I've always enjoyed the Halo species. Short methian breathers that once achieved the industrial age but fell back to the stone age do to combustability. A mass of Sentient worms that can be formed into varies forms who mate for life with another worm mass. A biomechanical floating lifeform. All very neat
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deowolfis allowed to do that.Traffic.Registered Userregular
I imagine most of the answers to this will be terribly cynical sci-fi stories in which aliens ask us "What is this "war" you speak of?", but I'm genuinely interested in seeing what authors think our species' defining characteristic would be.
a bit like the Man-Kzin Wars. and any number of other series
I'm not a fan of most "people" aliens because "depth of alienness" is so often just humanity in a new skin with incomprehensible customs that we know are incomprehensible because the author says they are incomprehensible.
There are exceptions.
Alastair Reynolds does really good, truly incomprehensible and weird aliens, although they're only very, very rarely the focus of his stories.
I liked his concepts of the Ultras and conjoiners showing how with time and separation humans could become just as alien as another species.
Yeah. The "weird" humans are every bit as weird as his aliens. And his less-weird humans were still pretty fucking weird.
Seriously, though, if you want completely bizarre extraterrestrial lifeforms it's hard to do much better than the Pattern Jugglers or the Grubs.
Yeah, their blood acted as a counteragent to the virus, though how or why wasn't really explained (or even, so far as I remember, investigated by the characters.)
My favourite alien species are the Spiders from A Deepness in the Sky. They are presented as fairly human-like, despite their being incredibly alien, but their depiction is part of the story. They are arachnid-like and live on a planet whose sun only burns for 20 years and then goes dark for 200 years. In those 200 years, they hibernate in deep caves (called "deepnesses") and then come out in those 20 years and rebuild everything and go on a huge spurt of advancement. The whole thing is done incredibly well.
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My favourite alien species are the Spiders from A Deepness in the Sky. They are presented as fairly human-like, despite their being incredibly alien, but their depiction is part of the story. They are arachnid-like and live on a planet whose sun only burns for 20 years and then goes dark for 200 years. In those 200 years, they hibernate in deep caves (called "deepnesses") and then come out in those 20 years and rebuild everything and go on a huge spurt of advancement. The whole thing is done incredibly well.
The packs in A Fire Upon the Deep (also written by Vernor Vinge) where done well too for truely alien aliens.
A single member away from it's pack was unintelligent, but get 4 or 5 together and they would communicate using hypersonic frequencies and form a networked intelligence that was a congregate of the individual components.
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ChanusHarbinger of the Spicy Rooster ApocalypseThe Flames of a Thousand Collapsed StarsRegistered Userregular
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Basho?
He plowed a cephalopodal alien in a threesum with the fisherman's wife.
a bit like the Man-Kzin Wars. and any number of other series
Yeah. The "weird" humans are every bit as weird as his aliens. And his less-weird humans were still pretty fucking weird.
Seriously, though, if you want completely bizarre extraterrestrial lifeforms it's hard to do much better than the Pattern Jugglers or the Grubs.
Its been a while since i read the books, who cooked up the techno-organic virus that was slowly eating the galaxy?
Still unknown.
Edit: Actually it appears that the Grubs brought it to Yellowstone unknowingly - they weren't affected by it.
Chasm City Spoiler:
Crap. What if it's me?
It is.
You're tainted.
A single member away from it's pack was unintelligent, but get 4 or 5 together and they would communicate using hypersonic frequencies and form a networked intelligence that was a congregate of the individual components.
You said taint.