[apoc527]

Fascinating alien design. Some questions to help you flesh them out more:

1. Why did they develop intelligence? What was the evolutionary need for it?

2. They seem to be remarkably peaceful and non-aggressive, though you indicate they might be carnivorous. It seems likely that a carnivore would develop some level of aggression and capacity for violence. These Chibi seem perhaps too peaceful.

3. In a setting with many starfaring cultures, how do they avoid being dominated by a species that is more warlike? (which has nothing to do with being "female" -- the Asari are plenty powerful in Mass Effect)

4. What *do* they eat? One of my favorite history teachers said, to echo Guns, Germs, and Steel, "everything starts with farming." If they don't need to farm, they may not develop societies, and thus spaceflight is unlikely.

Anyway, not that they aren't cool, I'm just curious how you'd answer these questions...

Another observation about sci-fi aliens in general--I think that you can apply certain principles of human history to alien cultures without needless anthropomorphism. You have to figure out what evolutionary pressures caused intelligence to arrive and then you have to organize that intelligence into a society capable of producing spaceflight (assuming you want the typical space opera with lots of starfaring humanoids). I think there are plenty of lessons that apply from our history that are perhaps independent of our biology. Yes, many things are linked to that biology, but the whole "everything starts with farming" concept doesn't seem like it would be.

Now I want to invent some species...fun exercise!