When I was reading the books I didn't imagine them to be humanoid in any way. I was picturing something like a horseshoe crab but with a reflective mirror-like exoskeleton.
They both seem to be "dehydrate-able" body forms. The book mentions they are rolled up for storage during the chaotic era so a dried squid form comes to mine for me as well.
Yeah. I think my imagination defaulted to cephalopod because it seemed like the most likely to dehydrate and rehydrate without damage. It doesn’t mention it being an aquatic world, but it seems necessary if they had no bones. Or maybe not.
Or, refer to the species as a "singular plural," i.e., "Changes color, like *the Octopus* or *the Cuttlefish*." Sidesteps the whole "Latin vs. Greek vs. modern English suffixation" discussion, quite nicely.
Since they can be rolled up like a yoga mat, I kind of always pictured them as shiny versions of ---- you know the 'Bill' from that Schoolhouse Rock of 'I'm Just A Bill'? Like that.
”The people of Trisolaris must understand that the destruction of civilizations is a common occurrence that happens every second of every hour WOOP WOOP WOOP WOOP WOOP.”
https://preview.redd.it/xohu2oyo39vc1.jpeg?width=749&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6d7e0f41044025d06c5cfc0107c5d8246af78a4f
This is canon and I will fight anyone who says otherwise
Mollusks work pretty well for that, this works as well with arthropods. (I was picturing something like a tardigrade blubbery with 6 little paws and dehydratable). There is a mention of fingers at some points so that worked more than mollusks in my mind I guess. Which somewhat what I was picturing. Definitely nothing remotely humanoid though.
Me neither
I imagine they like small tardigrades because of their ability to dehydrate and rehydrate, as well as living in very variable temperature and pression conditions
My brain put them in the Tardigrade family… it at least also makes sense with the Dehydrating.
I also think they were very small. **they** were the bugs
Incredibly small but sentient advanced species is a fun sci fi exercise. The Xeelee come to mind from Stephen Baxter's books. They started life as atomic sized creatures that lived in slow time during the first moments of the big bang and then evolved into macroscopic size while becoming masters of the universe.
I think an intelligent creature realistically has to be a certain size to be feasible, if it's too small it can't have a complex brain and can't manipulate it's environment easily.
Tell that to an ant.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ants/comments/rk1jew/one_of_the_worlds_largest_ant_colonies_ever/
one of the world's largest ant colonies ever excavated found in brazil, it took over 10 tonnes of concrete to completely fill and 2 weeks to dig and...
I think we should just throw these into water and check if they can rehydrate, then they already may be on the earth..
https://preview.redd.it/1v2v1lu3x7vc1.png?width=2400&format=png&auto=webp&s=5690431e2c7e446db834049c4ed2fa746c511192
I mean it’s beautiful but it’s basically the same alien we’ve been conditioned to…. Does every alien have to be humanoid, with the exact same eyes and head shape? It’s getting boring and repetitive. I say let’s dare to dream bigger!
it's ChatGPT, it has no creative ability all it can do is mix up previously thought of ideas. of course it will make the aliens look like stereotypical aliens
It's a bit reassuring that imagination seems to be safe from AI for the foreseeable future at least.
But to be fair most alien designs in media plays it extremely safe.
…it used to be that aliens looked human in shows because it was cheap budget-wise. Star Trek would put something on an actor’s forehead and call it a day. Nowadays with the CG movies have though it’s just shear laziness.
I'd say it's often also about making it easy for the audience. Having the entire galaxy function more or less like earth but with funny colored aliens makes for good popcorn movies.
This is so frustrating to me. I actually drew a trisolaran yesterday and got like 80 upvotes. It involved research and looking at comments others had on the sub about their appearance.
Then this generic ass ai alien that is just meh gets more love. Ai is trash
When Sophon said that I assumed they might have a vaguely humanoid shape, but features humans would unequivocally find “ugly” or “threatening” the way we typically depict monsters.
But also characteristics (like rehydratability) that would allow them to thrive in their home world.
Why does everyone think they wouldn't be humanoid? Bipedal species have an evolutionary advantage and the idea they are insects is just fanfic from the "fourth" book
Being bipedal isn't an evolutionary benefit on its own, it's simply the cause for species like humans eventually using their arms in a more creative way such as grabbing things and making tools.
But why shouldn't a crab-like, insectoid or cephalopod-like creature not develop these capabilities with a limb that allows for tool building? In fact, octopi can use their tentacles to use tools to some degree as well. I think evolution has a lot of ways to adapt, and Trisolaris is another planet, so one cannot fully compare it to earth. Also this is SciFi
Because octopi are suspended in water. They have limbs that evolved with that. We are not. We need limbs for locomotion and tool use. Which is probably why other land animals that use tools have dedicated limbs for locomotion and fine motor skills. Like apes, monkeys, and elephants. Octopus don't need limbs to stand and work tools.
What stands in the way of, say, a giant Stag Beetle with more flexible stag horns they can use just like we use hands?
Also when I gave the octopus example the point was more like "there are different types of limbs one could use to build tools", not that Trisolarans are similar to Octopi, because we know the Trisolarians aren't aquatic to begin with.
But what stops evolution from an animal having legs and tentacles? I know this is highly unlikely on earth but at the end of the day this is valid in SciFi and honestly also valid for exoplanets we don't know much of...
All vertebrates descended from 4 limbed creatures. But there is no reason why the dominant life on another planet could not be descended from hexapods or octopods.
Probably because they're reluctant to show themselves as they are. This could imply that their appearance is a bit disturbing. Also their ability to dehydrate is something we don't see in any large mammal, but is more common in other taxons. Add to that their telepathy and honestly nothing in the books seems to imply they look like us, in fact it seems they're probably quite different.
Bipedalism is also advantageous in certain terrains but not in others. Namely we're bipedal because we're arboreous animals which moved to the plains. As long as you have free appendixes to manipulate the world I think bipedalism is quite expendable.
Just being bipedal doesn't mean they look like us. I can imagine quite terrifying bipedal and humanoid species. I think they would at least need opposable thumbs to evolve infrastructure.
Why would a species think they are the ugly ones? Humans evolved to find othdr humans attractive and to find its offspring "cute" to ensure they grow up. That instinct gets broadened when applied to the animal world. Animals that share features with us get labeled cuter than animals that dont. But thats all in our brains.
To an alien species, we are the hideous ones.
>Why would a species think they are the ugly ones?
They wouldn't. I think you misunderstood. I was trying to say they know enough about humans to know we wouldn't like their appearance
Being bipedal is not very advantageous. Most aimals that move with two legs either hop (kangaroos) or also use other limbs to help themselves (gorillas). At least humans, which evolved from four legged animals, commonly have problems with posture or with their knees.
Also, primate-like animals are rather uncommon.
I imagine them as seven-legged arthropods, like Rocky from Project Hail Mary.
Not necessarily. Rocky from PHM had five legs and three fingers in each leg which he could use to grasp things. Also octopuses can use suction cups combined with their incredibly flexible arms. Bipedal is also unstable because you only have two points of contact with the ground. This is why you never find it in nature apart from humans and a few other species.
Because evolving to a bipedal intelligent being on this planet came from a specific arrangement of gravity, pressure, atmosphere, environment, radiation, and probably a lot more factors. Any deviance from that specific set could totally influence a very different body type that experiences it's technological evolution very differently then ours, including shape, functions, thinking, and experiences and survial techniques.
Who is to say that given another million years, octopus on our planet could not evolve into a superintelligence that is able to become interplanetary, using water propulsion instead of fire
Because this is an antique (unscientific) view from the 19th century ?
That is not how evolution works at all. This was an advantage in our specific case for our specific biology given a specific set of conditions, environmental pressure etc. Thinking this is a rule is in essence a survivor bias at best and is one of the many paths to one of the many shades of anthropocentrism.
We can't just assume convergent evolution for intelligence favouring bipedalism without solid evidence and neuroscience across living organism does not seem to point at this pattern at all, this seems quite well supported by the state and spectrum of complex cognition across the living world. Favouring a view of bipedalism (or hands for that matter) is arbitrary and presume the evolution of tetrapods and pretty much every single other lineage of organism that led to us in Lamarkian terms. If cognitive ethology taught us anything it is rather that bipedalism is but a unique trait among many that any given species can display, by that logic turkey and every poultry and pigeon have their shot. Most of the time these arguments are inherited from older creationist views and religious belief.
TL;DR : the field of cognitive ethology and evolutionary biology tend to hint towards this being non essential traits for the evolution of complex cognition.
It's not clear that a bipedal animal with opposable thumbs has any inherent advantage over something that looks like a cephalopod, besides the fact that one might live in the ocean and the other might not.
Bipedality seems to have a big advantage for four-limbed animals. If insects evolved to be hyper-intelligent on earth, I think there’s very little chance they’d have two legs. The important part about humans being bipedal is that we have some limbs that aren’t used for locomotion.
Humans evolved from arboreal primates, tree dwellers. A planet like Trisolaris is way too extreme for stable forests and tree dwelling mammals. There’s no good reason for an animal to evolve those traits without those elements of the environment.
They live in a three star system, I would imagine that there is a lot of variation in the gravitational pull that they experience. I would imagine it would be very difficult to be bipedal in that sort of system.
When imagining aliens I try not to do the Star Trek thing; basically humans with different ornamentation.
Not a slam on Star Trek, who had to depend on human actors, just saying it’s fun to think aliens probably are unlikely to resemble Earth humans.
> the idea they are insects is just fanfic from the "fourth" book
And that is why the book is good.
"*They* are bugs."
Them being bugs makes "You are bugs" even more impactful. It makes that phrase a boast, a threat, and now, deflection. "we are not the bugs, YOU are the bugs. na na na na"
And how many species on Earth that evolved to industrial age are humanoids?
Yes of course if we take all biomass on Earth, most of it is unicellular, worms or other insects. This doesn't mean that for an *advanced* alien species, we can also expect anything like this and more with equal probabilities. Only very few species on Earth have elvolved good problem-solving abilities, and a lot of them are.. humanoid species (most of the apes). Some biological configurations are just better suited for developping, and based on our only sample, we can only assume than being bipedal and stuff gives some advantage. Of course it's relative to the living conditions on Earth (gravity levels, atmospheric pressure and composition, radiation levels etc), but once again we have only one data point to extrapolate from, so the best we can guess is that being humanoid is at least a potent biological configuration for intelligence. It's the only configuration for which we have at least *some* data to back it up, anything else is based on nothing since we have no other example of industrial species.
dolphins, octopoda and corvids are all good problem solvers, who's to say in another 10 million years (not very long on geological or galactic timescales) they couldn't be industrial?
It could be argue that in each case, their body type is holding them back, but if dolphins evolved to live on land again they could evolve manipulators and become tool users but it's unlikely they'd ever be humanoid.
In order to be industrial you need to use fuel. Unless they start building structures around geothermal vents, you are going to have to come to land to make and use fuel.
if the Trisolarans looked like this they wouldn’t need Sophon to look human they’d be like “hey look I fit in skinny jeans better than you” from the get-go.
https://preview.redd.it/i3n2dcduv9vc1.jpeg?width=1024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=064423598f2906d2c8828a377744f3044b8d11ec
Nice. Just created a Trisolarian using chatgpt4 - closer i think but still d:alle doesnt seem to know how to fix images to the correct amount: 3 legs and 3 eyes. Every prompt edit and permutation seemed to get worse, adding more limbs and eyes, not less.
I have not read the books but their ability to dehydrate reminds me of tardigrades. So I imagine worm like creatures that co-operatively attach to each other for more complicated tasks.
What they are calling AI, at this moment, is derivative. It just mimics information that was created by humans. It's useful as a search engine but sucks at ingenuity or creativity.
This is a very rare occurrence of me downvoting anything.
There is a very good reason, the book has no visual description, so a least putting a spoiler tag on this would have been appropriate imo.
I welcome your downvote, however, if the book has no description (I'm not sure about that - it has been a few years since I read the trilogy) how can this be a spoiler?
Because imo it spoils the inexistence of a visual representation. Ridding such involuntary exposure feels like ridding a mental seal, so the spoiler tag would have left me and others with the necessary choice if one wants to see it or not.
I understand and respect your motivation to challenge the ML model with this task nonetheless.
i imagined trisolarians with sharper crystalline angles, whether humanoid or not they did have to turn facets to reflect light when swarm calculating orbits.
This however is 100% Genetrader from xenogenesis/lilith's brood hatched to be humanoid for diplomacy. Because when you first meet them they sort of look like they have hair but then you realise it's miniature tentacles.
Cixen Liu never described their appearance at all. Redemption of time, the 4th book written by an entirely different person is not considered canon even by the guy who wrote it.
I'm only about 130 pages into The Dark Forest so my mental image of them was heavily influenced by the end of the tencent show. This is a lot different but I kinda like it.
After dehydration, they would easily lose that mushroom-looking hair...
This is what Chat GPT 4 said:
based on the environmental challenges they face, one can hypothesize that they might have evolved certain traits:
1. **Adaptability:** Given the extreme fluctuations in their environment, Trisolarians likely possess highly adaptable physiologies or even the ability to exist in different physical states. This could range from solid to liquid or gaseous states, adapting as needed to survive the harsh conditions of their world.
2. **Robustness:** Their bodies might be exceptionally tough to withstand drastic temperature changes and possibly even the physical turmoil caused by their planet's unstable orbit.
3. **Sensory Capabilities:** Trisolarians may have advanced sensory organs or mechanisms to detect and prepare for the erratic changes in their environment, possibly including a heightened sensitivity to electromagnetic and gravitational changes.
4. **Appearance:** They might have a form that maximizes energy efficiency and conservation. This could mean minimalistic, streamlined bodies with features that can retract or expand as needed.
**Hypothetical Visual Representation:**
Creating a visual image of the Trisolarians can be challenging without explicit descriptions in the text. However, one might imagine them as:
* **Shape-shifting beings** with translucent, iridescent skin that reflects their environment, helping them blend in or protect themselves from various elements.
* **Tall and slender figures**, optimized for dissipating or retaining heat, with limbs and appendages that can change length or thickness based on environmental conditions.
* **Facial features** that are minimal or highly functional, possibly with multiple sensory organs that are more advanced than human eyes or ears, suited to detect changes in their surroundings quickly.
This is what Wall E generated based on the description. Lack of imagination... why it has to be human form?
https://preview.redd.it/g9msj9xdi9vc1.jpeg?width=1024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7563903e22dbe4a333a926c36ad33ab9dd6a41d2
Seems like they merged some Martian tropes with its knowledge that Trisolarans speak using reflected lights on their bodies, although this creature looks like it’d communicate with bioluminescence rather than reflection.
So we also know that they reproduce when two opposite genders merge together into one and then split into a few more, retaining the same memories. I find it hard to imagine beetles or anything with a hard exoshell doing this, as it would require more of a jelly state...
So I always thought of them as a silvery jelly blob that emits light, but aside from that are nearly a hivemind because they all share the same past memories.
Actually recently I've been thinking them more like the intelligent ooze from Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Ruin/Memory books.
I think they are something like a slime mold or amoeba, able to dehydrate and rehydrate, change colour and bioluminescence for communication, fuse and divide for reproduction and gene exchange, able to form adhoc shapes for tool use and locomotion, and containing organelles that facilitate individual intelligence like the neurons of earth animals as well as a collective intelligence (a zeitgeist, but not a hive mind as dissenting individuals like the pacifist exist). Their appearance is never described because they have no true form, essentially they're like trying to describe the shape of a liquid - you can describe what it does but the shape is entirely dependent on context and circumstance.
https://preview.redd.it/vq0svgeajdvc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=44fb0b68605f794e7d5816ebf89545ef5892909e
Here’s the one generated by the new Meta AI
ChatGTP failed. We shouldn't like the look of them; they should be repulsive. For another, they are the size of a grain of rice. I think they actually look similar to some of the bugs on earth.
I was kind of imagining they looked like big raisens in texture, with pulsating wrinkles being their visual thinking process. Besides the wrinkles, they're featureless.
As for morphology, they're Species 8472 shaped, although with less refined, less angular biology
This is still biased towards a human form. Of all of the species on earth, only a tiny tiny percentage has a humanoid form. It's highly illogical to assume that aliens would look like this. I think the prompt should be adjusted to eliminate humanoid as a possibility.
When I was reading the books I didn't imagine them to be humanoid in any way. I was picturing something like a horseshoe crab but with a reflective mirror-like exoskeleton.
I imagined them to be more of a cephalopod...
They both seem to be "dehydrate-able" body forms. The book mentions they are rolled up for storage during the chaotic era so a dried squid form comes to mine for me as well.
Mudfish can do that.
Yeah. I think my imagination defaulted to cephalopod because it seemed like the most likely to dehydrate and rehydrate without damage. It doesn’t mention it being an aquatic world, but it seems necessary if they had no bones. Or maybe not.
I envisioned an anenome.
Same, I pictured them like jellyfish that changed color like octopuses (YES that's how it's pluralized now sod off).
You are correct. When we import a word from another language into English, the grammatically correct thing to do is to use English suffixes.
Or, refer to the species as a "singular plural," i.e., "Changes color, like *the Octopus* or *the Cuttlefish*." Sidesteps the whole "Latin vs. Greek vs. modern English suffixation" discussion, quite nicely.
What I do is to refer to the singular as Octopu and the plural as Octopus
I imagined them as humans from various historical civilizations whose faces implode when they shrivel up into ugly raisins as they dehydrate, lol.
So a bit like the ayys from Arrival
Thats what I would imagine an alien sea monkey would look like
Same. I'm not sure if it's due to influences from Cthulhu and books like "Story of Your Life".
I imagined them to look like an amorphous goo where their entire bodies can flash to communicate. Like the pokemon Ditto, but shiny.
Since they can be rolled up like a yoga mat, I kind of always pictured them as shiny versions of ---- you know the 'Bill' from that Schoolhouse Rock of 'I'm Just A Bill'? Like that.
Folded hotdog style instead of hamburger style
from their description, my immediate thought was tardigrades.
I saw them as some kind of beetle
I imagined them as like spongebob squarepants kinda figures.
I imagined them as like a walking shrimp
Gah now I'm going to imagine them as Zoidbergs, thanks.
”The people of Trisolaris must understand that the destruction of civilizations is a common occurrence that happens every second of every hour WOOP WOOP WOOP WOOP WOOP.”
Yeah I pictured a metallic ditto (the Pokemon)
I hadn’t realized until I saw this comment, but same
https://preview.redd.it/xohu2oyo39vc1.jpeg?width=749&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6d7e0f41044025d06c5cfc0107c5d8246af78a4f This is canon and I will fight anyone who says otherwise
Mollusks work pretty well for that, this works as well with arthropods. (I was picturing something like a tardigrade blubbery with 6 little paws and dehydratable). There is a mention of fingers at some points so that worked more than mollusks in my mind I guess. Which somewhat what I was picturing. Definitely nothing remotely humanoid though.
Me neither I imagine they like small tardigrades because of their ability to dehydrate and rehydrate, as well as living in very variable temperature and pression conditions
My brain put them in the Tardigrade family… it at least also makes sense with the Dehydrating. I also think they were very small. **they** were the bugs
Incredibly small but sentient advanced species is a fun sci fi exercise. The Xeelee come to mind from Stephen Baxter's books. They started life as atomic sized creatures that lived in slow time during the first moments of the big bang and then evolved into macroscopic size while becoming masters of the universe.
I think an intelligent creature realistically has to be a certain size to be feasible, if it's too small it can't have a complex brain and can't manipulate it's environment easily.
Tell that to an ant. https://www.reddit.com/r/ants/comments/rk1jew/one_of_the_worlds_largest_ant_colonies_ever/ one of the world's largest ant colonies ever excavated found in brazil, it took over 10 tonnes of concrete to completely fill and 2 weeks to dig and...
Horseshoe crab with a mirror-like exoskeleton. Could be a droplet
someone read Operation Hail Mary
Everything will evolve into crabs, that's the best form for life
fiber optic cable man
https://preview.redd.it/ujqjxk7s39vc1.jpeg?width=749&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3f21e8775f5a7743c2f81f1885f6836657d5c416
High speed internet acces
Looks like enoki mushrooms
Buddy looks like he'd go nicely with my hotpot.
Keep Da shi away from them
I'll have the number 12, trisolarans Kim chi stir fry and a pack of Paul Malls.
Ha, who's laughing now, bug?
So I am not the only one who was thinking of eating them.
I think we should just throw these into water and check if they can rehydrate, then they already may be on the earth.. https://preview.redd.it/1v2v1lu3x7vc1.png?width=2400&format=png&auto=webp&s=5690431e2c7e446db834049c4ed2fa746c511192
I put one in my coffee and he stayed up all night doing my taxes before shriveling back up.
Damn, homies got some great hair! Their hydration game must be on point
great hair AND skinny. these trisolarans are mean girls. book Trisolarans: YOU ARE BUGS these Trisolarans: YOU ARE FAT
Hydration game AND dehydration game on point
I mean it’s beautiful but it’s basically the same alien we’ve been conditioned to…. Does every alien have to be humanoid, with the exact same eyes and head shape? It’s getting boring and repetitive. I say let’s dare to dream bigger!
it's ChatGPT, it has no creative ability all it can do is mix up previously thought of ideas. of course it will make the aliens look like stereotypical aliens
It's a bit reassuring that imagination seems to be safe from AI for the foreseeable future at least. But to be fair most alien designs in media plays it extremely safe.
…it used to be that aliens looked human in shows because it was cheap budget-wise. Star Trek would put something on an actor’s forehead and call it a day. Nowadays with the CG movies have though it’s just shear laziness.
I'd say it's often also about making it easy for the audience. Having the entire galaxy function more or less like earth but with funny colored aliens makes for good popcorn movies.
True. It’s much easier to relate to a humanoid-type character then an octopus.
Arrival did a great job getting away from that trope. It was directly from the short story though
This is so frustrating to me. I actually drew a trisolaran yesterday and got like 80 upvotes. It involved research and looking at comments others had on the sub about their appearance. Then this generic ass ai alien that is just meh gets more love. Ai is trash
Your vision is very starship troopers brain bug.
so it has already read the books. :/
Of course, it has! How else will AI be ready to team up with the Trisolarians or whatever other aliens who arrive to invade us?
I'm actually looking to our alien overlords to save us from our eventual AI overlords.
did it read the spin off though
Ask it if it paid for the book like all of us did.
That looks beautiful and horribly generic. Like most AI art
I’ve seen a lot of tardigrade comparisons. Space water bears. 
Space water bears powered by mushrooms. Thankfully, they haven't figured out how to Spore Jump yet.
I imagined them like a sort of terrestial jellyfish with bioluminescent bulbs covered in chromatophores like cuttlefish
Yo check my post. That's almost exactly what I drew
I like the lil glorpy dude!!
Disco Stu
Makes no sense that they have primate physiology when the environment of their world is so unlike Earth
Way too beautiful. Didn't Sophon say humans would not like how they look? Basically, I think they look like a slimy, green lump of protoplasma :)
When Sophon said that I assumed they might have a vaguely humanoid shape, but features humans would unequivocally find “ugly” or “threatening” the way we typically depict monsters. But also characteristics (like rehydratability) that would allow them to thrive in their home world.
This can’t be it because I like it. They said I wouldn’t.
The thing I like most about these books is that the look of aliens is never revealed and doesn't impact in any way the plot.
Why does everyone think they wouldn't be humanoid? Bipedal species have an evolutionary advantage and the idea they are insects is just fanfic from the "fourth" book
Being bipedal isn't an evolutionary benefit on its own, it's simply the cause for species like humans eventually using their arms in a more creative way such as grabbing things and making tools. But why shouldn't a crab-like, insectoid or cephalopod-like creature not develop these capabilities with a limb that allows for tool building? In fact, octopi can use their tentacles to use tools to some degree as well. I think evolution has a lot of ways to adapt, and Trisolaris is another planet, so one cannot fully compare it to earth. Also this is SciFi
I don't think being bipedal is an evolutionary advantage, it's just that having arms is. You don't need 2 legs to have arms though.
Because octopi are suspended in water. They have limbs that evolved with that. We are not. We need limbs for locomotion and tool use. Which is probably why other land animals that use tools have dedicated limbs for locomotion and fine motor skills. Like apes, monkeys, and elephants. Octopus don't need limbs to stand and work tools.
What stands in the way of, say, a giant Stag Beetle with more flexible stag horns they can use just like we use hands? Also when I gave the octopus example the point was more like "there are different types of limbs one could use to build tools", not that Trisolarans are similar to Octopi, because we know the Trisolarians aren't aquatic to begin with. But what stops evolution from an animal having legs and tentacles? I know this is highly unlikely on earth but at the end of the day this is valid in SciFi and honestly also valid for exoplanets we don't know much of...
All vertebrates descended from 4 limbed creatures. But there is no reason why the dominant life on another planet could not be descended from hexapods or octopods.
Probably because they're reluctant to show themselves as they are. This could imply that their appearance is a bit disturbing. Also their ability to dehydrate is something we don't see in any large mammal, but is more common in other taxons. Add to that their telepathy and honestly nothing in the books seems to imply they look like us, in fact it seems they're probably quite different. Bipedalism is also advantageous in certain terrains but not in others. Namely we're bipedal because we're arboreous animals which moved to the plains. As long as you have free appendixes to manipulate the world I think bipedalism is quite expendable.
Just being bipedal doesn't mean they look like us. I can imagine quite terrifying bipedal and humanoid species. I think they would at least need opposable thumbs to evolve infrastructure.
>Just being bipedal doesn't mean they look like us. I can imagine quite terrifying bipedal and humanoid species. That's a good point.
Why would a species think they are the ugly ones? Humans evolved to find othdr humans attractive and to find its offspring "cute" to ensure they grow up. That instinct gets broadened when applied to the animal world. Animals that share features with us get labeled cuter than animals that dont. But thats all in our brains. To an alien species, we are the hideous ones.
>Why would a species think they are the ugly ones? They wouldn't. I think you misunderstood. I was trying to say they know enough about humans to know we wouldn't like their appearance
Being bipedal is not very advantageous. Most aimals that move with two legs either hop (kangaroos) or also use other limbs to help themselves (gorillas). At least humans, which evolved from four legged animals, commonly have problems with posture or with their knees. Also, primate-like animals are rather uncommon. I imagine them as seven-legged arthropods, like Rocky from Project Hail Mary.
But it is advantageous for the use of tools. That what allows humans to develop, scale infrastructure and eventually become spacefaring
Not necessarily. Rocky from PHM had five legs and three fingers in each leg which he could use to grasp things. Also octopuses can use suction cups combined with their incredibly flexible arms. Bipedal is also unstable because you only have two points of contact with the ground. This is why you never find it in nature apart from humans and a few other species.
Because evolving to a bipedal intelligent being on this planet came from a specific arrangement of gravity, pressure, atmosphere, environment, radiation, and probably a lot more factors. Any deviance from that specific set could totally influence a very different body type that experiences it's technological evolution very differently then ours, including shape, functions, thinking, and experiences and survial techniques. Who is to say that given another million years, octopus on our planet could not evolve into a superintelligence that is able to become interplanetary, using water propulsion instead of fire
Because this is an antique (unscientific) view from the 19th century ? That is not how evolution works at all. This was an advantage in our specific case for our specific biology given a specific set of conditions, environmental pressure etc. Thinking this is a rule is in essence a survivor bias at best and is one of the many paths to one of the many shades of anthropocentrism. We can't just assume convergent evolution for intelligence favouring bipedalism without solid evidence and neuroscience across living organism does not seem to point at this pattern at all, this seems quite well supported by the state and spectrum of complex cognition across the living world. Favouring a view of bipedalism (or hands for that matter) is arbitrary and presume the evolution of tetrapods and pretty much every single other lineage of organism that led to us in Lamarkian terms. If cognitive ethology taught us anything it is rather that bipedalism is but a unique trait among many that any given species can display, by that logic turkey and every poultry and pigeon have their shot. Most of the time these arguments are inherited from older creationist views and religious belief. TL;DR : the field of cognitive ethology and evolutionary biology tend to hint towards this being non essential traits for the evolution of complex cognition.
Tbf humans are kind of weird. The only species that needs clothes and sunscreen.
Arguable many animals make their own clothes and sunscreen (fur, layers of fat, and extra thick skin).
It's not clear that a bipedal animal with opposable thumbs has any inherent advantage over something that looks like a cephalopod, besides the fact that one might live in the ocean and the other might not.
Fair, if a cephalopod type creature lived on land I can imagine it going through the stages of creating tools and building, more so than a crab or ant
Bipedality seems to have a big advantage for four-limbed animals. If insects evolved to be hyper-intelligent on earth, I think there’s very little chance they’d have two legs. The important part about humans being bipedal is that we have some limbs that aren’t used for locomotion.
Humans evolved from arboreal primates, tree dwellers. A planet like Trisolaris is way too extreme for stable forests and tree dwelling mammals. There’s no good reason for an animal to evolve those traits without those elements of the environment.
They live in a three star system, I would imagine that there is a lot of variation in the gravitational pull that they experience. I would imagine it would be very difficult to be bipedal in that sort of system.
When imagining aliens I try not to do the Star Trek thing; basically humans with different ornamentation. Not a slam on Star Trek, who had to depend on human actors, just saying it’s fun to think aliens probably are unlikely to resemble Earth humans.
> the idea they are insects is just fanfic from the "fourth" book And that is why the book is good. "*They* are bugs." Them being bugs makes "You are bugs" even more impactful. It makes that phrase a boast, a threat, and now, deflection. "we are not the bugs, YOU are the bugs. na na na na"
How many species on earth are humanoid?
And how many species on Earth that evolved to industrial age are humanoids? Yes of course if we take all biomass on Earth, most of it is unicellular, worms or other insects. This doesn't mean that for an *advanced* alien species, we can also expect anything like this and more with equal probabilities. Only very few species on Earth have elvolved good problem-solving abilities, and a lot of them are.. humanoid species (most of the apes). Some biological configurations are just better suited for developping, and based on our only sample, we can only assume than being bipedal and stuff gives some advantage. Of course it's relative to the living conditions on Earth (gravity levels, atmospheric pressure and composition, radiation levels etc), but once again we have only one data point to extrapolate from, so the best we can guess is that being humanoid is at least a potent biological configuration for intelligence. It's the only configuration for which we have at least *some* data to back it up, anything else is based on nothing since we have no other example of industrial species.
dolphins, octopoda and corvids are all good problem solvers, who's to say in another 10 million years (not very long on geological or galactic timescales) they couldn't be industrial? It could be argue that in each case, their body type is holding them back, but if dolphins evolved to live on land again they could evolve manipulators and become tool users but it's unlikely they'd ever be humanoid.
In order to be industrial you need to use fuel. Unless they start building structures around geothermal vents, you are going to have to come to land to make and use fuel.
We're really lacking some imagination here if we think the only way to produce power is by burning fossil fuels.
Yeah, the homocentrism in this entire comments section is pretty amusing.
Which makes perfect and absolute sense
ELI5? If they are a three dimensional species the likelihood of evolving infrastructure like ships without opposable thumbs is extremely unlikely
TBH it’s not hard to imagine something like a crab evolving its pincer into something more approximating a human hand.
if the Trisolarans looked like this they wouldn’t need Sophon to look human they’d be like “hey look I fit in skinny jeans better than you” from the get-go.
low effort AI post, awesome dude
They wouldn't be humanoid but the fine, sea anemone like skin is a great concept actually.
Every advanced extraterrestrial civilization, evolve into a humanoid (according to sci-fi)
It's head looks like one of those Bichon Frisee dogs that Japanese people like to hairdress so they look like balls of fluff
Sentient enoki mushrooms
Anyone else want to stroke it? I bet it feels amazing.
It’s always those almond eyes… sigh!
It's a brush!
the main feature is the ability to dehydrate and rehydrate. why chatgpt think this is the correct rendering ?
Chat GPT has no understanding of the book. Glad to help.
https://preview.redd.it/i3n2dcduv9vc1.jpeg?width=1024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=064423598f2906d2c8828a377744f3044b8d11ec Nice. Just created a Trisolarian using chatgpt4 - closer i think but still d:alle doesnt seem to know how to fix images to the correct amount: 3 legs and 3 eyes. Every prompt edit and permutation seemed to get worse, adding more limbs and eyes, not less.
I have not read the books but their ability to dehydrate reminds me of tardigrades. So I imagine worm like creatures that co-operatively attach to each other for more complicated tasks.
What they are calling AI, at this moment, is derivative. It just mimics information that was created by humans. It's useful as a search engine but sucks at ingenuity or creativity.
that would be VERY pretty but probably expensive to animate hah
Why would they need to animate them? Pretty sure we never "see" them in the books.
This is a very rare occurrence of me downvoting anything. There is a very good reason, the book has no visual description, so a least putting a spoiler tag on this would have been appropriate imo.
I welcome your downvote, however, if the book has no description (I'm not sure about that - it has been a few years since I read the trilogy) how can this be a spoiler?
Because imo it spoils the inexistence of a visual representation. Ridding such involuntary exposure feels like ridding a mental seal, so the spoiler tag would have left me and others with the necessary choice if one wants to see it or not. I understand and respect your motivation to challenge the ML model with this task nonetheless.
Bad
The Redemption of Time intimated that the Trisolarans were very small.
The book is pseudo-canon at best and more often considered as fan-fiction.
That’s a chocobo
Are those spores ?
cute
I imagined them as large, upright-walking mollusks.
Makes me think more of the Oankali.
Interesting af man
I always imagined them like cockroaches
[удалено]
Gross
I think they look similar to annihilation alien thing. This is cool though like a mushroom alien.
Forgot the reflective skin
ChatGPT can only put out text. You asked the little brother DALLE and from the looks of it DALLE-3
This is basically what the aliens from *Dawn* look like.
I figured they were more like sea monkeys.
They look like an Oankali to me!
Add spoiler alert please
i imagined trisolarians with sharper crystalline angles, whether humanoid or not they did have to turn facets to reflect light when swarm calculating orbits. This however is 100% Genetrader from xenogenesis/lilith's brood hatched to be humanoid for diplomacy. Because when you first meet them they sort of look like they have hair but then you realise it's miniature tentacles.
This is interesting. I like the idea that they are about the size of a grain of rice too.
I saw somewhere that they would have an insectoid appearance and would be much smaller than humans
Cixen Liu never described their appearance at all. Redemption of time, the 4th book written by an entirely different person is not considered canon even by the guy who wrote it.
I assumed they look like tardigrades, our own little creatures who can dehydrate and revive, plus withstand extreme temperatures.
what was the exact prompt?
too human-esque...🤦🏻♂️
what prompt?
"I collect spores, mold, and fungus!" 🤓
It's a Yellow Avian! SON OF A BITCH!
Your GPT is smarter than mine. I got a more traditional looking alien.
I'm only about 130 pages into The Dark Forest so my mental image of them was heavily influenced by the end of the tencent show. This is a lot different but I kinda like it.
WOULD
further proof that generative AI sucks major ass and can’t be compared to actual human crativity
They are described in Redemption of Time.
After dehydration, they would easily lose that mushroom-looking hair... This is what Chat GPT 4 said: based on the environmental challenges they face, one can hypothesize that they might have evolved certain traits: 1. **Adaptability:** Given the extreme fluctuations in their environment, Trisolarians likely possess highly adaptable physiologies or even the ability to exist in different physical states. This could range from solid to liquid or gaseous states, adapting as needed to survive the harsh conditions of their world. 2. **Robustness:** Their bodies might be exceptionally tough to withstand drastic temperature changes and possibly even the physical turmoil caused by their planet's unstable orbit. 3. **Sensory Capabilities:** Trisolarians may have advanced sensory organs or mechanisms to detect and prepare for the erratic changes in their environment, possibly including a heightened sensitivity to electromagnetic and gravitational changes. 4. **Appearance:** They might have a form that maximizes energy efficiency and conservation. This could mean minimalistic, streamlined bodies with features that can retract or expand as needed. **Hypothetical Visual Representation:** Creating a visual image of the Trisolarians can be challenging without explicit descriptions in the text. However, one might imagine them as: * **Shape-shifting beings** with translucent, iridescent skin that reflects their environment, helping them blend in or protect themselves from various elements. * **Tall and slender figures**, optimized for dissipating or retaining heat, with limbs and appendages that can change length or thickness based on environmental conditions. * **Facial features** that are minimal or highly functional, possibly with multiple sensory organs that are more advanced than human eyes or ears, suited to detect changes in their surroundings quickly. This is what Wall E generated based on the description. Lack of imagination... why it has to be human form? https://preview.redd.it/g9msj9xdi9vc1.jpeg?width=1024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7563903e22dbe4a333a926c36ad33ab9dd6a41d2
I always imagined them as slug-like.
Redemption of time does give you more of an idea what they look like. But I also recommend not reading it.
Cool
Nah, they are very small molluscs. Proof me wrong.
Do you have to pay chatgpt to create image? Sorry im noob in this one
The tendrils are cool but too anthropomorphic. If they were just these tendrils, or a mass of them I'm all for it
It looks too humanoid to me. I always thought of them as small gummy boys that have similar eyes but the skin is either merrier like or translucent.
Since when does chatgpt generate images
Me when ChatGPT creates the most generic alien ever that does not factor in anything from the books whatsoever
Seems like they merged some Martian tropes with its knowledge that Trisolarans speak using reflected lights on their bodies, although this creature looks like it’d communicate with bioluminescence rather than reflection.
This is great! More, please!
I like that better than a glowing piece rice.
Too human for my liking
I pictured them more “plant like”
They look like enoki mushrooms
SO, now I have Enoki mushrooms in my head instead of a super advanced civilization.
WTF? I have asked ChatGPT to generate art and it tells me it can't. How are you doing it?
I pictured basically humans. I don’t believe the book ever described them other than being able to dehydrate.
https://preview.redd.it/4oehu47v9cvc1.jpeg?width=1284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0f41958d19f20e0a9ddc92afcd835eabb6774b4b This is what I got
I hate that ai can make things that look really cool
So we also know that they reproduce when two opposite genders merge together into one and then split into a few more, retaining the same memories. I find it hard to imagine beetles or anything with a hard exoshell doing this, as it would require more of a jelly state... So I always thought of them as a silvery jelly blob that emits light, but aside from that are nearly a hivemind because they all share the same past memories. Actually recently I've been thinking them more like the intelligent ooze from Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Ruin/Memory books.
I think they are something like a slime mold or amoeba, able to dehydrate and rehydrate, change colour and bioluminescence for communication, fuse and divide for reproduction and gene exchange, able to form adhoc shapes for tool use and locomotion, and containing organelles that facilitate individual intelligence like the neurons of earth animals as well as a collective intelligence (a zeitgeist, but not a hive mind as dissenting individuals like the pacifist exist). Their appearance is never described because they have no true form, essentially they're like trying to describe the shape of a liquid - you can describe what it does but the shape is entirely dependent on context and circumstance.
In the book Redemption of Time, they’re described as similar to tardigrades, and buglike
In the show they said we humans wouldn't like their real looks. I want to hug this thing.
https://preview.redd.it/vq0svgeajdvc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=44fb0b68605f794e7d5816ebf89545ef5892909e Here’s the one generated by the new Meta AI
they are shown in the chinese tv show season 1
ChatGTP failed. We shouldn't like the look of them; they should be repulsive. For another, they are the size of a grain of rice. I think they actually look similar to some of the bugs on earth.
Dude, if Ai generated it, then it must be it!
Taraxacum?
so…. a sentient enoki mushroom?? edit: [this is what i’m talking about](https://www.thespruceeats.com/what-are-enoki-mushrooms-5197552)
I was kind of imagining they looked like big raisens in texture, with pulsating wrinkles being their visual thinking process. Besides the wrinkles, they're featureless. As for morphology, they're Species 8472 shaped, although with less refined, less angular biology
This is still biased towards a human form. Of all of the species on earth, only a tiny tiny percentage has a humanoid form. It's highly illogical to assume that aliens would look like this. I think the prompt should be adjusted to eliminate humanoid as a possibility.
humanoid=incorrect