Posts: 53
Threads: 9
Joined: Sep 2024
10-15-2024, 06:14 PM
What are your favorite alien species?
Mine are the Wanderers from Endless Sky. They are basically bird people that terraform planets they come across. Every era or so, the "Eye" opens - a wormhole with a mysterious origin (it is later revealed in the game, however), and the Wanderers go through it to new worlds. The Wanderers are extragalactic, however.
Posts: 3,792
Threads: 207
Joined: Mar 2013
Heptapods from "Story of your life"/"the arrival" by ted chiang (for their mind-bending language)
the trisolarians from the dark forest trilogy by cixin liu, for how they use their dimensional technologies and infiltrate earth
the shimmer from "Annihilation" by jeff vandermeer, for its eldritch description
when i was growing up, I drew the Hork Bajir from the Animorphs series pretty often
Posts: 11,721
Threads: 453
Joined: Apr 2013
The Puppeteers in Known Space are a well-developed alien concept. This image is by Alex Ries.
Alex Ries has also created his own excellent aliens, the Birrin.
Posts: 3,792
Threads: 207
Joined: Mar 2013
Oh yeah the puppeteers from Larry Niven’s known Ringworld/space series were great , and describing their prey mentality of caution was cool when I read those books
Also the Octospiders from Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur c Clark ,and its two sequels- they had a great biology and society built up and explored
Posts: 53
Threads: 9
Joined: Sep 2024
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWbRbGybz7Y
The Yaetoans are also a fascinating alien species to explore. You can tell how much love Christian Cline (the artist) put into his worldbuilding in the Yaetoan Saga.
Posts: 53
Threads: 9
Joined: Sep 2024
Also, thanks for the recommendations! They seem quite interesting
Posts: 53
Threads: 9
Joined: Sep 2024
"The Thing" from the movie "The Thing (1982)" could also be interesting to explore. It really makes me wonder how this creature functions. How can it shapeshift in the first place? How can it assimilate human cells? How does it have gestalt intelligence?
Is there any clade already like this in OAUP? Just asking
Posts: 3,792
Threads: 207
Joined: Mar 2013
Shogs
https://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/56ced7f0399cd
You might enjoy The things by by Peter Watts (or anything else he has written) which definitely goes into some backstory of The thing
https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/watts_01_10/
Posts: 53
Threads: 9
Joined: Sep 2024
(10-16-2024, 01:10 PM)Worldtree Wrote: Shogs
https://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/56ced7f0399cd
You might enjoy The things by by Peter Watts (or anything else he has written) which definitely goes into some backstory of The thing
https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/watts_01_10/
I read that story! And the Shogs were interesting on their own.
