I don't care. They've been doing this since the 1960s. The distinction between sci-fi and fantasy is fake as shit and younger than me.

>>94801874
Sure. Do it well and it will be good. Do it poorly and it won't be.

The things you put in your game will never, ever, determine the quality of your game. How well you execute them is all that will ever matter. The elements themselves are totally interchangeable except to the degree that it gets you interested in doing it well.

>>94801998
Ignorant arm-chair experts on the internet, unite! Unless you're two centuries old, you're not older than scifi. And unless you're fucking methusula, you're not older than fantasy.

>>94801874
I don't usually care for it because I feel like in most settings it's a distinction that is only meaningful at the level of the player.

This
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ES8CeZnEaF0

>>94801874
It's best for aliens to be in fantasy, because they're fantastical creatures. In fact, the closer to "like humans, but..." they are, the more fantastical they are.

>>94802020
That's not what that post says. Good luck with your adult literacy program.

>>94802109
Biologists a lot more knowledgable than you or me have hypothesized that anything we'd recognize as intelligent and civilization-building would likely share a whole lot of traits with humans.

>>94801874
I think it can be done well, but its usually done really poorly.
Usually when its done well, its almost deniable it was aliens at all and most will say its a just some unexplored or unknown branch of magic and mysterious fantasy race.
When its done poorly its just Greys being dropped wholesale into a medieval fantasy setting with zero alterations.

I have basically the same feelings about Science Fantasy. Its good when everything is aesthetically and tonally consistent, and bad when its just a wizard riding a dragon throwing fireballs at a spaceship. As badass as that is, it doesn't make for a great setting, in my opinion

>>94802178
>anything we'd recognize as intelligent and civilization-building would likely share a whole lot of traits with humans
Which speaks more about human intellectual limits than about any other potential sentients.

>>94802178
And a whole bunch of other biologists have said the "convergent evolution" crowd are a bunch of wishful thinking retards. Its unclear which side is bigger or correct.
About the only actual requirement for a technological civilization is a "brain" for thoughts to occur and some way to manipulate the world. We have some rudimentary evidence that at least three animals on Earth, with very different body plans than the shitty ad hoc crapshow that is the human body, would have the potential to become highly intelligent given time and us not being around occupying that niche. Corvids, Octopi and Orcas/Dolphins. The latter two obviously being hampered by water, but octopi could potentially become amphibious given time. Corvids are limited by lack of dedicated manipulators, but they're extremely agile with their beaks and could develop further given time.

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>>94801874
Players stumbling into first contact with primitive natives is a gas, especially if they're utter weirdos who elevate what are to us regular aspects of humanity to divine traits full of portent. Nice pic btw.

>>94802037
It can vary if the aliens' shtick is the fact that they appear to operate according to distinct genre conventions. Always liked the way the Combine were dumbfounded by humanity's smaller scale teleportation in Half Life, fatasyland's magic could provoke a similar response.
>>94802214
Even the Grey version works when part of an overall gonzo setting imo. Better yet when what is the greys is transmuted by the natives' worldview though it's likelier than other approaches to fall into >>94802037. Age of Decadence pulls that off exceptionally.

Well, don't know what that's about but apparently this was deemed "spam". Repostan'.

>>94802178
Sure, "a whole lot" doesn't have to extend as far as pic though. Manipulators, land-dwelling and sociality are the bare minimum that get you good to go given enough time (which given mass extinctions is far from guaranteed).
>>94802269
My money's on the non-humanoid bunch but then it IS a spectrum. You don't have to push "upright bipeds only" to be sceptical of a fart cloud's ability to build rockets.

>>94801874
>Holy Roman Empire in Space
>but it's actually just the Holy Roman Empire because a space battle happened above Earth in 1561 and a ship crashed in Nuremburg
Holy kino

>>94802296
>ship's crew weren't wiped out and credited their miraculous recovery to Christ
>missionaries did their best but between language barriers and their inhuman perspective the Celestial Creed is a little... off
>Ottomans sound ancient astronaut tech amid the pyramids and have split the moon once more just as the Prophet once did
>they expand onto every satellite they can, whirling like dervishes about planets and building astrolabe-stations which ever point to Mecca

>>94801874
fuck
off
space
niggers

>>94802327
>ship's crew weren't wiped out and credited their miraculous recovery to Christ
If the ship's owners were intelligent, it'd be 100% logical for them to do this, to enlist Europe (and their more warlike civilization) in the fight against their foe, who can play the role of lucifer.

The Nuremberg incident (pic in OP) just cannot be chalked up to anything natural or unintelligent.

Either it’s a bullshit story or something legit was happening.

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>>94802439
Another celestial phenomenon occured just 5 years later in Basel, only 300 km away from Nuremburg. Do you think the cone ships or the sphere ships are the good guys?

>>94802643
Yeah that just makes it even more fucked upn

>>94801874
>>94802643
Skeptics will STILL say this wasn’t aliens, kek.

>>94802670
Burden of proof, nigga. "Extraordinary evidence" this is not. Excellent inspiration for gaming though and aesthetically pleasing to boot.

>>94802697
>"Extraordinary evidence" this is not.
You should actually read the recounting of event. Crashed spaceships and everything. Fucking rockets flying around leaving behind smoke trails.

>>94802725
People recount all sorts of shit and if the ayys were careless enough to do that then how come there's bugger all up there now that we're (almost) space age? "Gubmint" doesn't cut it for me either since while conspiracies undoubtedly exist flawless competence doesn't.

Good campaign idea though, you're the galactic council's MiB tasked with restoring a vandalised solar system to its pristine state only to find that the aboriginals have advanced unexpectedly fast. Now not only do you have to do your job with inadequate tools while evading sensors they may or may not have but also have to consider the possibility that some ass left behind reverse-engineerable scrap down there. Worse, they may be actively pursuing an unsanctioned uplift.

>>94801874
What game?

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>>94802725
People also "recounted" having these dudes around. People lie for fun. If there were crashed space ships that would be a trivial find for archeologists. It's not real, bro.

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>>94801874
It's neat as long as magic is still fucking magic not just um ackshully it's alien tech.

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>>94801874
There are various examples of "aliens" in fantasy settings such as the High Ones from Elfquest, the urSkeks from the Dark Crystal or the Dranei from World of Warcraft so is not that uncommon

>>94802670
I mean what if someone laced a nearby water source with some primitive LSD?

>>94802366
anything to have literal landsknechts in space

>>94802439
the real truth is the journal this came from was ye olden version of tabliod journals

>>94803080
Are those dicks popping out of its head?

>>94803059
Blemmyes were a real tribe, though.
>but the weird face on the chest
The only source for this is Herodotus, people just parroted him because he was Herodotus.

>>94803205
The real truth is that all news publications are tabloids.

>>94802269
>And a whole bunch of other biologists have said the "convergent evolution" crowd are a bunch of wishful thinking retards. Its unclear which side is bigger or correct.
No doubt. Which is why you, as a non-biologist, are welcome to use either for science fiction.
>>94802295
>Sure, "a whole lot" doesn't have to extend as far as pic though.
But it can.

Anyone dismissing "it's humans in rubber masks, that's not sci-fi!" is wrong. Is the point. You can go other ways, too. But you can also go little green men with exactly as much scientific backing as when Alistair Reynolds or Herbert & Ransom go planet-spanning clonal kelp colonies.

Convergent evolution? More like everything is crabs.

>>94801998
/thread

>>94804708
Aquatic means less convenient metallurgy and more payload so yeah, unlikely you'd see them off world. That said the Jugglers' presence on several worlds and "specialised" consciousness suggests they're artificial to me. More like leftover infrastructure or heavily derived transhumans than whatever evolved seeded them across the high frontier initially. How signalling would work at that scale is a separate problem (but again, likely artificial and in any case fiction).

I wouldn't say classic greenies are any more plausible than the Birrin for instance though. Upright bipedal tetrapods may crop up but given how convoluted our evolutionary history was up and down into the trees resemblance to humanity might wear thin as you get close. Some otherwise standard vertebrate could have fused denticles into a pseudo-exoskeleton way back and though internal support's better for larger frames the end result could be a humanoid (to say nothing of alt!tetrapods as a whole) held up by ossified cartilage inside and tooth-shell without.

>>94805443
Personally I especially find anyone saying that bipedal is at all likely for other intelligent species clearly hasn't done a lot of research on exactly how fucked up our entire bodies are because of bipedalism. The human body is a mess of compromises due to bipedalism and a large portion of modern muscle and skeletal problems are entirely due to bipedalism. Hell our digestive system is all sorts of fucked up because its stacked now. And don't even get me started on pregnancy and how bad that goes for women because of having to carry a whole ass child while standing upright on an already delicate and not really meant for upright posture spine. Or how you can land on ground at terminal velocity and survive if you get lucky but a fall from knee height at the wrong angle can break your neck and instantly kill you.

Bipedalism is a fucking quirk and we're lucky we survived it. With all the other Great Filters in a species way, if they needed to evolve into bipeds to be intelligent, its no wonder there aren't any other intelligences around we can see.

How come no one ever does anything with creepily enlightened highly evolved pleiadian styled utopian aliens? They would fit with a fantasy setting too

>>94809183
Thats just the Stargate Asgardians but instead of looking like Greys they look human instead.
And looking human makes things weird when it comes to a fantasy setting. Gotta give them a good tell or things get... accusatory when you say the all white nordic race is also utopian and technologically advanced.

>>94809464
I hate the implications of the noridc alien shit more than any /x/phile ever wouldm they don't have to fit that mold. That can be saved for ww2 nazi alien settings
But also in a fantasy context, you can basically make them like angels, because that's basically what they are in UFO religion.

>>94808660
I was talking about upright bipedal of course, a theropod horizontal build's a lot more common with good reason (no birthing woes for a start). That said I can't see our shoulders fitting well on that chassis and hurling rocks as much as anything else is what finally got our absurdly OP combo off the ground.

In fact we're such a combo of janky min-maxxed traits that that's what I'd expect of other spacefaring sapients whatever their bauplan. There are other social tool-users on Earth but they can get by with what their body provides most of the time, even amongst hominids sapiens are puny and further specced into our esoteric strengths thanks to a higher Dunbar's number.
>>94809694
They're adopting a form you're comfortable with on the basis of one village of inbred boreal fucks they bumped into, since we all look the same to them they just copy-paste the initial sample. Touches on cloning blues too >>94809464.

>>94809464
>accusatory when you say the all white nordic race is also utopian and technologically advanced.

They are. They're "humans" (better Humans) from better, more advanced and enlightened timelines. They barely consider us Human.

Ask yourself why all these "aliens" are humanoid. Space and time travel go hand in hand because spacetime.

>>94808660
>Bipedalism is problematic
Not particularly. Almost all birds, some rodents and marsupials and primates are bipedal. And as far as tool-using species go? Most are at least partially bipedal, being birds and primates. All we've got to go on is evidence from Earth, and as far as we can see? Bipedalism and tool use are seen together more often than not.

>>94801874
>>94802439
>>94802643
>>94802670
It was aliens vs angels, the latter of which protected us against ayys until we got our act together

>>94801874
it's fine but the writer or GM shouldn't use very sc-fi language to explain them

>>94803293
It's how they are described in at the mountain of madness.

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>>94801874
My setting always features crab people and man-bear-pig.

>>94811346
You're conflating a lot of very different body plans here. It's deceptive. Humans are from an arboreal lineage, and so our bipedalism is nothing like bird bipedalism. It's vertical versus horizontal, for one thing. And tool use seems to be fairly common on Earth period. Humans are just exceptional at it because we're obligate tool users with no other options on the table. Hell, ants are tool users and they're hexapods. If we're playing your game then it seems using your mouth as a manipulator for tools is almost guaranteed, except for two to seven absolute freaks that sacrificed a locomotive limb for it instead.

>>94804548
Doubtful

>>94802178
>hmmm yes you see all life would be space-beetle shaped since the optimal bodyform for an intelligent being is of course beetle shaped
>the idea that aliens would be space-monkey shaped is ridiculous!

>>94802779
Space gubmint cracked down on unlicensed visitations in the past hundreds of years. They had their space age of discovery where space england and space Spain had space naval battles within view of some space tribals (us) but now they've calmed down through space nationalization and space enlightenment

>>94802178
And that hypothesis doesn't express a greater possibility or probability for their *existence*, so they're still fantasy.

>>94820193
>our bipedalism is nothing like bird bipedalism
And yet... in response to the claim that bipedalism is rare? It demonstrates that it isn't.
>You're conflating a lot of very different body plans here.
You are correct about how observing convergant evolution works, yes.

>>94826853
I think you're fundamentally confused about what science fiction is.

>>94803157
Then the reports would all be wildly different. Do we genuinely believe people just forgot about known hallucinogens for a thousand years or so?

>>94826941
>I think you're fundamentally confused about what science fiction is.
I think you have your head too far up your own ass to realize "science fiction" has always been a misnomer, and has no actual distinction from fantasy.

>>94827040
Oh so you're stupid. Enjoy that, anon.

>>94827020
We forget all manner of actually useful shit, let alone the ingredients and effects of mind altering substances that allow us to break through the Archon's cloaking technology.

>>94827044
He’s not wrong though and you’re retarded

>>94827597
Science fiction and fantasy are seperate things. You can discover this with google. Try typing them in and reading the results that appear magically on your computer screen, if you are confused about the diference.

>>94827611
>hur dur im so retarded
Wooow

>>94802020
>two centuries old
Pretty sure Kepler wrote some sci fi story like in 1600.

>>94827643
(that being said, his story very much made both sci fi and fantasy genre feel the same)

>>94827643
>>94827654
Sure, if you like. Although it's hard to argue that you've got science fiction until you've got science, and it's hard to argue you've got science until you've got the scientific method, and it's hard to argue you've got the scientific method until you've got the cogito. But sure: speculative fiction certainly has a role to play as a predecessor to it.

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>>94801874
We call them Demons. It's the same concept with a different philosophic lens.

>>94801874
No space shit should be in settings that have barely discovered astronomy. I watched puss in boots the last wish and a magic alien meteor being the story's catalyst flared my autism.

>>94829087
How far do you take this? Star metal is an old fantasy trope. Eclipses and meteors and astrology are certainly fantasy-relevant. Phases of the moon, alignments of the planet... these are all common. So what makes it beyond the pale, to you?

>>94827611
Fantasy is the faculty or activity of imagining things, especially things that are impossible or improbable, and "science fiction" pretty much always features things that are impossible or improbable; whether it's older "sci-fi" featuring outdated theories, or newer "sci-fi" where the authors creates some bullshitium power source, miracle materials, faster than light travel, aliens, you name it.

So no, there is no difference. Science fiction is a misnomer, always has been, always will be.

>>94830511
Those are some pretty bad definitions of fantasy and science fiction, anon.

>>94828957
why did you need to include that retarded image?
it'd have been a good post had you not included it

>>94829087
>settings that have barely discovered astronomy
what settings are those?
astronomy wasn't created by galileo/newton/herschel etc, people were identifying objects in the space and tracking them since prehistory

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>>94801874
It's fucking awesome.

>>94808660
I think a species descended from the yapok (water opossum) makes sense. It's a semi-aquatic marsupial with thumbed forelimbs, webbed hindlimbs, and a prehensile tail.

>>94825870
Carcinisation is a thing.

>>94830672
It was the wrong one, it was supposed to be the Doomguy and Frieren.

>>94827611
>he thinks Star Trek isn’t fantasy
Lol
Lmao even
Vulcans are literally space elves
Aliens are stuck at human levels of advancement like humans are stuck in medieval era

>>94831559
Your confused about what science fiction is, and your comment is the first time in this thread that anyone has brought up Star Trek. I don't mind your ignorance, anon. But it's embarrassing that you're so proud of it.

>>94831576
Star Trek is explicit fantasy, and yet it’s no less fantastical than fucking Dungeons & Dragons, is the point. Fantasy and science fiction are the same thing. It’s all fantasy. It’s fantastical science. There’s physics even in a land of wizards and dragons and fairies.

>ITT: "sci-fi is when space and aliens"

No. True science fiction is what most people call "hard scifi." Everything else is fantasy.

>>94831638
>True science fiction is what most people call "hard scifi."
I mean, I agree, but, the hard science fiction of the past is the science fantasy of the future. It always updates itself.

In my mind, true science fiction is science history. The history of science. We should be making movies about Isaac Newton or Galileo Galilei. Both held absurd wizardly ideas; despite that they were no less key in the development of natural philosophy.

>>94831638
Do you think shit like Interstellar is hard science fiction?

>>94831656
You're right. And we should kill star wars fans.

>>94831625
You want to redefine science fiction as the same thing as fantasy. You use this definition you invented to proclaim that it is therefore fantasy. It's a tautology, anon. And no one grants your idiotic premise.

>>94831670
How is science fiction not fantasy science? You think “beam me up Scotty” isn’t fantasy? Lol. Lmao even.

>>94831686
Science fiction explores the possible and what those possibilities might mean for us. That doesn't mean that it has to be rigorously grounded in real science at all times. It just conceptualizes what a possible world might look like, and explores it. That's all, anon.

Yep: science fiction is distinct from fantasy. You want to redefine it so that you can claim there's no difference. And that's pointless and dumb, but you do you.

>>94831711
>the possible
The possible he says
LMAO

>>94831766
You have correctly identified my statement. Congratulations.

>>94831775
Nothing about disintegration transporters on humans is feasible. Cope.

>>94831806
Ope. I thought you managed to identify my statement, then you went the other way.

Star Trek isn't sci fi about teleporters. It's sci fi about a post-scarcity human-kind exploring space. Not every element has to be rigorously scientific. That's not what science fiction is.

>>94831711
Do you really think Star Wars isn’t science fiction because it’s also blatant fantasy? You know that the technology in Star Trek is even more outlandish right? Good Lord, the Greek gods are real in the Star Trek universe.

>>94831819
Anon—fiction and fantasy are highly synonymous, interchangeable. When you say science fiction, you’re also saying science fantasy. Even housewives fantasize about fucking the delivery man. Some explicit science fiction are notoriously downright fantasy. The Time Machine by Wells is a good example. That was hard sci-fi of back then, now it’s utter fucking fantasy. It just is.

>>94831837
>fiction and fantasy are highly synonymous, interchangeable. When you say science fiction, you’re also saying science fantasy
You are bizarrely trying to invent your own definitions of these things so that you can argue that the definitions you invented don't apply to them.

It's strange and pretty dumb. You have internet access. You can just google what science fiction is, anon.

>>94831846
You’re just not thinking holistically.

>>94831846
Do you think fantasy has to be outlandish? It can just be an unlikely, but still plausible, circumstance. “Oh I want to be famous so bad” is a typical fantasy of teenaged girls.

>>94832226
Damn, you're really dead-set on inventing strawmen, huh? First you wanted to invent a definition for sciene fiction. Then you want to invent one for fantasy. Then you want to tell other anons what they must think.

My dude, this is a really idiotic way to pretend to have a conversation.

>>94832226
>>94831837

you're like the retarded boomers who go "evolution is just a theory" by mixing up definitions (ie "theory" as using in science vs "theory" as used casually just to refer to guesses).

>>94832244
>My dude
Ugh

>>94832244
You’re really bad with words.

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>>94832450
>>94832915
>I have no point and I must sperg

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>>94830641
Your disagreement with a definition doesn't make it wrong.

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>>94832949
>He thinks this is a gotcha
lmao

>>94827643
There were stories we would classify as sci-fi these days back in the Roman Empire.

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>>94801874
It's ok in fantasy settings but I love it in otherwise grounded historical settings
pic related is one example but my favorite is the Vandermeer story about the "third bear" attacking the village

>>94833121
>he can’t imagine plausible scenarios
Having sex will forever remain a fantasy to you

>>94802296
this is just Poul Anderson's The High Crusade but in 16th century Germany rather than 14th century England

>>94827611
They're not seperate things. You can discover this with the last 100 years of academic literary analysis or asking any of the major "science fiction" writers in that canon. It's a marketing term only; always has been. You're like a funko pop collector to me.