Starfish Aliens: Difference between revisions

 

{{examples}}

* The eponymous [[Digimon]], being data-based lifeforms from a [[Another Dimension|parallel universe]], having so many different forms (raging from angelic to animals to humanoid or even a mixture), [[Evolutionary Levels|and each individual having multiple (and radically) different forms throughout their life cycle]].

* The [[Sufficiently Advanced Alien|Data Overmind]] in ''[[Suzumiya Haruhi]]'' is some kind of non-corporeal, out-of-phase "data-lifeform".<ref>it's a concept based on an old theory that states that in its most basic form, the entire Universe is merely quantifiable information that can be [[Reality Warper|manipulated]]; the Overmind is supposed to be a gestalt consciousness born of that information</ref> What exactly it/they is/are, or how it/they think/thinks is never really explained, instead we get a lot of [[Techno Babble]]. Important to know is that its/their mind vastly differs from that of humans and that it/they does/do not communicate through language and therefore created the [[Artificial Human|Interfaces]] (Yuki, {{spoiler|Asakura}}, {{spoiler|Kimidori}}) as its/their mediums. It appears that the entity/entities has/have different "voices" in itself with different opinions. The majority of them wishes to maintain the status quo and observe Haruhi safely. Oh, and they can [[Reality Warper|hack reality]]. Playing up on their godlike nature, in one short story Kyon is contacted by an old school acquaintance who had fallen in love with Yuki at first sight and now worships the ground she stands on. It turns out that {{spoiler|he had the minor power to see her connection to the IDE which consequently overloaded his brain, [[Things Man Was Not Meant to Know|as no mere mortal could possibly comprehend its true form]].}}

* The Neuroi in ''[[Strike Witches]]''. They're basically [[Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot|soil-eating eusocial biotechnological assimilating planes]].

 

* Bzzd (an insectoid), Medphyll (a plant being), Chaselon (an intelligent crystal), Cario and Dkrtzy RRR (an intelligent ''equation''), and Leezle Pon (a superintelligent smallpox virus) of the ''[[Green Lantern]] Corps''. And Mogo, a [[Genius Loci|sentient planet]]. The Corps was loaded with these in its heyday. Perhaps not surprisingly, [[Alan Moore]] created or utilized most of them, as well as Rot Lop Fan, who, being from a sector of space where no light exists, is under the impression that he is a member of the F-Sharp Bell Corps.

** There was also a race of hivemind spores, and {{spoiler|the Black Mercy, a [[Hive Mind]] Planet/fungus thing that can alter gravity and children and hook up to people and put them in a coma-like state [[Lotus Eater Machine|where they dream their greatest desires as if they are real]].}}

* In Marvel Comics, the symbiote that makes up half of Venom is basically a black blob of slime. It's rarely depicted as so, however.

 

* Many aliens in the ''[[Men in Black (film)|Men in Black]]'' series, especially background ones.

* ''[[Evolution (film)|Evolution]]'' has a variety of different alien species, most of which fit here.

* The creatures from ''[[The Abyss]]'' definitely qualify. They're classed as aliens by fans of the film even though they come from underwater instead of outer space (as far as we know). They're certainly strange in appearance and they are able to completely manipulate water - the Director's Cut reveals {{spoiler|they caused the storm on the surface and created tidal waves ready to bury most of the world's cities}} - and in one case one alien creates a huge long strip of solid water and is able to morph it to resemble Lindsey's face.

 

* [[H. G. Wells]]' ''[[The War of the Worlds (novel)|War of the Worlds]]:''

{{quote|"A big greyish rounded bulk, the size, perhaps, of a bear, was rising slowly and painfully out of the cylinder. As it bulged up and caught the light, it glistened like wet leather. Two large dark-coloured eyes were regarding me steadfastly. The mass that framed them, the head of the thing, was rounded, and had, one might say, a face. There was a mouth under the eyes, the lipless brim of which quivered and panted, and dropped saliva. The whole creature heaved and pulsated convulsively. A lank tentacular appendage gripped the edge of the cylinder, another swayed in the air. Those who have never seen a living Martian can scarcely imagine the strange horror of its appearance. The peculiar V-shaped mouth with its pointed upper lip, the absence of brow ridges, the absence of a chin beneath the wedgelike lower lip, the incessant quivering of this mouth, the Gorgon groups of tentacles, the tumultuous breathing of the lungs in a strange atmosphere, the evident heaviness and painfulness of movement due to the greater gravitational energy of the earth--above all, the extraordinary intensity of the immense eyes--were at once vital, intense, inhuman, crippled and monstrous. There was something fungoid in the oily brown skin, something in the clumsy deliberation of the tedious movements unspeakably nasty. Even at this first encounter, this first glimpse, I was overcome with disgust and dread."}}

{{quote|"They're the last remnant of a species that predates history--an unlikely being, if ever there was one. No one knows how or why they evolved—just that we have found a number of them in the galaxy, going about their business... Time has no meaning for such a creature... We thought for a time that they might have once been plentiful in the galaxy—and the ones we find now are the only ones left." }}

** Another notable ''Star Wars'' example would be the Shard, a race of sentient, luminescent, immobile crystals that communicate exclusively via some kind of electromagnetic resonance. They grow in clusters and share a kind of group mind, spending their unmoving existence immersed in deep contemplation. However, it's possible for a single Shard to be cut free from its "siblings" and live as an independent organism with a droid body, after which they begin to rapidly develop individuality and more "human"-like personalities.

* In David Gerrold's "[[The War Against the Chtorr]]" novels, mysterious plants animals and viruses from another planet are choking out and dominating the Earth's own ecology. The only reason humans call them "Chtorrans" is because that's how we perceive the sound made by the most dangerous of the new ecology: The giant furry man-eating gastropedes. The protagonist experiences quite a bit of this mysterious new ecology firsthand, including a "storm" of fibrous spores that covers part of California in what looks like 15 feet of cotton candy.

* The ''[[Sector General]]'' novels have an entire alphabetized classification system to describe the tremendous variety of metabolisms, body types, and environments of alien species. And even then, they often run into lifeforms that defy classification.

* Jack L. Chalker's ''[[Well World]]'' series had numerous beings ranging from those that looked like a [[Biological Mashup]] of Earth species (the last set of creators ran out of ideas and cribbed from each other), to the totally alien. The creators of the Universe resembled giant human hearts with tentacles. The Dreel are the [[Hive Mind]] of a sentient disease. The North Zone species ...were far weirder than that.

* The alien species in Paul Harland's ''Water to Ice''. Some are so strange and ancient that nobody has a clear idea of what they are at all. The Kysx, for instance, are flying balls of fuel and fire, said to have arrived in spaceships half a meter in diameter and two kilometers long. The Rrith have the body of a ray and communicate by shifting the pattern of the fur on their back. The Ftott are big sponges whose limbs are blades of bone; they "talk" by hacking specific parts off their opponents...

* The [[Sten]] series features occasional wildly nonhumanoid creatures, such as the peaceful race of floating jellyfish, or a ring of sentient polyp creatures that appear to be permanently installed in a ring inside a large Customer Service desk. There's also one ''literal'' example of a Starfish Alien, and it's nightmarish for three reasons: it's as tall as a man, it runs through waist-deep water as quickly as a man can on land, and it's got a thresher maw in in its center. The creature, called a "gurion," is only encountered once in the series but remains one of the most memorable and horrific of all the alien entities Sten fights.

** A Martian's life has four stages: egg, nymph, adult, and Old One. All adults are male, all nymphs female: like some Earth fishes and amphibians, all Martians go through both sexes. Competition and rivalry happen solely among nymphs; the adult stage are so pacifist that even an awkward social situation might cause them to discorporate, shedding their bodies and becoming disembodied Old Ones. Oh, and all adults and Old Ones are incredibly powerful telepaths and telekinetics. And cannibals.

* The Masters, the antagonists who drive [[The Tripods]], are tall cone-shaped creatures with three eyes, three legs and three tentacles. Physically they breath thick, green fog, have a low tolerance for ethyl alcohol (which becomes a major plot point later), and an [[Achilles' Heel|extremely sensitive area]] between their respiratory orifice and ingestive orifice, making the lightest brush extremely painful. They breathe a thick, greenish gas that is deadly to humans, bathe in near-boiling water several times a day to keep moist, have their own form of drugs, and seem to have only one disease. Psychologically, they are incapable of lying and cannot grasp the concept of fiction or exaggeration (though at least one of them gains a firm understanding of sarcasm), are incredibly tolerant of hardship and difficulty (to the point of becoming ill if they don't work hard), drink gas bubbles as an intoxicant, and die if they're put in a situation they feel they can't escape from (as one master innately committed suicide when captured by the White Mountain Resistance in ''The Pool of Fire''.)

** Dukaj's background as a philosophy graduate may be of some importance here.

 

* The blob-like rock-burrowing Horta which appears in the "Devil in the Dark" episode of the [[Star Trek: The Original Series|original]] ''[[Star Trek]]'' series. The episode was written around the already-existing creature-prop, after the operator demonstrated how dramatically effective it could be. The Excalbians from "The Savage Curtain" (different rock monsters), the superheated crystalline Tholians, the huge hundred-tentacled Kelvans in their [[Humanity Ensues|native form]], and the Companion from "[[Star Trek/Recap/S2/E09 Metamorphosis|Metamorphosis]]" (a sentient gas cloud) also apply. And the Medusans: [[Dark Is Not Evil|Friendly Neighborhood]] aliens, who get along fine with human beings as long as the human beings don't accidentally ''look'' at the Medusans and [[Go Mad from the Revelation|go raving mad as a result]].

** The original series introduced the Tholians in ''The Tholian Web''...who were ''so'' strange, while visible only partly through the main viewscreen during negotations, that the writers themselves (like anyone else) couldn't figure out what they actually were implied to be for the better part of 30 years, even while being passingly mentioned once or twice in different series. Only toward the end of ''Enterprise'' did they finally settle on the head being a carapace, and the Tholians as a race of advanced arachnids (only made of crystal). Mention of them in the latter as a major Temporal Cold War power has prompted fans to speculate that they are the among the potential "next great rival"s to the Federation in the 25th century, and that they may be operating on [[Chessmaster]] levels when it comes to their xenopolitical strategy.

** ''[[Squick|Quivering]]'' purple tubes.

 

* Anything in the "Unknowns" category of [[Mortasheen]] that isn't a flat-out [[Eldritch Abomination]] is this, with the strangest being the Meteor Series, which ''aren't even technically "alive".''

* The Hivers of [[Traveller]] are vaguely starfish-like aliens with nonhuman physiologies, biologies, psychologies, society, and which reproduce by budding. Considered a challenge to role-play. Despite the name, they are not a [[Hive Mind]], nor are they [[Bee People]]. The tag "hivers" was hung on them by a human who thought their buildings looked like beehives.

* ''[[Teenagers From Outer Space]]'' divides aliens into [[Rubber Forehead Aliens|Near Humans]], Not Very Near Humans, and Real Weirdies.

 

* ''[[Achron]]'' has the Grekim. A race with 3 genders that by and large resemble giant cyborg squid. Known to be masters of time travel.

* ''[[Star Control]] 2'' is absolutely crammed full of these species: the Slylandro (gas giant dwelling bubbles), the Umgah (blobs with various tentacles, mouths and eyes scattered about), the Ur-Quan (Giant tentacled space centipedes), the Talking Pets{{spoiler|/Dnyarri (sentient psychic frogs)}}, the [[Big Creepy-Crawlies|Ilwrath]], the Chenjesu, the Zoq-Fot-Pik (The resemble a mutant houseplant, a purple clam, and a blue radiator), the Mycon (fungus), the [[Plant Aliens|Supox]], the Spathi (one eyed clamlike mollusks)... and most especially those happy *[[Starfish Language|campers]]* , the Orz (tentacled parrotfish), who, it is hinted, are the *fingers* of an [[Eldritch Abomination]]. Most of the aliens are humanoid enough in ''psychology'' to communicate with, at least—except the [[Starfish Language|Orz]] and the Mycon. The Mycon's case isn't funny, though.

* The [[The Kingdom|Boron]] of the ''[[X (video game)|X-Universe]]'' look like [[Rubber Forehead Aliens]] over comms, [[Subverted Trope|but you only see them from the neck up]]. They actually look like [http://www.egosoft.com/x/xnews/gfx/22_concept_boron.jpg this]. They're an aquatic species that evolved on an ocean world with an ammonia atmosphere, and have three genders. Meanwhile, the [[Scary Dogmatic Aliens|Paranid]] have three eyes, a crazy religion based on three-dimensionality, multiple genders, and four arms.

 

* ''[[Freefall]]'' first hinted, and later stated outright, that under his [[Mobile Suit Human]](oid) exterior, Sam Starfall is not remotely humanoid in form.

** It involves lots and lots of tentacles, and makes most humans lose their lunch immediately.

* ''[[Chainsawsuit]]'' [http://chainsawsuit.com/2008/04/25/strip-357/ demonstrates] some... awkward issues with this.

 

* In ''[[Alienators Evolution Continues]]'', the [[Animated Adaptation]] sequel to the movie ''[[Evolution (film)|Evolution]]'', the Genus aliens become literal starfish-like creatures when hit by a devolution ray.

* ''[[The Transformers (animation)|The Transformers]]'' did this a lot, especially in season three when the focus moved away from Earth. There are the five-faced tentacled Quintessons, the energy-based Tornedron, the living planet of Torkulon and its motley inmates, and in the sequel series ''[[Beast Wars]]'' we got the extradimensional Vok.

** The [[Scary Dogmatic Aliens|Highbreed]] look roughly humanoid, but their inner biology seems ''very'' bizarre.

 

* In mental terms, [http://www.rfreitas.com/Astro/Xenopsychology.htm this article] reflects upon the profoundly alien possibilities extrapolated from our own minds, while breaking down each factor that could possibly make alien minds different from human minds.

* Scientist speculate that life may exist on Jupiter's moon Europa where there may be a sea under the ice. If they do, they'll probably live very deep down, surviving off geothermal energy. Thus, they would possibly look similar to Earth's own [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KT1TSbarW1U deep sea creatures].