Aliens: what's their deal?

[person]

You know the menagerie of aliens that inhabit the galaxies? Like the Small Yellow Fat Humanoids, Blue Horned Lizards, and Harmless Bug-Eyed Birds? What's their deal anyway? The humans have colonized most of the galaxies; why haven't any of the other races done any colonizing? Why don't we see descriptives like "Green Lizard Colonials" or "Fierce Bony Lobster Colonials"? Are the only space-faring races in the universe Man and Thargoid?

Are all these aliens even separate species? Is there a biological difference between Blue Frogs and Large Green Frogs, or are they just different groups in the same species? If they are the same species, and the aliens are colonizing as much as humans are, why do the people of each alien-occupied planet get such colourful descriptions while human-occupied planets just get a bland "Human Colonials"? Why don't we see "Short Red-Haired Humans" or "Tall Fat Humans"?

The Elite manual seems to suggest that all the space stations orbiting every planet is controled by Man. This would suggest Man really is the only space-faring species in the eight galaxies (besides the Thargoids), while all the other races are primitive and fell under Human influence. But surely it's possible that at least some aliens gain access to this human technology. Is it not possible that it's Small Blue Slimey Frogs flying those pirate vessels around Eszaraxe?

Just thought I'd throw all that out there.

[Arexack_Heretic]

What you say is true.

However:
Think of the Moray, it's mainly used by aquatic spacefaring races.

I'm currently trying to model a fleet designed/built by an aquatic people, with shipnames/shapes based on marine life i.s.o. reptiles.


Let's people the Ooniverse with the species that were missing from the original!
Oopressed Races Oonite!

[Star Gazer]

Loads of space faring aliens - definitely!

One day, I'll finish my mission pack, and you'll find out...

[Rxke]

The Dark Wheel: http://www.iancgbell.clara.net/elite/dkwheel.htm sheds (some) light on this.

I guess the descripion 'human colonials' is just that because we know how humans look like.

And you have to look at the origins of the game, too, this was before gazillion-bloatware megabytes memories... they did a pseudo random hashing of words, like 'fierce,' 'edible,' 'green,' 'slimey,' etc etc... just to give a bit of variation. Just to make your imagination work a little bit. Just to make you forget you were looking at black and white wireframes...

it's all about creating an atmosphere, maaaaan! *cue sitar-music*

[Cmdr. Wombat]

One of the main protagonists in the Deposed mission series is a large blue lobster. There's also some spider-like creatures involved... Populating the Ooniverse with alien (non-human) characters is up to a) the imagination and b) oxp writers. Personally I assume that the pilots of the other ships I come across are likely not human. It would be arrogant indeed to think only humans (and Thargoids) have mastered space travel.

Oh yeah, what about the Weeviloids? Aliens, or some human group with a strange choice of name?

[JensAyton]

it's all about creating an atmosphere, maaaaan! *cue sitar-music* :lol:

No, no. In space, the One True Atmosphere Track is Magic Carpet Ride by Steppenwolf.

[tgape]

You know the menagerie of aliens that inhabit the galaxies? Like the Small Yellow Fat Humanoids, Blue Horned Lizards, and Harmless Bug-Eyed Birds? What's their deal anyway? The humans have colonized most of the galaxies; why haven't any of the other races done any colonizing? Why don't we see descriptives like "Green Lizard Colonials" or "Fierce Bony Lobster Colonials"? Are the only space-faring races in the universe Man and Thargoid?

Because the galactic map was made by humans, for humans; they couldn't tell which other planets had natives, and which had colonials. More importantly, they didn't care. According to ancient legend, even old "Earth" had this latter problem, with various information systems which should have been global having implicit assumptions about data formats for dates and comm ids and stuff.

Are all these aliens even separate species? Is there a biological difference between Blue Frogs and Large Green Frogs, or are they just different groups in the same species? If they are the same species, and the aliens are colonizing as much as humans are, why do the people of each alien-occupied planet get such colourful descriptions while human-occupied planets just get a bland "Human Colonials"? Why don't we see "Short Red-Haired Humans" or "Tall Fat Humans"?

Again, the authors of the galactic maps weren't the most curious about non-human life forms. In some instances, creatures with the same base type but different descriptions are the same species; in others, creatures with the same full description are different species. It's a real mess. Some species are so outraged at the situation they're no longer willing to talk to humans about it; others think it's funny, and deliberately feed in misinformation. For example, the tale about the natives of Esbiza and Argezabe being the same species...

The Elite manual seems to suggest that all the space stations orbiting every planet is controled by Man.

Don't believe everything you read in the Elite manual. It was also written by humans, after all, and a fairly xenoapathia bunch at that.

[johnsmith]

https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.php?t=2444

A feline mission for all you alien lovers.

[lolwhites]

Don't forget when you scoop an escape pod and bring them in, you get a description of the occupant, and plenty of them have been large green frogs or furry felines in my experience. So there are plenty of nonhuman aliens flying around out there.