First Look At Alien From New Trek Film - Serious

[Captain Pike]

3D Master, what Dr. Seth Shostak wrote ("and, actually, outright states") is not in accordance with what you said at all.

May look vaguely humanoid does not equal "are in fact all humanoid or near humanoid".

The qualifyers (bolded above) are all huge and important ones, and should not be discarded so lightly..

And before that he describes ("and, actually, outright states") his opinion that convergence to this precise bodyplan is probably not going to happen all that often and that to expect this is rather absurd.

In fact, beyond a bilateral symmetry, an even number of eyes and appendages, I wouldn't expect them to be much like us at all. We are the result of a myriad of random choices by our genes over billions of years, coupled with extinction of other, more prolific, species, several times, often by chance, which only then allowed our rise to become the dominant life form. Play those evolutionary dice out again and again and you are going to come up with different dominant life forms - not all of them humanoid.

 

[Orac]

The skirts are too long.

 

[PKTrekGirl]

Untold terrors await the presumed normal, you know. It's a regular minefield out there!

Does this mean I'm going to have to start wearing pants?

That depends entirely upon how good you look in a towel.

Okay...so let me get this straight. You hang out at a board where Trek geeks are considered to be the lightweights of the geekazoid species???

Until this moment, I had no idea that such a place even existed. And I work at a tech company, 'fer cryin' out loud! A place where giant lifesized cutouts of Darth Vadar, Wiis in the break rooms, and action figure collections prominently displayed are common, and the tech support guys stay at the office on Friday nights to play online RPGs together. THAT is my frame of reference!

Suddenly, I feel very......

......normal.

Somebody's got to be near the bottom of the list.

Oh well. At least I can still look down on people who write self-insertion Trek slashfic.

I'm not even sure I would want to meet such a person.
No...not sure at all.....

By the way, what the hell are 'furries'? Here I thought that watching scifi TV shows made me a certifiable geek...and yet there are entire portions of that org chart that I know nothing about.

Maybe that's why I find myself able to...oh....hold a job in something approaching the real world.

 

[Gepard]

I'm not even sure I would want to meet such a person.
No...not sure at all.....

By the way, what the hell are 'furries'? Here I thought that watching scifi TV shows made me a certifiable geek...and yet there are entire portions of that org chart that I know nothing about.

Maybe that's why I find myself able to...oh....hold a job in something approaching the real world.

Wow, you are sheltered. I'm not sure whether to pity or envy you.

Well, let's see...there's been a topic in TNZ the whole time... J. Allen is working on improving his artistic skills in that area...

And don't forget all those M'Ress appreciation threads Redfern posts.

...Are you sure you even hang out on this board?

But to start, I'd read this, this, this and especially this.

There. Now you're as big a loser as I am.

 

[Redfern]

And don't forget all those M'Ress appreciation threads Redfern posts.

Hey, come on, Gep, you make me sound as though I spammed all the major sections, starting M'Ress threads within each of them. I only created two, and I only started the second because the first was "nuked" during a "grand culling" of old threads. I even PM'd moderator Ptrope before-hand to make sure it was Kosher.

I can imagine PKTrekGirl turning paler and paler as she reads those articles. Alas, some of the notoriety is deserved, but every group is gonna' have its kooks and extremists.

Sincerely,

Bill

 

[Gepard]

Hey, come on, Gep, you make me sound as though I spammed all the major sections, starting M'Ress threads within each of them...

What, you're saying you didn't?

Because you should have.

I can imagine PKTrekGirl turning paler and paler as she reads those articles.

Then my job here is done!

 

[M'Sharak]

Somebody's got to be near the bottom of the list.

And I had just gone to my Photobucket file for an image of that very chart. You are too fast for me, Gep Malakai.

 

[Michael]

Somebody's got to be near the bottom of the list.

And I had just gone to my Photobucket file for an image of that very chart. You are too fast for me, Gep Malakai.

That's a hilarious chart. Of course it is scientifically verified and entirely representative of the truth.

 

[Nightfall to-Ennien]

Somebody's got to be near the bottom of the list.

Well, it's definitely not lonely down here. I mean, you, Redfern, J. Allen, me... Come to think of it, there has to be a number of us here.

 

[PKTrekGirl]

I'm not even sure I would want to meet such a person.
No...not sure at all.....

By the way, what the hell are 'furries'? Here I thought that watching scifi TV shows made me a certifiable geek...and yet there are entire portions of that org chart that I know nothing about.

Maybe that's why I find myself able to...oh....hold a job in something approaching the real world.

Wow, you are sheltered. I'm not sure whether to pity or envy you.

Well, let's see...there's been a topic in TNZ the whole time... J. Allen is working on improving his artistic skills in that area...

And don't forget all those M'Ress appreciation threads Redfern posts.

...Are you sure you even hang out on this board?

But to start, I'd read this, this, this and especially this.

There. Now you're as big a loser as I am.

Well, having scanned only a small bit of that material (busy day at work - don't have time to read it all right now), I have to tell you that I honestly don't get it.

Now granted, I've only been to 3 cons in my life - 1 large Trek con, 1 small Trek con and a Buffy con - but I don't even really get some of the stuff I've seen at those.

But at least I can make the connection to humanoid characters...and ones that exist in and have a common reference point in existing scifi TV shows.

But what would be the point of dressing up as an hybridized self-created animal? And in one of those articles it says that people get off on having sex dressed as these animals. I'm sorry...but I must be missing something here.

Of course...maybe that's a good thing.

In fact, I'm pretty positive that it IS a good thing.

Shit...I'm downright mainstream, it seems!

By the way, previous to this I did see J. Allen's art thread. However, I just thought it was a random sketch he was doing. I didn't think that stuff constituted a fandom or anything.

EDIT: Also...as long as we are on this topic, was that cat-like drawing posted earlier in this thread a 'furry'??? I guess it must be, huh?

And what (or who) is M'Ress???

 

[Carpe Occasio]

You know, I've been looking at this thread for awhile now and I don't get it. First look at Ellen from new Trek film? I didn't know Ellen DeGeneres was in the new Star Trek movie. I mean, what kind of crazy casting is that? For the love of...

Oh, wait... it says first look at alien from new Trek film. Well, it's almost the same.

Never mind.

 

[Gepard]

By the way, previous to this I did see J. Allen's art thread. However, I just thought it was a random sketch he was doing. I didn't think that stuff constituted a fandom or anything.

Oh, but it does. We're quite insane.

EDIT: Also...as long as we are on this topic, was that cat-like drawing posted earlier in this thread a 'furry'??? I guess it must be, huh?

In a nutshell, yes.

But what would be the point of dressing up as an hybridized self-created animal? And in one of those articles it says that people get off on having sex dressed as these animals. I'm sorry...but I must be missing something here.

Well, most furries don't dress up as characters, any more than most Star trek fans go out dressed as Klingons, you know? I sure as heck don't. I think the fursuiter attendance at the last Anthrocon was something like 10% of the attendees, which was an all-time high.

So don't feel like you're missing something.

As to the sex thing, yeah, there's people who do that, but it's been blown waaaaay out of proportion by news stories. "Person has sex with stuffed animal" sells better than "Person likes looking at art featuring animals." And I'll just reiterate that what I said in the TNZ thread: sure it's weird, but remember:

The defense rests.

And what (or who) is M'Ress???

See Memory Alpha.

 

[Redfern]

...was that cat-like drawing posted earlier in this thread a 'furry'??? I guess it must be, huh?

And what (or who) is M'Ress???

Ah, in the context of the franchise, M'Ress is name of a character. She is the backup communications officer for Uhura when Star Trek was revised as an animated series back in 1973, airing Saturday mornings on NBC. As to waht she is, she's the member of an alien species of sapient carnivores (called Caitians) that superficially resemble certain aspects of Terran evolved felines.

Here's the Memory Alpha Wiki' entry for the character:

http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/M'Ress

The two digitally rendered images I posted earlier in this thread represent my personal interpretation of the character in wireframe mesh, phong shaded format.

Is she a "furry"? Depends upon who you ask. The average "Joe" on the street if shown the official character sheets from Filmation Studios would probably perceive a "funny animal" cartoon character. Ask a Trek fan with knowledge of the animated series and he would probably describe her as a member of a carnivorous alien species. Ask a fan of anthropomorphic concepts and, yeah, he might class her as a "furry" before perceiving the character as an alien.

Sincerely,

Bill

 

[Akiraprise]

And what (or who) is M'Ress???

How can you call yourself a Trek fan and not know M'Ress???
She was only, like, one of the hottest females ever portrayed on Star Trek.
M'row...

 

[Gepard]

She was only, like, one of the hottest females ever portrayed on Star Trek.
M'row...

Good to have you on board.

 

[Samuel T. Cogley]

And what (or who) is M'Ress???

How can you call yourself a Trek fan and not know M'Ress???

CAT FIGHT!!!

 

[Jackson_Roykirk]

And what (or who) is M'Ress???

How can you call yourself a Trek fan and not know M'Ress???
She was only, like, one of the hottest females ever portrayed on Star Trek.
M'row...

Whew! -- Thank God I'm not the only one who thought M'Ress was hot. Until now I thought my pre-adolescent lust for a Saturday morning cartoon character was unhealthy.

Now I feel free to also open up about my feelings for Princess Ariel from "Thundarr the Barbarian"

 

[Gepard]

Whew! -- Thank God I'm not the only one who thought M'Ress was hot. Until now I thought my pre-adolescent lust for a Saturday morning cartoon character was unhealthy.

Now I feel free to also open up about my feelings for Princess Ariel from "Thundarr the Barbarian"

Nobody said it wasn't unhealthy. It's just common.

Sounds like you'll fit right in.

 

[3D Master]

3D Master, what Dr. Seth Shostak wrote ("and, actually, outright states") is not in accordance with what you said at all.

May look vaguely humanoid does not equal "are in fact all humanoid or near humanoid".

The qualifyers (bolded above) are all huge and important ones, and should not be discarded so lightly..

Uh, the qualifiers mean the same thing; what he said, is what I said.

And before that he describes ("and, actually, outright states") his opinion that convergence to this precise bodyplan is probably not going to happen all that often and that to expect this is rather absurd.

Oh, I'm sure it doesn't, the problem is, virtually all of those that don't converge to the body plant, won't be building starships, or even anything at all.

In fact, beyond a bilateral symmetry, an even number of eyes and appendages, I wouldn't expect them to be much like us at all. We are the result of a myriad of random choices by our genes over billions of years, coupled with extinction of other, more prolific, species, several times, often by chance, which only then allowed our rise to become the dominant life form.

Nope, we are not the result of myriad of random choices. First, they are not choices at all, and they are anything but random. Any mutation that is beneficial survives, everything else doesn't. That's what people don't get, heavily fueled by creationists who like to talk about "chance" and "random choice" to make it seem it couldn't possibly have happened, and it's really god that did it.

Evolution is anything but random. Let me show you the human evolution, and how this is anything but random:

1. We lived in trees, we grabbed a hold of branches and the like and swung around. As a result we have grabbing hands.

2. As a result our bodies very much stopped being on four feet. Grabbing branches above resulted in an ever straightening of our spines. Nothing random about it.

3. When we came down from the trees to grab some food, and quickly go back up before a predator got us, this would be waddling on 2 legs, to easier and quicker grab something and grab ahold of a branch again to return to the trees.

4. The trees receded slowly, giving way to the savannah. We continued on our already set in path, on two legs. The height advantage, placed our head in a cooler place, allowing our brains to grow more complex without overheating.

There is nothing random about this. These are all direct results of the environments we lived in.

Play those evolutionary dice out again and again and you are going to come up with different dominant life forms - not all of them humanoid.

Oh, sure, but I never said otherwise. What I said was, that all those other dominant life forms, either aren't intelligent, or lack something else so they can't build starships.

They'd be like the horta; they might be smart as all hell, and we might be walking right next to them on our established colony, and we barely even noticed they're there. We might look at them as simple animals, until something happened as on that mining colony to make us realize they are intelligent after all. And the horta, and all those other dominant species will never be building starships, simply because they don't have the hands, and thus the tool use required to build an ever increasing civilization until they can build starships.

Hence, why the species we meet face to face, mind to mind, starship to starship, will almost all be similar to us. You have several requirements to do so. And call me crazy, but I don't see many telekinetic species evolving so they can use tools and build things with their mind as easily as we use our hands. I think most will be simple physical creatures.

 

[Jackson_Roykirk]

3D Master, what Dr. Seth Shostak wrote ("and, actually, outright states") is not in accordance with what you said at all.

May look vaguely humanoid does not equal "are in fact all humanoid or near humanoid".

The qualifyers (bolded above) are all huge and important ones, and should not be discarded so lightly..

Uh, the qualifiers mean the same thing; what he said, is what I said.

And before that he describes ("and, actually, outright states") his opinion that convergence to this precise bodyplan is probably not going to happen all that often and that to expect this is rather absurd.

Oh, I'm sure it doesn't, the problem is, virtually all of those that don't converge to the body plant, won't be building starships, or even anything at all.

Shostak never said that intelligent aliens WILL look vaguely humanoid; he said they MAY -- meaning that it is possible that they will look vaguely humanoid (bipedal, two eyes, stands erect). He said that we are one successful design for an intelligent species, not the only good design for an intellligent species.

I can imaging an alien that has 4 eyes the allows for 360 degree vision (and a brain the can process 360 degree vision). This alien will may not need a neck, since it does not need to turn its head to see predators/prey or dangers/food. If it has no neck, then it probably does not have something we call a "head" -- although its eyes and brain could very well be near the top of its headless torso to better view its environment.

I wouldn't call a 4-eyed headless alien "humanoid" or even "vaguely humanoid", even if it stood erect and was bipedal. Although I don't see any reason why a 4-eyed headless alien could not build and drive a starship.

Having said all that, I have no problem with Star Trek aliens almost always looking humanoid. It's a TV show/movie. They have in fact talked about the existence of intelligent non-humanoid aliens -- the Kelvans for instance (although we never saw their true form) -- but for the sake of simplicity in story-telling, I'm satisfied with humanoids. I think going out of your way to show non-humanoid aliens detracts from the story, and Star Trek has always been about story, not about being 100% scientifically accurate.

Nope, we are not the result of myriad of random choices. First, they are not choices at all, and they are anything but random. Any mutation that is beneficial survives, everything else doesn't. That's what people don't get, heavily fueled by creationists who like to talk about "chance" and "random choice" to make it seem it couldn't possibly have happened, and it's really god that did it.

Evolution is anything but random. Let me show you the human evolution, and how this is anything but random...

The choices made by evolution may not be random, but the "Menu" that Evolution had to choose from -- meaning Mutations -- are in fact random.

If evolution was given the opportinity to allow us humans to have 4 eyes, then I see no reason why we wouldn't have gone down that path.