The SCI‐FI‐I‐SPY Catalogue of All Known Types of Alien
#30: PARAHOMINOIDS

Identification: a community of aliens in hiding who exist only so that protagonists can discover that their bizarre mutant powers are perfectly normal, for inhuman freaks (the “exobiological parents” plot)

Variants: a divergent subspecies of terrestrial humanoids – Neanderthal survivors, next‐evolutionary‐steppers, or Hungarians

Also Known As: Exo‐men, Space‐Carnies, or The Folk

Origin: the planet Cryptidon, which was long ago misplaced or repossessed or destroyed for the insurance

LOOKS: utterly humanoid with one giveaway deformity A−
BRAINS: home‐schooled by people who don't believe they're descended from monkeys 130
LETHALITY: they have a taboo against killing, either to avoid exposure or because they're innately wimpish 0
CULTURE: exotic but corny, or vice versa 68
HARDNESS: on the SF Mohs scale, like gypsum (or at any rate space‐gypsum) 2
TOKENISM: count as illegal aliens rather than asylum‐seekers 11

Religion: Space‐Amish, rejecting any form of technology developed after the seventieth millennium

Motto: not in front of the mundanes

Wardrobe: members of the Pantellurian Fraternity

Not To Be Confused With: they're more Romani than Romanoids

See Also: their cousins back in the old galaxy, the Telluroids