Humans are wimps with no muscles brain bug.

[Baal]

It is everywhere in Sci-Fi.

If there is an alien race that looks like humans or is very close then of course they have to be stronger than humans.

Vulcans
Klingons
Minbari
Narn


Can anyone name a mainstream alien race (something from a movie or tv show, not some obscure book) that looks like us but happens to be weaker than humans?

[Lord of the Abyss]

Can anyone name a mainstream alien race (something from a movie or tv show, not some obscure book) that looks like us but happens to be weaker than humans?

Talosians from Star Trek, and any number of other Aliens With Big Puffy Heads that are supposed to be all brain, no brawn.

As for the "brain bug", it's not one. Plenty of aliens are portrayed as no stronger than humans. And really, it's not like they could be much weaker and still function ( at least in nature ); assuming that there were humanoid aliens, they'd be more likely to be as strong or stronger than us. And apes show that in terms of strength humans are nowhere near the top for a humanoid form.

[Baal]

Can anyone name a mainstream alien race (something from a movie or tv show, not some obscure book) that looks like us but happens to be weaker than humans?

Talosians from Star Trek, and any number of other Aliens With Big Puffy Heads that are supposed to be all brain, no brawn.

As for the "brain bug", it's not one. Plenty of aliens are portrayed as no stronger than humans. And really, it's not like they could be much weaker and still function ( at least in nature ); assuming that there were humanoid aliens, they'd be more likely to be as strong or stronger than us. And apes show that in terms of strength humans are nowhere near the top for a humanoid form.

Actually and this is a total comment by layman but apes might be a poor example. I would assume that the stronger the muscles are the more energy they need. The more energy all those muscles need the less there is for the brain or you have a large increase in the amount of calories needed by the creature.

Assuming I am not totally off base this makes me wonder if beyond a certain point you wont find an intelligent creature suited to our gravity much stronger than us. Too much strength would require them to consume alot more which is definitely an evolutionary disadvantage.

[Lord of the Abyss]

[Actually and this is a total comment by layman but apes might be a poor example. I would assume that the stronger the muscles are the more energy they need. The more energy all those muscles need the less there is for the brain or you have a large increase in the amount of calories needed by the creature.

Assuming I am not totally off base this makes me wonder if beyond a certain point you wont find an intelligent creature suited to our gravity much stronger than us. Too much strength would require them to consume alot more which is definitely an evolutionary disadvantage.

That's one theory to explain why apes are so much stronger. Another is that there's some sort of trade off between strength and dexterity.

Another, which I think is most plausible, is that a species tends to be only as capable as it needs; evolution only "cares" about "good enough", not ideal performance. The idea being that just as domesticated animals tend to be be weaker, stupider and duller-sensed than wild animals ( unless bred for that characteristic ) because they don't need the same edge to survive and breed, so are we - except the stupid part. Our intelligence and tool using is such an advantage that we don't need to be as strong as an ape, and the ape-strong moron is going to lose to the smart wimp who invents the bow, so over the millenia we just became weaker.

Cave fish have eyes that are atrophied or gone, parasites lose the organs they don't use, domesticated animals get stupid because we think for them, and we get weak because brains trumps brawn.

[Batman]

Can anyone name a mainstream alien race (something from a movie or tv show, not some obscure book) that looks like us but happens to be weaker than humans?

Talosians from Star Trek, and any number of other Aliens With Big Puffy Heads that are supposed to be all brain, no brawn.
As for the "brain bug", it's not one. Plenty of aliens are portrayed as no stronger than humans. And really, it's not like they could be much weaker and still function ( at least in nature ); assuming that there were humanoid aliens, they'd be more likely to be as strong or stronger than us. And apes show that in terms of strength humans are nowhere near the top for a humanoid form.

Actually and this is a total comment by layman but apes might be a poor example. I would assume that the stronger the muscles are the more energy they need.

Correct so far.

The more energy all those muscles need the less there is for the brain or you have a large increase in the amount of calories needed by the creature.

The moment you show that the brain needs enough energy for that to be the case. Not that there's anything wrong with physically stronger species needing a higher caloric input than humans do. Your evidence for Vulcans, Minbari, Narn etc NOT needing a richer diet than humans is?

Assuming I am not totally off base this makes me wonder if beyond a certain point you wont find an intelligent creature suited to our gravity much stronger than us.

IF one assumes intelligence is a) related to energy consumption, and b) said consumption constitutes a serious drain on the body's overall supply.
Which is your contention.

Too much strength would require them to consume alot more which is definitely an evolutionary disadvantage.

Which is why there are no species that need more food than humans do. Oh wait. They would be rewarded for it by greater physical strength, which is an evolutionary advantage.

[Starglider]

Another, which I think is most plausible, is that a species tends to be only as capable as it needs; evolution only "cares" about "good enough", not ideal performance.

That is a horrible description of reality. Anthropomorphising natural selection is a sufficiently bad idea that I'm not going to let you get away with it just because you used quote marks.

Random mutations and unsurpressed joint expression effects (i.e. traits are frequently linked due to gene expression being a tangled mess - and optimising on one dimension a lot tends to deoptimise other dimensions unless there is enough selection pressure on both to unlink the traits) do tend to cause physical characterists to drift off theoretical optimums in the absence of a pressing need for them. Evolution can normally only extract number of individuals that breed / total number of individuals bits of information from the environment per generation (there are a very few exceptions mostly having to do with brain structure). In addition to the limited selective power, some of which has to go on counteracting non-beneficial mutations, there is a limited amount of genetic diversity present in the gene pool at any one time for selection to operate on, and new diversity enters relatively slowly (because the mutation rate has to stay down for the species to be viable at all). This is why challenging conditions where lots of animals die accelerate evolution and cause a genetic bottleneck, as information (about more optimal 'designs') is extracted faster from the environment but at the cost of burning up genepool diversity - though people usually don't see it in those terms.

Artificial selection both directly selects for more manageable and aeshetically appealing animals to the detriment of survival ability in the wild and indirectly impacts on them via unchecked detrimental secondary expression effects. You get this a lot in pedigree dog breeding, people obsess so much over making the physical appearance match an arbitrary nitpicking standard that they can seriously damage both the general health and the genetic diversity of whole breeds.

In conclusion, natural selection sucks, it only manages to look impressive by having mind-bogglingly-large numbers of organisms to work on over vast timescales (compared to human design efforts).

[Coop D'etat]

IF one assumes intelligence is a) related to energy consumption, and b) said consumption constitutes a serious drain on the body's overall supply.

The human brain is an energy hog taking up about 20% of the body's total energy needs, not to mention claiming first dibs on the delicious glucose, so it is definitely a serious drain on resources.

[Batman]

IF one assumes intelligence is a) related to energy consumption, and b) said consumption constitutes a serious drain on the body's overall supply.

The human brain is an energy hog taking up about 20% of the body's total energy needs, not to mention claiming first dibs on the delicious glucose, so it is definitely a serious drain on resources.

In other words, completely eliminating the brain's needs would increase the energy available to the muscles by a whopping 25%. Curious how chimpanzees that are NOT completely braindead outmuscle a human several times over.

[septesix]

In conclusion, natural selection sucks, it only manages to look impressive by having mind-bogglingly-large numbers of organisms to work on over vast timescales (compared to human design efforts).

I'm no biologist, but I think you're overstate the benefit of aritficial selection.

Natural selection doesn't "Suck". It doesn't have "bad" performance. In fact, it has no meaningful performance measure at all. THis is because natural selection doesn't have a "GOAL". Nature isn't trying to produce a specice that are the best at something or another. Nature doesn't care. If a speciec is good enough to survive, it will survive.

It is only when we inject human values and goals into the selection process that we start labeling it as good or bad.

[Winston Blake]

It is everywhere in Sci-Fi.

If there is an alien race that looks like humans or is very close then of course they have to be stronger than humans.

Vulcans
Klingons
Minbari
Narn


Can anyone name a mainstream alien race (something from a movie or tv show, not some obscure book) that looks like us but happens to be weaker than humans?

It's one of those cliche-anticliche pairs. The other end is having humans be smarter, stronger and more adaptable than any other alien species.

I think it may result from children learning about the abilities of animals (such as eagle eyesight, chimpanzee strength, cheetah speed, etc) and then transferring this general sense of 'animal superiority' to aliens. Because, let's face it, most of the time aliens fall into the psychological mould of 'animal-men' (dog-man aliens, cat-man aliens, pig-men, ape-men, rat-men (Ferengi), giraffe-people (Trill) etc). This sort of thing goes all the way back to ancient gods like all the Ancient Egyptian gods which we would now see as 'furry'.

If somebody has already accepted that animals are generally physically better than humans (except for intelligence) then it's easy for that association to drift over to beings with animal attributes.

[Winston Blake]

That's one theory to explain why apes are so much stronger. Another is that there's some sort of trade off between strength and dexterity.

As far as I know, apes are only better than humans at raw strength. Gorillas have a very restricted range of motion compared to chimipanzees, and chimpanzees have nowhere near the long distance muscle endurance of humans. I mean, put a fit chimp and the least fit person you know on a flat racetrack and race them and pretty soon the chimp is going to be dead on its feet, while the human won't even be sore the next day. We're practically built for trekking over grasslands and the like.

[ArmorPierce]

Right this is one thing that people don't realize. Our form is amongst the cream of the crop when it comes to transversing long distant fields. We may not be the fastest, but we excel at transversing long distance. The only reason that this may be noticeable is because people these days are pretty lazy compared to then. These days we normally sit in a 9-5 job and then goes home to lounge some more.

[Coop D'etat]

IF one assumes intelligence is a) related to energy consumption, and b) said consumption constitutes a serious drain on the body's overall supply.

The human brain is an energy hog taking up about 20% of the body's total energy needs, not to mention claiming first dibs on the delicious glucose, so it is definitely a serious drain on resources.

In other words, completely eliminating the brain's needs would increase the energy available to the muscles by a whopping 25%. Curious how chimpanzees that are NOT completely braindead outmuscle a human several times over.

No, but by weight, due to the extensive energy requirements for ion transport, brain tissue is some of the most energy intensive in the body. A chimp with a brain roughly 1/3rd of that of a human requires much less energy to run its brain and has a corresponding more energy for other tasks. That big brain of yours is metabolicaly expensive.

[Academia Nut]

A human with the proper training can run gazelles into the ground. For thousands of years we have played the part of the Terminator, relentlessly and tirelessly hunting fleeter footed prey until they collapse of exhaustion and a simple spear thrust finishes them off. There is no escape, no hiding place, only inevitable death.

More seriously, the human body has been pretty optimized for long distance travel and endurance, especially when taking in the fact that we also have maximized brain growth and tool using capacity.

[septesix]

Measured by physical strength alone, an alien specie can either be
1. Stronger than human! Humans are wimpl! Brain Bug!
2. Weaker than human! Human wank! Brain Bug!
3. Same as human! No way this can happen, brain bug!

Sometime I think Sci-Fi fans are just too hard to please....

[Academia Nut]

Well, technically its only if all aliens in a given piece are like that. Reasonably speaking, there should be significant variance between species and individuals. It's when things fall into various stereotypical categories that things enter into the category of cliche and brain-bug.

A good counter example would be the Stargate universe. There you have the Jaffa, who have been bred to be stronger, and the Unas, who are very alien and significantly stronger and tougher than humans. However, you also have the Asgard, who a human could probably break in half physically, but their technology is so scarily advanced in comparison that I don't think we've ever seen a human try and get into fisticuffs with one.

Differences in strength between species are only brain-bugs if they serve no purpose other than to denigrate one of the groups. Plus, as has been mentioned, just because you are strong in one area doesn't mean that you're strong in all of them. I remember one of the Ringworld books had Louis Wu challenge a young Kzinti to a race and his two hundred year old body owned the cat because Kzinti physiology is cat-like and thus does not have the long term endurance of a human.

[septesix]

I'll admit, Stargate is on my mind whenever someone method this particular brain bug....

I just don't see how difference in strength makes a brain bug. To me. FOCUSING on this IS the brain bug.

Difference in strenght can make interesting settings and good stories, whether it's us being stronger , or us being weaker. It is no better or no worse than any other forms of setting. Most important of all, There's enough variation across the genre of Sci-Fi such that it really doesn't quiality as something most author simply taken as granted.

I mean, really, if you can have one poster saying human weak is a common brain bug in sci-fi, and another saying that human wank is a common brain bug in Sci-Fi, shouldn't they just somehow meet in the middle and cancel each other out in a giant explosion or something?

Keep trying to dig out brain bug when there isn't one? Now THAT"s a brain bug.

[Civil War Man]

You know, with the exception of the Vulcans, the species listed in the OP are of pretty militant cultures. And most of the ones we encounter who show feats of strength tend to be military personnel, whether active or retired, or have some other type of combat training.

For example, would a Minbari Religious Caste telepath or low-ranking acolyte be able to display the same shows of strength as Lennir or Neroon? Hell, has Delenn shown the level of strength that has been displayed by Lennir or Neroon? The Minbari in general could still have greater strength potential than a human, but comparing an average human to a Minbari officer with a lifetime of elite combat training may exaggerate the difference.

[Ariphaos]

Going the other way, has anyone seen a sci-fi or fantasy setting where human endurance was noted?

[septesix]

Going the other way, has anyone seen a sci-fi or fantasy setting where human endurance was noted?

Andromeda are like that. Human was very active in the Verdan's empire because of our endurance and what not. This is from what I remember though, not necessairly 100% true

[Civil War Man]

B5's In the Beginning also made a note that, even though the Earth-Minbari war went poorly for humans, they made the Minbari pay for every inch of space they took. The novellization at least has something to the effect of "They fought with guns. When they ran out of ammunition, they fought with knives. Then with sticks. Then with fists."

Not quite a comment on human physical endurance, but definitely one on human mental endurance.

[Tiriol]

You know, with the exception of the Vulcans, the species listed in the OP are of pretty militant cultures. And most of the ones we encounter who show feats of strength tend to be military personnel, whether active or retired, or have some other type of combat training.

For example, would a Minbari Religious Caste telepath or low-ranking acolyte be able to display the same shows of strength as Lennir or Neroon? Hell, has Delenn shown the level of strength that has been displayed by Lennir or Neroon? The Minbari in general could still have greater strength potential than a human, but comparing an average human to a Minbari officer with a lifetime of elite combat training may exaggerate the difference.

Babylon 5's pilot episode had Ambassador Delenn almost virtually carrying Chief of Security Garibaldi after Commander Sinclair had defeated the changeling Minbari. There was no visible physical stress on the part of the Ambassador, so the Minbari do appear to be stronger than the humans on average. However, your point is still valid: a military/physically trained invidual is still likely to be stronger than an average person of the said species (and with all due respect to various political and ambassadorial work, being a ranger or a soldier is more physically demanding), so it is very likely that Neroon would be stronger than Delenn.

[Enigma]

I thought Lennir was also of the religious caste?

[NecronLord]

Caste doesn't actually mean they're not trained for combat. The Religious caste operates entire warships. Lennier eventually is accepted to join the rangers, which suggests he's rather above average physically.

However, we've never seen any Minbari who are weaker than their human counterparts. And there's a decent enough excuse for that. The Minbari are, after all, the Vorlons' pets, between that, and having the capacity to genetically engineer themselves effectively should they have desired, there's a few ways they could plausibly have gotten 'super strong.'

In comparison, I've never seen anything to suggest that Centauri, or most of the League of Nonaligned worlds are necesserily stronger than humans. Two (Three, but I'm not sure if Drazi are actually very strong, or just look really hard...) out of maybe six or seven races with any significant screen time being in physically superior to humans isn't that bad.

[Baal]

You know, with the exception of the Vulcans, the species listed in the OP are of pretty militant cultures. And most of the ones we encounter who show feats of strength tend to be military personnel, whether active or retired, or have some other type of combat training.

For example, would a Minbari Religious Caste telepath or low-ranking acolyte be able to display the same shows of strength as Lennir or Neroon? Hell, has Delenn shown the level of strength that has been displayed by Lennir or Neroon? The Minbari in general could still have greater strength potential than a human, but comparing an average human to a Minbari officer with a lifetime of elite combat training may exaggerate the difference.

Well in the episode with the first Soul catcher who tried to kill Delenn he tried to drain her blood to kill her peacefully. Of course this failed and Dr. Franklin admitted that the uber wank Minbari were so tough that she was still alive when a human would have long since died of blood loss.