# What’s your favorite alien? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 8, 2019, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-your-favorite-alien/841486 "2019-10-08T18:04:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2019, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-your-favorite-alien/841486/21 "2019-10-08T22:38:54Z")
> [@campp](#): > > I never thought that at all. C&C? I just figured they were indeed “bugs”. That whole instinct to build Geiger nests and chest bursting seems very biological to me. I figure that home planet was one hostile sumbitch. “They cut the power!” " What do you mean _they_ cut the power? How could they cut the power, man? They’re animals!" I’m not sure there’s any evidence, but they do seem “intelligently designed” rather than evolutionary. Otherwise, yes, their native planet would be worse than Harrison’s Deathworld. “A survivor… unclouded by conscience, remorse, or delusions of morality.” Ash could have been speaking about it as intelligent, or a dumb animal. I’d theorize they were genetically modified from some species of insect-like nature, and given intelligence. perhaps they were controlled through some sort of transmitted commands, or just let loose. Perhaps they have (had?) some remote kill switch. But it might seem they got away from their creators and are now running loose. Note: I did not see Prometheus. ---
**Author:** ![snfaulkner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snfaulkner/32/433_2.png) [@snfaulkner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snfaulkner)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2019, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-your-favorite-alien/841486/22 "2019-10-08T23:13:13Z")
Runner up: Roger from American Dad ---
**Author:** ![kopek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kopek/32/337_2.png) [@kopek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kopek)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2019, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-your-favorite-alien/841486/23 "2019-10-08T23:30:18Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > The most dangerous non-sapient monster in science fiction, for my money, is the grendels, from Niven’s _The Legacy of Heorot_. They basically have rocket-fuel blood, which enables them to move faster than anything else on their planet, and basically all parts of their body are weaponized. Their weakness is that when they use their super-speed, they tend to overheat, so they need to very quickly get back to water, before they cook themselves. I am curious; what is your opinion of the first Deathworld story? An entire ecosystem against you … is something. ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2019, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-your-favorite-alien/841486/24 "2019-10-08T23:45:39Z")
I have several I like, but the two at the top are both from Star Trek, the Klingons and the Ferengi. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Stainless\_Steel\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_stainless_steel_rat/32/5727_2.png) [@The\_Stainless\_Steel\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Stainless_Steel_Rat)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2019, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-your-favorite-alien/841486/25 "2019-10-09T00:35:44Z")
I am a big fan of the on-line comic **Schlock Mercenary** , so of course Schlock (a carbosilicate amorph), Uniocs, Fobotrr…heck, there are a lot and the writer has made all of them interesting… From books, the Moties from Niven/Pournell’s **Mote in God’s Eye** are close enough to interact with and alien enough to be quite different from us. From movies, anyone from the “Klatuu/Gort” society in “ **The Day the Earth Stood Still** ” (old film). I’d really like to see if it does work. ---
**Author:** ![blondebear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blondebear/32/1022_2.png) [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2019, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-your-favorite-alien/841486/26 "2019-10-09T00:43:38Z")
> [@Beckdawrek](#): > > Paul. In that movie. Forget the name of it. Paul was funny. > ETA, seems ‘Paul’ was the name of the movie, as well. My choice as well. Paul is one of my favorite movies. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2019, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-your-favorite-alien/841486/27 "2019-10-09T01:16:25Z")
I’ve never read Deathworld. And yeah, Schlock and his crew are quite interesting. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2019, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-your-favorite-alien/841486/28 "2019-10-09T01:53:34Z")
The Thing. From the John Carpenter movie. Scary as Fuck. ---
**Author:** ![snfaulkner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snfaulkner/32/433_2.png) [@snfaulkner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snfaulkner)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2019, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-your-favorite-alien/841486/29 "2019-10-09T02:06:06Z")
> [@Gatopescado](#): > > The Thing. From the John Carpenter movie. Scary as Fuck. Dammit, yes! How could forget about that? It’s only my favorite movie ever… ---
**Author:** ![wevets](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9a140/32.png) [@wevets](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wevets)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2019, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-your-favorite-alien/841486/30 "2019-10-09T03:36:42Z")
> [@campp](#): > > I figure that home planet was one hostile sumbitch. There’s no reason the Engineers wouldn’t have chosen a particularly successful parasite from a deadly world to engineer into their biological weapon. That way they don’t have to start from the beginning. ---
**Author:** ![MacTech](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c0e974/32.png) [@MacTech](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MacTech)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2019, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-your-favorite-alien/841486/31 "2019-10-09T03:58:01Z")
> [@Baker](#): > > I have several I like, but the two at the top are both from Star Trek, the Klingons and the Ferengi. Same here… Trek; Klingons, Vulcans, Ferengi , heck, even the Spoonheads…err…Cardassians 😉 Farscape; the Nebari, i’ll be in my bunk…with Chiana 😉 can I get a Frell Yeah?! Star Wars; the Twi’Lek Battlestar Galactica (reboot); Boomer/Athena, and Number Six models Futurama; MACTECH-PREFERS-THE-BRAINSLUG-PLANET \, sorry, ahem, as I was saying… Decapodians, Neptunians, Omicronians, and…ALL-GLORY-TO-THE-HYPNOTOAD… Dammit, too many mind-controllers there… ---
**Author:** ![snfaulkner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snfaulkner/32/433_2.png) [@snfaulkner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snfaulkner)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2019, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-your-favorite-alien/841486/32 "2019-10-09T04:06:32Z")
> [@MacTech](#): > > Same here… > > Trek; Klingons, Vulcans, Ferengi , heck, even the Spoonheads…err…Cardassians 😉 > > Farscape; the Nebari, i’ll be in my bunk…with Chiana 😉 can I get a Frell Yeah?! > > Star Wars; the Twi’Lek > > Battlestar Galactica (reboot); Boomer/Athena, and Number Six models > > Futurama; MACTECH-PREFERS-THE-BRAINSLUG-PLANET \, sorry, ahem, as I was saying… Decapodians, Neptunians, Omicronians, and…ALL-GLORY-TO-THE-HYPNOTOAD… Dammit, too many mind-controllers there… Who would win in a showdown between hypnotoad and brainslugs? ---
**Author:** ![Les\_Espaces\_Du\_Sommeil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/les_espaces_du_sommeil/32/308_2.png) [@Les\_Espaces\_Du\_Sommeil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Les_Espaces_Du_Sommeil)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2019, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-your-favorite-alien/841486/33 "2019-10-09T12:52:33Z")
**Solaris** , a planet-encompassing, sentient ocean. In the book, scientists have been studying it for decades, hundreds of articles have been written about it and yet, no-one understands what it is or what it wants, as its fundamentally alien nature renders it prospect of establishing communication with it futile. What do the gigantic, baroque superstructures that appear occasionally on its surface mean ? Are the creepy hallucinations that haunt the astronauts orbiting its planet proof of hostile intent or just the product of our inability to communicate ? No-one knows. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2019, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-your-favorite-alien/841486/34 "2019-10-09T13:18:44Z")
> [@Les\_Espaces\_Du\_Sommeil](#): > > **Solaris** , a planet-encompassing, sentient ocean. > > In the book, scientists have been studying it for decades, hundreds of articles have been written about it and yet, no-one understands what it is or what it wants, as its fundamentally alien nature renders it prospect of establishing communication with it futile. What do the gigantic, baroque superstructures that appear occasionally on its surface mean ? Are the creepy hallucinations that haunt the astronauts orbiting its planet proof of hostile intent or just the product of our inability to communicate ? No-one knows. I’ve never been happy with Stanislas Lem’s book\*, although I like it better than either of the film adaptations. If you’re looking for incomprehensible aliens that we don’t seem to be able to communicate with effectively, I prefer the _Loarra_ from Terry Carr’s **The Dance of the Changer and the Three** , which came out about the same time. It was nominated for both the Hugo and the Nebula that year, but didn’t win either [https://www.lexal.net/scifi/scifiction/classics/classics\_archive/carr/carr1.html](https://www.lexal.net/scifi/scifiction/classics/classics_archive/carr/carr1.html) - (which still has not been completely translated into English. The translation we have not only isn’t complete – it’s not direct. It’s the English translation of a French translation. Kinda like the Jerusalem Bible.) ---
**Author:** ![Gray\_Ghost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c0e974/32.png) [@Gray\_Ghost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gray_Ghost)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2019, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-your-favorite-alien/841486/35 "2019-10-09T13:30:25Z")
> [@Llama\_Llogophile](#): > > Not a particular alien individual, like Yoda or ET. What fictional alien race / species do you find most interesting, and why? > > I’m currently re-reading Larry Niven’s **Ringworld** , which has rekindled my fascination with [Pierson’s Puppeteers](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierson%27s_Puppeteers). Niven gave them an intriguing combination of traits: > > - Highly intelligent and advanced herbivores > - Genetically predisposed to “cowardice” as a survival mechanism > - Two-headed and three-limbed, making them seem very non-human, but not in the campy way many fictional aliens are portrayed > - An obscure sense of humor, usually opaque to humans, yet they are very comical > > Niven also avoided giving too much exposition about Puppeteers (at least in what I’ve read so far), leaving them a bit mysterious. I’d so love to meet one. > > So what fictional alien would you most want to have a carrot juice with? He goes into a lot more detail with his later collaborative series with Ed Lerner. Worth your time, if not quite as good as many of the Ringworld books. My own favorite aliens are how the Strugatsky brothers described an alien visitation in [Roadside Picnic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roadside_Picnic): > [@](#): > > A picnic. Picture a forest, a country road, a meadow. Cars drive off the country road into the meadow, a group of young people get out carrying bottles, baskets of food, transistor radios, and cameras. They light fires, pitch tents, turn on the music. In the morning they leave. The animals, birds, and insects that watched in horror through the long night creep out from their hiding places. And what do they see? Old spark plugs and old filters strewn around… Rags, burnt-out bulbs, and a monkey wrench left behind… And of course, the usual mess—apple cores, candy wrappers, charred remains of the campfire, cans, bottles, somebody’s handkerchief, somebody’s penknife, torn newspapers, coins, faded flowers picked in another meadow. I think any alien visitation would be horrifyingly incomprehensible, if we even knew it was occurring. Returning to Niven, I liked how the Thrint in _[World of Ptavvs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_of_Ptavvs)_ was thought of for the longest time as just a statue, serenely untouchable and incomprehensible to everyone that tried to study it. I think any alien artifacts would be similarly beyond the ability of modern science to begin to even understand. EDIT: Les Espaces’s Solaris ocean got me to thinking. The Juggler Ocean from Alastair Reynolds’s Revelation Space series is a nifty example of an aquatic sentient ocean. In that universe, living beings visit the Pattern Jugglers to be remade, from the atoms up, with new modes of thinking and acting. Think of it as a nanotechnology vat, run by a communal, ocean-spanning organism, that is mostly beneficial. Though sometimes the Jugglers don’t let you leave… ---
**Author:** ![Gray\_Ghost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c0e974/32.png) [@Gray\_Ghost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gray_Ghost)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2019, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-your-favorite-alien/841486/36 "2019-10-09T13:35:42Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I’ve never read Deathworld… If you like Harry Harrison, it’s typical of his other books. Though Jason dinAlt wishes he was as charismatic as Slippery Jim. Typical of late 60s-mid 70s influence too. But it reads quickly. ---
**Author:** ![Les\_Espaces\_Du\_Sommeil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/les_espaces_du_sommeil/32/308_2.png) [@Les\_Espaces\_Du\_Sommeil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Les_Espaces_Du_Sommeil)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2019, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-your-favorite-alien/841486/37 "2019-10-09T14:25:58Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > I’ve never been happy with Stanislas Lem’s book\*, although I like it better than either of the film adaptations. > > If you’re looking for incomprehensible aliens that we don’t seem to be able to communicate with effectively, I prefer the _Loarra_ from Terry Carr’s **The Dance of the Changer and the Three** , which came out about the same time. It was nominated for both the Hugo and the Nebula that year, but didn’t win either > > [THE DANCE OF THE CHANGER AND THE THREE-PAGE 1](https://www.lexal.net/scifi/scifiction/classics/classics_archive/carr/carr1.html) Yeah, that’s exactly the sort of aliens I love : those that are _really_ alien. I’ve always been unhappy with the many, too human aliens in SF. Thanks for the recommendation 😉 . ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2019, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-your-favorite-alien/841486/38 "2019-10-09T15:12:31Z")
**Moderator Action** Since this is about aliens in fictional creative works, let’s move this to Cafe Society (from IMHO). ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2019, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-your-favorite-alien/841486/39 "2019-10-09T15:23:48Z")
Another very alien alien species are the Calebans in Frank Herbert’s _Whipping Star_. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2019, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-your-favorite-alien/841486/40 "2019-10-09T17:36:58Z")
**MacTech** , remember that Chiana is extremely atypical among the Nebari, and that you probably wouldn’t find most of the rest of them to your liking. And I’ve only read _Fleet of Worlds_, not any of the sequels, but my impression was that a very devoted fan put a lot of effort into meticulously reconciling all of the many contradictions in Niven’s work, and that Niven officially gave it his seal of approval by putting his name on as co-author. Though, to be fair, there’s an awful lot that you can reconcile just by assuming that the Puppeteers are lying. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-your-favorite-alien/841486.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-your-favorite-alien/841486.md?page=3)