Question: because the universal translator in my screen converts it to English, I always hear “humanoid” when life forms are talking about beings similar to themselves.
But do alien cultures actually say humanoid? Or do they say Bajoranoid and Cardassianoid and Klingonoid and we just hear it as Humanoid because of the way our UT’s are set up? Because if they all say humanoid as well, that’s either a Federation thing (and where’s the Vulcanoids?) or possibly an example of how Humans tend to spread and conquer subversively, like through speech.
Or, on the other hand, humanoid could be the standard comparison because other species consider us to be the “simplest” form of evolved similar species, and so since it is possible that the many branches of similar species are closely related (see: that one episode of TNG where they proved it) they standardly choose to refer to all similar species as themselves (bipedal, verbal language, complex interpersonal organizations, etc.) as the ‘simplest’ form that all others branched and continued to grow from. Making us all humanoid?