# Common SF storylines that are unlikely



## Onyx (Jun 15, 2018)

I love SF and even like to write some of things I find "unrealistic", so bear with me:

*Colonizing terraformed planets*. The more I think about this, the less likely it seems. In stories, people build ships, travel frozen or in uncomfortable generational conditions all to get to a planet that isn't going to be earth like so they can turn it into a place to build houses and farm? Here on earth, people who grow up on farms seem to want to migrate to cities. Why would the people of the future want to be land owners on an empty panet when they could have made less of an effort to construct an artificial environment in a moon or on a more secure space station that has all the advantages of cities and no concerns about environmental disasters. Planets with atmospheres are more difficult to travel to and from as well as travel between points. 

How much room do we need? Currently, half the world's population lives on 1% of the available land, and the earth is only 29% land. That means that 3.7 billion people are currently living in the equivalent of a single rotating cylinder that is 800 miles long and 250 in diameter. Which would certainly be somewhat crowded, but no more so than most large cities. You could have a quarter of that density and still fit 1 billion people. So creating surface area to live comfortably doesn't really require that much engineering, which is why the math is unlikely to ever make turning some boiling ball of CO2 into a replacement earth ever very attractive. It might become interesting as a kind of stunt or piece of nostalgia, but not really as a useful way to deal with population expansion or even people who get that old-timey settler itch. Find an asteroid to settle in, if that's your thing.


----------



## Onyx (Jun 15, 2018)

*Cyborgs.* We already have plenty of people on earth with wiring in their brains, synthetic organs and electronic prosthetists. But will we ever have half machine tough guys menacing the streets?

The main reason I don't think so is because cyborging is a stop gap. It is a technology to replace organic parts when they aren't available. The problem is that organic replacements are only going to become more and more available as cloning, genetics, 3D printing of stem cell tissue frames and transplants become better and better. Metal arms might be strong, but really no stronger than the meat they are grafted on to. So a 'bionic man' really requires a full Ghost in the Shell type organic brain only type body to really be very useful, but then the question is "Useful for what?"

We idolize warriors and always have, but the days of fighting wars with armed men is coming to a close, and law enforcement is not far behind it. Small drone technology and robots will shortly be more flexible, harder to destroy and more capable than a person shaped soldier could ever be. So why would we want or need physical supermen? Especially if we have any concerns over personal security and spree killers - it really isn't attractive to have people who's regular body are more dangerous that a person with a rifle, yet are no match for a robot made to counter them. I don't think society would tolerate these kind of alterations or the people willing to perform them, and even if they did, the result wouldn't have any more utility than a normal person in daily life.

You could point to life extension, but you aren't going to get that many extra years before your old brain falls apart like your heart did. Advances in biology could fix that, but would likely fix all the other reasons for cybernetics at the same time, so we're back to all biological bodies again being the simplest fix.

Anything can happen, and people will do it as a fetish, but cyborgs are unlikely to ever be a reasonable option in the near future. Someday the line between machine and organism will be so blurred that this might no longer be true, but the way we usually think of them is only fun fiction.


----------



## SilentRoamer (Jun 15, 2018)

With regards to Cyborgs or implants to augment human abilities. I always liked Peter F Hamiltons take on this - that we might end up with super humans powered by tech and funded by extreme wealth. 

I'm not saying it's entirely plausible but the idea of the super rich taking the best advantages of emerging tech is hardly a novel idea!

I also think Hamiltons take on it is much more likely - biononics that integrate with human cells, which are literally printed as Organic Circuitry onto the skin.


----------



## Joshua Jones (Jun 15, 2018)

Yeah, I think the idea of grafting a robotic arm onto a human is not terribly functional except as a prosthetic in lieu of a biological one (maybe a temporary one until the biological one grows?). Two may actually be more functional than one, as you can have some support rigging between them to take the pressure off the tissue, but it still isn't much of an improvement. 

Where I see cybernetics as viable is as enhancements to existing structures, rather than replacements. I could see nanobots being used to supplement white blood cells in fighting diseases, environmental toxin exposure, NBC exposure, and so forth. Retnal implants could be used for synching up to a weapon for targetting, laser designation for guided munitions, navigation, communication, providing active translation of other languages and situational awareness for deaf individuals, or a score of other possibilities. I could see subdermal armor, mind/machine interfaces, and brain implants which speed synapse firing or release adrenaline on command. 

All this to say, I could see cyborgs, but not quite in the same was as is typical. I think what may replace that role would be powered body armors which use a mind/machine interface.


----------



## Justin Swanton (Jun 15, 2018)

*Intelligent computers that are capable of abstractive thought, have free-will, and are self-aware*.

When one understands how a CPU works one realises it has nothing to do with intelligent thought. CPUs just create a simulation of mathematical processes but without 'understanding' the nature of the equations they perform. You can make a CPU as powerful as you like, it never does anything else except simulate mathematical equations without rising a millimetre towards true thought. These equations can serve to give the appearance of thinking but no real thinking actually takes place. It's like avatars in a PC game - they're not real people; they just look real and simulate human responses in given situations.


----------



## Onyx (Jun 15, 2018)

Justin Swanton said:


> *Intelligent computers that are capable of abstractive thought, have free-will, and are self-aware*.
> 
> When one understands how a CPU works one realises it has nothing to do with intelligent thought. CPUs just create a simulation of mathematical processes but without 'understanding' the nature of the equations they perform. You can make a CPU as powerful as you like, it never does anything else except simulate mathematical equations without rising a millimetre towards true thought. These equations can serve to give the appearance of thinking but no real thinking actually takes place. It's like avatars in a PC game - they're not real people; they just look real and simulate human responses in given situations.



Computers sound a lot like the neural net processors we call 'brains'.


----------



## dask (Jun 15, 2018)

Time travel, unfortunately. However, there's still hope for the Bergey Brass Brassiere.


----------



## Onyx (Jun 15, 2018)

dask said:


> Time travel, unfortunately.


Have you read "The Peripheral" by William Gibson?


----------



## dask (Jun 15, 2018)

No, but if it's good I'll keep an eye open for it. I did read a nonfiction book about time travel a few years ago. Don't remember the title or author, however. Do still have the book somewhere.


----------



## Onyx (Jun 15, 2018)

dask said:


> No, but if it's good I'll keep an eye open for it. I did read a nonfiction book about time travel a few years ago. Don't remember the title or author, however. Do still have the book somewhere.


The story has no physics violations. It's also wonderfully written, as you'd expect.


----------



## Justin Swanton (Jun 16, 2018)

Onyx said:


> Computers sound a lot like the neural net processors we call 'brains'.



Answering this point takes the discussion beyond the subject matter covered in the Chrons so we must leave it at that.


----------



## Danny McG (Jun 22, 2018)

Onyx said:


> Computers sound a lot like the neural net processors we call 'brains'.


You call them brains, I call them supper.


----------



## mosaix (Jun 22, 2018)

Stowaways on spaceships.


----------



## Justin Swanton (Jun 22, 2018)

A functioning galactic empire.

In SF stories it always need magic hyperspace travel to make it work.


----------



## Onyx (Jun 22, 2018)

Justin Swanton said:


> A functioning galactic empire.
> 
> In SF stories it always need magic hyperspace travel to make it work.


Mainly because no one can wrap their heads around people existing on much longer time scales to where long voyages aren't an issue.

But the idea of governance on that scale always seems absurd.


----------



## Onyx (Jun 22, 2018)

mosaix said:


> Stowaways on spaceships.


I like it! Please discuss.

(I had always assumed that spacecraft stowaways were possible if the ship has an excess of life support or its voyage of short duration.)


----------



## mosaix (Jun 22, 2018)

Onyx said:


> I like it! Please discuss.
> 
> (I had always assumed that spacecraft stowaways were possible if the ship has an excess of life support or its voyage of short duration.)



I just can't envisage a scenario where anyone, other than the crew and permitted passengers, got anywhere near a spaceship. 

_Scenario: Apollo 12 on route to moon. "What are you doing here?" _

Having said that I think the short stories based around stowaways on spaceships are some of my favourites. I think the first I ever read was* The Cold Equations in Analog.* Can't remember the author.

I wonder if there's ever been a recorded instance of a stowaway on a submarine? I would imagine unauthorised access was difficult but not as difficult as a spaceship. But who knows? If space travel becomes commonplace and security becomes slack...


----------



## dask (Jun 22, 2018)

Tom Godwin was the author of "The Cold Equations."


----------



## night_wrtr (Jun 22, 2018)

mosaix said:


> I just can't envisage a scenario where anyone, other than the crew and permitted passengers, got anywhere near a spaceship.



True. Most real-life stowaways are small animals, like mice. A story that is about a feral species of space mice that comes back to earth could be interesting.


----------



## dask (Jun 22, 2018)

night_wrtr said:


> True. Most real-life stowaways are small animals, like mice. A story that is about a feral species of space mice that comes back to earth could be interesting.


Or some kind of new plague those mice would bring.


----------



## Onyx (Jun 22, 2018)

mosaix said:


> I just can't envisage a scenario where anyone, other than the crew and permitted passengers, got anywhere near a spaceship.
> 
> _Scenario: Apollo 12 on route to moon. "What are you doing here?" _
> 
> ...


Large submarines being all military vessels of high security, probably not. But look at all the aviation cases, including the kid that hid on a Zeppelin in 1928.


----------



## -K2- (Jun 23, 2018)

World wide thermonuclear war.  After the surge of post-apocalyptic books and films of the late 70's through early 90's (A Boy and his Dog naturally exempt from that, pure genius ), the whole WWIII thing got a little overplayed.  Don't get me wrong, I get it as some folks were actually disappointed that they couldn't slip into their spiked leather thong and go rampaging across the wastelands, myself included... However, I always found it an all too easy excuse to force massive societal changes quickly.

We don't need world ending destruction to bring out the worst in men.

K2


----------



## Justin Swanton (Jun 23, 2018)

Here's one SF novel where the humans become rodent stowaways. A classic.


----------



## schonovic (Jun 25, 2018)

one common storyline that i think is unlikely is the suddenly aware supercomputer taking over the world. personally i think the first thing that will happen when we first make that self aware supercomputer is that it will become totally stupid because it has not already sorted all of it's thoughts out yet. like a baby it will have to run into a few figurative glass doors, and make horrible figurative contact with the equivalent of oven burners before it can get it's mind aware. so what if it is self aware, so is a child.


----------



## schonovic (Jul 3, 2018)

using FTL to me is the only way I've seen any empires work. How can a King or emperor live long enough for their plans and intentions for the empire ever come to fruition? Also if your sic-fi is a parody (Is that the word?) on America the world and foreign policy;are we supposed to believe it takes the Gerald Ford 6 months to get to a troubled spot. There has to be some suspension of disbelief.


----------



## Onyx (Jul 3, 2018)

schonovic said:


> using FTL to me is the only way I've seen any empires work. How can a King or emperor live long enough for their plans and intentions for the empire ever come to fruition? Also if your sic-fi is a parody (Is that the word?) on America the world and foreign policy;are we supposed to believe it takes the Gerald Ford 6 months to get to a troubled spot. There has to be some suspension of disbelief.


Empires existed when voyages took half a year and people lived to be 50. Why not have people that lived indefinitely form something similar over longer time scales?


----------



## Vladd67 (Jul 3, 2018)

schonovic said:


> using FTL to me is the only way I've seen any empires work. How can a King or emperor live long enough for their plans and intentions for the empire ever come to fruition? Also if your sic-fi is a parody (Is that the word?) on America the world and foreign policy;are we supposed to believe it takes the Gerald Ford 6 months to get to a troubled spot. There has to be some suspension of disbelief.


Perhaps it helps if you think of it as being like the age of sail, back then a frigate Captain was really like Kirk.
Edit: Onyx had the same thought.


----------



## Vertigo (Jul 3, 2018)

*Interbreeding with Aliens*
Yes I'm looking at you Spock, along with many other examples. We can't interbreed with any other forms of life natural to our own planet; what realistic chance is there of interbreeding with totally alien lifeforms? And yet it pops up in SF books time and again. And not just older ones; I recently read Sylvain Neuvel's Sleeping Giants which is presented as fairly hardish SF and yet there are half breeds between humanity and an alien species. Just no!

*Deaf Aliens*
Not quite so common this but I'm always astounded by the way so many authors, trying to come up with suitably alien aliens, often have them using weird and wonderful communications mechanisms like colour and scent etc. Whilst such things might _enhance _communications (we blush and go pale) they are just not realistic as the primary form of communication; Scent would be slow and massively affected by air movements like wind and with multiple people communicating it would just become a jumbled mess and totally useless if not in close proximity. Colour would be totally impractical unless you happened to be looking at the other person and would be interrupted by corners or anything non transparent between the communicators. And if, as is so often the case with these invented aliens, they consequently have no auditory sense then they would have been easy prey to any predators on their home worlds. Evolution just isn't that inefficient. Even in a medium where sound might be problematic, like water, most of the successful examples on Earth use sonar.


----------



## Onyx (Jul 3, 2018)

Vertigo said:


> Colour would be totally impractical unless you happened to be looking at the other person and would be interrupted by corners or anything non transparent between the communicators.


This assumes that the aliens have directional eyes. But what if their entire skin was visual receptors that can change color. Like the alien in Blindsight?

I could imagine environments or predator behavior that results in an alien being deaf from a lack of need or a defense against a bombardment of misleading sonic information.

I could see smell used by aliens that don't move very quickly because they never evolved something like muscle, and move more like the way plants do.


----------



## Vertigo (Jul 3, 2018)

Onyx said:


> This assumes that the aliens have directional eyes. But what if their entire skin was visual receptors that can change color. Like the alien in Blindsight?
> 
> I could imagine environments or predator behavior that results in an alien being deaf from a lack of need or a defense against a bombardment of misleading sonic information.
> 
> I could see smell used by aliens that don't move very quickly because they never evolved something like muscle, and move more like the way plants do.


But take away any auditory sense and it's trivial for a predator to stalk you. I don't know of any deaf animals above the level of insects on Earth (if there are any they are very few) and even insects, I believe can detect 'sound' with their antennae. Even if your entire skin was a visual receptor (don't know how that could focus on to an individual though) you would still be unable to communicate with anyone not in line of sight. Even if that line of sight is 360 degrees it's still not going to see through obstacles that sound easily travels around. There is a very good reason why sound is universally used by animals of land and air; evolution always favours mechanisms that work well.

Smell for immobile aliens maybe but I'm not convinced any such could ever evolve technology and all the examples I have come across in SF are absolutely not immobile, and the thread title does, after all, specify 'common storylines.' Most of the examples I have come across that use scent do so with insect-like creatures (which is it's own can of worms).


----------



## Onyx (Jul 3, 2018)

Vertigo said:


> But take away any auditory sense and it's trivial for a predator to stalk you. I don't know of any deaf animals above the level of insects on Earth (if there are any they are very few) and even insects, I believe can detect 'sound' with their antennae. Even if your entire skin was a visual receptor (don't know how that could focus on to an individual though) you would still be unable to communicate with anyone not in line of sight. Even if that line of sight is 360 degrees it's still not going to see through obstacles that sound easily travels around. There is a very good reason why sound is universally used by animals of land and air; evolution always favours mechanisms that work well.
> 
> Smell for immobile aliens maybe but I'm not convinced any such could ever evolve technology and all the examples I have come across in SF are absolutely not immobile, and the thread title does, after all, specify 'common storylines.' Most of the examples I have come across that use scent do so with insect-like creatures (which is it's own can of worms).



One issue is that it is impossible to say what hearing is not. Most invertebrates do not have sound reception organs and are attuned to vibrations in the ground or pressure changes in water. Is a person that can't hear but can feel the train coming through their feet deaf or not?

But I haven't run into any stories about deaf creatures, except stories where the alien is living in a vacuum where there is no atmospheric sound to hear. Whether they are actually deaf or not didn't come up.


Vision through light reception skin organs could be as basic or complex as you wish. That's the way vision evolved. A creature covered in the equivalent of fly eye components could have a neural network built right into its skin that could locally process vision for things like camouflage while participating in a more conscious "looking" that shifts attention while retaining massive peripheral vision.

If you haven't read Blindsight, the aliens fit both deaf vacuum dwellers and multi-directional vision users.


----------



## dask (Jul 3, 2018)

Seems like I more time you spend trying to figure out why something shouldn't exist, the sooner you're going to find it. Or it's going find you.


----------



## -K2- (Jul 4, 2018)

Vertigo said:


> But take away any auditory sense and it's trivial for a predator to stalk you. I don't know of any deaf animals above the level of insects on Earth (if there are any they are very few) and even insects, I believe can detect 'sound' with their antennae.



Just for the record... Scent or sense of smell is vastly more important to large mammals to both hunt prey, and for prey to evade.  In fact, by scent alone Whitetail Deer (which by no means have the keenest noses), can not only determine the direction but also the range of a predator.

K2


----------



## Vertigo (Jul 4, 2018)

-K2- said:


> Just for the record... Scent or sense of smell is vastly more important to large mammals to both hunt prey, and for prey to evade.  In fact, by scent alone Whitetail Deer (which by no means have the keenest noses), can not only determine the direction but also the range of a predator.
> 
> K2


I agree but there's a vast difference between that and an effective communication mechanism. To my way of thinking any communication mechanism that fails if you are upwind of the communicator is fundamentally broken.


----------



## Vertigo (Jul 4, 2018)

Onyx said:


> One issue is that it is impossible to say what hearing is not. Most invertebrates do not have sound reception organs and are attuned to vibrations in the ground or pressure changes in water. Is a person that can't hear but can feel the train coming through their feet deaf or not?
> 
> But I haven't run into any stories about deaf creatures, except stories where the alien is living in a vacuum where there is no atmospheric sound to hear. Whether they are actually deaf or not didn't come up.
> 
> ...


Your first point reinforces mine in that almost all animals have some sort of auditory sense. About the only exceptions I can think of might be some fish but they can sense movement of the water which is effectively the equivalent. Remember that just because we might be able to conceive of something that might work we also have to show that it will be competitive against any other mechanisms. If it isn't then evolution dictates that it must ultimately fail. So if an organism is living in an atmospheric environment and is missing a fundamental sense like hearing then it will me at a major evolutionary disadvantage and evolution is a ruthless mechanism. The only way I can see a sense being dispensed with my evolution is if it is useless in the living environment; eg sight in a lightless (subterranean maybe) environment or hearing in a vacuum environment (see below). 

With regard to books that have deaf aliens, a recent, and much lauded, example is The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers.

I can accept that, if an author can come up with a plausible evolution path to a vacuum dwelling organism, auditory sensors would be pretty useless to that organism and about the only communication mechanism would be something on the electromagnetic spectrum.


----------



## -K2- (Jul 4, 2018)

Vertigo said:


> I agree but there's a vast difference between that and an effective communication mechanism. To my way of thinking any communication mechanism that fails if you are upwind of the communicator is fundamentally broken.



That is incorrect.  Being downwind simply aids and enhances their ability.  When conditions become unpredictable (high winds that keep scent away, make noise and cause things to move) they find a place where they can keep watch and bed-down.

That said,  regarding hearing;  Deer have excellent hearing and their ears pivot, rotate and angle to be able to not only focus on a sound, yet determine exact range and direction (same way our eyes work for depth perception)... However, I have routinely stalked up to within bow range of deer (60') so how are those ears now?

K2


----------



## Montero (Jul 4, 2018)

@ K2 - you are a tool using predator and have an extended range over not tool using predators.

Going back to colonists having farms at Onyx's start of the the thread.

1. Lots of people do move from the cities to the countryside - myself included. Some people who move from countryside to city do so because they don't have a farm, have no chance of buying one, or generally want a higher income than they can earn in the country. So for some of them having a farm on a new planet would be really tempting.

2. I think for a lot of books there was a big semi-conscious following of how people settled this planet being projected on to how a new planet would be settled.

3. Interesting idea on densely populated habitats - for people who don't mind living in a densely populated habitats.

Thinking about these there are books such as Decision at Doona by Anne McCaffrey where potential colonists are used to living in very densely populated habitats and go to settle a planet where there is a big shock awaiting them because of the wide open spaces.

Would also say that getting out of this solar system to another one where the sun might be younger, or at least not to have all the human eggs in one basket is a driver in some books on colonising other worlds.


----------



## -K2- (Jul 4, 2018)

@Montero ; 
Unless you're a bow-hunter this might be difficult to believe, yet after I had a deer sniff at my trembling broadhead (bow not drawn) for ten minutes, then was stepped on by a deer and had deer lay down no more that 10' from me; I began during the warmest months hunting them exclusively with a lance (7' with a spear tip used for thrusting) and have even been lucky enough to swat bare handed 'four' deer as they passed by... Naturally, in all cases I was still, concealed (as in behind a tree) or camouflaged, and most importantly the wind was strongly in my favor.

Nevertheless those instances aside, day in and day out I can position myself to be within *10-20'* of deer when they pass.  That's the hunting part... knowing your prey, their habits, the area, etc..  There is nothing exceptional about it.  So much so, I rarely 'kill' any longer, though I do still enjoy hunting.

Wolves, Cougars, Lynx and so on are much better predators than I... and they constantly check the wind.

K2


----------



## Vertigo (Jul 4, 2018)

-K2- said:


> That is incorrect.  Being downwind simply aids and enhances their ability.  When conditions become unpredictable (high winds that keep scent away, make noise and cause things to move) they find a place where they can keep watch and bed-down.
> 
> That said,  regarding hearing;  Deer have excellent hearing and their ears pivot, rotate and angle to be able to not only focus on a sound, yet determine exact range and direction (same way our eyes work for depth perception)... However, I have routinely stalked up to within bow range of deer (60') so how are those ears now?
> 
> K2


What @Montero said and also I am specifically referring to technological aliens and their evolution. So hunkering down might be okay for a small insect, but imagine if we communicated like this and were a few metres upwind of the person we wish to communicate with. We simply wouldn't be able to. There's a good reason why evolution hasn't used scent for any kind of complex communications on a largeish scale. It might work fine in an ant nest, it might be great for marking your territorial boundaries but for anything much more it just wouldn't be effective _for complex communication_ and so would be an evolutionary loser against sound.

You keep talking about Deer and Lynx etc. but they are not using scent for communication they're using it for detection of prey and predator. We are discussing it here for the purposes of complex communication. Imagine trying to discuss quantum mechanics using scent!


----------



## Onyx (Jul 4, 2018)

-K2- said:


> Nevertheless those instances aside, day in and day out I can position myself to be within *10-20'* of deer when they pass.


Maybe you don't smell like a predator?


----------



## Onyx (Jul 4, 2018)

Vertigo said:


> There's a good reason why evolution hasn't used scent for any kind of complex communications on a largeish scale.


There's actually so few examples of "complex communication" to really say what the reasons are. Plenty of animals capable of hearing communicate more by other channels, like wolves.

With the right evolutionary pressures, who knows what kind of packeted information could be encoded in pheromones. Maybe entire memories or very complex concepts. You're taking the POV that all communication is derived from predator/prey behavior. But what if the pressure on the alien population is more environmental and solved through greater degrees of cooperation without need to monitor other animals as threats? Without that immediacy, other channels might be much more useful.


----------



## -K2- (Jul 4, 2018)

Vertigo said:


> You keep talking about Deers and Lynx etc. but they are not using scent for communication they're using it for detection of prey and predator. We are discussing it here for the purposes of complex communication. Imagine trying to discuss quantum mechanics using scent!



Though not wanting to argue the point or pull you all from your track (my apologies if I already have), I would challenge that in the regard that visual communication requires 'line of sight' and that the receiver's attention is focused upon the sender.  Further, sound has a very limited range of which obstructions, clutter density and so on will not only obscure direction yet clarity. 

That said, scent is routinely used to communicate, mark paths, post alarms, warn, entice, etc., often over vast distances (many miles).  It is also not simply wind dependent.  Going back to deer, they will stop cold at a path I took days before, sniff the ground and turn back (I have personally witnessed this). 

Past that I'll leave you all to it.  Sorry if I confused a focused conversation or sidetracked it.  It was not my intent.

K2


----------



## psikeyhackr (Jul 7, 2018)

Aliens boarding enemy spaceships and fighting with the crew using hand or tentacle weapons.

Considering how small and cheap cameras and sensors are now wouldn't a relatively dumb ship AI be able to defend itself with weapons built into the ceiling and walls?


----------



## Onyx (Jul 7, 2018)

psikeyhackr said:


> Aliens boarding enemy spaceships and fighting with the crew using hand or tentacle weapons.
> 
> Considering how small and cheap cameras and sensors are now wouldn't a relatively dumb ship AI be able to defend itself with weapons built into the ceiling and walls?


That rather depends if we are talking about warships that were budgeted the cost and weight of defenses like that, or a ship that's primary job is to move people, so the people take on the defensive role. 

It may also be understood that the loss of either ship to be so devastating that fighting only with weapons that hurt people would be deemed acceptable.


----------



## Montero (Jul 7, 2018)

On the subject of communications - thinking about scent, speech, body language and cats and people and writing aliens.
With cats you have swivelling ears, expressive tail and fur that all convey mood - and some degree of meaning. Some people learn to interpret all of that and cats do learn to read people's moods and also basic verbal communications - mainly "food", "ow" and "get off that you little beggar" - they may choose to ignore you, but doesn't mean they don't understand. edited to add - a fourth important communication between people and cats - hello there, nice to see you. That's a biggie 

So I think you could write a form of pidgen between two species alien to each other. How easily it would come across to the reader, as opposed to on film, that is another matter. Probably be a book for the dedicated sf reader - regular references to tentacles turning blue might not fly with the more casual sf reader.


----------



## Guttersnipe (Aug 25, 2021)

"Shaggy God" stories, in which Adam and Eve, Yahweh, or the serpent are aliens. Basically using science to explain religion. Much less likely than the theory of evolution.


----------

