Different scale aliens?

[phred]

The threads about monoculture races, and multiple FTL drives got me thinking. Are there any sci fi franchises out there that have aliens of very different scales? usually they're all roughly human sized

The only one I can think of offhand is the Zentreadi from Macross. Are there any examples of very small aliens, maybe in the couple cm range?

[andrewgpaul]

Stephen Baxter has sort of done this a few times - only his aliens are engineered humans

[Kronos]

Dr.Who maybe, they seem to have more non-human sized aliens then any other series i can think of at the moment. Those giant crabs who ran an empire for example and maybe the yetis. But all of the recurring aliens are roughly human sized, so it may not count.

[Gullible Jones]

The Qax aren't engineered humans, and they're bloody huge.

[Gustav32Vasa]

Peter Hamilton series have aliens the size of eliphants.

[Gullible Jones]

Ghetto edit: Also, there are tons of SF stories with sapient biospheres, and at least a few with sapient insect hives.

[Aaron]

If you count the Star Control games as a universe than there's two examples in it. The Ur-Quan (which are massive) and the Xchagger (who are microscpoic in size).

[neoolong]

Ben 10. Grey Matter was rather tiny.

Godzilla and company. The monsters were huge compared to us tiny little Earthlings.

[Drooling Iguana]

Cybertronians tend to be something other than human-scaled.

[Bedlam]

One alien race in Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy had there whole invasion fleet eaten by a small dog.

[neoolong]

Men in Black. The whole universe is a marble. Or a whole alien civilization in a locker.

[Molyneux]

Known Space; aren't Bandersnatchi significantly larger than most eighteen-wheeler trucks?

[Darth Onasi]

If you count the Star Control games as a universe than there's two examples in it. The Ur-Quan (which are massive) and the Xchagger (who are microscpoic in size).

Also the Precursors, who were said to be the size of elephants.

[Batman]

Again, the Perryverse. Gengeneered/mutated humans alone range from 2.5 metres tall (and 2 metres across the shoulders!) down to basic human in shape but 8 centimetres tall (if not smaller).
Aliens are anything from approx 30 cm tall (if not smaller, the Swoon are merely the smallest I recall) all the way through planet size (SUPRAHET, Mobys) but most intelligent aliens (as I recall) were reasonably close to human size.
Again, any and all corrections are appreciated.

And of course the Captain Future series, where inside the seven space stones every atom was a solar system (or something to that effect).

[Patrick Degan]

One alien race in Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy had there whole invasion fleet eaten by a small dog.

Yes. The Vl'Hurgs and their enemies. Also, they've had currencies which are of extreme scale: the Triganic Ninghi, a triangular rubberoid coin 6800 miles along each side.

[Ryan Thunder]

One alien race in Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy had there whole invasion fleet eaten by a small dog.

Yes. The Vl'Hurgs and their enemies. Also, they've had currencies which are of extreme scale: the Triganic Ninghi, a triangular rubberoid coin 6800 miles along each side.

I'm assuming that this is from Hitchhiker's.

And laughing my ass off at the sheer lunacy of it.

How does one make use of a coin the size of a continent?

[Batman]

You need a REALL big purse?

[Patrick Degan]

One alien race in Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy had there whole invasion fleet eaten by a small dog.

Yes. The Vl'Hurgs and their enemies. Also, they've had currencies which are of extreme scale: the Triganic Ninghi, a triangular rubberoid coin 6800 miles along each side.

I'm assuming that this is from Hitchhiker's.

And laughing my ass off at the sheer lunacy of it.

How does one make use of a coin the size of a continent?

Well, that's one reason why the Triganic Pu isn't an exchangeable currency. Nobody has ever collected enough Ninghis ( 8 ) to own one Pu and, as the Guide explains, the Galactibanks won't deal in fiddly small change.

[Rye]

The threads about monoculture races, and multiple FTL drives got me thinking. Are there any sci fi franchises out there that have aliens of very different scales? usually they're all roughly human sized

The only one I can think of offhand is the Zentreadi from Macross. Are there any examples of very small aliens, maybe in the couple cm range?

Farscape was good for different race sizes. As for very small aliens, the only ones I can think of that haven't been mentioned is maybe whoever it was piloting the saucers in Batteries Not Included.

[Drooling Iguana]

I didn't think the saucers had pilots. I always assumed they were self-replicating robots.

[Rye]

I didn't think the saucers had pilots. I always assumed they were self-replicating robots.

There's that scene where one of the main characters looks for a moment at one of the saucers up close. Through a magnifying class, it looked like a tiny high-detail city with little electrical people walking around, if I remember right.

[Oni Koneko Damien]

There were a few in the Lovecraft/Clark-Ashton/Derleth mythos. The Gugs were about 7 meters tall. The Shan were a race of football-sized fly-like creatures. The Great Race of Yith moved from bodies about 5 meters tall to swarms of hive-minded beetles..

[SylasGaunt]

There was a race in an Allen Dean Foster book I remember who were damn tiny.

The Space Monsters from Gunbuster range from 10s of meters to thousands of kilometers in size.

[Lord of the Abyss]

There was a race in an Allen Dean Foster book I remember who were damn tiny.

They were about eyelash sized; from Gift of a Useless Man, a short story. No species name was given; just the tribal one of the People.

From Jame's White's Sector General universe, we have the "macro-species" from The Genocidal Healer, whose name I don't recall. They were huge; the human-sized surgeons performed surgery on an older juvenile between the brain and skull by drilling a hole and crawling inside with spacesuits. They weren't all that crowded, either. As for size of the ocean dwelling adults, that's pretty much how the juveniles of their species perform surgery on them.

There's also the Strata Beast from his Major Operation, a single, intelligent organism that covered a continent. Big enough that much of the surgery was perform with starships and military weapons.

Darmats from Starplex are made of a mix of dark and normal matter, and are about Jupiter sized.

There is the living world-ocean from Solaris.

The sentient stars from Rogue Star are just that, stars.

There is the Old Mind from the Niven story The Convergence of the Old Mind, which is composed of distributed dust sized parts that move from close concentration ( for fast thinking ), to wide dispersal ( for far ranging perception ), over thousands and millions of years. At this point, it spans the observable universe, having had at least ten billion years to grow.

[Lord of the Abyss]

There are the Noocytes from Blood Music, which are microscopic cell colonies.