Aliens?

Which way best serves the story you want to tell?

Aliens who are indistinguishable from humans will create a very different world than one in which aliens look like Chewbacca.

This is all really hard since it kinda sounds like you haven't even worked out your plot yet.

Are you more of a plot-driven writer?
Action-driven?
Character-driven?
Emotion-driven?
Theme driven?

It seems to me that aliens looking like us or not looking like us is a HUGE question to be hemming and hawing over.

What's THE single most important aspect of the story for you? After you've answered that question, make the appearance of the aliens service that that one key driver.

Also, do the humans in your story realize aliens exist?

If not, yes, huge surprise attack potential from human-looking aliens. But that's only if it's the story you're trying to tell.

If you aren't sure what story you want to tell yet, I say take a leap and pick one. Then start writing and see what happens.

I have both in my stories. The vast majority are human-like, or variations on humans. Some are completely different...depending on what the stories need, or how I want the species to act. I have to take a few liberties with language differences that way...

KC36 said:

I'm trying to decide whether or not I want aliens from other planets to look like humans from Earth. I had an alien from a planet called Minkha on Earth, and she's mistaken for a human since she has the same features. I could go with that and make them all look like humans.. but then nobody could tell each other apart... Maybe I can have just Minkha and maybe one or two more planets look like humans, then go all Star Wars and have all sorts of weird and interesting looking aliens.

So which route should I go? Easy or hard? As I've heard it, there's nothing easy about writing. But I need opinions on this. Any thoughts?

Click to expand...

You can do both, if you like. If their technology is more advanced, maybe they could have devices on their bodies that project holograms or something like that which would let them appear to be human. Or devices that "scramble" their DNA so that they could actually become humans (or anything else) for awhile.

If you make them look just like humans, as a reader I would want to know why they look just like humans. Is their planet just like Earth? Did they evolve the exact same way? etc.

If you make them look just like humans, as a reader I would want to know why they look just like humans. Is their planet just like Earth? Did they evolve the exact same way? etc.

Click to expand...

That would be my stumbling block too: how can aliens look "human" ???

Sci-Fi from before the 1960's could get away with that, I suppose, but now readers are just too sophisticated to accept that without some sort of valid explanation. But the good news is: since it's Science Fiction, and you can create unknown alien sciences and technologies, your explanations can be as wild or unique as you can imagine.

But imo some sort of explanation to the readers is necessary.

It worked for the movie The Arrival a movie from 1996.

The aliens had a device that put skin over their bodies so that they looked like humans. It was pretty neat cause it works on humans as well.

As far as aliens looking like people or not it depends on what kind of story you want to tell. I'm going to have aliens in my story that will interbreed with humans so yeah...something I'll have to work out.

Oh another movie TV series with human looking aliens is V a TV series from 1983

I can see how a species with a basic humanoid shape can develop advanced technology. But it's likely that species with other forms can do it too. But exactly like humans? Then some sort of explanation must indeed be given.

small axe said:

That would be my stumbling block too: how can aliens look "human" ???

Click to expand...

Because they abducted humans long ago...one thing led to another, and little humanoids were born...centuries (or longer) pass, and voila!

Plot Device said:

This is all really hard since it kinda sounds like you haven't even worked out your plot yet.

Are you more of a plot-driven writer?
Action-driven?
Character-driven?
Emotion-driven?
Theme driven?

It seems to me that aliens looking like us or not looking like us is a HUGE question to be hemming and hawing over.

What's THE single most important aspect of the story for you? After you've answered that question, make the appearance of the aliens service that that one key driver.

Click to expand...

This is so spot on it bears repeating.

I feel that unless you have a well thought out world and plot line, you are begging for trouble when it comes to plot holes and characterization.

One of the biggest problems many writers face or mistakes they commit is coming up with 'cool' concepts that lack any real substance.

For instance, imagine reading a story where a character has the ability to create water. He can point his finger and it is like a fire hose, galloons and galloons of it gushes out. Now imagine this same character is stuck in a desert and dies of thirst while trying to walk to the neighboring village.

As the reader of this story the first question out of your mouth will be "Why in the hell didn't he make water for himself?"

This is a plot hole. A big one.

the problem with making stories with cool characters and concepts without well thought out worldbuilding and plot lines is that you are bound to make a bunch of giant plot holes that will piss the reader off.

I think if you are writing for YA, then you get some leeway because younger readers tend not to notice plotholes. But older readers do and SF readers probably moreso than others.

For instance, being the future, 25th century or whatever, wouldn't they have devices that would tell human from alien? Hell, in the 21st century we can determine your genetic disposition from a strand of hair. I'd think spoting aliens is no problem.

Anyways, just think through the story and world building and the answer should become obvious.

good luck

mel...

It seems very unlikely if not impossible. But planets can have their orbits change and it's not impossible for planets to be ejected from their solar systems. The question is how did this happen in our solar system, and how did life survive on that planet in interstellar space? But it could be done through other means than just lucky coincidences, for example intervention from some other entities. Or Minkha could have formed in the other solar system and seeded artificially, and then have the course of evolution guided by some intelligent entity. But these are just my thoughts...

Some speculation exists concerning "wandering planets." The fact that we have this huge, huge moon around our tiny little planet has always baffled scientists: where the heck did that moon come from? Why is it so monsterous? Mars has two impish little moons. The other smaller planets have no moons at all. But we have the mega-behemouth of a moon.

One possibility is that we somehow stole it from another planet. What planet we stole it from, we're not entirely sure of --either we stole it from an existing planet (like Jupiter) or a deceased planet (like Vulcan, which is the proposed name for the planet that might have gotten clobbered and is now the asteroid belt) or a rogue planet that somehow went through our system.

When you start to speculate about planets drifting around or passing through and NOT anchoring themselves into an orbit around our sun, you're talking about some fierce forces at work. The physics are just mind-bending. Your only saving grace is that there's ample evidence at hadn that lots of weird stuff ahs happened in our solar system over the eons, and there are still so many blank spots in the history of our system that you can fill those blanks in with a lot fun fantasy stuff.

Another problem with a planet that does a solar system drive-by is that because it has no sun, the planet's temperature has no regulator--it really should be a lifeless iceball (a comet really). However, one previously-done sci-fi story (the movie was called "Wehn Worlds Collide") involves a rogue star passing through our system with its own planet spinning around it (thus keeping that planet warm. THAT seems somewhat unlikely because there'd be a serious case of dueling gravitational fields between our sun and that intruder star. But again, there are blank holes in the story of our system leaving wiggle room for creativity.

In one of the ideas I was tossing about when formulating the plots for my stories was to have an alien species that would periodically visit the Earth throughout its history that were basically Elves, or were what gave us humans the notion of Elves.

I came up with the idea, of sorts, after a game called Warhammer 40,000 that I was reading about one day. In this science fiction game, there are species very similar to fantasy creatures such as Elves, Orcs, Trolls, etc, so I figured that if they could do it, I could do it.

I'm not 100% certain I'll actually use this in my stories as I haven't gotten far enough into it to introduce the alien beings to my human characters, but as I draw closer to that point, I will have to start seriously developing that aspect of it. Do I want a human or near-human beings that we could possibly communicate with, or some non-humanoid that we might never be able to. Which would benefit the story as I have it going so far and which would be the more interesting of the two? Which would be the more dangerous?

All these things, and more, I'm going to have to decide on, and I'm sure you have similar questions you'll have to answer.

Well, you'd need a plausible reason why they decided to copy the human form instead of staying formless. As well as some idea of how they lived before then. You'd need to flesh this one out pretty well before you tried it. Whether the readers will buy it or nitpick it is going to depend on the strength of your treatment.

If the change is permanent, it might make more sense if it was a small group of the shapeshifters being groomed for human contact to have taken on human form and the rest to have stayed how they are.

How about they used to have physical form millions of years ago, but then they psychically evolved to where they can exist as formless energy, and they appropriately adapted their entire planet-wide technology to accomodate themselves to live as mere energy forms. And now that they have reached this epoch of civilization, they embarked upon some kind of a self-appointed mission of "shepherding the other sentient planets" including becoming covert guardians of the planet Earth (amog others). But then, as they quietly watched human evolution on Earth, the Earthlings exhibited something that no other life form on any other planet did (including their own): religious superstition. This revolutionary and one-of-a-kind phenomenon of spiritual belief triggered the emergence of a strange and unprecedented religious sect amongst the formless creatures, and so this sect decided that reverting back into physcial form was some kind of holy mandate. So a splinter group broke away from the main population and this splinter group decided that the humanoid form as evidenced on Earth form was the most desirable form to take.

(Wow. I kinda like that!)

And then (the plot thickens) ...

The planet Earth became a "holy" planet in the minds of the adherents of this religous sect, and they sought to bring about the advent of some kind of a three-way catalyst between: 1) Earthlings, 2) themselves, and 3) God. So these religious aliens --able to switch back and forth between physcial and non-physical form-- began seriously meddling in the affairs of Earthlings, and were doing so under the blind midguidedness of religion.

This clear "violation of the Prime Directive" outraged the majority rulers back on the alien homeworld, and they decided it was time to intervene. So they dispatched a special team of operatives to Earth to try and combat the inappropriate meddlings of these religious fanatics.

And so now here it is, thousands of years later, and to this day an invisible battle STILL rages in our midst, totally unknown to us, between those two opposing factions.


(Wow. I am SOOOOOOOO digging this brainstorm session!)

KC36 said:

Wow PD, I'm really liking it. Do you mind if I use it? I find it very very interesting. Gosh do you seem like a brilliant writer! Thanks so much!

Click to expand...

Yes.

Thanks.

And you're welcome.