More Aliens

Nick Storozhenko

Flabby acephalic quadruped. Orange with darker speckles, cream underbelly. Glossy cybernetic enhancements along the spinal cord. Livestock, engineered and uplifted by a cruel and long-extinct patron. Delicious and aware of it. Possessing of a terrible, unshakable nihilism.

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Rubbery conical body on a large muscular foot. Mottled green-brown color. Peak splits open to reveal extendable manipulator limbs, sensory and reproductive organs. Amphibious, primarily aquatic. Slow to act, very cautious, very patient. Can release clouds of neurotoxin in water.

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A latticework of chitinous limbs supporting sheets of shimmering stained-glass gossamer. These are the treelike adult forms, alive for only a few days to mate and die. Their larvae, like huge pastel caterpillars, live and grow for decades in the fearful anticipation of that blissful moment when they will be beyond all thought and pain.

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Humpbacked shell like yellowing teeth, rows of swimmerets and rasping mouthparts pulsing beneath. Hail from the frozen hydrocarbon shores of a Titan-analogue. Intense R-selection reproduction has fed into a detached, near-sociopathic logic of resource allocation.

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Serpentine body, ten legs. Soft striped fur in red, bronze and black. Barbed proboscis with liquefying spittle. Six eyes for maximum field of view. Apex ambush predators, valuing silence, effective action, and maintaining territorial boundaries.

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Symbiotic amalgamations of three organisms: one, something like a wide, six-limbed tortoise. The second, a variety of coral polyp, growing in red-pink columns of tight-packed spirals. The third, tiny creatures between ants and starfish that live within the pillar. Means of mental function unknown, interference presumed. Do not appreciate prying eyes. Exclusively live in coastal regions.

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Gigantic bell-shaped filter feeders from the upper atmosphere of a gas giant. Cloudlike patterns of blue and white. Long draperies of baleen to scoop up food. Communicate through radio. Biologically immortal, capable of reverting to their nymph stage. Haunting songs. Difficult to communicate with. Forever seem to be focusing on something else.

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Octopedal scavenger-generalists. Jungle-floor dwellers. Lumpy red shell. Spade-like forelimbs to assist with digging. Hyper-social and curious, with large family units and strong empathy bonds. Carve out immense networks of underground complexes and habitation mounds.

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Digital lifeforms inhabiting amorphous, parasitic nanoswarms, which in turn are currently inhabiting the brains of a species of small, incredibly cute, fruit-eating arboreal creatures. Very old, devoted mostly to whim, relaxation, and entertainment at others' expense.

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Stout, aposematic bipeds adapted to low light and high gravity. Resistant to pain and fear. Compulsive consumers - eat more than they can stomach when food is available, will fill up their living spaces with objects that are purchased and then ignored or thrown away. Enter states of nonvocal hyperfocus while carrying out tasks. Sponsors have been mentioned, but not seen.

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Self-replicating communications satellite network, bootstrapped into evangelizing the media culture of a long-dead species. A pest with a habit of parasitizing other satellite networks. The records that remain are corrupted, incomplete, and mostly nonsensical.

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Viral memetic cultureform transmitted through narrative and symbol. Triggers behavioral changes in susceptible host life-forms, inducing [DATA EXPUNGED] in order to proliferate transmission materials.

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Vacuum-adapted life native to the icy rings of a gas giant. Feed off volatiles and sunlight. Sessile, communicate through radio waves. Vast solar collector leaf-analogs. Form large reef structures where other vacuum life resides, in parallel to similar aquatic environments.

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Tall radial quadruped with silky fur coat. Each side is dominated by an androgynous humanoid face of smooth bone plates. Facial structures can pull back to to expose internal organs for repair by attendant tick-like servitors. Clearly engineered for interaction with other species.

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Colorful arboreal grazer kept aloft through specialized gas bladders. Defend themselves by using sonar pings to confuse and disorient most predators, and clever tool usage for the rest. The ease by which they might be grounded and killed has imbued them with zealous group-protection and threat-reduction instincts.

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Aggressive predatory tripods. Bullet-shaped body and stiltlike legs. Rubbery tawny skin with darker stripes. Will run prey into exhaustion and then deliver the killing blow through hydraulic mouthparts. Typically form packs of 6-12. Parasitic, vestigial males are traded as currency.

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Heavily-armored radial pentapods. Thick scutes and defensive spikes mostly for show now, as few predators will go through the effort of flipping them over to attack the underbelly. Can live to thousands of years old, though they think so slowly they rarely have anything to say.

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Parasitic worm-analogue. Networks into the host's neural system while residing in the lower digestive tract. Favors large fauna for scope of food intake and according social status. Individuals lucky enough to reside in megafauna hosts will often maintain servants

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Apex predators. Shaggy white fur, dark skin beneath. Have developed bone-skids to assist transit across the near-global glaciation of their world. Strong paddle-like feet at the rear of the body push off against the ice, launching them mouth-first towards their targets. Teeth are shed and replaced constantly through life.

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Spherical metal shipping containers with chipping paint and stenciled symbols. There is tapping from inside. Occasionally thin, greasy fluid leaks on occasion from the seams. The voices from within speak something you recognize, laden with malapropisms and irregular structures.