Grrl Power #724 – Xenophilia
Nothing like quelling fears about alien invasions when people are distracted with wondering what said aliens look like naked.
This page is my fault for designing aliens who look like fit and sexy humans with different skin tones and minor cosmetic appliances on their face. It’s something I gripe about a lot when watching anything with aliens in it… well, most anything, not stuff like “The Arrival” but it’s just impractical to do a long running show with actors when a good percentage of the cast is technically aliens. Slap some paint and makeup on someone, say they worship “Fandril” and you’re set. Otherwise you have to have a crew of puppeteers working each of your alien cast. Something I appreciated they attempted with Farscape at least.
Now that it’s a lot easier to map CG creatures over actors, I suppose it’s not unrealistic to think there might be a series with a regular cast member that looks like a seven foot tall kaiju, or a floating squid thing or something, but it’s still a lot more work than gluing some wrinkles on the bridge of an actors nose and calling them a Bajoran.
Speaking of mini-kaiju, have you guys seen Love, Death and Robots on Netflix? It’s pretty good generally, but the second story with the monster fights was dope and I want to see a series about that world. Actually, all of the shorts in that anthology really felt like the opening cut scenes pulled from a dozen different video games.
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Best invasion EVER!
Xenophobes: Oh no, they’re hot!
Xenophiles: Oh yay, they’re hot!
…This invasion is going so well that one would think that Sydney & Cora have planned it this way. (wink, wink, nudge, nudge)
Seriously, it not only distracts the press so that Sydney & Arianna can talk innocuously long enough to get inside; Arianna won’t have to answer any more questions for now. This will also ease the PR as the public gets used to the idea that aliens are on Earth in a positive way; as The Veil malfunctions & the Alari ship landed, the general public will start to wonder how long aliens have already been on Earth.
How long before Cora and her crew start getting covered by The Veil anyway?
Archon Secuirty Guard: Umm, weren’t you blue before? Not that I’m compiling now that you look South Indian, or that guy over there now looks like a black giant, kind of like our Anvil, but well male. I thought his face was red and there was something about his mouth?
Cora: Oh my! I have no idea how that happened.
Arianna: [ Realizes what is happening ] Cora, is it? Can I talk with you for a minute?
I would think the Veil is context sensitive. and it currently completely ignoring them due to the nature of there entrance. It may also contune to ignore them if they want too. I whould think mind magic like the Veil may read the intentions of the subjust if they want to be hidden or not.. Cora and Crew are kinda not trying to blend so they are not.
Never, as seen prior once you reveal yourself or are known to someone or the public it can’t cover them. Its a weak glamor that requires passiveness or disbelief, like how the Supers were only partially covered but the press conference broke them from it completely. Aliens we know have additional disguises they use, likely because the veil was designed specifically for supernatural races, but “aliens” is a very broad term for anything not from Earth and for some might not even work, and others be very weak. Hence the need to use their own disguises when visiting Earth.
Honestly, it will piss of a lot of people.
We now have to compete for Aliens for sex, this has all kinds of associated issues.
1. What kinds of alien STD’s are we going to get? Uranus Crabs anyone?
2. Can we interbreed? What will the kids look like? Will they be able to breed or will they be like Mules?
3. Sure, I could potentially fuck some hot Alien Chick, but do I even rate as bang worth anymore?
These and other issues will seriously trump any positive PR.
I suppose those are very important questions.
Perhaps you should do a Bing search, InCase you want to find some answers.
I….. see what you did there…
2. Can we interbreed? Generally not. The genetics will not line up enough to be viable. We can’t even interbreed with other apes and they are from Earth with very similar (>95% match) genetics and biochemistry; lions and tigers can interbreed, but their children are usually infertile (well at least the males). If their genetic information is recorded in something other than DNA, then forget it!
Panspermia (Why is that not in spellcheck) and random odds may suggest a possibility. Consider that Horses and Donkeys can interbreed though the offspring cannot.
And yep… I got a D in English.
A in science though.
Panspermia wouldn’t help much, except that the base chemicals would match – everything would be at least as distantly related as the individual planet’s critters. It’d be a bit like the odds of an elephant knocking up a parakeet.
And while all mules (male donkey/female horse) are sterile in all known cases, female hinnys (female donkey/male horse) have been known to get pregnant. Crossbreed genetics are weird.
In regards to interbreeding… if two races don’t have the same number of chromosomes, generally intercourse will not produce offspring. (Mules being the only exception that I am aware of on Earth. Horses have 32 pairs of chromosomes, donkeys have 31 pairs.)
Even in species with the same number of chromosomes, interbreeding is usually only possible within the same genus … and even then, the offspring may be infertile, such as male tigons and ligers.
“Aww. Kids are so cute when they’re still young enough to believe all mammals have the same number of chromosomes.” — Florence Ambrose
http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff2000/fc01948.htm
Alien STDs should be a concern and might result in something more serious than disease. http://www.empoweredcomic.com/comic/volume-1-page-173
Yup, the invasion is definitely going well. At least two reporters definitely look like they are quite willing to join forces……………
Well, one of them does. The redhead looks pretty uncomfortable – leaning away and looking away.
Yeah, Altus is doing that lean-over thing, and I’m not certain she likes it. Personally, I’ve always hated it. (I’ve never had it done to me, but I see it a lot in movies and shows.) I assume Altus comes from a culture where it’s perfectly welcome behaviour. But as far as human-human interaction, it’s always seemed rather predatory to me. And given how much huger he is than even the largest human males, I’m amazed she only looks slightly uncomfortable.
I will admit though, she does look like she might like his attentions on some level. It’s hard to say; her expression is quite ambiguous. It could mean “I like this”, it could mean “I’m nervous and uncomfortable”, it could mean “I’m being coy and flirtatious.”
At least In Altus’s case you could legitimately say he might not know how his presence might make someone nervous, being from a TOTALLY different culture. For all we know he might be acting exceptionally shy by the standards of his race.
For Altus’s species, the women could be larger and stronger than the males, and the males have horns to protect themselves if the females get too rambunctious.
He might have been oblivious to the possibility of a female feeling threatened by a mere male, even though this one is tiny.
Especially if his experiences with females from other species has been limited to Cora, Dazzler, and their cohorts.
That’s a great point!
I dunno. She looks very unambiguously uncomfortable to me. Especially taken in context with the previous page.
taken in context, body-language and facial-cue-wise, it looks like she’s enjoying the attentions, she’s fluffing her hair over one ear, and appears to be blushing shyly in a flirtatious matter, it looks like it’s a lightly flirting conversation at this point. i could be reading a fair bit into it, tho.
manner, not matter, although, it does matter
Body-language, she’s both leaning and looking away from him. Facially, that is at best a neutral expression and at worst the beginning of a scowl (if she were smiling, even a little bit, I could see what you’re saying, but she’s not). With a still image the thing she’s doing with her hair could be the flirtatious playing with it thing that women do or it could be the nervous tucking it back that some people – men and women – with long hair do. Considering the alarmed “meep” when he got in her face and told her she was pretty on the last page and the leaning and looking away and neutral facial expression here, I’m guessing the latter.
Like I said, she looks unambiguously uncomfortable to me. At BEST she’s nervous because he’s coming on way too strong even though she’d otherwise be interested. At worst, she’s about to bolt. I see absolutely nothing there to indicate she’s enjoying his attention.
You don’t, but clearly other people do. So it’s obviously ambiguous on some level, even if it doesn’t seem so to you.
That thing Pinkie is doing with her hair? Yeah, that is a sign that she is interested
Methinks these reporters read a lot of fanfics about this sort of stuff.
Apparently, Dabbler’s not the only one around here (that is, in the immediate vicinity of Archon HQ) who has Hypnoboobs…
MidnightDStroyer wrote: Apparently, Dabbler’s not the only one around here (that is, in the immediate vicinity of Archon HQ) who has Hypnoboobs…
Believe me, every woman will tell you that the mere existence of boobs is hypnotic to men :)
You can have an A cup (or less) and if you vacuum seal them like this, eyes will be glued south of your chin…
I have a t-shirt that says “Look up when you talk, you drooling lackwit.”
*is looking at your avatar’s ears* So…fluffy…. =P
*wiggles them*
I was actually wondering if the pink swirls behind her are an indication of some hypno-effect (magic or tech) similar to Dabbler’s powers, or simply for effect because DaveB didn’t want to draw a perspective background of the others behind her.
Believe me as a male, every man will tell you that the mere existence of boobs is hypnotic to men :)
Or, as Matilda (Dan’s girlfriend) says in Dan and Mab’s Furry Adventure:
Dan: “Why, Matilda, are you trying to hypnotize me?”
Matilda: “Silly Dan, if I’d wanted to do that, I’d have held your head a foot lower.”
Sydney don’t call it an invasion. This is just a meet and greet.
Yeah this title reminds me of a magazine series called xenophile I wonder whatever happened to it.
“XXXenophile” by Phil Foglio. I guess you can still buy the collections in print.
And don’t forget the card game.
Yeah Phil, still gets it published though I don’t know if you can get it on his site or it’s an only in person pickup. Last time I got copies was at NorWes Con about 18 years ago, when he was there well his crew was there selling his stuff, He and Kaja were over at Sakura con. Both were on the same weekend and she really likes anime and cosplay.
Wait, there’s a XXXenophile magazine as well? I’m only familiar with the card game.
Which is fantastically fun by the way. You know it’s a good game when you play a card called “Wet Blanket” that does pretty much exactly that—makes all the fun stuff in the game stop—and it’s causing you to win. In response to which you remove the card from play the first chance you get, because you realize it’s better to have fun and lose.
They were more graphic adult comics.
My wife and I read them for the interviews.
As far as I know, the entire run of XXXenophile is available on Slipshine (super NSFW) http://slipshine.net/xxxenophile/
Do you mean XXXenophile? They artists are now drawing Girl Genius.
According to the Foglios, it’s on hiatus at least until their kids are grown up.
The authors – Phil Foglio, as it was mentioned above – made a decision to put it on hold until his children would be old enough to read it without need of parental supervision.
The way it all turned out, though, all Phil and Kaja’s creative time is now consumed with Girl Genius and related products; and we will – most probably – never see another XXXenophile, nor continuation of Buck Godot.
On a (slightly) related note – there are several Fornax issues floating around here and there, and once upon a time there was a zine called Cthulhu Sex. You may imagine contents of the latter freely on your own peril.
Huh… Fornax is also the name of an Earth constellation.
The name means ‘furnace’, for those who care. So, it works well for porn, too.
To (mis)quote: “I am commander Sheppard, and this is my favorite xxx-zine on the station!”.
Ah, the days when BioWare was not a devoured-from-the-inside-shell-of-its-former-self, an age bygone…
> nor continuation of Buck Godot.
While I liked the XXXenophile issues I know of a lot, I’ll miss Buck Godot more. It has a bit of the Girl Genius vibe.
Zownt!
Well, the roots are there – booth in XXXenophile and Buck Godot.
If you to page through former, you could clearly notice all the same themes and archetypes as in Girl Genius – just in more fetishized and over(t)ly sexualized forms. Basically, GG is a PG-13ophile in that regard.
It helps, to a degree, that Kaja seems to have a weakness for ménage à trois solutions for a Love Triangle trope…
Same goes for that kind of off-brand absurdist humour, which was so generously sprinkled around XXXenophile, and is a trademark property of Buck Godot: you can easely see it permeating each and every aspect of Girl Genius – though, in watered down, much more lean form.
All in all, there’s little hope to see another dedicated Godot story – given how abruptly Foglios were forced to put the series on hiatus. Afair, Gallimaufry storyline was planned as first, with few more relatively long ones before the final – but authors came to understanding that they wouldn’t be able to push both Girl Genius and Buck Godot simultaneously without an impending burn-out and/or noticeable dip in quality. They chose to give Godot at least some form of resolution, and focus on the other project – and so BG was gg-ed.
Oh, well – at least we got something out of it.
I wish he and Nick Pollota would get together and do a full comic adaptation of “Illegal Aliens” The few illustrations in the book by Phoglio are great! I’d love to see what Phil would draw for the massive space battle around the shady underworld asteroid base.
Yes we will blame the author….wait what are we blaming him for again….? I was distracted by the sexy trope…..,
The mini-Kaijus cage fight is actually the first episode. The second is the three robots.
Rubber forehead aliens are everywhere because they are cheap and more engaging because they look human. The Orville has some that are different but CGI is expensive so it’s rare.
There is at least 3 different orders for the shorts to be shown in. Though I also got “Sonnies’s Edge” as my first, so the Dave may have got them mixed up as well
Yep. All mixed up, which is kinda neat, kinda spoileriffic.
I did love Sonny’s Edge, though. As a transhumanist, anything showing that sort of body-mind-plasticity is keen in my book.
Yeah aliens in movies are underwhelmingly alien most of the time.
I mean sure it’s cheaper to get actors and just put some paper mache on them, but even in books they are usually “humans but X”.
Honestly this is the problem with most fantasy races, they are usually humans with small variations.
Also it’s annoying that they usually are “humans but better”, elves are humans but live forever, dwarves are humans but short, strong and amazing blacksmiths, etc.
Also 75% of them can see int he dark for some reason?
I mean I guess goblins are kind of humans but worse, but they are usually considered more like a wild animal then an actual sentient race.
It’s really rare to see stories or movies where aliens are actually impressed with what humans can do instead of the other way around. Ok unless it’s “humans have the power of teamwork and love” cause that’s just stupid.
Actually I read an article that humans are amazing at throwing things, imagine if aliens visit and someone throws a rock at one and all the aliens panic cause they can’t believe someone can just do that.
Or what if aliens didn’t have a sense of smell?
They would be super creeped out how humans can just sense a few random molecules in the air and detect them no matter how well they hide.
On the other hand…if Earthicans went to a planet where
evolution never thought of olfactory organs…
What would their skunk be like?
I imagine a creature that mixes dots with stripes in its
normal state, but goes plaid when threatened.
“Earth person! Don’t look at the animal! It is making its colors clash!”
https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/, Humanity Fu** Yeah, basically explores this trope
I was expecting a variation on “Humans are Space Orcs”, but this subreddit (at first glance anyhow) appears to be much more in depth. Yet another potential* source of good reading to add to the pile.
* It’s reddit, so could go either way. Fast and far.
Or maybe color vision is rare? I remember an SF story where aliens couldn’t believe how the enemy would always look straight through their best efforts at camouflaging their bases. The solution? The alins were color blind. What to them looked like perfectly similar gray tints looked like clashing colors to their enemies. And yet color vision is something we take completely for granted. I wouldn’t be surprised if the difference between us and an alien species was something we never even thought of because it’s so perfectly mundane to us.
As the wise philosopher Grxnorgle of Zeti Alpha once said:
(all his works are printed in his signature color, fluvle. It is a shame you humans can’t see it.)
I remember an old scifi comic form long ago where the captured earthman was colorblind and wired the ship wrong when he repaired it and it blew up or something
I read that!
The alien for some reason couldn’t or wouldn’t fix the ship
himself but had no problem telling the captured Earth Human
how to do it using the alien tools.
“Now red to red, green to green and blue to blue and we’re done.”
“But… I can’t…”
“Shut up and plug in the cables!!”
The alien let him go, lifted off, and the spacecraft exploded.
******
The guys who wrote ‘The Abyss’ must have read that comic too!
Fast forward to the atomic bomb defusing scene.
I can the recommend John Carter, Man on Mars (at least the original comics, never seen the movie…) where the Human goes to Mars and trumps most of the Martian races because his physique is greatly enhanced by the Martian gravity…. :-)
Forget the comics, read the books (by the same guy who wrote Tarzan)
I watched the movie and yeah, but it’s really an exception to the rule
I’ve read a lot of those books and I enjoyed them. One thing that got me was at the Martians wood live so long then right before it was time for them to die their bodies would the degrade at super high speed
But don’t forget that tale reverses the setting as well. It’s not aliens coming to Earth and generally overwhelming Earthlings physically. It’s an Earthling being transported to another world so that, in the setting, *he* is the alien.
And that’s not so unusual, at least in the “isekai” genre in a lot of Japanese manga and anime. An earthling is transported to another world, where he is generally way more powerful than the natives. It’s part of the trope. However, in recent cases, the setting is usually heavily inspired by video games and RPGs.
The reason why John Carter is stronger than the native Martians is because of the difference in Gravity
Yep. Though we now know that would last all of a month at best before his muscles atrophied significantly, so still science fiction on that front.
Nah, all he would need do, at the first sign of weakness or slowing down, is start working out, the same as what normal people do on Dirt
One of the series I really like, Theirs Not To Reason Why, is a five-book series about futuristic military science fiction. The main character comes from a high gravity homeworld, where humans have adapted over successive generations (and with the help of artificial gravimetrics). To cope with the difference between her homeworld and Earth, she’s made to wear a “weight suit” that pretty much doubles her bodyweight, particularly whenever she’s doing her morning exercises. Later in the series when she gets outo f basic training and into space, the artificial gravity in the gym often has to be increased locally, just so that she can continue to retain those stronger muscles & faster reflexes.
In many ways, it’s considered an advantage that the military wants to take advantage of, but the price for living on such a high gravity world is that all the floors, sidewalks, streets, corners of furniture have to be padded, because literally just falling down can crack open a head and kill a human. “Gravity sickness” can strike anyone at any age, and if you get it, you have to be relocated offworld or your body will deteriorate rapicly from too much strain. And when you do go offworld into regular gravity environments, you have to relearn how to walk and move and turn, because the strength used to do all those movements on your high gravity homeworld mean you’re going to over-reach, over-step, over-push, over-turn…over-react in many ways, because your body is used to fighting gravity, only suddenly it’s not fighting it. Running isn’t a thing the natives do (or even jogging for most of them, just yet), because a trip could literally kill a person, but everyone is also taught how to fall and roll so that the least number of bones could get broken…but those bones are just plain denser in compensation. (Exercise will actually increase your bone density in most cases, unless you have a deficiency ailment causing osteoporosis and the like.)
At one point, the character even gets approached by someone wanting a sharpshooter from a high gravity world to participate in the interplanetary Winter Olympics for the Biathlon (target shooting & skiing) and she has to tell the guy bluntly that nobody on her homeworld ever wants anything to do with snow, ice, skating, skiing, etc, because it’s just too dangerous.
So it’s not all fun & games, even if it’s an advantage in many other ways. It takes effort to work out hard enough to retain muscles & reflexes.
Remember San Martin in the Honorverse.
From the wiki:
San Martin was a very dense world, with a gravity 2.7 times that of Earth. The planet was one of the heaviest-gravity worlds that man had ever settled. Its sea-level air pressure was high enough to produce near-toxic concentrations of carbon dioxide and nitrogen. This fact limited the population to mountain ranges, plateaus, and other high altitude locations.
Note: this planet’s population was originally ENGINEERED for high Gravity worlds to boot.
Your fantasy races are mostly humans but better. But they are also nearly every time dying races because there are so many humans.
Yeah, we Cybertronians prefer to just hide in plain sight as everyday items- cars, aircraft, etc…
Preferable this way. The others have amazing advantages of sophistication and skill and knowledge. But humans have theft and breeding like rabbits… which I guess they also stole from the rabbits, on lockdown. Then we also breed with those dwarves and elves and whatnot, stealing THEIR good genetics, and appropriating their talents and culture…
… Eh, humans are just really good kleptos.
So what, something like a mixed species ship where all the other types of aliens have fun gloating over the meatsack Humans…
Until they start playing Baseball or something like that, with the rest of the crew staring in fear at the “puny Humans” launching this round item at a speed and distance never even believed possible…
I’d watch that.
Or maybe some aliens surround a lone human and think he’s defenseless cause he has no weapons, but then he just pick up a rock off the ground and brains their leader from 10m away.
And then later aliens telling each other scary stories about how a single unarmed human took down an armed squad with just coconuts
Footfall by Larry Niven.
“…aliens have fun gloating over the meatsack Humans…”
Well, they did that in the movie Mars Attacks. The Martains spent a lot of time laughing at us humans, pretty much for the same reasons I laugh at humans. Those aliens were humanoid, certainly, but decidedly not human.
“It’s really rare to see stories or movies where aliens are actually impressed with what humans can do instead of the other way around.”
That is pretty much the kind of stuff you get when you start looking for stories under the tag Humanity, Fuck Yeah (or HFY for short). Instead of written from the perspective of ‘space is scary’ it is ‘what if humans are the scary ones’.
This post outlines it pretty well I think: https://i.imgur.com/Rx4dAoR.jpg
And this one applies the concept to Star Trek: https://i.imgur.com/xYBAbXW.jpg
In the never finished fanfic “Twilight Makes First Contact”
the Equestrian explorers are amazed by the humans’
automobiles, helicopters, radios and iPads.
(To be fair, iPads ARE amazing.)
Oops. Sorry. We’re not talking about technology, are we?
In one story the Equestrians thought fingers were creepy.
One of the best stories I’ve found in that vein is probably The Deathworlders.
Basically it turns out all the rest of the life in the known galaxy grows up on smaller world with far more fragile ecosystems – that experience no real conflict or danger. They behave accordingly. The entire idea of a Tsunami, for example, was nearly unbelievable to them. (The particular conversation I’m thinking of they were wondering why humans would react more strongly to one death compared to the destruction of an entire city. Answer: Because we just kinda have to get used to forces of nature that regularly kill us that we can’t fight. But something that kills one person? That evolution says is a threat we can fight.)
The Deathworlders…
I had such a wanting to be enamoured by that story – but ̶B̶e̶l̶l̶a̶ ̶S̶w̶a̶n̶ Adam Ares’ treatment killed it well and well.
Not to mention blatant inconsistencies; meandering characterization; diabolus ex-machina pulled out for anyone who ever crossed the Dearests; and so on, and so forth… As well as it being less and less Humanity Fuck Yeah, and more and more MURIKA!!!ONEONEeleven – but that, at least, understandable.
Though, I must admit, I find rather funny the general tone of it. I mean, last time I saw something that gay-NO-HOMO – it was back in the ’80s, and it was called He-Man…
“-NO-HOMO –”
Do you realize, how unconvincing that is?
Do YOU realize that I was describing the book’s author attitude, hence the hyphens?
Do YOU think “Deathworlders” author realizes how unconvincing his the tone of his text is?
Do I need to condescend further?
You may want to try The Damned Trilogy, by one Alan Dean Foster.
Basically the same, but on much, much more professional level.
More tastefully executed as well.
Check out http://www.reddit.com/r/HFY It’s entire premise is people writing stories where Humans, in some way, are superior.
Humans are superior, I was told this by my cat, in every step she took away from the bin in which she sat, you’re perfect slaves to do our bidding, and open up our food, but i’ll be kind and reward your work with a scratch, or lick, if you are good.
There was one Star Trek TNG episode where the aliens we’re human but with one finger (and a thumb) per hand. Also in Star Trek humans can handle cold better than almost all species.
In all honesty,
Aliens will look quite different from humans, but at the same time they will also look remarkably the same.
Evolutionary pressure will result in similar (or even identical) solutions for a problem.
The less limbs you have the more energy can be spent per limb, making it possible to make each individual limb to become stronger relatively speaking. Less than four limbs on the other hand causes stability issues so three or two limbs are unlikely to remain in the gene pool (certain types of dinosaurs were on their way to three actually, two legs and a balancing tail).
Bipedalism frees up two limbs for tools, a requirement for developing technology. It also puts your point of view above the grass, making it less likely to be suprised by a hungry predator.
Putting your head high up also means putting your brain nearby (nerves really are not /that/ quick to pass signals so shorter nerves between eyes and brain significantly improve survival chances). Forward facing eyes improve depth perception, again nearly a requirement for working on small objects, again a requirement for developing technology.
So we already have genders, bipedal frame, hands with dexterous appendages, a big head and decent forward facing eyes as a likely starting point before we even begin adding intelligence to the evolution. Not to mention that much of the chemistry is likely going to be the same, meaning that much of the enzymes will also be. And that means at least similarities to the generic structures, aka RNA and DNA. Oh, and our hypothetical alien is likely (though not required) to be an omnivore like us, not a herbivore or carnivore, never mind a plant. Those categories of animals (or life) are much less likely to develop the social structures that require intelligence and advanced language.
So while it is possible that other intelligent life is radically different from us, it is more likely that it can pass for humanoid on a dark night. There are so many evolutionary pressures that shapes us the way we are that equally apply to alien lifeforms and that by the laws of evolution must result in similar biological solutions
In all honesty, you’re making so many assumptions it’s laughable.
First of all, you’re assuming that life on these other planets got started with the same abundance and proportion of chemicals under the same conditions as it did here on Earth. Why does that matter? Onward…
You’re assuming there is only one way for life to come about. Perhaps that is so, but research into abiogenesis is telling us otherwise. As far as can be determined, there’s far more than one chemical basis from which life can start. So even before it starts there’s a shit ton of chemical evolution to go before the first thing that could conceivably be called “life” emerges from where ever it did on whatever planet it did.
So you’re also assuming the exact same evolutionary pressures in the exact same proportions for this early life, which…
…you’re assuming will lead to sexes, which…
…you’re assuming will lead to a recognizable two-sex system, which…
…you’re assuming will come to be the dominate reproduction method for all subsequent “higher life”, which…
…you’re assuming all evolutionary conditions and mutations will result in a bilateral tetrapoidal endoskeleton with a spinal chord and an enlarged equivalent of a cerebral cortex, which…
Are you starting to get the picture? Because there’s still a shit-ton I could go on about, but suffice it to say that you’re basing everything you said on a most improbable eons-long series of coincidences wherein even our evolutionary mistakes are being replicated. You’re reverse-engineering from a given body plan, believing that all roads lead to Rome. It’s the rookie life sciences mistake that evolution leads towards a given goal. No. It is all improvisation based on what has come before. Every. Step. Of. The. Way.
Look up the Lost Fleet books, there’s quite a few now. In particular, the Beyond the Frontier series. There’s three alien species, the Engima (whose appearance is still unknown), Bearcows (who have the appearance is similar to a bear, but with a cow-like snout) and the Dancers (aka Spiderwolves, wholook like wolf headed spiders).
https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/
Lots of stories, some serials, most of them sci-fi but plenty of fantasy too, where humans are somehow better than the aliens.
…usually at kicking butt.
Sometimes we are better at being Smol
At least in fantasy terms, the advantage humans have is that they’re not particularly good at anything, but they’re also not particularly bad at anything either, and their versatility and tolerance means they can do anything well enough to get along and survive in situations others can’t.
In other words, we’re Dabbler???
Pretty much, yes.
I always thought that was just lazy writing.
“Well you have no powers, but I guess you don’t suck at anything either”
One thing I disliked about Star Trek the older I got. Damn human aliens, all over the frickin’ galaxy, a trope that lives on in so much visual sci-fi media.
Reading a series right now that is several groups of novellas that run under the banner ‘Parker Interstellar Travels’ starting with the ‘Trilisk Ruins’. None of the aliens in this series are humanoid in but the vaguest of senses (like having limbs and eyes), and it’s so refreshing to see beings that are and think in ways alien to ours. The main alien essentially ‘sees’ with gravity, and is amazed humans can function as well as they do without that sense that is intrinsic to it’s technology and existence. Pity it’s difficult to convey in visual media, but they’ve been getting better at it (Arrival and Annihilation.)
To be fair, the Star Trek universe has a pretty solid “Panspermia” background to it. All the aliens are actually related in one way or another, because some sort of precursor race or event caused hominid genetics to be scattered to all the habitable planets. Hence how there can be interbreeding.
That’s just an excuse for not having to come up with interesting aliens though.
That’s actually just a problem with production capabilities, since they didn’t even have decent rubber mask prosthetics during the original series back in the late 1960s. They use handwavium-based panspermia biogenesis to cover up for the fact that they literally couldn’t do what CGI does today.
Even in “Trials and Tribble-ations” (beautiful DS9 episode, very well done!), the crew didn’t recognize the Kirk-era Klingons, so they turn to Worf who explains it by NOT explaining it in a very quelling tone, “We don’t like to talk about it.”
Well I kept wondering when in the heck we would finally see the planet of “BoldlyGo” ;)
That was one of the things which really disappointed fans of TOS, which at least tried occasionally despite their comparatively shoestring budget.
They expected much much more.
There was a short story (which I cannot remember the title of) where an alien race came to Earth looking for help to combat an enemy simply known as the Machines, as it turned out that Humanity had been the ONLY species to beat them. I think the story basically explained that the war against the Machines was the reason the Dark Ages happened on Earth.
Are you talking about Alan Dean Foster’s “With Friends Like These…”? ’cause that’s an amazing story.
Probably not – Foster’s story uses altogether another set-up and development direction, to my recollection.
This seems more like something out of Saberhagen than Foster.
It might be Saberhagen’s Berserker series. But it’s been years since I last read this.
The poor Yops…
Wasn’t that because the aliens used weapons that basically targeted high-technology (EMP and such) which turned out to totally useless against someone wearing a steel ring shirt and holding a crossbow?
Hmmm…
The High Crusade by Poul Anderson?
Hamns also are more adaptable and reproduse like bunnies compaired to elfs and other lover lived races. also many of thouse races have much longer adolescence i human goes from being born to ready to join the armoy is 16-18 years. elfs are more like 100…
For what it’s worth on the fantasy end, I’ve always taken it as realistic—humans, elves, dwarves, goblins, etc. are all just from the same evolutionary branch. I mean, in the real world there are dozens of species of ape and monkey, and nobody says “Nature is silly because Bonobos are just Orangutans with X”. Evolution works that way—virtually every species on Earth has a dozen different similar variants that in SF terms could be the same species with some makeup or prosthetics.
Heck, in the past you had humans coexisting with neanderthals and other hominid species who were for all intents and purposes “humans with X”. Neanderthals were more or less just tall dwarves.
The fact that at least in some fantasy worlds (AD&D for example) the various demi-human species can interbreed is further evidence that they’re closely related species of hominid. Sure, there may be a magical explanation as well (the gods got lazy and just copied the same shape in different variations to see whose version of a bipedal thingy was better), but even without it’s perfectly realistic.
If memory serves, Star Trek (classic) actually made an effort to explain this in one episode where they found some super-powerful ancient race who had seeded the galaxy with the same species that had evolved slightly differently on various planets. I don’t remember later Trek ever referencing that, but it’s as plausible an explanation as anything else in the series.
Now, why all fantasy races other than goblins seem to be *better* than humans, that’s just annoying, and almost entirely Tolken’s fault (damn Mary Sue elves). At least classic D&D capped out the advancement tree of all the demi-humans at really low levels, so the advantage of a human was they could become vastly more powerful at higher levels—a max-level 36th level human mage was basically a god, while a maxed-out 12th level Elf was nothing impressive.
You had to have one hell of a campaign for that to ever come into play, though…
That ws a TNG episode where someone discovered a coded message in DNA and went all over the Alpha Quadrant looking for the rest of the message, thinking it would give them some kind of superweapon, only for it to turn out to be a home movie from the septillionth great-grandparents congratulating us for growing up and figuring out their message.
“Classic” Trek? That would be the original series from the 1960s, wouldn’t it? The episode you’re thinking of came from ST:TNG.
Bonobos are chimps, not orangutans. But your points still stand.
I have read a TON of stories that were “humans are the best technological innovators” and/or “humans are the best at waging war” and/or “humans are the best coalition builders” plot lines that had humans using those advantages to take it to the alien baddies and dominate space. So I don’t think this “they’re usually humans but better” line holds up.
“but even in books they are usually “humans but X”.”
You’re reading the wrong books. For a start, I suggest “The Mote in God’s Eye” by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. The Ringworld series by Larry Niven is also pretty good and also avoids the trope (with the very understandable exception of human-descended aliens).
Or another recommendation: the Earthclan books by David Brin. In those bipedal quadriforms (2 arms, 2 legs) are pretty common because the configuration just makes sense for tool users in those books, but far from overwhelmingly so.
Or anything from Orion’s Arm (in that setting if it looks vaguely human then it’s actually a post-human rather than an alien).
Or….any hard scifi that features aliens really.
I have a couple of those. I find it hilarious that the rest of the Galaxy, while not really AFRAID of us, don’t know what to do with us because unlike EVERYBODY else. Humanity didn’t have a “Patron” race to shepherd them to Sentience, and by the time the rest of the galaxy found out about Humanity, we had create Neo-chimps and Neo-dolphins. So by their rules we’re higher ranked than some species with MILLIONS of years of history.
Yeah, I like Earthclan. I just wish he’d written more than 6 of them.
Yeah most aliens for whatever reason are either humanoid or they resemble creatures from Earth don’t ask me why but even my favorites such as the aliens and the damned trilogy a call to Arms the false mirror and The Spoils of War and the Ryan books around Among the Stars all have this whole if you look closely you can see a resemblance between the aliens and some other species on the planet. With the Ryan a lot of the aliens that you attracted with were either lizard people spider people or cat people with the Damned trilogy they weren’t super descriptive but at least one species was bird-like and one species seem to be humanoid canines
DaveB, I think you mean ‘Sonnie’s Edge’ (and I think that is the first of the series, the second was ‘three robots’…) If you liked that, read ‘A Second Chance at Eden’ by Peter F Hamilton; ‘Sonnie’s Edge’ is the first story in that bundle; it all leads up to his ‘Nights Dawn trilogy. About 1000 pages per book… One of the better Space Operas out there, even though the end is a bit Deus Ex…
Guys, Netflix showed the episodes in different orders for different people.
Stop saying “first episode” or stuff like that, it makes no sense, we all saw them in different orders :)
Netflix does books now? While that would be cool, I suspect this reply is attached to the wrong post, because this one is about the order of a series of books.
Nope. The “Love, Death & Robot” shorts are all based on existing short stories as far as I know. I just triggered on “Sonnie’s Edge” (the first in the series, at least for me) because I immediately recognized it; I read just about anything from Peter F. H… Ended up reading it again the same evening.
Looks like this invasion went down well!
Now what’s next for Sydney!?!?!?
I see.
The time has come to activate The Boyle Option, and call in the Mobile Task Force Lambda-69 (“Orion Bellydancers”).
SCP?
Ah, a fellow degenerate, I see!
Well met, well met.
But, to answer you – only partially.
And the first of four references, I fear, is too obscure.
Though I even made an error in it – subconsciously, I say! – probably hoping against hope that someone would correct Boyle to Boyd.
Oh, well – Sex and the High Command is obscure even for me, so…
Orion Belly Dancers?!? May I recommend Too Much Information by AndyOh http://www.tmi-comic.com/comic/pressing-space/#
I could spend paragraphs explaining the relationship of Orions to Terrans, but I will not.
Looks like there’ll be some very close encounters of the third kind in the future if they dont break this up… XD
Close encounters of a 69th kind, now in theaters.
The redheaded reporter can look forward to a “probing” interview.
See her extensive reportage on this subject on channel 34.
Yep. The problem is that Rubber Forehead Aliens will (at least for the next few years, if not longer) always be cheaper than CGI, puppets, or practical effects.
Also, unless you’re willing to spend a lot of money on it (which usually means using motion capture), CGI is usually blatantly obvious, either because it stands out too much compared to the live actors, or because it crosses into Uncanny Valley. Puppets have the same issue; Farscape’s were extremely well done (not surprising, since the Jim Henson Company was involved), but still obviously puppets.
I fear that hollywood would only use super cheap cgi to replace the rubber makeup, without even trying to imagine truly nonhuman alien foreheads, cultures, etc.
Really. It costs nothing to portray some really alien cultural norms, but instead all aliens have extremely human cultures that are exaggerated in just one aspect – like rigidly stupid concepts of honor, or stupidly rigid myth-based religion, or religiously rigid stupid laws, etc.
Traditionally sci-fi was a way to poke at human norms and cultures that’s why aliens are depicted like that; it was intentional.
For modern sci-fi it’s probably more due to laziness and just doing what’s always been done.
Like all you ‘ugly bags of mostly water’ that Trek had when they ran into a crystaline/computerish like life form.
Would we even recognize or admit we had found ‘intelligent’ life when we run across it?
There was a bit of humor from internet times about “They are made of meat?” – very funny
http://www.terrybisson.com/page6/page6.html
Or they can get even lazier like Star Gate and Battle Star Gallactica (remake) did and make any major reoccurring alien races look exactly like humans. With the most alien things being like once every seven episodes if that.
Didn’t Stargate have the explanation for the Human Aliens as being that they were all descended from abducted humans?
Yep, they had a few rubber head aliens but most of the population on worlds with Star Gates were human (or branches of human).
Yes, it was convenient…until the writers found themselves in a hole where they realized the number of advanced human cultures out there was too many for supposedly spread out by the Goa’uld.
So then we got the Ancients/Alterans who were also humans, who had also seeded much of the galaxy and nearby galaxies with humans. So humans out numbered everything else, we got a handful of rubber forehead aliens and Star Gate Atlantis at least made some reoccurring villains. But the most alien life forms ended up as *critter of the week* type episodes; even those supposedly at war with the Goa’uld like the out of phase insectoids.
Yes, most of the other human cultures SG-1 found were groups of humans that had been kidnapped hundreds if not thousands of years before. And yet… somehow they all spoke perfect 20th century American English.
something that stood out like a sore thumb every time Daniel had to speak Egyptian or something…and you realize…there are no universal translators in this universe so…
Galaxy Quest. The Thermians merely used Appearance Holograms to look human. Saras and the bad aliens were all forehead aliens.
Ok, the guy is obviously distracted (Daniel the Human had to “Gibbs” me out of my own distraction :$ ), but I’m not sure how the Lady-Reporter is feeling. She hasn’t punched him yet, so he’s doing better than I tend to do…
All things considered there isn’t much need to imagine what the aliens look like naked other than if they’ve got any skin markings in this case.
I found Star Trek: Enterprise to be pretty good in that regard, especially when it came to the Xindi races. Sure, most of the aliens the crew interacted with were still just actors in makeup and prosthetics, but the level of detail and sophistication was really good. The puppetry involved in the Andorian’s antennae is a prime example.
Ok, a question that I’ve had for a while. If the skinsuit is tight enough to imprint the bellybutton, then why doesn’t it show nipples, camel toe, cut or uncut?
I know, I know artistic license, PG comic, etc. etc. But think of how these ” First Contacts” would go if they did.
I’d say alien biology, but then why would they have a bellybutton?
Maybe their undeployed genitalia resemble flatfish and wouldn’t actually raise an outie or reveal an innie.
Seriously, that succubi have innies may just be a 50-50 roll of the evolutionary dice.
It isn’t a skinsuit.
It’s a forcefield with a hologram.
No nipples or navals show because the writer of the program generating the hard light clothing didn’t write that in to be created.
Okay, seriously not liking the ‘new’ Sydney: neither her face in panel six nor her ‘attitude’
you do realize she’s actually acting the exact same she pretty much has the entire comic, right?
No, no she hasn’t
yeah, she kinda has, apart from being toughened up a bit thanks to training and field experience.
might want to archive binge.
Altus wasn´t that big and tall in his first appearances.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-702-meet-and-groom/
Artistic licences for comedy purposes? :D
Either that, or the reporter is on more fun-sized side of things.
Maybe he can bloat himself up to appear bigger?
But yeah, that is a big difference. In your linked page Sydney is just below shoulder level but here it appears she is closer to his belly button.
It could be explained away by saying that his race have the ability to enlarge themselves to a certain extent, perhaps as part of their mating ritual (which would be consistent with the current situation.) Pixel gaining the superhero boost to her size when she transforms into her hybrid form has shown that that sort of thing is possible in the Grrlpower ‘verse.
So, not only the tool of love gets bigger, but the whole body. Interesting theory.
“…his race have the ability to enlarge themselves to a certain extent, perhaps as part of their mating ritual…”
If so, then it might explain one reason (besides his high skill as a member of the ship’s crew) why Cora picked him…
According to leaks, there was supposed to be a tardigrade-like alien as part of the regular cast of STD. The idea was deemed too costly, and the tardigrade was retooled as continuity-defiling macguffin.
About the only show with (semi)regular decisively non-humanoid cast member I can remember off top of my head is Farscape, with Pilot being the being in question.
Rigel, too, as well as the DRDs.
Point.
Though, Rygel was more of sock-puppety kind of alien, and nearly always was just floating around – far less puppeteer involvement needed, leading to more cost-effective screen time; and DRDs are just toy cars with remote, basically – but point nonetheless.
And Moya, seeing that the Leviathans were an intelligent alien species that were living starships, and later Talyn.
Hah, and they’re being sued over that, because the Tardigrade was was similar enough to a previously existing trademark, that other ‘too coincidental to be coincidence’ similarities became obvious.
I imagine there’s going to be some very quiet settling out of court over that.
Well, if CBS’s lawyers were a tad more like real lawyers, and a bit less akin to STD writers, Anas Abdin wouldn’t stand a chance in court, and would be met with counter-lawsuit upon his claim inevitable dismissal – with prejudice, mind you. That’s a copyright law for you.
Fortunately for him, CBS representatives are actively trying to prove that his genetic defect (Y-chromosome, namely) caused irreversible damage to his brain – namely forcing him to try and claim copyright on existing animal (tardigrade), and/or colour blue.
Much more curious is their second line of defense, and if- IF, mind you – they were to push it to a point where they win the case… Ooh, boy…
See, they were trying to claim that his lawsuit is frivolous because all the similar enough elements between their product and Abdin’s to serve as a plagiarism lawsuit foundation can’t be treated as legitimate reason for such a lawsuit because thouse elements are common enough in the genre to be uncopyrightable.
If they would be allowed to push that line of defense to a logical conclusion, that case would serve as a precedent case to make ALL STAR-TREK FRANCHISE ILLEGITIMATE FOR COPYRIGHT PROTECTION OF ANY KIND. Unfortunately, there’s bound to be at least someone with two working neurons among the CBS’s murder of lawyers, and hope for such outcome is but none.
That’s a pretty standard defense against an infringement lawsuit. It’s called the Building Block Principle. You can’t copyright the basic design elements of your medium, like timing or chord progression in music, or lines, colors, and shapes in visual media. You can only copyright a holistic entity. The reason it wouldn’t affect Star Trek‘s copyrightability is that Star Trek and its setting, characters, and races are holistic entities that are more than just the sum of their basic parts.
Your’d think that “giant blue tardigrade-like alien life form in psychic pseudo-symbiosis with a blonde man, who is in interracial homosexual relationship with another member of the crew, which allows him travel instantaneously through the stars with his ship under the command of black woman, and there is a scientist who is a bit of a spaz” would count for something more than basic designs elements of the medium, would you?
Because they, apparently, don’t.
There’s, really, no difference between denying that Abdin’s game design elements form a holistic entity, and denying that Star Trek franchise as a whole is a holistic entity. By what CBS defendants were trying to say, you’d be able to lift a Federation, Klingons, and Romulans whole and use it in your derivative freely – IF you didn’t use the tribbles, for in this case it wouldn’t be considered a holistic entity, but rather a set of common design elements by their logic.
Unfortunately, there’s bound to be someone on their team who can use that line of defense properly – it’s rather basic one, as you mentioned.
Most probably, their blatant mistakes were caused by the absence of senior staff. Would the lawsuit progress further, such a situation would be remedied, unfortunately.
In your example, having a “barbarian” warrior culture, a “finesse” warrior culture, and a Human/Terran culture that’s somewhere in between them would fall under the Building Block principle, considering it’s a standard speculative fiction setup going back at least to Lord of the Rings. Calling them the Klingons, the Romulans, and the Federation would be infringement though.
That’s why in the case of Superman, they found it easier to trademark his chest logo ‘S’
Also why some have inadvertently run afoul of it too.
That’s another thing protecting CBS/Paramount. CBS/Paramount holds a trademark on the various elements of the Star Trek universe, not just a copyright.
To prove his case, Abdin has to show two things:
1. That the team from Star Trek: Discovery copied from him.
2. That what they copied amounted to copyright infringement.
The first item will be difficult enough. Tardigrades was announced in May 2014. (The game was never released.) Star Trek: Discovery was announced in November 2015. Most likely, Star Trek: Discovery was in the works years before that, well before anything was made public about Tardigrades.
But, even if it can be shown that CBS did copy from Tradigrades, Abdin has to prove that what was copied is protected by copyright. Simply put, ideas can not be copyright protected, only expressions of those ideas. You can’t sell copies of Harry Potter, but you can write your own story about a child wizard that goes to a magic school.
Characters can be copyright protected, but only if they are distinct and original.
In the case Litchfield v. Spielberg, a playwright sued Steven Spielberg, claiming that an alien character he had created bore a strong resemblance to E.T. He noted that both characters were stranded on earth, had powers of levitation and telepathy and other similarities. However, that case was dismissed with a summary judgment and that decision was upheld on appeal.
Given that tardigrades are real creatures, it seems unlikely that either CBS or Abdin would have copyright protection on large, blue, space-traveling tardigrades. If neither one is allowed to claim to own the copyright on a blue tardigrade, then infringement is literally impossible.
TL;DR: Abdin is going to have an uphill battle before his lawsuit even gets heard in a courtroom. I’m surprised a judge even allowed them to get as far as the discovery phase. There probably won’t be any “settling out of court” because the case will be dismissed before it even gets that far.
In this case, the humanoid crew makes sense. Their captain (of the humanoid body template) was shipping around for talent in job and bunk, and since she most likely is attracted to compatible body templates, she just ended out with a crew-harem that looks like this.
That brave red head is actually considering snu snu.
Funny thing is, at the size he’s shown, his equipment would have to be proportionately ridiculously small or it would physically damage her.
You can have a lot of fun without penetration.
A gorilla’s penis is like the size of a pencil.
and a slug’s penis can extend longer than the rest of its body.
genitals can be funny things.
Its not even impossible to imagine a species with mental control over how much their genitals inflate, contract, and move about *Dabbler has muscles human women don’t*, and Lando from Babylon 5 as the most creative thing about his very human looking species was that they had two penises that were actually like four foot long tentacles that were prehensile.
so we have both real world and sci-fi precedence to pull from for this.
Yeah, Human males have the largest genitals of all primates, in proportion to body size.
the barnacle has the largest penis compared to body size of any known earth creature
Lando is in Star Wars. Londo is in Babylon 5. ;-)
[Garbler]:
I refer you to what [Thomas] said, just above you.
If they’re sexually compatible with Cora’s body-type, then I think that they’ll manage just fine with most humans.
OK, reporters are human, and this is a befuddling situation, but their professional instincts should be kicking in right about now. Plus, I see no cameramen, so these aren’t just teleprompter-reading pretty faces. How about “Why have you been hiding up to now?” “What caused the change in the rules?” “What other changes should we be expecting next?” “Are there any new dangers we need to be particularly concerned about?”
We haven’t personally,
We don’t know and we don’t represent any alien presence on Earth.
There is a lot out there, but if you sign here and become a Xevoarchy protectorate….
Why do people forget that this is a webCOMIC? Comic as in comedy. So of course funny is going to take precedence. So instead of thinking about how people should be acting or what they should be doing, why not just enjoy what is being presented?
There are a lot of ‘comic’ stories that deal with serious issues. That doesn’t mean it has to be serious all the time, but it’s not out of line for people to ask questions. Being able to discuss the comic is part of the experience of reading a webcomic after all. Otherwise why have forums?
Isent there supposed to be a metal device on the guy for the holo-clothing?
It hasn’t been established that the guys are wearing holo-clothing. They may be wearing actual skin tight bodysuits.
Unlike Cora, they are wearing actual bodysuits. Remember, Altus was going shirtless just a few pages ago, and his pants (what we could see of them) were the same pale blue color.
Also, Frix specifically mentions that “skin-tight” doesn’t work too well with fur, which also reinforces the suggestion that the guys (except for Frix) are wearing skin-tight bodysuits.
Everyone should take a look at The Equations of Life: How Physics Shapes Evolution by Charles Cockell. It lays out a very convincing argument why, in many ways, aliens would look eerily familiar.
Thanks for that. I read that one (or something very similar) several years back as a loan, and could not remember any useful details to find it again when I wanted to more recently.
Sex with aliens would most likely kill us.
https://youtu.be/ia9sDmXqebc
Cinemax, also known as Skinemax, home of weekend late night soft core porn.
Or so I’ve heard *cough*
We now need ‘Beautiful Contact’ from Cat Planet Cuties to show up, as the aliens don’t look nearly alien enough to satisfy them.
She looks so uncomfortable. I don’t understand why anyone would think she is a willing participant in this situation other than the word of the comic artist. It’s more like she’s being intimidated and can’t just leave because she’s a reporter and this is her job. Like some horrible sexual harassment situations. Normally I keep quiet but this is just …. horrible and I don’t understand how others don’t see it. Her stance has her making herself smaller, she’s pushed herself into the wall away from him, she’s shielding herself as it were with her arms. Generally she just seems incredibly on guard and I want to say fearful but that isn’t quite right. She does NOT seem interested at all!!!
It doesn’t look like she’s leaning away to me, and she’s grooming.
She’s certainly not standing up straight. Compare the middle of the torso to the top of the head.
How she actually feels is of course a matter of interpretation :).
That said, ‘grooming’ is one way of looking at things – placing her hand subtly in between her and a stranger who has placed himself very close to her is another possible interpretation.
This might not be the right space to have this discussion, but I tend towards these kinds of situations being normalised by culture.
Looking back at old media like Greece shows certain attitudes that wouldn’t be acceptable today. Similarly there are still a lot of spaces where women showing standoffish-ness (sic) is seen as ‘playing hard to get’.
That said, different people behave in different ways and I’m sure there are some people for whom this kind of body language suggests something different – like ‘playing it cool’. In that regard it is a matter of interpretation.
I very much get where you are coming from though. Even if it does turn out that she’s fine with it, that’s not the kind of thing you should assume about someone you’ve just met.
I guess from the author’s point of view (given what he seems to be implying) perhaps she communicated to him off-panel at some point, so that there was no ambiguity to his intentions. I’m still really not comfortable with the way he approached her, and I’d reccomend other guys reading this not to follow that example.
I can give the author the benefit of the doubt though, by assuming that the person he has drawn only seems uncomfortable and actually feels fully in control of the situation. And will most likely discuss etiquette with regards to approaching strangers and personal space at some point if they continue their relations in the direction that is being suggested.
In the words of the great Jay – “… Or maybe an astronaut. Yeah… I’d be the first motherf***er to see a new galaxy, or find a new alien life form… and f*** it. And people’d be, like, “There he goes; homeboy f***ed the Martian once.”
[Edge]:
( … in a “Danny Vermin”-type voice … )
” … ONCE! … “
Considering these aliens actually are naked it doesnt take much imagination to figure out what they look like.
Actually, they’re not naked, except for Cora. As Frix pointed out, skintight outfits do not cooperate with fur. If they were wearing hardlight outfits like Cora is, then Frix wouldn’t have that problem. (Though he might have the problem of his fur poking through the “bodysuit”, spoiling the illusion.)
Ergo, the men really are wearing skintight bodysuits. Cora is the only one who is literally naked except for her hardlight generator.
Except that it is HARD light not an insubstantial hologram as we know them… The suit is an actual physical object and thus would prevent objects from passing through its boundaries and the fur would not be able to penetrate.
If a racist had heard Sydney, the would somehow manage to think it was not a joke.
Because the clothing is pretty racy.
Budump tshhh.
Nope. Because they are somewhere between idiots and geniuses at willfull misinterpretation.
Not unlike people actively rejecting a conversational out after they’ve just steered the conversation onto an unwanted, controversial tangent.
The Orville does a decent job of having at least *some* some non-humanoid aliens. The main cast are all humanoid, but some of the larger crew have a range of non-standard aliens. From slime blobs to giant 8 legged, furry, insectoid guys.
I am calling it now. Altus has a retractable penis and internal testicles. Let make sure the Rule 34 images are done correctly you pervy fan artists.
I for one welcome our sexy alien overlords.
Surprisingly, late night “Skinemax” no longer seems to exist.
Apparently in Heath’s eyes, Cora has a lot more hair. Side effect of the hypnoboobs maybe?
Is the Veil malfunctioning? Aliens are covered by it, so shouldn’t Cora and Altus be looking human to the reporters?
They just arrived on earth. Maybe it takes a while to kick in.
2 possibilities.
1: Nature of their arrival prevented the veil from working. As in they weren’t hiding.
2: As “aliens” isn’t as simple as “vampires”, chances are not every single alien life form is covered by it, hence why many aliens would still need to use disguises they brought with them.
and a third option is thanks to the Alari’s public arrival, much like the press conference for supers, they were removed from the veil’s influence as it can’t compensate for public awareness of their existence. And aliens would be (visually) as diverse as supers so were probably barely covered to beging with; again a need for their own disguises.
The veil basically works like a “other persons problem” field: It does not work if you know it is your problem.
The Veil is designed to hide supernatural beings native to Earth. It has nothing to do with hiding non terrestrial aliens.
And, the specific races have to be individually entered into the Veil to hide them
Definitely not true: it concealed Sciona’s nature from Coot, and she was a non-native being.
He did that himself.
Cooter met Sciona when she was 95% troll. The veil was hiding the troll.
Yet aliens were one of the factions of the Twilight Council and I think it was specifically said the Veil covered them. Still, it was probably never meant to cover up aliens annoucing themselves openly.
And the earthling hentai comnunity explodes…
On another note
Yes! Loved those shorts, and i looked for an hour to see if i could find the source for the monster fight one.
The big problem when designing alien races is that the more alien they are, the more alien they think. A race that looks like us is fairly likely to be driven by similar biological urges. But when you get B’gfg’dkhgf’al of the Dh’akfj’aj6askf race, and it’s a nine foot tall, six foot wide silicon based purple eldritch horror, figuring out what it wants and needs is a lot more difficult, and a lot less relatable.
it apparently needs salt.
salt?
well, that’s the closest thing we have, anyway.
*passes salt, spills it, watches creature shrivel up*
oh wait, i meant pepper.
We’ve talked about the whole rubber forehead aliens, puppets, cgi, costs, and all that before in the comments on previous pages. But always nice to revisit the subject.
Even as a writer I find that if an alien, fantasy creature, demon, ect…is going to be a regular appearing character in a story or especially a series, to keep their description as easy to remember as possible, with the occasional reminder in descriptive actions in later chapters to what they look like. If I could draw I’d probably throw in more often the stranger looking creatures other than as “boss fights” and short story creepypasta type monsters.