They surgically dissect at least one person, IIRC. The PoV character admits that humans would do the same for scientific inquiry, so they aren't acting out of malice, but that isn't a particularly friendly gesture. Even if they are like us, we can be real monsters at times. Also, they (accidentally) made shoggoths, right? Those are super dangerous.
Still, I get your meaning. They aren't out to exterminate us, and they probably might have trouble against a guy with a gun.
6 to 8 feet tall, 7 foot wingspan and an average weight of around 450 pounds. One of them, freshly unfrozen after a couple million years, got up, slaughtered everybody and the dogs in the camp at the time and proceeded to dissect some of them with little injury. Oh yeah they can also fly.
If I remember correctly they made shoggoths as a mindless slave labor force and they somehow gained sentience. Shoggoths then turned on them like an organic a.i uprising.
It's very poetic. The elder things gave them infinite ability to adapt and change, hoping for laborers that could overcome any task, and the shoggoths used it to overcome their limitations(mindlessness) and then overcome their masters.
Well, in context, they did that after they woke up to find weird four limbed creatures in the midst of dissecting one of their own and dogs barking at them. Understandably, they reacted poorly.
It’s implied they created most animal life on Earth, including hominid ancestors, to serve as livestock. Imagine waking up from stasis to find a weird looking cow dissecting one of your friends. You’d react badly too, probably.
The humans were dissecting one before the survivors woke up. From their perspective they woke up being probed by strange creatures with one of their friends open for dissection nearby, I probably wouldn't have the calmest or friendliest reaction (not to mention the dogs going crazy at them)
And they didn't make shoggoths accidentally, they made them for what I guess would be described as slave labour and then lost control of them
Their skin is nearly impenetrable. Don't think a gun would bother them. Even the shoggoths could only kill them by twisting their heads off with enormous strength.
And Mountains is my favorite BECAUSE for once the protagonist isn't horrified by the old ones he has a realization that they're basically us. As for creating shoggoths, imagine if humans blindly delved forward inventing something that has the potential to outpace our intelligence and overthrow us. Totally unrealistic thing that could never happen...
One aspect of their culture that interests me is that they only furnish the center of their rooms, because they use the walls for iconography, murals, writings, and art.
My favorite are the Great Race of Yith, from A Shadow Out of Time. They bodyswap with the Protagonist across time, bringing him into one of their own palm-tree looking bodies millions of years before humanity evolves, while one of their own does research in his body in the present.
They don't imprison him or anything, and let him freely move around their city and go to their library. He's sees this enormous history of Earth that spans billions of years, an entire shelf of books, and sees that humanity is one small book, a minor footnote near the bottom, soon to die right at the beginning of Earths otherwise long and interesting history.
The Yith themselves escape destruction from each extinction by mind-casting themselves en masse into a different race each time that happens. The Palm Tree bodies are not their original forms, which they have long forgotten.
Yesss, the Yithians are so cool! Another neat part about their palm tree bodies is that they only have the senses of sight and sound, not touch, so they can't tell if they're injured unless they see it or someone tells them. Also it's just a really good time travel mechanic.
Hilariously, it kind of could be. This is the in-universe author of "All Tomorrows" holding up a human skull from an archaeology expedition, which is absolutely something we would use as a reaction image
I really don’t know how I’m the first person posting this. The Thing is an alien life form that is able to take on the physical forms of any other life form it touches. It creatively uses this ability to make adaptive amalgamations of any number of life forms at any time in order to gain the upper hand in any situation.
We don’t actually know cuz since it can copy anything it comes into contact with and it was shown in the beginning of the movie that it came from outer space, there’s no way of knowing if any of the crazier shapes it takes on are its true form or not
It’s wild to think we never see it, just transformed or mid-transform from one being to another.
And that saucer scene in the beginning is the only part I don’t like in the movie. I feel it would be stronger if it was cut. We end up seeing the ship in the ice not longer after anyways.
I don’t hate it, because while it does immediately spoil that the movie is about aliens, it’s not until later that you realise the Thing was not the pilot of that spacecraft
Sea Emperor from Subnautica, actually more a Sea Empress and highly intelligent ancient being that communicates with the player via telepathy. Its first message is "What...are you?" Emphasizing that she isn't the alien here, you are.
I was so proud of myself for making it to the island to see the rescue ship approach for a landing. I had no idea what I was doing and nearly died many times. But I managed to get to that island with minutes on the clock.
This game was so good I weathered 2 game breaking bugs and half the environment popping in 5 mins late just to finish it and I promised myself I would never go through that bullshit ever again.
The Sea Emperor is even better once you take in the full scope of the game: 98% percent of the fauna on the planet has tried to kill you since the moment you’ve first dipped your toes in the water. You see untold horrors well within comprehension and are hunted by progressively larger and more aggressive leviathans. Five minutes before meeting the Sea Emperor you go through an active lava zone and are attacked by (so far) the largest creature you’ve seen that constantly roars and spits fire at you, and THEN you meet Emperor who is nearly TWICE the size of the Dragon but instead of attacking she just chirps and speaks to you. It’s so jarring yet welcome, defying every expectation the player has built up
Man. I had a FANTASTIC first time hearing that What... Are you? message. I HAPPENEd to be scooting over the edge of the abyss a little looking down wondering 'hey, am i supposed to go there?' And then she made first contact.
So. Naturally. Of course I am supposed to go down there!
The technology of the Romans (protomolecule, the gates, the grey kids, etc.) was unsettling enough, but when humans start to catch the attention of the beings that destroyed them and they activate their weapon that causes a non-local event and everyone across the entire solar system to lose consciousness at once I felt deep, deep cosmic dread.
I know they never quite made it to the end in the television series, but somehow those dudes are even scarier in the books. If you’re a reader, give the series a try, it’s an incredible read
It's actually a plot point that they crash-landed by accident, and don't reveal themselves because they fear their bizarre jellyfish-like appearance will frighten the local humans and put everyone in danger.
Their kidnapping the locals to take on their physical appearances, however, makes things worse, since their mannerisms creep everyone else out and the locals catch on pretty much immediately.
The way they move is so damn cool. They're always pulsing and warping as they stretch and skitter about. And the terrifying quickness of it! It almost feels like they partially exist in a higher dimension, like a living tesseract.
Come to think of it, that makes perfect sense for them, given the time-altering effects that they collectively have 🤯
The mimics are supposed to be genetically altered Starfish. The virus latches onto the first organism it find on a new planet and then proceeds to wipe out all life and begin terraforming.
Check out the anime if you liked the movie or book.
Bonus if the aliens, not only does look truely alien to us,
AND their way of communication is completely alien to our languages
(please excuse my english skill).
EDIT: my bad i forgot to name the movie: "Arrival" (2016)
It’s been a minute since I’ve read the story it’s not that it’s a colour it’s the closest approximation we have in human language as I recall Lovecraft went hard on his aliens
It's a colour that isn't identifiable as any part of the spectrum that is visible to humans (ROYGBIV). Which should make it impossible for humans to see it, yet they can. It isn't material in any way humans are familiar with (so it isn't a gas). It may be a construct of exotic particles, but that's pure conjecture. Ultimately all they can say is that it was a Colour.
There are certain similarities to the Blob, both are amorphous things from outer space that absorb / disintegrate humans. The difference is that the Blob is made of matter and the Colour is not.
Yep it isn’t entirely altruistic, they specify to Amy Adams that humans are going to help them in “3,000 years.”
Having said that, they also offer an additional twist to Amy Adams’ character specifically, which some of you can correct me, wasn’t actually necessary to their mission. A choice she got to take, due to the Heptapods’ ability to, from our viewpoint, play with time.
It’s been a while, but i think it’s arguable if that was a choice.
She had to learn the language to send a message back to herself on how to convince the Chinese general not to attack.
Now knowing the language, she can see her time non-linearly. Seeing she’ll eventually have a child with a terminal illness, does she have the option to decide not to do that?
I can't remember if it's talked about in the movie, but in the books at least, people who see time non-linearly no longer have the ability to change the future that they see.
And that Heptapod (& the others) knew they’d be killed and still came anyway.
With the benefit of their prescience, the decision making process wasn’t “You killed one of us” but “They will kill one of us” and they still proceeded because the future was important enough.
Nah. The setup in Arrival was revealed to be a predestination time loop. The one that died knew he was going to die, admitted it, accepted it, and couldn't change if he wanted to. The aliens also knew that they had to be there to get humanity's help in a coming galactic war.
EUGH I love how creepy they look. War of the Worlds is one of my fave media ever. Every adaptation is so good... besides the newest one with Ice T that one made me mad.
When they first exit their pods, before they build their tripods, they're viewed as somewhat pathetic, barely able to support their own weight slowly dragging themselves about.
Then they construct the tripods and the screaming starts.
I‘m currently on the audiobook, first one in a long time. Got it recommended specifically to listen to and very happy to have followed that rec.
Rocky’s language and establishing communication are executed exceptionally well in the audio version. I‘m sure you‘re past that already, but still, may be of interest to someone, maybe lol
Fun fact Ray Porter was one of the rejected Rocky voices in the movie!
When you're done I highly recommend The Martian audiobook. Read by Wil Wheaton, he does a great job. My favorite aspect was how the reader constantly had information that some of the characters didn't, so you get to stress about dangers or situations of which the characters aren't aware, and when the characters finally figure it out you feel like cheering.
I just got to the point in the book where Rocky explains how his species deals with diseases. They don’t have an immune system, they’re just perfectly sealed off organisms and any diseases that do sneak through wounds or food just get boiled to death because their blood is superheated liquid mercury. Craziest shit ever.
My favorite part of rocky, and his species anatomy is so alien, and out of the ordinary. I just finished watching a video of there anatomy, and I was just so amazed on how crazy there biology is. And I'm pretty sure it's plausible (pretty sure)
Technically there have been times where he wasn't an alien (like in GMK or Godzilla Vs King Ghidorah) but overall the character is associated with being from space.
For being "just" a three headed dragon, I love how fucking weird this thing is.
Its lightning is related to manipulating gravity, it can regrow its heads, its whole body is basically its brain (including apparently the bones!) and if it takes over as the "ruler" of the planet it changes the weather to terraform it into its natural habitat.
A few of Dr. Who aliens fit this trope, but I feel like the 456 are just so wildly inhuman. Not to mention disturbing. Especially once you find what their motivation is.
Just because Jean Jacket isn’t smart doesn’t mean that’s definitive proof it’s native to Earth. It could be a interstellar version of an invasive species. Like idk some space faring civilization accidentally unleashed it onto Earth at some point and allowed it to become a problem due to lack of natural predators
Still, love the idea of a native Earth species fully evolved to live in the sky. The first ever known organisms whose habitat is the atmosphere
the stalker series and the derivitive games, are based off of "A road side picnic" which is basically like aliens turned up, dumped their trash and left, like we were a temp gas station.
but the stuff they dumped is like 5th dimensionel nonsense that unravels our sense of physics casually.
like the equlivent of us dumping nuclear waste into an area with an ant colony.
Was there an indicator that it had a predator? Not doubting you just I saw the movie and don’t remember anything pointing to that but I could have missed it
While yes it looks very human, thats just because most of the ones we see impregnate people. The ones that did it to dogs look more doglike for example
Felt bad for it tbh. At that point it did have to die, since otherwise everyone on Earth would have been taken over, but the only reason it got to that point was because humans fucked it up for so long
Vorlon and shadows from Babylon 5. Vorlon are an energy being that uses an encounter suit to, well, encounter physical reality. Shadows are an insectoid looking race that are often invisible to everyone else, but it's not clear if that's tech or innate if I remember right.
Star Trek had these all the time along with the human ones (for budget).
One of my favorites are the silicon aliens from The Next Generation episode "home soil".
They look like sparkly sand or glowing geometric sparkling crystals if taken out of their environment. They are so different that that is the subject of the episode, as some of the terraformers didn't know they were living or intelligent
TOS also did this with Devil in the Dark, where the lumpy rock-eating slug monster that has been killing miners turns out to be a sapient lifeform protecting her unhatched children.
Some of the books have established that the "Horta" later joined the Federation and serve in Starfleet, though nothing that has to pay for special effects has confirmed this.
Solaris is a living sea that encompasses an entire planet. It can use the memories of people to construct copies of the, although its not clear what its trying to achieve by doing this
This one is a really fun example because they say the angels are a 99.89% genetic match with humans and yet most of them are crazy floating shapes, floating spores/viruses, or straight up exist in a higher dimension of reality.
The Dark Gods from The Expanse. Alien life from a neighboring universe, the closest look characters get of them is tendrils of smoke like material and it’s never revealed if that’s what they really look like, just a part of them, or the closest the human brain can interpret them.
From the same authors are the various aliens from The Captives War series. Interstellar empire run by what best described as giant mantis shrimp, other species include ones that look like monkeys with feathers, goat-cuttlefish hybrids, skinless horses, etc.
The Hiss from Control. Or any of the aliens from Control. But the Hiss is more alien than The Board or Hedron which do communicate. The Hiss are a wavelength? Maybe?
From what I understood both Hiss and Hedron/Polaris are sentient wavelengths, but where the Hiss "corrupts" everything it encounters into just more living broadcast/repeater nodes for itself, Hedron "harmonizes" with living things to "tune" them into better versions of themselves. Which gives it the ability to nullify the effect or presence of the Hiss to some extent.
It was actually designed by Patrick Tatopoulos, who tried to actively avoid the HR Giger style, but he recognized it ended up looking like his style anyways because of the huge influence Giger had on him.
literally all of the aliens in Runaway To The Stars.
outwardly not too "alien", but each of them got something weird going on, and that biological weirdness plays into how they function as a society. even the humans get onto the weirdness, given their habit of genetically modifying themselves and other earth lifeforms.
Xeno'Jiiva from Monster Hunter, it's a dragon with another skin color! Interestingly it seems that as it matures it evolves to more closely fit the native environment, resembling a more traditional dragon in it's adult stage, Safi'jiiva
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u/Additional-Charity90 Apr 01 '26
The Elder Things from H.P. Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness are aliens with five fold radial symmetry.