Known Alien Races

I did.

Hmmmm.....

Going to link to it, but wait on some details before doing other updates. Thanks!

See my Guides and Tutorials

Like I said, not from our planet.

Uh...last I checked the Rikti /are/ from Earth. That is /our/ planet.

This is only a partial-truth. Yes they are extra-dimensional, but also supposedly Rularuu (the entity not the "beings") destroyed multiple worlds and/or universes. It's very reasonable to assume that they are not only extra dimensional, but not directly from the earth of their universe. The human-like inhabitants of the shadow shard may not even be from their version of earth, but I have always assumed they are.

Additionally, in terms of grey areas there are the Shadows who serve Dark Swan. they are extra-dimensional, and from a world called "shadow earth". but Shadow Earth looks very like the shadow shard and there is nothing conclusive to say the shadows are from their dimension's earth and not from another world as well as another dimension.

Battle Maiden's Warriors are also extra-dimensional, but no reason to believe extra-planar.

Actually the Fir Bolg and Tuatha are natives of Britain who were pulled through time by the Red Caps and the Cabal and mutated into their current forms. In the past they were enemies (I forget which actually won historically) and the Red Caps and Cabal use magic to make that enmity greater so they are just war machines while in Croatoa.

Some of their chatter mentions their new forms etc, and the croatoa arc lets you get into the history of them.

No, the Rikti are genetically altered humans from Earth in another dimension. That's still Earth. Now the alien race that altered them on the other hand, that's certainly alien. Unless it's changed in the lore, I believe that race was supposed to be called the Battalion. At one point I believe it was supposed to be a really strong enemy group we'd end up facing that we'd need IOs to stand up to.

True. I was looking more at the chatter (from both ghosts and red caps) about Croatoa being pulled "into the spirit world," and how we have to keep going there to fight this, that and the other.

See my Guides and Tutorials

While there's nothing stopping them
From making the Battalion require IOs of some kind, the needed inventions was part of a previous invention system incarnation.

No it's not. We live here (take "here" to mean "CoH Primal Earth"). This is where we live. Rikti live on their Earth. That is where they live.

Did you miss the day when they taught "here' and "there"?

Of course the Battalion could have been from another dimensional Earth as well.

Oh I know. That whole Battalion requiring inventions was from an article in a magazine years ago. I'm not sure when it was exactly, but I want to say it was either before or just slightly after CoV was released. I'm not positive on that though.

You're saying that a civilization that lives in a different dimension, on a physically different planet than our own, that happens to share the same name, is "our" planet?

So, if I say I live in San Jose, California, by your logic San Jose, Argentina is also my home city because it's also named San Jose?

I tend to agree with DarkGob on this.. In defining alien ask one simple question.... Did I have anyone in my high school graduation class that looked like , talked like , or originated from there. LOL

Yes at some point the Rikti were humanoids just like us but they were altered a long time ago and it required a dimensional portal for them to arrive bent on destroying us. The Hydra .... same thing If I recall correctly, based on the abandoned sewer trial, the Rikti imported the Hydra from some other dimension and brought them to our earth. The fact that both those dimensions technically were alternate versions or our PRIMAL earth still doesn't change the fact that they don't come from here but are here now causing problems. Along those same lines yeah I would consider the Praetorians to be aliens. Again they come from another variation of earth in another dimension but just because they look and sound like us doesn't change the fact that they didn't take a quick airline ride to arrive here.. they used transdimesional portals to arrive. Would we be more inclined to think of them as aliens if the Hamidon had achieved total victory on THAT earth and it was bunch of Devouring Earth pouring through a hole in the sky to attack us

Now if we want to get really technical while the Rularuu are alien in nature since, I believe, there was only one brief period in game where they invaded earth when they were first introduced (Sorry that was before I began so I am not sure but I seem to recall reading about it). We are the ones now that constantly travel to their world and even have established various bases and outposts (Firebase Zula, etc), Technically WE are the alien race in their universe not the other way around LOL

So my list would look like this

Kheldans we know for a fact they arrived from outer space

Shivan They appeared here after Astroids from SPACE hit the planet

Rikti/Hydra Don't care if their planet looks a lot like ours they didn't originate here and they are invading us

Praetorian See explanations for Rikti/Hydra only they do look like us

Now to expand into the magical worlds

As Bill mentioned COT Demons .. last I checked there was no zip code or area codes to the nether world. They may not be from outer space but they are definately alien to us.

Croatoa's Fir Bolg, Red Caps and Tautha certainly fall into the same sort of other wordly area as the COT demons... not sure about the Cabal they are witches but real or imagined we have myths dating back centuries about witches here. As for the ghosts... well I believe they are former residence of Salamanca so while they may no longer be among the living they are certainly not aliens. Same goes for the ones on the ghost ship.. they didn't appear from out of a dimensional rift or emerge from a space ship.. they rose from their earthly graves to haunt us.


Okay now for some real controversy.. Giant mosters

Kraken is tied to the Hydra so he would be an alien

Babbage is really just a bunch of scrap metal that the Clockwork King and his metallic minions created so he's not an alien

Adamastor is a sea creature banished from the ocean depths for attacking the sea godess Thetis. He wasn't originally a part of the Banished Pantheon but they somehow found and control him.. Born right here on THIS planet he is not an alien just REALLY ugly lol

Jurassic is associated with the Devouring Earth and the theroy is he was somehow created by all of the toxic chemicals dumped in Crey's Folly.. he's home grown. No alien and we can all thank Countess Crey for having him to deal with. That sedan on the end of his club HURTS

Jack in Irons and Eochia.. one's the Red Cap boss the other the Fir Bolg so if we buy into beings from the nether world being aliens.. that's what they are

Sally .. No sorry she, like the Loch Ness monster, is probably just a left over dinosaur too stubborn to be extinct. hehehe She's a home grown gal and defiantely no alien

Kronos Titan is just a giant robot built by the Malta group right here. Just like Babbage just a lot of wires and circuits not alien

and of course .. Lusca. Really just a giant octopus that, at least according to Paragon Wiki, may have grown to her huge size as a result of pollution from Crey Industries. I am sure the longshoremen in IP are thrilled to death with Countess Crey over that. non alien as well

Caleb is a COT demon so again we are back to is the nether world, spirit world or whatever part of our planet or not. Tied to magic and the COT i vote for alien

Deathsurge. supposedly appeared sometime after Dr. Aeon fired up the PTS and at least one theory is he's a demon released when the Arachnos tapped in Mount Diablo .. depending on exactly HOW he came to exist .. he could be non alien if its simply a result of Aeon's flawed science ( The man has taken way too many hits in the head) or if he's a demon then we are back to that spirit world dilemma again LOL

Ghost of Scrapyard is just another ghost.. a very powerful one but still at one point prior to Mako killing him he lived and worked in Sharkhead so he is no alien

The Arachnos Flyer Okay I am still not sure how aircraft got classified as a GM but it did. since it was built by Arachnos and requires human pilots to work it is by no means alien

which, at present, leaves us with Lord Winter. He appears in our realm every winter, since 2009, and attacks. Recently we have begun attacking him in his realm as well (which looks very suspiciously like Croatoa). He's got a sort of mystical magical feel about him so I'd say he'd fall in with the demons and such.. The giant snowball has his own realm/dimension.. he's a alien.

Is there a right or wrong answer to this question.. not really. My grandfather arrived in the USA in 1917 and processed through Ellis Island along with a lot of other ALIENS from European countries coming to settle in American for the chance at a better life. The word has a lot of different meanings:

• Alien (law), a non-citizen inhabitant of a country
• Extraterrestrial life, defined as life that does not originate from Earth
• List of alleged alien beings (ufology)
• Any introduced species, a species living outside its native distributional range

So as you can see even a type of animal native to say the western United States that suddenly migrated to the Eastern portion could be considered an alien using the introduced species defination. Using the introduced species defination we can certainly define Hydra as aliens. With just a bit of a stretch we can also include the Rikti and the Praetorians. They may come from AN EARTH but they don't come from this one. Besides they never applied for a green card and they are both determined to defeat and enslave us.

Yep! Like I said there is no real right or wrong answer. We could even use the word as a adjective to define any of them as aliens. The Rikti do not look like us, they do not talk like us and they have decidedly different values than we do. In other words their appearance, manner of speaking and actions are ALIEN to our own. hehehe Obviously one look at a Shivan, Hydra or Soldier of Rularuu and we can see that their appearance is decidedly alien to what we generally percieve as humanoid.

Now Praetorians are a little more difficult to classify in that manner since they do look and even talk like we do. We can't even really say their society is totally alien to out own since throughout the history of earth, well portions of it anyway, we have had more than our fair share of emperors that ruled and abused power. Guess we have to stick with the legal definition to term them as alien.

Except the resistance.

Joking aside, I agree with the general point:

If it's from the same reality as Primal Earth, but not natively from Primal Earth, it's an alien.

If it's from a different reality to Primal Earth, whether it's from Earth or not, it is still,, technically, an alien to Primal Earth.

However, most people, I think, would agree that "alien" in terms of characters in CoH would generally be used to apply to the first group. The second group would be considered "extradimensional aliens" or "extradimensional" for short.

Absolutely this.

As an RPer, it creates some interesting situations when a "new hero" or at least "new-ish hero" who isn't Omega Level cleared talks about Rikti.

Though if memory serves, the souvenir from Dark Watcher's arc is a book about the causes of the Rikti invasion.

Seriously? All I was saying is that the Rikti are from Earth. I never said they are from the Primal Earth version. By "our", I was saying that our planet is Earth as well. The only correct answer about the Rikti is that they're extradimensional aliens, however they're still altered humans.

Oddly enough, I think that refers to the Argus Panoptes (or one-hundred eyed giant) from Greek Mythology. Considering how much other Greek mythology is worked into CoX.... eh, it's as credible as the alien theory for it.