Try we must... for the "science"
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lol xD perhaps
Carnivorous Space Elves AKA The Guardians
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Try we must... for the "science"
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lol xD perhaps
Actually I didn't add the [Thargoids] bit
Now on to my actual reply lol
I don't know what Braben is planning (and he certainly isn't the ONLY architect behind the game - the guy will have a team, and that team may very well rule against him - he will be surrounded by clever folk), but from what he said in that interview segment, he has gotten what he wants - something truly alien. The Guardians, as I said previously, are probably just exposition (the plot / lore) behind the Thargoids themselves (so what they look like etc, may not even be that important to Frontier, but they will chuck in nuggets of info about what the Guardians may have looked like themselves just for the hell of it), and was more than likely a humanoid society that is now long extinct (probably through war with their own creations). Yes, alien life forms, even on earth, can take a multitude of forms - we all know this, but we don't need it shoved down our throats. We get it mate, it ain't alien unless "aliens"
Despite the improbability that something is not likely to be the same because of it being a different environment, there is an equal possibility that something can be similar in another environment.
And that is the crux of the matter here (whether or not for or against) - the Guardians are very different if you look closely, despite being humanoid - they are very alien when compared to human beings.
They developed a sophisticated language that only Ram Tah can barely translate. Their culture was built on Pack mentality, which means the way they lived and the laws they lived by was within the boundaries of the Pack. They preferred naturalism over industry, despite inventing some form of cybernetics later on in their evolution. They developed and favored biological weapons (either in the form of Thargoids, chemical agents, or both) - something abhorred by the majority of humanity. They practically built "rail-guns" so big that they could launch Generation Ships into space without the need of rocket fuel - those structures would have been massive, but more than likely bio-mechanical, too. They later on worshiped the AI and the "internet" or "Interstellar Network" (however you want to spin it), and this led on to religion very much different than our own. They stuck to city-states, and never formed boundaries or "countries" like humans did (and because of this, it is likely they never had a Star Empire or "bubble space" like what humans have done).
The points I'm trying to raise here is that an alien species that is very alien doesn't need to "look" very alien - sometimes the entire culture and history of a species can be the thing that sets them apart from us and them as being "truly" alien.
sorry man but did you see the pictures you drew?
I mean common man. You basically drew a sex fantasy alien with huge tatas, and now you're trying to back it up with logical "reasons". I think it's time to drop the intellectual and scientific pretense.
You want the guardians to be slutty humans with pointy bits here and there? That's what it boils down to. It's not wrong to want these kinds of things. But it is wrong to expect them.
If Frontier takes the semi-pornographic anime route, I think most people will be disappointed. It's just not realistic for aliens to be physically attractive. Only a small % of the human race is universally sexually attractive to other humans. No other species on Earth is sexually attractive to humans. Why in the name of science would a species that has 0% DNA in common be magically sexually attractive to humans???
Just No.
Well, I would say that I hope that there will be no elves in ED. More or less humanoid, carnivorous alien can for example look like the original Alien (designed by H.R.Giger, for example here http://funnydoodle.deviantart.com/art/ALIEN-130715401 ) or something similar.
Added a new Segment in the OP: Red Skin
After a little more research, I believe I can explain the redder skin
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Just a representation based on what I read and translated into a picture form nothing more, nothing less
After a little more research, I believe I can explain the redder skin
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Just a representation based on what I read and translated into a picture form
nothing more, nothing less 
Great post OP. I was taking it very seriously until the .
Not that I'm adverse to mammalian protuberances BUT lawds mlawky introduce me to your dealer!
Not that I'm adverse to mammalian protuberances BUT lawds mlawky introduce me to your dealer!
Someone sure likes Outsider a lot...
Me personally, I like your idea, although I would throw in a bit of poison ivy into the mix
I love the poison ivy mix idea
I shall soon take up the pencil and paper again and come up with more sketches - - - Updated - - -
Hey man, I think the term your looking for is... science?
haha xD
Carnivorous Space Elves AKA The Guardians
Before you skip, because others did: the Lore discovered in the ruins points at the Guardians being humanoid (not reptilian or insectoid) - please read your lore before you start reading this thread, by reading the evidence first: LINK
Before I start: I posted this in the main Canonn thread, but it was being over-run with posts on the ruins - therefore, since this is a lengthy thread, I thought it would be fine as a stand-alone.
Other contributions I have posted: check out my post on the ruins being an Interstellar Temple, HERE. (In light of new evidence in the ruins about religion, I may not have been far off).
START OF THIS POST:
After reading through the lore gathered so far (here: link), I expect everyone is wondering what the Guardians may have looked like. I set about doing some designs, though you'll have to forgive me as it is done on paper - and I only had my 4yr old daughter's pencils and crayons on hand to work with
However, this did not deter me!
I took into account the facts now known in the Lore, and expanded on some aspects slightly by using evolutionary theory as a potential base to work from.
These are the facts I used as a base:
1) "It is also interesting to note the genetic break that occurred at the time of the north-south split, with the appearance of a redder skin in the members of the northern clan, suggesting a racial element of division."
2) "Politicians were the first to react to this new concept of social landscape, but very quickly, the resistance to the technological revolution took a religious turn."
3) "The relationship between the audio data and the constructs used, namely the written form, proves to be very complicated… it would seem that their spoken language had a tonal form, similar to certain human languages, which means that the meaning of a word was determined by the manner in which it was pronounced."
4) "The written form of the Guardians’ language is based on glyphs, each glyph representing a word. Glyphs seem to be able to be associated to describe complex concepts, while the integration of movements can also be used to add additional meaning."
5) "Some details about the physical appearance of the Guardians and the fact that the species had two distinct sexes. There did not seem to be taboos about sex because this database is full of images and recordings … just like some of our data networks!"
6) "This data contains more details about the Guardian’s sexual behaviour and reproduction. Their body form encouraged sex while standing, but although this was the most comfortable pose, they entertained a variety of positions. I’ve concluded that sex was a recreational behaviour and not only for procreation. They didn’t use birth control as they could manipulate their bodies to become temporarily sterile at will, although Ram has not yet identified the precise mechanism for this. It’s clear their biological-manipulation technology was quite sophisticated. This data has huge applications for Medical treatments if we can unlock the secret."
7) "New details on procreation and reproduction with the Guardians. Procreation was a matter of personal choice, although they were obliged to be parents at least once in their existence to ensure the survival of their species. It seems that the gestation period was long enough to allow sufficient development of the newborn before birth. Indeed, the children were frail for a certain period after their birth."
8) "Regarding the education of children. The community had the responsibility to take care of the little ones. Newborns were placed in communal crèches instead of staying with their parents. Pre-natal care included genetic manipulation to remove all hereditary diseases and other complications."
9) "Recordings on their foods: The Guardians are carnivorous, since they used to hunt in a pack. Their forearms are not only sharpened to kill their prey, but also to cut their meat into pieces more suited to their small mouth."
10) "Rules of decorum relating to hunting. The need to kill has always been preserved, despite the evolution of their society. The food killed during a hunting game was considered a refined dish. For the guests, it was an honor to give a prey hunted to their host, but it was customary for the latter to do the same. The food that had been hunted by a single person was even more valuable. It had to be done without a weapon. Weapons were only used in the context of civil protection or law enforcement."
11) "Given the physical similarities between us and them, I’m amazed at the cultural and societal differences and the speed at which they rose to become part of their lives."
Alas, here is my sketch:
And here is my very first sketch, if the southern tribe had a green pigment (a bit like the UAs):
Here are some plain sketches of the red Guardian:
My Thoughts & Reasons
So, they are humanoid - they have sharp for-arms - have many physical similarities.
I decided to go with pointed ears as, like on earth, cats and other carnivorous mammals have pointed ears (improved hearing while on the hunt and for danger senses) - given this fact, I would assume the Guardians to also have finer senses (pointed ears), given that they are carnivorous humanoids that still retained their hunting method, despite evolving to the point of space travel. I would argue that because they kept this practice, they would retain these more animal-like features.
Like humans, they would probably be slightly more frail than other animals in the animal kingdom, but they evolved larger brains (probably larger than a humans). As such, I did not expand too much on the head, but if the eyes were smaller, it would (the cranium) appear much bigger.
On the design of the eyes, I reasoned they would have two, like a human (depth perception is a mark of hunters), but their pupils may in fact be more like a snake or a cat - one could argue this would give them much better sight advantages and, considering they kept their hunting instincts over the course of evolution, it could be a sound hypothesis. I also made them much larger than a humans' eyes (three times larger) - part of this reason is to differentiate them from humans slightly, and the other is that larger eyes are much better for, potentially, low-light vision.
The mouth is not much bigger than a human's, in my opinion. In the animal kingdom on earth, humans do have "small" mouths when comparing them to other species on the planet relative to their size. As such, I saw no reason to give the Guardians in the drawing anything smaller than a human's.
Being carnivorous, their teeth will be slightly sharp and pointed - looking at the evidence of carnivores on earth, most carnivores don't use their teeth to chew - but to kill and shred meat. The Guardians used their sharp for-arms in order to do this, so their teeth may not have evolved to the point of shredding, like a cat, for example. Therefore, I drew small pointed teeth - they would appear like modern-day human "vampires" if they were to open their mouths. Their digestive system would probably be more alkaline in nature, like the carnivores on earth, with smaller intestinal tracts as a result. The Guardians may have swallowed strips of meat whole after shredding it (no chewing), and they may do, what carnivores do on earth, drink the blood of their kills as a source of liquid/water.
The "bones" of the models in the drawings are more angular, as to create a distinction between the Guardians and humans - and may even be another reason as to their obsession with geometric shapes. As such, I drew their jaw-lines and cheek bones as slightly more rigid and angular, like a triangle. This is easier to see "face-on" in the second picture with the green Guardian - the face down to the hips are very sharp and angular to promote some semblance of difference.
The hands are potentially more rigid and angular, perhaps longer - they may have had claws in place of finger nails, though this has yet to be discovered. What we do know is that they had "sharp" forearms. Therefore, I did two versions. On the green Guardian, I drew two small bony ridges - one for stabbing, one for cutting. I wasn't too sure about that version, so on the second version (red Guardian), I drew a single, much larger and curved bony implement coming out of the forearm. It would be sharp at the bottom, at the top, pointed, and thick in the middle - it would also be curved, like a tooth, to serrate the wounds of the pray they hunted. This shape would therefore be devastating and strong - it's like having a sabre cat's two large fangs strapped to your arms as weapons with which to pierce, serrate and slice.
When it comes to the female form of a Guardian, I deliberately chose to draw naturally large "chests" - the reason for this is actually a cultural one. As it states in the lore, the Guardians duties are to their responsibilities in the various tribes. Because of this, parents who breed have their off-spring, but then leave them at communal creches (as it states in the lore) - so who is going to feed the babies full time? The Guardian's nurses, of course - and, considering their culture prefers to go along the "natural" route, they would forgo, potentially, the technology of feeding through milk supplements (powdered milk). Therefore, if it is your duty in the tribe to feed and rear kids, you'll need the assets to do it (if this is the case, I seriously feel sorry for those nurses - but the lore is what it is).
The only thing I cannot suitably explain is the red skin (and what it was before - I chose green simply because of the Unknown Artefacts). Therefore, the Guardians may not be the development of mammals, but could be more reptilian - so the colour may actually be from very small, fine scales than actual skin. However, the lore states "skin" not "scales", so they are probably mammalian.
I also added in some little easter eggs on the clothing.
If anyone is a much better artist and has the utilities to do much better on these designs, please feel free!
Anyone else got any sketches to show?
Masters of Cybernetics and Genetics
As we have read so far, the Guardians loved to integrate their technology (eventually) into their own culture. This meant that each person was connected to the Interstellar Network (no longer the Internet or www. more like Interstellar Web) and could communicate to either their neighbours next door or indeed to some friend or relative that is 120 light years away (much like Galnet). Such a network would need many, many hubs - and I believe the "Ancient Ruins" or "Interstellar Temple" (depending how you want to look at it), could have both served as a religious sanctuary and as an Interstellar Comms Booster to secure the network over the vast light years.
The Guardians turned to religious routes later on, however, because of this communications explosion and that of faster-than-light travel through Witchspace.
It appears that rather than worshiping "Gods" of fabled legend or other aliens, they appear, from the evidence at the ruins, to have worshiped the very AI they created as a millennia passed. By this point, the Guardians were masters, apparently, of cybernetics - not too dissimilar to the fictional animation Ghost in the Shell:
However, it would appear that the Guardians, once they had developed AI and began to integrate themselves with it, that they were either dependent on the AI systems or worshiped the Interstellar Network as a "God" or "Paradise" (however, until we know more, we can only speculate).
Now, with the recent explosion of sightings of the "Thargoid" ships, I do wonder if the Thargoids themselves were an Artificial Intelligence created by the Guardians. They do appear to be "insect-like" and this has led many people to believe that the Thargoids are insects, yet they are also mechanical-looking, or are, at the very least, described as being Bio-Mechanical.
I would hypothesize that the Thargoids are creations of the Guardians - it is a long stretch, I agree, but from what we seen in previous Elite games, perhaps this is the new direction Frontier want to take us.
Considering the Guardians had a natural affinity with the environment, and they were not shy about using genetics to wipe out illnesses (probably various cancers) during pregnancy with advanced medical knowledge, while integrating subtle technology as they further evolved (to become one with the AI), it would not be a stretch to consider they also applied this mode of thought to their AI creations - as in, Bio-Mechanical creations that respected the environments on any world.
If they had both mastered genetics, space travel, and cybernetics, then perhaps they created ships that suited their culture.
But what of the Guardians now?
Well, as we have seen in many movies now, ranging from Terminator to Battlestar Galactica, perhaps the AI Thargoids decided that their creators had outlived their purpose?
And if any Guardians still survive today? Perhaps they have been the ones inside the ships hyperdicting commanders, scanning us, in their breathable gel environments.
Could they still be on the run from their creations, hiding in Witchspace? Or could they already be a long dead species...
I hope we find out...
Red Skin
After doing a bit more research on pigments, I was still non-the-wiser how this would translate as skin colour - there is, at least on earth, no red type of pigment that would both colour the skin and protect you from the radiation of the sun (unless you're a flower
However: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red#Pigments_and_dyes
In that article, it lists several plants on earth (also applies to insects) that gain the red pigment (see Dragon's Blood).
On an alien world abundant with red fauna that evolved, perhaps, on the Northern continents where the "redder" skinned Guardian packs hailed from, that herbivores or omnivores (the prey of carnivores) could have had plenty of this red-type of pigment in their systems from eating the local red fauna - this, in turn, could hypothetically turn those same herbivores or omnivores much redder - and then this could translate into the Guardian Carnivores whom, with hypothetically thinner skin, could, over time, gain this strong red pigment.
If their prey was abundantly filled with this red pigment from the fauna that they ate, then it could translate to the colour of their skin.
To support this hypothesis, I link the following:
"Soft drink turned toddler 'yellow'" http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/578945.stm
"Too much Sunny Delight turns girl's skin yellow" http://www.independent.co.uk/news/too-much-sunny-delight-turns-girls-skin-yellow-1134703.html
I also remember a story about 15-16 years ago of a child turning "purple" or "blue" from drinking so much of the other Sunny D products, but this was before the internet - pretty sure it was in the Mirror newspaper, as that was what my grand parents had delivered to their house.
So rather than the red skin being a naturally evolved colour of the northern Guardians, this could actually be an environmental one - a pigment they culturally gained through their prey.
This now opens up more possibilities on what type of world, or continent, the latter Guardians took control over when they decided to migrate south - and as with all carnivores on earth, they normally only migrate when food starts to get scarce - so perhaps there was, at some stage, a problem with over-population. Building tech to launch Generation Ships to new stars and solar systems would seem logical, and is somewhat supported by the lore already.
I hope these 'Guardians' look a lot more alien than those in your sketches.
Your space boobies, uhm... I mean space elves, look a bit too Enterprise TOS to me and Kirk would of course immediately try to jump them.
I really hope we will see no humanoid aliens whatsoever in ED. If so that would be a real bummer.
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Great stuff. Very funny.
Frankly, this looks more like an illustration of what happened to Kirk after all that sweet alien lovin' without the proper protection.
Kirk: She said, she was, on the, pill, Bones.
McCoy: It's dead, Jim.
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We shouldn't have to imagine! There are videos of them having sex! It should be very apparent what they look like.
But since FDEV are struggling with human hair at the moment (have you noticed 99% of female NPCs on the notice boards are shaved bald?) we shouldn't be expecting aliens from them at this point! lol
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True, Ram Tah does admit watching alien pr0n in the lore lol
edit: and he didn't seem grimmed out by it xD
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While an attempt at humor the first thing that struck me was one thing.
HUMANOID merely means it's a bipedal creature with two arms.
It does not mean human looking, apelike or even mammalian.
It merely means it's average bodily shape could be similar to a human.
Insectoid could mean more limbs than 4 and obvious carapace.
So even if they are humanoid they could still be horrible meat eating insects with spiky things all over their bodies and multiple compound eyes.
just look for humanoid insect on google.
https://www.google.se/search?q=huma...tcnRAhXhBZoKHcXIAlkQ_AUICCgB&biw=1455&bih=758
HUMANOID merely means it's a bipedal creature with two arms.
It does not mean human looking, apelike or even mammalian.
It merely means it's average bodily shape could be similar to a human.
Insectoid could mean more limbs than 4 and obvious carapace.
So even if they are humanoid they could still be horrible meat eating insects with spiky things all over their bodies and multiple compound eyes.
just look for humanoid insect on google.
https://www.google.se/search?q=huma...tcnRAhXhBZoKHcXIAlkQ_AUICCgB&biw=1455&bih=758
Maybe that's the new fashion in 3303.
****
please don't forget our fallen brothers in the 23rd century
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having human characteristics or form; resembling human beings.
Non of those descriptions invalidate what I wrote.
having human FORM or RESEMBLING human beings.
How MUCH human form or resemblance is something else entirely.
So while they resemble a human being at a distance or having a human SHAPE does not mean they have similar skin, eyes, hair, etc.
I wouldn't be bothered by humanoid aliens at all. We tend to go above and beyond when we imagine aliens. Life on Earth evolved the way it did for many reasons. It's not too much to assume that another world would have many similarities. Some of our modern scientific minds have begun to accept that some alien life might not be as "alien" as we imagine, although some very well could be. Therefore, I won't be disappointed either way.
And I rather enjoyed OP's interpretation of the Guardians. +1
And I rather enjoyed OP's interpretation of the Guardians. +1
This is probably what you mean by human form and resembling:
That's in a museum in London (source)
I know what you meant, but what you said in your previous reply was more leaning towards insects - and the lore says "redder skin" (source on skin: here). I know on earth skin is related to vertebrates, and on another world it may mean something else entirely - but I don't think we need to go down even further avenues like this, because Frontier will keep the idea simple and clever.
In the Elite universe, coming across skin on any creatures on many hundreds of earth-like worlds in the bubble may not be an "omg wow" factor - it may be everywhere on many planets, Ram Tah may know this, it may not surprise him that the Guardians have skin, but he is surprised that it is "redder skin" when the tribes are northern.
Bare in mind the lore is coming from the 3303 universe where humans have colonised many hundreds of earth-like planets or water worlds - discovering many millions of species that is different in DNA is probably old news, but what might not be old news is discovering a long-dead race that was once very similar to humans in terms of space-faring and humanoid.
Not sure what's funnier. That you have this clip, or that Michael had to keep reading a script that had 5 words on it.
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