# What science fiction series have FTL travel but no intelligent alien life? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 25, 2011, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-science-fiction-series-have-ftl-travel-but-no-intelligent-alien-life/604074 "2011-11-25T19:36:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2011, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-science-fiction-series-have-ftl-travel-but-no-intelligent-alien-life/604074/81 "2011-12-02T19:09:16Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > I believe Crest of the Stars doesn’t have any actual aliens, just humans from various colonies, and an genetically enhances set of humans that everyone treats like aliens. > > It was originally a science fiction book in Japanese, but there is anime and manga of the entire series, and at least some of the sequels. That said, I’ve only seen the first 12 episodes when they were first translated and shown on TechTV (now G4), so I don’t know for sure about aliens after that. > > Their FTL travel is neat in that it requires using 3D bubbles in a sort of 2D space. Ah, the Abh. I think the back-story was that they were a genetically-engineered labor/slave class set up centuries ago to do the nasty space work and they revolted and formed their own civilization. They had elvish-looking ears and blue hair. There was a funny scene where the (ethnically Abh) heroine has crash landed on a hostile world with a boy and he (having Abh citizenship but not being genetically Abh) goes into town and buys a bottle of hair dye, comes back with it, and our heroine throws a fit about not wanting to wreck her blue hair. I can’t remember if they were engineered by modifying the genes of human embryos or whether or not they were synthesized ab initio in a lab (which, arguably, could make them non-human). Anyone remember? ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2011, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-science-fiction-series-have-ftl-travel-but-no-intelligent-alien-life/604074/82 "2011-12-02T19:29:51Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > If we’re including TV, _Firefly_, of course. Well, there was that alien fetus in the jar at the freakshow. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2011, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-science-fiction-series-have-ftl-travel-but-no-intelligent-alien-life/604074/83 "2011-12-02T20:11:28Z")
> [@alphaboi867](#): > > Though it’s an open question just what exactly Virtual-Six, Virtual-Baltar, and the entity which does not like to be called “God” really are. Aliens from a planet in the Deus-X Machina system. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2011, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-science-fiction-series-have-ftl-travel-but-no-intelligent-alien-life/604074/84 "2011-12-02T20:18:28Z")
Harry Harrison’s _Deathworld Trilogy_ - no intelligent aliens as far as I remember; only humans. In Deathworld 1: The protagonists at one point _think_ that intelligent aliens are strirring up the hellacious local lifeforms against them - but they are mistaken: it is them doing it to themselves, by being so damn deadly in return! Deathworlds 3 and 2: Involve humans who have “devolved” into dragon-beast-riding mongol-types and clannish tech-hoarding technocrats, respectively ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2011, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-science-fiction-series-have-ftl-travel-but-no-intelligent-alien-life/604074/85 "2011-12-02T20:24:52Z")
Elizabeth Moon’s Familias Regnant books have FTL, no aliens. ---
**Author:** ![Meurglys](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/258eb7/32.png) [@Meurglys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meurglys)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2011, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-science-fiction-series-have-ftl-travel-but-no-intelligent-alien-life/604074/86 "2011-12-03T11:54:52Z")
> [@tanstaafl](#): > > There are non-extinct intelligent aliens in the Academy series. There is mention of some race that they have found that is permanently locked in a lower-tech society (due to having burned up all their fossil fuels before discovering other technologies) that is constantly at war. Can’t remember the name of the race or which book they first get mentioned in, though they discuss having people there studying them. They get mentioned several times in the very first book, _The Engines of God_. There was a faction back on Earth which wanted to colonise their planet despite it already having an intelligent race on it. iirc, the warring alien race was referred to as the Nok (short for something much longer). ---
**Author:** ![Achren](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/898d66/32.png) [@Achren](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Achren)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2011, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-science-fiction-series-have-ftl-travel-but-no-intelligent-alien-life/604074/87 "2011-12-03T13:03:47Z")
Arg, Posted the same thing as Der Trihs without realizing there was a second page to this thread. ---
**Author:** ![drillrod](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@drillrod](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drillrod)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2011, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-science-fiction-series-have-ftl-travel-but-no-intelligent-alien-life/604074/88 "2011-12-04T13:30:46Z")
_This Alien Land_ by C. S. Friedman meets the OP criteria and is a heck of a book. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2011, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-science-fiction-series-have-ftl-travel-but-no-intelligent-alien-life/604074/89 "2011-12-04T15:13:40Z")
> [@robert\_columbia](#): > > I can’t remember if they were engineered by modifying the genes of human embryos or whether or not they were synthesized ab initio in a lab (which, arguably, could make them non-human). Anyone remember? The fact that adopted members (ground dwellers who of sufficient nobility to be allowed to join) have to have their children genetically modified gives me the impression that they were modified embryos. And, anyways, even if they weren’t, they were still made on Earth, which makes them not aliens. We don’t call dogs aliens, now do we? ---
**Author:** ![Mama\_Zappa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2011, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-science-fiction-series-have-ftl-travel-but-no-intelligent-alien-life/604074/90 "2011-12-19T20:24:51Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Heinlein’s Future History has intelligent aliens even in our Solar System (though these were sort of forgotten, in the later-written stories). One of the stories leading up to the whole Nehemiah Scudder thing dealt with the enslavement of Venusians on human-owned plantations. I’m pretty sure there are Martians somewhere in there, too, but I’m not certain. I don’t recall them in the mainstream “future history” series but obviously Podkayne of Mars, Red Planet and Stranger In A Strange Land all had Martians. The Past Through Tomorrow series had the Venusians, as noted, and it also had a species in Methusaleh’s Children - the godlike beings that had the “pets”. Those were never referenced again, however. ---
**Author:** ![Cartoonacy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/848f3c/32.png) [@Cartoonacy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartoonacy)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2011, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-science-fiction-series-have-ftl-travel-but-no-intelligent-alien-life/604074/91 "2011-12-19T20:51:19Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Most obvious: Isaac Asimov’s Foundation and his Robot books. I think he was working on an explanation for that when he died. I remember one Asimov novel – I don’t remember which, but I think it was one of the later Foundation books – theorizing that, since Earth was the only known planet in a habitable zone that had a satellite of significant mass, the tidal forces generated when the planet was molten caused heavy radioactive minerals to solidify in the crust instead of all settling into the core. The increased radiation at the surface caused mutations, resulting in a faster rate of evolution than on planets without a large natural satellite. That’s supposed to be the reason that Earth was the only planet with such a wide variety of species, including intelligent ones. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2011, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-science-fiction-series-have-ftl-travel-but-no-intelligent-alien-life/604074/92 "2011-12-20T01:26:24Z")
> [@Mama\_Zappa](#): > > I don’t recall them in the mainstream “future history” series but obviously Podkayne of Mars, Red Planet and Stranger In A Strange Land all had Martians. > > The Past Through Tomorrow series had the Venusians, as noted, and it also had a species in Methusaleh’s Children - the godlike beings that had the “pets”. Those were never referenced again, however. The Past Through Tomorrow is the Future History (even though there’s a couple of stories that I think don’t quite fit). There are three intelligent alien species in “Methusaleh’s Children” - the god-like beings, their intelligent pets, and the “Little People”. The godlike aliens are mentioned briefly in “Time Enough for Love” I think. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-science-fiction-series-have-ftl-travel-but-no-intelligent-alien-life/604074.md?page=4)