Space Opera Races

[Maquise]

I've been working on a setting for a Space Opera type game (Nevermind that I'm still not sure what system to run it with). I've been trying to build up the various alien races that will be prevalent and available to the players. Now, as I want to keep it recognizable Space Opera, in the vein of Star Trek, Star Wars, Babylon 5, etc. some of these races will use familiar archetypes. However, I'd rather avoid coming off as completely unoriginal, and would like to introduce some new aspects to the familiar archetypes.

Here are the races as they are now. For right now, I'm setting aside the current political situation, as that is largely determined by the events of the campaign, however historical interaction amongst the species are appreciated.

Humans: Speaks for itself. Humanity is organized largely into a sort of confederation of largely autonomous worlds, connected by one military and various interstellar hypercorporations.
Brathraki: A felinoid race, consisting of a wide empire ruled by various noble houses. Exploratory and expansionist, their practice of slavery and reputation for decadence has put them at odds with their neighbors, but they prefer to maintain at least affable relations with powers they consider measurable to themselves.
Vaudran: This aquatic species has been in space for a great deal of time, but their domain is in decline. They have the most advanced ship in known space, but they are few in number.
Space Nomads: I have an idea for a race of nomadic aliens that are basically Elite players as a species, favoring small vessels with minimal, tightly knit crews. They have a strong sense of honor, but not only warrior's honor; for example, a courier will do everything possible to get their delivery to its destination on time, with the same conviction often seen in honorable warriors.
The Suits: I have an idea for a race that lives in sealed environmental suits, and are very mysterious, similar to the Vorlons and Breen.


Not much to go on, but I'm just getting started. I'll add more as I work out more details. I would like ideas that expand on these races, as well as new ideas.

[Admiral Squish]

Oooh. Those are some interesting cues...
How humanoid do you want these races to be? I'd love to come up with some really weird stuff for you.

One important thing to know about the setting, though, is what's the technology like? Are we looking at star wars style stuff, where it's all grungy and worn and you've got space-mechanics climbing over ships and tightening things with wrenches? Or it is more like star trek, where things are all automated and there's replicators and teleporters? And what about specific technology, like synthetic intelligences, or life-extension, or faster-than-light travel? And is this story happening in a corner of the galaxy, does it span the galaxy, or even multiple galaxies? These are important questions to keep in mind.

The aquatic race idea sound cool, but the logistics concern me, since it seems like it would be very difficult to get significant masses of water into space. It could work if they're amphibious, though, and I suppose it would be possible to go the other way if they were really advanced, tech-wise. Have you considered what kind of species you'd like to base them off?

I don't know if it fits your idea of suits, but I once designed a sci-fi race-thing that consisted of swarms of ant/termite things that traveled the universe in colony ships big enough to fit one hive apiece, ultimately slightly larger than a human torso. After making contact with other races, they began modifying their colony ships to give them similar approximate shapes, to allow them to interact more freely. Oh, and their atmosphere was very unusual, so they couldn't leave the colony ships. So, you have these robot-looking things that refer to themselves as 'we' and think/act in very strange ways.
Even if you're not too fond of that idea, I think it could be a very interesting twist to see the 'suits' being less 'hazmat suit' and more 'power armor'.

[Maquise]

Oooh. Those are some interesting cues...
How humanoid do you want these races to be? I'd love to come up with some really weird stuff for you.
For the main races, my only stipulation is that they have to be playable, which could complicate things as, as I have said, I'm not sure what system I'll be using (any ideas on this regard would be greatly appreciated as well).


One important thing to know about the setting, though, is what's the technology like? Are we looking at star wars style stuff, where it's all grungy and worn and you've got space-mechanics climbing over ships and tightening things with wrenches? Or it is more like star trek, where things are all automated and there's replicators and teleporters? And what about specific technology, like synthetic intelligences, or life-extension, or faster-than-light travel? And is this story happening in a corner of the galaxy, does it span the galaxy, or even multiple galaxies? These are important questions to keep in mind.
I would like to keep the tech around Babylon 5 and Mass Effect levels. Not as shiny as Star Trek, but not as grungy as Star Wars. No teleportation, replicators, etc. but reasonable amount of automation, and a form of reasonably convenient FTL. Humans, for example, have only just developed artificial gravity.



The aquatic race idea sound cool, but the logistics concern me, since it seems like it would be very difficult to get significant masses of water into space. It could work if they're amphibious, though, and I suppose it would be possible to go the other way if they were really advanced, tech-wise. Have you considered what kind of species you'd like to base them off?

They could be amphibious, and simply keep their ships highly humid. I'm not sure what terrestrial analogue I'd use yet.


I don't know if it fits your idea of suits, but I once designed a sci-fi race-thing that consisted of swarms of ant/termite things that traveled the universe in colony ships big enough to fit one hive apiece, ultimately slightly larger than a human torso. After making contact with other races, they began modifying their colony ships to give them similar approximate shapes, to allow them to interact more freely. Oh, and their atmosphere was very unusual, so they couldn't leave the colony ships. So, you have these robot-looking things that refer to themselves as 'we' and think/act in very strange ways.
Even if you're not too fond of that idea, I think it could be a very interesting twist to see the 'suits' being less 'hazmat suit' and more 'power armor'.

I've had that idea as well. One thing about the Suits, though, is that what they actually are underneath is a great mystery to most aliens.

[Almarck]

The Suits: I have an idea for a race that lives in sealed environmental suits, and are very mysterious, similar to the Vorlons and Breen.


I have a race like this set up already. Constant requirements of HEV suits and more just to survive.

The entry is mostly in Pathfinder (with the justification of crashlanding on a traditional medieval setting) and I haven't posted it up yet, but it might help you if you want me to post it up on the Homebrew section or post it here.

I also have an entry for an A.I. mechanical race in Pathfinder, though the system is a bit cumbersome.

I know you'll probably not need the races for their mechanics, though maybe inspiration might help.

[Dusk Raven]

Did someone say space opera? I just so happen to be working on a space opera setting myself! In addition, I delight in coming up with races. I'll be happy to share some of the stuff I've come up with.

In summary, I have:

The Midrac, an aquatic race which mostly rose to prominance thanks to other races, and which use powered armor filled with water when interacting with air-breathers;
The Geisim, an ethereal, wispy humanoid race that went through nuclear war centuries ago and have since united under a common religious philosophy;
The Nitatiko, rodents the size of human children who lack intelligence individually but have an incredible ability to cooperate;
My pride and joy, the Terratoria, a predatory race that has survived several colonization attempts by humans and views them as Always Chaotic Evil;
The Gerron, a faintly insectoid race that are masters of genetic engineering, and who are very progressive within their own race, but make slaves and second-class citizens of other races;


And that's just the races that are the most playable. I'll try writing more detailed descriptions of each shortly, perhaps even making my own thread...

[Admiral Squish]

I can definitely do playable. But, like, should they be able to speak human languages unassisted? I'm sure convenient translators would be around, but I like the idea of aliens that are, you know, seriously alien.

Aquatic Race
No, that probably wouldn't work, either. Humidity would wreak havoc on electronics and other sensitive components. But then, it's always hard to mentally justify an aquatic civilization. Just try to think how human society would have developed if we never got fire. It's a tricky prospect.

Some vague ideas so far:
Based on bony fish. Extremely primitive-looking, but one of those 'if it ain't broke' kind of deals.
Crustacean-like. Would allow them to retain water better.
Large, cetacean-like race that can actually survive indefinitely out of water, but much prefers the support of immersion.
A terrestrial species that reached mental critical mass halfway through a return to the sea.
A hyperpredator like a shark, whose society started with aquaculture and turned mercantile.

I have a vague idea for spheres of water that serve as space stations, held together by force fields, perhaps even shaped into various watery chambers for different purposes.

Suits
I'm fond of the power armor idea. Maybe it's not power armor, though, more like a personal vehicle. Sorta like a submersible. It floats, or rolls, or hovers, and interacts with the world via little, specialized mechanical limbs.

[Maquise]

Communication amongst the species in Known Space is a non-issue by the time of the game (known space consists of a small section of the Galaxy).

I could see the aquatics using water-filled suits. They were probably uplifted at some point by a precursor race that isn't around anymore.

[Gritmonger]

Had a few over time -

One was silicon based - but silicon compounds generally react in acidic environments, so they tended to be spherical creatures that manipulated by electromagnetism, requiring environmental suits and acidic environments hotter than most other races.

One was radially symmetrical quadruped, with manipulating tentacles. So they basically had fourfold symmetry, and reproduced with either eggs or by the adults regenerating (sloughing off their old body and regenerating a new one, sans some of their earliest memories)

Ideas for aquatic races include the concept that they either have ships full of fluid, or suits of fluid in non-filled ships - the fluid adds a lot more mass to move but without it the creatures are effectively trapped in their suits. If the race is aquatic but air-breathing (think dolphin-like) they can get away with an inverse wetsuit to keep their bodies pressurized and moist, and normally operate with small jets in a null-G environment not too dissimilar to neutral buoyancy in water. They might be the bulk of pilots, able to think in three dimensions and zero gravity, perhaps even more so than flying creatures.

[ReaderAt2046]

What about combining your Suits and your Varduan? The Varduan are liquid-breathers, so when interacting with gas-breathing races, they must don suits (half power-armor, half small walker), filled with a liquid they can breath?

You might also be interested in the races from the Lost Fleet series. Over the course of the books, the heroes encounter no less than three distinct races.

The enigmas are a race which intuitively subscribes to the belief that "Knowledge is Power", and are thus obsessive about ensuring that nobody else knows anything about them, to the point of building their ships and space stations explicity so that they can be self-destructed and vaporize any evidence regarding their biology, technology, or society. They are physiologically amphibious, and fill their ships with water. This has the advantage of allowing them to pull maneuvers that would be suicide otherwise, as the water allows the crew to withstand greater g-forces than otherwise possible.

The bear-cows are a herbivorous race, who have exterminated not only all the predators on their worlds, but everything except themselves, the plants that they eat, and a few kinds of animals that they keep as pets. Upon first contact with humans they take a look at our transmission, observe from our teeth that we're carnivorous, and promptly fire nine hundred or so piloted missiles at us. In addition, whenever a bear-cow is taken prisoner by humans, it instantly commits suicide with its brain (they've evolved the ability to flood their system with a lethal dose of endorphins and hallucinogens at will), because they can't conceive of any reason for us to be keeping them alive other than to eat them later.

The third race are the spider-wolves, which, as the name suggests, look like the most hideous parts of a spider and a wolf mixed together. They seem to think in patterns, seeing the universe as a matrix of interlocking forces which must be kept in balance. They also extend this to their ships (which they build as perfect, featureless, ovoids, despite the fact that this definitely degrades their performance), and to their fleet formations (which are always absolutely gorgeous).

I also remember one setting I worked on where the trick was that there were two different kinds of FTL. Every race except humans used the wormgates, which were giant wormhole projectors similar to the Mass Relays from Mass Effect. Nobody knew how to build the things, they were just there. The trick was that Earth didn't have a wormgate, so the humans had developed their own form of FTL, something called a "five-three drive" which was pretty much your standard hyperdrive. When humans made contact with the other races (turns out Earth is actually within the boundaries of the Archean Confederacy, an alien power which is somewhat similar to Vulcans but without the telepathy. Only humans have psychic powers in this setting), naturally one of the first things they wanted was the 5/3 drive.

However, it was at this point that they hit an unexpected snag: 5/3 drives only worked if they were built by humans. You take a working 5/3 drive and disassemble it, an Archean puts it back together exactly the way it was, it won't work. You disassemble it again and this time a human puts it back together, and now it works.

[Landis963]

However, it was at this point that they hit an unexpected snag: 5/3 drives only worked if they were built by humans. You take a working 5/3 drive and disassemble it, an Archean puts it back together exactly the way it was, it won't work. You disassemble it again and this time a human puts it back together, and now it works.

What? That shouldn't be possible, unless this is that pesky psionics thing rearing its ugly head.

[Gritmonger]

What? That shouldn't be possible, unless this is that pesky psionics thing rearing its ugly head.

First thing I thought of was the "pilots" from Dune.

[Landis963]

First thing I thought of was the "pilots" from Dune.

A) As far as I can tell, the pilots of Dune are just hopped up on spice, which allows them to calculate the hyperspace stuff, so not quite the same, although it is a stunning likeness. B) This is manufacturing. If it was navigation, then sure: it's meant to interface with a human brain somehow and making it play nicely with an extra-terrestrial physiology is not as simple as just sitting in the seat. A necessary human presence during manufacturing? That sounds like unconscious usage of psych powers at best, and draconian copy-protection at worst.

[Mr.Cobalt]

I always thought it would be interesting for a "space opera" series to have a non-humanoid race for a change. Maybe even something quadrupedal, possibly with additional manipulator limbs like a Displacer Beast or Goa Magara.

[AceOfFools]

The best question you should ask yourself when creating races for any game is "What fantasy does playing as this race fulfill?" I don't mean "fantasy" as in the genre, but rather in a wish fulfillment, "I want to be..." sense.

Let me start with stating what fantasies your existing races enable:

Humans: "I want to be me (or someone somewhat like me), living in this future place." This is an extremely common fantasy, and sets the baseline for the setting, and as such, is pretty damn critical.
Brathraki: "I want to be a powerful warrior from a culture that prized military might"
Brathraki: "I want to be someone who overcame being an oppressed slave." This is a fantasy enabled by the race that can theoretically be played by any race.
Brathraki: "I want to be a cool cat-person."
Vaudran: "I want to be a master of technology, from a long line of masters of technology."
Vaudran: "I want to be part of a once great race that is falling to ruin." This fantasy can lead into several very different character motivations: the "my race may be doomed, but I'll find a way to survive"-type, the "Restore my race to greatness"-type, etc.
Space Nomads: "I want to devote myself to the idealization of job."
Space Nomads: "I want to be from a close knit family of choice."
The Suits: "I want to be an eginma, something that no one understands." A solid fantasy that a lot of good characters can be built around, but a tricky one to deal with as a PC. If the racial description reveals the answer to the mystery, it's not much of a mystery to the players, and thus much of the fantasy is lost. If it's not in the race, but it's fixed, players may introduce contradictory information, or not like what their character when an answer is finally revealed. Also it'd kinda suck to have a PC just take of their suit to reveal the answer to this mystery the second they get a chance for R&R. The best way, if you don't want it to stay a secret that is revealed over time, the best bet may to NOT answer the mystery yourself and just build off what your Suit PCs have revealed (or of course, just make Suits NPC only).


Obviously, races can speak to more than one fantasy, and can enable, by their nature, other fantasies by conflict or cooperation with an existing race. I'd argue that races that enable multiple fantasies with a single race means that the race is deeper, and should, in general be strived for; such an argument would be an off-topic discussion.

An interesting consequence of looking at things from this perspective is the fantasy doesn't need to be a whole separate race. All of the above fantasies could be satisfied by diversifying human cultures (although the "cat person" thing may require certain things about genetic engineering technology in the setting). I bring this up not to advocate a humans-only setting. I certainly don't advacate that!

I do however advocate against monolithic, monotonic civilizations due to racist/speciest implications. You can just as easily create a new fantasy by generating a new culture or faction of an existing race or culture. This doesn't even need to be part of a new civilization. Consider a Brathraki House that is a proud part of the Empire, but is morally opposed to slavery. They refuse to keep or take slaves, eject or discipline members of their House that practice in the slave trade, and argue against it's use to other Houses, although prioritize avoiding civil war within the Empire over this moral objection. You add depth and potential to an existing race, rather than creating a new race, by enabling the fantasy, "I want to make my proud warrior race better from within."

Some fantasies, especially very specific ones, might be more of a "class" thing, in which case they might be a better fit for the [sub]faction approach than the new race approach.

Let's list some Sci-Fi character fantasies; not all of which will fit with your setting, or what you want your setting to be. We're brainstomring:

I want to be part of a culture ruled by logic and reason (the Vulcan/robot fantasy)
I want to be someone who uses technology to overcome all human/mortal weakness (a transhumanist fantasy)
I want to be a space explorer, seeking out new planets.
I want to be a pre-technological person who is adapting to sudden inclusion in a world that my civilization never prepared me for.
I want to be a diplomat that forges alliances of vastly different cultures and biologies.
I want to be the best space pilot ever.
I want to be a grand manipulator, part of a conspiracy that has shaped the face of many races.
I want to be something completely alien and unhuman.
I want to be be a master of the network; as much above the modern hacker as space captain is above the modern yacht captain.
I want to be a terraformer, creating new habitable space here rather than looking for it far away.