Personally, I like the idea of some sort of fuzzy subterranean gremlins from Mars.
Elon arrives and they prank him to death.
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Personally, I like the idea of some sort of fuzzy subterranean gremlins from Mars.
Elon arrives and they prank him to death.
I want to believe that Rodenberry knew something and the Vulcans 🖖 are exactly as portrayed.
But I could see them being feathered lizard like bipedal creatures, or perhaps crab like. I think bipedal because dexterity of appendages would be necessary to develop a written language and build precision tools. It seems to be a fluke of historical events that furless mammals were the species to emerge as the highest intelligence.
Goo creatures like Yafet on the Orville would be pretty cool tho.
RIP Norm
But as an actual response to the bipedal thing I think some sort of cephalopod like animal is also a distinct possibility.
Yeah, it definitely feels like if cephalopods had longer life spans and began passing on knowledge, there's a good chance they'd evolve to be pretty intelligent over time.
I think the biggest hurdle is the ocean environment. It is hard to create lasting change in the environment so there is a limit to how much intelligent action can contribute to reproductive advantage. As it stands they are probably near human level intelligence just specialized in ways we can't communicate with.
There does seem to be a correlation with lacking natural tools being a pressure to develop