The typical perception of an alien usually leans towards The Greys or Rubber-Forehead Aliens, with varying degrees of how far away they get from simple Human Alien appearances but are still somewhat recognizable with having a humanoid form with a recognizable head, torso, and limbs. And some aliens are still recognizable as inspired by common animals such as Cat Folk, Bee People, or Insectoid Aliens.
Starfish Aliens push WAY beyond that; they are really alien aliens. To describe them feels like using Mix-and-Match Critters as only the broadest comparison, sometimes just "sea life" without a specific one in mind. Common ideas include:
- Non-bilateral or made of materials that don't read as organic in principle, such as rocks, gas, or even Energy Beings.
- Bizarre Alien Locomotion such as numerous limbs.
- Bizarre Alien Senses like being able to literally smell childhood memories.
- A Starfish Language that requires noises, expressions, pantomimes, turning different colors, and the rate of breathing all at the same time.
- Nigh-Invulnerability to the harshest conditions like being dipped in lava, or a Weaksauce Weakness to random items like velcro.
- Bizarre Alien Reproduction such as budding, five sexes, or bursting into flames to regenerate into your own offspring.
When that kind of mixture of traits is evident, that is usually when you're looking at a Starfish Alien. However they tend to still be comprehensible as an alien through:
- Their language is recognizable as a language. They have some way of exchanging information with one another or with other beings, and it may be possible to decipher the process into typical nouns, verbs, and adjectives for others to understand (though prone to mistranslation).
- They have a semblance of Culture, practices, ethics, and goals between each other. Technology may be so rudimentary to be mistaken for the environment or biology, or so advanced it appears to be magic.
- Their own beliefs and value systems, however divergent from the norm it may be. This means they have a mind-set that admits to things like logic and intuition; not necessarily those things by our definitions, but things like them.
- At least some acknowledgement that other entities exists, as anyone might look twice when a stranger enters their home.
- Movement and behavior that comes from purpose. Even Mechanical Lifeforms may require a moment to decide a course of action.
Sometimes, however, they are too alien and their language, mind-set, and culture remain incomprehensible to humans. Often (particularly if the beings can't communicate easily with humans) they will be presumed to be evil by the human protagonists without any actual proof. But in accordance with We Come in Peace — Shoot to Kill, starfish aliens who run across innocent, open-minded humans are themselves known to do beyond-horrible things to them, then excuse themselves later with an explanation that they were only trying to communicate with or greet us in the way they know how. Usually, their language and communication are so different from ours that if there is to be any communication between our species and theirs, it must be done by technological means of translation or them taking on a form humans can interact with. In an extreme case of varelse-class incompatibilities, there may exist no possible means of communication other than mutual destruction.
Given the long, strange history of life on Earth (a given house includes such a bewildering variety of life as humans, pets, houseplants, spiders, molds, bacteria, etc.), it's likely if we ever actually encounter alien life it might fit in this category. Species that evolve naturally would have adapted to solve similar basic problems: obtaining food/necessities, negotiating natural disaster, adapting to new circumstances, avoiding contamination by pathogens and parasites, competing/cooperating with other species, competing/cooperating with themselves, and so forth. So we would expect to find at least a few familiar aspects to their psychology as opposed to sheer indecipherable mystery... if they evolved in similar conditions as us.
These are much more common in animation, video games, and literature than they are in live-action media, due to the likelihood of Special Effects Failure. They are typically located towards hard science fictions, though when their biology becomes sufficiently improbable, they may soften it instead. When a story is told from the point of view of Starfish Aliens, and other decidedly non human creatures, it's Xenofiction. Works of Speculative Biology often deal with Starfish Aliens existing in their complex ecosystems.
Ironically, actual starfish belong to the phylum of echinoderms (along with urchins and sea cucumbers) and despite their utterly alien anatomy, are among the closest relatives to vertebrates in the animal kingdom. Arthropods, molluscs, earthworms, jellyfish, and sponges are all more distantly related by comparison.
Super-Trope to Octopoid Aliens and (frequently if not universally) Xenomorph Xerox. The inverse of Human Aliens or Rubber-Forehead Aliens. Aliens that don't look like humans, but still have basically the same body type are Humanoid Aliens, or Intelligent Gerbils, if they're obviously based off a particular Earth animal. Insectoid Aliens effectively split the difference.
Prone to enter Grotesque Gallery. May speak a Starfish Language. See also Bizarre Alien Biology, Starfish Robots, and Our Monsters Are Weird. Compare Eldritch Abomination (both tropes have some overlap — the key distinction is that Starfish Aliens don't necessarily break the laws of reality or drive "normal" beings mad). The Trope Namer is H. P. Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness, written in 1931, where the Elder Things are described as having starfish-like appendages.
Example subpages:
Other examples:
- The original series Astro Boy episode "Mission to Mars" features starfish-like aliens with four extremities.
- The Mercurians in Battle Angel Alita. While Venusians and Jovians might look alien, they are simply modified humans. Mercurians, on the other hand, are the descendants of the runaway nanoweapon who are so disconnected from our mode of thinking and understanding of good and bad, that their attempt at contact is a mindless monster that attacks everything with its huge maw and Gag Penis.
- The eponymous creatures of Digimon, being data-based lifeforms from a parallel universe, having so many different forms (ranging from angelic to animals to humanoid or even a mixture), and each individual having multiple (and radically) different forms throughout their life cycle.
- The Scub Coral and Coralians of Eureka SeveN, which — as the name implies — are sentient alien land corals.
- The aliens in GunBuster are Gigerian things the size of houses. Their ships are bigger aliens the little ones ride on/in.
- Knights of Sidonia: The Gauna are masses of regenerating/shapeshifting flesh surrounding an indestructible True Body. They live comfortably in space either as individuals or as huge aggregates called Mass Union Ships, and are capable of assuming any shape, even replicating inorganic technology. They demonstrate intelligence beyond simple animal instincts, but humanity has been unable to communicate with them in any way beyond violence. In turn, it's been suggested that the reason they try to devour humans indiscriminately is because they're trying to communicate and don't understand how humans work either.
- While most of the aliens from the Macross franchise are a mix of Human Aliens and Rubber-Forehead Aliens (though this is justified, as they were all seeded that way by the Protoculture), the Vajra are completely alien (though vaguely insectoid). It's here where the unspoken conflict of Macross Frontier lies; whereas peace and understanding was reached with previous alien enemies since the heroes were able to communicate with them, there is initially no way of communicating with the Vajra until the it is discovered that the songstresses are able to tap into the Vajra fold communication network via fold quartz crystals and/or the Vajra's fold communication capable bacteria.
- The Angels of Neon Genesis Evangelion appear to be these, or at least the ones that don't cross into Eldritch Abomination territory. While Adam, Lilith and Sachiel are humanoids, the others have some bizarre appearances: Armisael is a double helix-shaped loop that forms into a tentacle; Ramiel is a regular octahedron who does some impossibly cool shapeshifting; Iruel and Bardiel are sentient nanoviruses; Leliel is two-dimensional with a four-dimensional shadow made of antimatter that can bleed, et cetera.
- Kyubey in Puella Magi Madoka Magica. The Ridiculously Cute Critter appearance hides a possibly hive-minded being capable of creating a new body out of thin air if one is killed. It's also completely incapable of emotion and has no understanding of human empathy or morality. The moment where this is most apparent is when it can't understand why the girls would get upset that making a deal with it tears out your soul and eventually turns you into an Eldritch Abomination in order to harvest negative human emotions and covert it into energy for the sake of postponing the heat death of the universe, because what is one human life compared to the universe?
- In Space☆Dandy, most of the main and supporting cast are humans (or possibly Human Aliens), Humanoid Aliens, or Rubber-Forehead Aliens, but most of the rest of the aliens come in an amazing variety of shapes and colors, from plants and marine life to giant crystals and floating worms.
- The Neuroi in Strike Witches. They're basically soil-eating eusocial biotechnological assimilating planes.
- Transformers: Violen Jiger, the massive insectoid mass of Decepticon sparks in Transformers Zone, as well as Dark Nova, the... thing from Transformers Return of Convoy, and Alpha Q from Transformers: Energon, an Expy of the Quintessons from Generation 1.
- The aliens in Tsuritama are literally fish aliens. They have human and fish forms, require water to live and can communicate through it. Whenever they try it with humans, though, it ends up as mind-control.
- Hamster's Paradise: The troglofauna living in the Sub-Arcuterran Cavern System are a number of different species with tentacled faces, no eyes, multiple insect-like appendages used for either walking or as feelers, a life cycle similar to amphibians and the aquatic species have flexible snorkel-like nostrils for breathing. The twist is that they (like all vertebrates on HP-02017) are actually descended from hamsters and their bizarre appearance is the result of evolving in a system of caves and tunnels. If one were to look at the animals living on the surface (also descended from hamsters) they would find creatures that look much closer to what humans would think of as animals.
- Aliens in Buck Godot: Zap Gun for Hire range from fairly humanoid to extradimensional beings who can't even be perceived by, let alone communicate with, humans. A special place is reserved for the Uligb, who exist in 13½ dimensions and love popsicles. Which they stuff and mount. They also look a little like the bastard son of a jellyfish and a Klein bottle, with clusters of eyes added to the mix. Another particularly weird one is the Teleporter, who more or less looks like a whole bunch of free-floating hexagonal windows, with pale hands coming out of almost all of them, and a dopey, buggy-eyed head coming out of the last one, and believes a species hasn't achieved true intelligence until it can teleport whole planets around. A sidebar about how every alien species has ninjas included a line about how the ninjas of one species kept wiping out visitors to the alien home world before anyone realized that they weren't just an ordinary mountain range.
- The DCU:
- Green Lantern: The Green Lantern Corps has Bzzd (an insectoid), Medphyll (a plant being), Chaselon (an intelligent crystal), Dkrtzy RRR (an intelligent equation), Leezle Pon (a superintelligent smallpox virus), Mogo (a sentient planet), Rot Lop Fan (who, being from a sector of space where no light exists, is under the impression that he is a member of the F-Sharp Bell Corps), a race of hivemind spores, and the Mother Mercy, a Hive Mind plant/fungus thing and planet parasite that can alter gravity and progenitor of the Black Mercy plant species.
- Justice League of America: Starro the Star Conqueror is a literal starfish alien whose spawn latch onto humans' faces so he can control their minds.
- Legion of Super-Heroes:
- A few members of the Legion. Tellus
is a yellow-skinned amphibian. Gates from the '90s continuity is a giant centipede.
- The Gil'dishpan race vaguely resemble psychic purple tubeworms with club-tails floating in water-filled orbs.
- The Durlans were initially shown as orange humanoids with antennae, but since they're Voluntary Shapeshifters, it was very easy for later writers to declare that this was A Form You Are Comfortable With, with their Shapeshifter Default Form actually being a mass of tentacles in a robe.
- The Proteans from "The Unknown Legionnaire" are alien creatures who look like yellow balls with a face. After getting hit with an evolution ray, which gives them the ability to shape-shift, they become vaguely human-shaped, faceless blobs of lumpy yellow matter. Nevertheless, they are friendly and highly intelligent, and some of them have psychic powers.
- A few members of the Legion. Tellus
- Martian Manhunter: Martians are telekinetic, telepathic shapeshifters who are quite monstrous to human eyes in their natural form.
- Superboy and the Ravers:
- One of the regulars at Event Horizon is some kind of Energy Being who can hold onto and wear shirts despite their lack of physical form.
- Shaar Q is from a race of Octopoid Aliens with a somewhat serpentine body and the ability to plane-shift.
- Supergirl:
- Before the start of The Condemned Legionnaires proper, Supergirl meets a race of sapient aliens whose bodies are furry spheres with faces.
- In the storyline The Untold Story of Argo City, Zygors are spacefaring aliens whose bodies are a round organic ball with one huge eye and a large maw to break up the asteroids which they feed from. Three long prehensile tentacles sprout from their bodies, and they are used to both feeding and moving around. Zygors can also shoot heat blasts, talk telepathically, and control minds.
- Bizarrogirl has the Ash'ka'phageous, a race of moon-sized planet-eaters. As travelling through space they take a chrysalis-like shape, but when they descend upon a planet they look like a kind of bipedal monstrous insect.
- The Red Daughter of Krypton arc has B'ox — literally a living, sentient polyhedron — and one of the soldiers of Atrocitus, which resembles a giant, orange, fish-headed cricket.
- Swamp Thing: During Alan Moore's run, the eponymous hero encounters a sentient biomechanical planetoid, which proceeds to rape him.
- The Mellenares from Dynamo Joe are microscopic unicellular organisms that form colonies of variable but typically huge size. Those colonies can take shapes taken from the nightmares of the races they fight, have a metallic look and resemble more Humongous Mecha and spaceships than living beings, are able to live and travel under their own power in interstellar space and can generate huge amounts of energy by unknown means to power their space travel and Wave-Motion Gun.
- Empowered has (at least) one race of them. They're huge (their liver weighs 700 kilograms alone!), have three eyes, and their veins seem to be on the outside of their bodies.
- Matt Howarth did an entire series about Konny and Czu, neither of whom looks remotely human-like — in fact, there are no humanoid aliens in the strip and books. The Comic Within a Comic The Mighty Virus has a superheroic virus colony, complete with a cape hanging off of its flying environment globe.
- Marvel Universe:
- Fomalhauti are telepathic tentacled blobs. There are also a Space Whale species and another Hive Mind Living Ship species.
- Martians are cephalopod-like creatures with shapeshifting abilities.
- The Incredible Hulk:
- Planet Hulk introduced the spikes, a race at least superficially similar to the above-mentioned symbiotes, appearing as masses of slime. In their natural state, they're peaceful creatures that float through the vacuum of space feeding off cosmic radiation. When confined to a terrestrial environment, however, the atmosphere starves them to the point of madness, and they're forced to latch on to native life forms and infect them like parasites, causing spiked protrusions (hence their name) to jut out from the victim's flesh, essentially turning them into Parasite Zombies.
- In the Flash Forward to the next universe in The Immortal Hulk, the main character is a member of a species that look like vertically oriented flatworms with detached flower-like limbs.
- Sleepwalker: Sleepwalker are tall, thin humanoid creatures with olive-green skin, and buglike red compound eyes that dress in blue costumes with purple cowls and bandage-like arm and leg wrappings. They have the ability to emit bizarre Eye Beams that can physically reshape matter and alter its physical characteristics to a limited extent. They dwell in the Mindscape, an alternate dimension that links all of the minds of every living being in the physical world, including Earth. Despite their bizarre appearance, they are actually benign, and the whole reason they exist is to function as a collective Guardian Entity for humans and other sentient beings of our universe, protecting us from being Mind Raped by the demons and horrors that also live in the Mindscape.
- Spider-Man: The Symbiotes, or Klyntar, are a species of amorphous, shapeshifting parasitic entities — of which the most famous members are Venom and Carnage — that bond to a host and grant them superhuman abilities (and neat superpowered costumes) with a distinctly Lovecraftian flavor.
- Ultimate Galactus Trilogy:
- In the prime universe, the Kree are just Human Aliens, but in the Ultimate Marvel universe, they have a complete bizarre and alien look, and speak with a Starfish Language. Mahr Vehl had extensive surgery to look human.
- Gah Lak Tus is a 100,000 mile-long Hive Mind of insectlike Mechanical Lifeforms.
- X-Men:
- Mojo is the most visible representative of a race of pseudo-anthropomorphic slugs who use exoskeletons and motorized platforms to get around.
- The Brood is an insectoid race of nonhumanoid Xenomorph Xeroxes that implant their young in unwilling humanoids.
- The Technarchy is a race of "techno-organic" creatures that think and speak more like machines than organic creatures, change shape and look like random masses of circuitry in their natural forms, and eat by infecting other creatures with a virus that makes them techno-organic also and then draining the life energy out of them. They have a Hive Mind offshoot called the Phalanx.
- Star Trek Expanded Universe:
- Star Trek: Early Voyages:
- The Lirin have a very finite population and everyone in their society fulfills a specific role. When the Federation made First Contact with Liria, Nano was generated in order to serve as their emissary. This means that Nano can't return home or he would upset his planet's delicate balance. In "Flesh of My Flesh", Captain Pike describes Liria as the closest thing to a perfect society that he has ever seen. In "One of a Kind", Number One tells Yeoman Colt that when a Lirin dies, typically of old age, another is generated in advance so that the balance can be maintained.
- In "Flesh of My Flesh", the Ngultor are significantly larger than the average humanoid. They are bipedal but have four arms linked by tendrils and a powerful exoskeleton with numerous spikes to protect them from harm or attack. In terms of their psychology, the Ngultor regard other races as raw material to supplement and repair their Organic Technology, which seems to be the basis of their religious beliefs, if not their entire society. They are completely unable to comprehend why the Enterprise crew resists the rapture of the flesh and the sacred harmony of blood, bone and gristle.
- Star Trek: Untold Voyages: In "Silent Cries", the Crier is a seemingly non-sentient lifeform which resembles a glowing blue blob with tendrils. It is capable of absorbing electromagnetic impulses such as subspace transmissions and transmitting them at almost the speed of thought. The Crier resides in a crystalline cavern which seems to be a part of it. It reacts furiously to the Orion pirate Raydeen breaking off a piece of the crystal, killing him and his henchmen. The Crier then transforms itself into pure energy and leaves Duran 12 for parts unknown at an incredible speed. Sulu determines that it was sentient all along and that it did not like what it saw of supposed civilization.
- Star Trek: Early Voyages:
- The VXX199 of Strikeforce: Morituri. Unlike the Horde Planet Looters who preceded them, the VXX199 are composed of millions of completely alien lifeforms of varying intelligence, in a ship that's a giant conglomeration of living tissue, all driven by the ship's own biological AI. It's like if Terry Gilliam directed a cyberpunk thriller with H.R. Giger as the art designer.
- Top 10's Vigilante from Venus is a giant worm/insect/jellyfish nightmare in her true form. No wonder she poses as a Green-Skinned Space Babe to make adult films — although some of her porn work involved her natural form.
- Valérian has alien species ranging from simple Rubber-Forehead Aliens to things that definitely belong in this category. Giant, telepathic worm-things? Gelatinous shape-shifting prostitutes? Jellyfish-like mammalian math geniuses? And that's just the species that are categorized as people; the "animals" are even weirder. No wonder the creators have published a whole book dedicated just to their aliens.
- Calvin and Hobbes: Many of the aliens Spaceman Spiff encounters.
- Aliens in The Far Side are usually depicted as semi-humanoid blobby creatures with numerous tentacles with eyes on the ends growing out of their bodies. They're almost invariably huge, capture humans like bugs (to which they are the size of), and speak random gibberish (unless understanding what they say is necessary for the joke).
- Eugenesis goes into some detail about the Quintesson (See Western Animation below), and their origins. Since they're neither fully organic or fully mechanical, they aren't born in the traditional sense, and tend to be born via budding. Mention is made of some of the original Quintessons being rolled like dough from Unicron's surface.
- For the Glory of Irk: Going by what we see of Q, Parasites can be best classified as this. His default form (which doesn't matter, since he can shapeshift) is roughly human, but his skin tone is like porcelain, he has seven eyes, a mouth full of needle teeth, and a bunch of tendrils on his neck that look like a scarf. And that's without getting into the aforementioned shapeshifting, the psychic powers, how his natural voice is a Brown Note, or the fact that according to him, "Q" is simply as close as humans can get to pronouncing his real name due to not having enough tongues for it.
- The Metropolitan Man: Kryptonians, rather than the Human Aliens they are conventionally portrayed as, were strange creatures that resembled a cross between spiders and eels. As for Superman, he wasn't technically the last Kryptonian but actually a construct created by the ship his "father" sent out, based on scans of Earth's civilization. Ironically, he's more human here than in most other incarnations of the Man of Steel.
- Astro Boy has one pop up for Astro to challenge just before the cut to credits, likely as a nod to his alien-fighting ways in the original. The alien in question is the Artificial Sun (which was a man-made creation in the original anime), and is basically a small (at least compared to the actual Sun) one-eyed sun with Combat Tentacles.
- Contact (1978): The alien is a rainbow-hued blob that vaguely resembles an amoeba, constantly changing shape to mimic its surroundings, and it can seemingly take photographs with its eyes. The sight alone terrifies the human main character into running for his life, even though the alien just wanted to say hello.
- The ELS (Extraterrestrial Liquid-metal Shapeshifters) in Gundam 00: A Wakening of the Trailblazer. Their name alone should give you an indication of how bizarre they are. For one thing, they appear to live in gas giants, they are basically massive hunks of metal that can take on any shape they wish, they can assimilate other forms of life and technology into themselves, and they have no concept of communication beyond their own Hive Mind; when they encounter something unknown, their first instinct is assimilation to understand it. That includes everything from planets to complex machinery to human flesh.
- Home (2015): The Gorg are literally this, as they resemble starfish.
- Treasure Planet: The Flatula are sapient, slug-like beings with several suckers and tentacles on their bodies that speak a language which ressembles flatulent sounds. Many other characters qualify.
- Voices of a Distant Star: The Tarsians possess a starfish-like structure. In addition, miscommunications between them and humanity is implied to be one of the reasons why humans are fighting a war with them.
- The aliens from 2001: A Space Odyssey are so alien that they can't even be shown on screen. The novels imply that they started as Starfish Aliens, but later transformed themselves into Mechanical Lifeforms, and eventually into Energy Beings. Arthur C. Clarke felt like showing the aliens would inevitably diminish their impact; in a supplementary book called Lost Worlds of 2001, Clarke records failed experiments with writing about both Human Aliens and worlds filled with Starfish Aliens, before he finally decided to have the monoliths be the last relics of an unseen, long-ago-vanished civilization.
- The creatures from The Abyss (1989) definitely qualify. They're classed as aliens by fans of the film even though they come from underwater instead of outer space (as far as we know). They're certainly strange in appearance, they are able to completely manipulate water (the director's cut reveals that they caused the storm on the surface and created tidal waves ready to bury most of the world's cities), and one alien creates a huge long strip of solid water and is able to morph it to resemble Lindsey's face.
- Alien: The Xenomorphs seems surprisingly human in the first and second films, considering their life cycle. Alien³ shows what happens when one hatches from a dog... and it looks like a dog. Expanded universe material ran with the explanation that a Xenomorph's physical characteristics are based on the species it hatched from, and the common humanoid Xenomorphs are only what they look like when they incubate in a human. The Alien vs. Predator introduced a breed of Xenomorphs hatched from the Predator, which made its film debut in Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem. While still humanoid, the "Predaliens" are significantly larger than the common human-hatched xenomorphs and had additional physical characteristics modeled after the Predators, such as a set of four mandibles around its mouth and head appendages that resembled a Predator's trademark dreadlocks. This would seem to raise questions about the humanoid-but-fifteen-foot-tall Queen, until you recall the Space Jockey from the first movie. This was confirmed in Prometheus, which implies that the modern Xenomorph was be the result of a "goo"-infected human impregnating a woman, with the resulting creature then impregnating an Engineer. The chain of DNA is still ongoing; since the Xenomorphs evolved through artificial means, their genes are apparently still co-dominant with other lifeforms.note
- Arrival's aliens are tentacled creatures with no visible eyes or mouths but incredible intelligence. They don't perceive time in the same way humans do and are able to see the future.
- Avatar: Although the Na'vi are somewhere between Humanoid Aliens and Cat Folk, it's explained in the film that Pandora's trees communicate with electrochemical signals through their roots, much like the neurons in a brain... and there are more trees on Pandora than there are neurons in a human brain, effectively making the entire moon one huge, super-intelligent organism.
- The invaders in Battle: Los Angeles appear to be this. They look vaguely humanoid, but their bodies are some form of cybernetic and biological construct that is grown to specific battlefield needs, and their primary interest in Earth is its water supply and habitable conditions.
- The Strangers from Dark City (1998) at first appear to be pale, bald, black-clad humans, but when one gets his head split open, we get a glimpse of a sort of glowing sea anemone-like creature within a human shell.
Mr. Hand: You've seen what we are. We use your dead as vessels.
- The alien in Dark Star looks like a beach ball with eyes and feet.
- The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008): Klaatu notes that he's assuming A Form You Are Comfortable With to interact with the humans. Upon being asked by the heroine what his true form is, he refuses, stating, "It would only frighten you".
- The aliens in District 9 have two functional arms, two legs and a central head, but that's about where their resemblance to humans ends. They're all 'worker drones' who, without a queen, have little initiative of their own, with digitigrade limbs, an additional pair of tiny arms on their stomach, chitinous exoskeletons, antennae, claws, mandibles, tentacles, and all number of other insect- or crustacean-like attributes. The human residents of Johannesburg even call them "prawns". In a Deleted Scene, it is explained that the prawns have one gender and reproduce asexually. In that scene, the humans claim that prawns have no attachment to their offspring, but this is shown to be a lie in the film, one of the many human attributes possessed by Christopher Johnson.
- In Edge of Tomorrow, the Mimics are portrayed as giant masses of moving tentacles, and the designer specifically distanced their design as far away from any terrestrial animal as possible, even using obsidian-like texture for the tentacles instead of biological textures. The Alpha is larger and has a more definite shape and even defined eyes and a mouth.
- Forbidden Planet has the Krell — we never see them, there's no surviving record of their appearance, but their triangular door shapes and headsets that could accommodate a really large head imply something vastly different from humans.
- Galaxy Quest's Thermians usually look like Human Aliens, but their true form bears a strong resemblance to cuttlefish. Or octopuses humping squids. Doesn't stop one of the human cast falling in love with one.
- Gamera 2: Advent of Legion has the titular Legion, a race of monstrous, eusocial Insectoid Aliens with a Kaiju-sized queen resembling a cross between a rhinoceros beetle and a skeleton. They colonize planets by way of massive, explosive pods that launch their eggs into space.
- The alien invader in Horror Express is an entity of thought or very mean Energy Being. It can take over people's minds — several at a time, be they dead or alive. Those it possesses have their minds cleaned out by removing the wrinkles in the brain so they can't think. The only telltale clue is that those possessed by it eyes glow red in dim light.
- The alien in Invader is distinctly nonhumanoid, even being able to reconfigure its form — not by shapeshifting, but rather by unfolding, extending and withdrawing parts of its body.
- Many of the aliens in Men in Black, especially background ones. Examples include the two sea-anemone-like aliens who run the computers at MIB headquarters.
- Midnight Special features beings from a parallel universe who appear to have strange otherworldly powers — and they're capable of mating with humans. The only time we see them from Sarah's perspective, they're represented by moving shapes of light.
- The aliens in Monsters (2010) are giant squid-crab things with bioluminescence that grow from mushroom-like polyps.
- In Monty Python's Life of Brian, Brian is at one point rescued from falling off a tower by a spaceship containing two squidlike aliens with giant eyeballs for heads. The ship flies into space and enters into a dogfight with another spaceship, is damaged, and crashes back on Earth not far from where Brian was picked up. He walks away unscathed; the aliens never appear again and no further mention is made of the incident.
- The invading aliens in Night of the Big Heat are jellyfish-like creatures resembling melted plastic lamps who glow brightly and emit massive amounts of heat.
- Nope features a UFO that is actually a singular predatory lifeform which unfolds into a strange creature that resembles a cross between a deep-sea animal, an Imax lens, and a biblical angel. However, supplemental materials all but confirm that its species actually evolved on Earth, belonging to the fictional phylum Nubaria.
- The title character of Starman; we only see his true form at the very beginning, which looks like a giant glowing ball. He can only interact with other species by cloning a temporary body for himself (sort of an environmental suit). The cloning procedure itself can be a bit unnerving, although the alien is quite friendly once you get to know him.
- Star Wars has many examples:
- The primitive Amani
from Maridun are bipedal, but their bodies resemble those of flatworms, they have vaguely humanoid faces, their legs are rather short and they also possess a pair of long, spindly arms.
- The Yuvernians
, a sapient race of two-headed beings with elongated heads, each one sitting on top of its own long, lanky neck. We have yet to see the rest of their bodies, but looking at their two heads is more than enough to know they don't possess the same basic humanoid body plan as other species.
- The Sy Myrthians
, sapient mammals who move on a large, gastropod-like foot akin to those of the Hutts.
- The primitive Amani
- Stepsister from Planet Weird: The Zircolonians are actually sapient gas bubbles, but can take on a human appearance on Earth. However, even then, they still occasionally fear things that wouldn't harm a human, such as a light breeze or a hairdryer.
- The Suicide Squad: Starro the Conqueror appears as the main antagonist, and it isn't dubbed as "Project Starfish" for anything.
- The Thing:
- The Thing (1982): There really is not a word other than "The Thing" to call it, because no one even really knows what it is. It is capable of perfectly replicating anything it has ever come in contact with, and every single cell of its body is a separate, hostile organism. It's so utterly alien that people aren't even sure if it has a true form or not, even the huge, grotesque monstrosity it forms in the end. The closest we might have to an original form is described as the insectoid manifestation in the following example, but of course there's no knowing for sure if it isn't merely yet another assimilated form.
- The Thing (2011): The original concept for the movie, the "pilot version"note , reveals the alien pilot of The Thing's ship. Words can't convey how weird it is, and the pilot isn't even corrupted by the monstrosity. In addition to looking utterly inhuman, the creature's technology is equally weird, as the ship it pilots seems to be powered by thought. The pilot died after crashing the ship to trap the titular monster, which initially appears as a giant bug.
- Warning from Space has literal Starfish Aliens. They're quite aware of this too, so they transform themselves into humans in order to communicate with Earthlings. May be a borderline case of this, as they speak Japanese/English from the onset. Also the inverse is true with the aliens more than a little weirded out by the human form when they encounter us.
- Hyperball has the player defending himself from moving lights which evolve into lightning bolts.
- The inhabitants of the Moon in the middle segment of the Twilight Histories episode "The Moon" are this. They range from what appears to be a sentient cluster of ribbons to creatures that look like Bat People. Notably, none of them communicate verbally, though they do use vibrations and sight to communicate.
- Asuka Quest: The Angels from Neon Genesis Evangelion are nicknamed Giant Alien Starfish because they're actually this trope rather than anything actually religious in nature, so the original name came off as pretentious.
- 2300 AD: All aliens have strange biology that explains why they act as they do, from the adrenaline-junkie Proud Warrior Race to the bizarre Plant Aliens.
- CthulhuTech: Migou are semi-fungoid, hyperintelligent insects who don't feel human emotions... except, of course, for the "fear-born genocidal hatred of anything that looks like it could be half as advanced as they are" part. Actually, scratch that. It's an insult to human assholes everywhere.
- Dungeons & Dragons:
- The 3.5 Edition supplement "Lords of Madness" describes aliens of forms various and sundry. These include: the Aboleth, hermaphroditic catfish/eel/squid spawn of the Far Realm with Genetic Memory; Illithidae, a genus of creatures related to the iconic mind flayers, a group that includes gigantic, pulsing, psionic brains and the deceptively innocuous mind flayer larvae; Tsochari, parasitic composite lifeforms composed of countless living "strands" twined together to form a single creature, from a cold and distant planet who enter and control the bodies and minds of spellcasters for some sinister purpose; the Silthilar, an ancient race of wizard-scientists who have transformed themselves into hive-minded swarms in response to a particularly virulent magical plague; and the Beholderkin, insane levitating spheres with many eyes in disturbing places. It also includes the "Fleshwarper", a prestige class which allows one to acquire traits from such creatures, eventually undergoing a transformation into a minor Eldritch Abomination.
- Most of the Alluria Publications "Remarkable Races" series for 4th Edition are humanly comprehensible and fairly easy to play, but the Squole are sentient oozes who only have personalities because they're imitating the fact that humans do, while the Relluk are reproduction-obsessed ancient robots.
- Eclipse Phase features the Factors, sentient creatures that evolved from something resembling slime mold. It also features the Exhumans, humans who have effectively turned themselves into Starfish Aliens through radical modifications. EP specifically advises that if you're creating a new alien race, you should keep them alien, rather than just Rubber-Forehead Aliens. There are enough rubber foreheads among the transhuman population as it is.
- Exalted:
- The demons known as agatae are enormous, incredibly beautiful rainbow wasps with inhuman mentalities.
- The shard Heaven's Reach has the Kranix, who are described as resembling hard-shelled octopi.
- GURPS: Space spends quite some time on how to design really weird aliens. The starfishiest designs are the various "exotica" such as living nebulae or sentient magnetic fields.
- Pathfinder and Starfinder:
- Flumphs are silly-looking intelligent floating jellyfish monsters from the Dark Tapestry (outer space, with Cosmic Horror Story influences). Unlike many Dark Tapestry creatures, flumphs are friendly to terrestrial life.
- Barathus (called Brethedans in Pathfinder 1st Edition) are large, intelligent floating creatures that resemble a cross between a blimp and a jellyfish, native to gas giant worlds. They don't favor technology, but can reshape their physiology to meet the demands of different situations and join together into highly intelligent collective entities.
- Top Trumps' Planets and Aliens set has a glorious selection of complete freakazoids, with the exclusion of a couple of living teddy bears and Bob McTerrifyingly-Normal from Earth.
- Rocket Age: The Metisians are six-tentacled, 'brain in a jar' style aliens who reproduce entirely by cloning.
- Starfleet Battles features (in addition to all the starfish aliens that could be found in TOS and TAS — but not the movies or later series) the Hydrans as a major race. They are a three-armed, three-legged, three-gendered methane breathers — though they are surprisingly human-like in thought and society despite that (and in Starfleet Command the universal translator outputs their speech with a plummy British accent).
- Star Frontiers:
- The worm/salamander-like Syllix, the insectoid centaur Vrusk, and various other species, as well as the Kliks and ke'kekt from their other sci-fi property Star*Drive.
- Yazirians are arguably Beast Men, but the Sathar and Dralasites might fit. Sathar are sentient, humanoid invertebrates who seem to be a human — sized cross between an earthworm and a squid, and due to their nonhuman psychology are an NPC-only race. Dralasites have surprisingly humanlike personalities but are physically the strangest of all, being fully sapient amoeba-like multicellular organisms, and reproducing by budding.
- Star Wars d20: The Unknown Regions: The Lugubraa evolved from space-dwelling lifeforms and have no need to breathe, lack ears and instead hear using their entire body's surface, reproduce by budding, begin life as nonsapient beings and remain effectively idiots for most of their lives until they develop advanced intelligence in old age.
- Teenagers from Outer Space divides aliens into three types: Near Humans, Not Very Near Humans, and Real Weirdies, which usually fall under this trope.
- Traveller: The Hivers are vaguely starfish-like aliens with completely nonhuman physiologies, biologies, psychologies, and society. Even though they reproduce sexually they are all the same gender and are not really capable of forming romantic emotional attachments with other Hivers. Though they have strong parental instincts they only apply to mature Hiver and other races. Hiver larvae are considered minor pests until they mature, and Hivers regularly fumigate their ships to avoid accidentally carrying their larvae to non-Hiver worlds. They are considered a challenge to role-play. Despite the name, they are not a Hive Mind, nor are they Bee People. The tag "Hivers" was hung on them by a human who thought their buildings looked like beehives.
- Warhammer 40,000:
- Medusae, an HQ choice for the Dark Eldar, are parasitic creatures that resemble a "collection of brains and spinal cords that are stacked on one another" and use emotional trauma as a weapon.
- The background material lists several not seen in any armies, such as the Thyrrus, which resemble more pulsating bags of meat and tentacles than anything else and are believed to perceive war as a form of dramatic theatre, and the Umbra, which are essentially black orbs filled with goo, and are suggested to be simply "parts" of a larger interdimensional creature.
- The Hrud, who are apparently evolved from a worm-like creatures, resemble a set of interconnected spines in a vaguely humanoid shape. They can "walk" more or less vertically on two of these spines, use the other two as arms, are relatively pacifistic until disturbed (they usually infest lower levels of the imperial hive cities) and have a very advanced and enlightened religion that worship a deity, parts of which might be the aforementioned Umbra. That's not even touching on the entropic fields they generate, which rapidly age everything around them.
- The actual Alien archetype in Yu-Gi-Oh! is pretty easy to understand, as most of them range from The Greys to Alien-style creatures that are still relatively humanoid. The Worm archetype on the other hand are truly strange, as they have wildly different physical appearances with only a few of them being even vaguely humanoid. The boss monster, Worm Zero, crosses over into Eldritch Abomination territory, as it appears as a building-sized moonlike sphere of flesh that is formed by absorbing the bodies of other Worms and seems to be able to affect reality.
- Little Shop of Horrors gives us the unforgettable "Audrey II" as the Big Bad. Audrey II is a talking, singing Plant Alien resembling a Venus flytrap on steroids. It reproduces and spreads by producing pods to colonize planets, and it can see and hear perfectly fine despite having no visible eyes or ears. Oh, and it needs blood to survive. Lots of blood. Because of this, Audrey II is entirely inimical toward humanity, yet it also displays strong interpersonal skills, manipulating its human pawns through its sassy, smooth-talking charm.
- The 2008 European live tour of The Rocky Horror Show — i.e., a fully staged live performance, not just the movie and Audience Participation — had this as a twist ending. Riff Raff and Magenta reappear toward the end as twelve-foot-tall monstrosities with human upper bodies mounted on long robes concealing God-only-knew what, thus making their (and Frank's) human appearances throughout the rest of the show nothing more than A Form You Are Comfortable With. This opens up all kinds of new implications about Frank's addiction to human sex, his building a human, the declaration that "[his] lifestyle's too extreme", and Riff and Magenta's eagerness to return to their home planet.
- The aliens from Anna Galactic are pretty weird. There's a lot of wild speculation from the human protagonists about whether their attempts to communicate are having any effect at all.
- Captain Ufo: Most aliens are humanoid in one way or another. However, among the background characters, you can spot some of these; among others, a guy who looks like a Hutt with dreadlocks, a green blob with tentacles and eight eyes, a worm-like alien with four arms (he's one of the judge in the trial scene at the beginning of season two) and the Orokanais, who look like vending machines.
- Under his Mobile-Suit Human(oid) exterior, Sam Starfall of Freefall is a tentacular alien
described as vaguely like an octopus, a lungfish, and a lamprey. The sight of his body tends to cause vomiting
, blank incomprehension
, or delirious
Brain Bleach mode, though readers are spared the experience. Not even the most hardened, open-minded transhumanists are immune to the horrors involved
.
Sam: Don't let the chromatophores fool you. I exist in only three dimensions and I have a certificate saying so. - The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob!: Except for brief crossovers with other comics (Zeera the Space Pirate
, Melonpool, and Zortic) all of the aliens have been shown to be nonhumanoid, at least in their true forms. These include the Pirates of Ipecac, who resemble three-eyed lobsters; the Fleenians, who are rubber-limbed centaurs with giant eyeballs for heads; and Ahem, who resembles a three-legged jellyfish. The butterfly-like Nemesites such as Princess Voluptua and Fructose Riboflavin frequently use shapeshifting technology to appear human, however.
- Leaving the Cradle is full of starfish aliens, from three meters tall terrestrial squids to energy-based beings dwelling in the interstellar void and requiring special suits to interact with anything physical. The only aliens that somewhat resemble humans are raharrs, and resemblance pretty much ends at bipedal upright posture.
- Nixvir has the Schruntlips, which are a more mild version of this trope. They appear as quadrupedal beings with large snouts, who have tentacles instead of legs, and have Mr. Seahorse levels of reproduction which is indeed similar to an actual seahorse. As you can imagine, they're a weird, weird species. And that's not getting into the other weird species that inhabit the World Oak.
- Ow, my sanity: The original Lovecraftian starfish aliens make an appearance
.
- Schlock Mercenary has a fair few, although also plenty of Rubber-Forehead Aliens and everything in between. The titular Schlock is perhaps the best example, being an 'amorph' that is frequent described as looking like (and being mistaken for) a pile of crap. He's even stranger when explained, as he basically evolved from faulty memory storage/brain replacement systems and is best described as a carbon nanotube-weaven jumble of brain matter that doubles as Grey Goo and has a chemical compound for every meal (and there are a lot of meals, the only thing Schlock has ever spit out was a glob of weapons-grade nanites that tried to hijack him and would've succeeded if he was anything else).
- Aylee (short for "alien", natch) from Sluggy Freelance started as an obvious Alien homage, but periodically mutates in an ongoing attempt to adapt to the alien (for her) terrestrial environment. Each form is radically different, and some are dramatically non-human.
- In Spacetrawler, most of the aliens are humanoid or based off some Earth animal, but there are a few more unusual specimens: Krep is a quadruped and has six tentacles on his face for manipulating objects, Luunock resembles a cross between a caterpillar and a venus fly trap, and a bartender who shows up for only one page
has arms growing out of his mouth.
- Unicorn Jelly:
- The universe itself. It has no atoms, but a set number of "tratons", that are "polihedral forms made of dimensional energy", as opposed to our spheres of mass surrounded by energy. The tratons cannot be transformed into one another, and there is a set number of each, from the start to the end of the times. When the humans arrived, in an event that may or may not have destroyed our universe, their matter was "translated" into the closest possible alternative, but since it wasn't exactly equal, they need constant doses of a plant/animal, quite strange on itself, called Vlax
. Also, the gravity equivalent pulls from space, rather than from matter, so there's an absolute up and down (walk to the other side of the world and you fall into space, etc). An object sufficiently large stops being affected by it, so they have "worldplates" that are large, plain, triangular worlds, arranged in triangular patterns that make them look like a recursive Triforce, but it gets weird when you look at the 3-D model. It also has the "finite yet unbound" thing our universe has (we think), that if you walk too far in one direction you end up coming back home from the other side. Including falling so far down that you pop up from above. And therefore, when the humans destroyed one of the worlds, the pieces stopped being immune to gravity, fell, and destroyed further worlds, creating an ever-growing pillar of debris that is eventually going to engulf the entire universe. It will eventually settle and reform in the triangular worldplates again, as shown by an aeons-old relic from an obviously non-human nor local civilization.
- Humans themselves are starfish aliens. When the smartest girl ever born there finds some ancient astronomical charts from our world, she finds out that they had come from a universe "dominated by the geometry of the sphere", and deduces that "The society must have been terribly hierarchical, with the rich and powerful dominating the top of the world-domes, and the poor dammed to live in the slippery end, where the lose of life to the curvature of the world must have been a constant dread. This world must have been like a paradise to them, with endless extensions of safe, plain land."
- The Crystal Dodo and the Dodofruit Domes. Each worldplate has exactly 303 Crystal Dodos, each living in a patch with 303 Dodofruit Domes each. Unless humans arrive and kill some of course. Both are immortal, incapable of reproduction, and the Dodo goes around its patch, eating only the topmost fruit of each one and leaving. By the time it goes back, the fruit has grown back. Sounds nice? The Dodo is a mindless pair of legs with a mouth between them. It moves the exact number of steps between each Dome, eats the fruit, and starts walking again, forever. No two Dodos overlap each other's path, and all the native creatures instinctively avoid these areas, even the sentient Jellys, though the Dodo has no mind, no sensorial organs at all, and no possible means of defending itself. It's a fruit-eating automaton. As of the Domes, they are highly intelligent and sentient beings, though incapable of reacting to its various and delicate sensorial inputs — and the fruits are actually highly sensitive eyes.
- The crystal basilisks don't have musculature — they walk by growing new legs in front, moving them down their bodies, and then breaking them off at the back. As awkward as it sounds, they're a fast, dangerous apex predator, and very dangerous to humans. They reproduce by injecting their prey with self-assembling crystals, which eat them from the inside out.
- The universe itself. It has no atoms, but a set number of "tratons", that are "polihedral forms made of dimensional energy", as opposed to our spheres of mass surrounded by energy. The tratons cannot be transformed into one another, and there is a set number of each, from the start to the end of the times. When the humans arrived, in an event that may or may not have destroyed our universe, their matter was "translated" into the closest possible alternative, but since it wasn't exactly equal, they need constant doses of a plant/animal, quite strange on itself, called Vlax
- While the Walkyverse's native Purple Aliens and permanently imported Melotians and Zinoboppians are classic diminutive humanoids (even though the Aliens are quite monstruous under their armor), the Martians are enormous tentacled monstrosities best described as a cross between a mantis and an octopus.
- Mystery Flesh Pit National Park: The titular Flesh Pit is actually some of truly gargantuan prehistoric creature that's been dormant beneath the Southern US for millions of years. Its internal anatomy is extremely bizarre, with differing organ systems randomly distributed and repeated throughout the body, numerous organs of unknown function, fluid excretions with euphoric or aphrodisiacal effects on humans, and tissues comprised of exotic matter deeper into its body cavity. Although its exact external appearance isn't known, it has a vaguely starfish-like body shape spanning hundreds of miles, and a fossil of an identical creature found on Venus suggests that it's of extraterrestrial origin.
- The Tough Guide to the Known Galaxy: "Really Aliens" are one of the two main types of aliens, and are usually things like Energy Beings, Insectoid Aliens, or giant blobs of protoplasm. They're usually hydrocarbon life who inhabit the same general range of chemical and temperature gradients as humans, but things with really weird living preferences also turn up. They're difficult to talk to or figure out, and trade or political relations are usually scarce. Older fiction usually depicted them as hostile; modern fiction is less likely to show wars against them, mainly because it's not always clear what they and humans would want to fight over in the first place.
- Goodbye Strangers is a sort of catalog of starfish critters: the eponymous strangers have no bones, brains or other internal organs, yet behave like living things. When dissected, they're revealed to be either hollow or stuffed with random objects and substances, such as calligraphy ink and various trash. No one understands exactly how these creatures work or why they exist in the first place.
- Orion's Arm: All aliens, as a rule. The To'ul'h look like headless bats but are anatomically closer to starfish, perceive the world through echolocation, and are native to a Venus-like world with very high temperatures and atmospheric pressures. They're considered very close to humanity for xenospohonts by virtue of being carbon-based beings with two sexes from a rocky world close to its sun. The truly alien aliens include the Muuh, extremely ancient, vaguely arthropodal aliens from very cold worlds whose bodies would largely melt in terrestrial environments; the Meistersingers, intelligent trees who use symbiotic animal-like beings as manipulator organs and live in massive space fleets migrating away from the galactic core; and what are essentially living "knots" in the surfaces of neutron stars that exist on extremely fast timescales, have a society completely incomprehensible to terragens, and see the rest of the universe as just a set of interesting mathematical equations.
- RPC Authority: RPC-701
is a race of sentient naturally-occurring nuclear reactors with a mathematic language whose society primarily consisted of philosophical debates. Somewhat subverted as said reactors evolved and went extinct here on Earth
many millennia ago.
- SCP Foundation: The Foundation is at least tangentially aware of multiple alien species, all of which tend to be quite strange:
- Based on data retrieved from an alien CD
, the designers are fundamentally different to humans (for example, taste is their primary sense, and electromagnetism is lethal to them). Also, we are starfish aliens to them.
- SCP-163
, which is cylindrical, has eight legs, four pairs of arms with different functions and a single compound eye with 360 degree field of vision that sees mainly in ultraviolet. It's also one of the more harmless SCPs and clearly homesick for its long-extinct homeworld.
- SCP-1171
is a very racist Starfish Alien who can't go a sentence without using racial slurs against humans, and at one point goes off on a rant against them for stealing jobs from hard workers like himself.
Dr. ██████: I suppose so. Say, what do you look like?
SCP-1171-1: OH, PRETTY AVERAGE. SEVEN TENDRILS TALL. BROWN CARAPACE. GREEN BIOLUMINESCENCE. BLUE EYES. YOU?
Dr. ██████: Same. - SCP-2803-A
, CEO of anomalous consumer electronics company TotleighSoft, is a massive telepathic glob with thousands of tentacles each capable of producing a crystalline mucus with mind-warping properties. "P. Hudson Gock", as this alien calls himself, has a very tenuous grasp on the English language and a knack for game development.
- Based on data retrieved from an alien CD
- Snaiad covers the biosphere of a fictional extrasolar planet as catalogued by human colonists. A short list of the differences between Snaiadi and Terran vertebrates: Their skeletons are carbon-based rather than calcium based (making fossils rather hard to find, and bones an excellent source of fuel); a portion of their musculature structures are hydraulic instead of contractile, i.e. they push instead of pull; they have two heads, one for eating and one for reproduction; and a number of aquatic species move by way of biological jet engines, a quality they share with Earth octopuses, though still unique as far as vertebrates go. Front legs are optional.
- Alien Biospheres is dedicated to the speculative evolution of a planet of these, using the principles of actual real world evolution. One family of creatures breathes through two holes on either side of its head that used to be tentacles.
- Some of the aliens encountered in 3-2-1 Penguins! include sapient vacuum cleaners, pumpkin-headed children, light bulbs with arms and legs who communicate with clicking and beeping sounds, darts who constantly lie, spring necked lawn flamingos, and ear lobes with arms and legs whose vocabulary consists of one word.
- In Alienators: Evolution Continues, the Genus aliens become literal starfish-like creatures when hit by a devolution ray.
- The twist of the two-episode Batman Beyond story "The Call" is that a (literal) starfish alien is controlling Superman. In fact, the entire plot came about because the alien just wanted to go home and it couldn't communicate with Superman to explain where that was or even that it was a sentient being, so it took matters into its own... arms.
- Ben 10:
- The original series has Wildmutt, Stinkfly, Ghostfreak and Wildvine.
- Alien Force: Brainstorm is a giant crab-like alien, with a huge brain that he can shoot electricity out of.
- In Omniverse we get Ball Weevil and Walkatrout.
- Futurama:
- Dr. Zoidberg may look humanoid now, but while going through his developmental stages, he resembled various deep-sea creatures. Likewise, the humanoid Kif Kroker started life as a tadpole, and will eventually age into a swarm of flying hookworms. Both species reproduce rather differently than humans.
- The Horrible Gelatinous Blob is probably the most frequently appearing example in the show, outside of Zoidberg and Kif, as described above.
- "My Three Suns" involves the Trisolians, a race of liquid aliens that look like anthropomorphic blobs made of water. Fry accidentally consumes their emperor by drinking him from a bottle.
- The Spherons from "War is the H-Word" are a species of ball-shaped aliens. They move around by bouncing, and despite lacking mouths (or any visible facial features), they can talk to humans.
- In "Parasites Lost", Fry becomes host to civilized gut-worms, who are rather friendly and improve his body and mind drastically.
- The anime segment of "Reincarnation" has a race of mouthless aliens who can only communicate with body language.
- While plenty of aliens in Invader Zim are humanoid, including the title character, there are also plenty that fit this trope, ranging from Energy Beings that resemble amoeba to a floating purple cone with a face.
- Though packed with humanoids, Justice League and Justice League Unlimited also showed a few non-humanoid aliens, mainly as background characters.
- Love, Death & Robots:
- In "When the Yogurt Took Over", adapted from the John Scalzi story of the same name, scientists accidentally create sentience in a pot of yogurt, which proceeds to Take Over the World. It communicates both by speaking and spelling things out in granola.
- In "Beyond the Aquila Rift", again an adaptation of a short story by Alastair Reynolds, the main character is trapped in the hive of a terrifying, oozing, multi-eyed Giant Spider-like alien that claims to be a Non-Malicious Monster subjecting him to comforting psychic illusions to stop him Going Mad from the Revelation.
- The Real Ghostbusters: Some of the ghosts are not spirits of dead humans but creatures from other dimensions, thus qualifying as aliens, and most of such are really really really weird.
- The Secret Show: The Impostors look like fly maggots with a red cycloptic eye, speak a Starfish Language, and have a specialized queen. They're pretty advanced in technology too.
- The Simpsons: Kang and Kodos, beings of the planet Rigel VII (or Rigel IV), are giant, green, fang-bearing, one-eyed octopuses who wear large glass helmets. Their few humanizing aspects include speaking a language that coincidentally sounds just like English.
- Star Trek: The Animated Series took advantage of being animated by introducing several non-humanoid aliens: Arex, the three-armed Edosian navigator; the Vendorians, shapeshifting giant squid things that took both the form and personalities of people they shifted into; the Phylosians, Plant Aliens; the slug-like Lactrans. And several minor ones, like the pillbug-like Em/3/Green, known as a Nasat in the Expanded Universe. In a strange inversion of live-action, the Filmation's animators found starfish aliens (especially those with no pesky arms or legs) to be much easier and less tribble - er, trouble to animate than human beings.
- Steven Universe:
- Gems are a complicated mix of Starfish and Rubber-Forehead Aliens. They're a race of mineral life who're "born" humanoid, but their bodies are just projections from their Gems. Thanks to this, they can temporarily shapeshift; though it always shares their natural color scheme. They are The Ageless and only "die" when their gems are shattered. They don't reproduce naturally; rather, gems are artificially created underground and molded to have certain characteristics, like a larger mass for their light-body (but remaining too long in incubation can reverse this and cause their own form of dwarfism). In addition, Gems are able to fuse together and the more gems that are fused, the less humanoid their projections appear.
- The aliens in "Jungle Moon" are straighter examples, including a dog-sized beetle, a hoofed, humped dinosaur, and a beanbag with a beak and talons on the end of tentacles.
- Transformers:
- The original series has the living planet of Torkulon, its motley inmates, and the energy-based Tornedron. In the sequel series Beast Wars, we get the extradimensional Vok.
- The Quintessons have diverse body types by caste. Judges have five faces, but no actual 'head', just a balloon-shaped body. They have no arms or legs, and instead get around via hovering on an beam of "energy" at the bottom of their body. If they do need to carry something, they use the thin tentacles that surround the beam of energy Prosecutors and Scientists have similar features but have thicker green tentacles, additionally having only one head on a humanoid torso. Instead of arms, they have at least three thick green tentacles on each "shoulder". Others have more humanoid bodies, but are the exceptions to the rule. In their initial appearance, in The Transformers: The Movie, they drag any robotic beings they find (with the exception of Spike Witwicky who was captured for being an Autobot ally) into a courtroom setting and invariably feed them to the Sharkticons, but they never explain why they're putting up with these trials. Later appearances explain that they're just jerks who are still angry that the "theft" of the planet Cybertron during a revolt by the ancestors of the Transformers, whom they built as slaves. They do this by persecuting all robotic beings regardless of whether they originated on Cybertron (e.g. the Transformers) or not (e.g. Kranix, the last survivor of Lithone which was eaten by Unicron at the beginning of the movie).
- The Transformers themselves are perhaps the limit of how humanoid mainstream aliens can be — Mechanical Lifeforms about ten times our size who can reconfigure their bodies at will to mimic machinery. Most of them happen to have two arms, two legs, and a head, but they sure as heck don't look human. And "most" doesn't mean "all"; there are some Transformers that lack humanoid robot modes, e.g. Decepticon cassette tapes Ravage and LaserBeak and Autobot Sky Lynx who is a space shuttle that turns into a dragon (the "Sky" part) and a giant cat (the "Lynx" part), both bodies being equally 'him' whether working together or in two entirely different places. G1 Reflector was three largely identical beings in one alt mode (a camera), but it's unclear how separate their personalities are. Additionally, while it has never been brought up in canon, the transformers come off as eusocial because in every continuity except the original cartoonnote and the IDW continuitiesnote they're all asexually spawned by a single breeder, a transformer named Primus (Transformers Generation Two showed that "normal" members of the species can become capable of mitosis too) and if you follow this line of thinking, the different categories of alternate forms, such as military vehicles and cars, could be seen as biological castes like the ones Earth's insects have.
- Most aliens in Tripping the Rift, including the main protagonist Chod who is a purple monster with three eyes and tentacles.
- The Walt Disney Presents special "Mars & Beyond" has all sorts of bizarre takes on the possibility of alien life, some silly
and others less so
.
- Played with in Wander over Yonder. All alien races have unique looks, but most have a similar biology to Earthlings: they have flesh and organ bodies and human senses and needs (physical and psychological), they communicate mainly in verbal languages with body language to express emotions, and most are designed off of earth creatures/things/attributes. All shown speak English and have a human-based culture (usually western). The biology gets wonky when there are balloon animal aliens and eyeball-for-a-head aliens somehow eating and speaking.
- In mental terms, this article
reflects upon the profoundly alien possibilities extrapolated from our own minds, while breaking down each factor that could possibly make alien minds different from human minds.
- Scientist speculate that life may exist on Jupiter's moon Europa where there may be a sea under the ice. If they do, they'll probably live very deep down, surviving off geothermal energy. Thus, they would possibly look similar to Earth's own deep sea creatures
, which evolves in one of the most extreme environments on Earth, with very little sunlight, nearly no photosynthesis and extremes in pressure and cold. This radical difference from any other environment on Earth creates very alien forms of life that simply cannot exist elsewhere.
- Scientists constantly discuss the limits of where life could develop, but the reality is that those limits only apply to the kind of life we're used to. Technically, as long as there is enough chemical diversity as well as an energy gradient, there is the potential for what could be defined as life, regardless of temperature, specific chemical environment, or gravity. This could mean some really bizarre lifeforms are waiting out there.
- On the other hand, the phenomenon of convergent evolution - when unrelated species evolve similar adaptations to the same or similar environments - is observed in countless contexts on earth. A good example is how closely dolphins resemble fish, when in fact they are more closely related to camels. If it turns out that an earth-like environment really is necessary for complex life to evolve, it could take forms relatively similar to those seen on earth (which would not preclude literal Starfish Aliens of course).
- Related to the former entry are those hypothetical lifeforms (or life that adapted itself to those conditions) that could exist in the very far future of the Universe, if the Universe kept expanding forever, or otherwise collapsed on a Big Crunch, though this scenario seems to be unlikely. Such creatures could very well be real life Eldritch Abominations, and blur the line between natural and artificial life.
- For the ever expanding Universe there will be a time in which there's little more than electrons, positrons, photons, and neutrinos. With just that, whatever could exist by then would very likely be something very large and diffuse, that would alternate short periods of very low activity with long ones in hibernation, even living forevernote
- Contrariwise in the Big Crunch scenario, something that was able to adapt to the extreme densities and temperatures existing just before the final collapse would have so much available energy that would operate so fast that ''very'' small fractions of second in the outside Universe would mean for it almost an eternity and would have an intellect far beyond anything we can imagine. However, sooner or later it would be prey of both quantum effects and being unable to get rid of waste heat and would die.
- In the event of a False Vacuum Collapse, AKA a "Big Slurp" note nothing would be able to survive, but it's possible that something resembling life could appear in the aftermath. Since the very fabric of reality would be different, this would be a very starfishy alien form of lifenote .
- There's evidence
that suggests the onset of cosmic inflation
(maybe it even was a false vacuum collapse-like event) was the Big Bang, and that it destroyed a previous Universe whose properties are unknown. More than likely, had life existed in such Universe it would be very starfish-y from out perspective (and such lifeforms would also have seen us such way.)
- Some of the smartest animals on our own world are pretty different from humans: great apes are still sort of similar, but dolphins and whales, elephants, crows, parrots and octopi are outside of the rubber forehead range. Counting smart behavior arising from swarms of ants and bees might give us some food for thought.
- What about a starfish civilization? A species with a far greater understanding of physics that could use that knowledge for literally everything. Not just for things like faster than light travel, but for things like energy usage so efficient that none of it is lost as waste heat. This is one theory for why we have yet to find evidence for advanced aliens: that our ideas about technology and society are so primitive in comparison that we simply have no idea what to look for.
- For example, it might turn out that harnessing neutrinos for communication and creating a machine that can catch them is the most efficient method of communication. But since neutrinos only interact very rarely with normal matter we could essentially be surrounded by alien communications and be entirely in the dark about it, in the same way a Paleolithic caveman would have no knowledge of our radio waves.
- Radiotrophic fungi have been found living inside the destroyed reactor #4 at Chernobyl. Also, scientists at Savannah River found a species of extremophile bacteria living inside a nuclear waste tanknote . The evolutionary adaptations that allow these organisms to survive extreme levels of hard radiation are the same adaptations that allow them to survive dessication.

