Different scale aliens?

Lord of the Abyss · Post by **Lord of the Abyss** » 2008-03-09 08:20pm

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

Patrick Degan · Post by **Patrick Degan** » 2008-03-10 02:25am

From the TOS episode "Catspaw" —Korob and Sylvia in their true forms, seen only briefly before they died on Pyrus VII. Creatures from another galaxy. Kirk could have crushed both of them under his boot.

I always liked these two. You can see the strings in their one scene and that they're puppets made from pipe-cleaners and some useful odds-and-ends, but it was one of TOS' efforts to model a totally alien lifeform.

Nyrath · Post by **Nyrath** » 2008-03-10 10:05am

The cheela from Robert Forward's DRAGON'S EGG and STARQUAKE are composed of degenerate matter, and are about a millimeter wide. But they are composed of about the same number of nucleons as a human being.

In Sir Arthur C. Clarke's "A Meeting with Meduasa" there was a sort of aerial jellyfish living in Jupiter's atmosphere that was several kilometers in diameter. Similarly sized creatures can be found in Forward's SATURN RUHK, Ben Bova's AS ON A DARKLING PLAIN, and in Gregory Benford & Gordon Eklund IF THE STARS ARE GODS.

Fred Hoyle's THE BLACK CLOUD features an intelligent nebulae several astronomical units in diameter.

Paolo · Post by **Paolo** » 2008-03-10 10:08am

Not quite ET, but the Ohm from "Nausicaa and the Valley of the Wind" were fairly intelligent. Then there's Leto II from "God Emperor."

Molyneux · Post by **Molyneux** » 2008-03-10 11:26am

I can't believe no-one's thought to mention Mogo! Or that evil space virus thing that joins the 'other' Lanterns. For that matter, wasn't there an entire (populated) universe inside of a molecule or something, that the Atom found?

CaptainChewbacca · Post by **CaptainChewbacca** » 2008-03-10 12:54pm

The Arquellians from Men In Black, they're advanced and only about 2-3 inches tall.

The Grim Squeaker · Post by **The Grim Squeaker** » 2008-03-10 01:00pm

Molyneux wrote:I can't believe no-one's thought to mention Mogo! Or that evil space virus thing that joins the 'other' Lanterns. For that matter, wasn't there an entire (populated) universe inside of a molecule or something, that the Atom found?

There's also the sentient Space sector 3600, if you're bringing DC into this

. (A giant psychic fusion of all the life in a 1/3600 of the universe).

The atom has whole universes in the subatomic levels, with people there.

Post by **Broomstick** » 2008-03-10 01:37pm

Past the first book, Arthur C. Clarke's Rama series has species of various sizes, and one species that comes in many different sizes, to the point of needing separate living quarters, transportation, etc. for the different sizes.

And, on a totally different tangent, World of Warcraft (arguably not strict SciFi) has a tremendous range of sentient species. Among the playable ones, the largest (Tauren) is about 3-4 times the size of the smallest (gnome). In addition, you have sentient NPC's that are just simply huge, the size of small hills walking around.

Themightytom · Post by **Themightytom** » 2008-03-10 07:42pm

well there were the "Giant Alients" from stargate SG-1's "Crystal Skull"

The funniest passage i ahe ever read involving tiny aliens was in John Scalzi's "Old Man War"

The main character is dejected and depressed about his mission in life and tries to open up with his good friend about how they are pointlessly destroying life when a little soldier comes up and tries to kill him so he angrily flicks it off into the distance.

Molyneux · Post by **Molyneux** » 2008-03-10 07:51pm

Themightytom wrote:well there were the "Giant Alients" from stargate SG-1's "Crystal Skull"

The funniest passage i ahe ever read involving tiny aliens was in John Scalzi's "Old Man War"

The main character is dejected and depressed about his mission in life and tries to open up with his good friend about how they are pointlessly destroying life when a little soldier comes up and tries to kill him so he angrily flicks it off into the distance.

Oh, man, I loved that book!

And...about this living sector of space...I must hear more. Where did it pop up in the comics?

Darth Onasi · Post by **Darth Onasi** » 2008-03-10 09:20pm

Hmmm.. what about that sentient galaxy/God/remains of a space probe that collided with God from Futurama?

Patrick Degan · Post by **Patrick Degan** » 2008-03-10 09:48pm

There is a classic Porky Pig cartoon, Jumpin' Jupiter (1955), which has Porky and Sylvester (now a voiceless, nervous wreck) kidnapped by an alien spaceship, which uproots the entire patch of desert where they've stopped and pitched a tent for the night on their way to Las Vegas. Their campsite is accidently deposited on a nearby asteroid and Porky, who slept through the abduction, has no clue that he and Sylvester are not on Earth anymore. As he drives on in the morning, he passes two pairs of candy-stripped tree trunks on either side of the road —which are revealed to be the legs of giant ostrich-like alien beings, who wink at each other in amusement.

Drooling Iguana · Post by **Drooling Iguana** » 2008-03-10 09:57pm

Wasn't there a sapient planet in the Green Lantern Corps at one point?

CaptainChewbacca · Post by **CaptainChewbacca** » 2008-03-10 09:58pm

Molyneux wrote:
Themightytom wrote:well there were the "Giant Alients" from stargate SG-1's "Crystal Skull"

The funniest passage i ahe ever read involving tiny aliens was in John Scalzi's "Old Man War"

The main character is dejected and depressed about his mission in life and tries to open up with his good friend about how they are pointlessly destroying life when a little soldier comes up and tries to kill him so he angrily flicks it off into the distance.
Oh, man, I loved that book!

And...about this living sector of space...I must hear more. Where did it pop up in the comics?

Hear the story of MadGod, Sector 3600. Not a particularly nice fellow.

Darth Onasi · Post by **Darth Onasi** » 2008-03-10 10:06pm

Speaking of planets, there's the sentient Planet from Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri.

Molyneux · Post by **Molyneux** » 2008-03-11 12:06am

Drooling Iguana wrote:Wasn't there a sapient planet in the Green Lantern Corps at one point?

Yes, Mogo. He's one of the longest-standing members, and my personal favorite; he even survived Hal Jordan's slaughtering of the Lantern Corps.

Luzifer's right hand · Post by **Luzifer's right hand** » 2008-03-11 07:09am

Batman wrote: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).

:p

Batman wrote: 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.

There is the Drung, a single one is 5*10^6 times smaller than the smallest known virus(as known 1965). Although I can't remember if a single Drung was actually intelligent.

The biggest are most likely the "Raumriesen" sentient interstellar clouds with multiple 10k light years diameter.

eyl · Post by **eyl** » 2008-03-11 07:13am

David Brin's Uplift series contains alien species covering a wide range of sizes (can't remember most of the species' names offhand, though)

kinnison · Post by **kinnison** » 2008-03-12 05:35am

I can't remember where I found this story, but there is a story around featuring sentient life that lives inside a cosmic string. Sapient lifeforms living at the Planck scale - top that!

I own the anthology it's in, but I can't find it - my collection is a bit of a mess.

speaker-to-trolls · Post by **speaker-to-trolls** » 2008-03-12 06:31am

In Iain M Banks The Algerbraist the Dwellers and a few other species are quite a bit bigger than humans, not on nearly the same scale as most of those mentioned, but about 9 metres tall, and they operate far more slowly than humans so you have to slow yourself down with cybernetics to talk to them. At one point the protagonist also talks to an intelligent nebula which takes something like ten days to say a short sentence, this seems ridiculously quick but he was inside its brain at the time.

Then there are those early-stage-universe people from the Xeelee sequence, I think they were called quagmites, who are the size of an atomic nucleus and can only exist at temperatures used in human sublight engines (which are so hot that inside them the normal physical forces break down to one superforce). Then of course there's the Star People from Flux who are so small that the biggest city on their planet is an inch wide and they think it's pretty darn big.

SylasGaunt · Post by **SylasGaunt** » 2008-03-12 10:00am

Themightytom wrote:well there were the "Giant Alients" from stargate SG-1's "Crystal Skull"

The funniest passage i ahe ever read involving tiny aliens was in John Scalzi's "Old Man War"

The main character is dejected and depressed about his mission in life and tries to open up with his good friend about how they are pointlessly destroying life when a little soldier comes up and tries to kill him so he angrily flicks it off into the distance.

Yeah that bit was pure win with the main character having a small nervous breakdown because he's slaughtering people who are, what was it, an inch tall?