seapeople

Seapeople are a fictional designation used in science fiction and fantasy to describe intelligent, humanoid beings who inhabit marine environments. The term is not tied to a single canonical species; rather, different works imagine a range of physiologies, cultures, and technologies undersea. In many renderings, seapeople possess gills or adapted lungs, webbed hands and feet, and bodies shaped for pressure, cold, and low light. Some are depicted as able to breathe air for limited periods or rely on equipment to visit the surface.

Habitats vary from underwater cities carved into reefs or basaltic plains to bio-formed domes and networked cave systems. Seapeople commonly use technologies that augment swimming, sensing, and energy capture from tidal, thermal, or chemical sources. Social organization runs the gamut from clan-based hierarchies to technocratic assemblages and cosmopolitan federations.

Languages and communication differ widely. Many stories feature aquatic phonation with clicks, whistles, and music-like streams, sometimes supplemented by written scripts on shells or coral. Some narratives grant seapeople advanced navigation by currents and sonar, or near-telepathic linkages.

Interactions with surface-dwelling peoples range from cooperation and trade to conflict or political bargaining over sovereignty and resource rights. Environmental themes are common, including stewardship of ocean ecosystems and the impact of pollution or climate change on underwater civilizations.

In fiction, seapeople function as a flexible storytelling device to explore diplomacy, cultural exchange, and the ethics of contact with non-human intelligent life.