Scifi humanoid body upgrades/downgrades

[Spacescifi]

 

This is what I have found through memory/research.

Cold blooded lizard humanoid: A definite disadvantage. In really hot weather you're in a lot of trouble and have to slow down since coldblooded creatures lack sweat glands to cool down. In cold weather the same applies but only because you're body lacks the heat necessary to move faster. With a lot of tech they can do fine, but if their ship crash lands the crew would have a harder time surviving in a desert than us. There is a reason why we do not see human size lizards, and dinos were reported to not be pure cold blooded anyway not too long ago.

 

Furry humanoid: Fur grows a certain length and it sheds. Vacuum cleaners would be popular. Also in heat? Even with sweat they will likely not endure hot weather as readily as us. Cold weather they can beat us on though.

Sharp teeth: I will admit that I actually lime sharp teeth on scifi humanoids. It is an easy way to show to the reader/viewer that said charcter is not us. Even so, sharp fang teeth are'nt good at chewing. What they are good at is tearing and to a lesser extent breaking food. Basically, with chompers like Quark you will be swallowing your food in small chunks like your were eating fast. Ideally you would just eat meat or soft fruits and veggies, since both are easier to tear off and swallow with your sharp chompers.

 

 

So, what about you? What scifi humanoid body types do you think improve or make them worse at being capable human rivals?

[Nightside]

I guess I will play the lizard people’s advocate here. They should have an easier time surviving in the desert than a warm blooded creature. The metabolism is much slower, requiring fewer calories and wasting less water. In fact these would be excellent traits for a spacefaring race, able to require less food and heat for the long, slow, boring parts of space travel.

 

I like to think about what characteristics a species that evolved to excel in space would have. I think they would have a compact size to fit efficiently on a spacecraft, also a small moment of inertia, which would facilitate zero-g mobility. They should also have a very large brain size compared to body mass ratio since they will be evolved to operate a spacecraft without a computer. Finally they should have an epidermal layer capable of photosynthesis to reduce the load on the life support system.

[kerbiloid]

4 hours ago, Spacescifi said:

Cold blooded lizard humanoid

Cold-blooded. Brave and steel-eyed.
Or just lacking an effective active thermal regulation system?

And what is "lizard" or "reptile" speaking about another life evolution?

4 hours ago, Spacescifi said:

A definite disadvantage. In really hot weather you're in a lot of trouble and have to slow down

 

Spoiler

Like it asks: "ORLY?!"

Also, speaking about the Earth reptiles, they fell just nice in hot climate, as they have dense skin, storable biochemical wastes to keep them without self-poisoning, and overconcentrated urine.
So, spend much less water.

4 hours ago, Spacescifi said:

With a lot of tech they can do fine, but if their ship crash lands the crew would have a harder time surviving in a desert than us.

So, while in the desert a human gets dry, they would just stay sad. Repriles much less depend on water supplies.

4 hours ago, Spacescifi said:

In cold weather the same applies but only because you're body lacks the heat necessary to move faster.

If they are cow-sized, they even don't get really cool in the night.

And why should their cabin temperature get uncomfortable? The only conditioner got broken?
Outside of the ship everyone should wear a spacesuit with microclimate.

4 hours ago, Spacescifi said:

There is a reason why we do not see human size lizards, and dinos were reported to not be pure cold blooded anyway not too long ago.

Spoiler

Spoiler

 

4 hours ago, Spacescifi said:

Furry humanoid: Fur grows a certain length and it sheds. Vacuum cleaners would be popular. Also in heat? Even with sweat they will likely not endure hot weather as readily as us. Cold weather they can beat us on though.

If they appear from tundra. unlikely they could got achieve the civilization level. Humans got to the tundra from african deserts and jungles.
Otherwise, why should they have long fur?

Also, what's the problem with the air conditioning?

Short fur is not a problem, just wear a T-shirt.

4 hours ago, Spacescifi said:

sharp fang teeth are'nt good at chewing

So, they don't chew. See "Visitors", especially not the remake, but the true classics.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086822/

4 hours ago, Spacescifi said:

What they are good at is tearing and to a lesser extent breaking food.

They are good just for catching and holding, nothing more.

The mutant on the screen shot is obviously not a natural species, or eats liquid food.

P.S.
Probably, the previous attempt of bodmodding was failed by them, so we can greet the new thread on same topic.

[magnemoe]

10 hours ago, Spacescifi said:

 

This is what I have found through memory/research.

Cold blooded lizard humanoid: A definite disadvantage. In really hot weather you're in a lot of trouble and have to slow down since coldblooded creatures lack sweat glands to cool down. In cold weather the same applies but only because you're body lacks the heat necessary to move faster. With a lot of tech they can do fine, but if their ship crash lands the crew would have a harder time surviving in a desert than us. There is a reason why we do not see human size lizards, and dinos were reported to not be pure cold blooded anyway not too long ago.

 

Furry humanoid: Fur grows a certain length and it sheds. Vacuum cleaners would be popular. Also in heat? Even with sweat they will likely not endure hot weather as readily as us. Cold weather they can beat us on though.

Sharp teeth: I will admit that I actually lime sharp teeth on scifi humanoids. It is an easy way to show to the reader/viewer that said charcter is not us. Even so, sharp fang teeth are'nt good at chewing. What they are good at is tearing and to a lesser extent breaking food. Basically, with chompers like Quark you will be swallowing your food in small chunks like your were eating fast. Ideally you would just eat meat or soft fruits and veggies, since both are easier to tear off and swallow with your sharp chompers.

So, what about you? What scifi humanoid body types do you think improve or make them worse at being capable human rivals?

One problem with being cold blooded creature is that you need to have more advanced biochemistry with multiple enzymes who works at different temperatures. 

The brain also uses lots of energy so you might well go into coma/ hibernation then cold or at least becoming very stupid, think animals but this might be hard to do so cold blooded would be little plausible except if they evolved in placed with an high and constant temperature. One interesting effect would be that cold areas would be totally hostile for them except with modern technology. 

Fur does not matter so much once you get clothing and metal as you can wear clothing and trim the fur if you like, sheding would be an annoying however. One benefit is that the fur also protect the skin even if just short or course. 
Feather or something like it is another option, downside is that its not very practical to trim. 
And would guess that if we run into aliens they would have fur, feather or something similar as most animals have it, we are an exception. 

Teeth also don't matter much, yes it indicates diet who could affect behavior and also society, one weakness for an large predator is that it can not be so many of them and this will slow down development. 

 

[magnemoe]

10 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

So, they don't chew. See "Visitors", especially not the remake, but the true classics.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086822/

They are good just for catching and holding, nothing more.

The mutant on the screen shot is obviously not a natural species, or eats liquid food.

P.S.
Probably, the previous attempt of bodmodding was failed by them, so we can greet the new thread on same topic.

Teeth, yes the guy in the image has useless teeth.
This is not useless, still an omnivore as an bonus

Now as you brain grow large it gets hard to support large jaw muscles, and you also don't need them, you have spears who do far more damage than an bit and can be ranged weapons, you can also make traps and stuff and cook food. 
However even if you bite strength go down it would be worse to be bit by an Chimpanzee with human level bite strength than an human. 
No issues using that jaw on an high tech alien species. No it would not be much of an benefit nor an downside. 

Obvious feature I would add had been an prehensile tail, tails are common but prehensile ones are rare outside of animals who use them for climbing. 
So rare or GM in to make the tail more useful, the computer mouse was invented by an species with an prehensile tail, think about it 

[kerbiloid]

One can miss for the absent sharp fangs, when a 6 kg heavy cat is holding an arm with all four paws with claws, and is piercing this arm with all fangs,
and ignores all attempts to make it calm by "Wow, what a nice angry kittie-kittie-kittie! Release my arm, little clever kitten! (Ow, ...ch!) Would you like that if that I was biting you?".

With sharp fangs you could make a weak warning bite, to demostrate your intentions, but the flat human teeth rows make it impossible without hurting this skunk,
so the only things you can do is to blow breathing in its nose, and it just ignores this.

[magnemoe]

47 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

One can miss for the absent sharp fangs, when a 6 kg heavy cat is holding an arm with all four paws with claws, and is piercing this arm with all fangs,
and ignores all attempts to make it calm by "Wow, what a nice angry kittie-kittie-kittie! Release my arm, little clever kitten! (Ow, ...ch!) Would you like that if that I was biting you?".

With sharp fangs you could make a weak warning bite, to demostrate your intentions, but the flat human teeth rows make it impossible without hurting this skunk,
so the only things you can do is to blow breathing in its nose, and it just ignores this.

Claws is an trap if you are intelligent, yes they might work for your legs if digtigrade but even then they are running shoes or for climbing.
Retractable claws lock up the paw, and you want  an hand for stuff like capping flint or hacking. 
Yes your nails look more like the one of an dog than human as its thick and narrow but you want to trim it. 

Your main weapon is an spear or later on an bow or an rifle, obviously you might also call in fire support from your tribe, an battleship or an star destroyer. 

Cats are not considered dangerous because of their small size, if it hang on to your arm, hit something hard with our arm or bite down on the neck on the cat. 
Large dogs and other large predators are actually dangerous but most who attacked humans the last 30K years died. 
Its an very strong Darwin effect here. 

Edited August 6, 2019 by magnemoe

[Spacescifi]

20 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Cold-blooded. Brave and steel-eyed.
Or just lacking an effective active thermal regulation system?

And what is "lizard" or "reptile" speaking about another life evolution?

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Like it asks: "ORLY?!"

Also, speaking about the Earth reptiles, they fell just nice in hot climate, as they have dense skin, storable biochemical wastes to keep them without self-poisoning, and overconcentrated urine.
So, spend much less water.

So, while in the desert a human gets dry, they would just stay sad. Repriles much less depend on water supplies.

If they are cow-sized, they even don't get really cool in the night.

And why should their cabin temperature get uncomfortable? The only conditioner got broken?
Outside of the ship everyone should wear a spacesuit with microclimate.

  Reveal hidden contents

  Reveal hidden contents

 

If they appear from tundra. unlikely they could got achieve the civilization level. Humans got to the tundra from african deserts and jungles.
Otherwise, why should they have long fur?

Also, what's the problem with the air conditioning?

Short fur is not a problem, just wear a T-shirt.

So, they don't chew. See "Visitors", especially not the remake, but the true classics.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086822/

They are good just for catching and holding, nothing more.

The mutant on the screen shot is obviously not a natural species, or eats liquid food.

P.S.
Probably, the previous attempt of bodmodding was failed by them, so we can greet the new thread on same topic.

 

Alright yeah... if their AC breaks and they do not have suits it is only because they are like thrill seekers or in like Survivor game competition, since know lizard man would impose such danger on himself otherwise.

 

For what it's worth, I intend to write a story about several races being part of a crew on an explorer starship.

The races were involved in an interstellar war a few years ago in the past, but eventually they all had enough, made concessions, and called it off.

The explorer ship is an attempt at healing the wounds of the past, while also an attempt to build new friendships with former enemies.

 

The reason why body types matter is that not all have the same needs.

1. One race is basically cat humans with sharp forward teeth but back teeth are human. Best of both worlds. Hearing is super human, plus a prehensile tail with smelling holes on it. Thus they can tell where a person was last just by moving their tail near the floor and following the scent trail. Retractable claws on fore finger flex joint, better for grip without snapping a finger off (human fingers are toi flexible to risk). Also have back, neck, tail, arm, and scalp fur, but no where else.

2. Another race is lizard people.

3. Another is shapeshifters that can see in gray scale (black/white) or rainbow thermal vision. Sleep as a puddle.

 

EDIT: I was thinking for the lizard nan to be the ship's doctor, but he will definitely need a sub for when conditions won't suit him. 

Make that several.

If you get care from the lizard doctor it would have to be on the ship, as I am not sure how well he would cope in a suit trying to do medical in weather that does not agree with him.

 

Definitely not suited fir field medic

Edited August 7, 2019 by Spacescifi
Arm back