Starfish Aliens: Difference between revisions

Usually, their language and communication are so different from ours that if there is to be any communication between our species and theirs, it must be done by [[Babel Fish|technological means of translation]] or them taking on [[A Form You Are Comfortable With|a form humans can interact with]].

Given the long, strange history of life on Earth (a given house includes such a bewildering variety of life as humans, houseplants, pets, spiders, molds, bacteria, etc.), it's likely if we ever actually encounter alien life, it might fit in this category. (Arguably, species that evolve naturally would have adapted to solve similar basic problems: obtaining food/necessities, negotiating natural disaster, adapting to new circumstances, avoiding contamination by pathogens, competing with other species, competing with themselves, and so forth. So we would expect to find at least a few familiar aspects to their psychology as opposed to sheer indecipherable mystery...if they evolved in similar conditions as us) In fiction, they are located towards the "hard" end of the [[Mohs Scale of Sci Fi Hardness|Sci-Fi Hardness Scale]].

Aliens that don't look like humans, but still have basically the same body type are [[Humanoid Aliens]], or [[Intelligent Gerbil|Intelligent Gerbils]], if they're obviously [[Petting Zoo People|based off a particular Earth animal]].

See also [[Bizarre Alien Biology]], [[Starfish Robots]], and [[Our Monsters Are Weird]]. Compare [[Eldritch Abomination]] (both tropes have some overlap). For the first time mentioned in [[H.P. Lovecraft]]'s ''[[At the Mountains of Madness]]'', written in 1931. Here the author directly describes the Old Ones as "starfish aliens."

* During [[Alan Moore]]'s legendary run on ''[[Swamp Thing]]'', the eponymous hero encountered a sentient biomechanical planetoid, which proceeded to rape him.

* Matt Howarth did an entire series about ?sexual Life Partners Konny and Kzu, neither of whom looks remotely human-like -- in fact, there are ''no'' humanoid aliens in the strip and books.

* ''[[Valerian]]'' has alien species ranging from simple [[Rubber Forehead Aliens]] to things that definitely belong in this category. Giant, telepathic worm-things? Gelatinous [[Voluntary Shapeshifting|shape-shifting]] prostitutes? Jellyfish-like mammalian math geniuses? And that's just the species that are categorized as ''people''; the "animals" are even weirder. No wonder the creators have published a whole book dedicated just to their aliens.

* Aliens in ''[[The Far Side]]'' are usually depicted as semi-humanoid blobby creatures with numerous tentacles with eyes on the ends growing out of their bodies. They're almost invariably huge, capture humans like bugs (to which they are the size of), and speak random gibberish (unless understanding what they say is necessary for the joke).

* Many of the aliens Spaceman Spiff encounters over the course of ''[[Calvin and Hobbes]]''.

* 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.

* The alien from the low-budget ''Invader'' was distinctly nonhumanoid, even being able to reconfigure its form - not by shapeshifting, but rather by unfolding, extending and withdrawing parts of its body.

* ''[[The Thing (film)|The Thing]]''. There really is not a word other than "The Thing" to call it, because no one even really knows what it is. It is capable of perfectly replicating anything it has ever come in contact with, and every single cell of its body is a separate, hostile organism. It's so utterly alien that people aren't even sure if it has a true form or not, even the huge, grotesque monstrosity it forms in the end.

* The invaders in ''[[Battle: Los Angeles]]'' appear to be this. They look vaguely humanoid, but their bodies are some form of cybernetic and biological construct that is grown to specific battlefield needs, and their primary interest in Earth is its water supply and habitable conditions.

* [[Alien|The xenomorphs]] seemed surprisingly human for the first two films, considering [[Body Horror|their life cycle]]. In the third film, however, we see what happens when one hatches from a dog...and it looks like a dog. The second [[Alien vs. Predator]] film features a xenomorph that hatched from a Predator. While it was still humanoid, it was significantly larger than the common human-hatched xenomorphs and had additional physical characteristics modeled after the Predators, such as a set of four mandibles around its mouth and head appendages that resembled a Predator's trademark dreadlocks. This implies that a xenomorph's physical characteristics are based on the species it hatched from and [[Fridge Horror|the common humanoid xenomorphs are only what they look like when they incubate in a human]]. We've never seen their native form. This would seem to raise questions about the humanoid-but-fifteen-feet-tall Queen, [[Fridge Brilliance|until you recall the Space Jockey from the first movie]], which might explain [[Fridge Logic|why his ship was full of eggs when the species reproduces like ants]].

** That giant space slug that ate the Millenium Falcon in "The Empire Strikes Back?" Xenobiologists believe the [http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Exogorth Exogorth] was once the dominant life form in the galaxy and that the ones they see today are the last remnants of this once-great race. No one has any clue where they came from or what happened to cause them to fall. To quote Arkoh Adasca:

{{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." }}

* The Cheela in ''[[Dragon's Egg|Dragons Egg]],'' by Robert L. Forward: small sentient slugs with twelve eyes on stalks, living on the surface of a neutron star. Their bodies are made of degenerate matter, so despite having about the same mass and physical complexity as a human, they are only about as large as a sesame seed. Because nuclear reactions happen much more quickly than chemical, time passes for them much, much faster than for humans. For all of that, their history and psychology have many similarities to humanity's.

* The [[Slaughterhouse-Five|Tralfamadorians]] from Kurt Vonnegut's works experience time in a non-linear fashion, and as a result have an entirely different concept of literature, which details many unrelated moments, and is ultimately incomprehensible to humans. They're also shaped like plumber's friends topped by hands, each with a single eye in the palm.

* [[Vernor Vinge]] created the Tines for his novel ''[[Zones of Thought|A Fire Upon the Deep]]'', a race of seal-headed dog creatures that communicate through ultrasound that is so fast and complex that it might as well be telepathy. Each individual Tine is nonsentient, but when four or more combine they become an intelligent individual. However, the ultrasound interferes if too many Tines get close together, so when the number of single Tines in a group exceeds eight they start to get dumb again. As a result a civilization of "individual" packs of around 3-8 Tines has grown. Some individuals live for hundreds of years as they gradually replace members that die (and if both parents of the new member also belonged to its new collective, the collective's personality is supposed to stay exactly the same). A lot of plot points hang on their unique physiology. For example, one of the villains attempts to escape his enemies by literally splitting himself, murdering parts of some of his dupes and merging his constituent Tines into the remnants of their collectives, intending to recombine them back into himself, once out of the danger zone. He succeeds... partially.

** He also created the Spiders of the On/Off Star, giant arachnoid aliens that hibernate every few decades when their star goes into a cool period. They are more human psychologically than the Tines though.

*** And of course then there's the Skroderiders, sentient sea-lily creatures with no short-term memory that ride around on computerised wheelchair-like skrodes.

** One of Vinge's greatest alien races are the Shimans from ''Original Sin''. They are kangaroo-like in appearance and highly intelligent, but they only live for two years before they become asexually pregnant with voracious babies that eat their way out of their parents. They retain that incredible hunger all their life and have a terrible time building a civilization without eating their coworkers. The only way they succeed at all is that they are smarter and more energetic than humans. One of them remarks to a human that humans are lucky because they are [[Humans Are Special|naturally good]], whereas Shimans have to work very hard to be good.

** Really, the vast majority of the alien species in Animorphs qualify - we have Leerans - psychic giant yellow frogs with 4 tentacles instead of arms who can easily survive half of their ''brains'' being removed and go on to regrow them, Hork-Bajir - 7 foot tall 'walking salad shooters' with blades everywhere who eat tree bark, the Arn - a race of hyper-intelligent things that look sort of like squirrels, with gemstone eyes and wings, Skrit Na - aliens who go through two life cycles, the 'skrit' where they look something like giant cockroaches and then the 'na', where they take on a more conventional appearance, that of the stereotypical alien 'grays', a Veelek - a combination of microscopic creatures who travel in swarms and come from Saturn, the Nesk - intelligent alien ants who swarm together to create constructs that look a little more conventional, the Helmacrons - a tiny race of egomaniacs, each about 1/16 of an inch high, who have 4 legs and triangular heads and whose brains are absorbed by the rest of the species when they die, Gafta's Children, who are large and look like gumby... The list goes on and on.

* Also by K.A. Applegate, the ''[[Remnants]]'' series features different alien species, of which the Squids are the most ''normal''. The Blue Meanies/Children are described as looking like giant cats with tentacles they use for sign language, the Riders have two different-looking heads (one is basically just a mouth), and the Shipwrights look like starfish, but with '' transparent skin''. [[Squick]].

* The ''[[wikipedia:Ann C. Crispin|StarBridge]]'' series of young adult novels by Ann C Crispin has any number of these aliens. The dominant (though peaceful) aliens of the galaxy are giant snakes, which preside over a menagerie of alien forms. The strangest one is most likely the race of amorphous blobs that communicate only through vibrational pulses, although the blanket-sized telepathic fungus alien that remained a major recurring character for most of the series got more screen time.

* [[Bruce Coville]] loves these. His best-known series, ''[[My Teacher Is an Alien]]'', [http://www.brucecoville.com/books.asp?gid=3 features] a cucumber-like alien that communicates by popping scent-filled pimples. His [http://www.brucecoville.com/books.asp?gid=6 Rod Albright] series has Tar Gibbons (member of a multi-gendered species), Phil the Plant, and Edgar/Seymour (member of a symbiont species which splits into two bodies as part of its life cycle). On the psychological side, Captain Grakker uses a computerized implant to experience moods.

* [[Horde of Alien Locusts|The Vord]] in the ''[[Codex Alera]]'' are, [[Captain Ersatz|for all intents and purposes]], the Zerg from ''[[Starcraft]]'', which are described below. Their [[Hive Queen]]'s attempts to [[Cute Monster Girl|look human]] mostly just succeed in making their totally alien nature [[Uncanny Valley|that much more obvious]].

* ''[[The Bible]]'' describes angels as having bizare appearances (such as eye covered wheels) far more than it describes humanoid angels.

* Ben Jeapes' "Commonwealth" triolgy has the First Breed, dubbed the Rusties - four-legged aliens with tentacles near their mouths. A list of stuff about them:

** Their [[Starfish Language|language sounds like someone being strangled]], so they use translators instead. Untranslated Rusties Language has the emotion in square brackets first, then the sentence in double triangle-brackets. [[Self-Demonstrating Article|[Explanatory] <<Like This.>> ]]

** [[Blue and Orange Morality|They have weird ideas about leadership.]]

* The Quarn in [[David Weber]]'s ''[[In Fury Born]]'' (an expansion of ''Path Of The Fury'') are almost literally [[Starfish Aliens]], being described as "a radially symmetrical cross between a hairy, two-meter-wide starfish and a crazed Impressionist's version of a spider". No matter their physical appearance, they get along with humans quite well. This is mostly due to the facts that both species 1) find the other's planets all but uninhabitable (helping prevent territorial warfare), and 2) share a love of biological/reproductive humour.

** It is implied that the few species really worth meeting have already achieved [[The Singularity|Enlightenment]], becoming [[Evolutionary Levels|superior beings]] that mere humans cannot communicate with. What remains of the universe is "[[Crapsack World|just another ghetto]]".

* 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...

* [[Robert A. Heinlein]]'s ''[[Stranger in A Strange Land]]'' is a little vague about the nature of Martians, but they seem to be giant, globe-like fur-covered creatures who have go through a multiple-stage full body metamorphosis several times in life before eventually becoming just disembodied psychic entities. Their mode of thought is so different from that of humans that the Martian-raised protagonist's struggle to understand even the rudiments of human mentality are the nucleus of the book's entire conflict.

** 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 characters of ''[[The Crucible of Time]]'' are a species of intelligent fungoids.

* Frank Herbert's [[Con Sentiency]] series have the Taprisots (sentient telepathic logs which function as a communication system), the Gowachi (semi-humanoid frogs with a legal system so complex it literally defies description), the Wreaves (semi-insectoid humanoids who take insults ''very'' personally), the Pan Spechi (who actually live through five different bodies, one at a time) and the Caleban (vast and massively powerful aliens that appear as sentient ''stars'', and it is strongly suggested that ''every star in the universe is the visual manifestation of a Caleban'')

* ''[[The Host (novel)|The Host]]'' contains the "Souls", a [[Puppeteer Parasite]] species. The main character actually comments on how no species they have taken over has been exactly the same.

* Played with in the short story ''[[They're Made Out of Meat|Theyre Made Out of Meat]]''. For the most part being completely made of organic material makes ''humans'' the odd ones out in the universe. The other aliens see humans as something so [[Fantastic Racism|strange and implausible that they decide to erase all records of our existence as intelligent life forms and records of contact]].

* The Hrangans, powerful psychics and masters of massive slave armies composed of beings of varying intelligence, of [[George R. R. Martin|George R. R. Martin's]] Thousand Worlds [[Science Fiction]] stories. They were apparently so alien that communication between then and humans was basically impossible. Even human psychics weren't able to get anything from Hrangans but mental static. At any rate, the Hrangans didn't feel like talking, they were much more interested in conquest.

* Ted Chiang's short story "Story of Your Life" is about a human team's attempts to study and communicate with an alien species. Eventually, the linguists realize that the alien written language is nonlinear because the aliens don't have our idea of time. Learning the alien language enables the linguists to {{spoiler|perceive the future, but not to change it}}.

* Polish sci-fi writer Jacek Dukaj has a couple examples in his writing.

** 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.

** [[Star Trek: The Next Generation]] had space-dwelling jellyfish the size of a city in their first episode. There were also a couple of crystalline lifeforms. Of course, most of the non-humanoid sentients they met, [[Instant AI, Just Add Water|they made themselves]].

** Armus, the creature that killed Tasha Yar, was a "skin of evil" cast off by a race of "titans." Tricorders and sensors couldn't make sense of it it. It presented itself as a shapeshifting black liquid which could absorb humanoids, use teleportation and other psychokinetic attacks, and inflict serious damage with energy discharges (this is how Tasha was killed). The entity was pitifully dependent on sadism for its own entertainment, and clearly distraught when it learned that it was to be stranded on a barren planet forever.

** "Species 8472" from [[Star Trek: Voyager]] started this way, but were rapidly [[Flanderization|Flanderized]] into just another stand-in for [[Anvilicious|ham-fisted and vague social messages]]. The episode "Think Tank" had several alien aliens.

** ''Whatever'' they were dealing with in ''Midnight'': on a planet that cannot support life as we know it, a tourist gets possessed by something that acquires language skills by repeating other people, until it speaks at the same time as them, then ''before''.

** "The Eleventh Hour" gives us the latest and by far weirdest alien police in the Whoniverse, the Atraxi. They resemble large eyeballs fixed at the center of a large, crystalline web, and are able to travel through space without any trouble. They have incredibly deep, scratchy voices, the ability to hack into electronics, and they hold their prisoners in alternate dimensions. Now that's an ''alien'' police force!

*** On a related note, the House from "The Doctor's Wife." It's an extrauniversal [[Genius Loci]] that {{spoiler|1=''eats TARDISes''.}}

** Some of the aliens featured in ''Who'' have bordered on the indescribable, such as the Fendahl from "Image of the Fendahl": a hive-like, partially noncorporeal alien which included a possessed skull, a floating golden woman and invisible life-sucking slug things amongst its aspects. Other particularly bizarre aliens include the Rutans (glowing tentacled blobs) and the Ogri from "The Stones of Blood" (a giant mobile rock that makes a constant heartbeat-like noise).

* ''[[Blake's Seven|Blakes Seven]]'' had some kind of corrosive life form composed of goo-ish matter bearing an uncanny resemblance to vomit.

** ''[[Blake's Seven|Blakes Seven]]'' also had a [[Genius Loci|Living Planet]] that raised some very ''interesting'' questions about evolution, metabolism and reproduction.

* ''[[The Future Is Wild]]'': The 200 million years future era features "squibbons", intelligent tree-dwelling land squid that backflip between branches, which may be "the forerunners of a future civilization".

* Zini from the German children's series ''Spaß am Dienstag'' (Fun on tuesdays). A "Wuslon (pronounced: "Voozlon") from the family of electroids", Zini essentially was a computer-generated yellow-orange circle which would move over the TV screen during the show, dragging a slowly fading "shadow" along. A human speaker lent him his (electronically somewhat distorted) voice, which allowed Zini to interact with the various human co-moderators (no [[Translator Microbes]] needed). Later, Zini could also change his size, shape and/or color. [http://www.wuslon.com See also here.]

* ''[[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.

** Though it's entirely possible that the none of the Scrin units we see are actually the Scrin themselves, just bio-robots or piloted bio-machines.

* ''[[Perfect Dark]]'', opposite the benevolent Maians, aka [[The Greys]], has the evil Skedar, which are squid-like Starfish Aliens, although equipped with anthropomorphic [[Powered Armor]].

** And a literal example, Staryu and Starmie are hinted to have come from outer space. They flash their crystals to the night sky, emitting strange radio waves.

** And let's not forget Deoxys, who is not only explicitly stated to be an alien, but who lacks a mouth, nose, has tentacles, shapeshifts, and is shown in the movie it stars in to communicate via pulses of light from a crystal which acts as its brain.

* The Zerg from ''[[Starcraft]]'' have completely monstrous forms (until they start assimilating humans), a hivemind-based society and "hive clusters" made of "buildings" that are actually huge, sedentary living Zerg creatures. They reproduce by larvae that are born from one such living building.

** The buildings are technically more like organs than creatures, given their specialized functions and dependence on the Creep (an undifferentiated mass of flesh/hide/circulatory system which covers Zerg-infested terrain) to exist. How cute.

** In ''Crysis 2'' they are aptly named Cephalopods (or Ceph for short). They now use agile bipedal robots, piloted by a tentacled organic mass on their backs (which may or may not be an actual alien).

* One of the crewmembers in ''[[Unreal]] 2: The Awakening'' was an alien whose body was some sort of liquid or energy, and who interacted with everyone using a suit of humanoid-shaped [[Powered Armor]] with a large transparent dome in the chest where his "face" was. With only a tenuous understanding of human culture, he was also the [[Funny Foreigner]].

* The S'pht from the ''[[Marathon Trilogy|Marathon]]'' games usually fly around in powered armor, but appear to resemble [http://www.eyrie.org/~aerianne/marathon/m2.term1.jpg brains with an eye and arms]. This is because they are all cyborgs from birth, with both the biological and mechanical halves reproducing at once, making them [[Mechanical Lifeforms]] to one degree or another.

** Some information in the games indicates that the S'Pht wouldn't be sentient without their cybernetic parts, which were first grafted on by the [[Precursors|Jjaro]]. This has created the [[Epileptic Tree]] that the Jjaro were actually machines.

* The vast majority of the Covenant species in ''[[Halo]]'' are to one degree or another humanoid in structure, excepting the Hunters/Mgalekgolo. Though outwardly they ''look'' like humanoids, [[All There in the Manual|in reality]] each Hunter is a collection of hundreds of eel-like organisms (the Lekgolo) gathered together into an individual [[Hive Mind]] that operates as a single sapient being, formed into a humanoid shape by their battle armor.

** The Drones/Yanme'e also fit this trope, being insects that have a hive mentality, and strange eyesight.

*** Pure Forms especially, as they seem to have their own uniquely engineered anatomy, and can change from a spider-like "Stalker" to either the lumbering bear-bug "Tank", or the really odd, bulbous, porcupine-like "Ranged" form.

** The Engineers/Huragok, who resemble large pink tentacled slugs that float above the ground using two gas-bags. Their tentacles have the ability to split into millions of thread-like cilia, which they use to fix or build just about anything. The Engineer equivalant of sex is a couple (sometimes even three) working together to ''actually build their child''. Their psychology is a little strange too. They don't seem to care if they're helping the humans or the Covenant, so long as they have something to fix.

* Al'Taieu, in [[Final Fantasy XI]], is an entire region of Starfish Biota.

* ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' has some pretty weird creatures on Outland, such as marsh striders. The Scourge faction has some very weird flying spider-bat combination things that screech unnervingly and never fail to give you the creeps. The naaru could also count, though they are energy beings, they lack faces and bodies and limbs as we know them.

* The Einst from the ''[[Super Robot Wars]]'' series are a hive mind of creatures that seem to be able to take any form, though they stick to a few specific ones such as skeletal monsters, vines wearing robes, or empty suits of armor. They exist in an alternate universe, only occasionally coming to a world occupied by humans, and most of them can only communicate telepathically to specific people who have a connection with them. (And still... Talk... Like this...) They are, or at least believe themselves to be, the eternal guardians of the multiverse that existed since the dawn of time, and have no personal issue with humanity except that our free will and hotblooded}}ness is slowly eroding away the foundations of the universe.

* Owing to the amazing procedural generation of [[Spore]], a good deal of the species you create or encounter can be this. The most famous Spore creature, the [[Fan Nickname|Willosaur]], is a tripodal reptile/dinosaur-thing with three eyes and a prehensile tail. And that's one of the more normal creatures you'll find.

* The Lumas in the ''[[Super Mario Bros.|Mario]]'' series. They aren't exactly as bizzare as others on the list, but they're body shape is literally that of a star. They can be found anywhere and consume peculiar objects called Star Bits.

* ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess]]'' gives us the Oocca, a bizarre race of beings with small chicken-like bodies, egg-shaped heads with [[Uncanny Valley]]-ish human faces, and [[Multi Boobage|multiple sets of]] [[Non Mammalian Mammaries]] ''(with the nipples showing)''. Not to mention the babies, which appear to be flying eggs with human faces. They're highly intelligent--they created the [http://www.zeldawiki.org/City_in_the_Sky City in the Sky], advanced technology like the [http://www.zeldawiki.org/Sky_Cannon Sky Cannon] and the [http://www.zeldawiki.org/Dominion_Rod Dominion Rod], their own [[Starfish Language]], and apparently even the entire country of Hyrule. They're said to be closer to the gods than the Hylians themselves.

* [[UFO Afterblank|''UFO: Aftershock'']] has the Starghosts, strange aliens that appear later in the game. The Starghosts use "pet" creatures that range from animated shuriken to giant spiders. However, aside from psionic projections, the true form of the Starghosts is never seen.

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

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

*** According to Sam himself, unlike in Earth, in his planet life developed without any major cataclysms. As a result the protein structure of every species on his planet, including his own is extremely simple, making them palatable and delicious to pretty much every Earthly creature.

** The [[Word of God]] states that without his suit Sam vaguely resembles a boneless stick-man made of tentacles. Once his "arm" was shown without suit; it was a bunch of tentacles strapped together to vaguely resemble a human arm. See it [http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff1600/fc01551.htm here]

== Western Animation ==

* ''[[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 Transformers themselves are perhaps the limit of how humanoid mainstream aliens can be- [[Mechanical Lifeforms]] about ten times our size who can reconfigure their bodies at will to mimic machinery. Most of them happen to have two arms, two legs, and a head, but they sure as heck don't ''look'' human.

* In ''[[Pay Me Bug]]'', Ktk is described as a 2.5 meter hermaphroditic centipede, with three prehensile tails that are ''each'' strong enough to [[Grievous Harm with a Body|wield a person like a club]].

* The [[SCP Foundation]] has [http://scp-wiki.net/scp-328 an alien CD]; based on data retrieved from it, the designers are fundamentally different to humans (for example, taste is their primary sense, and electromagnetism is lethal to them). Also, ''we'' are starfish aliens to ''them''.