So, a while ago sps and I came up with some notes for designing Aliens that didn’t borrow heavily from convergent evolution (no bird-men, fish-men, lizard-men, bumpyhead-men). The notes are really just a first draft of a checklist but they will most likely get turned into a serious book at some point.

In the meantime, I’ve had the occasional request for the list, so I thought I would put it here. Its not very well formatted, and its not at all explained, so make of it what you will.

Evolutionary Principals

  • Complexity
  • Lock-In
  • Homeobox
  • Duplication/Replication
  • Variation
  • Conservation
  • Extended Phenotype

Schemata

  • Endoskeleton
  • Exoskeleton (carapace)
  • Geodesic Skeleton
  • Pressurized (gas/liquid/(solid?)) struts
  • Pressurized body cavities (balloons)
  • Flaccid Danglers
  • Magnetic/Electric Repulsion
  • Modularity
  • Flow Jets
  • Inertial Flow (liquid, pellet, gyroscopic, rings)
  • Mechanical/Rigid (hinges, flanges, etc)
  • Solid and Solid State
  • Phase Varying

Methodologies

  • Arches
  • Rigid Struts
  • Guy wires
  • Contractile Fibers
  • Extenders
  • Flexion
  • Socket Joints
  • Slip and Stick
  • Wheel problem (turbines)
  • Module problem (coordination)
  • Plates
  • Membranes
  • Directed Growth
  • Extended Phenotype

Sensoria

  • Signals
    • Electromagnetic / Photonic
      • Vision (DC to Gamma) CCD/Lenses/Antennae
      • Polarization / Phase discrimination.
      • Encoding (radio/TV/etc) FM/AM/PM
      • Lidar
      • Spectrography (emission vs absorption)
      • Holography
      • Field interruption (eels, catfish)
      • Electric induction
      • Compasses
      • Ore Detection
      • Rotation Detection
      • Interference
      • Quantum Effects (entanglement)
      • Hall Effect
    • Strong and Weak Forces
      • Atomic Structure / Isotope detection
      • Scintillation
      • Chemical Reactivity
    • Gravitational / Hyperspacial
      • Space/Time Topology
      • Density Detection
      • Gravity Waves
      • Casimir Effect?
      • Mass Detection.
    • Vibrational (Solid, Liquid, Gaseous)
      • Longitudinal vs transverse vs compression.
      • Sound / Sonar
      • Analogues of Electromagnetism
      • Solitons
    • Physical and/or Sampling
      • Touch
      • Gyroscopes
      • Taste
      • General Chemical Sense
      • Temperature
      • Internal / External.
    • Internal
      • Inertial
      • Time Base
      • Proprioception
      • Balance (orientation)
      • Position
      • State (hunger, fatigue, …)
      • Damage (pain, poison, …)
  • Methodologies
    • Generalization vs Specialization
    • Active vs Passive
    • Quality vs Quantity
    • Internal vs External
    • Computational Resource Allocation ( Pre vs Post processing )
    • Derivatives (Time: speed, acceleration)
    • Differentials (Sound: Direction, Range)
    • Post Processing
      • Noise Cancellation
      • Decoding
      • Back Propagation
      • Path Integrals
      • Filters
      • Feature Extraction
      • Wave Analysis
      • Cross-correlation (aphasia)
      • Amplification
    • Sense compensation
    • Cascade senses.

Misc

  • Timescales.
  • Parasitism/symbiosis.
  • Data parasitism.
  • Motion via substrate replacement.
  • Substrate-independent life (textual lifeforms, e.g.).
  • Alternation of generations.
  • Need to sleep.