I know, I know. All you want to know is what I look like. Who cares about how the universe came into existence, you want to know if I’m a little green man. This is a fair, but not very important question. I’ll answer it, but first you’ll have to bear my rants.

As a species, Humans have an abnormal obsession with aliens that I can only ascribe to your borderline narcissism. I want to use this opportunity to discuss some of your inherent misconceptions about alien life.

The misconception that irritates me the most, is that of envisaging aliens as humanoids. To expect an alien species to resemble humans is preposterous. How many different species do you have on Earth? It’s a rhetorical question. I looked it up, 8.7 million. How many of these would you describe as humanoids? You’re thinking ‘monkeys!’. Alright, Let’s take into account all the Primates (apes, gibbons, monkeys, tarsiers, lemurs and lorises). How many of these do you reckon exist on Earth? About 612 species and subspecies. 612 out of 8.7 million is approximately 0.00007%. I agree that most of those 8.7 million species have limitations that prevent them from developing into a technological civilization, but even if you cross those out as well, the percentage of “humanoid like” species on Earth is negligible. All these species, humans included, evolved on the exact same planet yet still turned out to be very different. So why would you expect an alien species from an alien world to even remotely resemble humans is beyond me.

There’s a reason I have a strong opinion on the subject. I’m what you would call a Xeno-Sociolog (a researcher studying aliens with social structures). As far as name rights goes, my title is based on Orson Scott Card’s Xeno-Biology. Me being a Xeno-Sociolog should give you an idea of just how common life is in our galaxy. Our galaxy is thriving with life and even though technological civilizations are less common, there are still thousands of them currently inhabiting the milky way. We believe that millions of civilizations have existed in the milky way since it was formed around 13 billion years ago. Of course this is just an assessment, we don’t have the exact figures. You may have noticed that I’m referring only to our galaxy and not the entire universe. This is because our knowledge and explorations are limited to the milky way. I apologize if this disappoints you.

But enough of my rants. let’s talk about my species. Finally something I’m comfortable discussing. There are many different attributes you can use to categorize a species. The least significant one is the general appearance. This is just a derivation of the origin planet’s natural conditions (gravity, temperature, pressure, atmospheric composition etc). That being said, I know my appearance is high on your agenda so here we go. My species are about the size of a medium dog, though our bodies are rounder, longer and the legs, which there are 8 of, are much shorter. The front two legs would be considered by humans to be arm like. The anterior of our body can rotate up moving the front legs into a human hands like position. That front side can be considered to be our head (our brain is there). Located between our two front legs is an eating orifice. It’s not a mouth because it’s not used for either speaking or breathing. Another smaller orifice between our rear legs is responsible for the opposite function (it’s not exactly an orifice like your anus, more of a membrane). Our ‘head’ is cone-shaped and growing of it, is a mass of ‘hair’ like spikes. These spikes are our only sensory organ. We can emit and receive many different high frequencies resulting in an echolocation like capability which is used for both communications and vision. I call it vision for lack of a better word for it. While our brain produces a 3D representation of our surroundings it has nothing to do with light, photons or ‘seeing’. I believe the phrase “blind as a bat” suits us well. Our hide is thick and has brown and green markings (irrelevant to us since we cannot detect color, although we can detect different materials and textures by their distinctive return patterns). There is one species on Earth which has a slight visual resemblance to us: The hippopotamus. Shrink it by about 70%, add 4 legs, remove the neck, and of course shorten the legs and there you have it.

Now, I’ll describe my species characteristics like a xeno-researcher would. We come from a binary system. My planet orbits a red dwarf which orbits a yellow sun (I estimate it to be 20% – 30% brighter than yours). Our planet is roughly twice the size of earth, gravity is close to double as well. Our planet is located further away from our yellow sun than you are from your sun, and closer to our red dwarf sun. Average temperatures on my planet are higher than on Earth (I would estimate it as 140 – 175 Fahrenheit). The atmospheric pressure is higher as well.

A short explanation for why I present only estimates and not exact figures. Don’t you know your own planet characteristics? I do, what I lack is access to my own technology which would allow me to convert the units accurately. Imagine that you are in a foreign country that uses a different measurement unit system, and you don’t have any internet access. I’m left only with my estimations. One exception to all this are percentage based figures, which are always the same no matter what unit system you use.

So my species originated on a planet in a binary system. Why is this important? What you may not have considered yet is the effect a binary system can have on a planet’s vegetation. If you thought your planet is green (which of course its not, its blue. We are color blind either way) wait until you see mine. The entire planet is covered with vegetation. We don’t have any large bodies of water, like Earth’s oceans. The ones we do have are smaller, scattered, and for the most part seasonal. The vegetation explosion on my planet is responsible for the very high oxygen levels. One of the first planetary attributes a xeno-researcher would measure. Our atmosphere is 58% oxygen. As a result, we don’t have anything like the Terran mammalian respiratory system. We don’t have lungs, a diaphragm, you know, the whole shebang. Instead, we absorb oxygen (and small amounts of water as well) through a vast “root like” capillary system originating from our hides. We regulate our internal pressure (slightly lower than on the planet’s surface) by venting gas (nitrogen, carbon-dioxide, methane and a few others) through our back orifice (which is a membrane, remember?). From a human’s perspective, we fart continuously. I guess the universe is wise since we are unable to smell (and don’t have noses).

We are strictly vegetarians and don’t need to consume liquids*. The vegetation we feed on has enough water to sustain our needs. While there are no major bodies of water, our planet’s atmosphere moisture level is close to 100%. We are constantly wet due to the fact that our body temperatures are lower than the environment.

We don’t have a heart. Our movement (or ‘muscle’ contraction) triggers the inflation and deflation of internal cavities which circulate our body fluids. Something like lungs just for body fluids. Theoretically speaking, if a member of my species were to lay perfectly still for a very long time, they would begin to suffer from hypoxia.

We don’t have teeth. We throw food into our eating orifice like you would drop lettuce into a KitchenAid blender. The tube behind this orifice, leading into our bodies, has cartilage like parts that crush the food using both gravity and our own weight (our legs are very short and our belly is touching the ground helping our legs with the effort).

The main characteristic we share with humans is the consumption and usage of oxygen in the body’s energy production mechanism. This is not very surprising if you consider that all known technological life, consumes oxygen. As you noticed, I am not using the term ‘intelligent life’ but instead the term ‘technological life’. Intelligence is almost impossible to quantify. There is no empiric threshold which will guarantee the transformation of a species into a technological one. Dolphins for example, are quite an intelligent species but lack technology. And there are other examples on Earth.

This post is getting pretty lengthy and there is still so much I wish to cover. In the next post, I’ll focus on how my planet’s environment influenced my species biology and technology (fire is problematic on a planet with 100% moisture and a 58% oxygen atmosphere). I will also discuss reproduction and perhaps the most important characteristic of a species, the species age relative to the planet’s life cycle. Or, how long from the moment life began on the planet did it take the species to evolve.

* Yes, this means no alcoholic beverages for us but don’t rule out our hallucinogenic fungi until you tried it.