Biggest Science Fiction Disappointments!

[Elok]

Originally posted by Vince278
I see you've given this some thought.

Yes and no. I once heard a guy describe Jar Jar's accent as that of a flaming gay jamaican. The next time I saw the movie, I couldn't help thinking that if they were both captured by the Trade Federation, JJ would inevitably become Nass's ho. Look at the dude, he's huge, and he's got big power/dominance issues too.

[The Mad Monk]

I was thinking about good examples of non-humanoids in scifi, and remembered the Hivers from the Traveller PnP RPG. Not only are they one of the strangest aliens I have read about, they are one of the most rationally put together:

Hivers
Intelligent major race descended from omnivore/gatherer-scavengers native to Guaran ( Ricenden / Guaran 0827), where they were adapted to an underground existence. Of the major races, the Hivers look the most alien compared to humans. The Hiver body exhibits a modified six-fold radial symmetry; the body has a calcerous internal skeleton consisting of a series of rings supporting the limbs and a fused carapace protecting the brain and most of the important internal organs. The adult Hiver stands about 1.5 meters in height (or three meters from limb to limb), and weighs about 150 kilograms.

The six limbs extending from the torso end in manipulative tentacles. The head is a modification of one of the limbs and is typically held in a raised position. It contains a sensory cluster with six eyestalks, six manipulative tentacles, three infrared sensor organs, and three auditory sensors. The mouth (digestive opening) is on the lower surface of the body. There is no sound-producing organ.

The other five limbs are identical to each other (except for slight modifications of the hand opposite the head), and the limbs function interchangeably as arms, legs, hands, and feet. Each limb ends in a six-fingered radial "hand". Fingers are very flexible and have muscular suction cups on the lower surface about halfway to the tips. Hiver hands and arms are generally weaker than a human's, but are very tough and difficult to injure.

Hivers have only one sex. Reproductive cells are exchanged each time that Hivers meet, using the modified rear hand (the process has been termed by humans "shaking hands"). The cells are kept in a reproductive pouch on the lower body surface where they conjugate and exchange genetic material. Once every 40 days or so, a cell will develop into a larva, which then drops from its parent's body.

Hive planets are mostly wilderness, and the larvae enter the wilds, where most are killed. After about a year, survivors return to civilisation, where they are welcomed into any nest and begin their education as citizens. Parental instinct in Hivers is very strong, and the young are adopted by the entire nest (note that this only applies to year-old returnees, not to the younger larvae; in fact, the latter are treated as minor pests).

Hiver language is a combination of arm/tentacle-waving and physical contact. The written language is ideographic and is used as a standard language among the races of the Hive Federation. Hivers talking among themselves use all three aspects of language (gesture, touch, and writing) at once, a process requiring a great deal of subtlety and sophistication, but unintelligible to the outsider.

Hivers are unique among major races in that they had a complex culture before becoming sentient. Originally, they lived in the tunnels and built-up mounds of a large (1000kg) burrowing animal. In exchange for shelter, they gave food. They farmed fungus and foraged outside for decaying vegetation and dead animals as a source of food for the fungus.

Burrowers were allowed to graze in the farm tunnels. Hivers ate the fungus and whatever fresh food they could find outside. Intelligence arose as the outside environment changed, forcing the foraging parties to travel further to discover new sources of food and fertiliser; foragers advanced from simple scavenging and gathering efforts to complex co-operative efforts of hunting and trapping live game.

Today, fungus remains the staple of the Hiver diet; fungus growing is a highly developed art. Most buildings retain the beehive shape and large underground tunnel complexes of the original burrowers, but they are constructed by machines; the burrowers (known as snohl) are restricted to the secondary function of keeping the tunnels clean. Hiver attachment to them is essentially non-rational; they just feel more comfortable with snohl around.

Hive society is highly individualistic. The term "Hive" results from an early human misconception which stems from the appearance of the Hiver's building and tunnel complexes. Nests contain from five to five hundred individuals, who are usually centred around some common endeavour. While one hundred is an average size for a nest (and was the size in pre-civilised times), larger groups may come together for some civilised purpose such as large manufacturing companies or universities. Small nests are usually spaceship crews or isolated research parties. A young hiver will spend his first 15 years in his home nest; thereafter, nest changes may take place as often as a modern human might change jobs.

Because of the nature of their reproduction, hivers never experienced the population pressures so important to human history. the population of their homeworld is now only a few hundred million, only 10 times greater than what it was in prehistoric times. Predators control the young; when the adult survival rate rises, thus increasing the numbers of young produced, the predator population increases proportionately and the balance is maintained. Space colonisation arose not from population pressure but from curiosity, with which Hivers are amply endowed.

The Hivers have colonised only those planets with climates most pleasant to themselves; if the planet has no predators that like to eat Hiver larvae, they are imported. Because of the high birth rate, a colony will rapidly fill up to its maximum population level of a few hundred million and will then stabilise. Hivers like planets of size 6 or less, with Thin or Standard atmospheres and unvarying climates. Hiver enclaves, for commercial or scientific purposes, are found on worlds of more extreme characteristics.

Hive industry and business excels at communications technology and robot construction. Major exports include artificial and computer languages, translators, and sophisticated electronic hardware of all types. Hiver mathematical systems are much in demand for their power and elegance.

Hiver government is largely the result of many nests co-operating or working in concert. Hiver society is utterly egalitarian - competing for power over others is foreign to the Hiver nature. However, the strong parental instinct of the Hivers leads them to take great pride in subtle forms of individual predictive manipulation of others. A successful manipulation (one which is for the common good) earns the manipulator respect and honour among all Hivers.

The main co-ordinating centre of the Hive Federation is Glea ( Glea / Centrax 2609).

http://www.tip.net.au/~davidjw/libdata/ALPHABET/H/hivers.htm

http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/traveller/alienraces3/img/cover_lg.jpg

The Hiver is the one in the back.

[The Mad Monk]

Hiver with a prosthetic:



I don't know what this is, but it looks cool:

[Dis]

Originally posted by LDiCesare
I know someone with only 2 fingers on his hand, effectively a pincer, and he manages quite well.
Humans are big. Walk around and look at how many creatures are bigger than you. Horses, cattle, bisons, bears. In Africa, a lot more. Dogs, cats, rodents, birds, bats, insects, reptiles... are most of the time smaller. I think that being big makes it harder to be hunted and thus makes long lifespans more likely.
You could also put things in the mouth and use mandibles and whatnot. Mouth has lots of captors that will let you sense things much better than the skin, and it's very easy to put things to the mouth. Having a tongue, pedipalp, elephant trunk or such to handle things is possible.
Consider the elephant: Its trunk has a lot of flexibility and in one species has a finger-like protrusion. You could perfectly have the nose be a nice appendage to manipulate things. There are moles whose nose looks like a star, so if you combine a mole and an elephant, you could get a 5-finger star-like trunk. Or something like that.

sure you can live with 2 fingers. But can you build an automobile. Or even more importantly, build a spaceship (which is the only way we'll discover other alien beings)

[Urban Ranger]

Hivers have only one sex. Reproductive cells are exchanged each time that Hivers meet, using the modified rear hand (the process has been termed by humans "shaking hands"). The cells are kept in a reproductive pouch on the lower body surface where they conjugate and exchange genetic material. Once every 40 days or so, a cell will develop into a larva, which then drops from its parent's body.

Surely it means the critter is hermaphrodite, or having both sexual organs in the same individual. Otherwise there won't be any "reproductive cells."

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by The Mad Monk
I'm saying that an alien race that otherwise has the equivalent intelligence and circulatory systems (etc) could do worse than any of those body types. Claws can develop more finely, eventually develping "fingers" if the environment favors it; tentacles could similarly develop sub-appendages.

I guess such a thing is possible. The only difficult part is to come up with a plausible evolutionary path for such a critter.

The human brian is energy intensive - it takes a lot to make and maintain that thing. Thus, intelligence must bestow a significant evolutionary advantage. Our ancestors, being generalists, indeed was given such a boost by being intelligent that they eventually outdid everything else. By contrast, a scorpion is a highly specialised predator and has little use for intelligence.

[Odin]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


I guess such a thing is possible. The only difficult part is to come up with a plausible evolutionary path for such a critter.

The human brian is energy intensive - it takes a lot to make and maintain that thing. Thus, intelligence must bestow a significant evolutionary advantage. Our ancestors, being generalists, indeed was given such a boost by being intelligent that they eventually outdid everything else. By contrast, a scorpion is a highly specialised predator and has little use for intelligence.

Exactly, our brain acounts for about 20% of our metabolism at rest.

[GePap]

In B5 neither the Vorlons nor the Shadows are humanoid- we do not know if the Vorlons ever were, but the Shadows never were humanoid- there is at least another non-humanoid (insectozoid? Is that the word?) species on that show.

IN David Brin's Uplift serties there is a fair number of non-humanoid species, including several reptilian, birds, quadrupeds, and all sorts of other beings.

[GePap]

Or in the Ringworld universe of Niven the pupeteers are not humanoid, and in the Rama universe one of the sentient species that shares the Rama cylinder with human beings look like spiders.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by GePap
IN David Brin's Uplift serties there is a fair number of non-humanoid species, including several reptilian, birds, quadrupeds, and all sorts of other beings.

I'd say reptilian, etc. shapes are all part of the basic bipedal body shape. A head, a trunk (chest and abdomen), plus 4 limbs. Tail optional.

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

Definitely the NEW Battlestar Galactica.

[Odin]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


I'd say reptilian, etc. shapes are all part of the basic bipedal body shape. A head, a trunk (chest and abdomen), plus 4 limbs. Tail optional.

Theropod w/big brain?

[Urban Ranger]

Not theropods, more like lizards (e.g. the Gorns in Star Trek).

Theropods seem to be too specialised.

[self biased]

Originally posted by Last Conformist
The human body plan is the result of haphazard accretion of features over a billion of years. The chance that anything much like it has come up on any given other planet is miniscule, as should be clear to anyone with a basic understanding of evolutionary biology.

i'm only on page two, but what of parallel evolution. a certain niche in the ecology demands a certain shape. something that has to live in water would surely develop into something resembling fish, right?

[The Mad Monk]

Yes, but a bluefish, a crayfish, a jellyfish, or a cuttlefish?