Define yourself as an alien race

If you could define yourself as an alien race, how would it be?
It's appearance, customs, abilities, traits, moral, whatever you can think of or that you define as relevant.

If you can't define yourself as an alien race, then give us details about any race that you found most interesting in any given game.

Choose only one, as it would be the race that you would love to play.


Myself:
They would be a high technological race with a frail body;
Use implants and cybernetic limbs to improve themselves;
Don't care for politics or wars.
Sucks at trading/economics.
Would lean as a civilized race.
But would do anything in the name of science.
Their ships would be like science vessels with guns.
They would be great with shields and suck with guns.
They would be a little xenophobic and not thrust other species until proven wrong.

 

Lolborg.

 

A race ruled by a technocracy of psychiatrists and tax collectors advising an overlord.
Rabid population growth bringing also negative consequences in double penalties for overpopulation(if that is implemented).
Space fleet made mostly by spaceplanes looking like 747s and other airliners with space engines tacked into them, that trade off almost everything for speed and maneuverability.
Ground forces look like faceless green men with black suits and fedoras and can infiltrate other planets.
Can convert their population into ghost-like beings with special abilities by throwing their excess population into volcanoes and:
When doing so in a primitive planet with primitive sentient beings will influence their cultural development.
Foreign relations are influenced by the power the evil psychiatrists have in their society.
Very strong economy but weak production because psychiatrists know shit about mining/manufacturing/etc.

 

ok

 

no, no, it would be like pussy borgs!

 

The Jasede

The Jasede are a highly-evolved, ageless race of crystalline structures which reproduce rarely and asexually, favoring solitary lives of contemplation. They prefer to spend entire centuries meditating upon ideas and thinking about religious, moral and philosophical questions. They act only when forced to and make every decision with the greatest deliberation, weighing pro and contra earnestly.

In appearance, they occur as a myriad of different crystal shapes, each Jasede having a unique configuration that consists of a broad range of colors and shapes, most commonly in hues of emerald and ruby. They wear no clothes and enjoy little to no physical comforts.

* Slowly evolve through years of contemplation and self-modification, rearranging their neural, crystalline networks through glacially-slow force of will.
* Have trouble understanding the motives of organic species and suffer diplomacy penalties
* Can't get money from trading as they require little
* Slow research, but with significant pay-off
* Gravity & electrical-based weaponry, high AoE and single target damage, but extremely high charge times / time-units costs
* No shields by themselves, but tough crystalline based armor and gravity-based defenses (repel ships & missiles); crystalline armor can be countered by researching harmonic waves
* Solitary and unlikely to contact other races
* Have a small faction that constantly wishes to gain organic bodies to experience all the things "normal", organic races experience - a longing for the flesh. Prosecuted severely and outcast by and large in Jasede society.
* Slow to reach conclusions and decisions, but when they do, consider their conclusions the absolute truth, contrary to all evidence that wasn't directly procured by themselves.

If you are looking for ideas for races, I always thought Ascendancy had particularly creative ones. Here is a link:
http://aliens.wikia.com/wiki/Ascendancy's_Races

 

Nice, this would be great to implement in the game, would fit nicely in the 'alien' aliens category.
I will check the site, thanks!

EDIT: That's some really nice reading, I'm enjoying it very much, thanks again for the link!

 

Biology: humanoid, bipedal, breaths methane, low g adaptation - evolved from bird like creatures, great sight but weak smell, hearing, no special senses, upper limbs have vestigial wings without feathers - some kind of membrane between the fingers, 6 fingers each hand, small empty horn on the head - used in communication and in ritual fighting, two large eye sockets filled with multiple specialized eyes (for colors, distances etc), body is grey-green, hatch from eggs, monogamous, life expectancy 60 human years on average, omnivores
Government and Society: centralized meritocracy with caste system grouping specimens by their education and usefulness to the society, big on the good of the species as a whole - low value for self (evolved from flocks of "birds"), have elections with electors - weighted vote depending on caste, each caste has equal voting power as a whole, castes: thinkers (scientists, philosophers, artists), rulers (politicians and administrators, officials), soldiers, craftsmen, traders, farmers, priests, central ruling body is Great Council where all castes have one representative
Innovation: research is decent but implementation of technology is slow and requires consensus of castes, when consensus is reached however tech is quickly adapted for practical use, organized research comes easier
Warfare: prefer large flocks of weak ships launched from carriers, love missiles and guided projectiles, excellent pilots with great sense of 3D navigation, organized and strictly hierarchical
Diplomacy: value self as a species very highly but wont hesitate to trade, dont use slaves (considered useless),
Trade: very adept at trading and especially scavenging, good at espionage

 

I always felt more interest for truly alien entities, in that they are either impossible to fathom or live on a different plane of existence, like the ocean from Solaris or the monolith(s) from 2001.

 

Nice description, great material for the game. What would the name of this race be?

I really the concept of truly aliens, I've been thinking about some that could fit the game, those considered truly aliens will have different game mechanics but I don't think I will be able to make them much different from humanoid races.

 

Well. yeah. I guess they'd need to be completely different and pursue other kind of goals, one which may not make much sense at first. Actually that's both their appeal and difficulty: they might not make much sense.

 

Exactly, have you read about the aliens I've thought about so far? What do you think of them?

 

Lets call them Aava or something. Not very good with names, but I think the name should be "light" for such a race.

Also have a quite original idea taken from one of Polish sci-fi books I am going to post later.

 

Great!

 

OK, another race:

Name: Kles
Biology and habitat: Kles are a strange race that evolved on a strange planet, their home planet is divided into two sides - light side permanently sunlit and dark side that never gets sunlight from their star, because of this Kles home planet is a barren wasteland where only small creatures and plants can exist, each Kles specimen is a swarm of very small insects (10-12 mm length on average), those insects are not self aware but in large enough numbers become conscious (planet is plagued with great ion storms and sun wind, all living beings on the surface in order to survive have to withstand electricity) - it works like biological supercomputers where insects serve as processors generating EM fields, Kles as an intelligent beings evolved by accident in places where food was abundant enough to sustain big enough swarms of insects, they get more intelligent the bigger the swarm is, Kles dont have a clear division between self and other since swarms can meld and split, consciousness splitting with them - as long as resulting swarms are big enough to maintain required level of EM fields, Kles are effectively immortal as long as their swarms exist, but at the same time they change constantly as specific insects die all the time slightly changing EM patterns of the "brain", Kles require sunlight to live - they die in the dark, they are omnivores but mainly consume moss
Government and society: Kles are ruled by the biggest conscious mind of them all - the Lightgiver, Lightgiver resides on their home planet and governs the race with absolute authority stemming from the fact that he is the smartest and the biggest one - he ensures that no other Kles grows enough to threaten his position, most official functions are performed by officials that split from biggest swarms, they are constantly controlled by specimens split from the Lightgiver - smaller swarms split from him to perform specific duties, then return to the main body or continue living alone as independent but "related" swarms, Kles are a totalitarian dictatorship
Economy: Kles are master builders with great affinity to nanotechnology - they built skyscrapers before mastering the fire, their mining and industry are extremely efficient and low on pollution, unfortunately all bigger tasks require that a big enough Kles specimen supervises them - since smaller minds cant handle complicated tasks, this means that Kles require existing infrastructure to work efficiently - they get more efficient the bigger their population is, therefore Kles shipyards are 50% bigger than same shipyards of other races and their new colonies grow very slowly,
Trade: Kles trade normally with other races and are master crafters when its required of them - but only planets with big enough populations can produce luxury goods that are tradeable, Kles always seek and buy organic poisons and toxins - they work as drugs for their minds
Technology: only the biggest swarms can develop new technologies, this means that planets with low population cant generate much tech, since there is no real limit to the size of the swarm (other than food available) Kles can get VERY smart - of course the Lightgiver wont allow too big swarms to grow and usurp his position,
Military: Kles employ power armor for ground forces (to house mobile swarms) which arent very smart - but very deadly since they use nanotechnology and warrior swarms by itself resemble Earth swarming ants, their fleets get more efficient the bigger the ships are - fighters are atrociously stupid while dreadnoughts can outperform all other races when intelligence and tactics is concerned

Summary: Kles are infrastructure dependant race, need "housing" for big swarms to perform adequately at any task, Kles are very population size dependant getting more efficient the bigger their population

 

Very interesting concept, maybe a little hard to implement. I like the concept of a race getting smarter, I think mass effect and starbase orion have something similar. But I keep coming back and thinking that a race like this if it's able to expand would unstoppable.

 

This is why limits are introduced, mainly the fact that the biggest swarm rules them all and its going to stop others from growing too much.

Also a limit to the swarm size based on infrastructure could be good - if swarm gets too big without housing it will split due to EM fields not connecting and overlapping properly. I imagine Kles "houses" looking like crystal pyramids composed of small tubes beaming with light like beacons - stable but there are limits on how big they can get before collapsing under their weight.

 

This definitely a good limiting idea. I will look into this idea later in game development. Probably after balancing other races I will have a better idea on how to make this one.

 

Humans uber alles. In all science fiction we invariably triumph in the end

 

They all portrait human race as the under dog who is new but has incredible potential to surpass anyone.
Just like movies or stories in general like to portrait heroes.

 

Not in Ian Banks' Culture novels (which are good and you should read them).

 

Nice, I will check it out!

 

In that case, I shall elaborate a little - in his setting, the Culture is a human (although very cosmopolitan) spacefaring civ that is, in general, vastly more powerful and technologically superior to most aliens they encounter. Each novel tells it's own (mostly unrelated) story so it doesn't really matter what order you read them in, although they do follow a chronological order.

 

Ok, I will start with 'Consider Phlebas'.

 

The Vortices are a dead civilisation that exists as magnetic fields drawing information coded in the ashes of their ancestral home planet (an enormous ball of dust). They try to imitate their former humanoid culture down to the simplest things. The memories often get conflated and lost, resulting in weird or changing behaviour. They can operate new information, but it gets rapidly and permanently forgotten.

* Look like floating threads of earth forming sporadically into faces and limbs
* Ships and buildings look bereft of life, but surrounded with floating thread-like dust and filled with piles of soil
* The architectural style is generally outdated by human standards. Buildings and ships of even older, more decorative styles used here and there (as in modern European cities)
* Individuality: have sentient individuals, but they appear out of the common information database and are soon consumed by it again
* Behaviour: try to behave like their ancestral culture, but the nature of this culture is changed as dust is rearranged - the real, historical nature of it is unknown
* Culture: slowly and randomly changes properties, e.g. from warlike to peaceful, from xenophobic to open
* Economy: drawn by formerly humanoid desires (food, luxury, etc.), their drive to build and expand. Use machines to build factories, shops, etc.
* Diplomacy: treat themselves as humanoid. As their perception of history gets rearranged, they get randomly changing bonuses and penalties to relations with other races
* Government form: slowly changing between traditional human forms (republic, monarchy, etc.) without much external reason; increasingly diverse in societies that are distant from the home planet
* Research: extra-fast at recalling primitive technologies, increasingly slow down the technological tree until it grinds to a halt
* Research: can suddenly research a random advanced technology, but it gets forgotten in a short period of time

Well, you get the picture, I suppose. No new information; old information is a source for identity, but is unreliable. A race of ghosts of a sort.