Cthulu comes to visit.

If you think about it Cthulu could be considered an Alien. Any kind of creature not of this Earth, be it from another dimension or from our own space, would technically be Alien yeah? Fictional or other wise.
Monster just classifies them as an alien we don't want to deal with lol.

So I was wondering, would aliens need to be cute and cuddly for first contact to work?

Imagine aliens contact us, and despite being intelligent and proficient with technology they are to put it bluntly butt ugly.

From communications sent in advance they seem to be nice guys, but when they show up and step off the ship they are mind melting horrendous to all of our senses.

It is just physically impossible to look at these beings. Even if we want to be friends, they are just too alien. Literally little Eldritch horrors with hearts of gold.

How do you guys think that would go down? Could we make it work? Would we risk hurting their feelings by telling them?

Or could we only deal with cute and cuddly E.T's?

What would be the most you could handle with an Alien?
Ewok, E.T, Borg, Facehugger, Xtro, The Thing?

What's your limit on how alien an alien can be for you?

Could you have dinner with a sentient Geiger Alien?

I think it's something to think about and prepare for. A universe this size surely it's not going to all be humanoid bipeds we'll want to bonk like we're Captain Kirk?

It would be rude for our diplomats to have a psychotic break when our new friends say hello. If contact is made, should we insist on selfies before we catch up for coffee?

On the flip side, what if they find us horrendous to look at? Will it hurt our feels if the first species we meets rejects us based on nothing but looks?

the sensation of finding another life form would beat the "good looks" question.
Scientists and experts would fall in love instantly no matter what they look like.

If they can take the form which we desire so they can take over the world then



or



or



but if they come and look like, then we need to call in the Captain





I would hope that any aliens regardless of how they look could at least communicate in a way we understood, we have so many languages on this planet alone, and I can only speak one, not much hope for interaction with another off world species at this rate.

I am always hopeful though but I would fear they would want our resources more than our minds.

a reply to: UpIsNowDown

Ummm, can you point me in the direction of the uncensored photo of the first picture you posted? Asking for a friend.

a reply to: AtomicKangaroo

No, the Great Old Ones are not aliens and Cthulu sleeps in the darkness of the deep, not in space or something outlandish far away, right in the centre of our domain.
Get your mythos straight.
He's awakening.

I'd guess it's a given that ET would terrify us ordinary humans to death just because they might be so strange you couldn't even tell if they're pretty or ugly, they'd burst every frame of reference. We got a very limited imagination. Even the Alien thing looks familiar if you think about it, a big insect/reptile hybrid.

a reply to: UpIsNowDown

Still a couple of things there. What could we have down here they couldn't get in the Asteroid belts or uninhabited planets?

And if we're truly alien to them why would they bother with first contact at this point in human development? They could simply drop a couple of large rocks on the earth and knock us back to the stone age or even kill off the biosphere. Then come in later and terraform the planet to their specifications.

I would think that the only reasons this hasn't happened is that we're too uninteresting to them at this point to bother. Or they are so alien that they don't consider the planet desirable. If they have adapted to low gravity situations then they might not be able to live/stand/walk at earth normal gravity. Our gravity well may be too much for them. Our atmosphere could be poisonous to them. Etc. Etc.

a reply to: ntech

Fair point but we are the blue planet, not many others have our abundance of water

a reply to: KKLOCO

Its the movie lifeforce, Miss Mathilda May, co starring Picard also

a reply to: Peeple

I am not saying literal Cthulu, except for where I am, I am talking beings that look like him that come on a spaceship and not an interdimension rifts and want to say g'day and not make our eyes bleed but do any way.

But still I think Cthulu would be no different to the 'aliens' that came through the rift in Pacific Rim.
Alien, supernatural. A rose by any other name.

Regardless of where he is and how, he exists in a different space than our own. Even the 'supernatural' would have to obey some kind of laws of physics. lol

Not sure all aliens would terrify us, I think most people thanks to forms of earth media conditioning us would accept a 'humanoid' alien approaching us. Although I'd imagine even with a completely human looking alien, just knowing they were alien would give us a sense of unease still until we got used to them.

But yeah this is why I was thinking of this situation, because everything we know as alien is based on only Earth knowledge. Based on ourselves.
Movie alien armies invade and steal our resources and impregnate our women because that's what humans do when they encounter new cultures and resources.

We base most aliens on life on Earth. Could be planets with almost identical life as ours. But could be the way things look here are unique to Earth.

7 plot limit theory applies to even our imagination. But I think chances are higher than not that first life we meet if ever will be nothing like anything on this Earth more so than than it will.

So I expect we'll meet some freaks. Regardless hopefully we can all be friends.

a reply to: AtomicKangaroo

Cthulhu.

For spelling his name incorrectly you get eaten first.

originally posted by: ntech
And if we're truly alien to them why would they bother with first contact at this point in human development? They could simply drop a couple of large rocks on the earth and knock us back to the stone age or even kill off the biosphere. Then come in later and terraform the planet to their specifications.

In OP, the aliens are friendly. They can communicate with us, but say only via 'text' or 'audio', They unfortunately don't have a compatible video format so we cannot skype them.

I would think that the only reasons this hasn't happened is that we're too uninteresting to them at this point to bother. Or they are so alien that they don't consider the planet desirable. If they have adapted to low gravity situations then they might not be able to live/stand/walk at earth normal gravity. Our gravity well may be too much for them. Our atmosphere could be poisonous to them. Etc. Etc.

In OP scenario, we are interesting to them, hence them or us reaching out to the other and them answering.
They are capable of entering Earths atmosphere, regardless of how. They can be naked, or maybe have space suits and personal forcefields.

Point is they can stroll around and come for Netflix and Chill unhindered.


They don't need our resources. They're physically incapable of breeding with our men and women, and just want nothing but to explore and be friends.

They're literally here in peace. The only issue is looking at them makes you want to barf up your stomach and slash your wrists after pouring bleach into your eyes.

There's no reason they're not here. They're here and they want to be.
It's all about that first contact baby!

originally posted by: AtomicKangaroo
What would be the most you could handle with an Alien?
Ewok, E.T, Borg, Facehugger, Xtro, The Thing?

Interesting topic.
Let's not forget humans can be pretty mean, how many humans have died at each others hands in bloody wars and battles over the centuries?

So in that context, a human can be as scary as anything else, we certainly know of more humans killed by humans than by aliens.

So I don't find aliens scarier than humans in general, and enjoy watching television and movies about aliens in general. Even the freaky looking things in "Alien" and "Aliens" movies I could deal with if they turned out to be friendly.

The one exception though are the giant bugs in Starship Troopers. They elicit some kind of primitive negative response in me, I think not because they are unfamiliar, but because they are familiar-looking. So what I can say so far is that I seem to have a problem with giant bugs for some reason, most other aliens portrayed in sci-fi don't elicit such a negative response.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

humans can be pretty mean

"Pretty mean??!"

Don't forget demons only (allegedly) attack us when they have a crowd and never out in the open or when there are a lot of us around ... when demons are peeing themselves, I'd say humans are a tad worse than "pretty mean" ...on the whole, anyway.

Just sayin...

In the Novel "Childhoods End" by Arthur C. Clark the aliens are peaceful and bring a cure for all diseases. Their presence brings about a Utopian era for all mankind.... but they look like this....

a reply to: Blarneystoner

Did you ever see the tv series on syfy? It was good other than the filler stuff they add to every show.

At first they didn’t want to reveal themselves because they knew we had books describing them as evil, and once they finally revealed their true form religious people freaked out because they looked exactly like the devil.

originally posted by: Blarneystoner
In the Novel "Childhoods End" by Arthur C. Clark the aliens are peaceful and bring a cure for all diseases. Their presence brings about a Utopian era for all mankind.... but they look like this....

I could probably handle that. It would depend on what the eyes looked like up close. I could essentially handle anything kinda human looking I think, but if it say looked human-like and had eyes like a dragon fly or something that would disturb me a bit.

Definitely gotta have some kind of mammal eyes. Like Iris and pupil. Could probably handle a squid monster if the eyes were right lol.

But I do seriously think eyes are an important part of human interaction. We relate better to creatures that have ones similar to our own for sure.

a reply to: Peeple

That’s actually not true. In the books the old ones come from space and can only make the trip when the stars are aligned in a certain way. That’s in Mountains of Madness I think. I might be wrong on which story that’s in though.

In another story a guy projects into one of their bodies on their home planet billions of years ago. And describes the planet and their bodies and culture etc.

originally posted by: Quantumgamer1776
a reply to: Blarneystoner

Did you ever see the tv series on syfy? It was good other than the filler stuff they add to every show.

At first they didn’t want to reveal themselves because they knew we had books describing them as evil, and once they finally revealed their true form religious people freaked out because they looked exactly like the devil.

According to the Novel, their true form was known and written about in ancient cultures as a result of shared premonition concerning the demise of mankind. The utopia that mankind experienced under the Overlord's benevolence came at the cost of humanity's culture and identity. Humans were subjugated to Overlord rule to prevent humanity's extinction. Ultimately it becomes apparent that human independence would not be tolerated and they were expected to join the "collective"....

originally posted by: AtomicKangaroo

originally posted by: Blarneystoner
In the Novel "Childhoods End" by Arthur C. Clark the aliens are peaceful and bring a cure for all diseases. Their presence brings about a Utopian era for all mankind.... but they look like this....

I could probably handle that. It would depend on what the eyes looked like up close. I could essentially handle anything kinda human looking I think, but if it say looked human-like and had eyes like a dragon fly or something that would disturb me a bit.

Definitely gotta have some kind of mammal eyes. Like Iris and pupil. Could probably handle a squid monster if the eyes were right lol.

But I do seriously think eyes are an important part of human interaction. We relate better to creatures that have ones similar to our own for sure.

I think that alien intelligent life is probably so different from anything here on earth that we wouldn't recognize it for what it is... at least initially. It's possible that the only way we could "relate" to alien intelligence would be through the common language of mathematics.... but I honestly think that any alien species capable of interstellar travel would be so far advanced that we wouldn't understand higher concepts even in the form of mathematical equations.

The movie, "Arrival" touches upon how language molds and shapes how a person or being actually thinks. It may be that we would have to learn the alien's language to evolve how we think in order to understand certain concepts. In that movie, the alien language enables them to see into the future and manipulate events in the past.