We just figured the galaxy didn’t have the budget for non humanoid intelligent life.
One head-type-thing and four limb-type-things, with only two being primarily locomotive, makes that more humanoid than not on an intergalactic body plan scale.
We are very bad at thinking up truly alien life.
I respect the constraints of production budgets. I don’t expect TV aliens to look much different than people with some crap glued to their face.
Mass Effect at least branched out a little. But all of the squad mates were still basically humanoid. I expect they used mocap and similar limitations. Though it really could have benefitted from an Elcor squad mate.
“Irritated; you are a jackass… Captain. Irreverent; the cultists… Do not matter. Hopeful; bombard them from orbit and let’s… Go.”
I don’t expect TV aliens to look much different than people with some crap glued to their face.
I mean… I kinda do… especially these days when CGI makes up more than half of your budget for nonsense reasons. Why don’t they try harder? They could and it would cost them zero extra.
The Hooloovoo resemble a super-intelligent shade of the colour blue. One was seen in a prism for Zaphod Beeblebrox’s address upon stealing the Heart of Gold. On certain special occasions, such as the aforementioned Presidential event, they refract into a free-standing prism.
Ok, fair enough, I’ll give us one example of being good at it, as the exception that proves the rule.
I’ve never understood this phrase. How does an exception prove a rule? Surely an exception disproves a rule?
You’re right, it’s a bullshit phrase
I can’t find the name of them but in one of the Star Wars novels the Millenium Falcon ends up trapped in some ice caverns and they encounter sentient clouds of gas, methane iirc.
So we do have some people making up cool aliens.
Oh, the Pequeninos in Speaker for the Dead. They were sentient humanoid beings that became the trees of their world when they died. There’s more to it than that, but that’s the gist.
his (assuming he?) existence can be compared to that of Carcinisation. some species just always evolve into crabs, some always evolve into amorphous tar blobs that embody evil.
I see you’ve met my ex
Sounds hot.
For real though, there’s a reason you only see the Aquatics and the Insectoids in like two episodes of Enterprise.
and yaphit might have been a reason why orville ran out of budget and was not renewed 😆
Orville was technically never cancelled. Seth also confirmed a few months ago that the script for the newest season is written, but it’s hard to find time for all the actors at the moment.
Technically… I am not sure it means much, since writing a script is a lot cheaper than turning it into finished series.
Right right only canon shows count
also why they can interbreed
Life, uh, finds a way.
Star Trek Enterprise explains that it involves medical intervention to allow interbreeding between species. I’ve always assumed that’s what was going on for everyone.
I kinda just forgot Spock, Torres, and Troy were half human
Fuck anything hard enough and it will breed
Klingon terraforming 101
“We were too busy fighting”
There’s a lesson here.
Everybody was kung fu fighting
My dad when this aired: dang what a good and awesome story with a good and awesome message
Also my dad: Mexicans tho
Ooo, swing and a miss.
So close.
Convergent evolution. Maybe bipedal locomotion gives some sort of advantage to intelligence.
Not intelligence, but tool-wielding.
Pigs and whales are smart, but neither can swing a hammer.
Yeah, this is a viable explanation, although it is dependant on life evolving mostly the same way across the galaxy. If life mostly evolves on ocean planets in the Goldilocks Zone frim the same basic elements, then sure, prokaryote, fish, tetrapod, biped could be an extremely common path. But it’s entirely possible there are a wide variety of initial circumstances that can generate life, and there are tungsten-based hyper-intelligent shrimp people living in gas giants
But without hands, those shrimp people aren’t going to be able to do much in the way of tool use, which limits their space-faring prospects. If you’re not a warp-capable species, you’re basically nobodyl. I feel like you at least need to kick off the tech-tree with fire and banging rocks together. Fire means air, which means terrestrial locomotion, and tetrapod seems like the most elegant form for that to take off (three legs on the ground while one moves). Banging rocks together means two hands, which assuming we’re developing from a tetrapod, means bipedalism.
Sure there might be some tungsten-based shrimp people who achieve warp through telekinesis or something suitably Traveler-esque, but that kind of hyper intelligence doesn’t exactly lead to involving oneself in the petty squabbles of lesser life forms. They might exist, but they wouldn’t be characters Starfleet would interact with regularly.
But without hands, those shrimp people aren’t going to be able to do much in the way of tool use…
Maybe they have specialized claws that they use to fashion tools out of giant coal trees that grow out the planet’s core. Maybe they have a form so foriegn we couldn’t possibly imagine it. My point is, convergent evolution makes a lot of sense based on our understanding of how life evolves, but in terms of systems that produce life, we have a sample size of one. If we’re wrong about some of the fundamental requirements of life l(ike carbon, water, light), and there are a plethora of systems that produce life, all bets are off.
My point was less about producing life, I agree there are probably countless ways life could develop that would be strange or unimaginable. I’m talking more about convergent evolution for the sorts of species which would interact regularly with the Federation.
Exactly this. Bipedal, fingers for tool making.
If you’re bipedal you have free arms to throw rocks and make tools.
It is kind of the minimalist form to let a brain interact with its environment, You have the second lowest number of locomotion limbs but significanly higher efficiency than slithering (0) which means more energy for the brain, And 2 manipulating limbs is the minnimum neccesary to grasp items in a way that allows you to apply torque or brace objects.
Maybe humans are the crabs
crackheadsof spaceflight
Any mention of the word troglodytes gets an instant upvote from me. :)
Another instant upvote for Viagra Boys!
Man that comment works on many levels. Quality shit right here folks.
That is so good!
https://youtu.be/BCV6paTXyCU?list=RDBCV6paTXyCU
If you’re gonna go back, go WAY back!
It just flashes screenshots of Number Munchers into my brain
Hey, why do you look like a changeling?
In universe, maybe they were the first humanoid species the changelings encountered.
Realistically, they just didn’t get that creative with character design.
yeah, I guess that’s also why the trill designs changed, the various Klingon forms, etc
It doesn’t help that its the same actress for the Progenitor and the Female Changeling
… hmmm. I wonder how much it is my bad interpretation and how much of it is based on actress and how much it is the designs being actually similar.
or all three?
Panspermia
I thought this was indeed brought up in the show. Am I wrong?
Ew. Wash that pan before you have guests
It did come up again, it’s just not many people made it to near the end of Discovery.
If she were not dead, I would kill her!
So, this episode was in canon when All Good Things was written. Q goes through this whole speech about how the anomaly caused by Picard in the future stops life from forming on Earth, thus humans never exist. “You, in several million years.” he says.
How does that interact with the “everyone is seeded from a common ancestor” plot?
Maybe it was the common ancestor that was directly stopped from existing and then by extension the other races
Or it’s a plot hole
Well…how about this:
the race of Beforeians seeded inhabited worlds. So the entire biosphere happened on its own from cyanobacteria up to wooly mammoths and shit, and then the beforeians seed the planet with hominids.
If life didn’t evolve on Earth, the Beforeians wouldn’t have seeded it. Just like they didn’t seed Mars or Venus.
HA! I literally watched this episode last night!
I don’t recall this one. Can you fill me in?
TNG S6:E20 - The Chase
Picard’s old archaeology professor is found murdered, the crew try to complete his research. Soon, the crew must compete with Romulans and Klingons and Cardassians to uncover the truth behind his discoveries.
The truth was an ancient species who planted seeds of DNA all over the galaxy, which is the reason they all kind of look alike.
Each one just assumed they were the original and the others are just bad copies.
