Excuse Me, have I not met you before? Part 2...

[amforster]

If you have not read the first one (does not say Part 1) then please read.

Having read all your comments, I have been inspired to think of others (My first list was mainly comming from the perspective of - how can I get things from previous shows (both SG1/Atlantis/Star Trek)....

A few of them had implied sarcasm... (i.e. I was not serious).

My big feer is as follows - How many interesting alien races have the writers of SG1 AND Atlantis managed to come up with?

They haven't got a good track record in this area.... I am not saying star trek writers do either!!! and I hope for gods sake the aliens don't end up like star wars aliens!

Here is some more (some are directly from comments)


1) Ents - Big tree people would be excellent

2) Non Carbon based life forms -

a) Gas giant beings
b) Rock people (based on some werid mineral chemistry)
c) Underwater aliens (that actually figured out how to make things underwater? - Like that alien from that episode of SG1??
d) Silicon Based - I.e. like the aliens in that ep where a giant ship is terraforming the planet

3) Other alein races that have managed to ascend

4) Aleins that look like humans but that live for 1000s of years and are able to regenerate

5) An entire galaxy of human looking aliens that are travelling back through time (at the same rate we are travelling forward, though we would be travelling forward in their backward travelling reality) - See Red - Dwarf - Brisith comedy sci fi

6) Actually now that you mention Red Dwarf - Polymorph

7) A galaxy where AI wins the war with their creator (but their creator is a downtrodun minority) - Terminator anybody...

8) Intelligent micro-organisms

9) Crab People

10) Sucubus

Any other ideas.... Please look at previous post for more (and comment on them... please remember that I throw in the occasional ammusing one for fun).

Anyone got any totally unique ones?

The problem is - How do you write for an alien species that is totally different too Humans?

All alien races/characters in every SCIFI ever made (that we intereact with) can be classified as -

a) Representing some trait that humans can have, this is usually magnified and an entire culture is written around it (This is actually especially true of the goald... they all possess similar personalities and this is explained in the show)

b) The alien race represents some perspective on differnent cultures or at least some of their ideosyncrocies (spelling is poor I know)...

I.e. if you take all the major players in the Deep Space 9 star trek universe, virtually all of them can be identified as a country/religion/philosophy from earths history - E.g. the third reich, the soviet union, the western ideals of wealth etc etc... I am sure the Bajorans are representative of a country in history (though I am not going to say which country).

c) No relation to humans, NO EMOTIONS - i.e. data, spock, the terminator,

d) The foe is driven by pure animal drives - automatic or pre-programmed maybe (apparently) - Alien, The Thing, The Wraith (sort of), The Replicators

Can I finish by saying that having written this - The Cylons in battlestar galactica don't fit into the above a - d (though it seems terminator the sarah conner chronicles seems to be borrowing the whole - AI discovering god concept)

Back to stargate - So any ideas from anyone else.... How can the writers write good aliens... Can you come up with a truly unique alien that we can interact with that has never been tried before?

[Occulus]

If you have not read the first one (does not say Part 1) then please read.

Having read all your comments, I have been inspired to think of others (My first list was mainly comming from the perspective of - how can I get things from previous shows (both SG1/Atlantis/Star Trek)....

<SNiP>

I think the Stargate writers should turn to "hard" science fiction (novels, short stories) for inspiration. I do think I agree that the aliens of Stargate haven't been particularly unique for the most part, and I'd very much like to see that change. I'd like to see something that thinks so completely differently from us as to be totally alien.

I personally like the idea of a lifeform that is so different it can't communicate with us in the traditional sense, something that just does what it does and is a known threat, but is completely mysterious apart from that.

[Hetshepsu]

one of my favourite alien races were Species 8472 from Voyager, which i think were seriously underused.

[Anon]

2. non carbon based species


the Sekkari? they were non carbon based prob silicon! (from remnants (sga season 5))

[amforster]

I forgot about them guys... Perhaps they will be back in universe....

When the "aliens from sci fi books" was mentioned I immediatly recalled the excellent Isacc Asimov book - The Gods Themselves (please read)

Basically the aliens in this exist in a universe where the laws of physics are different to ours (the 4 fundamental forces - strong nuclear, weak nuclear, electrostatic and gravitational) are all in different proportion... resulting in any life that could exist being very different to ours (they could move through objects etc)

The story is actually pretty similiar to an idea utilised in atlantis regarding getting energy from other realities.... could easily be used in a sci fi episode (And/or these types of aliens)

[VSHARMA]

Naked Aliens

[Crazy Tom]

I think the Stargate writers should turn to "hard" science fiction (novels, short stories) for inspiration. I do think I agree that the aliens of Stargate haven't been particularly unique for the most part, and I'd very much like to see that change. I'd like to see something that thinks so completely differently from us as to be totally alien.

I personally like the idea of a lifeform that is so different it can't communicate with us in the traditional sense, something that just does what it does and is a known threat, but is completely mysterious apart from that.

See: Solaris.

Naked Aliens

Oh please, aren't they always? Have clothed aliens for once.

Adding on to the AIs: Archailects/AI gods. AI being so powerful that they've had not one, but several singlularities, whole computer systems span solar systems.

[amforster]

I like the phrase - AI Singularity

Would make a great title for a film


Don't have a clue what it would be about though....

But good idea about some possible alien race... I.E. super advanced AI thar are better (intelligience wise) than any human that has ever lived (or ascended for that matter).

I am hoping they will go into the ancients ascending mythology.... Say it turns out that the univ

[Viper_Sweden]

Naked Aliens

Correction: Naked Hot Aliens.

[flameling]

TRANSFORMERS! JK! Maybe a creature that is out of phase but can communicate with creatures in phase, and for what ever reason, they don't like us and give our position away to enemies?

[Kratine]

@ amforster they are traveling to other galaxy's i believe not other universes

Quote "They haven't got a good track record in this area...."

i do agree that there were to many humanoid aliens in SG1 & SGA
but i did think the Re'tu from SG1 were done well and the living crystals from SG1 & SGA okay

in SGU it will be almost impossible for the writers to come up with original aliens with so many things done millions of times already so they will probably just copy things and change them a bit

lmao Yautja on SGU by by annoying cast members

[Occulus]

I like the phrase - AI Singularity

Would make a great title for a film


Don't have a clue what it would be about though....

Your starting point is this talk given by Ray Kurzweil at a TED conference.

[Oma-1]

Heh, I've enjoyed reading through everyone's suggestions of aliens Some brought back happy memories of eps and shows I've really loved, and others the loathing I felt for particular alien races (the loathing engendered by their actions that was part of the plot rather than I hate that race type loathing )

I don't have any new races to add though I'm afraid, I'm just not that creative But I was wondering why open another thread and not carry on the discussion on in the first one. There's also another thread started in December discussing alien races which is very similar to what's going on in here. Perhaps merging the threads may be something to consider?

[BeardedKirk]

Ok i've moved on from the Rock people idea to a 'Descended' race. A group of people who somehow managed to ascend (without the help of the Ancients) were cast out (again not with the ancients, they know nothing about them) possibably by an older ascended race/parents and are very pi**ed off. They discover the Destiny was built by a group of beings who successfully managed to ascend and live freely in that (part?) of their plane of existance & believe that the Destiny is the key to them re-ascending.

Not sure on level of technology, high enough to allow them to hunt & chase down the Destiny wherever it goes in any galaxy, but not enough to easily override the defenses. Maybe it's just a different form of technology.

Maybe even rock based? Hee hee...

[AvatarIII]

See: Solaris.



Oh please, aren't they always? Have clothed aliens for once.

Adding on to the AIs: Archailects/AI gods. AI being so powerful that they've had not one, but several singlularities, whole computer systems span solar systems.

a singularity can only happen once.... hence the name...

going by the episode titles being the elements, how about 4 elemental alien species, i direct you to kevin j anderson's saga of seven suns, where there are 4 elemental species, one that lives in stars, on in gas giants, one that is essentally a sentient telepathic hive mind made of trees, and the other a water based life form that inhabits comets and such.