The people trying to humanize the face….I understand it…..but what if he really deserved that fate? What if he was a really bad criminal who committed the worst of crimes? Yes, he might have been guilty of a small slight that to our eyes would not merit that kind of death…..but maybe he was not a good person at all.

Halo had a backstory that is similar to Starfield. Humanity spreads out into the universe and only finds planets that contain plants and animals. Humanity doesn’t encounter real aliens until the Covenant. (I say had because IMO Microsoft keeps making unnecessary changes to the lore. I checked out of the Halo universe a long time ago.). Bungie Halo had a very interesting backstory.

You completely missed the fact, that a lot of creatures in Starfield can be used in outpost production. So they can build an essential part of the game.
Other that that, the game’s design is driven by technical necessities and limitations (e.g. the main story evolves around the technicality of NG+). It would have just been too costly to implement (playable) intelligent aliens in the game. – There is no philosophical or ethical reason for that.

Someone needs to mod in a Death Star and Halo aliens

I would like to see a slow first contact story where humans find traces of an Alien Civilization. Eventually linked to the great serpant and the appearance of reptilian alien creatures in human history and mythology. MAybe discovering an isolated planet where some of the species crashlanded and built a community, a city… maybe in a new DLC

I agree. Dolphins are clearly superior to humans

The reason is religion… Humans as center of creation. The same reason to make starborn that way.

You have to have max out xenology skill and you can talk to some of the animals or pet them

strangely no mans sky has a similar, but differnt way of handling sentient lifeforms, it has 3 primary sentient lifeforms (and a secret 4th one, not counting the player character who seems to be a wierd anomolous being in a humanoid spacesuit), the rest are prosederally generated flora and fauna,

Hunting alien life is one of my fav pass time’s in this game from fire breathing lizards too big wolf monster’s and Terramorph’s, just hope they keep adding more both quietly and over a loud speaker!

It’s okay by me that they didn’t jump right to aliens. It leaves things open-ended and gives the IP room to grow. At this point, I think they’re just playing on themes of isolation vs union, and the artifacts can be looked at as individuals coming together to ascend to something higher.

I was convinced in my first playthrough that I was going to find aliens and then we’d have a unifying war (probably called the Unifying War, given the Bethesda naming conventions). Then I was convinced that Terrormorphs were going to be the super species that would cause a unifying war – called the Unifying War again, probably – against them. Now, I’m fairly convinced that we will run into horribly genetically altered people in the next DLC, like in The Hills Have Eyes.

Oh, well.

I would have been more than Happy if Bethesda had created somethign like a second Star Trek. Give us Aliens with funny foreheads. Give us cool/beautiful looking Spaceships. Give us a crew and a big universe to discover. I like all that!
But AGAIN the player is some kind of chosen one, instead of someone who changes/saves the world just with his/her own skill and determination.
I never understood that we always have to be some kind of God or superhero. Personally i find this just boring.

I get that most people wanted another Skyrim, but what we got wasn’t satisfying to anyone.

There are several instances where terrormorphs talk to you. Their ability to communicate, coordinate humans and use of the term “we” (self awereness), I’d say makes them sentient.

I think the main reason why they didn’t have intelligent aliens was due to the tone and setting they wanted to create for Starfield’s universe; humanity is relatively primitive compared to the humans of other sci-fi universes, even the technology that allowed them to become an interstellar species wasn’t developed naturally.

If Bethesda wanted intelligent aliens, while keeping the same tone and feel, it would’ve had to be a first contact story which comes with a lot of implications, such as how does their morality differ, how will they communicate while making it feel believable, any technology or architecture has to be as detailed as humanity’s NASApunk aesthetic as well as feeling believably alien.

I think they would’ve only been able to do one intelligent alien species if they were to include any at all, but without an established shared history with these aliens, as seen in other sci-fi universes like Mass Effect and Star Trek, they couldn’t get away with aliens having similar morals, technology and culture to humanity, whilst also making it believable; i.e. it would’ve been too much work to make it work and I don’t think there’s enough writing talent at Bethesda Game Studios to make a believable alien society from scratch.

I think you give too much credit. Time and budget constraints resulted in space fallout without the lore.

In retrospect, if the expanse of humanity across the stars wasnt so galaxy wide (smaller star map), they could have left some space for intrigue in a potential sequel.

I found it deeply disappointing that Skyrim had non human races by default yet there are none in Starfield. No man’s Sky is the opposite. I hope they get introduced in a DLC for Starfield.

Could perhaps the similar-appearing creatures are example of a sort of universal convergent evolution?