Worst designed scifi creature?

[Srelex]

Which creature or species in scifi comes across the sort that evolution would reject or a sane god wouldn't bother with? Which is the most biologically impractical or impossible? The sort of things that aren't even saved by coolness for their ludicrous appearance?

[AK_Jedi]

The Ocampa from ST voyager. They live only about a decade, and mate only once in their lives. Not only that but they refer to having "a child" rather than a litter. This means the population should decrease by half generation, even assuming every ocampa reproduces.

The only logical conclusion is that they are artificially created, and the caretaker was keeping them alive as some sort of cruel experiment.

[Mr Bean]

Ocampa, they live nine years, they breed only once and despite post hoc theories after the fact even if they always have triplets, it's still a zero sum game as far as the Ocampa are concerned. Accidents and disease should quickly prune the herd down to nothing because of the absurd mating timeframe they have.

As a Chuck went into during the Voyager - Elogium Review
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kIR51YwObw

Ocampa fall under the impractical. Nine year lifespans, super mental powers and females can only breed once. And they fight among themselves.

[hunter5]

I have two alternative choices for this because the obvious one has been mention twice. First the bird aliens from the Voyager epsiode "Ex Post Facto" they are probably the most half-assed attempt to make an alien in trek I mean birds with teeth and breasts. Second the Pakled anything that stupid shouldn't be able to reproduce.

[Raxmei]

In 40k the Tyranid venomthrope is pretty impractical even for a Tyranid. It moves by floating around, but unlike the zoanthrope (which magically levitates) this is supposed to be accomplished through buoyancy in the air with a lifting gas. A cubic meter of air weighs about 1.2 kilograms, about 1/800 the density of water. This creature can have a mass of 1.2 kilograms per cubic meter of space it occupies and still float in the manner described. That basically means the venomthrope must be around 99.9% empty space. Judging by the model it should float about as well as a fat man holding a party balloon.

[Rama]

Highly infectious, triple-helix DNA possessing, telepathic, five gendered, mostly impervious tripods from an alternate dimension capable of shrugging off multi-megaton detonations to the organic walls of their vessels with ease.

I can't tell whether or not Species 8472 is either evolutionary feasible or just a really poor attempt at trying to one-up the Borg, my mind has simply been blown apart with the above description.

[Zor]

On the same note as the venomthrope, the Eosapiens from Darwin IV are bad (and yes, i know Darwin IV has a thick atmosphere and low gravity, still not enough).

Dishonorable mention to the Protoss, do they subsist by bathing in chocolate pudding?

Zor

[open_sketchbook]

Of course, being Warhammer 40,000, I wouldn't put gasses with negative mass past them.

How about the Elder Things? They don't seem terribly mobile or practical for surviving before the development of technology; good thing they are horrors from beyond the stars, or they'd be pretty fucked.

[Zor]

OHow about the Elder Things? They don't seem terribly mobile or practical for surviving before the development of technology; good thing they are horrors from beyond the stars, or they'd be pretty fucked.

Well they did evolve from a completely diferent liniage than humanity did and there are radial symetric creatures which have done well on earth.

Zor

[Highlord Laan]

Dishonorable mention to the Protoss, do they subsist by bathing in chocolate pudding?

Zor

According to the Dark Templar Saga (about as close to canon as we're likely to get) they''re either photo or thermo-synthetic, or a mix of the two.

[open_sketchbook]

OHow about the Elder Things? They don't seem terribly mobile or practical for surviving before the development of technology; good thing they are horrors from beyond the stars, or they'd be pretty fucked.

Well they did evolve from a completely diferent liniage than humanity did and there are radial symetric creatures which have done well on earth.

Zor

Most of them are

a) plants

-or-

b) have no brains at all

and most of them do not stand all upright and unbalanced. Then again, it's probable it's a War of the Worlds situation, having tampered with themselves to create a being perfect for handling technology, leaving the heavy lifting to those of the Shoggothian persuasion.

[Zor]

Most of them are

a) plants

-or-

b) have no brains at all

That is a fluke of natural selection and there are also mindless bilateral creatures. There is nothing which forbids the emergence of a Radial Symetric creature with advanced cognative abilities.

Zor

[NecronLord]

Dishonorable mention to the Protoss, do they subsist by bathing in chocolate pudding?

Zor

Just because you can't see their mouthparts, doesn't mean they're not there. You'd be hard pressed to find the mouth on a slug, but it's there. For a larger example, you can't normally see a giant octopus' mouth, but again, it's there.

[Lord of the Abyss]

The 11,000 mile Giant Space Amoeba from The Immunity Syndrome was more than slightly implausible.

Highly infectious, triple-helix DNA possessing, telepathic, five gendered, mostly impervious tripods from an alternate dimension capable of shrugging off multi-megaton detonations to the organic walls of their vessels with ease.

Well, to be fair: Triple strand DNA is quite possible. There are slime molds with thousands of genders, not just 5. Telepathy and interdimensional travel while implausible are so common in sci-fi that you can't really single them out for it. And their ships shrugging off that kind of power was an implausibility of their ships, not them ( nit picking a bit, I know ); just another example of the bio-wank that seems so popular.

[Rama]

The 11,000 mile Giant Space Amoeba from The Immunity Syndrome was more than slightly implausible.

Highly infectious, triple-helix DNA possessing, telepathic, five gendered, mostly impervious tripods from an alternate dimension capable of shrugging off multi-megaton detonations to the organic walls of their vessels with ease.

Well, to be fair: Triple strand DNA is quite possible. There are slime molds with thousands of genders, not just 5. Telepathy and interdimensional travel while implausible are so common in sci-fi that you can't really single them out for it. And their ships shrugging off that kind of power was an implausibility of their ships, not them ( nit picking a bit, I know ); just another example of the bio-wank that seems so popular.

I wasn't debating the plausibility, just pointing out how much they pushed the "rule of cool" bar when trying to one-up the Borg with a new multi-episode villain.

In fact the entire crux of the second sentence of my post highlighted this very same point, which was not quoted for some reason.

[Xon]

How about the Elder Things? They don't seem terribly mobile or practical for surviving before the development of technology; good thing they are horrors from beyond the stars, or they'd be pretty fucked.

Funny story that, they were fucked over hard. And the original source material speculates that they whitewashed thier own history in a fit of self-delusion.

[D.Turtle]

The Ood from Doctor Who: They carry their brains in their hands:

[Themightytom]

FUCK you beat me to the Ood!

I guess that leaves me with



There must have been really limited competition on his world while he was evolving.

[Sheridan]

How about the Newbies, from the Doom novelization, End Game?

These guys "evolve" right in front of you (without requiring offspring; each one can do it itself) and their "ultimate form" is a third strand of DNA that attaches to a human's, causing extreme selfishness and fear of death . But, oh wait, they can be defeated by The Power of Faithtm.

Dude, I liked the Doom novelizations, mostly for their cheesiness, but this one was a bit much to take.

[Guardsman Bass]

Dishonorable mention to the Protoss, do they subsist by bathing in chocolate pudding?

Zor

Just because you can't see their mouthparts, doesn't mean they're not there. You'd be hard pressed to find the mouth on a slug, but it's there. For a larger example, you can't normally see a giant octopus' mouth, but again, it's there.

Unfortunately, if you read the novels (particularly the Dark Templar Saga, which is integrated into the storyline of Starcraft 2), they really don't have mouths. They replenish literally by bathing in sunlight (with no explanation given as to how this sustains them, particularly since they don't seem to consume or ingest anything else).

It's retarded, of course - they should have just said that the Protoss do have mouths (since their ancient primitive society is specifically referred to as a "hunting" one), but that you don't see them open because they communicate telepathically and breathe through parts of their skin. Before the above bit came out, I always assumed that was the case.

[Oni Koneko Damien]

How about the Newbies, from the Doom novelization, End Game?

These guys "evolve" right in front of you (without requiring offspring; each one can do it itself) and their "ultimate form" is a third strand of DNA that attaches to a human's, causing extreme selfishness and fear of death . But, oh wait, they can be defeated by The Power of Faithtm.

Dude, I liked the Doom novelizations, mostly for their cheesiness, but this one was a bit much to take.

The first two novels were great, then the third started wandering away from the simple demonic base that was Doom and into more sci-fi and pseudo-philosophical areas. Even aside from the 'Newbies', the Freds and Sears & Roebuck's race were bad enough on their own. The former had communism ingrained into their evolution (which is hilarious in and of itself, as apparently mankind's technology 'evolves' exponentially faster, despite these being interstellar races that have been at war for at least several centuries) and the latter could not process things that couldn't be put into binary relationships.

[Broomstick]

OHow about the Elder Things? They don't seem terribly mobile or practical for surviving before the development of technology; good thing they are horrors from beyond the stars, or they'd be pretty fucked.

Well they did evolve from a completely diferent liniage than humanity did and there are radial symetric creatures which have done well on earth.

Most of them are

a) plants

-or-

b) have no brains at all

Although the octopus, squid, and cuttlefish are all very brainy invertebrates, and do exhibit radial symmetry. So the exceptions are exceptional in that regard.

[Sheridan]

The first two novels were great, then the third started wandering away from the simple demonic base that was Doom and into more sci-fi and pseudo-philosophical areas. Even aside from the 'Newbies', the Freds and Sears & Roebuck's race were bad enough on their own. The former had communism ingrained into their evolution (which is hilarious in and of itself, as apparently mankind's technology 'evolves' exponentially faster, despite these being interstellar races that have been at war for at least several centuries) and the latter could not process things that couldn't be put into binary relationships.

Yep, but at least Sears & Roebuck had comedy going for them. The Freds, less so, but they didn't have as much "screen time" as the Newbies or S&R. And at least the difference between the Freds and S&R was able to "explain" the power-ups randomly available to Fly and Arlene throughout Phobos and Deimos (not that it was a good explanation, but at least it made some sense in-universe). Eh, as I said, I liked it mostly for the humor value.

[Junghalli]

What's wrong with the Elder Thing design? It's a barrel-shaped body with tentacles on the bottom. Looks sensible enough for an intelligent creature. Doesn't really strike me as any worse than our rather kludgy design.

[Oni Koneko Damien]

What's wrong with the Elder Thing design? It's a barrel-shaped body with tentacles on the bottom. Looks sensible enough for an intelligent creature. Doesn't really strike me as any worse than our rather kludgy design.

And really, calling a design 'bad' that basically has all the benefits of a human body plus insane strength and durability, the ability to exist above and below water indefinitely, at one point the ability to fly through space without technological aid, and the ability to be preserved for well over one hundred million years in sediment and be revived afterwards with no apparent debilitating effect... is rather silly.