[QUOTE=27X;52589218]It's not even in the same ballpark very likely, given that earth-like planets are an extreme rarity and 92% of the planets capable of supporting life (which currently dials in at 1%) won't be created in the Earth's lifespan.
So not only arrogance, but arrogance unsupported by current cosmological numbers nor current exo-evolutionary theory.[/QUOTE]
you could do to chill out on the "arrogance" bullshit and instead calmly explain things
[editline]18th August 2017[/editline]
also do note that i had a few qualifiers in my post, limiting my scope to technological aliens. your throwing out numbers of earth-like planets and those capable of supporting life on a galactic timespan does nothing to tell me [i]why[/i] successful, technological aliens would be so dissimilar to us.
technology necessitates an abundance of resources, primarily precious metals. getting to that point without abundant, easy to use building materials such as wood, or having bodies that can manipulate resources is a direct limiting factor to useful intelligence.
it seems your own ~arrogance~ prevented you from being able to understand the points i was making
[QUOTE=DOG-GY;52589239]you could do to chill out on the "arrogance" bullshit and instead calmly explain things
[editline]18th August 2017[/editline]
also do note that i had a few qualifiers in my post, limiting my scope to technological aliens. your throwing out numbers of earth-like planets and those capable of supporting life on a galactic timespan does nothing to tell me [i]why[/i] successful, technological aliens would be so dissimilar to us.
technology necessitates an abundance of resources, primarily precious metals. getting to that point without abundant, easy to use building materials such as wood, or having bodies that can manipulate resources is a direct limiting factor to useful intelligence.
it seems your own ~arrogance~ prevented you from being able to understand the points i was making[/QUOTE]
I can't tell you why, because I can't imagine things that are unforseen to that degree. We have to assume the physics of our area is the same universe wide, that's about the only real assumption we can make, distributions of minerals and materials in the universe is probably pretty even so that might also be an assumption we can make.
The biomes of these exo planets though? We have no idea. They could be radically different, with forms of foliage or other forms of life that we might not recognize or understand, leading a "intelligent" species to adapt in a way that's entirely different from us and what we see to be intelligent. There could be a million things that our perceptions have missed on our way to our current understanding of the universe, there could very well be creatures out there in the universe with wholly different forms of perception. I'm not talking about radical time altering creatures or anything so crazy as that, merely different forms of senses. We only see a very narrow band of visible light, due to our star emitting a broad spectrum giving us our evolutionary pick of the litter. This may not be the case for all life bearing worlds.
This isn't even to mention we might not understand the greater complexities that allow life to exist. Surely life requires water, oxygen, and the other factors we see on earth, right? But what if that assumption isn't correct in it's entirety?
There's too many unknowns for me to see your guess here as anything other than a true guess
I mean the thing is, if I could come up with a plausible alternative to those things, then I wouldn't be writing a reply to you, I'd be wrist deep in my novel.
[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;52589268]I can't tell you why, because I can't imagine things that are unforseen to that degree. We have to assume the physics of our area is the same universe wide, that's about the only real assumption we can make, distributions of minerals and materials in the universe is probably pretty even so that might also be an assumption we can make.
The biomes of these exo planets though? We have no idea. They could be radically different, with forms of foliage or other forms of life that we might not recognize or understand, leading a "intelligent" species to adapt in a way that's entirely different from us and what we see to be intelligent. There could be a million things that our perceptions have missed on our way to our current understanding of the universe, there could very well be creatures out there in the universe with wholly different forms of perception. I'm not talking about radical time altering creatures or anything so crazy as that, merely different forms of senses. We only see a very narrow band of visible light, due to our star emitting a broad spectrum giving us our evolutionary pick of the litter. This may not be the case for all life bearing worlds.
This isn't even to mention we might not understand the greater complexities that allow life to exist. Surely life requires water, oxygen, and the other factors we see on earth, right? But what if that assumption isn't correct in it's entirety?
There's too many unknowns for me to see your guess here as anything other than a true guess
I mean the thing is, if I could come up with a plausible alternative to those things, then I wouldn't be writing a reply to you, I'd be wrist deep in my novel.[/QUOTE]
This is exactly why I'm limiting myself to technological species, which is the scope this video largely also presents (and Star Trek, which it heavily references in its visuals). These are the only kinds of intelligent species we are ever likely in any way to talk to due to the speed of light limitation.
We could consider an Earth with no humans or even primates to be full of quite intelligent life, since we have dolphins. However their physical limitations prevent them from developing any sort of technology.
[QUOTE=DOG-GY;52589239]you could do to chill out on the "arrogance" bullshit and instead calmly explain things
[editline]18th August 2017[/editline]
also do note that i had a few qualifiers in my post, limiting my scope to technological aliens. your throwing out numbers of earth-like planets and those capable of supporting life on a galactic timespan does nothing to tell me [i]why[/i] successful, technological aliens would be so dissimilar to us.
technology necessitates an abundance of resources, primarily precious metals. getting to that point without abundant, easy to use building materials such as wood, or having bodies that can manipulate resources is a direct limiting factor to useful intelligence.
it seems your own ~arrogance~ prevented you from being able to understand the points i was making[/QUOTE]
Technology presumes no such things; technology quite literally relies on on whatever the surrounding environment supplies and the whatever is leveraging that environments' resources mode of thinking and ability to manipulate, none of which presume "humangs with bumpy ridges".
Speaking of arrogance, the title of the video is [i]writing[/i], not "Star Trek/Stargate TV show and Star Trek TV/Stargate show only".
[QUOTE=27X;52589294]Technology presumes no such things; technology quite literally relies on on whatever the surrounding environment supplies and the whatever is leveraging that environments' resources mode of thinking and ability to manipulate, none of which presume "humangs with bumpy ridges".
Speaking of arrogance, the title of the video is [i]writing[/i], not "Star Trek/Stargate TV show and Star Trek TV/Stargate show only".[/QUOTE]
are you intentionally ignoring both what i obviously mean by technology and the direction the conversation has gone
i dont mean an octopus using a coconut shell, and we have not strictly been talking about the video for a good while man.
That's a perfect example because halo really went for the idea that players should be able to look an enemy and know "what kind of guy" that alien is. When the grunts go screaming when you kill elites, it makes sense because the elites (while not the strongest or biggest species) have the stature that says "hey I'm the Lieutenant."
What can learn about being blue other than they are a different species? Without watching you can't tell if its social commentary or just the best they could do at the time.
[QUOTE=Vodkavia;52589675]The problem with tropes is that if they're doing obviously bare bones manner it has the opposite of the intended effect. Instead of being a short cut it instead becomes a snagging point for the viewer/reader/player that takes them out of the fiction and makes it look cheap and rushed.
Compare this;
[t]http://www.nerdlikeyou.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Halo-Conglomeration-Covenant-species.jpg[/t]
[t]https://www.extremetech.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/star-trek-2.jpg[/t]
to that.
On one end of the spectrum you have forehead ridges and oddly coloured skin, on the other hand you have different sizes, postures and morphology that reflect their mannerism and culture. Both ends of the spectrum are based on tropes however.[/QUOTE]
But despite this star trek is a better scifi series than halo by leagues?
halos aliens have variety not because the setting demands it, they have variety so the player can identify them at a glance. It's a gameplay consideration, not a storytelling one. They aren't designed to be realistic aliens, they're designed to be identifiable from a distance so the player knows whats going on. Besides that, they're (nearly) all humanoids that all use human guns and speak in english, so you're not even making a strong case.
Conversely, star trek isn't about the alien races biology, it's about philosophical and scientific questions, morality is a big part of star trek, society is a big part of star trek, character interaction is a HUGE part of star trek. which is EXACTLY why the aliens are just funny forehead people, so the audience can relate to them, so the audience can understand their body language, so the audience can focus on the STORY. Yeah its a little lazy, and it's also to save on budget but this is just a ridiculous comparison to make.
Exactly the point.
If that one aspect of your show is that poor, it better be a concession you had to make for the sake of the other aspects. If you have shitty aliens, it better be because you didn't need fancy ones for your script to work.
Star Trek is the rare exception to this because it wasn't lazy it was extremely calculated. Most lazy writers arent lazy because they have 10/10 scripts that require no world-building or character design. Most people also don't wanna do social commentary on the level of Star Trek either.
The thing with technology-using-species is that most likely they will be somewhat similar to humans. In order to reach a technology level allowing you to travel between stars you will need:
1. prehensile limbs (to use any sort of technology really)
2. some sort of society/herd/whatever (to advance from generation to generation)
3. Food resource that you can farm (you can only grow so far as nomads)
4. Biomes that will require you to invest in technology like housing and transport (if your society doesn't need to farm or build houses because there's plenty of food and warmth you're not going to build them)
5. Access to resources like wood and metal.
This will most likely end up with something comparable to humans. Both in terms of society and more humanoid than not biology. Unless all of that can be achieved in liquid (be that water or melted methane) then they would just have fins instead of legs. They could breathe helium or something or maybe see and hear in different ranges than us but in the end they would be comparable. It's not like you can give seagulls or pigs super intelligence, leave them for few thousand years and come back to see cities build by them.
On the other hand if a technology-using-species would advance far enough they could either replace their bodies with bionics or change them with genetic engineering so they potentially could be completely different biologically, just not because they evolved that way.
I just don't want to be so presumptious to assume that our limbs and our methods of interacting are optimal. Yes a technological society would require an abundance of supplies to create anything but that doesn't necessitate that the biomes of a different world may provide in different ways.
[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;52590968]I just don't want to be so presumptious to assume that our limbs and our methods of interacting are optimal. Yes a technological society would require an abundance of supplies to create anything but that doesn't necessitate that the biomes of a different world may provide in different ways.[/QUOTE]
It doesn't have to be humans arms or any way of our government. You just need prehensile limbs to operate any technology and a society able to pass knowledge to next generations. That could as well mean hivemind-like swarm of tentacle monsters.
[QUOTE=Silly Sil;52591146]It doesn't have to be humans arms or any way of our government. You just need prehensile limbs to operate any technology and a society able to pass knowledge to next generations. That could as well mean hivemind-like swarm of tentacle monsters.[/QUOTE]
Fair enough, I interpreted your limbs statement to be more restricted than you meant
For people looking for an actual, rare, realistic attempt at aliens, please check out Wayne Douglas Barlowe's work, particularly for his book, Expedition, which was eventually reimagined into the science film "Alien Planet".
Here is some of the artwork for Expedition:
[T]https://i.pinimg.com/originals/88/f3/00/88f300bac71951f743f2c6148378d65c.jpg[/T][T]https://i.pinimg.com/736x/26/c7/68/26c768b164982d933bfeb8c7cc629224--alien-creatures-fantasy-creatures.jpg[/T]
[T]https://waynebarlowe.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/daggerwrist.jpg[/T][T]http://68.media.tumblr.com/2c4de21eb77d632cab29424065bbaf9f/tumblr_mmzhwvN1RZ1s203nfo2_1280.jpg[/T]
[t]https://waynebarlowe.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/gyrosprinter.jpg[/T][T]http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/aliens/images/f/f6/Eosapien.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20080908061221[/T]
The club-holding one being the sentient life of the planet, around the level of prehistoric man in terms of ability. There are even environments that are not present on Earth represented.
(For example, the planet, much like current-day Mars, is losing it's water content due to the combination of gravity, magnetosphere and solar wind, and the largest oceanic body has retained it's size only because it is enveloped by a film of microorganisms that render it into a Texas-sized mass capable of extending small gelatinous tentacles into the air to ensnare small prey. Life has overall evolved to be blind and rely on sound in part of this because the mass evaporation of water left the entire globe in a near-perpetual fog state for millions of years on end, pressuring the wildlife to similar conditions found in caves while still allowing photosynthesis. What's visited is the world after this fog has lifted. The openings on the heads are formations used to articulate the point of a sound's origin better, effectively using echolocation on a level that even bats would be inferior to.)
His concepts garnered the attention of a little movie maker known as [i]James Cameron[/i] who hired him to make the aliens of Avatar. The kicker? James was so floored by Wayne's design concepts for the movie that he had them toned down to be more relatable to Earth life because he actually thought they were [i]too alien[/i] for the average person.
To see a movie that is more inline with how Barlowe actually envisions aliens, please watch the faux documentary Alien Planet mentioned before, which I believe currently is on Netflix. Although the CGI is over a decade old now, the presentation is excellent and deserves a view into what an extraterrestrial world really could look like compared to Earth.
[QUOTE=The Duke;52591308][img]http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/aliens/images/f/f6/Eosapien.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20080908061221[/img]
[img]https://waynebarlowe.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/daggerwrist.jpg[/img]
[img]https://i.pinimg.com/originals/88/f3/00/88f300bac71951f743f2c6148378d65c.jpg[/img][/QUOTE]
If Salvador Dali painted an episode of Rick and Morty
So a lot of the things he complained about are sort of "necessary evils" for certain media. In a live-action TV or film series, doing seriously non-human characters is difficult and expensive, and used to be borderline impossible. The only low-cost way to do aliens in that medium is with humans in costumes, which already limits you to a certain shape, and then the cost of fancier prosthetics pushes you even more towards a humanoid shape. So for stuff like Star Trek, you kind of have to give them a pass, because if they'd tried to do aliens "realistically", they wouldn't have been able to make the show at all.
Another factor is that human brains have dedicated neural circuitry for recognizing and interpreting human faces and body language, to the point that some domesticated species have evolved to mimic human signals. So even if your medium lets you make strange alien bodyplans, it might be worthwhile to not take full advantage of that, especially if you need your aliens to be easily "readable" in a visual medium. This is why Halo still uses humanoid bodyplans - so the player can recognize the enemy emotes like "I'm really pissed off and will probably charge" or "I'm fleeing in panic" or "I'm hunkering down to lay down some fire". Halo is, primarily, a shooter, so gameplay trumps story.
That is not to say that everything is fine. Anime has no excuse for why like half of their "aliens" are literally indistinguishable from humans. You can't justify everything by saying "it's a limitation of the medium" or "people might not understand the story if we had truly weird aliens".
It all depends on what you're trying to do with your story. If you're trying to use fiction to explore the latest scientific theories or discoveries, by all means, make some aliens that are fucking alien. Give me asexually-reproducing floating jellyfish from a carbonaceous planet orbiting a white dwarf that communicate through bioluminescence.
But if you're writing a story that's "Treasure Island, except in space", sure, give us humanoids that inexplicably speak English. To do otherwise would work against the story.
[QUOTE=Silly Sil;52590861]On the other hand if a technology-using-species would advance far enough they could either replace their bodies with bionics or change them with genetic engineering so they potentially could be completely different biologically, just not because they evolved that way.[/QUOTE]
The Vodyani from the Endless games followed a similar path. They initially had more "hunched" and "gangly" forms (couldn't find an image, but they appear in the [URL="https://youtu.be/XEj1Gq4e_WU"]Vodyani's Vision trailer[/URL]), but after discovering certain Virtual relics they essentially uploaded themselves to what are basically robotic suits of armour, in order to outlive their dying homeworld. And nowadays they look like this:
[IMG]https://www.endless-space.com/assets/images/thumbnail_video_vodyani.jpg[/IMG]
[QUOTE=gman003-main;52592164]But if you're writing a story that's "Treasure Island, except in space", sure, give us humanoids that inexplicably speak English. To do otherwise would work against the story.[/QUOTE]
[i]motherfucking space SHIPS[/i]
[QUOTE=Dr.C;52587364]I've always wondered how humans would really be stereotyped by aliens. They always say all humans are violent or selfish but I think aliens would be ripping on us for our relationship with food. Maybe the aliens would just see food as an energy source so they don't care about taste(evolutionarily speaking, it wouldn't make too much sense since taste tells us if food is good to eat) so seeing us spend so much time and energy on our food would be weird to them.[/QUOTE]
[B]Humans: A Cursory Look[/B]
[i]A treatise by Cx'ghgc-fhudhf, director of exobiology studies, Xryh'tch-xhcg'rgdj Education Board of Cx'va-xudhfg.[/i]
Humans lack nearly all ability to naturally exert their will on the environment around them. They possess no wings for flight, nor natural fur or thick hide for warmth or protection. Their mobility is very limited due to their lack of streamlined bodies for fast movement such as those shared by other species living on the same planet. They are, however, relatively well equipped for long distance travel due to their long bipedal legs and low energy consumption.
Because of their lacking environmental adaptions, In order to survive they must change the environment to suit them. Luckily, their long arms and highly dexterous hands allow them to construct tools to allow them to alter their environment as well as fabricate fake fur or hide out of the skin of native animals or synthetic polymers, assuming they possess the required materials.
Unfortunately, this requirement of materials necessitates the uneven distribution of the means of supply and production- meaning human society requires non-voluntary social contracts with unequal balance of social power in order to operate. Material wealth therefore forms the basis of all human culture and religion, ranging from the sharing of material goods with genetically similar relatives to the separation of individuals into social castes based on material ownership as well as the splitting of its population into various warring nation states and cultural groups.
On the other hand, the use of tools to alter their native environment has allowed humans to adapt to nearly every biome on and around their home planet, including forests, deserts, steppes, mountains and, to a certain extent, the depths of its oceans and outer space. It could also be argued that the basis of their society around limited natural resources could also be a driver for innovation, as it encourages competition between individuals to make best use of those resources and so improve their living situation and social standing. However, since improving one's living conditions and social standing is often a fundamental driver for any individual within any species, it is unclear whether competition based on limited material goods is the primary social motivator within human society.
For the curious exobiologist, it is recommended to avoid direct contact with humans until further biosocial research has been concluded as to the exact danger posed by humans and their electron-based projectile weaponry. Be advised, Humans may be prone to violent outbursts, erratic behavior, extreme selfishness, wishful thinking, attention seeking and displays of self-harm. Non-interference ethical guidelines apply, as such all observation licenses must be obtained from the official ethics committee of the Xryh'tch-xhcg'rgdj Education Board of Cx'va-xudhfg.
[QUOTE=Vodkavia;52589675]
[t]http://www.nerdlikeyou.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Halo-Conglomeration-Covenant-species.jpg[/t]
[t]https://www.extremetech.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/star-trek-2.jpg[/t]
[/QUOTE]
It's called a costume/makeup budget.
[QUOTE=Zyler;52592457]For the curious exobiologist, it is recommended to avoid direct contact with humans until further biosocial research has been concluded as to the exact danger posed by humans and their electron-based projectile weaponry.[B] Be advised, Humans may be prone to violent outbursts, erratic behavior, extreme selfishness, wishful thinking, attention seeking and displays of self-harm.[/B] Non-interference ethical guidelines apply, as such all observation licenses must be obtained from the official ethics committee of the Xryh'tch-xhcg'rgdj Education Board of Cx'va-xudhfg.[/QUOTE]
If you want a lazy trope look at the above, that Humans will without a doubt be considered the most irrational/violent species in the galaxy. It's like people forget that practically everything on the planet is in a perpetual kill/survive state. Among the most humane things in terms of this are, kind of obviously, humans.
[QUOTE=EuSKalduna;52584835]His whole channel is pretty good. Only wish he'd upload more frequently[/QUOTE]
it's easy to complain about shit and i watched a few of his videos and it all seems like surface level bitching. He offers no solutions or examples of whatever he's talking about done right.
In Halo, don't Aliens speak their own languages but they're translated for us because technology?
Yeah Halo 1 was all "WORT WORT" but then with Halo 2 having more of the Covenant's side of the story we needed to know what they were saying.
[QUOTE=GHOST!!!!;52593910]In Halo, don't Aliens speak their own languages but they're translated for us because technology?[/QUOTE]
It is, by the time Halo 2 comes around the Covenant languages are translated in real time because of neural implants. The Covenant also have a level of understanding of human languages to translate them, and can even speak it to a limited degree. Gameplay-wise, since they now have a more active role beyond "bad guys", communication between human and Covenant characters is important for the plot to work.
As for CE, Grunts speak English canonically because by that point, many Convenant did have some understanding of English (timeline wise, CE happens a couple decades into the war). The actual gameplay reason is because rule of funny.
[QUOTE=MedicWine;52591564]If Salvador Dali painted an episode of Rick and Morty[/QUOTE]
Nobody [url=http://i.imgur.com/ZbwyeUq.png]sees[/url] a [url=https://waynebarlowe.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/daggerwrist.jpg]similarity[/url] conceptually?
I think this show nails alien design really well.
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