Really alien aliens

Rhinocrates

Rhinocrates

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Martin Bayer, he did say of a painting of an alien that looked like a baby elephant:

Clinically, it's called intellectual laziness.

Yes, and the bumps-on-their-foreheads kind who talk about honour/logic/profit/petunias are even worse.

So then, what are the genuinely interesting and deeply explored aliens that you have encountered in sf that are truly alien? Without throwing hands up and saying 'they're just incomprehensible and trying to understand them leads to madness', that is. That's probably an honest route, but there's not much to say after that, apart from 'Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!.' Sorry, Howard. Still, the Elder Things, Yithians and so on are nicely described physiologically.

HG Wells got the ball rolling first with his tongue-in-cheek extrapolation of human evolution into the far future in 'The Man of the Year Million,' inspired by Samuel Butler's Erewhon. That led to the Marians in The War of the Worlds (he even references the original essay in a meta-reference in the narration of that novel). While not alien, Olaf Stapledon explored future iterations of humanity based on philosophical ideas in Last and First Men, which also had some very different but still well-described truly alien Martians. He then really let loose in Star Maker, but again, stuck to logic and worked through the ramifications of his creations' peculiarities.

I'd say Fred Hoyle's Black Cloud is physically extreme, but it personality is rather human, while Stanisław Lem's Solaris is genuinely weird and the long essays within the novel that may bore some readers are his ironic parodies of attempts to describe something ultimately beyond human comprehension.

Stephen Baxter has come up with some good ones, such as the Silver Ghosts in his Xeelee stories. Their evolution and psychology/culture are explained as arising directly from their circumstances. Their sun and biosphere was destroyed by a companion body, so they are driven by the need to conserve energy and are compound entities/communities within perfectly reflective (and therefore insulating) spheres.

So then:

1. Really odd

2. Somewhat plausible (what's a biological TRL?)

3. Consequences of their evolution and oddness worked out and examined.
 
I stick to theory by Gene Bylinsky
He postulate that law nature and Evolution are universal
Therefore muss Life on other planets have Convergent evolution similar to Earth
Leading to analog animals under form follow function

But according Bylinksky this let not to another intelligent Humanoid lifeforms,
Instead leading to intelligent Cats, Dinos, Marsupial etc...

Source:
Gene Bylinsky
Life in Darwin's Universe, Evolution and the Cosmos.
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0385170491
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0385170499
 
I remember a very old 70s Horizon program on BBC2, that if the dinosaurs did not become extinct that they would, and mammals did not take over, have developed into bipeds very similar to how humans have developed today.
 
I recommend reading Wonderful Life by Stephen Jay Gould, Hutchison Radius 1989, to get a sense of how different from today Earth life looked half a billion years ago. Some of Gould's classifications have not stood the test of time, but the idea that Earth life today could have looked radically different from anything we see around us now is something that still resonates strongly in modern biology.
Michel Van said:
Therefore muss Life on other planets have Convergent evolution similar to Earth
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I disagree respectfully.
 
It is crazy to think the full and entire universe is made of merely 110-something elements in the Periodic Table. And that among all these, only carbon (with the rest of the CHNOPS) can combine into life. Albeit swapping carbon for silicium might work.
 
Rolead said:
I remember a very old 70s Horizon program on BBC2, that if the dinosaurs did not become extinct that they would, and mammals did not take over, have developed into bipeds very similar to how humans have developed today.
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View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTnzYeKZQrI


The dinosauroid is a hypothetical species created by Dale A. Russell in 1982. Just an exercise of speculative biology. "What-if-ing"
We'll never precisely know how life would had evolved after the 5th massive extinction.

About extraterrestrial complex lifeforms characteristics, absolutely no idea, because they would be modelled against local environments and catastrophic events. Thus it's truly improbable to find a replica of Earth species in another world.
I see no reason either for extraterrestrial life not to be based on the same basic design plans from bacteria to multicellular.
 
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If we ever came across aliens (which I put the chances below of me ever winning the top prize of any accessible lottery), they'll almost certainly defy our preconceptions.
 
Rhinocrates said:
Martin Bayer, he did say of a painting of an alien that looked like a baby elephant:
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Already done.

See the Niven & Pournelle acclaimed novel "Footfall" (Del Rey Books, 1985), where the Earth was invaded by the Fithp, an army of small intelligent (and technologically advanced) elephants.

en.wikipedia.org

Footfall - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

1721369889686.png
 
martinbayer said:
If we ever came across aliens (which I put the chances below of me ever winning the top prize of any accessible lottery), they'll almost certainly defy our preconceptions.
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if we ever come across advanced intelligent aliens, that'll be decent evidence that the universe is, or has been, *packed* with intelligent species. Arising once, us? Sure, I could see that. The Great Filter precludes the rise of intelligence. but if there are *two* such species, then the chances are it's happened a *lot*.

So if there are buckets of such species, there'll be everything from things we won't even recognize as *alive* when we see them, to those we see as horrifying, to those that are "cute," and doubtless many we'd loo at and be wholly underwhelmed by. Seems likely as not that the majority of such species will achieve intelligence as just animals.
 
Jack Campbell's Lost Fleet series are pretty 'pulp' but the author a go at "really alien aliens". The first three alien races they encounter are at least not humans with facial makeup.

1) Enigma aliens - techically superior, implacably xenophobic, refuse to communicate, devious. Physical appearance largely unknown, communicating via text only or avatars formed from images of humans.
2) Kicks - Something like a cute bear mixed with a cow. Xenophobic, evolved from pack herbivores, they have destroyed all predator species on their planet and are are scared of other races. Fight in packs, adhere to formation, willing to to sacrifice members for the good of the herd.
3) Spider Wolves / Dancers - multilegged alien something like a spider blended with a wolf, very ugly to human eyes, technically far more advanced than humans, rational and willing to ally with humans. Think duct tape is awesome, the only human technology they are impressed by.
 
One of the races from the Infinity wargame setting is one I find very ... relatable.

The Shasvasti are fairly ancient, and have highly advanced biotech. Their home planet was destroyed in a solar nova, which proved psychologically damaging to their collective culture. Since that event, they have deliberately modified themselves into the ultimate survivors. They are capable of adapting themselves to any planet, any moon. Even the males are capable of carrying a Seed-Embryo with them that can be planted and grown over time into an adult Shasvasti.

The best protected Shas facilities are their hospitals and birthing centers, which led to one hell of a mixup in their conflict with humanity. Humans saw this huge, extremely well protected facility getting set up on a planet still being fought over by both humans and Shas, and assumed that it was the Shas military command and control center. Humans then dropped an orbital strike on it, completely destroying the Shas genetic repository. Since that event, Shas have given humans absolutely no quarter.

But before that event, it was possible to coexist with Shasvasti. Mostly with them on planets that humans could not colonize at all and trading the resources from those planets with humans.
 
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Antonio said:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTnzYeKZQrI


The dinosauroid is a hypothetical species created by Dale A. Russell in 1982. Just an exercise of speculative biology. "What-if-ing"
We'll never precisely know how life would had evolved after the 5th massive extinction.

About extraterrestrial complex lifeforms characteristics, absolutely no idea, because they would be modelled against local environments and catastrophic events. Thus it's truly improbable to find a replica of Earth species in another world.
I see no reason either for extraterrestrial life not to be based on the same basic design plans from bacteria to multicellular.
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Covergent Evolution?
 

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Orionblamblam said:
if we ever come across advanced intelligent aliens, that'll be decent evidence that the universe is, or has been, *packed* with intelligent species. Arising once, us? Sure, I could see that. The Great Filter precludes the rise of intelligence. but if there are *two* such species, then the chances are it's happened a *lot*.

So if there are buckets of such species, there'll be everything from things we won't even recognize as *alive* when we see them, to those we see as horrifying, to those that are "cute," and doubtless many we'd loo at and be wholly underwhelmed by. Seems likely as not that the majority of such species will achieve intelligence as just animals.
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In the debates about extraterrestrial intelligent races, there is mainly talk of communication difficulties due to enormous interstellar distances or insurmountable cultural obstacles. I think we should also consider the enormous time lag between the birth and death of one civilization and the resurgence of another at the opposite end of the galaxy. Perhaps the only form of communication is archaeology.
 

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Scott Kenny said:
The best protected Shas facilities are their hospitals and birthing centers, which led to one hell of a mixup in their conflict with humanity. Humans saw this huge, extremely well protected facility getting set up on a planet still being fought over by both humans and Shas, and assumed that it was the Shas military command and control center. Humans then dropped an orbital strike on it, completely destroying the Shas genetic repository. Since that event, Shas have given humans absolutely no quarter.
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Why does this remind me of recent Middle Eastern events...
 
overscan (PaulMM) said:
Jack Campbell's Lost Fleet series are pretty 'pulp' but the author a go at "really alien aliens". The first three alien races they encounter are at least not humans with facial makeup.

1) Enigma aliens - techically superior, implacably xenophobic, refuse to communicate, devious. Physical appearance largely unknown, communicating via text only or avatars formed from images of humans.
2) Kicks - Something like a cute bear mixed with a cow. Xenophobic, evolved from pack herbivores, they have destroyed all predator species on their planet and are are scared of other races. Fight in packs, adhere to formation, willing to to sacrifice members for the good of the herd.
3) Spider Wolves / Dancers - multilegged alien something like a spider blended with a wolf, very ugly to human eyes, technically far more advanced than humans, rational and willing to ally with humans. Think duct tape is awesome, the only human technology they are impressed by.
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In this excellent series, the enigmatic race provokes a civil war between humans that lasts a hundred years to weaken our species. It also provides them with extra-fast interstellar jump technology through portals and when the technology is fully accepted by the two warring sides someone makes the discovery that portals have the ability to explode with supernova energy.

The comparison with the Cold War and the nuclear balance that we experienced during the twentieth century is disturbing.
 

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Orionblamblam said:
if we ever come across advanced intelligent aliens, that'll be decent evidence that the universe is, or has been, *packed* with intelligent species. Arising once, us? Sure, I could see that. The Great Filter precludes the rise of intelligence. but if there are *two* such species, then the chances are it's happened a *lot*.

So if there are buckets of such species, there'll be everything from things we won't even recognize as *alive* when we see them, to those we see as horrifying, to those that are "cute," and doubtless many we'd loo at and be wholly underwhelmed by. Seems likely as not that the majority of such species will achieve intelligence as just animals.
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The Great Filter

Brandon Carter.” The anthropic principle and its implications for biological evolution”, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, vol.A310 (1983), pp 347.

Robin Hanson.”The Great Filter:are we almost past it?” http://hanson.gmu.edu/greatfilter.html (1988).
 
Justo Miranda said:
In the debates about extraterrestrial intelligent races, there is mainly talk of communication difficulties due to enormous interstellar distances or insurmountable cultural obstacles. I think we should also consider the enormous time lag between the birth and death of one civilization and the resurgence of another at the opposite end of the galaxy. Perhaps the only form of communication is archaeology.
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Again to bring it back to the world's most important topic... *ME.* In my space opera yarns, human society is aware of two existing aliens species. But humans know of hundreds - and suspect millions - of *dead* technological civilizations. Everywhere we look we find the signs of industrial civilizations that are no more. Most have been dead so long that all that can be seen of them are chemical traces in rock layers. The dark spaces between the stars are littered with rogue terrestrial worlds, many of which exhibit road networks still faintly discernable under the frozen atmospheres.

Characters in these stories who know too much and think too much about this live in a constant state of existential dread that all these species got to around the 20th to 22nd century level of tech, then exited the stage. There are reports of encounters with aliens of indescribable power and advancement, but these are taken about as seriously as we take tales of ghostly encounters, alien abduction or honest politicians.
 
I just like Roadside Picnic by Strugatsky brothers. Civilization that master FTL interstellar journeys will never be fully understand by less advanced one.
 
Simon Conway Morris is a prime example of someone who thinks the humanoid fom is optimal for an intelligent tool user. I happen to disagree with his conclusion on this (Conway Morris is a noted, and quite well-regarded, paleontologist), as does Steven Jay Gould, among many other paleontologists.
 
1635yankee said:
Simon Conway Morris is a prime example of someone who thinks the humanoid fom is optimal for an intelligent tool user. I happen to disagree with his conclusion on this (Conway Morris is a noted, and quite well-regarded, paleontologist), as does Steven Jay Gould, among many other paleontologists.
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Agile, intelligent, predators with binocular vision and masters of camouflage: cephalopods and arachnids.
 
Orionblamblam said:
Again to bring it back to the world's most important topic... *ME.* In my space opera yarns, human society is aware of two existing aliens species. But humans know of hundreds - and suspect millions - of *dead* technological civilizations. Everywhere we look we find the signs of industrial civilizations that are no more. Most have been dead so long that all that can be seen of them are chemical traces in rock layers. The dark spaces between the stars are littered with rogue terrestrial worlds, many of which exhibit road networks still faintly discernable under the frozen atmospheres.

Characters in these stories who know too much and think too much about this live in a constant state of existential dread that all these species got to around the 20th to 22nd century level of tech, then exited the stage. There are reports of encounters with aliens of indescribable power and advancement, but these are taken about as seriously as we take tales of ghostly encounters, alien abduction or honest politicians.
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I have been convinced by Ray Kurzweil's hypothesis about Singularity.

It seems to me quite feasible that after reaching a certain technological level an intelligent species disappears, but not because it becomes extinct but because it ascends to another plane of knowledge. I'm not talking about religion, but about a new kind of technology so subtle that it leaves no identifiable archaeological traces.

I prefer to think that most of the disappeared civilizations in your stories have managed to achieve a better future.
 
Probably familiar, from Arthur C Clarke:
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"
With
- a universe as old as 14 billion years, if current theory is correct, and
- a 4.5 billion years old solar system
- once a technological society gets started
- and doesn't immediately commit suicide

... in deep time, there should be ample opportunity for magic/sufficiently advanced technology to develop.
On the other hand, historically, Earth species have shown a tendency to go extinct in mere millions of years.
It is a nice thought that species might 'transcend to another plane of knowledge'. I know of no evidence that this has ever happened, so, reluctantly, I think eventual extinction is what awaits the human species. Hopefully achieving some very high level of civilisation along the way, but human history is a bit patchy so far - highs and lows. Even a measly (when set against deep time) thousand years should give interesting results. I will not be around. Paradoxically, in some ways, that's a relief to me.

May you live in interesting times.
 
Arjen said:
Probably familiar, from Arthur C Clarke:
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"
With
- a universe as old as 14 billion years, if current theory is correct, and
- a 4.5 billion years old solar system
- once a technological society gets started
- and doesn't immediately commit suicide

... in deep time, there should be ample opportunity for magic/sufficiently advanced technology to develop.
On the other hand, historically, Earth species have shown a tendency to go extinct in mere millions of years.
It is a nice thought that species might 'transcend to another plane of knowledge'. I know of no evidence that this has ever happened, so, reluctantly, I think eventual extinction is what awaits the human species. Hopefully achieving some very high level of civilisation along the way, but human history is a bit patchy so far - highs and lows. Even a measly (when set against deep time) thousand years should give interesting results. I will not be around. Paradoxically, in some ways, that's a relief to me.

May you live in interesting times.
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May you live in interesting times.

It's a Chinese curse.
 
Arjen said:
Probably familiar, from Arthur C Clarke:
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"
With
- a universe as old as 14 billion years, if current theory is correct, and
- a 4.5 billion years old solar system
- once a technological society gets started
- and doesn't immediately commit suicide

... in deep time, there should be ample opportunity for magic/sufficiently advanced technology to develop.
On the other hand, historically, Earth species have shown a tendency to go extinct in mere millions of years.
It is a nice thought that species might 'transcend to another plane of knowledge'. I know of no evidence that this has ever happened, so, reluctantly, I think eventual extinction is what awaits the human species. Hopefully achieving some very high level of civilisation along the way, but human history is a bit patchy so far - highs and lows. Even a measly (when set against deep time) thousand years should give interesting results. I will not be around. Paradoxically, in some ways, that's a relief to me.

May you live in interesting times.
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He summarise this to the final conclusion in Novel Series of 2001 a Space Odyssey.
 
Arjen said:
Probably familiar, from Arthur C Clarke:
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"
With
- a universe as old as 14 billion years, if current theory is correct, and
- a 4.5 billion years old solar system
- once a technological society gets started
- and doesn't immediately commit suicide

... in deep time, there should be ample opportunity for magic/sufficiently advanced technology to develop.
On the other hand, historically, Earth species have shown a tendency to go extinct in mere millions of years.
It is a nice thought that species might 'transcend to another plane of knowledge'. I know of no evidence that this has ever happened, so, reluctantly, I think eventual extinction is what awaits the human species. Hopefully achieving some very high level of civilisation along the way, but human history is a bit patchy so far - highs and lows. Even a measly (when set against deep time) thousand years should give interesting results. I will not be around. Paradoxically, in some ways, that's a relief to me.

May you live in interesting times.
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There's room for a lot of civilizations, not excluded a previous human's one (like in Hogan novels). In any case Sapiens Sapiens are around about 300,000 years, lot of time considering that our own history covers about the 3%. And far worse some years ago in Crete archeologist found humalike footprints dated back an astonishing 4,500,000 years....
 
I quite liked the compound entities based on dog like units that when gathered into a pack attain consciousness from A Fire Upon the Deep.
 
In space, time and environment, the neutron star Cheela from the Dragon's Egg series by Robert L. Forward, and the sun dwellers in David Brin's Sundiver come to mind.

For truly exotic, unusual aliens, there is no better than Blindsight, by Peter Watts. Unfortunately I can't really expand on that without egregious spoilers. All I will say is that if really "alien" aliens is what you're looking for, it's the best story you'll ever read.

In a similar vein, but wildly different in execution, see Schild's Ladder by Greg Egan.

Liu Cixin's Three Body Problem trilogy is chock full of extremely inventive, exotic aliens.

And The Black Cloud is one of my favorite scifi stories. Great great book and should be required reading for anybody interested in hard science fiction. It is the prototype that informed and birthed a thousand great novels, having read it after a few decades of consuming tons of scifi, I had to laugh at how much of that book echoes downstream.
 
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Antonio said:
The dinosauroid is a hypothetical species created by Dale A. Russell in 1982. Just an exercise of speculative biology. "What-if-ing"
We'll never precisely know how life would had evolved after the 5th massive extinction.

About extraterrestrial complex lifeforms characteristics, absolutely no idea, because they would be modelled against local environments and catastrophic events. Thus it's truly improbable to find a replica of Earth species in another world.
I see no reason either for extraterrestrial life not to be based on the same basic design plans from bacteria to multicellular.
Click to expand...

I saw Dale Russell's dinosauroid at the old Natural History Museum in Ottawa back in the '80s. A very cool concept ... but kind of freaky to stand looking eye-to-eye with!

With hindsight, others have discounted that 'dinosauroid' concept as being excessively humanoid. A more realistic what-if might involve troodontids evolving into forms with longer armed and shorter necks. That would have eventually allowed for the development of larger-capacity brains in bigger skulls as well as literally encouraging manual dexterity (with resulting benefits to cognitive function).

Russell et al had to make their 'dinosauroid' stand fully erect to make up for its absence of a tail. Of course, bird evolution took a totally different approach to (almost complete) tail-loss. A crouching stance like a bird might scale better if the biped in question was fully terrestrial with more robust bones for muscle attachments. But, an armed bird analogue still wouldn't result in an upright, humanoid life form.

All that said, there is obviously no reason to assume that extraterrestrial life would be anything like humans or dinosaurs (regardless of the degree of modification).
 

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