Basic Trope: Aliens which resemble humans enough someone unaware could mistake them as a human.
- Straight:
- Bob is a Troperian, an alien race that resembles humans.
- Exaggerated:
- Humans and Troperians are so similar members on both sides question how they're two different species. Troperians even speak perfect human languages.
- All sapient life in the universe is human-like.
- Humans and Troperians are so incredibly intertwined that there's pretty much no correlation between two human parents not having a Troperian baby and vice versa.
- Downplayed:
- Though Troperians visually resemble humans, internally they're radically different and aren't compatible with many things humans are.
- Rubber-Forehead Aliens
- Justified:
- The Troperians are Transplanted Humans or a Human Subspecies.
- The Troperians were deliberately engineered to resemble humans.
- Alternatively: The Troperians had a hand in guiding humanity's evolution, and deliberately engineered humans to resemble themselves.
- Troperians reflexively mimic other species.
- The Troperians and Humans resemble each other because the humanoid form is one commonly achieved from a combination of panspermia and convergent evolution.
- Inverted: Troperians are quite the opposite of humans, in body and mind
- Subverted: The first Troperian met looks perfectly human. It turns out the Troperians spotted humanity first, and are shapeshifters whose true forms are decidedly not human.
- Double Subverted:
- The first Troperian met looks perfectly human. Then many others follow, none of them remotely human. It turns out the Troperians are shapeshifters — but the improbably human-like form is default.
- Human All Along
- Parodied: Every life-form on an alien planet looks exactly like a human, even the plants and microbes.
- Zig Zagged:
- Troperians look nothing like humans, yet their mentality is vastly similar. However upon a closer study, the actual mechanics of their mentality is non-human. Though humanity then encounter other Troperians, which point out the first group is their version of senior citizens. The younger Troperians strike an uncanny resemblance to humanity, though their children...
- Averted:
- Troperians aren't abnormally human-like, they may have humanoid bodies or mentality understandable by humans, but not to the point they could ever be mistaken as a human.
- There are no aliens in the work.
- Enforced:
- "We don't have enough money in the budget to make the Troperians really aliens. So, let's make them humans instead!"
- "Human Fanservices are easier to do than an alien one. So, why wouldn't we make the aliens resemble humans?"
- Writer X wanted to show that aliens can be quite similar to humans, and not too different, so that's why they look human.
- Lampshaded:
- "Do you have any idea how unlikely an alien species would resemble one from another planet would be!?"
- Invoked: Humanity manipulates the ancient Troperians, in hopes they'll become a human-like species.
- Exploited: Emperor Evulz, noticing the similarities between Humans and Troperians, manages to recruit new members by preying upon their existential worry caused by the Troperians' existence.
- Defied: The ancient Precursors realize it would be suspicious that every sapient race across the universe would look identical and specifically designed each to be different.
- Discussed:
- "What? You thought beings inhabiting a planet light-years from Earth would look exactly like humans? That's stupid."
- Conversed: ???
- Implied: Bob frequently makes comments as if he doesn't consider himself human, and whenever asked about his past he simply states it would be a long story.
- Deconstructed: The oddly human nature of the Troperians merits the asking of uncomfortable questions, such as if religion is even true or if something greater than them deliberately engineered the two species. Having no way of finding out, both species suffer an existential crisis in their attempts to figure out their shared origins.
- Reconstructed: Though the oddly human nature of the Troperians initially cause some worries, both species become reassured in existence as their "shared" species isn't just some random event that other species can ignore. Thus humans and Troperians work together to establish their shared nature as eternal.
- Played For Drama:
- The extreme similarities between humans and Troperians cause the two species to think the other is the derivative, and thus, racial tensions along with eventually war happens between the two in their attempts to establish they're the original species.
- Bob was born on Earth when his parents came there from their home planet. However Bob identifies himself as a human more so than a Troperian which causes disagreement between him and his family and an identity crisis within him.
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