Most Cliche'd Alien

[Junghalli]

An advanced race might see us as barbarians...
Remember, Manifest Destiny...humans arent knwon to accept little races well. We might not be alone in that problem.

I'm making this small print because you all must be sick of all my shameless self promotion.
Hmm, I have a species in my universe called the Sakantula. They're basically like the TNG Federation, only with some basic common sense put into them instead of just being some kind of wankfest. And they do very much tend to think of humans as violent barbarians.

[Uraniun235]

Yes.. why the hell JMS wanted species humanity couldn't fuck is beyond me.

Realism maybe? Or maybe to avoid schlockyness? Although it realism was his concern he probably should have made the aliens look less human-like.

Remember that in "The Gathering", Sinclair makes reference to a "list" which seems to advise which alien species are safe to mate with and which aren't, so presumably there was more inter-species tomfoolery going on than just Delenn and Sheridan.

[Nephtys]

Yes.. why the hell JMS wanted species humanity couldn't fuck is beyond me.

Realism maybe? Or maybe to avoid schlockyness? Although it realism was his concern he probably should have made the aliens look less human-like.

Remember that in "The Gathering", Sinclair makes reference to a "list" which seems to advise which alien species are safe to mate with and which aren't, so presumably there was more inter-species tomfoolery going on than just Delenn and Sheridan.

Hey! That's right. Much of "The Gathering" I tend to have forgotten about, excluding Delenn's monster chin and head-spots and the hilarious boomerang-sock PPG Phaser.

Hrm. I suppose a cliche alien also is just any kind of (animal here)-man. Oh no! Here comes the lizard-men! The cat-people! Snake-creatures! Fish-being!

[HemlockGrey]

I got fed up with HHGttG, which was soaked in those clichees.

You never saw the intended irony, which was that no one else in the universe was actually any better off?

[wautd]

- The "Bumpy Forehead of the Week"-type, especially if they are also in the "honorable warrior"-club.


Greys are ok by me, at least they look alien instead of some kind of mutant.

[wautd]

oh and the "Technological Inferior Humans"

[speaker-to-trolls]

I would like to speak up for the 'one-note' alien races please...

It seems conceivable, to me, that if a certain society or part of society (say, corporations for the Ferangi, or the military for the Warrior Races) became super-powerful to the point of drowning out all others that a race would become almost single mindedly focused.

Thus i think while bizarre, it's not impossible fro a Warrior Race to exist. Shit humans almost are, i mean half of our history is a search for a new way to blast each other to bits. If you somehow added to that perhaps the development of a singular religious power, and the complete takeover of the planet by a UN type government, which is basically run by a military dictatorship, then you'd have the Klingons...only with better weapons.

No. Man cannot live on nukes alone, somebody has to feed all those soldiers, and somebody has to provide their power, make their clothes, make their weapons, make their vehicles, design their equipment, keep them healthy, research the science that makes all of this possible, build their houses, and so on. So you see, a warrior race really doesn't work, because those warriors can't do any of these things and be warriors at the same time.

[18-Till-I-Die]

Perhaps they could enslave another race on their planet, like the Spartans enslaved the...forgot the name....well anyone and then Spartans were pure warrior society while their slaves, who had no weapons and no martial skills, were forced at spearpoint to do all those things. Or maybe only the men are allowed to fight, and a sub-culture of females do all the work, like some patriarchal ruler-class and a lower female worker ccaste.

I used the first idea myself for a warrior race, who would invade other races from time to time and steal away billions of slaves to run their huge slave driven economy. But everyone was affraid to fuck with them, because they were pretty advanced and extremely numerous and almost every man, woman and child would fight to the death. Imagine a whole race of Stormtroopers only they're eight-foot lion-humanoid things.

[General Zod]

oh and the "Technological Inferior Humans"

i assume you're referring to races that are human but effectively cavemen compared to humans from earth, right?

[Coyote]

Thinking about it, I have to say that I rather liked the way Farscape handled aliens. Even if they were highly improbable/impractical, they were at least intersting-- the Sheeyang, the bird-like critters that were so intent to "evolve", the Diagnocians...

I also liked tha fact that there were no "good guy" empires versus "bad guy" empires. The Peacekeepers were pretty bad, and they were in a cold war with the Scarrans who were... just as bad, if not more so. The Peacekeepers really were the lesser of the two evils, but evil nonetheless.

There were the Luxans, which start off as the typical "Grrr! Warrior Race! Grrr!" but we see that this is more of a projection than solid reality. The Nebari don't seem to be "warrior" or "elf"... they are grey but not "Grey" grey. The only cliche aliens were the Ancients, but instead of being an uberpower they were scared and running and outclassed.

The one-dimensional warrior race was the Charrids, but even they seemed to have some personality. The Hynerians we saw only through the eyes of Rygel XVI, but he had depth. The Kalish introduced the "tech-administrator" alien as a one-dimensional representation, but again, they had some depth to them as well. The Interons we never saw enough of to get a feel for, beyond Jool.

Farscape manged to get by with minimal 1-dimensional cliches, IMO.

[speaker-to-trolls]

Perhaps they could enslave another race on their planet, like the Spartans enslaved the...forgot the name....well anyone and then Spartans were pure warrior society while their slaves, who had no weapons and no martial skills, were forced at spearpoint to do all those things. Or maybe only the men are allowed to fight, and a sub-culture of females do all the work, like some patriarchal ruler-class and a lower female worker ccaste.

You're gonna get slaves to be your doctors and scientists?, good luck with that.

[18-Till-I-Die]

Perhaps they could enslave another race on their planet, like the Spartans enslaved the...forgot the name....well anyone and then Spartans were pure warrior society while their slaves, who had no weapons and no martial skills, were forced at spearpoint to do all those things. Or maybe only the men are allowed to fight, and a sub-culture of females do all the work, like some patriarchal ruler-class and a lower female worker ccaste.

You're gonna get slaves to be your doctors and scientists?, good luck with that.

I dont understand, what would the problem be?

[speaker-to-trolls]

I dont understand, what would the problem be?

How about the fact that they could conceivably manufacture a virus that kills off your eight foot leonine proud warrior thugs, and they wouldn't know a thing until it had been passed off as a vaccination and given to every soldier this side of the triffid nebula.

[Lord Zentei]

Hell, I hate ALL the space-elves: the Vulcans, the Minbari, the Eldar, the Protoss, and to some extent the Jedi.

I've never really considered the Jedi to be space-elves. More space-monks. But not ordinary space-monks. Crouching-Tiger-Hidden-Dragon-esque space-monks.

I put "to some extent" because they really only have a few passing similarities to the stereotype. The whole emotional control thing and advanced spirituality and peacefulness tends to jive well with the other space elves' personalities. Can you imagine a party where everyone who shows up is a prequel Jedi, a Minbari or a Vulcan? It would be like a several-hour yoga class, but without the sexual tension. Booo-ring.

This is a rather broad brush you got there. Anyone who has emotional control, advanced spirituality and peacefulness qualifies as a "space elf" to "some extent"? Anyway, the Eldar are certainly not peaceful and the Dark Eldar are not into emotional control and advanced spirituality. So your stereotype doesn't hold.

As for the others, definitely space-elves. The Vulcans and Eldar don't even pretend to not be space-elves. The Minbari try to disguise it by not having pointy ears.

True. The Minbari just have pointy heads.

White Rabit: I mostly put the Eldar there because they fulfill the "fairer, faster and stronger than any man" condition while being snooty about it. However, in the Eldar mindset, they are also more advanced, knowledgeable and spiritual than the Mon-Keigh, which is also an elvish (elven?) trait, even if the facts don't back them up on it.

Anyone faster and fairer and more advanced than humans (while optionally being snooty about it) become "space elves" and that is a cliché. But wait! casting humans as better than the aliens technologically and/or spiritually and/or physically is somehow cliché too. AND making aliens too much like humans is cliché. It seems that there is very little we can do, then.

Being physically and technologically superior and snooty at the same time is a rather broad criteria, wouldn't you say?

[white_rabbit]

White Rabit: I mostly put the Eldar there because they fulfill the "fairer, faster and stronger than any man" condition while being snooty about it. However, in the Eldar mindset, they are also more advanced, knowledgeable and spiritual than the Mon-Keigh, which is also an elvish (elven?) trait, even if the facts don't back them up on it.

Fairer is subjective, the eldar actually to me seem to look and be described as kinda weird.

Faster, *shrug* not particularly damning in my eyes, as a race they are less heavily built, kinda logical ?

Stronger. By fluff the average eldar would tend to be WEAKER.

And I'm afraid the Eldar are more advanced, knowledgeable, and spiritual. The facts do kinda back em up, they may not have been prior, but its hardly applicable to the eldar mindset at the moment. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the Eldar AREN'T space elves, but I think this cliche game thats going on, the compartmentalising of races, is a little misleadeding, by my reckoning, only one of your criteria can be judged to be applicable

and Zentai is right, the Eldar are not peaceful, they are just as warlike and xenophobic as humanity.

[General Zod]

Perhaps they could enslave another race on their planet, like the Spartans enslaved the...forgot the name....well anyone and then Spartans were pure warrior society while their slaves, who had no weapons and no martial skills, were forced at spearpoint to do all those things. Or maybe only the men are allowed to fight, and a sub-culture of females do all the work, like some patriarchal ruler-class and a lower female worker ccaste.

You're gonna get slaves to be your doctors and scientists?, good luck with that.

I dont understand, what would the problem be?

you'd trust slaves that most likely hate your empire's guts for enslaving you to research your technologies sand cure your wounded? yeah, that's just asking for trouble.

[Coyote]

OTOH, typically it is a cliche that humans are portrayed as "babes in the woods" compared to all the other ass-kicking aliens out there, who somewhat impatiently put up with the annoying homo-sapiens whining and patheticness.

To the best of my recollection, Empire-era Star Wars was the only primary example of humans as the resident ass-whupping curb-stomping hardcores.

In B5 humans staged a "come from behind/dark horse win" but only by dint of help from the ancients.

[Crossroads Inc.]

See, thats why I gave up on Humans all together, only way you can have a really unbiased Sci-Fi Story is if you simply have one with NO humans in it

[Lord Zentei]

Fairer is subjective, the eldar actually to me seem to look and be described as kinda weird.

Faster, *shrug* not particularly damning in my eyes, as a race they are less heavily built, kinda logical ?

Stronger. By fluff the average eldar would tend to be WEAKER.

And I'm afraid the Eldar are more advanced, knowledgeable, and spiritual. The facts do kinda back em up, they may not have been prior, but its hardly applicable to the eldar mindset at the moment. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the Eldar AREN'T space elves, but I think this cliche game thats going on, the compartmentalising of races, is a little misleadeding, by my reckoning, only one of your criteria can be judged to be applicable

and Zentai is right, the Eldar are not peaceful, they are just as warlike and xenophobic as humanity.

Indeed: these alleged races of "space elves" differ in physical characteristics: Eldar have agility and fatigue resistance but are less strong and resilient. Minbari are not more agile than humans, but are stronger and more resilient. Vulcans are much stronger, but not more agile or resilient. Asgard... eight year old humans could mop the floor with them.

And in psychology: Dark Eldar are violent, warlike, sadistic and hedonists. Eldar are not hedonists and abhor violence except in a highly ritualized manner, with their Mexican wrestler style persona adoption in becoming Aspect Warriors and all that. The Vulcans are remote and logical, but this emphasis on logic sets them apart from the Eldar, who are supersticious and mystical. The Minbari are not supersticious, for all their emphasis on ritual and religion.

In fact the only unifying factors of these "space elves" are:

1) They are - in some way or another - in decline with respect to humanity.
2) Their civilization is older than that of the humans.

They tend to be more advanced in some way either culturally and/or technologically, but this generally follows quite logically from item #2, so this hardly qualifies as a distinct unifying trait among "space elves". Also, they are possibly condensending towards humanity, but this follows logically from their greater antiquity and advancement. Also, the level to which they are condensending ranges from the Asgard mild patronization-with-respect to the Dark Eldar passionate tendencies to xenocide, so this hardly qualifies as a unifying trait either.

Seeing as sophistication-through-antiquity and being-in-decline are highly generic traits, it occours to me that eliminating those races that posess them as "cliché" will eliminate a rather large subset of all possible permutations of alien species, you know what I'm sayng?

Hmm, I dunno about the Eldar, they aren't particularly like the others, all of whom have some redeeming

attribute.

The Eldar really, really don't. They are responsible definately for at least 2 of the Chaos gods, they

fucking hate humanity and want us dead, simply because we've replaced them. All their bluster and bullshit

is invalidated by the simple fact of the Emperor.

Humans own Eldar in 40k, and we always will.

Don't forget the Harlequins, who have managed to sever their connection to Slaanesh: in their case they don't even qualify as a "dying race" eliminating criteria #1 above - it is humanity that is in decline (you filthy mon-keigh. Bwa ha ha... )

PS: they are only responsible for the creation of Slaanesh, not the other three.

[Bob the Gunslinger]

I really fucking hate this cliche. The whole "humans are barbarians" or "Humans are teh stupid, lolz" thing just ruins any alien species for me.

But what about alien species that do think of humans as barbarians. Why exactly would that be unlikely?

I don't have a problem with it if it is appropriately done. If the Vorlons or the Q (early TNG) or the Arisians want to call us barbarians, it carries a lot more weight considering their accomplishments.
When Spock has to join Human-run starfleet and hitch a ride on human-made starships to protect a galactic government that came into being because of humanity's efforts to unite species into one benevolent government, I just don't think it's appropriate. It's not like the Vulcans did better.
The Minbari have a feudal government that shafts 75% of their population. They get very genocidal very quickly and protect one of the worst war criminals in B5-verse history. So just because they have tinkly bell music and an obsession with New Age spirituality, they get to call us barbarians?
The Eldar...Fuck the Eldar.

Basically, there's a difference between aliens that are so truly advanced or inhumanly alien that their perception of us would be unflattering, and aliens that are just like us only slightly better and more idealistic that are just mouthpieces for a writer to get his rocks off. "Humanity is all barbarians compared to my quasi-socialist pacifist aliens. I just loooove them!"

[Bob the Gunslinger]

I got fed up with HHGttG, which was soaked in those clichees.

You never saw the intended irony, which was that no one else in the universe was actually any better off?

I saw the irony... I just didn't realize it was intentional.

[speaker-to-trolls]

I got fed up with HHGttG, which was soaked in those clichees.

You never saw the intended irony, which was that no one else in the universe was actually any better off?

I saw the irony... I just didn't realize it was intentional.

According to many documentaries I've seen it wasn't, people who knew him said that he was trying to get across his dissaffection and frustration with the human race.

[white_rabbit]

PS: they are only responsible for the creation of Slaanesh, not the other three.

*shrug*

As the most powerful new race of psykers we know the old ones created, the Eldars warlike attributes were manifested deliberately and accidentally in the form of Khaine.

Khaela mensha Khaine is to Khorne as Anakin skywalker is to Darth Vader, except Khaine was a real bastard right from the get go. Liber Chaotica provides explicit evidence of this. Khaine originated as an Eldar only deity, became an Eldar super weapon, then, rationalising the statement that he was the "first" chaos and/or Warp god, the first of the Eldar weapons to achieve full independant sentience.

I think Khorne/Khaines turning point was when he elevated his first Daemon Prince, fluff wise, that would be the originally human DoomBreed.

[Bob the Gunslinger]

I saw the irony... I just didn't realize it was intentional.

According to many documentaries I've seen it wasn't, people who knew him said that he was trying to get across his dissaffection and frustration with the human race.

That's what I thought when I read it.

[Lord Zentei]

I don't have a problem with it if it is appropriately done. If the Vorlons or the Q (early TNG) or the Arisians want to call us barbarians, it carries a lot more weight considering their accomplishments.
When Spock has to join Human-run starfleet and hitch a ride on human-made starships to protect a galactic government that came into being because of humanity's efforts to unite species into one benevolent government, I just don't think it's appropriate. It's not like the Vulcans did better.
The Minbari have a feudal government that shafts 75% of their population. They get very genocidal very quickly and protect one of the worst war criminals in B5-verse history. So just because they have tinkly bell music and an obsession with New Age spirituality, they get to call us barbarians?
The Eldar...Fuck the Eldar.

You know, human history is rife with cultures that deem others "barbarians" without justification to do so. I don't see why this should be a problem as far as alien cultural traits are concerned.

Basically, there's a difference between aliens that are so truly advanced or inhumanly alien that their perception of us would be unflattering, and aliens that are just like us only slightly better and more idealistic that are just mouthpieces for a writer to get his rocks off. "Humanity is all barbarians compared to my quasi-socialist pacifist aliens. I just loooove them!"

This is bullshit.