Aliens

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This article is about aliens in general. For the movies, see Alien

Aliens, also known as extraterrestrials or xenos, are hypothetical creatures that have evolved to live on planets other than Earth. Contact with aliens, both friendly and unfriendly, is a common situation for the science fiction genre.

Common archetypes for alien species

The Greys

One of the most famous alien archetypes, originating from real world "alien sightings" and conspiracy theories. The Greys are short humanoids with grey skin and large, black eyes. Usually go around in flying saucers abducting humans for experiments and creating crop circles. They tend to only appear in either parodies or in works that are inspired by UFO lore.

Human Aliens

Aliens that are visually identical to humans. Nowadays a kind of discredited cliche; examples in the modern day mainly still exist because of old franchises where they've been used for years.

• Kryptonians (Superman)
• Saiyans (Dragon Ball)
• Time Lords (Doctor Who)
• Vulcans (Star Trek)

Babeliens

Beautiful alien women, often existing to be a love interest for the human protagonist. Unlike Human Aliens, the Babeliens tend to have enough visual differences to make them appear more exotic while still being humanoid enough to fap to.

• Red Martians (Barsoom)
• Twi'lek (Star Wars)
• Asari (Mass Effect)
• Trills (Star Trek)

Swarm Aliens

Aliens loosely based off eusocial organisms from our own Earth. Usually insectoid, and tend to have little independent thought to the point of often being depicted as a "hive mind". Tend to be antagonists most of the time.

• Bugs (Starship Troopers)
• Tyranids (Warhammer 40k)
• Zerg (Starcraft)

Lovecraftian Aliens

Aliens inspired by HP Lovecraft's work. Tend to have very abstract and non-humanoid designs, with tentacles being a common recurring trait. Mostly portrayed as villainous, and if they aren't then they are neutral entities who don't care about humans for the same reason we don't really care about beetles.

• Mi-Go, Elder Things, Great Race of Yith (Cthulhu Mythos)

Alien Animals

Although most depictions of aliens in science fiction are intelligent creatures, realistically they would be far outnumbered by non-sapient aliens with the intelligence of animals. Indeed, seeing as it took billions of years for Earth to evolve intelligent life, it is likely that most planets with life in the universe wouldn't have any sapient organisms to create civillization. Still, seeing as this is kind of a boring truth, most science-fiction stories with "alien animals" in them have them exist mainly to be the native wildlife of an actually intelligent alien's home planet.

• Sandworms (Dune)
• Tribbles (Star Trek)