Aliens that are less or more than human... which do you prefer?

[jjabrams55]

I took an opportunity to 'talk' with a scifi writer who has published scifi books, and through her I learned a more efficient way of creating alien races that STILL seem alien. The author told me to base aliens off their needs. Then it occurred to to think about what human needs are, since the aliens will at least partially be based on what I know (all fiction is based on reality after all to some degree).

What follows are a basic set of needs that humans around Earth have been shown to have:

1. Physical needs: Food, shelter, clothing, sex to procreate, and rest.

2. Emotional needs: Socializing and play.

3. Justice needs: A need for justice to themselves and others. Compassion toward self/others is directly linked with justice.

4. Intellectual needs: Pondering the future, thinking beyond 'concrete I can see this right now' like animals do. Developing work skills/technology and the arts (music etc).

5. Divine needs: A need for a higher power to fix what humans can't fix. Some put all their trust in science as their god, while others believe in a higher being/beings. Still others treat other humans as gods, idol worship if you will, like celebrities/famous people for example.

6. Moderation needs: A need for balancing all previous needs, so that none go to extremes at the expense of other needs.




After all that, I at first thought to make alien races seem alien by subtracting from human needs. The result was aliens who were either more boring or less moral than humans. Not very appealing. The few human needs I always had to include for aliens were the physical and the intellectual needs, since they needed to eat and also needed to have the intellectual capacity to learn how to build starships in the first place. Thus I did a 180 and decided to make aliens more than human. In other words, the aliens will have ALL of the human needs I just mentioned, but with extra abilities that will have an effect on their behavior. Basically... a human personality who also has special powers.

What alien powers will change the behavior of aliens who act human otherwise?

Alien race idea 1: Empath ability: The ability to sense the emotions on a small level of others around you, just enough to recognize what the emotion is. The emotions you are able to detect are joy, sadness, anger, disgust, and fear. At a ten foot radius. No matter the species/race. The resulting effect is a race that is VERY sympathetic of others. At the same time, the said alien race has wings and can fly, and often do so as to get privacy from all those emotions of others which they can't turn off from detecting/slightly feeling. Only get away from it. This ability also makes lying difficult, and drugs that alter emotions are VERY popular.

Alien race idea 2: You know how scifi skirts the fact that everyone uses a plot device to speak to aliens who don't speak english? What if there were an alien race who were exactly that? They telepathically connect with other races and can speak/understand any language. The result would be that they would be VERY powerful among alien races, and would be used as messengers and would have to deal with a lot of multiculturalism and diverse alien political correctness on the regular.

Alien race idea three 3: Basically a half humanoid/dolphin hybrid. They also have some magnetic abilities, enough to let them glide/hover over the ground on their planet, which is full of iron rust and is orange/red like mars. Plants grow there as well. They would be able to swim underwater and glide/hover over land whenever they wanted. BTW I choose dolphins because like humans they are mammals. Choosing a fish hybrid would not work because fish are not mammals, nor or they warm blooded. Nor do fish have breasts to feed their children milk, but humans do. And dolphins may not have anything that looks like breasts, but they do feed their children milk just like all mammals do. Mammary means you have breasts to feed milk to babies.

There is not much that changes their behavior from normal human behavior, but their architecture would be sleek and curvy, since they would have no need of stairs, just smooth ferromagnetic metal surfaces to glide/hover across.



BTW if you can actually make an alien race using my suggestions then by all means post it, I encourage it and would be delighted to see it! If you try to limit human needs or even alter them with your alien race, what you get will either be boring, or less caring than humans already are. If you try to add extra abilities onto human needs, you won't have that problem. I have done both... believe me I know. So what are your thoughts? Do you think that an alien race that is has less than human needs is still interesting enough? Or do you think that an alien race that has human needs PLUS special abilities is more interesting?

I think that taking away the very needs that make humans compelling/appealing/attractive also makes them less interesting to the reader or even the author. That is why I propose adding some special ability. I even thought about adding extra psychological needs, but I couldn't add any without pigeon holing the entire race into a narrow mindset like say... the klingons.

 

[Ihe]

I wouldn't mind an alien race without a few human characteristics (sidenote: I don't think justice is a human need, as it is an advanced social construct. Needs tend to be simple and near the bottom of the "priorities hierarchy", not the top).

What makes an alien "alien" are the differences, not the similarities. If the alien is more amoral than a human, well, that poses a whole bunch of interesting philosophical ponderings and social dynamics. What if they didn't need shelter because they are indestructible? The way they approached science and built their cities would be vastly different to us. If they didn't need to eat, then you, as the writer, would have to come up with an incredible reason as to how these beings evolved (if there is no predator-prey/resource conflict mechanic in their biosphere, how did they?). What drives them? What counts as a basic need for them? There are many things you could make awesome. It would push your creativity and something wildly interesting and unique would emerge. You might be under the impression that humans are "interesting" . This is a bad starting thought if you want to write interesting aliens. But yeah, the basic mechanic to build alien civilisations is that: grab one or two biological main needs (if your alien is bio, that is), turn them on their head, and branch out into a cause-effect dendritic schematic that can start with something as basic as what they eat, and can end with something as complex as a new moral philosophy and overall outlook on life and the universe that wildly differs from our own. All because of a tiny tweak to an instinct/basic need.

 

[jjabrams55]

I wouldn't mind an alien race without a few human characteristics (sidenote: I don't think justice is a human need, as it is an advanced social construct. Needs tend to be simple and near the bottom of the "priorities hierarchy", not the top).

What makes an alien "alien" are the differences, not the similarities. If the alien is more amoral than a human, well, that poses a whole bunch of interesting philosophical ponderings and social dynamics. What if they didn't need shelter because they are indestructible? The way they approached science and built their cities would be vastly different to us. If they didn't need to eat, then you, as the writer, would have to come up with an incredible reason as to how these beings evolved (if there is no predator-prey/resource conflict mechanic in their biosphere, how did they?). What drives them? What counts as a basic need for them? There are many things you could make awesome. It would push your creativity and something wildly interesting and unique would emerge. You might be under the impression that humans are "interesting" . This is a bad starting thought if you want to write interesting aliens. But yeah, the basic mechanic to build alien civilisations is that: grab one or two biological main needs (if your alien is bio, that is), turn them on their head, and branch out into a cause-effect dendritic schematic that can start with something as basic as what they eat, and can end with something as complex as a new moral philosophy and overall outlook on life and the universe that wildly differs from our own. All because of a tiny tweak to an instinct/basic need.

I would argue that justice is a human need because humans get upset when you treat them unfairly. For that matter, humans get upset when people are cruel to others they don't even know. Without any form of justice for self or others, a creature would not survive long. Every other being could walk all over them and they wouldn't even care.

Once I skimmed the need to only carrying about justice for one's self. The result was unappealing to me, since only the worst humans act that way. Why would I want to make an ENTIRE race of beings who are incapable of being non-selfish unless there is a reward in return?

 

[VinceK]

The environment probably plays into the mix as well. A hostile environment with aggressive predators will probably create aliens that have a disposition to ask questions later. There is also the physical development of aliens within an environment, the air they breath, gravity, atmospheric pressure, diet, distant from a sun etc. It is also very probable that differences exist within an alien race, exhibited through culture, economics and education. If I was creating an alien race, I think I would begin with the environment and expand from there.

 

[Ursa major]

I would argue that justice is a human need because humans get upset when you treat them unfairly.

"It's so unfair!" is not necessarily a cry for justice.

 

[Ihe]

Once I skimmed the need to only carrying about justice for one's self

Sadly that's most people, deep inside.

I would argue that justice is a human need because humans get upset when you treat them unfairly. For that matter, humans get upset when people are cruel to others they don't even know.

Horrible things happen to innocent people everyday, everywhere, sometimes by the millions. War, poverty, sickness, slavery, crime, etc. I don't see the world stopping for their sake. I do see people everyday buying designer items that were built/sewn in factories that take advantage of children and the poor (happily validating the system), in conditions that resemble slavery to varying degrees. People don't care, overall. For one that cares, there are 50 that don't.

Without any form of justice for self or others, a creature would not survive long.

Check out Rousseau's "Social Contract". We form society to protect ourselves at the expense of individual liberties and rights. And that is the word: rights. Justice is a right, not a need. To believe in a religion is a right, not a need, also.
People can function flawlessly at the biological and mental level without justice and without religion. So that rules them out as "needs". Moderation is also not a need. In fact, I don't think it's ever been truly achieved in all our history as a species , and yet here we are. It'd be nice, but definitely not a need IMO. In fact, moderation would've doomed our species by snuffing whatever chance we had at survival. Boundless greed, selfishness, violence, overall crazyness... those are the things that have let us move forward to where we are now. Moderation always stagnates species and societies.

 

[jjabrams55]

"It's so unfair!" is not necessarily a cry for justice.

"It's so unfair!"

And what about when it actually is? There is no denying that.

The environment probably plays into the mix as well. A hostile environment with aggressive predators will probably create aliens that have a disposition to ask questions later. There is also the physical development of aliens within an environment, the air they breath, gravity, atmospheric pressure, diet, distant from a sun etc. It is also very probable that differences exist within an alien race, exhibited through culture, economics and education. If I was creating an alien race, I think I would begin with the environment and expand from there.

What you are suggesting is something I already have factored in. The environment is not something that TOTALLY makes a person, although it does have a bearing. If that were the case, criminals should rightly get off free when they commit crimes, blaming their environment alone. What makes a person is how they REACT to their environment. Free will! Something animals have less of since they rely more on encoded instinct.

The difference between us is that you seem to be treating humans like animals, while I treat them as the higher beings they are that do/refrain from doing things for reasons that can and DO go beyond eating, having sex, and retaining possessions.

At their worst humans ACT like animals. At their best... they act better than animals. Showing a range of compassion and justice that animals don't have.


So we are at an impasse. I can't convince you, but neither can you convince me. G'day.

 

[Zebra Wizard]

Alot of these human traits you mention feel more to do with culture than anything (e.g. justice)

To really look into what makes a human, I think you have to compare them to all the other animals on this planet.

Humans have a severe lack of empathy compared to animals (and aliens), we squash bugs and destroy plants just because they look "ugly".

Hatred is also a human only thing. though im not 100% sure, I don't believe animals attack each other out of hate.

Also we our needs are tied more to stimulus to the brain. We'd happily sit and watch lots of TV, read books and be fine with it as an alternate to social interaction.

Selfishness is a tough one, because it tied close to self preservation. But greed could be a human only thing.

Compassion is another one, and well you get the picture.

I'm not sure if its just a culture thing but killing seems to "stimulate" people, since nearly all the popular computer games out there revolves around killing something or another.

 

[jjabrams55]

Justice is a right, not a need.

The crying baby you meet will cry otherwise. Try treating them unfairly on a regular basis while treating another baby better and see how they react. You have a conscience do you not? What happens when you do something you know is wrong? You feel bad, right? Unless you do it enough not to care. What happens when you watch a movie and the bad guy is winning? You want him to lose, right (barring movies where the villain is WAYY more interesting than the hero)? I know that we have a need for justice, but like any other need, it can be IGNORED. That is why I said moderation of needs was necessary. We as a species have never done it perfectly.

You can't convince me anymore than a man who looks up in the sky and says the sun doesn't exist. I can see these realities with my own two eyes.

As regards mankind's advancements, I would argue that we would advance even better WITHOUT the extremes that have killed so many. Imagine all the bright minds that have been blown up LITERALLY in war. I'll bet some of them could have been like Einstein if not better. Humans are worth more than the things they make. Without them we wouldn't even have the things they make.

 

[jjabrams55]

Alot of these human traits you mention feel more to do with culture than anything (e.g. justice)

To really look into what makes a human, I think you have to compare them to all the other animals on this planet.

Humans have a severe lack of empathy compared to animals (and aliens), we squash bugs and destroy plants just because they look "ugly".

Hatred is also a human only thing. though im not 100% sure, I don't believe animals attack each other out of hate.

Also we our needs are tied more to stimulus to the brain. We'd happily sit and watch lots of TV, read books and be fine with it as an alternate to social interaction.

Selfishness is a tough one, because it tied close to self preservation. But greed could be a human only thing.

Compassion is another one, and well you get the picture.

I'm not sure if its just a culture thing but killing seems to "stimulate" people, since nearly all the popular computer games out there revolves around killing something or another.

Animals are known for having even LESS empathy than humans. For every lone animal that cares for another animal of another species, there are GROUPS of humans who do the same for GROUPS of animals. And you should well know how many animals cats/dogs kill that they don't EVEN eat.

Animals don't organize groups around caring for other species. Humans do. Humans are unique in that they can act better or worse than animals, it's just a choice they choose to make.

As for culture... culture is based on human needs. That is why humans all over earth have things in common with their cultures. All the needs I mentioned in the OP are things that EVERY nation on Earth has.

 

[Zebra Wizard]

Maybe the word empathy was the wrong one to use then. But you get the idea. A human can and will kill something just because of selfish or hateful reasons.

But that also leads me to think empathy is more of a logical process than a human trait, since there are many and likely more people who are not empathetic towards anything but themselves, and you also got those people who are conditioned to be empathetic due to society, culture and laws. But it is hard to distinquish whether they are inately empathetic or not (nurture vs nature argument)

 

[jjabrams55]

Maybe the word empathy was the wrong one to use then. But you get the idea. A human can and will kill something just because of selfish or hateful reasons.

But that also leads me to think empathy is more of a logical process than a human trait, since there are many and likely more people who are not empathetic towards anything but themselves, and you also got those people who are conditioned to be empathetic due to society, culture and laws.

It's as I said. Our needs can be ignored... just like you can ignore eating for a while, while you fill your need for play to an excess (video games etc, who knows?).

Thus the need for moderation of needs.

 

[Zebra Wizard]

What happens when you do something you know is wrong? You feel bad, right? Unless you do it enough not to care. What happens when you watch a movie and the bad guy is winning? You want him to lose, right (barring movies where the villain is WAYY more interesting than the hero)? I know that we have a need for justice, but like any other need, it can be IGNORED. That is why I said moderation of needs was necessary. We as a species have never done it perfectly.

Wanting justice part, i think its tied alot to hatred. I once had a conversation with a fellow colleague, about someone who was convicted of a very horrific crime that I cannot remember.

I asked him how he should be punished. And he responded by saying he should be tortured and the same should be done to him. Where I responded doesn't that make you just as bad as he is, if you WANT to do that to another person? He said no, it was the right thing to do. From my perspective I agreed he should be executed but to torture/cause intention pain to the person was just wrong. And that was where we disagreed.

I know theres good people out there, but im not naive to think the majority of humanity is as you describe. Many of our good traits are conditioned through law and culture rather than our nature. You can see from that simple BLM movement where it started as a equality thing turned into people chanting for cops to get killed etc, I was around when the london riots started, where youths just flocked to it because it was "fun"

I'm not saying there are not good traits to humanity, but the ones that make humans unique are generally ugly.

Brian linked something interesting though, about how people find it really hard to kill other people: The difficulty of killing people in real life even when told to do so. But is this something unique to humans only?

 

[Ursa major]

And what about when it actually is? There is no denying that.

What about it?

The point (one that you seem to be denying) is that for too many people their interest in justice is diminished -- and, in some cases, evaporates -- when they get what they want, while their interest in justice is heightened when they don't get what they want.

 

[Ihe]

Try treating them unfairly on a regular basis while treating another baby better and see how they react.

Ah, but fairness is not the same as justice. What's fair is not necessarily always just, and viceversa. On top of it all, both of these concepts are very relative, as they both rely on comparing one situation to another, so the ideas of "just" and "fair" will be different depending on culture, moral philosophy, and personal experience. People living in the same household, let alone in the same socio-cultural environment, might have wildly different opinions on what is just, for example, and to varying degrees. A need has to be more universal than that.

And about functioning well even with injustice and unfairness, I maintain it. Humans have done so throughout history. Injustice and unfairness might make you unhappy, no doubt, but you will still function at standard levels. And don't forget that people can adapt to unfair situations to the point of being oblivious to it at one point. Try adapting to live without food.

 

[Khuratokh]

Ah, but fairness is not the same as justice. What's fair is not necessarily always just, and viceversa. On top of it all, both of these concepts are very relative, as they both rely on comparing one situation to another, so the ideas of "just" and "fair" will be different depending on culture, moral philosophy, and personal experience. People living in the same household, let alone in the same socio-cultural environment, might have wildly different opinions on what is just, for example, and to varying degrees. A need has to be more universal than that.

And about functioning well even with injustice and unfairness, I maintain it. Humans have done so throughout history. Injustice and unfairness might make you unhappy, no doubt, but you will still function at standa rd levels. And don't forget that people can adapt to unfair situations to the point of being oblivious to it at one point. Try adapting to live without food.

An example from ancient times: say you were to wound or kill your neighbour's slave. You would be required to pay for the damage or have your own slave put to death. No murder charge as it's just property damage after all. All perfectly legal.

More recently. When physicians in the 19th century asked to do autopsies on dead people in Asia, the local authorities baulked at the idea of desecrating graves. Dishonoring the spirits by doing so.
However they suggested the doctors do their research on live subjects. As their prisons were full healthy "volunteers".

Also have you read "taming of the shrew" lately? And that was a comedy. The reality was decidedly less amusing.

Point being. What is just and fair changes over time.

 

[Khuratokh]

Larry Niven has written some interesting aliens. Though his overarching themes have been of the desire to procreate and how to deal with overpopulation.

Take the Pierson's Puppeteer.
A herbivore herd animal. Motivated by cowardice. obsessed with prolonging their own lives and maybe just maybe creating offspring (which is almost impossible to get permission for) Trillions of them occupy Hearth. every square meter of the planet being converted into living space. Two "heads" both with one eye and one mouth. Brain case between the shoulders. curl up into a ball at the slightest sign of danger, become catatonic.
Also one of the most powerful races within Known Space and posess technology much more advanced than our own.
Consider our drive for exploration to be insane. Curiosity gets you killed after all.

Kzinti
Think bipedal tiger Klingons and you're half way there. Only males are sentient. Strict carnivores. Have enslaved several intelligent species as servants and for food. Only achieve personhood and a name after a number of kills and distinguishing scars. Before that they're referred to by function. No concept of mercy. No concept of strategy either. Which is why they have lost every war they have ever fought with Earth. Doesn't make them less scary though.

Pak
Ancient humanoids. Achieve sentience once they go several years into sexual maturity and gorge themselves on a special kind of tuber. That will drop them in a coma and cause them to lose all their sex organs, change their outer skin into armor, strenghten joints, lose their teeth and fuse their lips and gums into a beak. It also vastly increases their intelligence from that of something that barely knew how to hold a stick when younger (breeder stage) to figure out nucleur fission post transformation ( protector stage).

Unfortunately post transformation they are only concerned with protecting their own bloodline. And killing everything that might possibly harm it.

Thrint "Slaver"
Truly ancient race. Lived 3 billion years ago. Race of cyclops. Extremely powerful telepaths. Enslaved races through mind control. Extinct due to war of extermination with one of their slave species. Wiped out all sentient life in the galaxy with a psionic weapon out of spite.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

My take on aliens - I created two separate races for Inish Carraig - was that it wouldn't be simplistic. We're developed animals - so would anything else capable of space travel. But applying humanness to them became, for me, something the humans did rather than the aliens. Which made the human narration unreliable, really - we only see through our own lens.
But i also think Maslow is worth looking at - intrinsically we are motivated by our needs. But what would a Maslow look like for an alien race?

 

[Mirannan]

Some needs and desires are truly fundamental, some are not. Working out which is which, while working through the fog of your own assumptions, is the trick. Fundamental needs have to include bodily integrity (or maybe not - hive minds?). Include the need to ingest materials and energy to operate the body and do necessary self-repair; I think that's a given, but there may be something truly exotic I haven't thought of. And the details may vary; humans are much more wasteful in their use of water than are many other mammals, for example.

Ensuring, in some way, that your germline carries on - that's a given, but the precise details are not. For example, take a species that uses R strategy (huge numbers of disposable offspring) instead of our K strategy, small numbers each of which are precious. Intelligent aliens like that probably wouldn't even give their kids names for several years. On that subject, sexual reproduction might be very useful to adapt to parasites and such - but the details don't have to be the same as ours; there are plenty of examples of species that are hermaphrodites (worms, snails) and those where the sex switches according to various cues, such as various fish. That would change alien psychology, no?

I could carry on, but point made I think.

 

[jjabrams55]

Ah, but fairness is not the same as justice. What's fair is not necessarily always just, and viceversa. On top of it all, both of these concepts are very relative, as they both rely on comparing one situation to another, so the ideas of "just" and "fair" will be different depending on culture, moral philosophy, and personal experience. People living in the same household, let alone in the same socio-cultural environment, might have wildly different opinions on what is just, for example, and to varying degrees. A need has to be more universal than that.

And about functioning well even with injustice and unfairness, I maintain it. Humans have done so throughout history. Injustice and unfairness might make you unhappy, no doubt, but you will still function at standard levels. And don't forget that people can adapt to unfair situations to the point of being oblivious to it at one point. Try adapting to live without food.

It's obvious humans don't have the same standards of justice, but they ALL do care about justice. That cannot be denied that we require it. I also don't deny the selfish tendency to care more about one's self regarding justice than others. In fact, many conflicts on Earth could be abated if people agreed on more and disagreed on less. At least with the things that people fight about most... the BIGGIES... religion and politics.

An example from ancient times: say you were to wound or kill your neighbour's slave. You would be required to pay for the damage or have your own slave put to death. No murder charge as it's just property damage after all. All perfectly legal.

More recently. When physicians in the 19th century asked to do autopsies on dead people in Asia, the local authorities baulked at the idea of desecrating graves. Dishonoring the spirits by doing so.
However they suggested the doctors do their research on live subjects. As their prisons were full healthy "volunteers".

Also have you read "taming of the shrew" lately? And that was a comedy. The reality was decidedly less amusing.

Point being. What is just and fair changes over time.

Justice is a human need, but people define it in different ways. Just like they do with religion/other things they look to as an alternative.

Ultimately... there IS a such thing as absolutes with justice and injustice, just like there are absolutes with physics that will happen when a man jumps off a four story building without a parachute. The answer is not... will he fall? But rather, how much he will splatter when he hits the ground?

Humans can argue/assume all day about anything, but ultimately, reality wins the day. So whether you believe it or not, and despite the fact that HUMAN standards of justice change, there are absolutes of justice/injustice that most all humans agree on (barring the psychos), like the fact that most say homicide is wrong, along with rape and so forth.

Whether they actually live up to this is another story... but the standards remain.