Aliens that are basically humans who have different body types, but think and behave in exactly the same as us. Very few sci fi works manage to come up with aliens that really feel alien. Blindsight would be one of my favorite examples of aliens that are really alien.
To be fair, we still need to be able to emphasize with alien characters and have their emotions be convincing, which is harder when they’re in the depths of the uncanny valley. Take Pokemon: the ones people think have the best design, and people think are the cutest, are usually the ones that most closely resemble just regular animals instead of the more “out there” designs. Think Pikachu, Eevee, or my favourites, Fennekin and Vulpix.
I understand the reason aliens get anthropomorphized for narrative purposes. I just find it lazy and ultimately defeats the purpose of having aliens in the first place. At that point you might as well just write a story about humans. The alternative is to just treat them as a mystery. The story can focus on human characters and how they interpret the aliens.
I think that sentient aliens are likely to have certain common characteristics due to evolutionary process. Presumably intelligence evolves as a survival trait to help the organism within its environment. That means an intelligent creature is likely to see itself as an individual, understand the environment around it, compete for resources with others, and so on.
However, there is a wide range of intelligence even here on earth. An octopus, a parrot, or even a cat is an alien intelligence to us. We can sort of figure out their behavior in broad strokes, but a lot of the time their actions end up being surprising and inexplicable to us. This is the aspect of aliens I find interesting.
Another aspect to consider is that it’s highly unlikely that we’d run into aliens at roughly the same stage of development as us. We managed to go from living in caves to landing on the moon in a few thousand years. This is a blink of an eye in cosmic terms. The progress is also non-linear.
A civilization that’s even a few thousand years ahead of us may be utterly incomprehensible. I would certainly expect it to be post-biological. This could be one reason we don’t see aliens around. We might be like an ant hill next to an intergalactic highway.
Good points and illustration. I think that there is no true need to be able to empathize with alien intelligence in a narrative. Goodness knows I have trouble empathizing with plenty of human characters… Hierarchy of Foreignness was even a thematic element in the Ender books.
Have you read A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge? I remember it doing a pretty good job of imagining polymorphic sentience and civilization churn.
I really like C.J. Cherryh’s books. So many have interactions between human and “Alien” worlds, and do a really good job of having “Equal/Greater Non-human intelligences”
I especially recommend “Foreigner” and “Faded Sun Trilogy”
Aliens that are basically humans who have different body types, but think and behave in exactly the same as us. Very few sci fi works manage to come up with aliens that really feel alien. Blindsight would be one of my favorite examples of aliens that are really alien.
To be fair, we still need to be able to emphasize with alien characters and have their emotions be convincing, which is harder when they’re in the depths of the uncanny valley. Take Pokemon: the ones people think have the best design, and people think are the cutest, are usually the ones that most closely resemble just regular animals instead of the more “out there” designs. Think Pikachu, Eevee, or my favourites, Fennekin and Vulpix.
I understand the reason aliens get anthropomorphized for narrative purposes. I just find it lazy and ultimately defeats the purpose of having aliens in the first place. At that point you might as well just write a story about humans. The alternative is to just treat them as a mystery. The story can focus on human characters and how they interpret the aliens.
I think that sentient aliens are likely to have certain common characteristics due to evolutionary process. Presumably intelligence evolves as a survival trait to help the organism within its environment. That means an intelligent creature is likely to see itself as an individual, understand the environment around it, compete for resources with others, and so on.
However, there is a wide range of intelligence even here on earth. An octopus, a parrot, or even a cat is an alien intelligence to us. We can sort of figure out their behavior in broad strokes, but a lot of the time their actions end up being surprising and inexplicable to us. This is the aspect of aliens I find interesting.
Another aspect to consider is that it’s highly unlikely that we’d run into aliens at roughly the same stage of development as us. We managed to go from living in caves to landing on the moon in a few thousand years. This is a blink of an eye in cosmic terms. The progress is also non-linear.
A civilization that’s even a few thousand years ahead of us may be utterly incomprehensible. I would certainly expect it to be post-biological. This could be one reason we don’t see aliens around. We might be like an ant hill next to an intergalactic highway.
Good points definitely. However I personally don’t dislike media for not having alien enough aliens.
Good points and illustration. I think that there is no true need to be able to empathize with alien intelligence in a narrative. Goodness knows I have trouble empathizing with plenty of human characters… Hierarchy of Foreignness was even a thematic element in the Ender books.
Have you read A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge? I remember it doing a pretty good job of imagining polymorphic sentience and civilization churn.
Never heard of it, I’m gonna check it out, thx.
Blindsight is a masterpiece, highly recommended.
Sweet, found a torrent audiobook for it: link
:thumbs up:
I really like C.J. Cherryh’s books. So many have interactions between human and “Alien” worlds, and do a really good job of having “Equal/Greater Non-human intelligences” I especially recommend “Foreigner” and “Faded Sun Trilogy”
Oh thanks for the tip, will have to check this out. :)
I recommend reading “Children of time”
Oh yeah I loved both Children of Time and Children of Ruin. I thought that depiction of octopus intelligence in the latter one was fantastic.