Aliens

Aliens

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ChunkyC

Just to get the ball rolling on this, I thought I'd put it in the form of a poll....

When creating an alien race for a story, which do you think is most important and why?
 

ChunkyC

Almost forgot -- for fantasy writers, feel free to substitute 'non-human races' for 'aliens'.
 

HConn

Most important in what way? To creating them? To their role in the story? To how sexy they are?

(I'm hoping you'll say the last one:grin )
 

ChunkyC

:lol I should have put that up as a choice!

Good questions. Their role would vary from story to story, so I guess what's most important to a writer when creating them would be a better angle for the discussion. I personally have not done alien races yet in any of my very limited fiction writing, so I'm quite curious what process other skiffy and fantasy writers go through.
 

Yeshanu

I put "All of the above," because depending on the story, any one of them could be the most important element. It depends where you, the writer, want the story to go.
 

HollyB

I put "all of the above," too. I think of it like a character sketch. Even if you don't use all of the infomation you create, the more complete your information about an alien species, the more convincing your portrayal will be.
 

ShinyPenguin

My gut reaction was "their society," but I can see where each one could be important in different stories. I think I would concentrate more on their society so that the aliens wouldn't just look like humans in disguise. You know, they've got green skin and two heads, but they act just like us. Society and technology affect each other, so I think I'd want to work them out at the same time. Of course if the story is about aliens that we're trying to kill, then their appearance and biology might be more important.
 

Ravenlocks01

All the points are important, but I voted for their society. I think who they are culturally is what's going to have the greatest impact storywise... at least in my stories.

But I have to agree with HConn that how sexy they are is pretty important too. :p
 

Pthom

I say "all of the above" as well, but with this reservation:
It depends...​
Often, just the word 'alien' denotes a strange appearance (which goes hand-in-hand with their biology). But without some description of the beings' society and technology, the result is a cardboard cutout. In "War of the Worlds," the 'martians' are merely evil. Where we are shown a high level of technology (greater than our own--and this is common) and a distinct difference in biology, we are left to imagine any sort of culture. I'd say the same holds with the alien in "Alien." In O.S. Card's "Speaker for the Dead" and in Vernor Vinge's "A Deepness in the Sky," the aliens are more fleshed out, with clear descriptions of biology, society, level of technology as well as apperance.

Then there are the so-called human-like 'aliens' in the Star Trek TV shows. As far as I'm concerned, they don't meet my criteria of alien. I believe there was one STNG show that explained why all the 'alien' cultures the crew of the Enterprise comes across are so often humanoid.
 

HConn

The most important thing is how the readers and human characters respond to the aliens. Everything else is subservient to that.
 

Ivonia

Although I was tempted to clk All of the above, I decided that how they look like is probalby the most important first, since I would like to try and imagine what they look like before I start worrying about other things (which I can probably pick up in the book anyway).
 

Terra Aeterna

I chose "their society" because I'm an Anthropologist, so I couldn't help myself. :p

I think the other replies about how the reader reacts, and "it depends" are much better answers.
 

Flawed Creation

the society.

the society is what makes aliens alien.

now, in fantasy, some times a race isn't meant to be alien. if a race is closely integrated into trhe h7uman society and was created around the same time, they may not be very different, culturally.

but alien need to be different from people where it counts- the way they think and act.
 

ChunkyC

I believe there was one STNG show that explained why all the 'alien' cultures the crew of the Enterprise comes across are so often humanoid
Click to expand...
Yeah. They found a billion-odd year old recording from a projenitor race of all the humanoid races in the galaxy. What they didn't explain is how Picard's tricorder was able to play it. :b

PS -- found it here.
 

maestrowork

I picked all of the above, but I think of the four, technology would be the LEAST of my concern. Some alien species have no or low technologies... think "Alien" -- what a classic.
 

Pthom

What they didn't explain is how Picard's tricorder was able to play it.
Click to expand...
That, my friend is pure bolognium. :lol

In the link you gave, there is this:
Picard and Beverly quietly retrieve a partially fossilized sample. Unnoticed, they feed the sample into their tricorder. The mysterious program is activated, and a humanoid hologram recorded billions of years ago appears before them.
Click to expand...
Who goes on to explain everything we need to know...convenient, huh?
 

HConn

Pthom, as I remember the episode, the hologram wasn't a convenient expository device. It was the prize at the end of the quest.

And the universal translator is 100% bolognium. But at least Star Trek bothered to wave their hands at the "Everyone speaks English" convention. Stargate SG1 doesn't even bother.
 

ChunkyC

H, you got me thinking. (my sainted mother thanks you) :grin

Anyway... In our stories, if there is to be alien / human interaction, it would seem that it must be facilitated by something like Star Trek's universal translator. Bolognium such a device might be, but the alternative of having every alien culture speaking perfect English is far worse as HConn has pointed out.

So ... how do you have your races interact?

I remember reading the story that the Star Trek original series episode called ARENA was based on, by the late Fredric Brown.

In this original version, the human and alien he is fighting never communicate, not verbally anyway, and the outcome is quite different. A brilliant story.
 

A Pathetic Writer

Anyway... In our stories, if there is to be alien / human interaction, it would seem that it must be facilitated by something like Star Trek's universal translator.
Click to expand...

Steven Speilberg would disagree.
 

ChunkyC

I disagree as well, which is why I used the phrase "it would seem". Yes, Close Encounters used light and audio, and ET managed to get his message across with only a few words of English. Yet look at some of the stuff on TV recently: Stargate, Lexx, Andromeda, Star Hunter, etc. They all speak english to each other. I haven't followed those particular shows much because, to be honest, I don't find them to be all that good, so I don't know if they have some explanation for why they can all talk and understand each other.

Mind you, it would be difficult to have an entertaining weekly show without having the characters speak the same language, but the reason they can speak the same language needs to be explained.

The other part of this, and what I'm more intrigued by, is: can entertaining science fiction be produced without resorting to some construct to allow the characters to all speak the same language. Your example of Spielberg shows it can be done, and quite well, as does the original ARENA story I mentioned above.
 

HConn

Chunk, earlier this year I finished a screenplay about an alien invasion--they learned English by watching tv broadcasts on the way to Earth.

Man, did that script get savaged. Lions don't tear apart an antelop carcass so thoroughly. Yikes!

Anyway, you can always fall back on telepathy, if you have to.

APW, why are you mentioning Spielberg in the sf/f forum? :b
 

ChunkyC

Lions don't tear apart an antelop carcass so thoroughly
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Ouch! I should be glad my rejections have all been generic forms without comments (so far, he said looking warily over his shoulder).
 

Yeshanu

I read a couple of (not so great) romance/sci-fi novels where the aliens (who were close enough to humans to interbreed) used subliminal messages to learn English (they put tape recordings under their pillowcases at night, and woke up the next morning speaking English.) :wha

So ... how do you have your races interact?
Click to expand...

In my fantasy novel, the races each have their own language, but they've been interacting long enough that the human language has become the dominant one used in inter-racial interactions, for a couple of reasons that make sense to me, as opposed to being bolognium. One, there are many more humans than their are of either elves or dwarves, and two, the elves and dwarves mistrust one another so much that they don't speak to each other, and the humans are the intermediaries.

Speaking of translations, I was just playing around over here:

Free Translation Online

I typed in:

Our Father in Heaven,
Hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Translated it from English to Russian, then from Russian back to English. Here's what came out:

Our Father in Heavens,
Consecrated to be your name.
Your kingdom arrives, you will be made on the ground as it is in heavens.

:b

Universal translators that can decode and translate unknown languages may indeed be possible in the future, but for now, we've got to perfect translators that can translate known languages into other known languages.
 

ChunkyC

How true, Yesh. I just tried the same thing with the classic "We come in peace" and ended up with "We enter into the world".

Another story I remember is one where first contact is made and the earth crew spends days trying to communicate with the alien ship. Finally the breakthrough is made when a human engineer (I believe) manages to tell his alien counterpart a dirty joke.

You never know where you'll find common ground.
 
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