Alien, I mean really Alien.

[Randallw]

I just finished Pandoras Star by Peter F Hamilton, and the Primes made me think of something.What sort of real Aliens are there in Fiction. It seems to me they go from Anthromorphic aliens, such as in Star Trek where they are all human with funny noses or pointy ears, to Aliens with human motivations like giant cat people or beings that look like whales or elephants that the humans look up to as founts of wisdom. What I want to read of is real Aliens. Theres the Bahgs, ok they are Alien, but they're basically Aliens with a single human emotion, predominantly in races like that its Aliens with one emotion, kill or eat everything else. Are there any real Aliens in Fiction whose behaviour, as well as their physiology, is "Alien" to humans?. I do supppose "real Aliens" would be hard to write. They might be enemies to fight, but an ALien might stop fighting half way through because their thought processes see a reason to stop that we emotional, 3 dimensional humans don't see.

[ March 25, 2004, 06:44: Message edited by: Randallw ]

[Deth B0y]

i think that it is impossible for the human mind to really construct something that is totally alien to it. We'll always boil it down to something we can relate to - something that speaks to us, that resonates.

A case in point - how often have we looked at something totally inhuman and ascribed it emotions, thought processes, intent. We essentially create this whole world for something that's not even alive in many cases; the sea or a computer or an object. "this stupid wrench broke!" or "The sea washes over the land calmly" - these things arne't alive, they have no brain, no intent, no abilities. The wrench can't be stupid because the wrench isn't alive. The ocean can't be calm, because it has no emotions.

So, in conclusion ..no, i don't think we can ever create from within ourselves something totally alien; it's just against the hardware of our brains.

[Randallw]

Exactly. To write of something Alien you need to understand something that is Alien. But the very definition precludes understanding, thus it is impossible to think of what something "Alien" can or would do. I guess the closest we can come to "Aliens" is to remove everything we consider rational and, such as the Bahgs or Primes, focus on one emotional reaction to an "Alien" degree.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Well, I think human emotions are logical filler for every need - that there isn't a need that you could come up with that isn't covered by a human emotion and/or a human thought process, with the exception that a human brain at our current level of thought might not reach the complexity needed, but still cover the bases. Or in other words, you can't simulate 16,000,000 atoms, even as only geometric spheres on todays computers, but that's a failure of speed and possibly memory, not basic capabilities.

[dogscoff]

We already live with aliens: As well as being physically very different to us- animal have utterly alien thoughts comaprted to ours. Obviously you're talking about intelligent aliens and I'm talking about sub-sentient animals, but I think many animals are much smarter than we give them credit for and I do believe that some animals on this earth *are* clever enough actually to look at their lives and think abstractly. Whales & dolphins, almost certainly- chimps, too. Some dogs and cats as well, i think.

The point is that they have a completely different way of looking at life than we do.
We often try to fit animal behaviour into human patterns, and sometimes they are experiencing things that humans also experience(hunger, fear) but I think we could expect aliens to understand these basic emotions as well, simply because they make such good sense from an evolutionary point of view.

Anyway, on the whole- shared DNA heritage aside- I think animals are almost as different from us as we could expect any alien to be.

And there have been some excellent "utterly alien" writings on this forum! Some of the races in the "xenology" thread were really far from humanity in thought as well as form, (although my KanesS turned out very 'human', despite my best efforts.) and someone- Unknown enemy, i think- wrote a fantastic story just before that about the Cryslonite that opened up whole new understandings of consciousness for me.

[Unknown_Enemy]

Originally posted by dogscoff:
And there have been some excellent "utterly alien" writings on this forum! Some of the races in the "xenology" thread were really far from humanity in thought as well as form, (although my KanesS turned out very 'human', despite my best efforts.) and someone- Unknown enemy, i think- wrote a fantastic story just before that about the Cryslonite that opened up whole new understandings of consciousness for me.

Thanks, but the Cryslonite writings were not mine, but they gave the idea to start the Xenology game. Too bad it failed.
It was the now MIA civ2buf that created the crystalline religion.
http://www.shrapnelgames.com/cgi-bin...=008747#000000
Good read.