THE ALIEN OF THE day: Vintage

Cadburys Smash Martian Mechanical Robot from Marx Toys

ELS

Planet of Origin: A planet on  the far side of the galaxy in their old home world. After billions of years of their evolution, their planet was on the brink of destruction as their sun went supernova and engulfed their home world. To survive, they sent out a expedition force in a giant sphere about 3000 kilometers in diameter in search of a new place to settle on/assimilate and make into their home world. Along their expedition, they assimilated and reformed several planets and planetary systems. Their journey ended in the Solar System in the year A.D. 2314, when they arrived near Jupiter and encountered the Europa, a space exploration ship and assimilated it, sending it on a course to Earth. 

The ELS is a peaceful techno-organic sentient species that has the unique ability to assimilate/infect nearly all life and technology.  They appear as silver metallic organisms that can take solid or liquid-like forms. While not aggressive, their ways of understanding their environment is based on assimilation of all things. The ELS has no true form as they are capable of taking any shape or size relative to their mass. They can combine or separate from one another to increase or decrease its mass as needed. When faced with an opponent or something they don't understand, the ELS can assimilate and convert the target of interest into an ELS. 

When confronted with unknown organic lifeforms and/or technologies, the ELS assimilates the target like an aggressive virus. It's rapid adaptability and versatility allows it to take hold of technology in a matter of seconds and organic matter in a manner of minutes. However, for organics, it can have detrimental effects to those not completely assimilated, such as causing brain damage and various biological instabilities due to their invasive nature to their condition. While their complete nature is not understood, it IS understood that they can utilize quantum brainwave frequencies, make copies of what they have assimilated.The ELS also are able to develop countermeasures against enemy forces.

The ELS assimilation process can come in two different ways. One is where a ELS attaches itself to a technological construct or a living organism and stays attached, appearing as large metal shards covering the infected target. The second way is an actual merger with the target, appearing as a mercury-like substance covering the target.

First contact turned into a short war which was followed by the  full merger of a human and the ELS and the ensuing mutual understanding. The ELS began returning to their mothership, now reconfigured into the shape of a desert flower, signifying the end of hostilities. Fifty years later, the  desert flower remained in orbit of Earth, indicating that the ELS maintain a form of co-existence with humanity. 

Source: MS Gundam 00 universe, MS Gundam 00 Movie: A wakening of the Trailblazer

ACANTI

Benevolent and compassionate by nature, The Acanti are a species of peaceful sentient kilometers long  reddish brown whale-like, space-faring extraterrestrial beings. They possess dorsal, ventral, lateral, and caudal fins, as well as green eyes widely spaced on their heads.  They communicate through psionic sounds referred to as songs. Acanti have the innate ability to fly faster than the speed of light, without technological assistance.

A long time ago, the Acanti were led by one individual known as the Prophet-Singer. The Prophet-Singer was the repository of the Acanti's racial Soul, a collective semi-mystical force that linked and motivated the Acanti species. As death approached, the Acanti typically hurled themselves into stars. The Prophet-Singer of each generation would also do so, releasing the Soul to join the body of the next Prophet-Singer.

Upon migrating to the Milky Way galaxy, the Brood species began to enslave the Acanti to take advantage of their natural ability to travel at speeds exceeding light. The Brood would infect individual Acanti with a disease known as the Slaver Virus, which would destroy the higher cognitive functions of their minds, making them ripe for easy control. Then, the Brood would transform the mindless husks into living starships. The Brood succeeded in enslaving the Acanti Prophet-Singer, and when he eventually died and crashed on a planet, its body was reconstructed as the "throne city" (presumably like a capital) on the planet (referred to as "Broodworld" or "Sleazeworld") that the Brood then established as the center of their empire. Thus, the Soul remained trapped in the skull of the dead Prophet-Singer.

Salvation for the Acanti came when a new Prophetsinger was born, however, without transferring the soul to him, the Acanti were still stuck near Sleazeworld. Only when the SOul was freed by external intervention in 1982 did the Soul unite with the young Prophet-Singer, who assumed leadership of the Acanti.

Source: Marvel Universe.  Uncanny X-Men #156 (April 1982) They were created by writer Chris Claremont and artist Dave Cockrum.

FORERUNNERS

Forerunners are most likely, the first lifeforms to appear in the universe after the Big Bang.  They only possessed a low-level intelligence level, enough for them to seek out food and consume it. Their food was any form of matter in the universe. Although they were unable to consume stars, they used starlight to guide them and flew to the stars like moths to a flame

The first forerunner appeared billions of years ago, in a dwarf galaxy far from the Milky Way. It was a lifeform made of powerful magnetic fields that developed around a gas giant. Once it attained sentience, it realized that eventually its homeworld would die and it needed to be able to leave it to survive. It created much smaller artificial lifeforms, consisting of the same form of EM field as his. To animate and program its "children", it created the first ever DNA molecules in existence. They were programmed to journey the universe and seek out other gas giants with similar conditions to their homeworld. Once found, the gas giant's magnetic fields were to be reshaped to allow their parent to "settle" there. Other of their functions included self-defense and self-replication with the use of any form of matter. When some Forerunners were destroyed due to various causes, their DNA would sometimes find favorable conditions on a planet's surface and form the beginning of organic life.

In essence, the original magnetic being can be called "God", as it was the cause of all organic life in the universe even though it was merely a side effect of its survival instinct.

Eventually, a swarm of Forerunners reached our galaxy and found a system in the Orion nebula, where a suitable gas giant was located and settled. 3 million years ago, the system's star went nova and nearly killed the gas giant lifeform. Seriously wounded, the lifeform lost all control of its Forerunners, whose programming was also damaged by the stellar explosion. They departed the nebula and began to travel the galaxy. Lacking their original purpose, their primary function became to feed on all matter around them and replicate more of themselves.

This large swarm was detected approaching an inhabited region of space in our galaxy. The swarm consumed all planets, asteroids, and even space dust in their path. This region of space, later named by humans the Sleeve of Emptiness, lay directly in the path of the Forerunners. Realizing that the swarm would destroy their races, the inhabitants of the region began to prepare for it. The two-headed Logrians chose to take their massive space habitats and attempt to outrun the Forerunners, fleeing from them. The Insects decided to hide themselves and wait out the "storm" by building a massive Dyson Sphere around their home star - thus making their star invisible to the swarm. Unfortunately, the sphere was not yet completed, when the Forerunners attacked and nearly destroyed it. Desperate, the Insects abandoned their worlds and left after the Logrians. Only the Delphons, who by that time visited many worlds in the galaxy, including Earth, decided to stay and fight, if not for their own survival, then for the survival of the races to come. After years of trying and failing to halt the swarm's advance, the Delphons came up with a suicidal plan to stop the Forerunners once and for all: whenever the swarm would approach one of their systems, they would detonate the systems star, destroying at least a part of the swarm. In the end, the Delphon civilization completely annihilated itself; however, their sacrifice was not in vain - the rogue Forerunners were destroyed as well.

Millions of years later, an archaeological expedition by the Confederacy of Suns to one of these annihilated systems discovered several Forerunners in an inert state. By feeding them matter, the humans managed to reawaken the ancient creatures, not knowing the danger they represent. The Forerunners managed to break containment and attacked and nearly destroyed a Confederate fleet in the system, constantly multiplying. Only a counterattack by their natural enemies, the entriphages, allowed the humans to stop another catastrophe.

After the fall of the Confederacy, several different parties found the Orion nebula and found not only thousands of Forerunners in the local gas giant and their guiding intelligence, but also humans descended from the colonists of Earth's first interstellar colony ship, the Alpha, lost for over a thousand years. These humans appear to worship the gas giant being as God, which also allows them to be reincarnated once they reach old age (i.e. none of the colonists have died of natural causes since the founding of the colony). They also appear to be able to exert some control over the Forerunners through the use of implants.

Unfortunately, the gas giant is slowly being depleted by ancient human-built biomechanical terraforming machines, who are mining a rare metal known as "metallic hydrogen" to fulfill their original programming and increase their numbers. This makes these so-called "phages" similar to the Forerunners. While the Forerunners are constantly trying to defend their creator from the phages, the machines' unique energy-absorbing armor and powerful lasers allow them to easily defeat the Forerunners and continue mining the gas giant.

Source: The History of the Galaxy series of novels by Russian science fiction writer Andrey Livadny. (and the related Wikipedia entry)

MAKLUANS / KAKARANTHARAIANS

Planet of Origin:  Kakaranathara (Aka Maklu IV), the fourth planet orbiting the star Maklu in the Milky Way galaxy.

Makluans are a reptilians species which has developed a highly advanced and peaceful democratic interstellar space faring society. 

A Makluan spaceship crashlanded in ancient China. Makluans are said to have been seen on Earth at the time as far as Camelot around the same time, and possibly other places as well. Makluans's  shapeshifting abilities made them able to walk among men without being recognised.

Makluans can function both as biped and quadruped; with green skin that average 32' in height when upright, reptilian scales, dragon-like wings, an elongated neck with rows of spikes running down the spine & tail, antennae, fan-like earlobes & clawed hands & feet. Their metabolism grants them rapid healing & the ability to regenerate certain of their body parts, entering a hibernationary state to accomplish this. Makluans are able to survive in the vacuum of space or under water for extended periods. Their lifespan is counted in centuries.Their wings endow them with flight capabilities under the speed of sound. They exhibit limited telepathy and  have natural shape-shifting abilities which allow them to assume a multitude of forms, able to alter not only their physical appearence but also their size, weight & mass by many orders of magnitude. If these polymorphic abiliites are inherent ot the species or has been artificially acquired s is unknown but it has been observed that individuals are able to transfer their life essence into the body of another living entity in case of death or serious injury; having done so, they are often able to transform the possessed body into their true form via their shape-shifting abilities. They can also exhale a corrosive chemical mist from their mouth, resembling fire, with varying degrees of intensity & accuracy.

Known individuals:  Fin Fang Foom, Axonn-Karr (who gave power rings to the Mandarin)

Source: Created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in  Strange Tales (vol.1) #89 (1961) and further developed in  Tales of Suspense #62 (Feb 1965) with the help of Don Heck. See also  New Excalibur #12

CHARRIDS

Charrids are humanoid agressive species with short snouts, sharp fangs and leathery skin. They are aggressive if not intelligent fighters, are known to eat their victims and have an extreme tolerance for pain. They are used by the Scarrans mostly as grunt soldiers and guards.

Source: Farscape universe

SCARRANS

Planet of Origin: Scaran Homeworld, in the Milky Way galaxy

Scarrans have developed a technolgically advanced agressive and expansive space-faring civilisation that goes back more than 12 000 years. Bipedal sexuate reptilian species with a humanoid body structure and skin ranging from pale white to dark gray in skin colour. They thrives in heat. In cold temperatures, their body heat drops rapidly. The species is split into two classes - the ruling caste and the soldier class.The head for the ruling caste and upper class appears to be flatter in shape, with well formed humanoid mouth, eyes, nose and chin while the head on the lower class is more horse-like in shape, with a protruding mouth, less developed eyes and slits instead of nostrils, with little or no nose potrusion. They are capable of huge amounts of brute strength. Their thick skin makes them impervious to small arms, though explosives in bodily orifices has proven fatal. This, coupled with  the razor-sharp claws on the Scarrans' hands, makes them formidable in combat.Still, Their main weapon is their natural heat projection. In this, Scarrans are able to blast large amounts of heat from their hands, redirected from their bodies.

Their main weakness is their dependency to strelitzia flower or the "bird of paradise flower" (as can be found on Earth) which they must keep consuming in order to maintain their high intelligence and remain intellectually competitive with other sentient races such as humans. They will only expand on planets capable of growing the crystherium plant. It is believed that it is this plant that mutates a Scarran's features, creating the distinction between upper and lower caste Scarrans. Naturally, the upper caste Scarrans would consume more of the plant, as it is also one of the race's delicacies.

The Scarran race is intensely interested in genetics, trying to splice DNA from other species into their own.

They have also mastered the art of creating replicas of people, known as bioroids. While being programmed, These replicas can carry only the memories of the original subject.

The scarans were onceat war with the sebaceans but the eidelons managed to put an eand to it. This truce held as long as the Eidelons were there but fell apart after their disappearance. Lack of knowldege of the adversary prevented an all out war but left the two warring factions in a stateo f cold war.

The Scarrans control at least two other species. The Charrids, used as grunt soldiers, and the Kalish (a sebascean sub-species)  as technicians. While the Charrids do not seem to mind being under the thumb of the Scarrans, the Kalish dislike it. As of the beginning of the 3rd millenium,  Kalish resistance has been formed, though its objectives and how they will obtain them are unclear.

The Scarrans have an imperial system and a body of government known as The Hierarchy, to which even the Emperor has to answer to and be judged by. 

Source: Farscape universe

ANCIENTS

The Ancients are a very technologically advanced insectoid species from another universe which developed a hive based civilisation and wormhole-based technology. Thin and bipedal  and brown skinned, they have four arms, two shorter upper arms, and two longer arms that are lower on their torso. The upper arms end in lobster-like claws while the lower arms appear to have three-fingered hands. They also have several shorter tentacle-like appendages both around and on their facial area. Shapeshifters, they can alter their appearance to look like members of the species they interact with.

Using wormholes as bridges to our universe, they modified several members of their own species, so that they  could live among species of our universe with the task to catalogue, report, and influence their activities.

When their planet became unable to sustin them, they started to look for a new world to establish themselves in our universe. They abducted a human to see if hey could cohabit with humanity on Earth but their experiment ended up with negative results. They soon after found a suitable planet.

Source: Farscape Universe

EIDELONS / SEBACEANS

Planet of Origin: Arnessk, in the Milky Way galaxy, which they inahbited 12 000 years ago until the planet became inhabitable due an alien attack..

The Eidelons is an advanced pacifist humanoid species which possesses a gland in their head that  acts as an empathic receptor, allowing the Eidelon to sense the wants and desires of those nearby, and vibrates to create an energy field which helps them develop tranquility and rationality. Using these powers, the ancient Eidelons could devise compromises that met the goals of the involved conflicting parties and could ensure that a peaceful solution to conflicts would be accepted. Eidelons look remarkably like humans but have an internal very different cranial structure, being able to open up the upper part of their head when their gland is in action.

Looking for a species to serve both as bodyguards and as enforcers of peace. They abducted primitve humans on planet Earth some  27,000 years ago and genetically enhanced them. This new species became known as the Sebaceans and they became the Eidelons' trusted acolytes. They took on the name of Peacekeepers due to their function.

After Arnessk became uninhabitable and the Eidelons has vanished (either fleeing to other planets or entering suspended animation outside of time. The Peacekeepers attempted to carry and kept the peace with military force, and eventually became the militaristic Peacekeeper empire.Today, only a handful of Eidelons remain.

SOurce: Farscape Universe.

STARRO / STAR CONQUEROR

Sentient starfish-shaped alien species with a central eye and prehensile extremities. They are also known as Star Conquerors. Adult Starro can asexually generate parasitic clones from their own body and command them to act in accordance with his will. Although equipped with only limited mobility, Starro parasites can attach themselves to a victim's face, whereupon they attack a body's central nervous system, subsequently taking control of both their mind and body, acting as transmitters of the adult starro's will. A Starro parasite can maintain control over its victim for an extended period of time, forcing them to obey their every whim, even if it goes against the nature of the selected target. This ability only works so long as the parasite maintains physical contact with its victim. Once the parasite is removed, the victim regains control of their mind and motor function.

Starro can absorb energy and rechannel it as powerful blasts of energy, which it directs through the tip of each tentacle and generate energy fielsd allowing them flight in both outer space and atmospheric environments.A fully grown Starro is impervious to most conventional forms of attack. Gunfire and similar weapons are ineffective against a Starro. Starro can also change the color of its skin for different purposes,

The first passage of a Starro on Earth happened in 1960. It was destroyed shortly after its arrival but surviving fragments managed to redevelop sentiance afterward from time to time.

Source: DC Universe. The character first appeared in Brave and the Bold #28 (Feb. - March 1960), Starro the Conqueror was created by writer Gardner Fox and artist Mike Sekowsky. The Starro species was further developed by writer Grant Morrison.

THASIANS

Planet of Origin: Thasus, a dry planet within 1000 light years from Earth

Thasians are non-corporeal entities with powerful psychokynetic powers which they can transmit to others (as it was the cae in the 23th century when they rescued a young human boy whose parents spaceship crashlanded on their planet.

Source: Star Trek universe (TOS: "Charlie X")

FIRST FEDERATION

Planet of Origin: A planet orbiting Fesarius, a K Orange star less than a thousand light years from Earth.

The First Federation members are one meter tall bald humanoids who developed a peaceful yet recluse and non-expansive highly advanced spacefaring civilisation. Their territorial space is surrounded by a network of space buoys and contact with other species are usually dealt with kilometers wide spherical one-man ships, leading to believe that space travel remains rare among the species. 

First contact with humanity was made in 2226.

Source: Star Trek universe (TOS: "The Corbomite Maneuver")

GALAXIANS /GALAXIENS

Planet of Origin: Original planet unknown. After it underwent a critical greenhouse effect some 2000 years ago. Three quarter of the population left in space arks and relocated on the First of the two moons of planet Aktarka, orbiting a G star in the Milky Way. A minority of Galaxians stayed on their homeworld but all contact was lost with the exilees.

The Galaxians are a pacific, even  friendly, species of one meter tall humanoids that have developed an advanced but ot expansive interstellar space-faring civilisation. Their skin was originally of a light orangeish color, but after their planet was exposed to heavier sun exposition, they slowly turned s to black over generations. Those who relocated to Aktarka's moon turned to green skin. All quite ressemble bald teddy bears. A minority, mainly among females, have been known to develop psychic powers.

Galaxian society is very democratic, one with a constant )sometimes even daily) exchange of social tasks even in the sharing of tasks. The annual head of state is called the Prince-of-the-Year and is the Galaxian who received the most merit points over the past year.

Over him is the Council of Elders which is made up of five Galaxian patriarchs which seems to be an half-honorific title for those chosen as they dont always seem to have much credit given to them.  The younger Galaxians are quite aware of their elders deficiencies and often take them half-serously. 

Source: The Scrameustache series, by Gos and Walt