How come there isn't a standard, codified set of core races for sci-fi settings like fantasy has with it's settings (Human, Elf, Orc, Dwarf, Halfling)
>>46046545
Because Tolkien wrote fantasy and not science fiction.
Grey
Reptilian
Cat people
Hot bitches with blue/green skin
>>46046585
/thread
>>46046585
>Tolkien
Please. Gygax is far more influential. Think about how many people have magic powers in modern fantasy compared to Tolkien.
>>46046545
I hope you view such a thing as a blessing and not a curse.
>>46046545
>Not standard
There's always:
>Humans
Humans.
>Species with catlike qualities
Because people like the idea of cats actually being able to talk
>Honoroburu warrriorrrr reisu
Becuase there have to be aliens who are antagonists but come to respect our human beings for being such great fighters.
>AI
There's always AI. Even if it's just in the background, it's always there.
>Puppetmaster aliens who are either very much like humans or completely inhuman
Since there needs to be a godlike antagonist that plays like Sauron..
>>46046694
Basically Star Trek's wrinkly forehead aliens.
>>46046545
If you look into UFO folklore there kind of are.
Greys, Reptilians and various energy beings are all ultra common. Insectoid aliens are a staple of science fiction, usually with a hive mind and so are cat-men.
Not really sure why people look at space and think "You know what I bet there's cat people up there."
>>46046649
Tolkien influenced Gygax though.
>>46047276
Gygax hated LOTR. He was inspired by Poul Anderson, Jack Vance, Michael Moorcock and other pulp writers
>>46046545
>Humans
>Space Elves/Space Babes
>Bugs
>Muh Honarabu Warriors
>Ancient and Vague Precursors
>Cute-But-Obnoxious Aliens
>Robots
>>46047061
Everyone is either a cat person and wants to meet cat people because there could be no chiller bros or cuter ladies than cat people, or hates cats and is loading their gun in case there are cat people up there, because nothing could be worse than something that is a cat but with the intelligence of a man.
>>46046545
It's because you had a ton of Sci-Fi of various themes and plots out and about at the same time instead of one work immediately becoming influential.
Humans and Space Babes are the most common but there's plenty of Sci-Fi that subverts that.
>>46046694
>>AI
>There's always AI. Even if it's just in the background, it's always there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_Without_a_Net_%28book%29
Not always.
>>46047357
Also need Space Barbarians like the Krogan and Jiralhanae.
>>46047333
I'm pretty sure his Elf class was a jab at how OP Tolkiens elves were. Hence all the Elf hate.
>>46047741
Elves appear in the Poul Anderson books "Three Hearts and Three Lions" and "The Broken Sword"
>>46047333
Literally who?
>>46047333
I hate Eric so much just the name Moorcock starts to give me a rage boner.
>>46047783
Why the fuck do people on this board not know anything about fantasy and science fiction?
>>46046545
Bug race
Catperson race
Warrior race
Smart Race
I find it funny that science fiction has less of these constraints through expectations compared to fucking FANTASY. On the racial side of things at least.
There is no folklore/legends involving ayylmaos.
>>46047873
but anon, what if they all were.
>>46047333
>Gygax hated LOTR
probably because he couldn't break out of Tolkien's fantasy world. You always hate what has been done first and better in your chosen genre.
>>46047873
yes there are. look at ancient mayan/aztec carvings with rockets and humanoids wearing space helmets.
>>46047873
It's speculated that stories of ayys doing abduction shit is just a modern retelling of the Fair Folk. We seem keen on otherwordly beings showing up and fucking with us.
Since space is so much bigger than a single planet, be it a solar system, galaxy or the entire universe, it suggests a multitude of races more diverse than the typical 4-5 humanoids and beastmen quota most fantasy worlds stick to.
I feel with each additional magnitude of the setting, many more species should be included. Most sci-fi settings with aliens tend to have many types of aliens (even if most of them are impossibly humanoid), more than I think the average person is willing to accept from fantasy.
Personally I prefer an abundance of races and cultures within those groups rather than species with monocultures.
What I like about Niven's Known Space is that human occupation of alien worlds results in adaptation and the eventual diversification of the species.
>>46046545
Because the scifi standard actually "the fantasy standard but with a different coat of paint."
>>46046694
>Sauron
>a puppetmaster-type villain
...how do you figure?
>>46047783
READ A BOOK
READ A BOOK
READ A MOTHERFUCKIN BOOK
Jesus, I guess this is what a thread made by lotr/dnd doods looks like when they've never heard of Traveller.
Srsly, cat people mentioned this much and zero mention of Traveller. Sad.
>>46046545
I'd say it's probably:
>Humans
>Sexy Aliens who all look like Women usually
>Warrior guys
>Cute/animal ones
>Bugs/weird ones
>Robots/cyborgs
>Ancient, usually dead race. May be nice or evil, depending.
A big theme in SF is exploration and discovery, so it tends to lend itself well to having lots and lots of different wacky cultures, while Fantasy tends to be more about myth and history, so its usually got more defined groups.
>>46048194
I still think the flatwoods monster is the coolest design.
>>46048620
I'm quite partial to the Hopkinsville goblin and the Mothman.
>>46048666
Fogot my pic
>>46046694
except in Duneuntil Kevin J. Anderson decided to rub his ugly dick all over it
>>46047840
this.
>also robots and Lizard race.
>>46046545
But there is
>>46048407
Sauron, especially in the form of The One Ring, basically controlled and influenced everything that happened in the plot.
>>46048708
being the plot-driving MacGuffin and being a puppetmaster are not the same thing
>>46048689
Havent read the shitty Dune sequels. They add ayy lmaos?
>>46048751
IT WAS ROBOTS ALL ALONG
>>46046545
Because fantasy as a genre, while not short on authors, is so dominated by a single monolithic writer: Tolkien. Sci-fi, while having its greats, is not a field in which you can pin-down one individual who did most of the legwork in shaping the cultural assumptions of the genre.
>>46047812
So you'd say you have more cock because of this rage boner?
>>46048424
NOT A SPORTS PAGE
NOT A MAGAZINE
A FUCKIN' BOOK FAGGOT
A FUCKIN' BOOK FAGGOT
>>46048759
The robots weren't even the worst part. Like the mary sue time wizard space princess of the spacing guild.
>>46048737
Sauron also did things like driving Denethor mad, turning Saruman, sending the Ringwraiths to scare out the Ringbearer, releasing Gollum so that he could use the creature's lust for the Ring to find it, making the Companions think that Frodo and Sam had been captured and tortured so that they'd despair during the Battle of the Black Gate, and uniting all the goblins, orcs, and uruk's despite their natural hatred of one another.
>>46048864
its a strange feeling to realize Dune by now has twice as many bad books as it has good ones
>>46048864
>>46048759
Can't we just blame Herbert for deliberately leaving sequel hook loose ends that he never bothered to even think answers up for?
>>46048897
What's the ratio for the Horus Heresy and The Culture?
>>46048924
can't blame a man for wanting to leave open venues to continue a series he wrote
can blame another man for being really really bad at continuing a series he never wrote
What other Cute races are there in scifi? All I recall at the moment are the Ewoks and the little floaty people in Sora Kake
>>46049042
That wasn't an alien, that was an AI that wasn't insane like the others.I don't think I ever watched past episode 13 or something. What's a good subgroup?
>>46049042
Anime tends to go for "cute" aliens. Western stories go for "weird" ones, though some emphasize cuteness just so that it can be a red herring or outright weird, like the Pila in Uplift or the Hanar in Mass Effect.
>>46048701
>Sexy Slave Race
>Icky Parasite Race
>Reptilian Race
>Warrior Race
>Space Buddhists
>Psychic Race
>Scientist Race
>Merchant Race
You forgot
>Dark Scientist Race
>Evil Cyborg Race
>Random Historical Period Race
>Playa Race
>>46049196
Andorians are a second warrior race,you've confused them with Orions.
>>46047333
..all of whom, especially Moorcock, were influenced by tolkien. Even if that influence was HATE like in Moorcock's case.
>>46048857
No it's OK, you can say nigga here. There aren't any black people on the internet
>>46046590
this
/thread
>>46049221
So I have.
One warrior race is enough, we can swap Blue Warrior Race for Green Sex Race
>>46046590
Don't forget bug people.
>>46046649
Gygax was nowhere near as influential as Tolkien in the grand scope of things kiddo.
>>46049925
And Tolkien considered his fans crazy for obsessing over what was essentially a series of story books to him.
>>46046545
Because fantasy races are metaphors for the extremes of humanity. Aliens in sci-fi are conceptual exploration. As long as humans are the same, the extremes of humanity will be same, so the same archetypes that fantasy races fill will be there. Sci-fi doesn't work that way (usually).
Because fantasy has roots. In legends, mythology, folklore, traditional imagination of certain things. Also Tolkien copycating started by unimaginative writers in seventies (I think), and then exploding beyond any bounds by D&D and games copycating D&D, so tolkien indirectly.
It all contributed to certain ecpectations for the genre.
Also fantasy is easier to saturate than scifi. If you add too many races in medieval mythic world they will get bland and just become random spam that is doing more bad than good to feel of the setting.
SciFi authors are constricted only by their own imagination on the other hand, and scifi species need much less background to be interesting, and space is vast to contain them all.
>>46046545
There are, though.
The bug people, may be a stand in for commies, especially the Chinese.
The warrior race, usually modeled after ancient Japan or the Mongol horde.
The elder race, who tend to be elf-like besides the miscegenation.
The sexpot race, often have feline or elfin features.
The uplifts, usually dolphins, whales, or apes.
The computers, usually even more hostile than the bugs.
They are not codified, but there's short list of very widespread trait combos that would allow for identification.
>>46046585
This
>>46046585
/thread
>>46046545
Because that IS the standard, codified set of core races for sci fi settings.
Humans -- Humans
Elves, the highly ordered and civilized race of sexy looking humans with minor physical alterations -- Vulcans, Asari, Nebari
Dwarves, the industrious people known for craftsmanship and wealth -- Ferangi, Solarians
Orcs, the physically imposing warrior race -- Klingons, Luxans, Krogans, Trandoshans, actual Orks
>>46046545
Fantasy has a foundation, where it imitates other authors (not just Tolkein; see also, Appendix N) and those authors are fundamentally working off of the shared bedrock of myth.
With SF, there's still a *lot* of imitating other authors, but those authors had no common source material, and the very genre focused on "sense of wonder" inventiveness, making SF more conceptually diverse than fantasy. Pulp and space opera do have a somewhat similar set of Generic Aliens, though; it's simply that the list is a bit bigger and less rigidly standardized.
There's only one past, but many futures.
>>46048601
This right here. The good answer ignored.
>>46046545
Because SF lacks the well established suite of stock figures that pervade popular and folk comsciousness
Duh.
>>46046590
You forgot insectoids
Space Elf
Space Ork
Space Midgets
I don't understand
>>46048891
"Villains that do lots of things" are not the same thing as villains that make elaborate plans. All of those were relatively disconnected ideas. Typically speaking, puppetmaster villains stay behind the scenes and hidden entirely from the protagonists -- hence the "puppetmaster" image, because puppetmasters stay behind screens and let their agents appear to do everything while they secretly (important bit) manipulate everything. Not the same.
>>46049236
Nigga Vance and Anderson were writing novels before LOTR was a thing.
>>46046590
>>46052643
>and Klingons (warrior race people)
