Would you want the STO Iconian look in the novelverse? - SPOILERS

^Yeah, but it's still the default to bipedal shapes that I find disappointing in so many SF/space opera works that should be free to diverge from it due to not requiring live actors. There's so much more anatomical variety than that just here on Earth.

I find it a continual source of disappointment that TOS, which was made with less advanced technology and a lower budget than its successors, was nonetheless willing to depict more exotic alien types -- Horta, Sylvia & Korob's species, tribbles, the space amoeba, Melkot, Tholians, Excalbians. Plus bipedal "monsters" like the Gorn and Mugato, weird aliens in human disguise like the Kelvans, and assorted gaseous clouds and energy beings. Despite having more limited resources to create aliens, TOS was willing to be more creative with them. And TAS prided itself on its freedom to create even more exotic creature designs. But the later shows were hemmed in by Roddenberry's insistence that every alien species should have something recognizably human in their design, and thus they ended up being far less creative and ambitious in their alien designs than the original two series were.

 

I suppose you're right, but in fairness to the others, TNG had the ultra-incorporeal Q, DS9 had the Founders, and Voyager had live-action Groundskeepers/Species 8472.

 

^Yeah, but such exotic aliens were far less commonly used in the later series. Fortunately there was an effort to add more variety in ENT, thanks to improving and increasingly affordable CG animation.

 

Well if looks aren't good enough for you, take a look at what an STO Iconian can actually do. http://youtu.be/rLhOskDgWgw?t=21m

 

Err, that's the last thing that's going to satisfy my desire for credibly designed alien biology and behavior.