I have several from past science fiction stories and ideas for stories. Here are a few.
1. One race was the villain for a story idea I had, which I mentally dubbed 'acid-chokes.' They come from an anomalous, unique planet whose atmosphere possessed noticeable levels of hydrogen chloride vapor, rendering the entire planet and biosphere highly acidic. This makes them unable to live in the normal biospheres of any other race or planet; their role as villains is that they've begun terraforming-style conversions of other planets, some already belonging to other races.
Physically, they're radially symmetric, resembling armor-plate artichokes with tentacles, about four feet tall when fully grown and about as wide. They're omnivorous, with the mouth at the top.
Highly significant is a trait of reproduction that became important when they first began living in cities. Sex determination is not chromosomal but environmental, based on the mother's pheromone exposure: male pheromones suppress the male-development in an embryo, pushing it towards female, and the reverse for females. Normally, this produces a cyclic variation in the sex ratio: more males moving around means more females born and vice versa. But if the population density gets above a certain level, you get cases where the levels of both pheromone are high enough that both developmental pathways get suppressed, and the offspring is born a sterile neuter. As society developed, these individuals formed a sort of political caste similar to the eunuchs of imperial China; they are considered to have less personal stake in political decisions, and tend to be concentrated in the upper levels of the military and government.
2. Another race I developed in a different work came from a higher-gravity world with a thick, dense atmosphere. As a result of the gravity, they don't have legs, but move on a gastropod-style belly lined with large cilia similar to a starfish's tube feet. Their two arms are also biramous, giving four hands. The eyes are large, as a result of the dense atmosphere, and are mounted along with the ears and mouth onto a head with a short, thick neck (keeping sensory organs near the brain). Like cetaceans, the digestive and respiratory systems don't intersect; the respiratory tract opens in the neck with a series of slits between cartilaginous ridges, which are flexed to modulate the air-flow. As a result, their languages are highly tonal, polyphonic, and mostly lacking in consonants; they are not so much spoken as sung.
As their atmosphere is too thick for humans and similar races, most such interactions take place on flying platforms suspended by buoyant balloons; essentially giant dirigibles and zeppelins.
Lastly, the planet's atmosphere contains a floating plankton/algae to whose presence the race has adapted. However, this algae tends to clog air re-processors, and so cannot be maintained on ships. The primary side effect of the absence of this organism is overactive salivary glands: when not on their home planet, they drool (and the saliva is tinted blue, too).
3. From the same work, I also created mobile fungus species. They are also radially symmetric: a short eyestalk/"head" with a ring of eyes rises from a domed body whose base is ringed with tentacles that serve for both manipulation and locomotion, and end in hard stingers/claws. On the underside is a mass of root-like tubules used to feed upon decaying matter and nutrient rich organic soils. Motility, in the form of the tentacles, evolved in their ancestors as a means to both combat predators, and to kill prey on whose decayed bodies they could feed, and then sentience developed in parallel with increased mobility.
The net result is that they are highly territorial: all probes sent to their system were destroyed without warning. One never enters an individual's personal territory (or collectively, the race's territory) without an explicit grant of permission first. Further, to explicity ask permission to enter is inexcusably rude; one waits outside the territory, makes an indicator of one's presence, then waits to be invited in. There is a strong hierarchy based on control of territory, creating an almost feudal system where power and land ownership are strongly correlated.
--The Twisted One"Growing up means giving up everything that makes you happy"
--Marge Simpson
"If you
wish to converse with me, define your
terms."
--Voltaire
1. One race was the villain for a story idea I had, which I mentally dubbed 'acid-chokes.' They come from an anomalous, unique planet whose atmosphere possessed noticeable levels of hydrogen chloride vapor, rendering the entire planet and biosphere highly acidic. This makes them unable to live in the normal biospheres of any other race or planet; their role as villains is that they've begun terraforming-style conversions of other planets, some already belonging to other races.
Physically, they're radially symmetric, resembling armor-plate artichokes with tentacles, about four feet tall when fully grown and about as wide. They're omnivorous, with the mouth at the top.
Highly significant is a trait of reproduction that became important when they first began living in cities. Sex determination is not chromosomal but environmental, based on the mother's pheromone exposure: male pheromones suppress the male-development in an embryo, pushing it towards female, and the reverse for females. Normally, this produces a cyclic variation in the sex ratio: more males moving around means more females born and vice versa. But if the population density gets above a certain level, you get cases where the levels of both pheromone are high enough that both developmental pathways get suppressed, and the offspring is born a sterile neuter. As society developed, these individuals formed a sort of political caste similar to the eunuchs of imperial China; they are considered to have less personal stake in political decisions, and tend to be concentrated in the upper levels of the military and government.
2. Another race I developed in a different work came from a higher-gravity world with a thick, dense atmosphere. As a result of the gravity, they don't have legs, but move on a gastropod-style belly lined with large cilia similar to a starfish's tube feet. Their two arms are also biramous, giving four hands. The eyes are large, as a result of the dense atmosphere, and are mounted along with the ears and mouth onto a head with a short, thick neck (keeping sensory organs near the brain). Like cetaceans, the digestive and respiratory systems don't intersect; the respiratory tract opens in the neck with a series of slits between cartilaginous ridges, which are flexed to modulate the air-flow. As a result, their languages are highly tonal, polyphonic, and mostly lacking in consonants; they are not so much spoken as sung.
As their atmosphere is too thick for humans and similar races, most such interactions take place on flying platforms suspended by buoyant balloons; essentially giant dirigibles and zeppelins.
Lastly, the planet's atmosphere contains a floating plankton/algae to whose presence the race has adapted. However, this algae tends to clog air re-processors, and so cannot be maintained on ships. The primary side effect of the absence of this organism is overactive salivary glands: when not on their home planet, they drool (and the saliva is tinted blue, too).
3. From the same work, I also created mobile fungus species. They are also radially symmetric: a short eyestalk/"head" with a ring of eyes rises from a domed body whose base is ringed with tentacles that serve for both manipulation and locomotion, and end in hard stingers/claws. On the underside is a mass of root-like tubules used to feed upon decaying matter and nutrient rich organic soils. Motility, in the form of the tentacles, evolved in their ancestors as a means to both combat predators, and to kill prey on whose decayed bodies they could feed, and then sentience developed in parallel with increased mobility.
The net result is that they are highly territorial: all probes sent to their system were destroyed without warning. One never enters an individual's personal territory (or collectively, the race's territory) without an explicit grant of permission first. Further, to explicity ask permission to enter is inexcusably rude; one waits outside the territory, makes an indicator of one's presence, then waits to be invited in. There is a strong hierarchy based on control of territory, creating an almost feudal system where power and land ownership are strongly correlated.
--The Twisted One"Growing up means giving up everything that makes you happy"
--Marge Simpson
"If you
wish to converse with me, define your
terms."
--Voltaire