Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: MicroPsycho on July 25, 2004, 08:30:22 pm
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I was wondering what movies and games (and books) have truly alien-looking aliens. I mean with as little resemblance to any earth-dwelling creature.
The allmighty Shivans looked looked truly alien, IMO. well, the most alien I've ever seen at the very least.
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Not movies, but in Stephan Baxters books he cooked up some really alien aliens, pretty strange stuff.
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Star craft, the zerg where good with the gaurdians and those flappy dude, unless u say they look like flying prawns with wings :D
the face hugger is good from aliens aswell.
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Master Of Orion - Silicoids
FreeSpace - Shivans
Homeworld: Cataclysm - Beast
StarCraft - Overlords (zerg support units)
Babylon 5 - Walkers of Sigma 957
Star Trek - Borg
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Books? No shortage of 'em.
Movies? Err... if you really wanted to stretch, you could count Solaris in there. Not an awful lot, otherwise.
Games? Hostile Waters's "aliens" (I don't know why, but HW was blessed with no one but two sets of the COOLEST BADGUYS EVER. Anyone who doesn't have this game, even just for the cutscene monologues, officially sucks balls), as well as the games already mentioned. Half-Life's tentacle monsters?
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The aliens from Aliens! :D
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you know, when you look at probability, the differences between species just on this planet, and the shear number of planets in the universe, even shivans look way too much like humans.
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Well, you have to take into account that something truly alien that resembles nothing on Earth won't have the same impact on a Human veiwer that some resembling a giant insect with incandescent claws and a built in photon cannon would. Human generally considers insects to be scary, because they are so unlike anything else on Earth.
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I wish I was alive the day we discover another race of beings. :D
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What, like as in sentient? Me, I wonder whether they'll be better be-teched and "colonize" us, or vice versa.
Either way, should be entertaining for a few centuries 'till one side or the other's finished getting the Indian treatment. And I'm most certainly glad it's unlikely I'll have to be there to see it.
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IMHO the Sulogars from Urban Assault were pretty wierd.
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Originally posted by .::Tin Can::.
I wish I was alive the day we discover another race of beings. :D
What if these aliens turned out to destroy the human race
:p
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star wars has some good ones......the "guild" in dune.....and predator. I always like the one's in predator.
as far as them coming to destroy the human race.......:rolleyes: newbs....
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as far as them coming to destroy the human race.......:rolleyes: newbs....
[color=66ff00]*ponders*
ACK! ACK! We are your friends! Do not run!
[/color]
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Originally posted by Ghostavo
Star Trek - Borg
Borg? :wtf:
He said LITTLE resemblance. The borg look perfectly human except for the implants.
You want one from Star Trek try Species 8472.
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Hyperintelligent shades of blue.
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The only truly alien species in Star Trek are the Tholians. Everything else is more or less humanoid and driven by more or less human motivations, even 8472.
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Originally posted by Kamikaze
Hyperintelligent shades of blue.
[color=66ff00]Good call.
The aliens from Abyss count?
[/color]
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Should. Living "water" mimicing a human face once or twice doesn't count as looking human I would think.
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the water wasn't alive...it was being manipulated by the aliens who live under the water.
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I always liked the Crystalline entity :D Now that's some serious bling! :D
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The Flood from HALO, especially those infection forms.
The Zerg.
The Gargantua, Big Momma, and Headcrab from Half-Life.
A lot of races from Star Wars, the Hutts come to mind as an example.
The aliens in Pitch Black and the ones in Chronicles of Riddick and Escape from Butchers Bay.
The Mooninites and Plutonians from Aqua Teen Hunger Force.
ANd that's all for now.
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Originally posted by Liberator
The only truly alien species in Star Trek are the Tholians. Everything else is more or less humanoid and driven by more or less human motivations, even 8472.
The Tholians (TOS, ENT), Horta (TOS) Crystalline critter (TNG), the "ugly bags of mostly water" insulting crystal critters (TNG) are the most alien Trek ones.
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The Trek races are mostly humanoid because an ancient race (which was also humanoid) spread pieces of their DNA on other worlds. From those DNA pieces, life evolved. Hence the huge amount of Humanoid species.
(It was in one of the TNG eps)
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Originally posted by Tiara
The Trek races are mostly humanoid because an ancient race (which was also humanoid) spread pieces of their DNA on other worlds. From those DNA pieces, life evolved. Hence the huge amount of Humanoid species.
(It was in one of the TNG eps)
Any idea which ep it is, or what happens in it. I have seen just about every episode of Trek, excluding Enterprise, and I don't remember anything about that.
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she's right.....in fact it took a member of each race acting in concert with one another in order to get the thing to open if i remember correctly. at any rate, i think that they all had to be there in order for the "memory core" to work.
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Originally posted by Dough with Fish
Any idea which ep it is, or what happens in it. I have seen just about every episode of Trek, excluding Enterprise, and I don't remember anything about that.
As I said, i can't remember. But it did happen. At the end they found some alien hologram that told them about their origin.
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http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/series/TNG/episode/68598.html
The Chase is the episode you're all thinking of.
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Well, now. I haven't seen that episode. Or I had and just have forgotten about it thanks to DS9 being back on the air here in the States and all.
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er, the Hulvuloo (or something like that), a super-intelligent shade of the colour blue. Can't get much less-humanoid than that.
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The goauld from SG-1.
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Ooh, Stargate, good call. I'd also forward the Reetou (rebels), who had some pretty bizzare goals. The...things in that one episode, with the Enkaran who was actually an android.
There was an Asimov book with some weird aliens in it - by the Gods themselves? - that reproduced in threes. (and it was some pretty odd reproduction at that)
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How could I forget!? REPLICATORS! :p
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Babylon5=Shadows and Vorlons
StarGate=Asgards
Pradator
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TV
B5's Gaim are pretty alien (The one we see walking about in the episodes is apparently a genetically engineered caste designed for meeting with humanoid aliens. The real Gaim are very insectoid and thus scare the crap out of humans) :D
The shadows of course were alien :)
Actually B5 had a fair few really alien aliens but like most sci-fi resorted to humanoids in order to save money.
Books
The Buggers from Orson Scott Card's Enderverse are pretty alien. Quite a few races from Larry Niven's books qualify (although a lot are too human).
Movies
Apart from those mentioned I can't think of a single one. Why do people keep mentioning the Predator? Apart from the jaw thing that alien was pretty damn close to human.
Originally posted by Tiara
The Trek races are mostly humanoid because an ancient race (which was also humanoid) spread pieces of their DNA on other worlds. From those DNA pieces, life evolved. Hence the huge amount of Humanoid species.
Don't get me started on what a load of tosh that explaination is :D Trek aliens are humanoid cause it saves money. Same as B5, S:AAB and just about every other Sci-fi show. Bolting on a pseudo-scientific explaination was a nice attempt but anyone who knows anything about evolution will realise what utter nonsense it was :D
Still it makes for a nice episode :D
Originally posted by Stryke 9
Games? Hostile Waters's "aliens" (I don't know why, but HW was blessed with no one but two sets of the COOLEST BADGUYS EVER. Anyone who doesn't have this game, even just for the cutscene monologues, officially sucks balls), as well as the games already mentioned.
Hostile Waters kicked arse. As well as having cool bad guys the game also featured one of the most realistic depictions of a society with nanotech I've seen in a very long time. Most shows or books simply say that nanotech is used to repair ship hulls and nothing else. Hostile Waters realised that there would be almost no facet of human life that wouldn't be touched.
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Tribbles :drevil:
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The Silicon Mining things from the ST-TOS episode. The ones Spock mind melds with......'The Pain!'.
The Shadows. The Vorlon were a little too 'human' in their actions at times.
Shivans were pretty good actually, after all, we still don't comprehend their motives or goals.
And, of course, Tin Man from TNG.
That's my votes :)
Edit : Oh yes, there were also some nice 2D primitive creatures in TNG that were rather cleverly thought out, though not sentient.
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Originally posted by Tiara
Tribbles :drevil:
I actually saw an evolutionary work up for tribbles that made perfect sense. :) I'll have to see if I can find it :)
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Chinchilla's of the Future!
hehehehe ;)
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Originally posted by Tiara
Tribbles :drevil:
:wtf: ...they're hamsters missing legs and face.
as for alien aliens, the Furies from the original Battlezone game were cool. Self-concious, morphing bio-metal pwns joo!!!
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I was just about to say the Kilrathi and the Nephilim (the giant bugs) from the Wing Commander games but their actions are almost human
Aracnids from Starship Troopers
Nomads from Freelancer
ah yes i remember the furies from battlezone (i have the game, it was pretty good)
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- The most alien in Starcraft is the Lurker.
- Toluens from Imperium Galactica 2.
- Orbb from Quake 3.
- Any creatures from the TV series of Tremors(I saw two episodes :D )
- Facehugger from Alien
I do not agree with HiG about the Predator being really alien-like. Practically, it is 'only' a reskin of human limbs and torso and a different looking head.
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You realise that this list would have been about half the length if we'd said that insectoid aliens were out too? :D
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It wasn't in my mind.
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I suppose I could be pedantic and say it depends on the definition of insectoid, there are lots of aliens that have carapaces, but unless they have, iirc, six legs and 3 sections of the body (Head, Thorax and Abdomen) they aren't strictly 'insects'. ;)
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I think a rule here should be that mentioning any alien with two legs two arms and a head, would generaly not count.
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In my dictionary:
Insectoid: Insect-like.
so whatever takes after and insect(even the Shivas or the Facehugger) are insectoids.
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well all that does is removes one third (indo/exo/none) of the posable diversity, becase anything with an exoskeliton would fall under that catagory
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The Blob (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051418/)
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Originally posted by HeX
Borg? :wtf:
He said LITTLE resemblance. The borg look perfectly human except for the implants.
Borg as in Borg, not individual drones, not individual races, Borg as the "cybernetic life-form" that existed since the beggining of the Borg Collective.
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(http://img65.exs.cx/img65/9805/Cookie_cutters.th.gif) (http://img65.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img65&image=Cookie_cutters.gif)
(http://img65.exs.cx/img65/3263/chimaera_pup.th.jpg) (http://img65.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img65&image=chimaera_pup.jpg)
(http://img65.exs.cx/img65/4774/dumbo_octopus.th.jpg) (http://img65.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img65&image=dumbo_octopus.jpg)
(http://img65.exs.cx/img65/4916/goblinshark4.th.jpg) (http://img65.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img65&image=goblinshark4.jpg)
(http://img65.exs.cx/img65/9766/ohshi3.th.jpg) (http://img65.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img65&image=ohshi3.jpg)
(http://img67.exs.cx/img67/9496/umbrella_mouth_gulper_eel.th.jpg) (http://img67.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img67&image=umbrella_mouth_gulper_eel.jpg)
There you go.
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Originally posted by TopAce
In my dictionary:
Insectoid: Insect-like.
so whatever takes after and insect(even the Shivas or the Facehugger) are insectoids.
Actually neither of those are what I'd call insectoid. The Face hugger is more closely related to a spider or crustacean than an insect and the shivans have no characteristics that are insectoid at all apart from having more than 4 limbs.
Both of those are good examples of multi-limbed non-insectoid aliens in my opinion.
@Janos. This is why I get so pissed off at seeing humanoid aliens in Sci-fi. When you consider that all of those creatures came from one planet why on earth should aliens look humanoid?
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Originally posted by karajorma
t why on earth should aliens look humanoid?
'cuz it's cheaper on the special effects budget. ;)
oh, and Pilot, from farscape, hell, even Moya counts on the nonhumanoid alien..
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Another ST one... The Medusans :)
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Starcraft's Zerg were an intresting lot (as mentioned before).
Many had recognisable features, like 2 eyes and a mouth, but you only really saw them in the unit 'face box' down the bottom. On screen, and in battle they were really just purple pulsating blobs.
The queen was probably the most unique, it didnt have anything that could have been inspired by anything known to man. Where as hydralisks were sort of like a snake V porcupine creature, and even the mutalisk had flapping wings and a lizard tounge... the queen was just ****ed up.
(http://membres.lycos.fr/perceval28/SC/Zerg/Zu-Queen.gif)
Ps, its a flying unit, if thats not apparent.
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The overlord?
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Originally posted by Ghostavo
The overlord?
It had an elephant trunk, didnt it?
And tenticles like a jelly fish....
But yeah, overlords were weird.
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The guardian :p
(http://www.battle.net/images/battle/scc/zerg/pix/units/Guardian1.gif)
and the overlord...
(http://www.battle.net/images/battle/scc/zerg/pix/units/Overlord1.gif)
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IIRC, humans were quite an "alien" species at the end of "Last and First men" (a book by Stapledon) :)
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I don't know if anyone has read the Hyperion Cantos, but the Shrike, although its basic structure is comparable to that of a human, gives the impression of being very far from any normal kind of sentient life. (I would highly recommend those books; I think it's about the best science fiction I've ever read.)
And let's not forget almost every hideous monstrosity that makes an appearance in Half-Life.
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Originally posted by Turnsky
'cuz it's cheaper on the special effects budget. ;)
For Books? How often have you read about humanoid aliens in books? Can't blame that one on special effects :D
What about games for that matter? The excuse isn't valid there either.
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in books
take look at beanbooks.com
in the appocalipse troll (sp)
jhon ringos quarted
a hymm before battle (on beanbooks.com)
when the devil dances
ghust front
hells faire.
3 diffrend non human spcies.
peter f. hammilton
the reality disfunction and following books
david webber march upcounty
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Triffids.
Oh, and the Venus flytrap.
As for what alien species being "Too human", there are quite a few characteristics that almost All land-dwelling creatures on this planet have; therefore assumptions about evolutionary patterns are made because we also have to assume that life evolves in an oxygenated environment similar to our own (similar atmosphere, terrain, gravitational field, radiation levels). There are two obvious schools of thought on how aliens might evolve:
A) Intersection: They'd look like us because they'd have to come from a similar environment and there are only a finite number of ways to deal way the problems set by that environment.
B) Diversification: They'd look nothing like us because the environment won't be the same (even if it's similar) and we all presumably come from a fairly common origin (tiny organisms around hot springs deep underwater), whereas their origin may come from a completely different source (and may not even be carbon based).
Also: who knows what space travel's effects may be....space is a huge common environment, so it may be that eventually (WAY into the future) humans and aliens will evolve to make use of this, and may end up more similar than we began.
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What the school of intersection forgets is that certain parts of the way aliens are made up occured not because they are the best way to deal with a problem but because they were simply the mutations that happened to come up and be successful.
For instance while aliens being bipedal is a good likelyhood the chance of them having eyes, nose and mouth in roughly the same place as us is pretty low.
Nostrils on the top of the head would be more practical for a variety of reasons. There is no good reason why the brain or mouth has to be where it is either.
The reason why those parts of the body are where they are is cause the first fish to crawl out onto land had them in roughly equivalent places. And the fishes in the ocean all descended from similar ancestors too.
Had an octopus attempted to colonise the land first things would be very different. Mouths would be much closer to the stomach. The 4 extra limbs would see a huge variety of different uses etc.
The fact is that even if a life form started in exactly the same place as us, on a world almost identical to Earth I'd rate the chances of a humanoid creature turning up as close to zero. We could easily get a biped but a creature with eyes, ears, nose and mouth in the same sort of configuration is not likely.
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hey guys isn't there like a water planet in our own system, going around jupiter? cant life live there? fishes and that?
oh and what about the bugs from star ship troopers? there pretty damn alien?
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Europa is covered in ice, and it is believed that there are oceans beneath the ice. Of course, for all we know, life could evolve in any number of environments.
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Europa is interesting, but the chances of life being under the ice aren't that good......especially since we have no idea what the core of the moon is like or what the water contains.
As for the diversification of life, we still have little evidence one way or the other. There is the possibility that life on this planet evolved in the only way that was possible (although I find this highly doubtfull). Basically: any alien lifeform will be roughly the same size as us or smaller, since on a similar planet to ours there needs to be enough gravity to keep an atmosphere, and a higher gravitational field would make the evolved species smaller than us. If it's carbon based, chances are it'll breath oxygen (since even bacteria that respire anaerobically are relatively rare). It's also probable that it'll have legs (assuming it's land-based) although snake/snail-like creatures are a possibility. They will also have some kind of EM-sensitive organ (like eyes) and a sense of touch. The geography of these things, though, are entirely unpredictable.
The bit that I find interesting is possibility or Probability that they will have different senses to us. We already see highly specified senses in some animals that we don't have (such as pigeons being sensitive to magnetic fields and reptiles having infra-red sensory organs). Even if they have "eyes", they'll probably have a COMPLETELY different visible spectrum to us.
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Hmmmmmmmmm..... I think there are some basic 'blueprints' that life will tend to follow though, this is why Shivans stand out, because of their uneven number of legs, It could almost be said that the rear one is a Tail, with a sting, which the Shivan uses in much the same way as a Gorilla knuckles along on all fours despite being called two legged.
I think if there is life on other planets it will follow certain patterns, it will be designed for the environment around it, and although the embodiment of the dangers which shape a species may change, I don't think the 'nature' of the danger changes much, so things would evolve to deal with them in similar manners.
This isn't really saying much, since, if you look at what is here on Earth as Janos points out, the variation is incredible, they might be bigger, of differently proportioned, but they will still follow the same basic guidelines. So another planet may contain a race of small, bipedal, tribal, inquisitive monkeys, but they may not be the ones in charge ;)
Anyway, that's my view :D
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Aliens could also have unique methods of gathering energy too.
Who says they have to "eat" or even have mouths?
Did Shivans eat? and what did their eye-trick do?
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Not all Terran life gathers energy through it's mouth, vegetation uses light power, there are creatures that soak volcanic minerals through their skin, though, admittedly (and fortunately) there's isn't any creature that fires a plasma beam from it's tail, however, there are things like scorpions, which have stings in their tails, some quilled creatures can hurl spikes using their tails, which are tipped with poison etc quite considerable distances. Not exactly anti-building weaponry, I'll admit, but the principal exists.
AS for laser beam tails ,well...... I think that's stretching likelyhood just a bit to be honest, but theres no all-consuming law saying that they can't exist ;) I can't see it being very realistic as a predators weapon to be honest, you want to kill enough to eat and leave enough to breed, not melt the entire herd and leave nothing to eat, once again though, even this depends on what they are hunting ;)
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Originally posted by MicroPsycho
Aliens could also have unique methods of gathering energy too.
Who says they have to "eat" or even have mouths?
Did Shivans eat? and what did their eye-trick do?
They photosynthesise.........they're highly advanced plants....they like space because it's so sunny.
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We're discussing non-humanoid aliens in books? Sorry guys, when it comes to appearances, I've never had a good imagination. But anyway, isn't the recent trend in pop-culture (Shrek, Something about someone, etc.) the thought that it isn't about how we look but instead about how we act?
I'm sure there a plenty of more humanoid looking characters, fact and fiction, that are even more alien than the far reaches of sci-fi imagination. Consider:
(http://www.nick.com/common/images/tv/new/rocko/downloads/bighead.gif)
(PS. Actually, I just wanted to post that pic :p)
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Originally posted by Da Vinci
Europa is interesting, but the chances of life being under the ice aren't that good......especially since we have no idea what the core of the moon is like or what the water contains.
I would have agreed with you 15 years ago but since I learned about archaebacteria I'll have to say there is a fair chance. All life on Europa really needs is volcanoes under the ice (almost a certainty considering that Io is the most volcanic body in the solar system) and the raw minerals and molecules neeeded to form a replicating molecule. Even if there isn't a giant ocean under the ice there is a good chance that life has evolved in pockets of water near a volcano.
If that's the case then finding life will be the hard part as we may easily be looking in the wrong place.
Originally posted by Da Vinci
As for the diversification of life, we still have little evidence one way or the other. There is the possibility that life on this planet evolved in the only way that was possible (although I find this highly doubtfull). Basically: any alien lifeform will be roughly the same size as us or smaller, since on a similar planet to ours there needs to be enough gravity to keep an atmosphere, and a higher gravitational field would make the evolved species smaller than us. If it's carbon based, chances are it'll breath oxygen (since even bacteria that respire anaerobically are relatively rare). It's also probable that it'll have legs (assuming it's land-based) although snake/snail-like creatures are a possibility. They will also have some kind of EM-sensitive organ (like eyes) and a sense of touch. The geography of these things, though, are entirely unpredictable.
The bit that I find interesting is possibility or Probability that they will have different senses to us. We already see highly specified senses in some animals that we don't have (such as pigeons being sensitive to magnetic fields and reptiles having infra-red sensory organs). Even if they have "eyes", they'll probably have a COMPLETELY different visible spectrum to us.
You're making some fairly big assumptions there. I see no reason why creatures bigger than humans couldn't exist. They do on this planet after all. Even if you're talking about intelligent aliens I still think your logic is flawed.
I'll agree that there is a high possibility of any alien life having limbs recognisably similar to those on Earth. The senses as you say are likely to be completely different. Even the goldfish has a better range of sight than we do. :)
Many fishes use an electric field to feel their way around in murky water.
In the game Warhead the aliens had a natural form of radio. They used it to communicate in the game but considering the way that bats and dolphins use sonar it wouldn't be a huge stretch to imagine a creature with a natural form of radar :D
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Originally posted by karajorma
You're making some fairly big assumptions there. I see no reason why creatures bigger than humans couldn't exist. They do on this planet after all. Even if you're talking about intelligent aliens I still think your logic is flawed.
Firstly, I was speaking generally; creatures 20ft tall are possible, I was only discounting the idea of 100 metre tall giants (al la the alien skeleton in the first Alien film). The assumption on size comes from the idea that there is an optimum size for the life-form that sits at the top of the food chain (can you think of any land-based creature at the top of food chains on this planet that are much bigger than us?).
I once read a dissertation on the idea; basically it boils down to mechanics: the idea that larger creatures are too inefficient to sustain themselves forever (in our gravitational field). There was evidence that this article cited that the dinosaurs were on their way out before any cataclism occurred. Certain scientists believe that it was because they were simply too big. If you look at life that is that big, imagine what happens when it falls over, or tries to rest; its own mass will tear the body apart. Even elephants today cannot lue down for long because their own weight will crush their organs. The pulmonary system in giraffes gives them Massively overdeveloped hearts because they have to pump their blood so far. Evolution can be flawed in the short-term, the traits for survival at any given point in time are not neccessarily going to be a long-term benefit to a species. With size it's a matter of efficiency.....an intelligent being needs to be big enough to defend itself against predators and have a long enough lifespan to develope as a society, but be small enough be able to concentrate on things apart from eating enough to sustain its body.
I find this a fairly convincing and interesting argument.....it's an assumption, yes; but so are most theories about evolution and developement of life
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Originally posted by karajorma
For Books? How often have you read about humanoid aliens in books? Can't blame that one on special effects :D
What about games for that matter? The excuse isn't valid there either.
"no one would have believed, that in the last years of the 19th century, that human affairs were being watched from the timeless worlds of space.
can't dis the original Sci-Fi books.;)
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Originally posted by Da Vinci
I find this a fairly convincing and interesting argument.....it's an assumption, yes; but so are most theories about evolution and developement of life
what
:wtf:
You know the difference between theory and hypothesis?
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Originally posted by Turnsky
can't dis the original Sci-Fi books.;)
I love War of the Worlds. I still reckon that the original alien invasion story is one of (if not THE) best alien invasion stories.
I wasn't saying that no books have non-humanoid aliens. Just that there are far too few which do.
The saddest fact is that Wells' aliens looked nothing like humans (or anything particularly Earthlike at all). Yet instead of following in the footsteps of the inventor of the genre later authors turned their backs on true aliens and gave us little green men. :rolleyes:
If anything War of the Worlds was an example of how to do it right.
Originally posted by Da Vinci
Firstly, I was speaking generally; creatures 20ft tall are possible, I was only discounting the idea of 100 metre tall giants (al la the alien skeleton in the first Alien film).
I agree in part with you here. 100ft tall bipedal alien giants are pretty ridiculous as they would snap their legs off when they attempted to walk. Then again I can't think of anything that has truely huge giants in it. It's worth remembering that there are stronger natural materials than bone though.
Originally posted by Da Vinci
The assumption on size comes from the idea that there is an optimum size for the life-form that sits at the top of the food chain (can you think of any land-based creature at the top of food chains on this planet that are much bigger than us?).
Nothing alive now but you mentioned dinosaurs yourself. Besides who says that a sentient species would have to be land based? Dolphins aren't that far down the scale from us but lack the opposable thumb. The octopus also was a good candidate but it also has certain realities of biology working against it on Earth. None of that preculdes a sentient race developing in the oceans of another planet.
Sure we'd be unlikely to see them on Starships unless another race gave them a leg up but it's a possibility.
Originally posted by Da Vinci
I once read a dissertation on the idea; basically it boils down to mechanics: the idea that larger creatures are too inefficient to sustain themselves forever (in our gravitational field). There was evidence that this article cited that the dinosaurs were on their way out before any cataclism occurred. Certain scientists believe that it was because they were simply too big. If you look at life that is that big, imagine what happens when it falls over, or tries to rest; its own mass will tear the body apart. Even elephants today cannot lue down for long because their own weight will crush their organs. The pulmonary system in giraffes gives them Massively overdeveloped hearts because they have to pump their blood so far. Evolution can be flawed in the short-term, the traits for survival at any given point in time are not neccessarily going to be a long-term benefit to a species.
I don't buy it. Even if you believe that the dinosaurs might have been on the way out when the asteroid killed them off the fact remains that they had been around for 160 million years before that. For humanity 160 thousand years is a long time. Seems rather ludicrous to me that someone can say that the dinosaurs went extinct simply cause they were too big. They weren't too big for 160 million years after all. If a change in climate did them in it doesn't follow that a similar change in climate wouldn't have happened on an alien planet before a large race achieved sentience.
Had the asteroid not hit I doubt the dinosaurs would have gone completely extinct any more than they went completely extinct at the end of the triassic or jurassic periods. The conditions at the end of both periods led to what might have looked like the dinosaurs going out completely too but both times they just came back bigger and stronger.
Originally posted by Da Vinci
With size it's a matter of efficiency.....an intelligent being needs to be big enough to defend itself against predators and have a long enough lifespan to develope as a society, but be small enough be able to concentrate on things apart from eating enough to sustain its body.
I'll agree with you that it's likely that an intelligent being is likely to be a social animal as solitary creatures are unlikely to advance enough to make spacecraft but I disagree that the amount of leisure time a creature has is solely a function of it's size.
If you look at the big cats they all spend much less time hunting for food than the great apes do. A lot of evidence points to the fact that the big predatory dinosaurs (with the possible exception of T-rex) were similar in habits to the great cats. That makes them prime candidates for intelligence as they would be doing precisely the same thing that lead to humans developing intelligence (chasing larger prey on open ground). As soon as an allosaurus came up with the idea of hitting a stegasaurus with a diplodocus leg bone we've got the beginnings of sentience right there.
Originally posted by Da Vinci
I find this a fairly convincing and interesting argument.....it's an assumption, yes; but so are most theories about evolution and developement of life
It's too narrow an assumption for my liking.
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(http://www.aqsx85.dsl.pipex.com/Alien1.jpg)
Alien landscapes are fun :D
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I'm suddenly reminded of many a wasted afternoon playing with Vista Pro and then waiting 40 minutes for it to render :)
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ROFL More or less what I just did with Vue D'Esprit ;)
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Wow, that's a beauty.
I don't know how to do that stuff, but I've always thought it would be a good idea to do a planet orbiting one of the Pleiades. That would be a spectacular sky.
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Oddly enough, it was a picture from a hypothetical world orbiting Pleione, the youngest of the Pleiades, which spins so fast it's elongated, that got me into this sort of artwork...
The picture was in the book 'Cosmos' by Carl Sagan, I'll have to track it down and scan it on one day :)
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You can't beat the Chtulhu Mythos for alienness. Underneath all the angsty 19. century victorianism there's some very cool science fiction.
Like in Mountains of Madness, where the shoggoths rebelled against their makers, the Elder Ones. That's the classic evil-robots-kills-their-human-masters all over again, except it was published in 1936.
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There was a book I read a while back that had an interesting premise. I believe the title was Forge of the Elders. Featured all sorts of interesting sentient species from alternate timelines on earth, including trilobytes, squid, and birds. The story itself was a bit odd, but the diversity of species was interesting.
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Gregory Benford had some really weird aliens in the later books of his "Contact"-series.
Just to contribute to this thread. ;)
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Originally posted by Da Vinci
I once read a dissertation on the idea; basically it boils down to mechanics: the idea that larger creatures are too inefficient to sustain themselves forever (in our gravitational field). There was evidence that this article cited that the dinosaurs were on their way out before any cataclism occurred. Certain scientists believe that it was because they were simply too big. If you look at life that is that big, imagine what happens when it falls over, or tries to rest; its own mass will tear the body apart. Even elephants today cannot lue down for long because their own weight will crush their organs. The pulmonary system in giraffes gives them Massively overdeveloped hearts because they have to pump their blood so far. Evolution can be flawed in the short-term, the traits for survival at any given point in time are not neccessarily going to be a long-term benefit to a species. With size it's a matter of efficiency.....an intelligent being needs to be big enough to defend itself against predators and have a long enough lifespan to develope as a society, but be small enough be able to concentrate on things apart from eating enough to sustain its body.
That theory works... so long as you don't look at the fossil record. Most of your really big dinosaurs (The gigantic sauropods) evolved back in the Jurassic, and while the late cretaceous did see the development of the biggest predators (Late stage Tyrannosaurs, like Tyrannosaurus itself, Albertasaurus and Giganotosaurs ), it also saw the development of a lot of small, quick little predators, and he continued dominance of the Hadrosaurs and Ceratopsians among the plant eaters, all pretty much medium sized, some distinctly small. It's true (Or at least, a pretty much accepted theory - It's hard to be sure of much of anything from >65 million years ago) that dinosaurs had been on the decrease for several million years, both in overall numbers and diversity of species, but this was far more likely the result of specific environmental factors than any inherent faults with the dinosaurs themselves.
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there were big preditors becase there were big prey, it was a scale based arms race, the biggest prey was able to fend off the preditors and the biggest preditors wer able to get the most prey, the same thing has happened a few times, includeing recently, noticed whales? elephants? biig prey speciese, soon there will be big preditors to eat them (untill quite recently big whales had a preditor, the megalodon)
now a suficently inteligent creature will beable to learn enough about it's self to recreate it's self into what ever form it wants (Shivans)
and I also hate it when people say stupid things like "we must assume that life will only evolve in a water rich world with an oxygen based atmosphere and a warm temperature."
why?
why can't life evolve from some bizar set of chemicals that we would never think of that is reactive only in the temperature range of 800-900 or -200- -300?
tell me why that is imposable?
why is it imposable that an inteligent life form couldn't evolve in a liquid environment and end up building star ships?
or a gas giant?
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Originally posted by Bobboau
and I also hate it when people say stupid things like "we must assume that life will only evolve in a water rich world with an oxygen based atmosphere and a warm temperature."
why?
why can't life evolve from some bizar set of chemicals that we would never think of that is reactive only in the temperature range of 800-900 or -200- -300?
tell me why that is imposable?
why is it imposable that an inteligent life form couldn't evolve in a liquid environment and end up building star ships?
or a gas giant?
The extreme cold doesn't provide enough energy for the neccesary chemical reactions to take place, and the extreme heat would break down the simple organic compounds that would have to form for the earliest life to start up. The Basic theories behind biogenesis state that water is probably neccesary, that temperatures are likely to be reasonable (Within a large field of "reasonability" - there're strong hypothesies supporting life creation at places like hot springs or black smokers, or other high temperature conditions where modern day arachaebacteria live), and that Oxygen is probably not going to be present in large quantities (It certainly wasn't when life started on this planet, and it'd be too reactive for the kind of delicate chemistry we're talking about here.
That said, these theories are based on Earth based life, and as Karajorma mentioned, Archaebacteria, are changing a lot of long standing beliefs about life in general, so it's possible that alien life would be even more varied. There are certain limits placed on things by the basic chemistry we're talking about though.
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"organic compounds"
AAAAARGGHHH!!!!!
/*bangs head repetedly*/
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ok, why couldn't we have live chemistry based on /*grabs a few ellements*/
Germanium, Selenium, and... Bromine?
why not?!
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In the case of Selenium and Bromine, it's because they don't have the four valence shell electrons neccesary to form the complex chains you need for "organic" (In the sense of life forming, as opposed to carbon based). In the case of Germanium, while it does technically have the valence shell electrons, it's damned heavy compared to Carbon (~6x), and also a true metal, which changes the way it reacts. I'll admit I'm not 100% sure on Germanium, but there are limits on what can exist as a living molecule based on simple chemistry.
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Right, although it has been theorized that silicon could be a viable organic base.
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Silicon is a possible base but it's not as good as carbon. I wouldn't rule out the possibility of silicon based life but there are probably a large number of carbon based lifeforms out there for every single silicon based one.
Although silicon can form long chains it's hard to make the huge variety of chemicals you can with carbon.
That said I'd rather see silicon and germanium based life forms in Sci-fi than humanoid ones. At least it shows that the writers are thinking :D
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Silicon would be interesting, too. It's not a true metal like germanium, but it is a metalloid, and it has that interesting property when you contaminate it. Biological transistors, anyone?
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Hmmm, silicon based life... HAL 9000 ;7
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Originally posted by karajorma
That said I'd rather see silicon and germanium based life forms in Sci-fi than humanoid ones. At least it shows that the writers are thinking :D
Tholians, the Horta, Crystalline Entity...
Viva la Star trek :D
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Star Trek has a lot of humanoid life forms to make up for. In fact it's probably the worst offender :D
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Heh - I have a slightly different pattern of bumps on my head. Thus I am different to last weeks alien race by 4 billion years of evolution.
Viva la Star Trek! :p
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Originally posted by karajorma
Star Trek has a lot of humanoid life forms to make up for. In fact it's probably the worst offender :D
Well, they do have a reason for this.... it's actually not unlike SG-1. but unlike actually transplanting Humans they transplanted DNA :p
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Originally posted by Tiara
Well, they do have a reason for this.... it's actually not unlike SG-1. but unlike actually transplanting Humans they transplanted DNA :p
Except it's a pretty crap reason. Makes absolutely no scientific sense whatsoever.
Why is it that the science of evolution gets such a ****ty explaination while physics gets inertial compensators and Heisenberg compensators to deal with Trek's physics flaws?
What should Trek have done? Leave the matter well alone and don't try to explain it. You're just digging a bigger hole for yourself if you do.
Look at Stargate. Everyone in the universe speaks English. Probably one of the most idiotic things ever to happen in Sci-fi but I love the show so I'll forgive them. That said if they tried to come up with an explaination for WHY everyone spoke English it would be even more stupid.
Trek has to have humanoid aliens cause it's too expensive to not have them and still be able to interact with aliens. The audience know this and I'm much more willing to forgive them for it than I am to accept this idiot suggestion that the DNA seeded billions of years ago means that everyone is humanoid.