Typical races IN SPACE

[Dangerious P. Cats]

Myself and some fellows want to build a sci fi setting that encompasses most of the tropes and clichés of your typical space type sci fi (things like Star Trek, Mass Effect, Babylon 5, etc). We're trying to work out what your typical races (outside of humans) for a such a thing are and I was hoping that the wisdom of the forum's hive-mind might be able to shed light on such matters.

[Figleaf23]

Originally Posted by Dangerious P. Cats

Myself and some fellows want to build a sci fi setting that encompasses most of the tropes and clichés of your typical space type sci fi (things like Star Trek, Mass Effect, Babylon 5, etc). We're trying to work out what your typical races (outside of humans) for a such a thing are and I was hoping that the wisdom of the forum's hive-mind might be able to shed light on such matters.

I don't think there really are 'typical' races in science fiction. Some cultural tropes repeat themselves a bit -- wise and kind mentor cultures, aggressive and domineering warrior cultures, clownish cultures, weak and pathetic victim cultures, machine cultures, money-driven cultures, dystopian and utopian cultures.

[samd6]

At a minimum:
A Proud Warrior Race (Klingon, Wookie, Narn)
A Proud Scholar Race (Vulcan, ??, Minbari)
A Proud Merchant Race (Ferengi, Jawas, Centauri)
A truly alien race (background color) (The manatee-thing, every race in the cantina, Pak'mar'a)
A mostly alien race (Bajorans/Cardassians/ Jem Hadar, Mon Calamari, Drazi)
A really, really powerful race (Q, Witches, Lorien)
An outside threat (Borg, Sii-Ruik, Drakh)

And some kind of altered humans (Espers/cyborgs, Force adepts/cyborgs, Technomages/Espers/Touched by Vorlons)

[Turhan's Bey Company]

Some frequently encountered types of aliens races include:

• Superior life forms: aliens who are smart and may have powers or superior technology, but may be deficient in some way (for example, physically weak, vulnerable to disease, difficulty understanding lower life forms like us).
• Space barbarians: Badass, but rough around the edges and somewhat tribal. Think Klingons (particularly Next Generation and later) or Jaffa from Stargate.
• (Animal)-people: Bird-descended aliens with functional wings, dinosaur-like lizard men, cat-girls, etc. There are occasionally (substance) people, like rock-based aliens.
• Bug-eyed monsters: Large heads, pointy teeth, often have tentacle-like manipulators. Bad news.

A number of aliens are (profession) or (attitude) people. Take humans, change their color or put bumps on their heads, and make them all engineers or pirates or angry or merchants or something.

[Flyndaran]

TV shows are obviously heavily limited by budget and having to use humans in make-up.
Books and RPGs can have all sorts of off the wall aliens.
I always wanted an otherwise boring species that needs to wear a space suit because their biology/atmosphere would be explosive/toxic in human comfortable environments.
Star Trek had Benzites that constantly spewed benzene to breathe... with no mention of how horrendously carcinogenic that gas is.

I like the few members of a primitive not yet officially contacted species.

[Refplace]

One of the oddest aiens I recall was from a book I read as a kid. There was this kind of derelict starship/space station humans discovered and there were wheel aliens there.
I do not really recall anything about the book but those aliens stood out. They rolled rather then walked or floated.

[tratclif]

Originally Posted by Refplace

One of the oddest aiens I recall was from a book I read as a kid. There was this kind of derelict starship/space station humans discovered and there were wheel aliens there.
I do not really recall anything about the book but those aliens stood out. They rolled rather then walked or floated.

Other people have mentioned Piers Anthony, but I'm reminded of James White's Sector General stories, and the collection Major Operation which had a story about toroidal aliens that lacked a heart so they had to continually roll to keep their circulation going.

The Sector General books are great for weird aliens. And on-topic, they have one trope that I haven't seen mentioned, the "cannot lie" alien.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by tratclif

The Sector General books are great for weird aliens. And on-topic, they have one trope that I haven't seen mentioned, the "cannot lie" alien.

This thread quite nostalgic :)
I remember Sector general but pretty sure thats not the one I was talking about.
They were more like Perssek described.
They rolled around the space station like they had a wheel.
And Polarians are from Lensman totally different critter.

[Faolyn]

Originally Posted by Refplace

One of the oddest aiens I recall was from a book I read as a kid. There was this kind of derelict starship/space station humans discovered and there were wheel aliens there.
I do not really recall anything about the book but those aliens stood out. They rolled rather then walked or floated.

The Polarians? I've never read the books but they were illustrated in Barlowe's Guide to Extraterrestrials, which I really liked.

[lwcamp]

They might not be typical, but Dralasites are by far the coolest science fictional race yet produced.

Luke