I need inteligent aliens...any ideas?

First off, I would like to start by saying, "Go Steampunk SciFi!" Same genre I frequently either work in from the get-go (like my work for this year's NaNo will be) or I end up accepting little bits of Steampunk at a time and my story gets completely rewritten.

Anyways, as far as your aliens go, might I be so bold as to suggest the Dinosauroid?

It's always been one of my favorites when it comes to finding a basis for an alien race, and were any aliens to appear in my own story universe, they would probably be among them. Another great source of potential aliens are cryptids.

Wikipedia's List of Cryptids

In both cases, it's really more the process of getting your mind thinking, and even evolving earth creatures, that gets you some believable aliens. I wish you luck, and if you want some more nailed-down ideas, or I recall any, I'll pass them along.

Reptilians might be a good idea, but they are still slightly cliched. After all, weren't the aliens in V reptilians who wore human skins as disguises? If you wanted to go completely off the grid with your species, I would go for something bird-like. They would probably be carnivorous because higher amounts of meat in an animal's diet leads to greater brain development. At least, that how it works here on Earth. They could look similar to Earth birds-of-prey, like hawks or eagles, perhaps a little bigger depending what gravity is like on their planet. But they shouldn't be so big as to threaten adult humans. You could have some tension exist because of children/babies being taken in the past. That would be pretty interesting. Don't you think?

2008 Winner - Stray Kingdom
2009 - Stray Kingdom 2

You guys have really given me some great ideas and it will be useful in helping me to nail down what the final product will be. :)

2008: Visions of Snow (52,000 words)
2009: A mesh of Steampunk and Sci-Fi; it should be great fun :)

Yep, this is a problem indeed! However, chances are, if life evolved independently of life on Earth elsewhere in the universe, it will look very different to us - you are absolutely right. What is portrayed as aliens in most sci-fi stories will generally be somewhat human-like, for reasons of a) lack of inspiration/knowledge, and b) because we find familiar creatures easier to deal with. We like to think we can read something, be it via language or facial expressions or anything else.

However, I have two ideas for making them truly different from life on Earth. Hopefully these ideas will help you develop aliens that are unique and interesting.

1. Sensory systems of creatures in different environments are likely to be different. I'm sure you're aware that even on Earth, some creatures will have vastly different sensory systems. Some animals are all blind (especially underground creatures). Some can see light that humans cannot see (not sure of specific examples here). Some can see magnetic fields (pigeons, apparently). Some can use echolocation (bats). Some can hear more than we can hear (dogs), some can see better than we can see (eagles), some can smell better than we can (dogs again). Some see worse than we see in some respects but better in other respects (cats). There are sooo many variables, and it all depends on what was important to the creature during its evolution.
So ask yourself: what is the environment like on the alien planet? Is it similar to that of Earth's? If so, they might have the same sort of senses, or similar. If not, then maybe:

• They could see infrared light
• They could hear sounds of higher (or lower) frequencies than we can hear
• They could smell different types of chemicals
• They could be completely oblivious to some things that we are sensitive to, such as certain smells. Humans have also evolved to process human voice sounds differently than other sounds, so maybe the aliens could just hear human voices like strange background noise, and not like intelligent systematic speech.

There are lots of variables there, but it would all make a difference. For example, they may communicate in a way that uses sensory stimuli that humans cannot sense; this would affect the way humans perceive the aliens. We're more comfortable if we can at least sort of tell what they're doing. If they communicate without us knowing about it, it'll freak humans out, most likely. Or the aliens might be blind to certain types of light (such as certain colours), if those colours weren't on their home planets, which would affect their ability to survive on Earth.

Fiddling with the sensory systems of the aliens can have lots of impacts on how they behave, so it's pretty interesting. It also makes a lot of sense to do so. My aliens will have lots of different senses, I haven't figured them all out yet though. :)

2. The majority of life on Earth is tiny. Really, really tiny. Tiny life is usually very good at surviving, because environments are usually better at supporting tiny life. Maybe your aliens could either:
a) be tiny - as in really tiny - bacteria or virus tiny (although that would make interactions with humans problematic!), or
b) be 'superorganisms', made up of lots of tiny tiny organisms. Also called colonial organisms. [EDIT: Actually, "superorganisms" and "colonial" organisms are different things - I'm referring more to colonial organisms that appear to be a single animal but are made of lots of tiny ones.] Superorganisms are very interesting, and there's no reason why they can't be intelligent. There's lots of interesting literature about superorganisms. I'd start with Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superorganism
An example of a superorganism that moves and seems to behave as an individual is this jellyfish thing:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siphonophorae

Put simply, human intelligence is a result of the neurons in our brains, and the connections between them. So there's no reason why a superorganism can't be made of millions of tiny organisms with many of them acting as neurons, and others acting as the connections between the neurons.

OK, I think you are my new best friend. That was really helpful and you've actually given me an idea: I think I'm going to have the virus that starts killing humans be sentient. So, I've got that idea, now I just need to solidify what my main sentient creatures are (they need to be a little bigger than germ size as I think they are going to be the ones to help save the humans from the intelligent disease. lol)

I have four days left though, so that should be enough time to figure it out...right?

:)

2008: Visions of Snow (52,000 words)
2009: A mesh of Steampunk and Sci-Fi; it should be great fun :)

Great! Glad I could help :)

I'd just note that if you have viruses that are sentient, there may be limitations to how much they can actually perceive. In order for complex perception to work, they'll probably require a reasonable sized brain, or a fair few nerves in their body, or lots of connections between whatever their units of intelligence they have. A virus might be a bit too small. So maybe the virus, by itself, just as a virus, is not intelligent - but when they group together to form large colonies, they become intelligent?

Just another idea. Good luck developing it! 4 days is plenty of time... ;D

As far as alien species, ever think of intelligent animals? or even fauna. Like Tree people.

I also remember an alien race in the Robotech: Sentinels that was made up of crystal, and could absorb itself into mineral streams in rocks to travel distances. It's a neat idea.

how about, ( though this is probably horribly cliched) have said virus alien convert the infected, nothing major, but just changing a feature, perhaps they did this before on a native species, and humans thought that this was the sentient species.

I have to say that an intelligent virus is a neat idea. Though I would have to agree with the theory above that they only become intelligent when in large groups. After all, a single virus is just a string of protein that invades a living cell and causes that cell to replicate it. It has no brain, no nerves, no way of forming intent. The only way a virus colony could become intelligent is if the individual viruses became differentiated, like the cells in our bodies. In multi-cellular organisms like us, each cell is specialized to do a certain job. That process has progressed so far in plants and animals that a single cell from your body cannot survive on its own. It needs all the other types of cells to help it survive. A virus colony that developed along the same lines would then find it hard to split up again to invade a new host. Unless... Unless that's how it reproduces. The colony sends out individual viruses to invade new hosts and start new colonies, similar to the way ants found new colonies. You may be able to use of all this in your story.

2008 Winner - Stray Kingdom
2009 - Stray Kingdom 2

Hmm, yeah I may have to rethink the virus intelligence.

As for my intelligent race I am thinking something to do with the forrests and jungles; not sure if it will be plant or animal based, but I still have time to work it out.

And if I can't think of something that will satisfy my creativity by Sunday I am probably just going to make a creature up based on an earth animal and worry about creating an unknown creature to add in later when I do the rewrite :)

2008: Visions of Snow (52,000 words)
2009: A mesh of Steampunk and Sci-Fi; it should be great fun :)

When I was coming up with my aliens (and especially how to describe them) I ended up basically waiting for them. I sort of just meditated and focused in until they came to me. The rest was easy. It may be helpful to start with a color, then bipedal, or poly-pedal? Aliens are our inventions!

I have to say, as an illustrator, coming up with creatures can be a complicated process, however, there is a logic. Assuming that the evolution theory is true, there is a purpose for everything. That's important to remember. Why do we have finger nails, as a protection mechanism, maybe a weapon, maybe a way to vent dead cells. Why do we have hair (well we're evolving out of it) to keep us warm during the cold, to vent dead cells again, to be able to style into a fashionable statement (lol). So, when designing a creature, don't just say "I want to have this and this and this," rather, think of it logically. Why would aliens have big heads and large eyes (big heads to host a larger brain, large eyes for extra perception, maybe they evolved in the dark and so their pupils have to be large to catch even the smallest amount of light).

As per basis for your creativity:
I thought it would always be cool to design a race that wasn't slave to a circulatory system. Seriously, think about all the creatures on the earth and how many have a cardiovascular system... think what type of species could evolve without one... or with a different system entirely. What about a creature without a muscular system... it gets interesting.

I can understand no circulatory system. The cells could absorb particles from the surrounding enviroment and pass them from one to another by osmosis rather than having a system of conduit veins. But if they have no muscles, then how do they move? Or do they move at all? Maybe they're plant-like and just stay right where they're planted for their whole lives. I can see how that would bring them into conflict with humans who tend to claim huge tracts of land and become very territorial.

2008 Winner - Stray Kingdom
2009 - Stray Kingdom 2

sentient virus has been done, and very well i might add, by orson scott card in his Ender series. called the Descolada, if you want to look it up.

in fact your whole idea is very similar to the Ender series, with a planet where the humans only live in a tiny compound as protection of the native species.

i have an affinity for aliens that communicate by touch either chemically or by direct nerve connections. and aliens that can join up to increase thinking ability.

i came up with a race a few years ago that were basically sea-borne sacs that couldn't really do much except think, and bob around. they had jellyfish like tentacles that they could communicate with by direct nerve connections and when connected shared all their thoughts.
it wouldn't be difficult to have a something similar on land, perhaps a slug like race. or a sentient slime.

If a picture is worth 1000 words, would 50 pictures win NaNaWriMo?

Giant car robots. :|

No, really, I kid. But I have kind of the same problem; I have aliens in my story, and while I don't need to know what they look like straight off -- they're called Body Snatchers by the press for a reason, they kind of copy human forms and take human names, so I have a brown haired, brown-eyed, human-male-looking person named William Loveless who's actually an alien from another galaxy *snrks* -- I have a feeling their true forms (if they even HAVE any, anymore, and aren't just data entities by this point) and names will be exposed/revealed in time. And I have no clue what those should be yet. Better believe I'll be stalking this thread for some ideas!

With the sentient virus what if it took traits from the cell it used to reproduce. It could gain intelligence by reproducing in nerve cells. I could gain strength and form using bone and muscle cells. Then it can use its intelligence to realize other things have advantages over humans. It could gain flight using bird bones and feather producing cells. It could combine the humans wide range of light vision with something like an owls for night vision. It could get any advantage it wanted constantly evolving as a colony but the same simple virus when alone

Yeah, the whole intelligent virus is totally out the window, I don't know how to fit it in right now and I am not going to waste time agonizing over it when I can be writing about my main aliens. You do make some good points though Mosical, and I'll keep them in mind in case inspiration strikes and I find a way to use it. :)

And I think I've come up with something for my aliens, if only temporary for the purposes of finishing NaNo. They are small, covered with hair, big pupiled eyes, and very shy. :) They haven't been very active or present in the story yet, so that's sort of all I know. Hopefully they'll tell me more about themselves soon so I can give them some parts in the story.

I have read some of the Ender series, but I'm not sure I got as far as you're talking about AvatarIII. The Descolada doesn't sound familiar at all to me. I'll look it up though and see what it's all about. I hate it when I come up with this idea and I think it's so original and then I tell someone else and they go all oh that's been done before, it's in such-and-such and it's just like ok, well there's another story idea down the drain. lol

The body snatchers sounds interesting, poi_son_joy. I had thought about doing something similar for a while. Make it so that they could imitate any life around them as a defense mechanism, and that they were able to do the same with humans when they first landed. I decided to ditch that idea as to me it was the same as making their true forms look too human. It would be a good idea if they had landed on earth and were trying to blend in, but humans are on the alien planet, so I needed to think of something else. :)

2008: Visions of Snow (52,000 words)
2009: A mesh of Steampunk and Sci-Fi; it should be great fun :)

Sorry Annaya! I didn't mean to put you off the idea, just to give you a subject to research for more ideas! there's nothing wrong with repeating ideas so long as they are done differently. i mean, how many times have Vampires or Elves been done eh?

If a picture is worth 1000 words, would 50 pictures win NaNaWriMo?

Descolada appeared in "Speaker for the Dead", and really wasn't so much a sentient virus as a sentient species with a very odd life cycle.

And really. I have psychic alien squid in my novel. I don't really care whether or not that's been done before or how many times. I have another species that communicates by smell. Again, I know it's been done before, and I really don't care. When you get down to it, everything's been done before, but _your_ story hasn't.

I'm going with the notion that there are bacteria/viruses what have you that can manipulate brain chemicals to make people do certain things. Like, you know those microbes that hijack rats and mice brains to make them leap out in front of cats in a suicide run? Something like that. Only for humans.

NanoWrimo wins: 05, 06, 07, 08
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Reproduction with the animals of our world is done with one or two partners, what about three or more are needed to reproduce because of some environmental pressure?

http://www.involuntaryart.com/worldbuilding/index.php?title=Species_Prop...

I did a few essays about Species Propagation

BTW, reptiles and birds are the same. birds were once reptiles, so saying, "No reptiles because birds are cliché" is like saying no Homo Ergaster but, let's do Humans.

I think you're looking to break convention? Most sentient species tend to be in groups and are omnivores, not carnivores. (According to Discovery Channel.)

More meat doesn't mean it supports a larger brain it's not the protein that does it, what meat eating does to the brain is force the predator to learn how to stalk and hunt their prey. Because they can't just *find* the food, they need to *run after* the food.

You might be able to narrow the field by looking at the exact jungle environment these creatures live in. What do they need to survive? Are the "trees" really trees? how do they deal with the humidity? How large are these animals in relation to humans? How many food sources do they have? What environmental pressures made them develop their sentience? That's enough for you to have your scientists study, of course you could go old Dracula movie and only show shadows of the alien species, i.e. give a sense and hint how they live, tell about flashes of color, but not have direct interaction, where the characters of your novel, don't tell exactly what the creature looks like, making the reader fill it in.

I always wanted to do a novel about a color no one had seen before. So you can treat it as the same and play with your reader's mind. Even have people argue over it. Does the alien species have to be physically described? Or can you describe some behaviors, etc that leave the reader to construct the alien in their mind?

Novelists are a conscienceless lot.--Diana Gabaldon (An Echo in the Bone)