“Actually Erin, could you give me some more choices?” you ask, deciding to dig a little deeper past whatever was just recommended to you. “Maybe something a bit more unusual than just the next door neighbors?”
“Alright, if you insist…” Erin says, her robotic voice having a tone of reluctance to it. “If I alter some variables, there may be some…” Erin pauses as she re-calculates. “Yes, I think this conforms to your commands for ‘more unusual’ than the four nearby major galactic species. I have two different races for you, first-”
An alien being appears on your viewscreen. It’s humanoid, but definitely couldn’t pass for a human. For one thing, it’s skin is a rich indigo color and has some kind of sheen to it. She, you notice humanoid female features as you examine her, has skin that reminds you of a tropical frog or something. Instead of human hair, the back of its head has five long tentacles that descend down its back. The fingers and toes also appear longer than humans, and bend in a way that looks like they don’t have any joints. They too resemble tentacles more than human digits.
“This is a Pentaclid. They’re amphibious, they prefer breathing water but can live in the open air for a little while as long as their skin stays moist,” Erin starts to inform you. “You might have noticed they secrete a soapy substance to keep their skin hydrated. Pentaclids come from a high gravity water world, and for a long time they never went to space. It’s really hard to get a ship full of water out of their atmosphere, at least until the Erimosi helped.
“Pentaclids typically don’t associate with the other races in I listed earlier, preferring to remain in or near water sources. Each of those tentacles is prehensile, so sometimes Pentaclids are hired to do jobs underwater. If you’re a good swimmer, you could travel to their homeworld and introduce humans to them!” You think about that for a moment. You can swim fine, but having to swim in high gravity sounds tiring. The Pentaclids probably have something for you to float on, right?
After a pause, Erin gives you another option. The Pentaclid disappears from the screen and is replaced by a new alien. This one is humanoid too, but instead of arms it has a pair of bat-like wings. Adding to its bat-like appearance are large pointed ears, with a mohawk strip of hair running between them. The fact and body is otherwise human in appearance. This one is also female, wearing a pastel yellow wrap about its breasts and a 'v' shape covering its hips and crotch, obscuring those bits of its pale skin. As your eyes move down her body, you notice another difference from humans: her feet. She has inhumanly long toes with an opposable thumb, reminding you of a monkey’s or maybe even a chameleon’s feet.
“This species calls itself the Sill. The Sill are unusually small sentients, the largest are no more than 50 cm in height. They are capable of flight, and preferentially inhabit low gravity worlds and moons. Because their upper arms are wings, they use their toes are as dextrous as human hands. The Sill can hover in mid-air for short periods of time or lightly perch and use those hands as needed. For the most part, Sill technology prefers to use voice commands and other aural cues. The Sill have excellent hearing even outside human hertz ranges. Given their unique stature and small living requirements, the Sill enjoy cohabitation with ‘standard’ sized humanoids on a number of worlds. There’s even a joint Sill-Erimosi colony!”
You think about Erin’s second option, these Sill aliens. It would be unusual to meet someone who can fly, not to mention an intelligent lifeform that’s so much smaller than you. It looks like this Sill could easily perch on your shoulder. Erin has given you two more options, aliens in the sea, or aliens in the air? Which to choose?
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