[LNH] [META] Aliens on the Looniearth

[Andrew Perron]

On Sun, 15 Mar 2009 02:59:12 +0000 (UTC), Saxon Brenton
<saxonbrenton at hotmail.com> wrote:

>Way back on the 5th March 2009 Andrew Perron asked: 
>> What alien races are there in the LNH universe that would be on Earth 
>> and engaged in fairly low-level criminal activities? Preferably ones 
>> where a single hero could have a fight scene with a bunch of mooks 
>> and not have too much trouble.
>    
>I should have been answered a while ago.  Heck, I should have started 
>researching this a while ago, simply so that I could have a more 
>comprehensive and accurate answer (and in any case, the information 
>could go into an Alien Races FAQ for the LNH webpages and wikis and 
>suchlike).

I should've replied awhile ago!  But my network adapter was on the
fritz, so what can ya do.

>Aliens who could be on Earth.  This assumes that they either have 
>interstellar transport (including not just FTL flight but possibly 
>also teleporation or astral traval or other funkinesses).  For 
>convenience of summarising their natures, let's label these types 
>Travel-A.  However, there is one example in the list below where 
>the aliens are stranded on Earth: Travel-B.
>   
>Aliens engaged in criminal activities.  As a general principle I 
>would say that almost any alien species could theoretically become 
>involved in crime on Looniearth.  Some are far more likely to do so 
>simply because of their nature and psychology (Nature-A) - but rogue 
>or criminal or insane individuals could be forthcoming from almost 
>any group (Nature-B).

Makes sense, makes sense.

>Aliens who could act as low level mooks in fight scenes.  This 
>excludes rogue Time Barons from Gallimaufry, criminally insane 
>Etaoin Shrdlu, any of the dark New Mods that Flipseid may have 
>dispatched to Earth (again), and any hypothetical Elders of the 
>Looniverse called 'the Gangster'.

The cosmic avatar of racketeering!  Heck, I might use him anyway (no I
won't).

> Looking at the list now that 
>I've typed it up, most of them seem to be Nature-B, with a lot 
>of skew towards belligerant imperial empires.  I think that may 
>be because of the nature of our stories that opponents like that 
>are so often encountered.

Not to mention that Always Chaotic Evil races are dull.

>Christicantthinkofagoodname Empire - Dunno enough about these 
>anthropomorphic koalas, including their species name, or even 
>whether they're actually the ones in charge of the Empire or are 
>just high ranking minions.

I'm *definitely* gonna use these sometime (maybe).

>Denominators - Humanoids with really big teeth.  As far as I can 
>tell with only hasty resaearch, these were originally a throw away 
>nod to DC's Dominators made in _Continuity Champ And The Drizzt's 
>Defenders_ #9 and never made an appearance until they got a single 
>line of dialogue in 'Maximum Insecurity'.

Meh, not distinctive enough.

>Dorfs - Of the Dorfian Empire.  Humanoid.  Very old character concepts 
>in the LNH setting, appearing as public domain villains in the rosters 
>back in the 1990s.  Traditionally been depicted as belligerant, cruel 
>and given to swearing.  In Jesse Willey's _Vel_ stories they've taken 
>on a samuri/Klingon style warrior-obsessed-with-their-honour 
>dimension.  It'd be a toss up between Nature-A and Nature-B, but 
>if it was the latter then you'd probably get the twist that that Dorf 
>would self-delude himself into thinking that he was carving out a 
>feifdom and would probably get insulted if you pointed out that 
>they were actually engaging in criminal activities. 

Interesting, but kinda overused.

>Dvorakians - (which I only just realised I misspelt as Dvorkian in 
>the Gazetteer)  Uh, humanoid (I think) and an empire with the 
>backhistory that they used a logic bomb to destroy the planet 
>Qwerty, home of LNHer Myk-El.  Lacking any other information: 
>Nature-B with the same caveats as for imperials.

Probably too powerful for mooks, seeing as they're parodies of
Daxamites.

>Giant Radioactive Space Hamsters - A peaceful species of herbivores, 
>so Nature-B. That said, culturally they don't have any particular 
>love of humanoids, since they are a self-liberated slave species 
>from the Small Humnaoids With Big Noses (the gnomes of the Spelljammer 
>setting in one of the ADnD newsgroups) who have settled in Earth's 
>immediate neighborhood.  This means that it could be more easy for 
>amoral GRSHs to justify getting involved in crime on Earth than on 
>their homeworld, since they're *only* committing it against humans.  
>OTOH, bear-sized radioactive hamsters, many of whom have some form 
>of minor superhuman ability and who are magic weilders rather than 
>technology users, aren't going to count as low level mooks.

Plus I don't want to go into a D&D parody during this part.

>Inhilators - During the _War Without Worlds_ miniseries the Inhilators 
>attacked the Looniearth with their mobile planet and were beaten off.  
>In _LNH v.2_ #23 it was mentioned that several tens of thousands of 
>the Inhilator underclass were left behind on Looniearth for some 
>inexplicable reason, and these are the Travel-B aliens I mentioned 
>above.  Also Nature-B.  Tall purple humanoids, many of them have some 
>level of psychic power.

...oooo.  Now *this* has potential.  Psychic power, stranded on the
planet, weird-looking humanoids... perfect for the reference.

>Qwarsts - Green shapeshifting humanoids with insectoid characteristics.  
>Shown briefly in my _LNH Vol.2_ #27-28 story.  The story says they're 
>main story purpose is to infiltrate a planet - but I'll mention that 
>the original idea I had was that, yeah, they had inflitrated the mob.  
>So unless someone else grabs the concept and runs in a different 
>direction, Nature-A.

Would probably be useful in other stories...

>Zethrythians - A reptilian race that appeared in _Continuity Champ 
>And The Drizzt's Defenders_ #7-8.  Although a somewhat xenophobic 
>species, they are mercantile, and so renegades who favour the profit 
>motive over all else would count as Nature-B. 

Also useful in a different role!

>There are a number of others, who I would have to research further or 
>are throwaway mentions.  For example, it shows how little attention I 
>was paying to a lot of LNH stuff in the late 1990s/early 2000s that I 
>have little idea what the Enobi were like.  (This, of course, is one 
>of the reasons I started doing the End Of Month Reviews in the first 
>place: to force myself to read and comprehend what was happening.)

Yeah, I don't know what's up with that. >.>

Andrew "NO .SIG MAN" "Juan" Perron, flobbify.