I spent a good deal of my time as a game master for the Star Wars role-playing game in creating alien characters that fit the movies, the books I read in the Star Wars series, and the game materials. In this post, I will give you a mini-gallery of the aliens I drew for the game.
Chee Mobok was a space trader who had a problem with his own ego. He believed that he was a genius at language and could speak any language he had heard a handful of words from.
The Galactic Common speakers were always laughing at the things he said.
Huttese speakers like Jabba the Hutt were always trying to kill him for saying precisely the wrong thing.
Hethiss was the Jedi Master when my son’s Jedi character was still a padawan learner.
He was wise, but unable to keep his student from doing things in violent ways when a diplomatic solution was called for.
Merv was a potential terrorist and a suspect in a series of murders on a water planet. He was, however, the good bad-guy character. You know, the villain who has a heart of gold and whose actions redeem him in the end… As opposed to a bad good guy who seems to be a hero and ends up betraying everyone.
Fisonna was a street kid from the same planet and same race as Hethiss the Jedi master. He had the potential to become a padawan learner. But he also used his Force skills to pull pranks on serious adults.
Odo-Ki was a Gotal with ultra-sensitive cones on his head. He had a limited ability to see behind walls and predict the near future.
Nadin Paal was an actual pirate and terrorist with no redeeming qualities at all. The best thing about him was, that when the time came, he blew up really nicely. A colorful fireball.
Kehlor was a Herglic, one of the whale people who required specially built extra-large spaceships and accommodations. He was also a gifted pilot. You can see that he wears the uniform of the Trade Authority.
And finally, Klis Joo was a Duro and a Jedi, a gray alien with considerable Force powers.
There were many more drawings like this as well. But these are some of the best ones.
The Ixcanixian Cultural Ambassador from the Squeelix Sector of the Planet Ixcanix sent me an e-mail about his planet’s newest idea for a cultural exchange. He calls it the “Ixcanixian Spleegle Gorn Vorpaloop” which translates to the “Ixcanixian Interstellar Bad Poetry Challenge”. At least, it does if I am conjugating the verb “Vorpaloop” correctly. It is difficult because you have to drop the silent “y” before adding the “aloop” without causing it to explode. I know it is probably a very bad idea to present it here on this planet, but he talked me into it by promising to promote my novel Catch a Falling Star on his homeworld and at least two other planets in the Bugeye Federation.
Here are the rules for the alien poetry contest;
Entries can only come from planets in the Orion Spur of the Sagittarius Spiral Arm of the Milky Way Galaxy. (So, for you non-astronomers out there, we on Earth do qualify.)
All poets must be less intelligent than the Mud-Eaters of Paralaxos IV as they will be employed as judges of what poetry is truly bad. (Again, Earth qualifies as we have recently elected Trump and also allow Nigel Farage of Great Britain to continue to exist.)
Entries must not be so long that the total weight of letters exceed critical mass and form black holes in the intergalactic servers when uploaded.
Vogons need not apply. Their poetry is so bad, they would automatically win, causing the death of trillions of bad poetry readers in the galaxy.
Entries must not cause thermonuclear reactions with cesium.
Please refrain from confusing good poetry with bad poetry. The Vornloos of Talos XII are looking for poetry they can weaponize, and no one wants a poetry contest winner to suddenly create World Peace on Talos XII. That would be bad for the galaxy as a whole in ways that are very difficult to explain.
A sample of interstellar bad poetry is included here to inspire the kind of poetry we seek.
Ratzen Bargle’s Bisketoon (a love poem by Touperary Kloob, Poet Laureate of Antares VI)
Ratzen Bargle was a Doofus,
From the planet Rufus-Ploofiss,
And he had a lovely bride,
With a head not tall, but twice as wide.
She had three eyes and two were green.
She had the loveliest fleen you’ve ever seen.
And as they sat ‘neath a wayward moon,
He kissed his lovely bisketoon.
Immediately before naught was said,
She bit off his tiny three-eyed head.
And then she ate him bones and all
With sauce that really becomes the fall.
And so it is on Rufus-Ploofiss,
That males all die with one last roof-kiss.
Because they sit under wayward moons
With their lovely, hungry bisketoons.
Should you have the unfortunate urge to participate in this senseless and probably suicidal poetry contest, you are welcome to offer four-line poems in the comment section, or email longer poems to Mickey at mbeyer51@gmail.com. I will attempt to transmit the worst offers to the Ixcanixians as soon as I get my interstellar flooglebeeder transmitting again. I will also post winners in a future alien poetry blog.
I have been warned that prizes range from instant execution by the Lizard Lords of Galtorr Prime to a beat up copy of Mickey’s 2012 novel Catch a Falling Star. So, good luck with the bad poetry.
The situation began to feel more hopeful as Princess Verumi took off to lecture Prince Porodor and make him regret being born. Cissy’s small crew, with Wylo and Taro’s family decided to hunker down and await whatever was going to happen in the little white house.
“Do you think your cousin can get us freed from this mess?” Cissy asked Suki.
“Verumi has a very forceful personality. But she hates Porodor nearly as much as he hates her. Her rank in the clan is equal to his.” Suki looked out the window nervously after answering.
Crocodile Guy shimmered back into visibility.
“The space whales are on our side,” he said. “They have been talking about the situation amongst themselves. They are very intelligent, maybe more so than me. But they don’t have much in the way of mechanisms or powers to help us in any way.”
“Well, that’s a good thing,” said Cissy, understating the fact of it by a factor of a million.
“You really think the space whales are smarter than the average Nebulon?” Suki asked Crocodile Guy.
“They have a collective intelligence. Anything one whale learns is almost instantly known to all of them. And they are discussing things all the time. Only a few Nebulons with Psionic powers know that they talk like that. And the mind-readers among your people generally keep their knowledge of whale talk to themselves.”
“That figures. The warlords and royalty generally punish and limit that kind of power among our people.” Suki frowned.
“Judging by their statements of philosophy and rationality, they are very wise, very empathetic, and possessed of an inner peace far greater than any I have encountered among any humanoid species in the galaxy,” Crocodile Guy said.
The group awaiting punishment engaged for a while in the Nebulonin games of Phokkocaraht and Akkohrahtia for the remainder of the afternoon. The Earther nearest-equivalent games would be checkers and tiddlywinks.
Along about supper time Crocodile Guy had more news via whale observations.
“I am afraid things did not go well for Princess Verumi. The whale saw her confront Porodor, become exceedingly angry, and she threw ceremonial dinnerware at his head. He responded by yelling and having his honor guard throw their ceremonial halberds at her. She received two flesh wounds and still managed to escape capture or being killed. The guards are searching for her now, not realizing that the space whale is helping her hide from them.” Crocodile Guy delivered it in a deadpan voice.
“Ooh! I iz maddening up!” declared Friday.
Diznee, sensing the little Lupin’s distress, put her arms around the puppy girl’s neck to calm her down.
“The Prince has dispatched an execution squad to deal with all of us,” said Crocodile Guy.
“Oh, good grief!” said Cissy in answer.
“Can the whale hide us?” Suki asked Crocodile Guy.
“It says to get the condemned into the tailward corners of the house.”
“Tahkaarac nah timbuhran,”said Taro. “Ahckah na Saronac sah!”
“What did he say?” Cissy looked at Suki.
“He says we do what the whale says. He and his family will deal with the squad and send them away.”
So, Cissy, Suki, Friday with Diznee around her neck, and Waylo took up positions along the tailward wall. Taro, Sonno, and their sons put themselves in between the door and the wall where the prisoners stood. A section of the floor bulged and grew like a blooming vegetable and formed itself into a new interior wall, concealing the prisoners, and shortening the room in ways that were barely discernable to anyone who hadn’t seen the transformation take place. Crocodile Guy made himself disappear once again.
When the execution squad showed up, they confronted Taro with a lot of angry yelling in the clakkity-clack-ur-ack language of the Nebulons. Suki didn’t translate and no one was even breathing loudly behind the partition. Then they heard what could easily have been some sort of shooting and Taro’s voice was not heard again. Friday hugged Diznee tightly to keep her silent.
There followed further thumping and dragging and scraping sounds, followed by utter silence as the executioners gathered things and left, presumably to find the escaped prisoners.
When the secret wall finally came down, only Crocodile Guy stood in the empty room with a stunned look on his holographic face.
“Taro sacrificed himself and his family to help us escape.”
Diznee now sobbed uncontrollably.
Suki looked grim. “It is up to us to make sure his sacrifice was not for nothing.”
A sudden shift in the lighting of the house occurred as everyone was about to settle in for a night’s sleep. Without warning a ball of bright light began to manifest in the center of the room.
“This is not normal, is it? Shactuhrac sah?” asked Suki.
“Abeck nah!” said Taro. Cissy didn’t have to ask if that meant no.
The light resolved itself vaguely into the form of a Humaniti male holding a small crocodile. Something was making him entirely funky looking.
“Crocodile Guy?” asked Cissy, shocked. “How did you get here?”
“Ah, Captain Cissy! I finally made it. I have been communicating with space whales. Their nervous systems are almost electronic in nature. There are data streams so full of visual and auditory data that it took me forever to sort my way here. Space whales have amazing brains and communication methods. And they were entirely pleased to let me knock about through their works till I found ya.”
Crocodile Guy was unable to delineate himself in anything but black and white. And yet, he was fully there in the digital flesh.
“Iz youz here ta reskooz us?” asked Friday.
“I am here to start planning and thinking about it. The space whales told me that you are doomed to be whale food, and the idea upsets them greatly, but they don’t have any suggestions. And the starship is definitely stuck in the middle of Nebulon security forces.”
“But we do at least have options now that we didn’t have before,” said Cissy resolutely. “We can start thinking about how to escape. We have two Earther days left to figure it out.”
“We have to remember that Taro’s family will be killed if we escape. We would be sacrificing innocent lives to help ourselves,” reminded Suki.
“We need a plan that also saves them.” Cissy folded her arms as the others had often seen her do when her mind was made up.
“Someone’s coming!” warned Wylo.
It was then that Princess Verumi Vorranac entered the home of Taro, Sonno, and their children.
“Tahracurrac, Suki. Nah suurrhac sharanna hourcka. Kampuhrac nah sah!”
“What did she say?” Cissy asked timidly. Whoever this was, she sounded angry.
“She says it is unbelievable, Cousin Suki, that you have gotten yourself into this mess. Princess Verumi and I grew up together. She’s the daughter of the current Vorranac Warlord.”
It began for me in 1977 with this wrap-around cover illustration. I knew there were a lot of this guy’s books on the shelves of the college bookstore along with works by Robert E. Howard, Roger Zelazney, and Theodore Sturgeon. And I knew this guy had also written paperback books under the name “Andrew North”, a name I had seen on the twenty-five cent novels in the drugstore where you could buy the really good pulp fiction novels only slightly used.
I had never before bought one of his books. And the book money I had for the fall quarter at Iowa State was supposed to all go towards the book-list given to me as a Junior-level English major. But the naked kid on the cover had a wired-up collar around his neck. And I had only recently recovered long-suppressed memories of being a victim of a sexual assault. I had to have it. I had to know what that illustration had to do with the story inside.
So, I bought a book that I judged by its cover.
And it was not the wrong thing to do.
The main character was a boy named Jony, the naked boy on the cover of the book. He is taken by alien beings as a study specimen along with his mother, the pregnant woman on the back of the wrap-around illustration. The story starts with Jony in a cage, treated like an animal. His mother, also a study specimen has been mated to a Neanderthal-like humanoid specimen who cannot speak, and she has given birth to twins, a boy, and a girl. They are kept in separate cages by their inhuman captors.
Jony manages a mass escape, taking his mother and his younger siblings with him, and releasing as many of the other study specimens as he can. Luckily they escape onto a very earth-like planet. But unluckily, the mother is in very poor health and dies soon after escaping. Jony is then responsible for his little brother and sister in a wilderness that is not empty of others. Luckily, the others they first run afoul of are the bear-like ursine aliens who share their need to not be recaptured by the zoo-keeper aliens.
It was a perfect novel for me. I identified strongly with the main character, who had been violated in a very personal way by monsters. And then had to build a new life in a world full of potential other-monsters. Andre Norton shared my pain and helped me overcome it.
But she also fooled me big-time. She was not a he.
She was a librarian and editor of pulp fiction who wrote enough sci-fi and fantasy in the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s to finally become a full-time author.
She was already on book number 29 when she retired from being a librarian to write full time.
And I would go on to own and read several of her other books, which were good, but never quite lived up to that first one I read. Of course, that may have been because of the timing and circumstance that led me to a book that I actually needed to read. That book set me on the road to recovery from my personal darkness. And it may have sparked in me the need to eventually become a nudist. And more important than that, it may have led me to a lifelong need to teach reading.
Andre Norton was a real writer. And she made me one too. Though I never knew who she really was until after I bought that book because of the picture on the cover. And I never got around to properly thanking her for all of that… Until this very moment.
The white cottage that was home to Taro and Sonno’s family didn’t look like any of the house-type structures that Cissy was used to from her limited time on civilized planets or in holo-vids. It didn’t have any of the right angles, square corners, or perfectly straight lines that most spaceports and planetary cities used in such structures. It was more like it had been molded out of clay by a huge child of some sort. And she noticed the window structures looked exactly like whale eyes in the greater hull of the space whale. They probably functioned like whale eyes too, meaning the whale watched everything.
Cissy was sitting at the table with Taro and Suki watching Diznee and Sonno try to calm the crazy-sad tantrum of Friday the Lupin dog girl. Sonno sang an indecipherable lullaby of great beauty while little Diznee wrapped her naked little girl body around Friday on the pad that served as a bench or bed, cuddling the inconsolable dog girl until the exhausted child fell into a fitful doze.
“So, why does the prince want to execute us, anyway?” Cissy asked nobody in particular.
Suki said something complicated to Taro. Then, to Cissy, she said, “Our people and your people have a history of hostility between them. Since the first Earther explorer entered the Great Nebula we have been treated with little besides suspicion, aggression, and exploitation.”
“But I am twelve. I never had anything to do with Nebulons my entire life. Why does Prince Porodor blame me?”
Suki said a whole string of Nebulonin words to Taro. He answered back with a long string of, “Ek-ek-akakaw tac and something more that Cissy couldn’t follow,” that Suki had to translate.
“Taro says that it all goes back to Porodor’s father who was the Vorranac Warlord. An Imperial task force started a war with the clan by attacking while the space whales were grazing at an Imperial-owned gas giant. They targeted the space whale that the warlord was commanding from and killed it with the warlord on board. Porodor was too young to be crowned warlord, and that is how he lost the office to my great uncle.”
Wylo had been listening to the conversation from the corner of the room where he had been eating the blue food that Sonno had prepared for him. He got up and came to the table.
“Porodor has more than just that as a reason to hate Earthers. It was an Earther colony on the edge of the Imperium that he attacked and rescued my family and me.” Wylo’s eyes were as serious as Cissy had ever seen a pair of dark blue eyes.
“You were enslaved by Earthers?” Cissy asked.
“My grandmothers were taken as slaves. Both of my parents were born from Earther fathers. That’s why I turned out pink instead of blue.”
“Oh? Can Nebulons and Earthers make babies?”
“It is believed that Humaniti and Nebulons had common ancestors millions of years ago,” Suki said seriously.
“How can that be so?”
“All intelligent races in the galaxy were probably created by the Ancients,” Wylo said. “In a way, all life is the same.”
“It still doesn’t seem right that we have to die just for being who and what we are,” said Cissy, beginning to feel angry.
All were in agreement.
And suddenly there was a delighted squeal from Friday.
“I gots un dresser on! Un pink wun!”
Everyone looked at Friday, standing there in a frilly pink dress like the ones Cissy had made for Friday on board the Happy Luck.
“How…?”
“It’s the Danjer suit,” Suki said. “It read Friday’s mind while she was dreaming. It’s a living creature that wants to please its master.”
“Ent I purdee now?” Friday cooed.
Cissy laughed. It was not over yet. In fact, the battle to survive was just beginning.
As they were being led down further into the massive space whale, the lead warrior turned back to Prince Porodor and bowed.
“You need to consider that sacrificing Suki Vorranac along with these Humaniti scum will not sit well with the counsel or the Warlord Vorranac himself. She has the prime bloodline (said in Galactic English for Cissy’s benefit.)”
“That is my worry, my argument,” said the prince flatly.
The lead warrior nodded and turned away, signaling the group of the condemned to follow him. The naked boy who looked human hugged his twin and then joined them.
“I can almost understand why they are going to kill us, but why are you going to be executed?” Cissy said to the boy.
“I am not enough like them to remain among them. I would die here eventually anyway. This just makes it happen sooner.”
“Won’t they at least give you a Danjer suit?” Cissy asked.
“I will be given one when we get to the happy place.”
“The happy place?”
“Prisoners to be executed as whale food are given time to make their peace with the universe. It is something I understand the Imperium does not do.”
“Yes, I’m afraid that’s true. Of course, the Galtorr Fusions are half lizard people, which probably explains that.”
“My name is Wylo Voron, though I have to stop using the Voron part now that I am being cast out.”
“My name is Cissy Moonskipper. I ain’t giving up any of that.”
Wylo shook Cissy’s hand and smiled. He was a cute kid. Probably at least three years younger than Cissy. Or three Spltzblixes, or whatever the heck Nebulons called a year.
The interior of the space whale was like a vast hollow tube with gravity-downside carpeted in villages, lakes, rivers, forests, and meadows. Hand-built structures covered the sides, and the ceiling was a combination of pulsating whale organs and Sun Sources. Clouds and mists obscured some of the ceiling.
“This is a really beautiful place,” said Cissy, nearly breathless with awe.
“I have never been in this space whale before,” said Suki. “But my home whale was almost as beautiful as this.”
The lead warrior delivered the small group to a pretty white cottage on the edge of the nearest lake. They were met there by five people. A Nebulon man who was the same size as Suki, his wife who was slightly smaller, and three blue children.
“You will be cared for by Taro Vorranac and his family. They will do anything you ask but help you escape. They don’t speak Galactic English, but Suki can translate.” The lead warrior saluted Taro and then led his troop back toward the whale head.
Suki introduced everyone to everyone in another endless stream of Nebulonin ak-ak-ak-oohwak in which Cissy recognized names and nothing else. Taro’s wife was Sonno and the children were two boys named Taroon and Jaffouhc. The girl was Diznee. All three of them were naked and happy that way, but Sonno recognized the need to give Wylo a purple Danjer suit.
Their Nebulon hosts were all generous and kind people that Cissy easily warmed up to.
Later as they sat around the family table drinking a delicious blue juice that Sonno called Perhoucahac, Cissy asked Suki, “So, what do we do now? Can we try to eIscape?”
“If we do, Taro and Sonno’s family will be sacrificed in our place. And I don’t want that on my conscience.”
“Budd… I doan wanna die…” whined Friday. Diznee petted her because, although she didn’t understand a word of what was said, she could feel Friday’s fear and pain.
“I’m not giving up yet, Friday,” Cissy said, patting the dog girl’s paw. “There has to be a way out of this.”
“The Nebulon way is to eat and drink and be happy until the end is here.” Suki let a tear escape her right eye. It ran down across the red dot on her cheek.
“Your Prince Porodor is not a very nice landlord.”
Taro’s family looked at each other in confusion.
“My family doesn’t like him either,” Suki admitted.
I draw things as illustrations to stories. Take, for example, the protagonist and hero of Catch a Falling Star.
Dorin Dobbs is boy from Iowa. That tells you some terrible things about him right there.
He was ten in 1990.
He hated girls.
He met some pretty green-skinned girls from outer space, amphibianoid frog-girls with fins on their heads. He danced with them to Mickey Mouse Club music while he was their prisoner on a sectet base on the planet Mars. They were dancing naked in the nutrient bath that all Telleron tadpoles use daily.
Brekka and Menolly are two of the Telleron frog girls with fins on their heads. They love Earth music in the 1990’s. They are background characters in Catch a Falling Star. They are main characters in the book Stardusters and Space Lizards, where they help Davalon and Tanith to conquer the dying planet of Galtorr Prime after the Telleron invasion of Earth failed in the previous book.
Tanith and Davalon (the Telleron boy in front)
Sizzahl of Galtorr Prime, Ecologist and Lizard Girl
Galtorr Prime is undergoing drastic climate change and environmental collapse and ends up being saved by superior Telleron technology and the lizard-girl heroine, Sizzahl, who has a plan for fixing the atmosphere and saving fundamental eco-systems. Of course, this is all science fiction-y stuff based entirely on fantasy and imagination and has nothing to do with the real world we now live in.
Millis, transformed from pet rabbit to near-human
Of course, not all characters I illustrate are people or aliens.
Millis, Tommy Bircher’s pet rabbit, is an ordinary albino bunny who eats a piece of alien technology that evolves him into a talking, walking-on-two-legs, near-human form.
He becomes the chef (who cooks only vegetable dishes) for Norwall, Iowa’s own mad scientist, Orben Wallace, in the book The Bicycle-Wheel Genius.
Orben Wallace, and his favorite bicycle, The Happiness Machine
I think I have now given out far more spoilers for stories than I have any right to do. But the thing about character illustrations is that your get to know the characters at a glance. And to know them is to love them.
As Catch a Falling Star was a science-fictiony sort of comedy, one of the questions that I have pursued in internet research is the one I have presented here in the title of this picture-and-Paffooney-filled post. Seriously, the image search of Google’s answer to that question is enough to make you snort milk through the old nostrils as you sort through them while stupidly drinking a glass of milk. The milky nose-snorts are the reason I have not sited picture sources on this post. Cleaning the computer screen took too long. I have merely randomly snatched and pirated pictures. The only picture of a Martian presented here created by me are these two;
I admit to being surprised by my actual research into the whole question of whether or not we have ever been visited by intelligent life from the stars beyond the sky. While I have not found proof that aliens exist, I have discovered there is actual proof that the government, and NASA in particular, have covered something up. And it goes beyond Area 51 defense research. But now that I have got the attention of the NSA and the Men in Black, this post is only filled with a collage of the unreal, made-up, and mostly silly.
Malevolent Martians;
Martians Who Make the Mistake of Liking Us;
Inexplicably Goofy Martians;
Cartoon alien rendered on white background. 3D model licensed from DAZ3D.
Sometimes the creative brain gets a little too hot and needs time to cool. That means I need a meaningless filler post to maintain my every-day posting. So, I give you a picture of Mike Murphy carrying his girlfriend, Blueberry Bates’ books home from the bus stop on a country road in Iowa. And, of course, they happen to meet an alien named George Jetson, whose father named him after a character on his favorite Earther TV show from the 60’s. It is a strange thing to have your brain over-heat from too many creative neurons firing at the same time. But it can lead to notions of intergalactic peace and cultural exchange… or racist comments like, “Tellerons have heads that look like giant boogers!” But I should be able think more rationally tomorrow. I hope that turns out to be a good thing.
Catch a Falling Star 