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| The Moon, Pandora, from the film "Avatar" | |
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| Topic Started: Dec 20 2009, 02:13 PM (8,067 Views) | |
| Yorick | Dec 20 2009, 02:13 PM Post #1 |
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Adult
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I took someone's suggestion and created another topic to speculate on the moon's inhabitants' evolution. So...speculate! |
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"I believe, that whatever doesn't kill you, simply makes you...stranger" -The Dark Knight (2008) | |
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| Yorick | Jan 5 2010, 11:59 PM Post #166 |
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Lamna, those were amusing children films where the former even had a human protagonist that the audience followed. We don't connect to pets the way we connect to other humans. You guys should check out "Farscape" by the way if you want a more 'realistic' look at alien life. Edited by Yorick, Jan 6 2010, 01:02 PM.
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"I believe, that whatever doesn't kill you, simply makes you...stranger" -The Dark Knight (2008) | |
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| Empyreon | Jan 6 2010, 02:47 AM Post #167 |
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Are you plausible?
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The majority of the aliens in Farscape were humanoid as well, and the rest were muppets. What makes them more realistic than other stuff out there? And what's wrong with humanoid aliens? I agree it's a stretch of the imagination to fit the Na'vi into their own ecology, but why dismiss them outright based on their upright bipedalism? |
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Take a look at my exobiology subforum of the planet Nereus! COM Contributions food for thought
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| Holben | Jan 6 2010, 03:20 AM Post #168 |
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Rumbo a la Victoria
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Although there are likely to be humanoids in the cosmos, they can't be anywhere near as ubiquitous as sci-fi shows them. |
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Time flows like a river. Which is to say, downhill. We can tell this because everything is going downhill rapidly. It would seem prudent to be somewhere else when we reach the sea. "It is the old wound my king. It has never healed." | |
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| lamna | Jan 6 2010, 06:22 AM Post #169 |
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But if life is common, they have to exist. I mean it's the only form we have evidence can be an intelligent creature with civilization. |
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Living Fossils Fósseis Vibos: Reserva Natural 34 MYH, 4 tonne dinosaur. [flash=500,450] Video Magic! [/flash] | |
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| T.Neo | Jan 6 2010, 06:55 AM Post #170 |
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Translunar injection: TLI
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I'm not. I'm dismissing them because they look far too human to be plausible aliens.
Not likely- it's been proven for years. You're one of them.
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| A hard mathematical figure provides a sort of enlightenment to one's understanding of an idea that is never matched by mere guesswork. | |
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| Kingpin | Jan 6 2010, 11:32 AM Post #171 |
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Prime Specimen
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Well I don't know about that. There are enough noticible differances in the Na'vi. They have an eight fingured hand, I think. They have a tail. They have a feline-ish nose. They have pointy ears. They have enormous eyes. Now, while these seem like minor differances, I can think of lots of reasons from them to evolve on Pandora, though the tail seems left over from whatever they evolved from. |
-Last Olympian, Rick Riordan.
-Nick | |
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| Yorick | Jan 6 2010, 01:01 PM Post #172 |
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Adult
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Even though many were humanoid, the makers went into more detail with alien culture and body plan unlike Star Trek that was pretty lazy.
That tail connects to the friggin' software of the moon! |
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"I believe, that whatever doesn't kill you, simply makes you...stranger" -The Dark Knight (2008) | |
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| lamna | Jan 6 2010, 01:52 PM Post #173 |
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That's the queues not the tails. Oh and by the who queues are real. During the Qing dynasty people used to have to wear their hair like that. |
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Living Fossils Fósseis Vibos: Reserva Natural 34 MYH, 4 tonne dinosaur. [flash=500,450] Video Magic! [/flash] | |
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| T.Neo | Jan 6 2010, 02:41 PM Post #174 |
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Translunar injection: TLI
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Yes there are. Noticable, but not drastic enough. They're essentially deformed humans.
Three fingers and one thumb, amounting to four digits per hand. Hardly a large difference, cutting one finger off a human hand doesn't make it alien. (Interestingly, apparently Avatars have the usual number of digits for a human hand).
So a tail has been bolted onto their, ahem, rear end. Still doesn't make them alien. I also don't see why you need a tail; the Na'vi's tails are not prehensile. They'd just get in the way.
Human nose with feline characteristics... nope, still not alien. It's just "deformed human" again.
Again, "deformed human". And come on, pointy ears are such a cliche.
Enormous (human) eyes. Again "deformed human". But large eyes are there for another reason; most animation (2d, CGI or otherwise) has characters with large eyes; large eyes helps the viewer to empathise with the character.
"Better then Star Trek" when it comes to accuracy of the aliens isn't saying much. I scribbled many aliens at age 5 that were "better then those in Star Trek". |
| A hard mathematical figure provides a sort of enlightenment to one's understanding of an idea that is never matched by mere guesswork. | |
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| Holben | Jan 6 2010, 02:45 PM Post #175 |
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Rumbo a la Victoria
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Please, keep the star trek aliens away. If i was complaining about humanoids before, star trek took it to a whole new level of unimagination. Just nose plates and mould lines. And tortoise shells on their foreheads. |
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Time flows like a river. Which is to say, downhill. We can tell this because everything is going downhill rapidly. It would seem prudent to be somewhere else when we reach the sea. "It is the old wound my king. It has never healed." | |
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| lamna | Jan 6 2010, 03:55 PM Post #176 |
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Christina: You look human. The Tenth Doctor: You look Time Lord. I don't see what's wrong with human aliens, as I have said it's the only form we know 100% works and given Pandora's similer environment to earth the chance of something human-ish is decent. Ok their are a few cosmetic things to make them more identifiable (single set of arms and eyes) but otherwise they are not bad. The Na'vi's tails do seem useful. They are not prehensile but they are very mobile, which is handy given all the balancing they have to do. |
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Living Fossils Fósseis Vibos: Reserva Natural 34 MYH, 4 tonne dinosaur. [flash=500,450] Video Magic! [/flash] | |
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| T.Neo | Jan 6 2010, 04:20 PM Post #177 |
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Translunar injection: TLI
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Nope. Just look at any of the myriad animal species that look nothing like humans. They survive quite well. As for a humanoid bodyplan being the only one that we know 100% "works", that is a fair statement. But to say that the human form is the only one that "works" in survival is utter nonsense; many others do it and they have totally different body shapes.
Take this as an example- say you diverted the K/T impactor. You then essentially ran maniraptors through the same evolutionary path as humans, allowing them to become sapient. They'd evolve on exactly the same planet as us, but would look totally different due to their different ancestry. Dinosaurs look like dinosaurs, apes look like apes. Heck, if you allowed sapient lemurs to evolve, they wouldn't look like us. They'd look like lemurs. So it depends on what they evolve from, not the enviroment where they evolve. If anything, Na'vi should look like prolemurids... they still wouldn't look human, yet they'd have several close similarities to us still.
As a speculative evolutionist you should see everything wrong with human aliens. The chances of a Na'vi evolving are about as slim as the chances of a human evolving elsewhere, because that's essentially what a Na'vi is. |
| A hard mathematical figure provides a sort of enlightenment to one's understanding of an idea that is never matched by mere guesswork. | |
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| Empyreon | Jan 6 2010, 06:04 PM Post #178 |
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Are you plausible?
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Avatars have human hands and feet (five digits) because they are essentially half human (genetic engineering, etc) which brings up another interesting point. Not only are the Na'vi biomechanically similar to humans, they are neurologically and genetically similar enough that a human/Na'vi hybrid (artificially, of course) is possible. So while we can agree that the Na'vi are very human, I have a hard time saying that makes them implausible.
To me, if we're going to throw the humanoid body shape out based on plausibility, there are a number of other body shapes we can throw out along with it. For example, just because a Thanator has six legs and some fancy headgear doesn't hide its panther inspirations. Or why is the Hammerhead Titanothere not dismissed as implausible because it's got a big wide face in a forest of relatively narrow trees? Why do we look at all the flyers as realistic aliens? Is it the four membranous wings instead of the two (mostly feathery) wings we find on Earth? What is it about the convergent evolution of the Na'vi that can be dismissed or ignored in the rest of pandoran life?
And humans look like humans, but what's your point? Are you saying that because I'm closely related to a gorilla that we should be readily recognizable as the same? Tyrannosaurs and brachiosaurs, lemurs and chimps, sharks and manta rays; they're all pretty closely related. A broad enough view can group us in with fish, yet we can't see a resemblance between the Na'vi and the prolemuris?
As a speculative evolutionist, I'm familiar with the myriad aliens depicted in Hollywood, and am eager to see something different, original and imaginative; in short, something else. To me a 'human' alien, as you put it, is unoriginal, old hat, and just done to death; but it's not impossible, and certainly not wrong. It's one possibility (albeit overused) among countless others, and while we all enjoy seeing someone rise to the challenge of inventing an alien that is different from the cliche human-with-prosthetics, I can't say they're impossible, just unlikely.
Exactly. I don't recall anybody saying that humanoids are the only survivable form, nor did anybody say that they were the only plausible sapient form If I missed it please point it out for me, because it is nonsense. And we can go back and forth ad nauseum about whether the Na'vi or other Hollywood aliens are plausible or not, but it doesn't really accomplish much. So zypher, I'm eager to see your take on a more "plausible" Na'vi, but I'm fairly secure in my assertion that the originals weren't really that bad. |
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Take a look at my exobiology subforum of the planet Nereus! COM Contributions food for thought
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| lamna | Jan 6 2010, 06:19 PM Post #179 |
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I meant the only form we know works for creating civilizations. And what are the chances of a human like creature evolving? We have no idea since we only have a sample of one. What makes any other alien form more likely or "realistic" than another? I mean given vast size of the universe, if life is common it seem incredibly unlikely that we would never encounter something like ourselves. Something different is more original and more interesting, but we have no idea how likely any physically possible alien is. I mean everyone else might look like bears apart from us. Edited by lamna, Jan 6 2010, 06:20 PM.
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Living Fossils Fósseis Vibos: Reserva Natural 34 MYH, 4 tonne dinosaur. [flash=500,450] Video Magic! [/flash] | |
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| Empyreon | Jan 6 2010, 06:21 PM Post #180 |
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Are you plausible?
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Yeah, maybe on some other planet there's some space-bear dreaming up what it would be like if an intelligent civilization developed from hominids... |
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Take a look at my exobiology subforum of the planet Nereus! COM Contributions food for thought
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