Bizarre Alien Biology: Difference between revisions

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{{quote|''"Muahahahahahaha! Inferior human organs! ...Ow, my squeedlyspooch!"''|'''Zim,''' ''[[Invader Zim]]''}}

Extra-terrestrials are weird. Sometimes, ''really'' weird. They may ''look'' [[Human Aliens|relatively normal]] or [[Starfish Aliens|mind-bendingly freakish]], but whatever their appearance, you can bet that they don't ''work'' like us. They may have [[Alien Blood|green blood]] or [[Bizarre Sexual Polymorphism|six sexes]] or any of a variety of other features that make it clear: ''these are alien!''

 

 

May turn up during an [[Alien Autopsy]].

** They have a [[Nested Mouths|second jaw inside their mouth]], complete with its own working mouth, which can launch out hydraulically.

** They are apparently [[Silicon-Based Life]] instead of carbon-based.

** Most importantly is their [[Face Full of Alien Wingwong|reproduction style]]. Leaving the whole chestburster thing aside, Xenomorph DNA merges with the host's DNA to produce unique hybrids. For instance, there's a dog hybrid in ''Alien 3'', and of course the infamous Predalien from ''AVP: Requiem''.

* The Xenomorphs' longtime foes, the Yautja, from the ''[[Predator]]'' series, have their own weird biology. Most notably, the "dreadlocks" they wear don't appear to be hair at all. Prop skulls from ''[[Predators]]'' show large sockets for the tendrils.

* The entire landscape in ''[[The Stormlight Archive]]'' is like this. Probably has something to do with the massive [[Hostile Weather|highstorms]] coming every couple days. Most of the plants and animals look like things you'd find underwater. Extra bonus goes to the Parshendi, who are humanoid but literally grow their own armour (as in, it's a part of them), which weirds out people in-story.

* The [[Cyclops|Demonocles]] in ''[[Rumo and His Miraculous Adventures]]'' have incredibly complex tongues{{spoiler|, containing a structure akin to a secondary spinal cord. Break it, and you have crippled the Demonocle (and scared the living shit out of his buddies)}}.

* The kif from [[C. J. Cherryh]]'s [[Chanur Novels]] have two sets of jaws, one at the front of their mouths and one at the back. The front set of jaws is used to rip flesh off of still-living prey, while the second set chews the meat into a paste before swallowing it (the throat of a kif is so narrow that it's incapable of swallowing anything solid). Further, the kif are carnivores who can only eat fresh meat, where "fresh" means "could be used in organ/muscle transplant operations". Meat that most other species of carnivores would consider fresh will make kif so nauseous that even when starving to death they'll be unable to eat it.

** The t'ca (giant methane-breathing snake-worms) give birth if subjected to enough psychological stress.

* In one of the [[Monk]] books, a convention for a [[Star Trek]] [[Expy]] are in town. The Spock [[Expy]] is an alien with pointed ears, a trunk, and three mouths.

* Comes up in, of all places, ''[[The Chronicles of Narnia]]'', when it is mentioned that centaurs have the stomach of a man and the stomach of a horse, and both appetites are very large, so a centaur's breakfast begins at sunrise and lasts until mid-to-late morning. (if looking for a specific reference, this is close to the end of ''The Silver Chair'', after escaping the underground realm)

* [[Clifford Simak]] was prolific at creating imaginative aliens, often at least three or four new ones in each novel or story. Just in Project Pope, there were Dusters (sentient clouds of dust) and Spheres (spherical aliens that had to make themselves beat like a drum to talk to humans) amongst quite a few others.

 

** Pilot, and other members of the species known as "pilots", are adapted to be able to physically link with and communicate with the intelligent starships, to the point where removing them is dangerous.

** The [[Living Ship|intelligent starships]] themselves, like Moya, are adapted to work with the pilot species, and, in general, to have human-like creatures living inside themselves. The degree to which the DRDs (repair 'bots) inside Moya are biological and part of her, vs. being mechanical and independent, is somewhat unclear as well.

*** Humans. Good night.

* The TV version of ''[[Alien Nation (TV series)|Alien Nation]]'' uses this a LOT. EVERY FRACKING EPISODE introduces some new and strange bit of Newcomer biology (including a whole arc about their strange reproductive process).

* While most of the aliens in [[Deadlock]] are pretty standard [[Space Opera]], the Uva Mosk (think a three-way cross between a shrub, a human, and either an anteater or a turnip) definitely fall into this category.

* Zerg from [[Starcraft]]. Their organ tissues randomly mutate (and, in certain cases, [[You Will Be Assimilated|steal new DNA from a new prey creature]]), and their hyperpowered immune system hunts it down, invoking "survival of the fittest, nature red in tooth and claw" on the genetic level. This allows a piece of formerly dead and rotten Zerg tissue cultured in a laborotory to un-decompose, and evolve 1000,000 times more than humans ever have in the space of ''a week''. Their alpha amino acids have unique "R groups" that allow damaged cells to fuse with protein to repair themselves. It also allows them to [[Played Straight|ignore]] [[No Biochemical Barriers|Biochemical Barriers]] by adapting to be compatible with host organisms. They can reproduce through parasitic fusion, or larvae produced from a building that eats mineral crystals, drinks liquid vespene gas, and is built around six wombs (complete with birth canals), a brain, and a stomach. Their buildings are really self-contained organisms that are based on the genetically programmed nest site architecture of their prey species, and one building is specifically designed to do that ultra-evolution thing ''at an accelerated rate''. They don't need to breathe, and their flesh is dense enough to count as a spacesuit. Their metabolism is so fast that, on top of meat, they eat minerals and drink vespene (which is a mutagen, so that helps things along considerably). The downside to this is that they are very susceptable to radiation poisoning.

* Quarians in ''[[Mass Effect]]'' are examples of [[Mirror Chemistry]], mentioned above. They also evolved on a world where, apparently due to the strange nature of local microbes, their immune system evolved to adapt to and assimilate foreign microbes instead of rejecting them as with all other species in the galaxy. This made them extremely vulnerable to infection from more hostile microbes, though it's explained the problem is less the microbe's doing and more the efforts of the quarian immune system to assimilate it. Three centuries in sterile spaceship environments has only made their immune systems even weaker, forcing them to live permanently inside sterile suits.

 

 

== Web Comics ==

** On multiple occasions, the ship has been saved by any of a variety of gases or fluids that the Cirbozoid crewmember produces. Once, early on, he asks that they get some security personnel so that they can get along without the constant need for his secretions.

** As today's comic (Tuesday, September 9, 2008) demonstrates, Cirbozoids are quite literally a [[Do-Anything Robot|Do Anything Species]]-if you have a need to be met, a Cirbozoid can probably use some highly specialized reproductive processes and give you a temporary to cover for you until the permanent replacement arrives.

[[Category:Alien Tropes]]

[[Category:Fantastic Sapient Species Tropes]]

[[Category:Bizarre Alien Biology]]

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