# Aliens & Evolution



## Captain Capitalism (Jun 25, 2018)

I'm thinking of writing a science fiction story, of course with aliens in it. But I am honestly kinda bored of seeing so many aliens who are just big ugly beasts, or humans with a different paint job, with no explanation as to why they are that way.

I'm sure most of you know that evolution works on a need-to-have basis and not a want-to-have, which is why humans don't just grow wings out of nowhere. I want to know what conditions might necessitate a species having a different skin color, different heights, beefier/weaker builds, black eyes/sclera, several eyes, different placement of sensory organs, higher or lower ability to see spectrums of colors, different amounts of limbs, and much much more. For the former, I always imagined it might be camouflage, but then I realized humans blend in with just about nothing, yet we haven't evolved to change that, and many animals don't seem to blend in at all.

With a few of those, though, I have explanations that I want to make sure would make sense. Would lower gravity on a planet mean that life on it would grow taller, and on planets with stronger gravity, would they be shorter with stronger supporting muscles? Would black eyes be a gradual result from complete lack of light? Would a species only see a few colors if their home planet was very mono-colored?


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## moderan (Jun 25, 2018)

> Would lower gravity on a planet mean that life on it would grow taller, and on planets with stronger gravity, would they be shorter with stronger supporting muscles? Would black eyes be a gradual result from complete lack of light? Would a species only see a few colors if their home planet was very mono-colored?



1) In most cases, yes. 2) No. Eyelessness would be the result. Before that, you'd develop eyes without pupils or irises, just sclera. 3) Depends on the visual spectra their eyes are able to process. 

Look for a couple of books. Medea: Harlan's World has a selection of scientist/writers developing a world and then populating it, with the end result of stories set there. Murasaki is the same, but the book only has the stories and not the development arcs.
This is a huge field of study. It takes years to learn, but I've found that many scientists are amenable to email inquiries.


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## MatthewSteele (Jun 25, 2018)

Hey Captain,

Interesting Inquiry you have! I am a Science Teacher by profession so I'll try to offer some insight that might help you. You can think of evolution by its other name 'Survival of the fittest'. With that being said, a species develops not necessarily by it needs, but by what helps it survive better. For example, when Darwin was studying species in the Galapagos islands, he looked at different species of Finch (A small bird) and how they varied from island to island. On one island they may have short beaks while on another island they had adapted/evolved to have longer beaks. The ones with the longer beaks had adapted this way because their food source mainly came from bugs like termites that resided inside trees. So having a longer beak helped them get their food source more easily. This would have happened slowly through the gene pool. At some point a Finch was born that had a longer beak than normal (This was due to a random mutation, which is why evolution is not necessarily based on need because not every need is adapted to.) That Finch would have survived in the environment better than the others because it was able to access its food source better. Since it survived better it also most likely reproduced and passed this trait of a longer beak to its offspring, who then also survived better and passed the train along. So on and forth until eventually longer beaks became the dominant trait.

So for a practical example, if you want your species of alien to have a specific trait and want to be able to explain why that happened, there has to be something in the environment that that trait helped them survive. EX: If there are many predators that attack from the sky, at some point a random mutation developed a pair of eyes in the top/back of the head allowing that creature to survive better and pass along the trait to its offspring.

If you're going the other way and have an environment already set up and want to know what type of creatures it would produce, just look at what traits would be necessary to survive. The best ones are: surviving predators and finding food/water. Also keep in mind that a species does not evolve/adapt to meet all threats of its environment, so just pick a few.

(Sorry that was so long. Hope it helps!)


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## Captain Capitalism (Jun 25, 2018)

MatthewSteele said:


> Hey Captain,
> 
> Interesting Inquiry you have! I am a Science Teacher by profession so I'll try to offer some insight that might help you. You can think of evolution by its other name 'Survival of the fittest'. With that being said, a species develops not necessarily by it needs, but by what helps it survive better. For example, when Darwin was studying species in the Galapagos islands, he looked at different species of Finch (A small bird) and how they varied from island to island. On one island they may have short beaks while on another island they had adapted/evolved to have longer beaks. The ones with the longer beaks had adapted this way because their food source mainly came from bugs like termites that resided inside trees. So having a longer beak helped them get their food source more easily. This would have happened slowly through the gene pool. At some point a Finch was born that had a longer beak than normal (This was due to a random mutation, which is why evolution is not necessarily based on need because not every need is adapted to.) That Finch would have survived in the environment better than the others because it was able to access its food source better. Since it survived better it also most likely reproduced and passed this trait of a longer beak to its offspring, who then also survived better and passed the train along. So on and forth until eventually longer beaks became the dominant trait.
> 
> ...



It's fine, don't worry about the length, I tend to be wordy a lot too. My main question after that would be what made humans develop such complex brains instead of stronger bodies. I know that our need to evolve to survive was somewhat stopped when we learned to develop tools and clothes and things like that. We still have a few changes (darker skin for areas where it's hotter and more intense because more melanin for the sun, for example)

Of course, this is a story and not an extraterrestrial biology textbook so I don't need to know their entire reason for why they are the way they are. But part of the reason I asked is because I want to know if an Earth-like planet would produce Earth-like life (at least in the general sense) and that a habitable planet with completely different conditions would produce things almost unrecognizable to us.

But yes, you did help, especially with that last bit. I've been mostly thinking about climate, and not the surrounding life and the predators/prey.


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## MatthewSteele (Jun 25, 2018)

Good question about the humans. Some where in out gene pool our brains developed further. With a higher capacity for reason and logic we were able to over come many of the threats to our survival via better problem solving abilities. (The tools you mentioned are a good example.) Because we were better able to problem solve we survived better and that trait got passed along and our brains continued to develop. Now granted there are still a lot of pieces missing from the theory of Evolution. Namely what they call the 'Missing Link' which is the evidence needed to show how we as humans went from apes to what we know as humans today. We've found no fossil records showing that leap so its a bit of a grey area.


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## Captain Capitalism (Jun 25, 2018)

Of course there are also those animals out there who are incredibly smart, like elephants, wolves, cats, dolphins, etc.

Why might those need their intelligence? I know dolphins have their own societies, and wolves are smaller predators so they might need the intelligence to take down larger prey or compete with bears and the like, but why would an elephant or a cat need to be so smart? Especially with the elephants, who already have the strength to deal with most predators.


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## Jack of all trades (Jun 25, 2018)

Skin tone in humans is related to sunlight and the need to make vitamin D. 

Size often depends on the surroundings. For example, blue whales live out in the great expanse of the deep sea, and an ancient society of small humans was unearthed on an island.

I think you're wrong about camouflage. Which animals have no camouflage? Have you looked at them in their natural environment?

Monochrome planets and seeing colors. Hmmm. There wouldn't be much need for color vision. But is a monochrome world likely? I don't think so. The peacock is a good example. The female and chicks blend in, but the male is strikingly different. It's his job to lure the predator away from his family. So he MUST stand out. I would imagine that would be true on any world, where there are some who WANT to be noticed for one reason or another. Flowers attract with color, including color outside of the visible spectrum, as well as aroma. (Although a monochrome world is very scifi.)

Do a little research. Go to a zoo and ask questions about the animals and why they are the way they are, if book learning is tedious for you.

I think it's great that you are taking a very scientific approach!! Keep going with it!



When you ask about complete lack of light, are you saying there was once light and now there's not? If yes, the eyes would go away over the generations. There's cave fish that still have eye indentations, but no real eyes.

If you mean there was never any light, how did they evolve in the first place? There's deep sea fish and other creatures that never see the light. But some have phosphorescence or some other trait. So it's still not a complete lack of light. You might want to study either cave fish or deep sea creature, depending on what type of environment you're contemplating. 


One last thought : You can put more emphasis on alien behavior than appearance. Something to think about.


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## Jack of all trades (Jun 25, 2018)

Captain Capitalism said:


> Of course there are also those animals out there who are incredibly smart, like elephants, wolves, cats, dolphins, etc.
> 
> Why might those need their intelligence? I know dolphins have their own societies, and wolves are smaller predators so they might need the intelligence to take down larger prey or compete with bears and the like, but why would an elephant or a cat need to be so smart? Especially with the elephants, who already have the strength to deal with most predators.



Elephants, because of their size, need much in the way of food and water. They live in a semiarid area, and travel from water hole to water hole across great distances. Led by a matriarch, they know which places will likely have water in even the driest year. I read about one family of elephants that went to one spot during a drought that the matriarch had only been to once in her life. So great memory and superb navigation skills are crucial to their survival.

Dolphins also hunt in groups.

There was huge documentary several years ago that may also help you. Blue Planet, I think it was called, or maybe Blue Earth. Something like that.


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## Jack of all trades (Jun 25, 2018)

Captain Capitalism said:


> It's fine, don't worry about the length, I tend to be wordy a lot too. My main question after that would be what made humans develop such complex brains instead of stronger bodies. I know that our need to evolve to survive was somewhat stopped when we learned to develop tools and clothes and things like that. We still have a few changes (darker skin for areas where it's hotter and more intense because more melanin for the sun, for example)
> 
> Of course, this is a story and not an extraterrestrial biology textbook so I don't need to know their entire reason for why they are the way they are. But part of the reason I asked is because I want to know if an Earth-like planet would produce Earth-like life (at least in the general sense) and that a habitable planet with completely different conditions would produce things almost unrecognizable to us.
> 
> But yes, you did help, especially with that last bit. I've been mostly thinking about climate, and not the surrounding life and the predators/prey.




It's my understanding that our ancestors went from eating insects to eating meat, to supplement their vegan foods. That gave us extra b-12, some theorize, which enabled further brain development. Some think the move to hunt something larger necessitated brain development.

Off topic, but I just read recently that it's now thought that we got the idea to forge bronze from an asteroid that struck, melting metals in itself and/or the ground, and creating bronze.


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## Captain Capitalism (Jun 25, 2018)

Jack of all trades said:


> Skin tone in humans is related to sunlight and the need to make vitamin D.
> 
> Size often depends on the surroundings. For example, blue whales live out in the great expanse of the deep sea, and an ancient society of small humans was unearthed on an island.
> 
> ...



Culture and behaviors is something I actually know a lot about, and I know how things develop as well. I've already conceptualized several of them actually-- but how environment might affect their appearance and biology as well is something that I want to factor in before I finalize it, if that makes sense. 

Another question I have also pertains to skin color but I'm not sure you'd be able to answer. Does different colors of light affect that? Like, if a planet orbits a red star or a blue star, would things in general be different than what would happen around a yellow or orange star like our own?


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## Paul Atreides (Jun 25, 2018)

I am a firm believer of aliens, and for many years i have read and bought books about aliens and evidence of aliens either on earth or on the other planets. I know that people may not believe, We don't know for certain that aliens are out there but i am a firm believer that there are aliens out there. However i am also okay with hearing about the concern and the other argument that aliens do not exist.


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## Captain Capitalism (Jun 25, 2018)

This isn't a thread about whether aliens exist or not Paul  I believe they do too, but I'm just trying to figure out how they might evolve or how different they might be from the traditional life on earth while also still following the general "rules" of life and while also not being too stereotypical, like a different-colored human or big green gross brute.


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## Paul Atreides (Jun 25, 2018)

Captain Capitalism said:


> This isn't a thread about whether aliens exist or not Paul  I believe they do too, but I'm just trying to figure out how they might evolve or how different they might be from the traditional life on earth while also still following the general "rules" of life and while also not being too stereotypical, like a different-colored human or big green gross brute.



My apologizes i thought that was what the forum was about, Well my brother does not believe humanoid aliens exist,  I think so because i think that they could be evolved form ape like creatures or perhaps they have always had humanoid like build.


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## Underd0g (Jun 26, 2018)

Paul Atreides said:


> My apologizes i thought that was what the forum was about, Well my brother does not believe humanoid aliens exist,  I think so because i think that they could be evolved form ape like creatures or perhaps they have always had humanoid like build.



Well, I think that whatever is out there is so vast that anything that is possible to happen is happening every moment... I am so stoned.


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## Thaumiel (Jun 26, 2018)

Captain Capitalism said:


> Culture and behaviors is something I actually know a lot about, and I know how things develop as well. I've already conceptualized several of them actually-- but how environment might affect their appearance and biology as well is something that I want to factor in before I finalize it, if that makes sense.
> 
> Another question I have also pertains to skin color but I'm not sure you'd be able to answer. Does different colors of light affect that? Like, if a planet orbits a red star or a blue star, would things in general be different than what would happen around a yellow or orange star like our own?




The bluer a star is the shorter the peak wavelength of emission is. Basically that just means the radiation is more energetic, so a blue star will have a higher amount of UV emission than a red star. The amount of it that actually reaches the planet surface would depend on the atmosphere of the planet. The magnetic field of the planet would also play a role, for example on Earth the magnetic field blocks a certain amount of energetic charged particles from hitting the atmosphere and destroying the ozone layer. If it were weaker, the ozone layer would be thinner and we'd get more UV.

All in all, I imagine a planet receiving less UV (red star) wouldn't necessarily need darker skin tones, while planets receiving more (blue star) would probably favour them. I'm just speculating though, physicist, not a biologist.


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## MatthewSteele (Jun 26, 2018)

Captain Capitalism said:


> Culture and behaviors is something I actually know a lot about, and I know how things develop as well. I've already conceptualized several of them actually-- but how environment might affect their appearance and biology as well is something that I want to factor in before I finalize it, if that makes sense.
> 
> Another question I have also pertains to skin color but I'm not sure you'd be able to answer. Does different colors of light affect that? Like, if a planet orbits a red star or a blue star, would things in general be different than what would happen around a yellow or orange star like our own?



The color of a star would not affect skin color. Color is in the visible light spectrum, a very small area on the Electro Magnetic Spectrum. The color of skin helps with absorbing and protecting from different forms of energies that have little to do with the visible light spectrum. (Now not to say different colored light has no affect, there are some interesting studies that show different colors of light cause varying changes in plants.) But mostly organic life is concerned with other energies from the sun like Ultra-Violet radiation.

The color of the star does however indicate also what temperature it is. For example if you had a planet that orbits a white star, those are significantly hotter than our yellow one, so there would be a difference in temperature depending on where the planet is in the solar system.


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## MatthewSteele (Jun 26, 2018)

James 剣 斧 血 said:


> The bluer a star is the shorter the peak wavelength of emission is. Basically that just means the radiation is more energetic, so a blue star will have a higher amount of UV emission than a red star. The amount of it that actually reaches the planet surface would depend on the atmosphere of the planet. The magnetic field of the planet would also play a role, for example on Earth the magnetic field blocks a certain amount of energetic charged particles from hitting the atmosphere and destroying the ozone layer. If it were weaker, the ozone layer would be thinner and we'd get more UV.
> 
> All in all, I imagine a planet receiving less UV (red star) wouldn't necessarily need darker skin tones, while planets receiving more (blue star) would probably favour them. I'm just speculating though, physicist, not a biologist.



Oops, didn't see this reply. It's much better than mine haha.


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## Ralph Rotten (Jun 26, 2018)

Not to rain on your parade, but a star could indeed influence the skin tones.  There are more types of suns than just stars that emit blue light.  There are big stars, little stars, red stars, pulsars, neutron stars, red stars, and prolly a few types we haven't cataloged yet.

Give you an example: A neutron star puts out a lot of radiation, but not much light. A species could evolve to have dark patches of graphite or other radiation shielding properties, and those molecules could appear to be any number of colors depending on their genetic recipe.  (of course you have to figure out how they came to be that close to a neutron star without being incinerated by the red dwarf that preceded it....)

The point I'm trying to make is that the possibilities are endless.  Every species is born in a different soup, and that will make us radically different in ways even sci-fi writers cannot imagine.  Write your story the way you wanna write your story, and don't let naysayers dissuade you from writing something revolutionary.  Safe sci-fi is boring sci-fi.  Push the envelope.



We are going to find life in some of the craziest places. Personally I always thought Saturn would be a possibility.  Saturn is a low density gas giant, so inside it's really just a smoky ball of stratified liquid with a metallic hydrogen core (and some rocks). Essentially it's an ocean under all those clouds.


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## Jack of all trades (Jun 26, 2018)

This might provide some info on stars.

My understanding abour blue stars is that they are hotter. Not sure about the rest of what has been said.

If you really want sound science, seek out good sources of info.


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## Thaumiel (Jun 27, 2018)

Ralph Rotten said:


> Not to rain on your parade, but a star could indeed influence the skin tones. There are more types of suns than just stars that emit blue light. There are big stars, little stars, red stars, pulsars, neutron stars, red stars, and prolly a few types we haven't cataloged yet.
> 
> Give you an example: A neutron star puts out a lot of radiation, but not much light. A species could evolve to have dark patches of graphite or other radiation shielding properties, and those molecules could appear to be any number of colors depending on their genetic recipe. (of course you have to figure out how they came to be that close to a neutron star without being incinerated by the red *dwarf* that preceded it....)
> 
> ...




Red giant? Red dwarfs only really come between 0.35 ~ 0.8 solar masses and it's expected you need a star with an initial mass of ~8 solar masses to form a neutron star.

On the note of habitability though, red dwarfs are probably just as interesting. Especially since their expected lifetime is far longer than the current age of the universe, meaning a species that could survive there would have a lot of time to evolve and develop. If you're going for a far future story then they could be quite advanced.

There are a lot of arguments/counter-arguments for it: habitable zone so close to the star that the planet would be tidally locked meaning extreme heat and constant day on one side of the planet and extreme cold and constant night on the other, a sufficiently thick atmosphere could distribute heat well enough, flares from the star during in energetic periods could thin/strip the atmosphere and so on. 

I side with Ralph that you should push the boat out, and Jack of all trades that you should find some good sources to read up on some different environments and their potential habitability. 

If you want to make a more interesting alien, look for a scenario that you find interesting.


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## Ralph Rotten (Jun 28, 2018)

Safe sci-fi is boring sci-fi.
Swing for the bleachers.

We I need something to read, I love to google "science news" and see what is new in the world of science.


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## moderan (Jun 28, 2018)

Ralph Rotten said:


> Safe sci-fi is boring sci-fi.
> Swing for the bleachers.
> 
> We I need something to read, I love to google "science news" and see what is new in the world of science.


I do this daily as it's part of my baseball column. I would do it anyway, which is why it's part of my baseball column. What does science have to do with baseball?
That's where the creativity comes in.


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## Ralph Rotten (Jun 28, 2018)

Googling science news is a lot more fun than googling regular news. It's like an idiot-factory out there.


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## Captain Capitalism (Jun 30, 2018)

Ralph Rotten said:


> Safe sci-fi is boring sci-fi.
> Swing for the bleachers.
> 
> We I need something to read, I love to google "science news" and see what is new in the world of science.




I love that quote tbh

I'd love to tell you about tone and premise of the story (as I put it to my friend-- Space Dandy, Just Cause, No Man's Sky, and 2001 all have a beautiful 4-way baby) that I've never really seen in anything, let alone a sci-fi story. But this isn't a thread about that 

Of course there's a heavy focus on the informational side of things in the story, as the main character flies a ship called "the Library" which hosts a vast amount of information both human and alien on it, along with locally hosting several major human websites as archives and things like that, which is why I'm looking to see how aliens might evolve in the first place


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## Ralph Rotten (Jun 30, 2018)

So the aliens have the legendary Library of Alexandria?  That'd be cool.

If you want to paint a realistic galaxy of aliens, then look beyond bipedal air breathers and look at places that humans find truly hostile.  I have always thought that there would be a lot of symbiosis with alien races. There are places that are rich in resources, but practically impossible (or dangerous) for humans to go...but easy for other species accustomed to those environments.  Conversely, our little blue planet will be like hell to many alien species.  I liked that touch in Alien Nation where the aliens were deathly afraid of the ocean because it was acid to them, but sour milk was like Scotch to them.

Language will be a huuuuge barrier. That's one area where most sci-fi is BS.  Being able to understand R2D2 may make for fun storytelling, but it's fantasy.  Humans don't even communicate well with each other, how do we expect to talk to species that do not use verbal communication because they come from an airless world? 
 To some species we will be like barking dogs.


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## Underd0g (Jun 30, 2018)

Cartoon I made a while back. You'll have to click on it to be able to read it probably.


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## MatthewSteele (Jun 30, 2018)

Ralph Rotten said:


> Language will be a huuuuge barrier. That's one area where most sci-fi is BS.  Being able to understand R2D2 may make for fun storytelling, but it's fantasy.  Humans don't even communicate well with each other, how do we expect to talk to species that do not use verbal communication because they come from an airless world?
> To some species we will be like barking dogs.




There was actually a movie made not long ago about this. It's called 'Arrival' and it's about the challenge of linguistically figuring out the language of a completely alien race that has arrived on Earth. It was fairly good, though they threw some weird curve balls in there.


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## Jack of all trades (Jun 30, 2018)

Ralph Rotten said:


> So the aliens have the legendary Library of Alexandria?  That'd be cool.
> 
> If you want to paint a realistic galaxy of aliens, then look beyond bipedal air breathers and look at places that humans find truly hostile.  I have always thought that there would be a lot of symbiosis with alien races. There are places that are rich in resources, but practically impossible (or dangerous) for humans to go...but easy for other species accustomed to those environments.  Conversely, our little blue planet will be like hell to many alien species.  I liked that touch in Alien Nation where the aliens were deathly afraid of the ocean because it was acid to them, but sour milk was like Scotch to them.
> 
> ...



I think your science is rather shaky.

R2D2 was programmed, so the language was made and could be taught by those who made him. It's terribly inefficient to give him such an unusual way of communicating, but there's no reason to believe no one would understand him.

As we learn more about the languages of our fellow Earthlings, like dolphins, whales, bees, birds, and the rest, we should be gaining valuable lessons that can be applied to learning other alien languages.


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## Winston (Jun 30, 2018)

Any "aliens" we ever come in contact with will be majority, or completely cybernetic.
Space is not friendly to any biological life.  Perhaps something crystalline?  Fixating on the biological attributes of a potential extraterrestrial species is a dead-end path.  
Unless you just wanna go with the stereotype "bug eyed alien".  HR Geiger's work in _Alien_ was fantastic, if not realistic.   My favorite though was the Pachyderms in _Footfall _.

Regardless, if this is a truly "hard" sci-fi story, a non-biological alien would be much more realistic.


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## Captain Capitalism (Jul 1, 2018)

Ralph Rotten said:


> So the aliens have the legendary Library of Alexandria?  That'd be cool.
> 
> If you want to paint a realistic galaxy of aliens, then look beyond bipedal air breathers and look at places that humans find truly hostile.  I have always thought that there would be a lot of symbiosis with alien races. There are places that are rich in resources, but practically impossible (or dangerous) for humans to go...but easy for other species accustomed to those environments.  Conversely, our little blue planet will be like hell to many alien species.  I liked that touch in Alien Nation where the aliens were deathly afraid of the ocean because it was acid to them, but sour milk was like Scotch to them.
> 
> ...



Oh, don't you worry about the diversity of the aliens. To put it in perspective, one of my major characters is an alien whose initial concept was a parody of the human-with-different-paint cliché, and looking like her or a human is incredibly unusual and usually gives a near-celebrity status when in the public (the aforementioned character is used as a sort of mascot, or a tourist attraction almost)

As for language, I've been really working on it. The general concept is that the home planets of each race are a major cultural hub, but since most intergalactic communication was English or Chinese-standardized in its earliest inceptions, and those sort of stuck, with many aliens speaking at least some degree of one or both, if they've left their home planet

I've been studying how Europeans first interacted with Chinese and Japanese people, as those are languages developed entirely independent of one another, to see how an alien race might interact with humans 

I've put a lot of thought into subverting typical clichés and tropes like that. I've also tried to not make it a story where the main draw is the fact that it subverts expectations, of course...


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## scarab (Jul 1, 2018)

Captain Capitalism said:


> I'm thinking of writing a science fiction story, of course with aliens in it. But I am honestly kinda bored of seeing so many aliens who are just big ugly beasts, or humans with a different paint job, with no explanation as to why they are that way.



I guess my question would be, to what extent is it an important part of the story? Yes it could make for a more interesting and plausible backdrop, but is that all? 

I mean, I am sure an evolutionary exobiologist could imagine or interpret evolutionary possibilities in other worlds, but what how would a writer turn that into a compelling story? 

For example, how would a difference (or absence) of skin colour (or whatever the creatures have instead of skin) make for a different society? What if there were more than two sexes, what family dramas would result then? Or if people reproduced asexually, you could shed some stem cells and grow a new you from your bathwater? etc.


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## bulmabriefs144 (Jul 6, 2018)

You'd probably want to start by considering their home planet. Go research a couple weird planets.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KZ1kvIUFrU

You want to essentially think of evolution based on ways that it adapts to life on the planet. You want to tailor aliens to that planet, from their starting form to fully evolved. When you do this, you immediately have a unique alien race.

Determine whether they are even carbon-based. If not, what do they breathe. If they breathe air, they will need something that is also in our air (like nitrogen). Otherwise, expect them to be wearing scuba gear to some extent. Achilles heel would be to strip their masks.

Do they have an endoskeleton or exoskeleton? Do they have a skeleton at all? You can also set aliens as energy lifeforms that leave bodies only as holograms.


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