Ditto Aliens: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
{{quote|'''Luke Rattigan''': How...do you tell each other apart?
'''General Staal''': We say the same of humans.|''[[
The tendency for all [[
The ''technical'' reasons for this stem from the aliens' real-life origin. If they're [[Rubber Forehead Aliens]], then the rubber forehead, if it is of sufficient weirdness, makes every actor who wears it look alike. If the aliens are [[Serkis Folk]], the modelers got lazy and only designed one computer model (this is also why this is common in video games). If the aliens are [[Big Creepy
If anyone tries to [[Lampshade Hanging|point this out]], an alien character may retort, "to me, all humans look the same." Alternatively, they may [[Fantastic Racism|accuse you of racism]]. Counterintuitively, this is one way in which [[Human Aliens]] are more realistic than the more "complicated" types.
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Additionally, neurological studies have shown that the human brain has an area that specializes in recognizing and differentiating human faces. When this area of the brain is damaged, it leads to a condition called prosopagnosia. People with this condition are able to recognize when someone has a mustache, large nose, brown eyes, etc., but is unable to recognize the face as a whole. Some describe it as "everyone looking like golden retrievers."
See also [[In the Future, Humans Will Be One Race]]. Compare [[Planet of Hats]]. Contrast [[Cast of Snowflakes]], where even the aliens look different from each other.
{{examples}}
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* Averted in ''[[Star Wars]]'' where most of the aliens given multiple member screen time are diverse. This includes suits (Twi'leks, Wookies, Iridonians, and Ewoks) and computer generated (such as Gungans and Yoda's people). An exception is the Gungan celebration at the end of Phantom Menace, we see a group of absolutely identical CG Gungans dancing in impossible lockstep. Like everything else about the Gungans, it was intended to be funny, but it totally breaks suspension of disbelief.
* Averted in ''[[Avatar (
* ''[[Cocoon]]'': Played straight with the Antareans, to such an extent that {{spoiler|Kitty can easily impersonate Phil}} in the second movie.
== Literature ==
* ''[[Out of the Silent Planet]]'' by [[
* In Harry Turtledove's ''[[Worldwar
* In Doris Egan's ''Two-Bit Heroes'', the heroine, Theo, is on a planet where the overwhelming majority of people have dark hair and eyes. She's bewildered when the locals insist that she closely resembles another
== Live Action TV ==
* ''[[Babylon
** The Minbari all have different head crests, starting with caste differentiations and then extending down to individual characters, and each Narn had a unique facial structure and spot pattern. Even Centauri (who were the most human-looking and thus already easily distinguishable to viewers) used their hairstyles to advertise their status. When any other race appeared in quantity, they also were all individuals.
** Even non-speaking background characters from the minor races were often diverse, although sometimes more due to [[Art Evolution]] (the makeup changing over time). Just for a few examples: Drazi sometimes have spiked cheeks, but many don't, and the scale patterns on their head are different - some even have smooth heads. The Abbai's crest comes in different lengths, and their colour ranges from orange to reddish-pink to beige, with different spot or blotch patterns. The Hyach come in different shades of orange from a near-beige to a near-red, and their scale patterns are different each time (some more pronounced, sometimes extending over the bridge of the nose). Markab sometimes have underbites, sometimes overbites. One of the Brakiri is bald, while most of his race have hair.
** Pak'ma'ra seem to be impossible to distinguish for other people, which mostly results from the fact that the masks completely cover the actors faces and hide all facial features. Within the show, the similarity of individual pak'ma'ra is used to employ them as spies and secret couriers. They all look the same, never seem to talk to anyone, don't have any conflicts with other races, and are also said to smell horribly. As a result they are ignored by everyone, are almost impossible to be individually recognized, and security personnel are very reluctant to perform searches on them, which makes them perfect spies.
** The family Zathras (all of them) is (are) the exception to the aversion. They're all played by the same actor, and all have the same name (albeit pronounced in several inaudibly different ways). The whole thing is played for levity, mostly.
* ''[[
** In ''The Sensorites'', the humans' inability to tell the Sensorites apart inspires one Sensorite to impersonate another with no more disguise than a change of clothes; the imposture fools everyone he meets, including some of his fellow aliens.
*** That's right, the Sensorites were all physically identical, to the point that even they themselves could not tell each other apart except for their clothing, and not one of them had ever noticed this fact in all of the species long history.
** An odd exception: the Sontarans, explicitly described as being a race of clones, ''didn't'' all look alike, firstly because a variety of different actors played them and secondly because the costume and make-up was mildly revised for nearly each story in which they appeared. (The first and second Sontaran stories, ''The Time Warrior'' and ''The Sontaran Experiment'' averted this by having the same actor player play the three Sontarans seen in that story. Even though they did have a continuity mix-up in the latter story.) Despite there still being slight differences between the two Sontarans whose un-masked faces we see on scene in "The Sontaran Stratagem" the
* ''[[Star Trek
** Odo on always said he had difficulty imitating humanoids (unlike other Changelings), and when someone said they thought he had perfectly imitated a seagull, he responded "I doubt the seagulls would agree."
** After Sisko ends up [[Emergency Impersonation|taking the role]] [[Tricked
* A ''[[Star Trek:
** This may be a [[Lampshade Hanging]], as the alien was played by the same actor. It's possible it was intended to be the same character, until the actor came on set and explained why that wasn't possible.
* [[Planet of Hats|Klingons]] in ''[[
* ''[[Star Trek
* The Asgard in ''[[Stargate SG
** That would be a [[Lampshade Hanging]] or a [[Justified Trope]] or something, because the actor who plays Daniel Jackson also does the voice of an Asgard character.<ref>Thor himself, in fact, leading to the "I miss Thor" comment in an episode involving the much more annoying Heimdall going to Michael Shanks.</ref>
* Averted hard in ''[[
* ''[[Buck Rogers in
== Tabletop Games ==
* ''[[Dungeons
== Toys ==
* ''[[Transformers]]'':
Exception to the exception: The plastic injection mold being one of the most expensive parts of the toymaking process, Hasbro and Takara tend to create multiple characters as [[Palette Swap|recolors of the same physical design]], so in the fictions some characters are model-mates with others. In G1, Starscream, Thundercracker, and Skywarp are all the same design, as are Thrust, Ramjet and Dirge. Rumble and Frenzy are the same model, as well. Then there are some specific "races" of mass-produced Cybertronian [[Mecha-Mooks]], like Sharkticons, Sweeps, the Vehicons from ''Beast Machines'', and some other examples.
== Video Games ==
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* In ''Solar Winds'', all the aliens of the nearby warrior race all look the same, as they use the same sprites. However at one point you are disguised as an alien through some [[Camera Spoofing]], and it's explained they merely look identical to your (human) eyes. If you then run into the alien that the spoofed footage is based on, he'll notice immediately that you stole his face and attack you.
* Used throughout ''[[Star Control]]'', and [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] by the Zoq-Fot-Pik: ''"You must meet with our leaders. They are wiser... more powerful beings! ...They look just like us, though."''
* In the ''[[Mass Effect]]'' [[Expanded Universe]], Kahlee Sanders notices that every single quarian looks exactly alike, and then when she thinks of it, nearly all members of alien races look identical. Then she notes that humans are beginning to follow the same trend, since in this universe, due to many interracial relationships, many humans are becoming more and more similar as all the races begin to mix together. She theorized that a couple hundred more years, humans will become
** ''[[Mass Effect]]'' actually averts this trope in that most of the aliens of the same species do look different, either by having different facial proportions or different coloration/markings. For example, asari have skin tones ranging from blue to deep purple, turians range from grey to reddish brown and krogan have different colored head crests and different shapes of eye while salarians have different skin patterns and variously shaped 'horns' on their head. True, some do look identical, only generic NPCs that reuse the same character model.
** This is pointed out by [[Motor Mouth|Mordin Solus]], who claims that humans have a much greater genetic variety than other races.
** Lampshaded in the first game, when a human attempting to get a refund says to the turian clerk, "I know it was you, I remember your face." The turian is somewhat impressed that the human can tell aliens apart at all.
* ''[[Spore]]'', though earlier stages at least have "baby" versions with more exaggerated features. Civ and Space, though? All members of a given species are identical, including the outfits.
* ''[[
This was improved a bit in ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess|The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess]]''—the Zora had two different models for standard citizens. A number of relatively important gorons got unique models as well, but the ordinary ones still all looked alike.
* Originally, ''[[Pokémon]]'' did this with all of its [[Mons]] and most NPCs. In the newer games there are now [http://www.serebii.net/diamondpearl/gender.shtml differences between genders of Pokemon]. Also, since GSC mook trainers have names.
== Web Comics ==
* Given a [[Lampshade Hanging]] in ''[[
* Uryuoms from ''[[
* In one ''[[Starslip Crisis]]'' strip, when the crew is on Earth, two humans mistake Mr Jinx for their own cirbozoid employees. When Mr Jinx corrects them, one of them haughtily replies that cirbozoids all look the same... followed by a panel showing them standing next to each other, showing them to be nearly identical ([[Only Six Faces|mostly due to the strip's art style]]).
* Averted in ''[[The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob]].'' We've seen crowd scenes of [http://bobadventures.comicgenesis.com/d/20090728.html dragons,] [http://bobadventures.comicgenesis.com/d/20090314.html bigfeet,] and Fleenians, and they've always been pretty well [[Cast of Snowflakes|individuated]].
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== Western Animation ==
* ''[[
* ''[[Roughnecks
* On ''[[
* Usually avoided in ''[[
** Actually, the Highbreed had differing patterns for the eyes on their face, which are sometimes asymmetric. One episode featured extended contact with a specific Highbreed individual, who returned for the finale.
** In one episode of ''Alien Force'', a dragonlike alien claims that all ''primates'' look alike to him. He was probably referring the the similarity Kevin and Gwen bear to his enemies the Forever Knights, but at the time Ben was in the form of a four-armed blue monkeylike creature.
*** You mean [[Incredibly Lame Pun|Spider Monkey]]
* Averted in ''[[
* ''[[Star Wars:
== [[Real Life]] ==
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20130325030537/http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111040421 This exercise] demonstrates why this may well be [[Truth in Television]]
** However, people who regularly live or work with animals will usually learn to recognise individuals of that species after enough time.
* People from one race are often unable to differentiate between members of another (unless they are well known to them). It's called the [
* More generally, an estimated 2.5% of people [
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Alien Tropes]]
[[Category:Personal Appearance Tropes]]
[[Category:
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