species that lives almost entirely in the digital world - transplanting the consciousness through universal internet or whatever, living as 'colonies' of a hundred or a thousand in a single body, that kind of thing - can be interesting. I happen to use something like that in one my interstellar species, idea free of charge and up for grabs.

Also, we had a few threads about this recently, they might still be in the archive, I haven't looked.

I've always found "the colour that came from the espace" a really good approach to an alien existence. It's not an animal, it's not a creature, it's not even a material being. It's something that should not live, an element of reality that should not have conscience, and yet it does. The concept that it should not be and yet it is is what makes it so alien for me.

I have made an alien species for the Galactic Federation threads (that have been moved to /qst/ by the mods), I also tried to make them alien an unique.
docs.google.com/document/d/1m-RHzdWkfXWoGUFmOer_tSV7cy1ur1TTsu65Rm6doRY

They are mostly based of a portrait from Stellaris along with the government and ethics for that special as a sort of frame

If I had to do it, I'd first gague what the players are expecting. Are they thinking star wars? star trek? Alien? Something weirder? Basically, find out where their expectations lie, and then do the opposite.

make them do insane shit that doesn't make sense when analyzed outside the context of their highly complex reproductive cycle

it still did and, technically, does have a skull under there
it was just well hidden with the lighting and cinematography of the film

>alien gopnik
Man that's a scary thought.

Objectively the best aliens

Have them have different needs than humans

Say I had a race of robots that are psychic boxes.
>they are robots, they don't care about food
>limbs who has limbs
>cubes can't have sex user
>what purpose do they have if they don't need anything? Humans are mostly driven by food and sex, so what would a race without those needs be like?

What about a race that doesn't die? Shoot them enough and they will come back. To avoid people getting captured they could have a group of door-kickers that save captured immortals.

>rubberhead
>best
2nd from the right is kinda dope, though.

0/10

Let your mind wander and piece things together based on the way it goes. Write shit down, push it off to the side and start again. Don't discard any possibility for not seeming write, carry it through, record it and start again. Take the light, fluid touch of creativity.
Simplicity in any given moment is key.

The harder you try the more overwrought and grounded the thing will become. The harder you try to sell it as ALIEN ELDRITCH AND BEYOND UNDERSTANDING the less interesting the result will be.

ayylmao

Bump.

I try to imagine a species that evolved to fit a completely different environment.
Forget humanoids, bipeds or anything similar to what we know.
Imagine a completely alien planet, imagine how it would form in its initial states. Imagine were life would develop initially and what aspects of the planet it would try to explore. Imagine a small ecosystem and how the animals would evolve to fit it better. Then imagine a versatile, omnivorous species who adopted intelligence and adaptability as its main features and work from there.
Shaping a realistic animal different from everything we know and giving it a fitting culture is what makes it alien for me.

Dont focus on cosmetics. Start by taking something you take for granted about how our biological lifecycle works and change that. How does that affect their psychology and priorities?

From that change, imagine how civilization would have begun differently for such a species. What brought them together? How does that culture evolve?

For example, I have a race of aliens that dont reproduce sexually, but rather carry a bunch of parasitic eggs gestating in their digestive system that dont hatch until the host dies, eating their 'mother' from the inside and emerging from the corpse.

Such a species doesnt have the same fear of death that we do. They cant. Death is integral to propagation. But certain kinds of death, like disease or incineration, would be abhorrant to them because the children wont survive. A wasteful death.

Their civilization grew out of a kind of debt based economy, creating leverage over others to ensure that when you die, your kids have the advantage of a mentor and protector in your place. This quest for leverage defines most of their lives. Wealth is a kind of leverage, but not the only kind that matters.

Do your work right, and your aliens will be Alien regardless of what they look like.

Anatomy aside, the Elder Things were pretty human. They were just pricks