These concerns are actually how I imagine xenophobes get their growth bonus in stellaris and similar games that give the same general buff to being xenophobic. It is not that they are growing faster, it is they do not bother with what other species need for the most part. The Drs.* are trained for one species, and food is for one species, the infrastructure etc etc.

I love that each sentence has its own basically totaly random clip from a totlally random movie game or show which still manage to convays the point at each given time just perfectly.

I like the inclusion of flaps to cover the ears in Babylon 5's breathing masks. Good low-budget acknowledgement that atmospheric differences go beyond just breathing.

That's what I appreciated about the first Men In Black movie, they actually talked about aliens being on a different time schedule than humans. Zed said "it's a 37 hour day, you'll get used to it, or have a psychotic episode.". Another thing that I don't see alot of sci-fi talking about is atmospheric pressure. There's no way that an alien who breathes methane could live in the same kind of environment that a oxygen-nitrogen breathing alien lived in.

Magnetic field is also a factor that I've not seen scifi really covered. While human doesn't really have interaction with ambient magnetic field, an avian species might as it might disorient them.

One of my favourites in Babylon5 by G'Kar: "It's an earth food, they are called Swedish meatballs. It's a strange thing, but every sentient race has its own version of these Swedish meatballs! I suspect it's one of those great universal mysteries which will either never be explained, or which would drive you mad if you ever learned the truth."

From scratch a vet is probably a better start point for a cross species medic, already familiar with more environmental considerations and body plans as well as not always having the perfect tools / environment to work in.

Futurama takes that Doctor point to hilarity with Dr. Zoidberg. He’s probably an excellent Doctor, knowledgeable in treatments and surgeries for numerous Alien Species. It just so happens Humans weren’t in his curriculum…

The Orville has some other great and funny practicality moments, like the Moclans being able to eat a wide variety of solid matter and the cigarettes; not the crippling smoking addiction they get, but that fact the first thing Klyden does is eat one out of the curiosity of it's taste.

I once designed an alien species that was similar to the Velociraptor from Jurassic Park. But they communicated with color changing skin like a Cuttlefish. They have underdeveloped hearing since the planet had constant wind noise so sound is a poor form of communication. Changing a core concept of communication can have a significant effect on how a species develops and interact with others.

My favorite example of these issues is from Project Hail Mary by Andy Wier. It covers all these difficulties in a way that makes for a great story just with the two main characters learning how to interact.

Valerian actually did a halfway decent job of addressing this. But most other species had their own pressure suits to compensate

The amount of times mass effect was or could have been referenced here. Mass effect barely scratches the surface of the practicalities of multispecies habitation, but it still puts in more effort than most.

I’ve always felt like it would have to be unpleasant for species that have to wear specific breathing-equipment in earth-like atmospheres (Like the Kel-Dor in Star Wars or Zaranites in Star Trek) to have to spend the majority of their time wearing them. Imagine having to wear an entire gas mask all-day everyday and you can only (maybe) take it off in your bedroom.

One of the species in my setting comes from an extremely cold planet, where their "warm" equator is equivalent to Earth's Canada or Siberia. As such, they don't have sweat glands and have to wear suits with cooling tech to walk around on Earth. To appear more friendly to humans, they emote with LED animated masks, some individuals using more eccentric animations than others.

If we want to know what multispecies healthcare looks like, we can ask a veterinarian

That's why I always liked Dr.Franklin from Babylon 5. He left Earth to learn about other species and it took him years to get all the information and practical experience

Stargate SG-1 was a good illustration of the translation problem. They dealt with different languages frequently early on, but there's only so many times you can do that before it goes all the way from fascinating to annoying, so in the end they just went with everyone speaking English. Zootopia / Zootropolis does a rather nice job of showing many species of different sizes, shapes and environmental requirements living together.

I like Arrival because the how to communicate was pretty much the plot line altogether. Once the language barrier was crossed the final "power" so to speak was unlocked.

I think, for the most part, Babylon 5 highlighted the differences more than most other shows. Mostly because there was a visual representation for it.

Tchaikovsky's Children of Time series has quite a few interesting examples. An interstellar civilization of humans is complicated enough, but what if you add in spiders, ants, AI, octopi, crows and even bacteria?

Spoilers for Project Hail Mary: I loved that book because its clear Andy Weir considered each of these challenges when developing his alien life form and decided to set the bar at highest level of difficulty when solving for each, which makes their partnership/friendship feel all the more remarkable. The only real 'gimme' is that they both communicate at coincidentally similar vocal ranges which means that they can eventually talk and understand one another like Han and Chewie without Google translate.

The Star wars complete cross-section books actually have some fun and interesting details regarding this in the pages for the galactic senate and home one, like the fact that the offices of the senator from Dorin are pressurised and filled with the same atmospheric mix as their homeworld so they don't have to have their breathing equipment on, or that the Mon Calamari/Qurren offices have bathing pools to rehydrate themselves, or that home one and other mon calamari ships originally had several important passageways completely filled with water for ease of travel by the mon calamari and when they were refit for used by the rebellion these passageways had to be drained and have flooring and stairs installed so that non aquatic species could use them and several important interfaces we're only designed to be used by mon calamari meaning they had to be replaced with more universal control systems for other species to be able to use them properly and they weren't properly standardised until the New Republic created the MC80B

One of my favorite examples of extreme differences in atmospheric requirements were the Tholians from Star Trek Enterprise, They had to live in a super heated atmospheres of at least 200 degrees Celsius, anything below 150 and they would literally freeze solid and shatter like an ice sculpture.

Two examples of this: First - Morn from DS9 was bald because he has pure Latinum is one if his stomachs. Something we don't know because we've never seen another member of his species. Second - the episode 9f Babylon 5 were Ivanova had to make a deal with an alien and the agree on contracts with sex. Ivanova was not down for that until someone pointed out that different species have different rules for things. She gets the idea that this guy has not idea what human sex is like, so she makes up some weird dance and calls it sex.😂

Babylon 5 was actually well grounded in these principles.

Except for Swedish meatballs. They are universal.

I will always remember Babylon 5's "A Distant Star," and Sheridan's exchange with Ivanova about how accomodating an alien ambassador's request might "smooth any ruffled feathers." After a moment's pause, he then asks if the ambassador HAS feathers.

But you got to give it up for the coolest translation device ever. The Babel Fish, courtesy of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy! Epically hilarious

The spiders in Children of Time are noteworthy. Even though they share a common genetic ancestry with Humans, their evolution lead them down very differently ways of thinking and communicating.

This is covered extensively in the Sector General series by James White. A multi-species hospital station in deep space. Environments from almost absolute zero and total darkness, to high gravity at temperatures that would boil iron. Medical knowledge is temporarily added to a doctor's memory with species specific tapes, but this does come with a price such as not being able to look at the food your eating or accidentally gaining a crush on a completely different species! One interesting thing is that all species have to use a four letter code to refer to themselves as automatic translation means that it doesn't matter what species a being is, they always refer to themselves as 'human'.

I remember a Timothy Zahn book, Spinneret I believe, that had an aside that one of the space fairing races was aquatic, and as such their space craft were much heavier due to their "atmosphere" being water. This meant that each new ship launched from their planet was prohibitively costly, so they were trying to get the super material from this planet to make a space elevator.

Always love stories involving multiple alien species coexisting (or at least tolerate others).💚 I hope someday you review "Knights of Sidonia". Its my favorite. Another one of my favorite stories about multiple alien species is the Saga comics that discusses the dangers and difficulties (and possibly futility) of multi-species relations.

Babylon 5 handles this very well, with the Vorlon encounter suit even having plot implications multiple times.

Love the classic XCOM score on this episode!

The high gravity species from Orville bugged me. They should not even vaguely resemble a standard human. At best they should look more like D&D dwarves. Short, wide, thick with legs like a rhino.

Not seen the vid yet, but who cares - B5 thumbnail!

For language differences, I love the 'Children of..' series by Adrian Tchaikovsky! The last book especially goes through the difficulties being overcome between 4 species (well technically 5 but we don't count Avana Kern since she is a literal God AI) with completely different ways of speaking (octopi = visual colours represented on skin, arachnids = vibrations through foot stomps, humans and corvids = speaking though in different ways)

I had fun with this in a fantasy setting with the human protagonists suffering with dwarven architecture (the ceilings are too low, the seats too low and the beds too small) and low lighting (subterranean dwellers can see better in the dark) as well as being told they speak too loud (hearing becomes more acute in darkness). Dwarves in turn take days to adapt to surface light and noise. When dealing with a species of elves, the humans struggle with their food which (as forest dwellers) is primarily fruit, fungi and nut based unlike the cereal grains (wheat, barley, rye, oats etc) which are the staple of the human diet grown in open plains. Elves live off the produce of orchards of trees; not fields of grass. And of course orcs eat a lot of meat. Too much meat for the human digestive tract to comfortably process. Because of their size and strength, orcs have to eat more food and more often than humans and they tire quicker; lacking human stamina.

Was not expecting a _Spongebob Squarepants_ clip to show up in a Spacedock video.

my favorite example of multispecies habitation is in the book Project Hail Mary. the alien in the book requires an extremely dense and hot atmosphere. to be able to go aboard the human ship it first has to build a series sealed tunnels and rooms for it to exist inside of. these tunnels connect to the aliens docked ship to provide the correct pressure and temperature. the slien also does not see using light so the interior of its ship is in constant pitch darkness. it akso cannot see 2d monitors like tvs so they gave to come up with display systems tgat work in 3d to be able to view tge same media as humans etc. its a fascinating book!

The crossover between different ability and disability is interesting. I remember the Green lantern story about Rot lop fan. He is inducted into the Green lantern corps but his species lives in darkness and his whole species is blind and their language doesn't include anything about either light or vision. Which means that the universal translator built into the Green lantern ring can't convey concepts like light and green and lantern. It becomes a complete lacuna for him, so they have to sort of translate the concept into sound, he's not a Green lantern, he's the f sharp bell, and although he makes the same kind of light constructs as everyone else, his brain interprets it all in the context of sound.

I kind of hope we get an obligate aquatic Federation ship in a future episode of Lower Decks, just for the sake of letting the writers and animators do something entirely new in the trek franchise.

I think some of my favourite examples of this come from the Official Traveller Universe. While most of the species in the Third Imperium are oxygen breathers, many breathe different proportions of oxygen, or need the presence of something that is a contaminant to humans, so Concentrator Masks, Filter Masks and Breathers are relatively common. There's also the matter of sizes; some Sophonts are tiny (a Llellewyloly is a ball about 0.5 meters in diameter standing on meter-long legs/arms) and humongous (a Virushi is an eight-limbed, quadrupedal rhinoceros-looking behemoth that weights a metric ton and stands 3 meters tall).

I like the Humanity F**** Yeah! trope where Earth is a Deathworld and humans are absurdly durable so that only the aliens need to worry about things, and we can survive anywhere.

Excellent video, as always; it also reminded me of Discovery, the gift that keeps on giving, sharing the valuable info that Enterprise crew are basically eating shit. Cheers!

The Temperature aspect does seem to be one good reason why Starfleet Crews tend to be predominantly of one species or another. An all-Vulcan crew's ship probably has an internal temperature closer to the warmth of Vulcan, while a crew of Andorians will prefer a colder atmosphere inside their ships. As Humans seem to be at a good middle-ground, it's likely the reason why Human-dominant crews see the most non-human members integrated into the crew, as they can tolerate middling Earth-range temperatures in most work areas, then adjust in their personal quarters, and still enjoy human visitors.

about medicen you could have a simpler kind of doctor that knows just enough for first aid for every kind of creature and specialists who do medical school about one spiecies! that way you could basicaly go to a nearby station for the simple stuff and if needed to go a bigger station for more complex stuff

There's a series of books about a space hospital called "Sector General", it's a mix of short stories and longer narratives. I might be misremembering, because it's been a good decade since I've read it, but one of those short stories focused on a wrecked ship found on the outskirts of charted space that had its discoverers baffled, since it didn't seem to make sense. One of those baffling aspects was a series of tubes running throughout the ship, each carrying a different gas, with vents in each cabin. The mysterious thing was, nobody could figure out why they were separated if they ended up going out through the same vents, and even more so since some of the gasses would cause some unfortunate reactions when mixed. In the end it turned out that each room got a different mix of gases to create a specific atmosphere because the ship was a space ambulance working for the uncharted space's equivalent of the titular hospital. The setting also had different stuff that covered multispecies habitation, like how everyone had a personal gravity generator - one of the recurring doctors was a giant mosquito-like creature that would've been squashed by the station's default gravity setting, so he had it set to like 0.25G, if not lower.

I'll add another point (which usually comes up in softer sci-fi settings): what happens when two (or more!) alien species *look* fairly similar, but are quite different on the inside? E.g. consider so many of the different aliens shown in Star Trek: what happens to "bystander" first aid responses when someone would need actual training in order to tell several similar species apart? Is that person currently suffering a heart attack a Human, or a Vulcan? Is that person currently grabbing a piece of food from the serving tray a [Species_A] who can eat it just fine, or the similar-looking [Species_B] who will be poisoned by it (but might be new to the area and isn't aware). Etc., etc. Every year IRL, quite a large number of dogs and other pet animals die or are sickened by their loving human caretakers feeding them food (or providing other 'care' such as unusual exercise/lack thereof, nail 'trimming,' drinks, etc.) that is actually not healthy for them, and that's for species which we have evolved alongside for tens or hundreds of thousands of years! How common would it be for multiple aliens living alongside to genuinely make a mistake that harms/sickens a friend? (And the dark side: how easy would it be to cover up a murder when it's common enough to claim "I didn't know Centaurans were allergic to strawberries!")

This is one area I'd be interested in seeing how JMS reboots Babylon 5. Robotic surgery might be a way to deal with surgery through encounter suits and may change the B5 pilot.

Ian Douglas' Star Carrier series was good for multi-species groups. The antagonist Sh'daar are made up of lots of different species, from all range of homeworlds (and times). Three I remember clearly are- The 'diplomat traders', that refrain from eating in front of other races because they, well, vomit on their food before ingesting it. Think they were also the ones that talked by belching. One of the races spoke in pairs. They couldn't be translated at first because one of them would say one thing, the other something different. Then it was discovered when they talked together, their combined voices created a third harmonic that carried what they were actually trying to say. Another species, that used echolocation to 'see' and communicate, captured a human pilot, and were trying to learn about us and how to communicate. Their doctors couldn't figure out how humans generated or 'saw' sound like they did. The human's appendage on 'top' of their body clearly wasn't doing it, but they were curious if the fatty deposits on one side of the human's torso were their sound organs. (spoiler- the human was female) It was overall a good lesson on the problems of interspecies communication.

A very minor one I think but the Predators breathe slightly more oxygen and nitrogen than in the Earth’s atmosphere hence the inhaler thing in Predator 2

I like the sci fi concept where species that resemble Earth ones, like anthropomorphic cats or reptiles, were actual lizards and cats that humans genetically uplifted and therefore can also live in Earths environment. Wheras the aliens are truly alien

Conical spin-gravity on low-gravity planets, along with other novel facets to spin-gravity, could be an entire video on itself.

Even with species that can mostly live in the same environment, there might be slight differences in preference, as Garak famously lamented. Exactly what level do you set the lights, how warm or how humid should it be, how long should the days be, etc. Some of this varies even between humans, not to mention with entirely different species!

What a nightmare. The Imperium is definitely onto something...

The assorted “Sector General” stories by James White tackle most of the issues presented here as central elements of the setting on a multispecies hospital, most especially including the question of how to provide care for radically different aliens. Some elements of the books are pretty dated in the way a lot of classic Sci-Fi of the 1960s and 1970s can be, but they are really interesting reading.

"Peeing your bones out" is not a phrase I ever thought I'd hear, but it makes perfect sense in this context.

There is one scene from the star fire series that I love, basically the carrier element of a multi species fleet got shot to hell, and as the birds are coming home controllers are scrambling not just to find bays for all the surviving fighters but bays on ships that can feed them and refill their environmental systems, assembling scratch squadrons based off of species that are physically capable of speaking the same language, because fighters are to small to carry translation software. There are scenarios where the pilots can understand the squadron leader just fine but are physically incapable of making the sounds to communicate back.

There is one way I approach it that would make sense for us: An alien race or an advanced space-faring race will more likely make themselves more adaptable to a variety of different environments, including our own. This would include needing less air to breathe, handling different pressures, operating in dark environments, handling alien diseases, handling different temps, handling a much greater variety of foods, etc. This can be achieved in a few ways. The reason for this is simply because it increases the number of worlds that you can live in. It will be the same predicament the human race will face once it starts colonizing other worlds.

One thing I used in a book I wrote set on a multi species space station was different species having different day lengths/sleeping patterns/regeneration cycles or whatever. Made it a real pain trying to arrange a meeting that wasn't in the middle of the "night" for someone.

*Fun fact:* In the Star Wars universe, the closest thing to a civilization whose lack of multispecies is as high as on Earth is the archaic and isolated planet Kesh, inhabited for thousands of years only by the Keshiri species and a group of Sith humans who crashed on said planet. Something quite remarkable about this society is that, when the descendants of the Sith found a holographic projection of the Sith Pureblood Naga Sadow, many were horrified by the "out of the ordinary" appearance of that being, not being aware until that moment that there were more species in the universe apart from the humans and the Keshiri. I think it's a pretty accurate portrayal of how people of our World would react when meeting an alien by first time

@8:01 would have been a great opportunity to show a clip of the original Dr. M'Benga (Booker Bradshaw), as he was a Vulcan specialist (!).

The medical concern is something I considered in a sci-fi world I’m building. When humanity gained access to alien technology, our technology in regards to chemical engineering, metallurgy, space travel, weapons, etc. jumped forward by 1,000 years or more, but because medical technology and techniques couldn’t be transferred between species, it lagged. So while most technologies humanity has access to are in the year 3311, medicine is stuck in the actual year of 2311.

On the point of medical care for different speceis, we do sort of have multi species healthcare specialists in the real world in the form of vetinarians.

This is why I love the world of 40k. All of the several excellent questions you proposed share the same answer.

Halo’s Covenant is an interesting case of when a multi-species environment doesn’t cater to everyone. On Covenant ships, Unggoy are often the only species that can’t breathe oxygen, but since they’re considered expendable, their life support infrastructure is often lacking.

I found the concept of the Xindi Aquatic ships very interesting with their liquid atmosphere. the life support requirement for liquid atmosphere must be quite different. Also would they need gravity? Their destruction also would look very different (I don't think it would look like it is shown in Star Trek Enterprise), but no gaseous atmosphere means explosions would be very different. I Another thing I found very interesting was the Babylon 5 episode with the different explosion coulour with the earth and enemy ships, why is this not done more regularly?

I have a (non-canon) Star Trek book about the TOS crew on their first adventure together. They established first contact with another alien race and beamed them aboard the ship, only to realize they weren't able to survive in the higher gravity on the ship. They had to beam them back real quick, and Mr. Spock accidentally got some of their personalities stuck in him when he unintentionally mind melded during the process. They were eventually able to host them on the Enterprise by reducing the gravity in specific areas, but not without Scotty spending several hours on it and covering Engineering with technical manuals and blueprints to figure out how. It was a fun book to read.

On the topic of needing to remove an environmental suit for medical emergencies, I've always enjoyed the idea of inflatable trauma stations. Using the same concept as an inflatable life raft, our future medic could have a device that rapidly inflates to become a temporary medical tent that's large enough to fit the patient and medic, and includes a small pump that scrubs and pressurizes the air. Of course, it would only provide a basic level of environmental protection and wouldn't last long, but it would be enough to at least stabilize a person and patch their suit if need be.

My friends sci fi empire actuslly solved this by having it so every species they integrate is assimilated into the main species via advanced biotechnology. With assisted rehab for chsnges like getting used to four limbs. So his empire is technically multi species but their all assimilated into the main one.

The book Project Hail Mary did a really good job at exploring a lot of these issues in depth That the book essentially only had 2 characters (1 human and 1 alien) made it really easy to delve deep on this at the individual level

In my own worldbuilding, I've thought about cylindrical spin-gravity stations, that have multiple 'floors': Concentric cylinders that have higher gravity going outward, which would would accommodate more than just humans. In human-dominant space, the cylinders with artificial gravity notable less or more than 1g, this discomfort would drive down housing prices in those cylinders, as humans would prefer to live in the 1g environment. This means that if a non-human individual that's used to higher gravity is looking to move somewhere, and is not concerned with staying near their own systems, they might find comfortable _and_ affordable housing on human stations, taking up residence in the outer cylinder.

It's not a large scale established habitation like on Babylon 5, but Andy Weir's _Project Hail Mary_ showed nicely how to navigate around living in a hostile environment. Pressurization, temperature, air locks, different gasses and even absence of visible light.

Yes, it is even more reason why Babylon 5 is a great space station (and show).

The scene from Hot Fuzz was hilarious, and Space Balls is hysterical...

I'm going to have to watch this at least five more times but this is a great writers guide on how to write multiple species

“Peeing our bones out” - that’s a new one

talking about needing a translator for strange alien species and cutting to the Hot Fuzz scene was a masterpiece of comedy

Babylon 5, Mass Effect and Futurama (shockingly) have been the only three who managed to get it right enough.

Excellent topic

I haven't seen much sci-fi but I think the use of telepresence robots could be helpful for multispecies habitation. Stick everyone into pods that take care of their biological needs and remote control robots to operate the ship.

Added in with the language problem. Even if other species communicate vocally, they just might not make the same sounds as us and vis versa. Think how people struggle to say words in other languages that use sounds they don’t vocalise often in their language dialled up to 11.

I think for a space station with many varied species, the best option would be a modular design. The main part of the station would be a mostly empty structure with docking interfaces that provide electricity, heat, coolant, and various common gases and liquids to isolated modules. Each species-specific module would use whichever resources it needs while handling uncommon needs on its own. Gravity could be handled by the module's position within the station's rotating frame. The station might even be able to host small to medium sized spacecraft as modules if they have a suitable interface and are a convenient shape. The station could contain facilities for synthesizing various molecules for medications, but I don't see a realistic way to provide multispecies healthcare beyond that. I think this would greatly simplify the station's design as it would mainly be concerned with structural integrity and managing the common resources. Any module would only need to sustain one type of environment, though I guess the station might have a small number of adjustable modules for rare visitors, emergencies, and acclimatization between environments. Common areas would be their own modules that are permanently tuned to a compromise suitable for some subset of station inhabitants, if such compromises are even possible. Modules could even be built or decommissioned as the station's demographics change over time. Transportation between modules would be its own challenge, but I think that's a lot easier to solve than building an entire monolithic station that needs to accomodate every species.

this made me realise how many problems i didnt consider and i think my aliens are on the more "realistic" side. though of course a big factor is gameplay as i still want each species to play relatively th same, and i dont want them getting locked out of entire mechanics or systems just because of species

Due to my scifi roots, I *love* including the language and biology challenges in my D&D games. Underground races that haven't seen the surface in hundreds of years? Why would they speak common? If they evolved underground, they don't even bother with light sources--they can see just find and their food is designed to grow in the dark. Going to the far north beyond the mountains? Completely separate language unlike anything the players have met, so a couple sessions just figuring out communication (when no one has Tongues or Comprehend Languages). It's one of my favorite curve-balls they don't expect. This video exemplifies why it's so much fun to throw such challenges at them.

Conspicuous by its absence was any reference to the "Sector General" series of short stories, novellas and novels, by James White. The plots generally revolved around the difficulties of treating patients that are very alien. One of the short stories is the response to a mass casualty event at an interstellar spaceport when a large passenger vehicle crashes into a terminal, but the terminal and vehicle have mutually incompatible atmospheres. Chaos ensues, because nobody knows enough other species medicine to properly triage the injured, let alone treat them. This turns out to be the event that inspired the creation of the first multi-species hospital.

I read a book where a human ship was visited by a delegation from a multi-species xeno-ship. The preperation (especially the atmosphere demands) were extensive to the point another delegate had to be sent in advance in order to mediate and ensure all the requirements are met. The delegate was of a species that communicates using pheromones. The humans had a translation bot, but it worked as best as the first version of Google translate.

I'd love to see you do a breakdown of Robotech Mechs and space carriers

Thanks for the subtle XCOM rep in the background lol

Kudos for the Hot Fuzz clip. I'm glad somebody realised that people from the West Country are a different species.

Boy howdy. Good knowledge in this one. Bit bummed you missed a banger of a Farscape clip in there, where they are all making their favorite foods. Very insightful episode all in all.

Discovery takes that rear barrier force shield for granted, you can't 100% guarantee it will always stay up

I don't know whether it's a fandom thing or mentioned canonically in one of the shows, but these difficulties are apparently why you don't see many nonhumans aboard Starfleet ships. There are plenty of xenos posted to fleet billets, but the vastly differing needs and comfort zones of most species make serving on a ship tuned to the settings of another species somewhere between moderately unpleasant to a hazardous-duty posting. Andorians and Vulcans can tolerate human-comfortable temperatures, for instance, but typical thermostat settings for humans would seem like windswept moors to a Vulcan - chilly and wet - and oppressively tropical to an Andorian. Also, Vulcans apparently think humans kinda smell. That may be a cultural thing, though, since I haven't heard of any Romulan mentioning it. I dunno, maybe it's just that they mostly haven't had time to get into that side of things on screen, since most encounters were either during extremely fragile diplomatic circumstances, or straight-up gunpoint.

There's a HFY story i read a while back, that had literal Space Dragons. They lived on molten or high temp worlds, kinda like Venus. It was paced rapidly but the PoV character, (one of said Dragons) mentioned that the humans eventually developed suits and tech that could allow each side to visit the other for short periods, but otherwise didn't really co-habitate. It was a neat take on the subject, IMO.

It would be interesting to see a fictional setting where two species rise to dominance explicitly because they both shard near identical tolerance and preferences for their environment. Cross haring of ships and resources is not a problem as their needs to be no special accommodations allow a level of cooperation that other species do not enjoy.

One Star Trek fanfic that I am reading currently actually deals with this slightly. While 90% of the Federation can handle O2/N2 atmospheres at 1 atmo pressure and around 70F temperature, some like Vulcans like it hotter and Betazoids like it colder. So you will often have a crew that is nearly or completely one species, so a Vulcan ship can be hotter and drier while a Betazoid ship can be colder and wetter. Human ships are notable for their mixed crews because they are basically smack in the middle of the usual range. That last 10% are those species that require vastly different food, atmosphere mix or pressure, and temperature requirements, and they ALSO get their own ships, and even their own Star Fleet Academy on a planet they can stand.

The Children of Time book series has a lot of this and it’s done very well and is really interesting

The Expanse has a really interesting take, Amos is just an absolute beast basically because he was born on and grew up on Earth. His bones and muscles had gravity to develop that most people in the belt didn't get, they basically got a worse version/substitute or a work around that just ain't as good as the real thing.