THE ALIEN OF THE DAY

VOGANS

Planet or Origin: Voga / Planet of Gold / Neo Phobos

Vogans  are grey skinned sentient humanoids with  deep-set eyes and protruding facial features on a large domed head with some scarce white hair on its backside and jaw. From observations, no sexually differenciation is apparent and reproduction methodes are unknown. Despite a surprisingly simple technology, such as motor-boats and projectile weapons, Vogans were in contact with offworlders - mainly for commercial and defensive reasons, as their planet contained unimaginable of gold, they were harassed during the war against the Cybermen in the 26th century. 

There planet's gold was used to create glitterguns which could kill Cybermen. In order to stop this, the Cybermen attempted to destroy Voga, they failed but the planet was nevertheless blasted into space. This forced the Vogans to move underground and set up a troglodyte isolationist regime. After floating in space for over 300 years, Voga was captured by Jupiter's pull. Shortly after this, the humans rediscovered Voga and put the Nerva Beacon in its orbit. 50 years later, the Cybermen learned of its whereabouts  and tried against to destroy it still to no avail. 

The Vogan are led by a High Council, which was in turn led by a President or Chief Counciller. The Council had their own militia, which defended the centre of the planet. The Vogan Guilds were represented by the Guardians, who protected the mining galleries and the surface of the planet. The High Council were in favour of the isolationist policy, while the Guardians believed that the Vogans should rejoin the rest of the galaxy. This schism caused a minor civil war, which happened to have occurred when the Cybermen tried to destroy it for the second time.

By the 40th century, Voga had been long since abandoned and was nothing more than a lifeless asteroid.

Source: Doctor Who Universe, (DWN: Revenge of the Cybermen, (EDA: Father Time),  (NSA: Night of the Humans) 

 

MARTIAN BARBAPAPA / POUMPOUM

Planet of origin: it i never clearly stated if th Martian Barbapapa are originary from Mars as it is never clearly stated if the Barbapapa family found on Earth is originary from our planet. In both cases, it is indeed their home.

Martian Barbapapa look a lot like their earthly cousins, being sentient  highly malleable organic vaguely sluglike organism are to mimic on sight almost any shape they see even very complex mechanical contraptions such as ailsnes, submarines and such, or even to create original forms dedicated to specialised uses. They can live in almost any type of environments, demonstrate extraordinary learning capacities, being able to invent complex machinery, from sailboats to interplanetary spaceships, and possess uncanny empathy with all forms of life, being able to domesticate most animals upon contact.

Contrarily to their earthbound counterparts which come in all colors of the spectrum, martian barbapapas are black and white, either striped or dotted, and sport a pair o small antennas coming out of their forehead. Their social structure is based on a tightly knit familial structure. They live in deep martian canyons that they'veturned into gardens.

Source: Barbapspa on Mars, by Annette Tison and Talus Taylor.

SAN'SHYUUM / PROPHETS

Planet or Origin: Janjur Qom, a now destroyed planet with a gravity lower than Earth in the Milky Way galaxy.

The San 'Shyuum are a physically frail mammal-like species acting as leader caste in the interspecies interstellar community known as the  Covenant overwhich they exert complete religious and political control by enforcing a misguided theology based on the false belief that firing a interstellar-range weapon of mass destruction left by the now extinct species known as the Forerunners and known as the Halo Array will start what they call the Great Journey, transcending them into a god-like status. They are also responsible for studying all other Forerunner artifacts - considered holy - and with them to develop new technologies. Their position of power is based on the claim of having evolved on a former Foreunner colony.

Physically frail creatures, they prefer to move around using anti-gravity technology. A life of physical inactivity leaves most if not all Prophets withered and weak but they still remain a strenght greater than that of humans in their arms.  Each Prophet has distinct, often fur-covered lobes of skin hanging underneath their chin similar to a beard, known as "wattles". Prophets of greater age have skin lobes on either side of their heads reminiscent of ears; despite this resemblance, the San 'Shyuum actually receive sound at the back of the head. Older Prophets appear to lose the pigment in their skin as they age and turn a shade of grey, then white. Prophets have three digits on each hand. They have parts of their brain showing through absences of skin on their heads, while skin is still there, it may be possible that they evolved to allow their brain to grow to such a size that the skin is there simply to hold it in place. Anagatictechnologies gives them long lifespan but the fertility cycles of their females are short and few and far between, which would make it difficult for them to have children. 

With regards to naming practices, each San 'Shyuum has a given name and a family name. However, once they rise to a certain level in the bureaucracy, they prefer to be addressed by their title.

Sometime around 110,000 B.C. the San 'Shyuum were part of an alliance with the Humans' empire, forming a major power in the Orion Arm of the galaxy. During this period, they encountered the Flood for the first time, but the spread of the infection was successfully pushed back by the humans while it was still relatively minor. This alliance ended when the San 'Shyuum surrendered to the Forerunners during the following Human-Forerunner war. All San'Shyum on Janjur Qom were killed when the Halo Array was fired during the next Flood outbreak dubbed the Forerunner-Flood War. Their homeworld would eventually be reseeded with specimens that were preserved on the Forerunner Ark structure. Having lost nearly all memory of the Forerunners, the San'Shyum  discovered Forerunner technology on their homeworld and based their religion around the artifacts they found. The beliefs they developed led to bloody civil wars and part of the population leaving their planet, leaving it deeply scarred toward 2100 BCE.  
The war between the Sangheili and the San 'Shyuum began soon after their first encounter in 938 BCE. Sangheili believed that Forerunner technology should not be touched or used for personal gain while most of the San 'Shyuum believed otherwise, and disassembled Forerunner relics to produce their own versions. Their first meeting resulted in a bloody engagement. Physically the Sangheili were far superior. One Sangheili warrior was the equal to at least ten San 'Shyuum. However, technologically, the San 'Shyuum had the advantage and wiped out the Sangheili armada using hit-and-run tactics. 
Eventually in 852 B.C.E., in order to ensure the survival of both races, the Sangheili gave up their own conviction, and the two races merged to form the early Covenant with the San 'Shyuum as the head religious leaders and the Sangheili as the physical backbone and defenders of the Prophets. Soon after, their homeworld was destroyed approx. 648 BCE as the result of a natural stellar collapse and they moved to the mobile-planetoid High Charity which was in turn destroyed by the Sangheili when it was the scene  of a new Flood outbreak in the 2550ies. Their current total population is now estimated at less than one thousand.

Source: Halo Universe, Halo Wikia

JOTOKI

 Art by Souhjiro, copyright © 2009

(Note: no hyperlink was given to the author of this image on the site on which it was found. To anybody who has these informations, please froward them so that they may be added here. Thanks!)

Jotoki are non-humanoid sentient communal organisms that developed a space faring civilisation.
The Jotoki resemble large, spindly starfish. They are born as small aquatic swimmers, most of which are eaten by predators; in time, survivors will merge in groups of five to form one collective organism, which grows into an arboreal creature; its tails become arms, and its fins differentiate into fingers. When it grows large enough, the Jotok imprints itself on an adult and enters a stage of rapid learning and brain growth. A Jotok who desires a family can simply go into the wilderness and "harvest" an adolescent. Unimprinted adult Jotoki are considered feral, and regarded as little more than animals. Since the five subunits that make up one Jotok individual are not necessarily genetically related, reproduction does not require sex; a Jotok can simply find a pond and deposit its offspring to begin the cycle again.
The Jotoki were experts at trade. Their interstellar trade empire was quite developed for its time, but when the Jotoki attempted to use the Kzin as mercenaries, the Kzin revolted and conquered the Jotoki. Before their enslavement, Jotoki operated in groups called "clanpods", as part of their former planet-wide tradeweb. Details of this arrangement are not known. Jotok technological specialties included gravity polarizers, linguistics and biotechnology. They had the ability to force-grow clones to adulthood. The Kzinti believe that there is a free Jotoki fleet wandering amongst the stars, which would have provided their most strenuous opposition.
After the Man-Kzin Wars, humans recovered some Jotoki swimmers in an attempt to breed a free Jotok species.
Source: Larry Niven, Known Space Universe, (informations adapted from the Wikipedia entry), "The Asteroid Queen", by Jerry Pournelle and S.M. Stirling, "In The Hall of the Mountain King", by Jerry Pournelle and S.M. Stirling, "The Heroic Myth of Lieutenant Nora Argamentine", by Donald Kingsbury

THE ALIEN OF THE DAY

ALIEN OF THE DAY

COMPANION

Presumed planet of origin:  a planetoid in an asteroid belt located in the Gamma Canaris star system, less than 1000 ly from Earth, possibly a remnant of a planet breakup. It is one of 7000 bodies  in the asteroid belt, 34 % of which had some type of atmosphere. The composition of the planetoid is iron and nickel, and it had an atmosphere that consisted primarily of oxygen and nitrogen with traces of krypton, argon, and neon. The general surface temperature was 75 °F. Gravity was 1G.

Only one representative of this species is known. The Companion is a non humanoid lifeform  composed chiefly of ionized hydrogen and electricity. It appeared as a gaseous, vaguely sparkling cloud of yellow, orange, and red.It is able to communicate via telepathy with willing to do so. It has the ability to rejuvenate organic life, and inhibit the aging process, disperse or teleport itsel, produce material objects, including food and water and manipulate objects through telekynesis, produce electric discharges. It can also merge with a humanoid, creating a joined entity. In doing this, the creature sacrifices its immortality and most of its other powers. 

Source: Star Trek universe,  (TOS: "Metamorphosis")

UNNAMED ALIEN IN A FOREST

NIMONS / MINOTAURS

The Minotaurs are a minotaur-like humanoid species that developed a parasitic spacefaring civilisation on an interstellar scale. Parasitic by nature,  they fed on the faith of other life forms and survived by descending on primitive planets, setting themselves up as gods to feed on the worship of the natives. They could not feed on a person who held no strong beliefs. After a while when species became advanced, they usually managed to expell them upon realising their true nature.
A more dangerous offshoot of the species, called Nimon, could effectively drain not only faith but the very life force of their victim and could shoot blasts of energy from their horns. The Nimons were able to consume to extinction the population of an entire world within a few years. As their food source got scarce, they would look for another planet ripe for conquest and draining. A scout would descend on a planet, representing itself as a god with gifts of  advanced technology and start to construct a maze-like Power Complex  designed to generate a portal back to the Nimons' current planet. The Nimons would then migrate en masse to the new planet using capsules sent through the portal,  drain that world dry and look for the next, continuing the cycle they referred to as the Great Journey of Life.
They are said to have been one of many races that participated in the Millennial War some 150 million years ago against the Mad Mind of Bophemeral where they collaborated with the Osirians in dropping quantum collapsers on the insane computer intelligence. (PDA: The Quantum Archangel). At some point after the third millenium, after having drained the planet Crinoth, all traces of them was lost while they were travelling via their their portal toward their next prey, the planet Skonnos.
Source: Doctor Who universe,    (DW: The Horns of Nimon)  (DW: The God Complex)

YIRBEK

Planet of origin: Yirb, a planet in the Bek star system in the Andromeda galaxy.

They Yirbek are reptilian bipeds which developed an spacefaring civilisation and built a small interstellar empire before being conquered by the Skrulls some centuries before the third millenium. They have since then been used by their masters as mercenaries in minor galactic conflicts.

Source:  Marvel universe, Created by Stan Lee, Larry Lieber, Paul Laiken, Jack Kirby and Don Heck.  Avengers #14 ( march 1965)

HUSNOCK

The Husnock were an highly agressive species which developed and interstellar civilisation in the Milky Way galaxy with a population of over fifty billion before being eradicated in a split second by a Douwd after they had wiped out an Earth colony on which it was secretly living in 2366.
Source: Star Trek Universe (TNG: "The Survivors")

DOUWD

The Douwd are a peaceful immortal extragalactic uncorporeal species, self-described as "beings of disguises and false surroundings". Through their uncanny psychic powers, they have the ability to create and destroy on an interstellar scale and maybe more. Although they can't bring people back to life, they can make illusionary recreations of them. Although seamingly nearly omnipotent, they are not omniscient.

One Douwd has been known to travel the Milky Way,sometimes under the form of a human in the course of the 24th century. During that time, he destroyesd the Husnock civilisation after they had wiped out a human colony on which he was living.

Source: Star Trek universe, (TNG: "The Survivors")

ALIEN CREATURE LOOKING AT THE CAMERA

Originally posted on Ghislain Barbe's blog Qosmiq for the People.

GOLDILOCKS ALIENS / BATTLESHIP ALIENS

Planet of Origin:Goldilocks planet, in the Milky Way galaxy

The Battleship aliens are a sentient species that developed an advanced civilisation with space faring capacity.

The are vaguely humanoid. Their hands have four opposable finger and their feet have clawed tows. They sport both mammal and reptilian features, Their face is vageuly humanlike but with less pronounced features, They are blad but possess a set of spikes all over their chin that looks that is reminiscent of a goatee beard. They are sensitive to bright lights and dislike daylight such as we have on Earth.

A scouting party came to Earth in 2012 in response to a signal from mankind had been received on their homeworld. Their goal was to establish if the planet was worth settlement. This invasion force which landed near Hawai was disposed off by the humans.

Source: Battleship movie

PRECURSORS

The Precursors are a non humanoid sentient species that developed an advanced spacefaring civilisation. Their civilization was based around the Mantle, a belief hat it was their role to protect all life in the galaxy. They presumably monitored the evolution of other sentient species throughout the galaxy, intervening in ways that ensured their civilizations would follow paths of peace, free of conflict. They were chased and destroyed by one of those younger species, the forerunners, in a war that took place some 150 000 years ago, presumably upon learning that they had chosen the humans as heirs to the Mantle instead of them. The Precursors unleashed the Flood to avenge this act of agression.

Precursors are believed to be"very large", with 4 upper limbs and 2 legs. Also having an "ugly head shaped like arthropods" - like spiders or crabs or scorpions - they have oval, faceted slanted eyes and a "flat face". Coming from the back of the head is a long tail with a 2 meter barb coming out of it but no visual record of individuals of the species exist as of now.

Source: Halo Universe,

FORERUNNERS / HOLY ONES / ANCIENTS / CREATORS

Planet of Origin: Ghibalb, a planet  located in the outer edges of the Orion complex. Once a beautiful, verdant paradise of a planet, it was cleansed of all life when an experiment in stellar engineering accidentally caused several nearby stars to supernova. It is now heavily irradiated and uninhabitable.

The Forerunners are a sentient species that developed an advanced FTL interstellar civilisation and praticed world building. They are responsible for construction of the 2 Arks structures that are used to ringworld-type fortress (from 10 000km  to 30 000km in diameters) that formed the Halo array around the galaxy. The Array was designed to kill all sentient life in the galaxy which was not protected inside specially designed Dyson-type shield worlds and therefore rid the Milky Way of the Flood parasitic lifeform.

While not record of the Forerunner's appearance remains, their battle armors show them to have a humanoid shape disturbingly close to the human form.

A very advanced civilization, they came to power after the destruction of another race, known to them as the Precursors. The Forerunner believed that the Precursors were responsible for their creation. Soon after, the Forerunners became the dominant species in the galaxy, their empire spanning over three million fertilized and inhabited worlds. The Forerunners reached their peak before activating the Halo Array around 100,000 years ago in the closing days of the Forerunner-Flood war.

Their civilization was based around the Mantle, a belief they inherited this belief from the Precursors that it was their role to protect all life in the galaxy. They presumably monitored the evolution of other sentient species throughout the galaxy, intervening in ways that ensured their civilizations would follow paths of peace, free of conflict. One such occasion is the devolution of the prehistoric human empire officially to prevent further conflict emanating from what they considered a "violent species" some 110 000 years ago, but officiously to prevent them from taking their rightful place as the Precursor's heirs to the Mantle. After their superiority was insured, the Forerunners reached a point of disarmament, believing they no longer needed weapons in their rule of the galaxy, which ultimately weakened them when the Flood attacked.

When the Forerunners were unable to contain the Flood outbreak, the galaxy entered a state of war.  However, all their tactics, were they to turn star novae to eradicate infected systems, proved only to slow, but never stop the expansion of the Flood. They realized that the only way to stop the Flood was to deprive it of any and all hosts, thus eliminating its potential to grow. Eventually, the Forerunners created the Halo Array, a weapon of last resort designed to starve the Flood to death by killing all sentient life with enough biomass to sustain them. 100 000 years ago, after having exhausted every alternative, they ctivated the Halo array, killing themselves and all sentient life of sufficient biomass in the Milky Way, with the exception of those species safely placed on the Ark. After the Array was fired and the Flood had been eliminated, the Forerunners left behind an automated system of automatons, much like the Sentinels, and AIs to spearhead the reseeding of the galaxy with those data logs, embryos, and specimens contained on the Ark.

The Forerunners are adored like gods by the alien league known as the Covenant. The fact that the Forerunners appeared to be genetically related to the humans explains why the Covenant seeks to exterminate humanity, knowing that they are the Forerunner's designated heirs and would undermine their power.

Source: Halo Universe,
adapted from the Halo Wikia's  Forerunners and other relevant entries.

ENGINEERS / SPACE JOCKEYS / OSSIANS / PILOTS / MALA'KAK / GARDENERS / COLLECTORS

The Engineers are a sentient species which developed an advanced space faring civilisation, became expert in bioengineering. They look like two meters tall white skinned overmuscled bald humans with dark eyes. Their DNA matches that of Earth's humans.

They are believed to have seeded other worlds and influenced the development of other lifeforms.

They are believed ot have come to Earth at some point in the distant past, as some cave paintings and carvings clearly state by showing the position of what is believed to be either their homeworld or their nearest outspost thru primitive starmaps. It is to be noted that those starmap represent the same stars configuration as the ones found on the starmap drawn by Betty Hill under hypnosis after having been supposedly abducted by aliens from Zet Reticuli.
Some conjecture that they may have either:
A) created mankind or influenced its development by spreading their DNA in Earth's water with the help of a mutagen agent of their making
B) been responsible, by the same means, of bringing life to Earth.
The seeding of Earth, whenever it took place and whatever its effects were, was done through a ritual suicide of an Engineer ingesting a grey goo, a mutagen compound which dissociated its cellular structure in a matter of seconds. Its remnants then flowed in Earth's running water. Theories suggest that this took place at Victoria's waterfalls in Africa.
Other theories say that they sent an emissary to Earth 2000 years ago to ensure that humanity was on right path and that he was crucified. They then decided to wipe out the human species as it was deemed dangerous.
Other theories, taking the Barney and Betty Hill abduction as evidence, reject that the Engineers wanted to wipe out humanity as they seem ot have visited the place with purely scientific purposes in the late 20th century.
The Engineers are known to have possessed a research facility dedicated to bioengineering and bioweaponry on  the planet known to humans as LV-223 (as indicated on primitve starmaps found on Earth), one of three moons of a ringed gas giant, orbiting the star Gleise 86, some 35 light years aways from Earth. It is believed that, they had plans were made to wipe out all life on Earth and start anew by bombing the planet with grey goo containers 2000 years ago. The project was put to a stop when something went wrong with their creation and the whole colony was wiped out. Another Engineer ship is known to have crashed on Acheron (LV-426) the second of three natural satellites that orbit the gas giant Calpamos,  the fifth planet from the star Zeta 2 Reticuli, some 37 light years away from Earth. If this ship came from LV-223, while most likely, remains unknown. Rather than transporting grey goo pods in its cargo bay, it was transporting Xenomorph eggs. Wether those eggs had been placed there by Engineers of Xenomorphs remains subject to debate.

Source: Prometheus movie, Alien / Predator Universe , Xenopedia Entry

Note 1: It is interesting to note that the Ancient Humanoids presented in the Star Trek Universe had a similar seeding program. For the little that was seen of them, they also shared some ressemblance with the Engineers. The beings are said to be  presumably the first humanoid species to evolve in the Milky Way galaxy, some four and a half billion years before the common era. Their true name lost since time immemorial, they have also come to be known as the Ancient Progenitors, and the Galenites, a name derived from the man whose work led to their discovery, Dr. Richard Galen. (TNG: "The Chase", Star Trek: Dark Horizon, Star Trek: Pendragon) During the height of their existence, they explored the galaxy, but found no lifeforms like themselves. Realizing that their species would one day cease to be, they seeded many primordial planets with the building blocks of life, encoding the DNA so that it would evolve into forms similar to their own. Earth was one such planet.
Note 2: It is also interesting to note that in the film Mission to Mars, the  martians are revealed to have seeded Earth with thesame results - while the method is not show - before they were to depart the solar system to populate other worlds at the time Mars was to be hit by a giant asteroid, as shown here. For waht was seen of them, the martians were humanoid but apart from that, did not look that much like humans or engineers.

VEDRANS

Planet of Origin: Tarn-Vedra, in the Andromeda Galaxy

The Vedrans are an advanced species that developed an advanced FTL space-faring expansive civilisation. 

They are responsible for founding the Vedran Empire and later the Systems Commonwealth. which span the Andromeda galaxy, the Milky Way and the Triangulum Galaxy.

They resemble blue skinned centaurs, with four powerful legs and a humanoid upper body. Their blood is blue. They have no hair on their boy but males have long, brightly colored crests of feathers which cover their heads and spines. They are a matriarchal society, where females act as the leaders of the family unit or herd. A male first owes loyalty to his mother's herd, then his mate's. Herds are organized into tribes and tribes into nations with all Vedran nations being ruled by an Empress, the spiritual and political head of the species. Males tend to be less intelligent and more aggressive than females. They outnumber females by approximately six to one and each female typically keeps several Vedran males in her family unit, with the Prime male having mating privileges, while the other males perform helper functions. 

Source: Andromeda v series

T

ABYSS BEINGS / N.T.I. BEINGS

The Abyss beings is a peaceful sentient species which developed a space faring civilisation a long time ago and estblished undersea colonies on several worlds.
While vaguely humanoid, its shape is reminiscent of the Manta Ray  and the medusa.  Its overall shape is mostly that of a ray under which a humanoid torso would have been attached. It uses its fin wings for locomotion. while manipulation is managed by the two arms with three fingers on each hand whihc are attached to its slender humanoid torso. Its  head with eyes and eyelids, but no other discernible features. It does not appear to have any bones, but a see through cartilaginous skeleton. They are translucent, and capable of producing neurally controlled bioluminescent light within their bodies thru chemical reactions and use it to communicate among themselves.
They uses gigantic craft for interplanetary travel and sink them when finding a suitable planet on which they use them as settlements .
They have developed liquid  manipulation  at the molecular level. They can plasticise it, polymerise it, and put it under intelligent control to different purposes, wether it as a communication channel or engineering purposes such as mimicking solid objects, making giant prehensile water tentacles,  creating massive tidal waves  or parting water to leave aquatic predators stranded in dry air.
The Abyss beings had a settlement on Earht for thousands of years but left the planet toward the end of the 2nd millenium.
Source: The Abyss