Is this a plausible sentient alien?

[Drakaeon]

A bipedal, ditigrade, four armed, humanoid alien evolved from warm-blooded marine animals.

I'm creating some aliens for a story I'm writing. Given the context of fictional sci-fi literature, is this feasible? Is there anything that seems completely contradictory or highly improbable?

[A Liberal Media]

you are writing a book. you have absolutely no reason to make your aliens bipedal or in any way humanoid, and it is my personal opinion is that doing so is a massive cop-out.

[firedancer86]

When it comes to science fiction... I feel anything is possible. Don't limit yourself... cos more often than not, fact is stranger than fiction.

When u mentioned sentient marine animals, the first ones I thought of were dolphins. The fact is that they are intelligent, and self-aware... So hence I think your idea is highly plausible. Nothing contradicts so don't worry too much and just have a go.

[General Awesome]

firedancer86

and self-aware.

uh oh.


...any elaboration on this? How is that something we would know?

[Foetus In Fetu]

A Liberal Media

you are writing a book. you have absolutely no reason to make your aliens bipedal or in any way humanoid, and it is my personal opinion is that doing so is a massive cop-out.

There's no reason not to make your aliens humanoid but there is one reason why you might consider doing it and that's empathy. I think it's a little harsh to say it's always a "massive cop-out". It's a matter of taste and a question of the type of story Drakaeon is trying to tell -- but, I mean, feel free to critique people's work without ever having read it if you want. That's really helpful.

[GrayFox777]

A Liberal Media

you are writing a book. you have absolutely no reason to make your aliens bipedal or in any way humanoid, and it is my personal opinion is that doing so is a massive cop-out.

Why is it a cop-out? Who is to say intelligent aliens don't walk on two legs? It happens here, so it could happen somewhere else. It could be a common evolutionary stage in the universe for all we know. Or it may not be, but we don't know.

[Pravus Deus]

go with jelly fish like..or squid I dont remember...apparently they are evolving faster and will eventualy outsmart us >.> or so I've heard lol.

[underweargnome]

Everyone knows that any intelligent species of Alien wouldn't walk on two legs, that's a total cop-out! They'd definitly bounce on one appendage like tigger from whinny the pooh.

[KraDark]

Four arms and two legs makes me think it would have trouble balancing and need really strong legs that look bulky relative to the rest of the body. Whether or not that really matters is up to you, though.

[Xerios]

Drakaeon

A bipedal, ditigrade, four armed, humanoid alien evolved from warm-blooded marine animals.

I'm creating some aliens for a story I'm writing. Given the context of fictional sci-fi literature, is this feasible? Is there anything that seems completely contradictory or highly improbable?

I'm assuming here that you meant to say 'digitigrade', which refers to an animal that walks on its toes, as in most quadrepeds. This makes me think that you may be attempting to have the legs look or at least be described the way that the legs of an anthro-type character would be presented as. However, digitigrade is a bit of a misleading descriptive even when looking at its definition. It makes you think of all the very cool looking creatures out there to which it applies and forget that as a term it also applies to pachaderms.

Also, what kind of marine animal would they have evolved from? It would be good to get a visual based off of an Earth equivalent. There's quite a number of them. Was it something like a walrus? Or was it more like a sea otter?

I think that perhaps it would be feasible if you are going for a more bulky look. As was mentioned before, four arms would make it top heavy. So if you have the digitigrade characteristics of an elephant, then weight would not be so much of a problem. Might want to also think about posture in this regards.

[Shaviv]

General Awesome

firedancer86

and self-aware.

uh oh.


...any elaboration on this? How is that something we would know?

Do such psychological tests as we can currently administer to dolphins (including but not limited to the mirror test) count?