What’s your favorite alien?

[Marion_Morrison]

Leloo.

[CaptMurdock]

One of my favorite SF series was James White’s Sector General. The aliens were all non-humanoid and most had fascinating characteristics:

[ol]
[li]Tralthans: basically six-legged, multi-trunked elephants, very much the Gentle Giants. Some of the Tralthan physicians have a small symbiote that enhances their surgical skills. One of the recurring characters is a Tralthan who amongst other traits is an incurable gossip.[/li][li]Kelgians: large furry catapillars. Their fur involuntarily moves according to their emotional or mental state, so all Kelgians know what they are all feeling and to some extent thinking. Consequently, the species never developed deception or even tact.[/li][li]Melfans: crustaceans. Known for being sexual adventurous. Also the only other species to contract diabetes - rather difficult to deal with in an exoskeletal life-form[/li][li]Drambons: donut-shaped beings who have to roll over the surface of their planet, due to their gravity-based circulatory system[/li][li]Cinrusskins: empathic dragonflies. From a low-gee planet, and very fragile.[/li][li]The Blind Ones [no other name]: mole-like beings who, as implied, have no eyesight or concept of same, yet developed civilization and reached the stars.[/li][li]Protectors & Unborn: The Protectors would make the Xenomorphs look like ALF. However, their Unborn embryos are telepathic.[/li][/ol]

[wguy123]

@Darren_Garrison

He called himself Gordon at the end of the first episode. Shumway was revealed in 1x07.

I won’t lie: I recently watched a few of the first ALF episodes and he did indeed call himself Gordon.

And I did laugh. Even as an adult I found it pretty funny.

It was on Netflix or Amazon Prime but it doesn’t appear to be any longer. Darn…we all missed out.

[ExTank]

@Prof.Pepperwinkle

Farscape’s Dominars. I love Rigel. (And there’s D’Argo and Chiana, too.)

Hynerians. Dominar was Rygel’s title, like King or Emperor.

[ZonexandScout]

OK, I’ve got it down to Tribbles or the Arachnids from Klendathu.

[Chronos]

Tribbles are just flatcats with the serial numbers filed off.

[mbh]

And the eyes.

[Miller]

Mi-Go, the fungi from Yuggoth.

[Kamino_Neko]

@Sitnam

Or Kamala, a Kriosian, in The Perfect Mate STTNG Se 5: E 21. She’s a hot empath trained to fulfill her mates every desire.

Bah. Clearly just a Pleasure GELF.

[Crossbreed]

The Martians from Spaced Invaders…!

[Face_Intentionally_Left_Blank]

@KneadToKnow

Whatever species Shahna was. Rowr.

Shahna! Shahna! Good choice. Wow.

[Dr.Colossus]

@Gatopescado

The Thing. From the John Carpenter movie. Scary as Fuck.

I defy someone to come up with a better horror movie.
…I’ll wait here…

[Tamerlane]

@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.

You might consider reading the sequel, it’s not awesome but it does flesh them out a bit. Specifically it rebuts one point in your above description. Spoilered for your safety - they most definitely can be sapient.

@GreenWyvern

There are the calibans in C.J. Cherryh’s Forty Thousand in Gehenna. They are lizard-like creatures, initially classified as animals by human colonists, and not particularly intelligent animals at that.

But it becomes gradually apparent that they have a different kind of intelligence, if it can even be defined as intelligence in human terms. At any rate, they are more complex and more different than it may be possible for humans to fully understand.

The book covers several generations of humans stranded on the planet, some of them forming a semi-symbiotic relationship with the calibans, and in the process becoming less intelligible to normal humans. There is never any clear or simple resolution to the nature of caliban intelligence, though eventually they are classified as intelligent beings by the human race in general, and their world protected.

You know now that you mention them, these might actually be my favorite. Cherryh loves her some anthropological sf, but I think the Calibans are her most fully realized alien aliens.

[LC_Strawhouse]

Liquid Sky (1982 movie) - tiny invisible aliens, in a spaceship the size of a dinner plate, who infiltrate the brains of NYC punks and artists. Best aliens ever!

[mbh]

@LC_Strawhouse

Liquid Sky (1982 movie) - tiny invisible aliens, in a spaceship the size of a dinner plate, who infiltrate the brains of NYC punks and artists. Best aliens ever!

And kill you when you have an orgasm. This, you like?

[LC_Strawhouse]

@mbh

And kill you when you have an orgasm. This, you like?

Ha, well I wouldn’t want to be their victim - but I liked how different the concept was. Such a true “alien” that nobody even realizes it’s there. Plus, the 1982 New Wave look and music is cool.

[Trancephalic]

Tough question. My mind keeps bringing up the unnamed aliens(?) from Batteries Not Included, so I guess it’s them

[Lucas_Jackson]

Melmacians.

[Chronos]

Tamerlane, I have read Beowulf’s Children, and it doesn’t really depict them as sapient. Smarter than they were previously thought, sure, but there’s nothing in there that’s inconsistent with a particularly clever dog, or something of that level.