Favorite Aliens from Science Fiction but not from TTRPGs

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Teotwawki said:
I think the Aslan predate Cherryh's novels by a year or so.
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They turn up in published material in the same year, so for one to inspire the other would mean either GDW or Cherryh had a really fast turn-around. Despite being 'feline' I don't think either the Hani or the Aslan were particularly inspired by Niven's Kzinti, either - not because of timing, but because they're quite different from Kzinti.

JTAS 07 was the first JTAS of 1981, and it's the first somewhat detailed description of the Aslan, which was repeated in Library Data A-M later the same year.

AM 01 - Aslan was published in 1984, and had much more detail.

Pride of Chanur was published in 1981, and the next three in 84-86.
 
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I am fond of later iterations of Dire Wraiths from Marvel, spiked tongues with acid and all. Also, I prefer the Brood to the Alien from Alien. I just prefer their design and find it creepier especially since they can use technology and are spacefaring.
 
Silverlion said:
I am fond of later iterations of Dire Wraiths from Marvel, spiked tongues with acid and all. Also, I prefer the Brood to the Alien from Alien. I just prefer their design and find it creepier especially since they can use technology and are spacefaring.
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Great call on the Dire Wraiths! The in fighting between the science minded males and the sorcery minded females later on was great! They are definitely a species I could see introducing to any game setting.
 
sharps54 said:
Great call on the Dire Wraiths! The in fighting between the science minded males and the sorcery minded females later on was great! They are definitely a species I could see introducing to any game setting.
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I ran a game of Alternity, set in the modern day, and did an homage to the Thing with Dire Wraiths. (Someone found a gate in Antarctica and opened it, players were normal but trained people.) I always wanted to lead into it and reveal it was the MU. (In the past, supers weren't everywhere, mostly just in big cities like LA and NY, and could be explained away as urban legend. Sure I had several Wraiths, but I tried hard to make it scary. (PC silliness thwarted some of that.)
 
Silverlion said:
I ran a game of Alternity, set in the modern day, and did an homage to the Thing with Dire Wraiths. (Someone found a gate in Antarctica and opened it, players were normal but trained people.) I always wanted to lead into it and reveal it was the MU. (In the past, supers weren't everywhere, mostly just in big cities like LA and NY, and could be explained away as urban legend. Sure I had several Wraiths, but I tried hard to make it scary. (PC silliness thwarted some of that.)
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PC silliness is a powerful thing! Tone can be hard to maintain if the PCs have a different idea than the GM because they outnumber you!
 
Angels Prophecy would be cool, in a shared universe with Pin Head and Cenobites, and maybe Djinn from Wishmaster.

The aliens in Star God book, the Q-like beings from Transmigration of Souls (multiverse book)
 
I'm boring and influenced by pop-culture, obviously - my vote goes to the Gua from the First Wave series:thumbsup:!
 
I really like the Hooded Swan series by Brian Stableford. He was a biologist and sociologist and that comes through in his plots and worldbuilding, including his aliens.

Some of them are left as just outright mysteries, which is no bad thing. The most compelling aliens are the Wind (a mind parasite), and.. well, massive spoiler required:
The Nightingale Nebula from Swan Song, which it turns out is not only an alternate universe, but an alien consciousness; if it completely comprehends anything that enters it, that creature or thing is absorbed into its substance and effectively annihilated.

Slightly off-topic, but the stories are weirdly very Traveller-like despite predating Trav by a few years (the last one came out in 1975). The hero, well protagonist, is a pilot indentured to accept missions from a somewhat shady boss because of a debt. The first story sees the crew (a pilot, an engineer, and an owner's agent, with the medic/steward left behind) crossing a hostile planetary surface in an ATV. The hero's run-in with the police in "Promised Land" could be read as a master-class of how to use a random encounter to spin off an adventure.

Otherwise... the Krell from Forbidden Planet, as a great precursor/ancient race with a tragic story.

The Ptertha from Ragged Astronauts. Puffballs that follow you around a bit like the balloons from the Prisoner; if they catch you, they release spores that drive you insane and then kill you. They fit into the ecology of the world in the book.

Can't remember the name of the story or author, but I recall a story about a cynical space merchant and a missionary on a world of very literal-minded, technologically primitive aliens. The two humans' arguments about religion lead the aliens to decide to settle it by crucifying the missionary to see if he comes back to life. He goes through with it out of commitment to his mission, despite the merchant begging him not to.

Some of the aliens from the Revelation Space series are good. The Pattern Jugglers are possibly sentient ocean slime that stores thought patterns from those who swim in it, and sometimes give you something back. Greenfly are not really aliens, but a terraforming device run amuck as a Von Neumann machine. The human factions like the networked Conjoined or the deep-space-faring Ultras are cool; not really aliens, but diverging quite significantly from current human norms.

The common theme here is aliens that present gamable situations but are still genuinely alien and not bumpy-forehead humans or anthropomorphised animals. Not that I am snobbish about either of those in the right context - sometimes I want my honourable felinoid warrior companion at my side!
 
Neal Ashers Prador - Sentient Crabs who control their young with pheromones and are utterly amoraly brutal. In the Polity series.

aliens.fandom.com

Prador

The first alien contact between the Polity and another intelligent race is with the crab-like carnivorous race named Prador, who first appear in Neal Asher's Prador Moon. This signals the start of the devastating war between both races. The Prador not only consider rotting human flesh a...
aliens.fandom.com aliens.fandom.com

Peter Hamilton's Starflyer - can't say too much because, serious spoilers to the books, but a properly alien threat.

peterfhamilton.fandom.com

Starflyer

The Starflyer is an enigmatic alien alleged by the Guardians of Selfhood to be secretly manipulating human politics and society. It supposedly arrived on Far Away aboard the Marie Celeste, a vast alien arkship that crashed into the planet long ago. Although most of the Commonwealth is either...
peterfhamilton.fandom.com peterfhamilton.fandom.com

I have a thing for aliens that are really nasty, but just doing their thing. You know, nothing personal.
 
Sharrow said:
They turn up in published material in the same year, so for one to inspire the other would mean either GDW or Cherryh had a really fast turn-around. Despite being 'feline' I don't think either the Hani or the Aslan were particularly inspired by Niven's Kzinti, either - not because of timing, but because they're quite different from Kzinti.

JTAS 07 was the first JTAS of 1981, and it's the first somewhat detailed description of the Aslan, which was repeated in Library Data A-M later the same year.

AM 01 - Aslan was published in 1984, and had much more detail.

Pride of Chanur was published in 1981, and the next three in 84-86.
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Anne McCaffrey's Decision at Doona was published in 69.'

132721-461884566.jpg
 
Kardinal Tabbe said:
I always think of B5 as the opposite of the show Vikings. Vikings had good actors, great sets (even with the mountainous danish fjords:grin:), great costumes, but really, really shitty plots.

B5 had uneven acting, cheap effects and sets, but the show's multi-season arcs were spectacular and probably changed the entire industry.
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I agree, in my view B5 looked horribly cheesy, but the plot(s) would suck you in.
 
Does anyone like the Halo aliens? Mostly the Elites and Grunts (I don't like the Ape-people, or the high end, but the other two made the game.)
 
Silverlion said:
I don't recall their culture/details appearing until 85-ish, does anyone have the original Traveller's Aid Society that has them inside?
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Sharrow said:
They turn up in published material in the same year, so for one to inspire the other would mean either GDW or Cherryh had a really fast turn-around. Despite being 'feline' I don't think either the Hani or the Aslan were particularly inspired by Niven's Kzinti, either - not because of timing, but because they're quite different from Kzinti.

JTAS 07 was the first JTAS of 1981, and it's the first somewhat detailed description of the Aslan, which was repeated in Library Data A-M later the same year.

AM 01 - Aslan was published in 1984, and had much more detail.

Pride of Chanur was published in 1981, and the next three in 84-86.
Click to expand...

Weren't they listed in Twilight's Peak (1980)?
 
My elf-o-philia knows no bounds. As such, do the Craftworld Eldar of the 40k universe count?

They're totally lost in that setting.
 
Does Marvin Martian count?

I really like Beta Ray Bill but his actual race is pretty bland. The premise would work well for Star Trek or Traveller. An alien race fleeing a dying star system and a relentless enemy, in stl ships guarded by a genetically modified super soldier suffering from more than a little xenophobia.

In fiction, I quite like races like the probe in Star Trek IV or this short story Sequoia Dreams I read once where the aliens come back to talk to something other than us. In Sequoia Dreams it was the giant red woods. The aliens in Arrival are great that way, strange and inscrutible and weird looking.

I lean to liking rpg races more than those in television and movies. There should be movies with Dralasites, Kelibor, and Hivers in them, you know this to be true.
 
Teotwawki said:
Weren't they listed in Twilight's Peak (1980)?
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Yes, but they only get a paragraph of library data with no mention of their odd sex ratio, or strict gender roles. They get a few other mentions, and some Aslan traders might interact with the PCs. That's it, I think.

Twilight's Peak has more information on the Droyne, and I think it's their first major appearance. I do quite like the Droyne as aliens, but they're not for this thread, being a Traveller original.
 
Dunno about "favorite" but . . .

The Martians in Stranger in a Strange Land.

The arachnids in (Heinlein's, not the recent films/TV cartoons) Starship Troopers.

The aliens in Contact.
 
Silverlion said:
Does anyone like the Halo aliens? Mostly the Elites and Grunts (I don't like the Ape-people, or the high end, but the other two made the game.)
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Playing the original, I really liked that we had the Grunts, Jackals, Hunters and Elites as a race of fanatical religious warriors. That they were the sworn enemy of the Flood was also a nice twist. On the whole, I thought it was a pretty compelling universe. Never thought the games managed to capture that.
 
I guess "90's conspiracy grey aliens" is far too broad, so I'll narrow it down to a specific interpretation - X-Com Sectoids. Deadly psychic menaces and abductors, and eventually you learn they're just the drones of a much larger, more dangerous alien hierarchy.

The more recent XCOM series made them delightfully creepy and inhuman, but they did have what - 17 years or so? - of graphic advancements to help with that.

Actually, add X-Com mutons, cyberdiscs, chryssalids, and ethereals to my list, too.

Man, that franchise has had some great aliens.
 
Agemegos said:
To my taste the Moties share a slightly irritating trait with Niven's other aliens (such as the Kzinti and the Pierson's Puppeteers) of reasoning explicitly from their evolutionary origins to what they ought to do, or explaining their actions as natural to their evolutionary heritage. But I don't ever feel that I do anything because my pre-human ancestors were social opportunistic omnivores who had to keep track of the development of seasonal and occasional food sources in a mixed woodland (or whatever they were in the latest theory), I do things because I feel generous, or resentful, or moved by pity or whatever, and I am not aware of the evolutionary origin of these impulses.
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My experience of the internet trends towards informing my view that we're all just a bunch of tribes of hopped up chimps hooting and throwing shit at each other. Many many forums, reddits, and such are excellent examples of tribes of primates loudly posturing about their imagined dominance while flinging digital poo around.

Mention of H Beam Piper's Fuzzies made me think of his Uller Uprising book and the aliens in that one. One of the few instances I can think of where actual chemistry, biology, and cultural linguistics made an appearance and a real difference.... and of course I can't find the book right now. Bugger.
 
Telok said:
My experience of the internet trends towards informing my view that we're all just a bunch of tribes of hopped up chimps hooting and throwing shit at each other. Many many forums, reddits, and such are excellent examples of tribes of primates loudly posturing about their imagined dominance while flinging digital poo around.
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Yeah, but we all think we're saving the World, not recapitulating phylogeny.
 
Johnny Utah said:
Despite the dated effects, occasional stupid plots (alien kumite comes to mind...) and some, let's say uneven acting talent on B5, all of the alien races felt extremely well-developed with unique cultures and goals. Such a great show.
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I agree entirely. I am not a big B5 fan, but some of it's alien characters were fantastic. Londo, G'Kar (and Ivanova) carried the show for me.

More, comparatively, recently, the SyFy series Defiance created some very interesting aliens. I really liked that show.

The aliens from the original V series were ridiculous, but gloriously ridiculous!
 
The Heys and the Whats from the Tick cartoon. Can't go wrong with Infinity Balls and Lint Drives
The various aliens from Futurama are pretty sweet as well especially the Decapodians and the Neutrals
The Lectroids from Buckaroo Banzai (all named John)

I love really alien aliens- really unknowable from a human perspective- so I will echo the Thing and throw out whatever maybe going on in Annhiliation and Roadside Picnic
 
Davies said:
Um ... thinly disguised versions of these guys showed up in the first Ravenloft Monstrous Compendium. (I also recently came up with a variation on their story for my own setting.) So ... not "not from TTRPG", then.
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Doppelganger Plants. Yep. I'd rather deal with the vampire.
Teotwawki said:
Recently re-read the Collier's serialization of the original novella. Still creepy after all these years.
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Finney was very good. "The Night People" and "Time & Again" are fantastic too.
 
Silverlion said:
The invaders from Madness Season (C.S. Friedman)
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This was going to be mine (assuming you are talking about the Tyr). Honestly surprised to see anyone ever mention anything by C.S. Friedman.

(Also fun fact: The university that the main character is working at in the beginning is the ruins of UGA (which is in the city where I live), and she had purposely destroyed Sanford Stadium in the book because of her hatred of football traffic (she did her masters at UGA).)
 
EmperorNorton said:
This was going to be mine (assuming you are talking about the Tyr). Honestly surprised to see anyone ever mention anything by C.S. Friedman.

(Also fun fact: The university that the main character is working at in the beginning is the ruins of UGA (which is in the city where I live), and she had purposely destroyed Sanford Stadium in the book because of her hatred of football traffic (she did her masters at UGA).)
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I can't blame her, lived in College Station and Lubbock briefly. Traffic on game days was nightmarish. Yeah, I'm fond of the book, and of her works for the most part. HUGE fan of the Coldfire Trilogy, sadly never read her other fantasy works.
 
Silverlion said:
I can't blame her, lived in College Station and Lubbock briefly. Traffic on game days was nightmarish. Yeah, I'm fond of the book, and of her works for the most part. HUGE fan of the Coldfire Trilogy, sadly never read her other fantasy works.
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This Alien Shore and In Conquest Born are also really good. I've read most of her books.
 
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