Aliens

[Thomas]

Gatekeeper will present a number of well known AND new aliens, and they will all be displayed in this section for debate!

[Thomas]

Gatekeeper has a large number of aliens as part of the story - from Star Trek and Star Wars - but also a number of new ones. These are part of our galaxy AND the galaxies around us, as well as from parallel universes.

We will also be using substantial percentage of mixed races in the movie, as this would be a natural development. Some races have not been capable of procreate in the earlier time frames, but this is most likely overcome in the future for most spices.

The first aliens/creatures to be seen in the movie is:

A Mars fly
A Stone creature
A Carnivore plant
A Bajoran
A Klingon
And two Bajoran/Klingon children.
A puppy Warrigul (Klingon lizard dog)
The mentioning of a Druggle (Mars Water Creature)

[Supreme Comander JAF]

Talking aliens and "other galaxies" does that mean were using aliens from star trek and star wars universe only or could they come from other "universes" like star gate or avatar if wanna be actors have costumes that reaches our standards? The Nexus should make such cross universe travels possible...

Also do we need to invent new aliens or do we stick with the numerous ones already invented?

I started to think about tails and given the number off species who have tails on earth its a bit strange that there is so few humanoid speaces in sci fi that has one. Even apes has tails so it should be natural to assume that more than a few off the humaniod speacies in the universe comes with a tail. Or does the fact that we humans dont have a tail give us the advantage we needed to develop intelligence and ultimately space travelling? Hm an interesting thaught... J.

[Thomas]

I believe my post above answers all your questions, Commander! :) Star Trek and Star Wars ONLY - but we'll create a number of new ones as well. Mixing too many Sci-Fi shows would make the movie a total parody and we are allready walking a very thin line.

[BH0518]

Even apes has tails so it should be natural to assume that more than a few off the humaniod speacies in the universe comes with a tail. Or does the fact that we humans dont have a tail give us the advantage we needed to develop intelligence and ultimately space travelling? Hm an interesting thaught... J.

Monkeys have tails.. apes do not...

[HyorD]

If I understand correctly, apes lost their tails in connection with their spines becoming more rigid, something which aids bipeds in standing and walking upright. This would seem to be helpful in four-limbed creatures, as that leaves you with two limbs for carrying things and manipulating tools (abilities which are essential to gaining control over one's environment).

One might imagine that on a very mountainous planet, where climbing would be an necessity for any species "wishing" to spread across a larger area, one would see a dominant species with less rigid spines (or no spines at all...?) for greater mobility and tails for counter-balance. They might be lemur-like creatures (primates that are capable of walking upright, but are also skilled climbers with mobile spines and long tales), or perhaps they might have more than four limbs (they might resemble driders, for instance, with a spineless, eight-legged abdomen attached to a human-like thorax and two arms).

The question remains, however, whether such creatures would evolve, and if they would evolve with a level of intelligence resembling that of humans.
The evolution of human intelligence is not understood in detail, and of course in science-fiction one can take a lot of artistic freedoms. I recommend putting forth a list of very basic prerequisites for different lifeforms, for the sake of avoiding the creation of something which demands too much of the viewer in terms of suspension of belief.

For intelligent lifeforms, some recommendations for things to consider would be:

Is this creature energy efficient? - The Human brain requires a considerable portion of our energy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain#Brain_energy_consumption), and so it is reasonable to demand that the brains (or equivalent system) of intelligent species in Gatekeeper do as well. Therefore, one might expect that the ancestors of intelligent species in gatekeeper were energy-efficient, so that intelligence wouldn't be seen as wasteful, and so that they would have time for other tasks than hunting for sustenance.

Supposedly, one of the reasons that very few animals use photosynthesis to acquire energy is because it is such an inefficient means of energy generation that the advantage it provides is negligible to a creature that requires enough energy to support both locomotion and brain activity.
Can this creature support its own weight? If you want a creature that resembles an elephant, but you want the bulk of its body to be twice as large in every dimension, its legs will need to be about three times as thick to support the extra weight.
Can this creature estimate the physical properties of different objects? This is largely related to its level of intelligence, but it needs to have body parts that allow it to take in certain data, such as the size, mass and texture of various objects, as well as eyes, ears, echolocation systems and/or the like for gauging distances.
Can this creature manipulate objects with good precision? The evolution of opposable thumbs is often cited as a significant breakthrough in the evolution of human intelligence, because it allows us to manipulate a lot of objects. For instance, we can grasp objects with our fingers and at the same time apply variable pressure from different directions using our thumb. Another thing that helps is that we have not one, but two hands.

It might help to have a third and fourth arm... ...but that would also require spending a lot of extra energy developing and maintaining more bone, blood and muscle tissue.


Those are just things off the top of my head. One can probably learn quite a bit from searching arXiv.org for such terms as "bipedalism", "exobiology", "astrobiology" and the like.
Also, if one has done a lot of research on one's own and still has some difficult questions that one can't find the answers to, one can try contacting members of various astrobiology think tanks and the like. For instance, there's the Swedeish Astrobiology Network, and Stockholm University has an astrobiology program.

Also, here's an enjoyable talk on extra-terrestrial life by Freeman Dyson: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/freeman_dyson_says_let_s_look_for_life_in_the_oute r_solar_system.html

[Thomas]

Very interesting! :) Thanks!

[Supreme Comander JAF]

I guess if the speacies need to jump and move around a lot in a wooden enviroment like the Avatar Naavis it would be realistic to asume they have tails. You could assume that starfleet would use them for combat missions in places like a jungle or for close quarters battles, where theyre agility and manouveribility would come in handy.

[Thomas]

We have created aliens with tails allready! :)

[Supreme Comander JAF]

:) Like? J.

[Thomas]

So far it's only one of many aliens in the Blues Bar.

[Supreme Comander JAF]

Cgi one or "real"? J.

[Thomas]

It's real - but the tail is CGI!