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 Leopold Helveine wrote:

I have to say that I look at this from the Etymological field in that alien is defined as something that is different' from that human brain's conceptualization, which doesn't mean it cannot be conceptualized, but optimally' as distant possible from human familiarities, so not merely consisting of a warped function (like having more than two arms etc).

Considering I wasn't necessarily speaking of human' (while detecting Xenos as mostly being humanoid) but rather of earthly' and therefor carbon-based' I would remind of the link I posted concerning hypothetical types of (bio) chemistry, alternate lifeforms are not an idea limited to the brain's own chemistry (carbon) but include that of other chemistry such as' again'; silicon, sulfuric etc (the latter is hard to imagine, perhaps some lifeform that is practically a dust/particle construct which ventilates fumes or so.
I think the most alien species we have here are some of the microscopic entities such as snottites, bristle worms and tardigrades, yet fiction writers still use human-sense-surface level carbon based creatures as inspiration, sadly. (mostly insects or aquatic life)

I mean look this; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polychaete

I think this highlights the issue. To give an example of an otherworldly, exotic creature... you point to Earthly, carbon-based lifeforms that actually exist.

The breadth of life that does and has existed on Earth is so great that it is actually quite hard to create plausible designs that don't have a comparable analogue on Earth. Plus, we know that the various Earth forms are practical, functional designs that did survive at some point.

Would we expect silicon-based life to look dramatically different in body form? Silicon is very similar to carbon, hence why it is the most commonly proposed hypothetical.

As it happens, I do think there is scope for more bizarre aliens in 40k. I'd like to see Enslavers and Umbra and Slaught (the latter is a version of the classic "bunch of worms in a trenchcoat" concept so not truly humanoid, only appearing so when infiltrating human society). Thyrrus would also be neat as (probable) Slaanesh worshippers.

 Flinty wrote:
Daemons rather than aliens, but I have a soft spot for this bit of low-fi army building

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/355017.page

Pretty cool.

Anyway, as to the thread'
I think its now established that all the xenos are humanoid with humanoid clothing and humanoid tech/guns/crafts/painted fingernails' because of readibility and familiarity.

I hope its also established that alien CAN BE alien when you lower that familiarity but it shouldn't be at too much cost of readibility.

Like when imagining a sort of anorganic creature such as a jelly or a particle-morph there can still be non-human tech/weaponry applied, take for instance the psyker or for one perhaps a mode of chemistry which affects the atmosphere to conjure up elemental auras (as we know from for instance fantasy games having aoe elemental effects etc as "magic".. but I mean it more like from the pressence of said alien), it doesn't have to be a "this weapon is furnished and produced industrially for this "alien race"..."
It could simply be that a particle' race can release the tension of its form to lash at their enemy an erroding throw of their particles, instead of shooting and by doing so reduce its own hitpoints.
It could be that a jelly creature has a distinct form which it can use to throw its entire half at the enemy as a sort of catapult and while doing so multiply..
All sorts of interesting mechanics could surface from such -non familiar- makeups, I'd like to one day see a truly Xenos added. Right now Tzeench is probably the most alien of all these, tyranids aren't really strange and could easily live on earth in our actual reality if some scientist was crazy enough to lab grow some.

 JNAProductions wrote:

 amanita wrote:
Just for fun I made an alien race for our local gaming group, with models and rules. They are energy shapeshifters that manifest themselves into 3 physical combat types, essentially equivalent to infantry, cavalry and artillery. They are radially symmetrical blobs with 5 tentacles of various sizes, with the infantry being the smallest (monads). The monads are also building blocks which can with enough numbers turn into the other two types. The other types must turn into monads first before further alteration.

The army has very unique deployment rules and is very dependent on the loci, or leader units. The monads also may grow in numbers if they are near enough enemy casualties. Anyway, the whole point is an alien race can be made with a little creativity beyond making something that is very similar to human beings and still work as a table top army. If GW doesn't quite scratch that itch, there's no harm in creating something of your own.

Got images?
They sound hecking neat!

I've never had much luck posting pics on this site for some reason, lol!
I could give it a try maybe when I get home. They are mostly aluminum wire armatures coated in hot glue painted black.

The answer is quite simple. All the other types of aliens were exterminated in the Great Crusade.
The game of 40k is about battles between warrior races. The Jigglypuffs of Beta-9 aren't much for fighting. They don't breathe oxygen or eat organic matter. They have no interest in conflict because they don't value the same resources as the other races. They don't have hands, they use telekinesis. Because they can move things with their minds they never needed to create physical tools or protective clothing. The lack of predators on their homeworld allowed them to evolve in relative safety. So they don't move very much if at all. They just soak up background radiation and sing to each other in mind song. Early visitors to Terra weren't even recognized as a living creature, They were simply bottled and labeled Marshmallow Fluff.

Uptonius wrote:
The answer is quite simple. All the other types of aliens were exterminated in the Great Crusade.
The game of 40k is about battles between warrior races. The Jigglypuffs of Beta-9 aren't much for fighting. They don't breathe oxygen or eat organic matter. They have no interest in conflict because they don't value the same resources as the other races.

haha, I like your mind, but there's a lot of logic to this, when human armies compete to resources they only compete with those who also need those resources, that's flawless. So very good post.

They don't have hands, they use telekinesis. Because they can move things with their minds they never needed to create physical tools or protective clothing. The lack of predators on their homeworld allowed them to evolve in relative safety. So they don't move very much if at all. They just soak up background radiation and sing to each other in mind song. Early visitors to Terra weren't even recognized as a living creature, They were simply bottled and labeled Marshmallow Fluff.

I bow to this post.

That was also something that incredibly bothered me about the movie Avatar (only watched the first one though) they had a biosphere with all the vertebrae following the bodyplan "6limbs-4eyes". The "horses" the giant "birds" the "monkeys" - everything. And it made sense just like all terrestral vertebrae on earth following the "4limbs-2eyes" bodyplan.

And then you get the Na'Vi (or whatever the humanoids were called) with two legs and arms and two eyes... I understand that it was for better viewer reception, but from an evolutionary point of view it was incredibly dumb.

 Pyroalchi wrote:
That was also something that incredibly bothered me about the movie Avatar (only watched the first one though) they had a biosphere with all the vertebrae following the bodyplan "6limbs-4eyes". The "horses" the giant "birds" the "monkeys" - everything. And it made sense just like all terrestral vertebrae on earth following the "4limbs-2eyes" bodyplan.

And then you get the Na'Vi (or whatever the humanoids were called) with two legs and arms and two eyes... I understand that it was for better viewer reception, but from an evolutionary point of view it was incredibly dumb.

I think you discount the variety of life on earth. Yes making them explicitly human shaped was slightly contrived but the idea that evolution wouldn't be able to do that is not accurate. It would be more artificial to show a single body plan across all things with no changes. The form meets the function as set by the environment and they won't all be under identical environmental pressures that require the maintenance of the same body plan. What's more far fetched is that they didn't show a species like the monkey with smaller secondary limbs or vestigial ones, to show the relatedness to the navi and the path down limblessness. But even then that's not unusual. There are no other hominin species alive today, we are the only ones that show the hairless upright body plan. So singular lines can still appear.

Cetaceans and pinipeds both show that the mammalian form can lose limbs. Legless lizards and snakes have both lost limbs independently. Some fossil flightless birds have almost entirely lost their forelimbs.

 Hellebore wrote:

 Pyroalchi wrote:
That was also something that incredibly bothered me about the movie Avatar (only watched the first one though) they had a biosphere with all the vertebrae following the bodyplan "6limbs-4eyes". The "horses" the giant "birds" the "monkeys" - everything. And it made sense just like all terrestral vertebrae on earth following the "4limbs-2eyes" bodyplan.

And then you get the Na'Vi (or whatever the humanoids were called) with two legs and arms and two eyes... I understand that it was for better viewer reception, but from an evolutionary point of view it was incredibly dumb.

I think you discount the variety of life on earth. Yes making them explicitly human shaped was slightly contrived but the idea that evolution wouldn't be able to do that is not accurate. It would be more artificial to show a single body plan across all things with no changes. The form meets the function as set by the environment and they won't all be under identical environmental pressures that require the maintenance of the same body plan. What's more far fetched is that they didn't show a species like the monkey with smaller secondary limbs or vestigial ones, to show the relatedness to the navi and the path down limblessness. But even then that's not unusual. There are no other hominin species alive today, we are the only ones that show the hairless upright body plan. So singular lines can still appear.

Cetaceans and pinipeds both show that the mammalian form can lose limbs. Legless lizards and snakes have both lost limbs independently. Some fossil flightless birds have almost entirely lost their forelimbs.

It stands out because the Navi are unique on the world, showing not vestigial parts; nor do we see any cousin species or such. Whilst you can argue Earth is similar; even humans have other Great Apes that clearly share very similar morphology elements to us.

Honestly the Navi are closer to Dragons in fantasy, where we often openly accept them having 6 limbs even though nothing else shares that morphology in many fantasy settings. Or might do but is wildly different (eh unicorns). Though often fantasy settings lean into "last of an ancient race" and "lost golden age" as well as magic as means by which they can often explain how the dragons are unique.

Navi don't really get that backstory to them. We know they are somewhat unique on the world, but we don't really get a how/why. In fact considering the mental unity going on on the planet its even more a puzzle

I stand corrected, the monkeys actually do demonstrate a unique design:

https://james-camerons-avatar.fandom.com/wiki/Prolemuris

They have reduced their limbs to single upper with double lower, which would be suggestive of them fusing their limbs as a precursor to reducing to a single limb. They also only have a single nerve cluster and one set of eyes like the navi.

tHe above link provides theorising, but these features certainly would have had linnaeus putting them and navi together.


Their shape is to navi what realworld monkeys are to humans, so the relationships are there, the navi aren't that out of place.


the whole one ecosystem gaia connectedness thing is the most far fetched of the biology in pandora, but within that paradigm they seem to have followed relatively similar earth evolutionary patterns.

 Hellebore wrote:
I stand corrected, the monkeys actually do demonstrate a unique design:

https://james-camerons-avatar.fandom.com/wiki/Prolemuris

They have reduced their limbs to single upper with double lower, which would be suggestive of them fusing their limbs as a precursor to reducing to a single limb. They also only have a single nerve cluster and one set of eyes like the navi.

tHe above link provides theorising, but these features certainly would have had linnaeus putting them and navi together.


Their shape is to navi what realworld monkeys are to humans, so the relationships are there, the navi aren't that out of place.


the whole one ecosystem gaia connectedness thing is the most far fetched of the biology in pandora, but within that paradigm they seem to have followed relatively similar earth evolutionary patterns.

okay wait that's really interesting. guess it goes to show just how much thought they put into this. can you imagine if this work had been done for a good movie?

Could have sworn those monkeys had 4 eyes... fair enough, I conceed my point.

Still, even if earths fauna is diverse we see very few other body types. And if so it usually comes down to total loss (snakes, whales, a hand full of blind species) and even those often have disfunctional parts of the lost appendices or eyes left.

Its a bit hard to imagine as we can hardly picture terrestrial animals with reduced but not missing number of limbs without getting into assymetrical bodyplans. But to put it that way: if there was a single mamal species that had two bones in their upper leg part and 1 in the lower instead of the other way around like ALL other mamals and vertebrae with legs, that would feel kind of strange.

Also why would an arboreal species like those "monkeys" habe an advantage from reducing its limb-count? That one-upper-arm-two-lower-arms design severely reduces tue movement range of the hands

Evolution is complicated. Whilst it’s not really relevant here as all the species are actually designed, there are drivers such as resource use (more arms takes more energy) vs needs to fit in their niche (does having more arms actually provide sufficient benefit to offset the extra energy). Maybe Pandora is currently just post-cataclysm and the surviving species are rapidly diversifying into new niches.

Could be the extra set of legs helps with endurance when hanging from the canopy, each pair taking it in turns.

Or, if the tree branches are comparatively spindly, five potential anchoring limbs (four legs, prehensile tail) reduces fall risk compared to be two legs and a prehensile tail.

I meant it more in the direction: what can one-upper-two-lower arms do, that either 1-1 or 2-2- can't do better. 1-1 could be more massive, 2-2 would allow more ancorpoints in a wider range. 1-2 limites the range of the hands severely compared to 2-2 while not being stronger than 1-1

Evolution is rarely as straightforward. The whole "one gene for each thing" isn't really true either, there's a whole bunch that affect each property of a body and they all intermingle.

So it might not necessarily be that 1-2 is the evolutionary benefit, but its a side effect of another part of the creatures genetic makeup that does provide a gain. Whatever loss they have from 1-2 is counterbalanced by a greater gain in the other property(ies).

 Flinty wrote:
Daemons rather than aliens, but I have a soft spot for this bit of low-fi army building

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/355017.page

NEVER FORGET THE CUBES

In general it is hard (impossible) for our brains to imagine something entirely disconnected from what they know.

It is possible to think of species that are pretty alien and unlike earthly species, though, but for this you need some talented sf writers, like Peter Watts (read his Blindsight!) or Alastair Reynolds for example.

Or the aid of visual media mass marketed enough that its "common understanding". Even then I think that there's certain ideas that carry across better in different mediums.


Eg books often convey mental/mind talking aspects better than films. Or at least can do more of it without it feeling like its putting everything on pause*; whilst films can often convey more complex structures/designs quicker and in a more clear manner.


Even then the more outlandish you get the greater the chance that the work might end up niche instead of mass market. Which is the other aspect to consider. Creations that are easily identifiable are much easier to market to people who are not already invested in a setting.
I think that's why sometimes with games you'll see the more outlandish things start to appear later on whilst the starting elements are often much more standard. Heck most wargames in fantasy and scifi nearly always go for human factions first because they are often what many casual people identify with very quickly and readily.



*or in an animation feeling like they are trying to fill time because they can't afford more animation

 Tek wrote:

 Flinty wrote:
Daemons rather than aliens, but I have a soft spot for this bit of low-fi army building

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/355017.page

NEVER FORGET THE CUBES

I was going to come to this tread to post that link, was pleased to see it had already been done.

Such a great concept, well executed. And very on topic for this discussion.

 Overread wrote:
Or the aid of visual media mass marketed enough that its "common understanding". Even then I think that there's certain ideas that carry across better in different mediums.


Eg books often convey mental/mind talking aspects better than films. Or at least can do more of it without it feeling like its putting everything on pause*; whilst films can often convey more complex structures/designs quicker and in a more clear manner.


Even then the more outlandish you get the greater the chance that the work might end up niche instead of mass market. Which is the other aspect to consider. Creations that are easily identifiable are much easier to market to people who are not already invested in a setting.
I think that's why sometimes with games you'll see the more outlandish things start to appear later on whilst the starting elements are often much more standard. Heck most wargames in fantasy and scifi nearly always go for human factions first because they are often what many casual people identify with very quickly and readily.



*or in an animation feeling like they are trying to fill time because they can't afford more animation

yeah, the difference between writing and visuals is very stark. there's a reason, for example, why the writing of lovecraft can have such a mysterious feeling in writing, even when its characters are faced with such unspeakable horrors, versus the difficulty of translating those horrors into something visual without having it be boiled down to weird fish guys. if you wanted to make a Lovecraft model game, for example, how would you go about turning intentionally difficult to parse ideas into something visual? after a point, it just doesn't work

 Pyroalchi wrote:

Still, even if earths fauna is diverse we see very few other body types. And if so it usually comes down to total loss (snakes, whales, a hand full of blind species) and even those often have disfunctional parts of the lost appendices or eyes left.

I think the above statement is skipping the many many many forms of invertebres of the animal kingdom, which includes 6 legs (insects), 8 legs (spiders, octipi), 10 legs/limbs (crabs/lobsters/squid), and many more limbs like centipedes and milipedes, certain starfish, jellyfish etc.

And given given the clever nature of octopi, one has to wonder what could have happened if octopi were more social and lived longer, forming packs/tribes, communicating through color patterns and using tools.

As for 40k, one fairly obvious issue aside from the common humanoid forms, is that all the major races seem to thrive in the same gravity, air-chemistry and atmospheric pressures . . . somehow.

I mean when you actually dig into the background it's not as silly.

Humans are as varied as the planets they inhabit. Longshanks, Ogryns, Squats, and Ratlings are all human variants (maybe not so much all Squats but enough of them) and have all evolved to suit their environments or even adapted their own genetics to do so. I mean you have an entire subtype of humanity that swaps their meat with machines as well.

The Aeldari are a crafted species and Orks are fungal life and adapt to pretty much any environment they can find themselves in.
Tyranids are hyperadative species that do whatever.
Necrons are nanomachine robots.
T'au seem to be the only race that struggles with all sorts of planets but has the culture to adapt and improvise ways of colonising worlds that don't quite suit their home. Also, the Air Caste clearly shows the T'au didn't all live in the same environments even on their homeworld.

Humanity and the Aeldari also had huge empires during their periods of dominion in the galaxy and both could very easily have terraformed thousands of worlds to be what they needed it to be.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Pyroalchi wrote:

Still, even if earths fauna is diverse we see very few other body types. And if so it usually comes down to total loss (snakes, whales, a hand full of blind species) and even those often have disfunctional parts of the lost appendices or eyes left.

I think the above statement is skipping the many many many forms of invertebres of the animal kingdom, which includes 6 legs (insects), 8 legs (spiders, octipi), 10 legs/limbs (crabs/lobsters/squid), and many more limbs like centipedes and milipedes, certain starfish, jellyfish etc.

And given given the clever nature of octopi, one has to wonder what could have happened if octopi were more social and lived longer, forming packs/tribes, communicating through color patterns and using tools.

As for 40k, one fairly obvious issue aside from the common humanoid forms, is that all the major races seem to thrive in the same gravity, air-chemistry and atmospheric pressures . . . somehow.

=> Invertebrates, yes, and I purposely omitted them. Invertebratea are more diverse in their bodyplan, because it is easier to gradually change without seriously compromising functionality.
The way evolution works, limps don't vanish over night. A 10 limb-crab that has 8 normal and 2 slightly shorter legs still has a good chance to be successful and maybe even successful enough to have a living offspring with 2 even shorter legs etc. until you have 8 legged crabs.

For Vertebrae that is much more difficult with their bones, one of the reasons why limbs here only seem to be lost, when they get completely useless.
Note that in all of recorded evolution we have not one terrestrial vertebrae that not falls into the categories: 4 legs OR 2 legs and severely reduced arms (not aware of fossils that completely lost the arms, even ostriches etc. still have them) and 2 eyes or dysfunctional eyes (I'm currently not aware of vertebrae that completely lost their eyes.)

anyway, I try to not be pedantic about it... but I kind of am, I know

^Well you said "fauna", not "vertebrates".

I still wonder why that would make a difference, really. I don't see why modification of an internal skeleton would be harder than that of an exoskeleton. I'd think that there's more diversity among invertebrets simply because the vast majority of species are invertebrets. Like by 20 to 1 or maybe even more.

 Gert wrote:
I mean when you actually dig into the background it's not as silly.

Humans are as varied as the planets they inhabit. Longshanks, Ogryns, Squats, and Ratlings are all human variants (maybe not so much all Squats but enough of them) and have all evolved to suit their environments or even adapted their own genetics to do so. I mean you have an entire subtype of humanity that swaps their meat with machines as well.

The Aeldari are a crafted species and Orks are fungal life and adapt to pretty much any environment they can find themselves in.
Tyranids are hyperadative species that do whatever.
Necrons are nanomachine robots.
T'au seem to be the only race that struggles with all sorts of planets but has the culture to adapt and improvise ways of colonising worlds that don't quite suit their home. Also, the Air Caste clearly shows the T'au didn't all live in the same environments even on their homeworld.

Humanity and the Aeldari also had huge empires during their periods of dominion in the galaxy and both could very easily have terraformed thousands of worlds to be what they needed it to be.

Particularly the terraforming.

We know the Eldar had Maiden Worlds, planets kept in a pristine condition. And we can look to the Haemonculus Covens for evidence at least some ancient Eldar might’ve been up for quite severe body modification. Was that ever cultural and widespread? Who knows. In terms of the span of the Eldar civilisation, it may have only cropped up immediately prior to The Fall, as another example of how indulgent they had become. Or, it could be a corruption of a more wholesome approach. Consider the difference between getting your ears pierced as a body modification, and those who have fingers, hands, limbs and Rude Bits removed, also as body modification, often done in the underground.

Humankind? Two extremes of approach. First, genetic stuff to adapt the colonist to the colony world. Second, terraforming to adapt the colony world to the colonist. And I can easily see some mix of the two being in play at anyone time. And which might come first may depend on the world.

For instance, a mineral rich world with an atmosphere utterly inimical to human life may have seen terraforming first, and once that atmosphere is partially processed, the gene science would be enough to provide sufficient adaptation to the colonists so they could tolerate it. It might’ve stopped there as a “good enough, and we’ll have this bugger strip mined in a couple of centuries anyway”. Or the terraforming might’ve continued, with or without ongoing refinement of the genetic adaptations. Some worlds may have just needed the genetic tinkering.

Some of the genetic tinkering, ala House Goliath, may have been to create an indentured sub-species which would breed true. Perhaps the origin of the Ogryn.

Yet, those we have documentation of still follow the “two legs, two arms, one bonce” body plan. The shape and design may differ (Squats, Beastmen), but outside of the four legged ones that cropped up in Inferno! we don’t tend to see massively dramatic changes. Presumably because, as all 8bn or so of us smelly hoomans can attest? It works pretty well for our purposes.

Likewise, we can look at the diversity of life on Earth and see various other successful body plans. Insects for instance. Exoskeleton, breathing through spiracles, multiple locomotive limbs. Size however limited by oxygen availability. Vertebrates? Four limbs, with varying adaptations (odd toed ungulates, Birbs, apes, monkies) and a single bonce. Not a lot in the way of organ redundancy.

All successful in their own ways, to the point extant species have surprisingly limited body plans. And some features, such as binocular vision to give greater depth perception, can suit certain ecological niches. And so it’s bloody hard to first imagine, let alone make look convincing, anything not at least loosely based on those body plans.

Anyone has any ideas about the warp/immaterium? Nothing in that realm could possibly be carbon based unless of immigrant nature'
Same with the webway which equally has no Sun(s) to cause carbonization. (charcoalization)

The first can only exhale ethereal life, the second excludes even that..
It would be a good basis for entirely new species, its right there.

I mean the warp is the cause of Tzeench demons right? Ever changing ex-pression that can therefor hold no form.

Ultimately, nobody really knows what a Daemon looks like. Their manifestation in real-space is informed by the beholder, and essentially forces a given form upon them.

They're mostly based on fantasy tropes, which are based on earth people, history, and pop culture. I understand the need for reference points, but I do think fantasy writers in general go too hard trying to make X race the idealized version of some race or culture on earth. It gets kind of silly, and what's cool changes, but the silliness is endearing. "These lizardmen are pre-columbian americans" or "These space elves are even edgier versions of these elves". It gets really bad with space marine chapters imo, then again there are so many flavors of them, that I don't see the problem.

 ultimaratio wrote:
They're mostly based on fantasy tropes, which are based on earth people, history, and pop culture. I understand the need for reference points, but I do think fantasy writers in general go too hard trying to make X race the idealized version of some race or culture on earth. It gets kind of silly, and what's cool changes, but the silliness is endearing. "These lizardmen are pre-columbian americans" or "These space elves are even edgier versions of these elves". It gets really bad with space marine chapters imo, then again there are so many flavors of them, that I don't see the problem.

but what else are they supposed to be based on? are you suggesting that anyone making a fantasy world has to make all new cultures from scratch? not even Tolkien did that

Tolkien created entire languages from the ground up.

That said he wasn't trying to create new races, his entire objective was to base his Middle Earth on Norse Legends/folklore. That was a core part of his approach and why you can find a lot of elements of his stories within them.


Many other authors have done likewise and used mythology as the foundation for their stories.




As for why - consider that the more outlandish you create something the more pages and space you've got to devote to explaining it to your readers. It also becomes more complicated and difficult the more you develop your story because you have to add even more layers to your peoples.
Furthermore even if you achieve it people will latch onto key elements that line up with their real world impressions on things. They'll even make connections that either you didn't realise you'd made yourself; or that were never intended.


In the end basing things on real world counterparts can help. It gives you a fleshed out model/structure to work from; it gives you the ability to lean on tropes/common impressions to speed up delivery of the lore to the reader to let them get on with the story etc....

It's the same reason fantasy stories often lean on words like elf and orc even if their story isn't based on anything to do with Norse legends or linguistics at all. Because its WAY faster to say elf and most readers instantly have a mental impression.