Building aliens – Introduction

Is there anything more “sci-fi” than an alien? Sure, some of the best science fiction stories are wholly concerned with humanity, but the most popular tend to be the ones with aliens. Star Trek, Star Wars, and any other franchise beginning with the word “star” are the best illustrations of that point, but it’s easy to see anywhere you look. Aliens are all over the place, in movies, TV, video games, books, and every other creative media you can think of.

But there are aliens and there are aliens. In earlier days of TV and movies, for example, most aliens were typically just actors in makeup, which severely limited their appearance to the humanoid. Modern video games have returned to this state, mainly because of the cost of 3D modeling. (In other words, if everything is close enough to human, then they can all use the same base model.) Books were never under this sort of pressure, so authors’ imaginations could run wild. Think of Larry Niven’s two-headed, three-legged Puppeteers, for instance.

Looks, however, aren’t everything. In visual media, they’re a lot, but for the written word, it’s more about how an alien thinks, acts, sees the world. It’s how aliens are characterized. In harder sci-fi, it’s even about how they exist in the first place.

This series of posts, if I may be so ambitious, will cover all of that. I’ll probably only write about one of these a month, each covering a small part of the topic. As has become my usual pattern, we’ll start with the broader strokes, then fill in the details later on. Along the way, I’ll try to keep a balance between the hard worldbuilding bits and the space-opera fun. Because aliens are both.

First, though, let’s cover the basics.

What we know

This is an easy one: nothing. At this point in time—unless something has happened in the three weeks since I wrote this post—we don’t know if aliens exist. (Ignore fringe theories for the moment.) We really don’t even know if they can exist. All we have are theories, hypotheses, and speculation. In other words, a perfect breeding ground for the imagination.

Of course, we’ve worked out the basics of how astrobiology (life outside of Earth) would work. We can confidently say that a few old theories are wrong, like the fabled canals on Mars or jungles of Venus. But what we don’t know is a vast field. Are we alone? The premise of this whole series is that we are not, but we can’t yet be sure. Are we the first intelligent life in the universe…or the last? Did life arise on Earth, or did it spread here from elsewhere?

Today, in 2016, we simply cannot answer any of those questions in a rigorously scientific manner. Thus, it falls to us creative writers to fill in the blanks. How you do that will depend on the expectations of your genre and medium, but also how deep you wish to delve.

Forks in the road

We have a few different ways to play this. Some will work better than others, obviously, and some will resonate better with different segments of your audience. So this is our first big “branching point”, the first decision you’ll have to make.

The hard way

Here, “hard” doesn’t mean “difficult”. Well, it kinda does, but not in the way you think. No, this is a reference to hard science fiction, where the object is the most realistic and plausible scenario, based on as few “miracles” of technology, biology, and the like as possible. Yes, that does make the creation of aliens more difficult, because you have to think more about them, but the results can be amazing.

Hard SF aliens are best suited to written works, if for no other reason than they’re the least likely to be humanoid in body or mind. (We’ll see why in a later post.) Those visual media that have tried to build aliens in this harder style tend to make them incomprehensible to mere humans, or they focus on the ramifications of their existence more than their appearance. But hard sci-fi is often seen as too boring and too “smart” for movie and TV audiences, so there aren’t very many good examples.

The easy way

Now, this time I’m talking about difficulty. In total contrast to the harder style above, many works opt to make their aliens to fit the needs of the story, with varying degrees of care for their actual plausibility. In a few cases, they can be made to illustrate a concept or explore a particular section of human psychology. (Older Star Trek series often did both of those.) This might be termed the space-opera method of alien creation.

Obviously, this is more palatable for visual and interactive media, because space-opera aliens tend to fall into the category of Humans But. In other words, this type of alien race can be described as, “They’re humans, but…” Maybe they’re all women, or they have catlike features, or they’re overly aggressive. They could have multiple differences, but they’re still largely human at heart. What makes them special is how they are different from humanity.

Examples of this style aren’t hard to find at all. They probably make up the majority of aliens in fiction. Why? Because they’re easy. Easy to create, easy to visualize, easy to characterize.

The PPC way

For our series, we’ll take a hybrid approach, if only because we have so much ground to cover. I’ll spare you the highly technical intricacies of biology and biochemistry, but we’ll certainly be going deeper into those fields than the shoulder-pads-and-forehead-ridges crowd. The idea is to keep suspension of disbelief while still allowing for a good story. (Honestly, the hard sci-fi approach only really makes for one good story: discovery.)

Likewise, I’ll assume you’re the best one to know what sort of character you need, so we won’t really cover that too much. We’ll probably touch on the psychological aspects, but those are most definitely not my specialty. And we’ll try to make something more interesting than humans in makeup.

Where we go from here

As I said, this series will probably be something close to monthly, but I already have the first few posts planned out. Again, these mostly cover things from a higher level. The finer details will be in the nebulous future.

Here’s what I have so far:

  1. This introduction
  2. Biochemistry, DNA, and alternative forms of life
  3. Evolution and genetics
  4. Interaction with the environment
  5. Physiology
  6. Intelligence, sentience, and sapience

These won’t be the only posts, and they likely won’t even be consecutive. If I come up with something that I think needs to be said, I’ll say it, no matter what the schedule reads. But these six are a good start, and they outline the main areas I feel should be covered.

Remember, we’re making “softer” aliens out of “harder” stuff. That’s why you don’t see a post dedicated to characterization, or one specifically focusing on appearance or mating rituals. Those can come later. (If you’re worried at the lack of language as a topic, also remember that a third of the site is dedicated to exactly that. I will be writing “alien languages” posts, but those will show up on Fridays.)

So that’s it for the intro. Come back soon for the real start to the series. I’ll see you then.

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