Writing compelling non-human alien behavior

[K174]

As writers of science fiction, we owe it to the reader to be entertaining as well as compelling.

It is all too easy to make alien characters act human, since that WILL entertain and compel the reader, but there is also another way.

Play with human emotions.

We cannot make a truly alien character as human beings, but we can make one that at least has different behavior than your average human.

7 basic human emotions:

Love.
Fear.
Joy.
Disgust.
Surprise.
Sadness.
Anger.

Now imagine if you will what happens when you take away some, but not all of the human emotions for a fictional race.

They won't act normal, although they will at least in some situations.

I also think that the one emotion fictional aliens should always have is love.

That is if you want the human audience to really connect with the alien character.

Thoughts?

 

[LukeLee]

I think you’re probably right in terms of the connection, but I would add that there should be the underlying drivers that would likely exist in all species - fight, flight, freeze. They are the lower order drivers in most situations.

 

[K174]

I think you’re probably right in terms of the connection, but I would add that there should be the underlying drivers that would likely exist in all species - fight, flight, freeze. They are the lower order drivers in most situations.

The nice thing about emotions is that is covered.

Fight? Flight? Freeze?

Emotions behind them are fear, disgust, and maybe surprise.

Really the emotions they do not have they will just act dispassionate about.

So just because an alien won't get angry won't mean they won't attack. It just means that anger won't be the emotional reason. Could be fear, love, or even a mix of emotions.

 

[LukeLee]

Actually emotions are a higher level brain function. The FFF is a lower level brain function that exists in most sentient creatures. So they are behind the emotions, not the other way around.

 

[Venusian Broon]

I think your approach @K174 is an okay first step, after all you're trying to make aliens compelling in some manner to readers. And you're using the tried and trusted - aliens as humans with a rubber face tactic . Nothing wrong with that, we all grew up with Star Trek where all the main alien races are really just humans but with some aspect of our nature amped up or removed.

Personally I'm more interested in seeing depictions of truly alien aliens. Not just aliens that may have arisen from wildy divergent geneses via natural evolution (also I do think there will be interesting similarities because of convergent evolution as an aside), but those, as we are on the cusp of, have the ability to change and alter themselves via their intelligence, i.e. teleological evolution. If we humans were to continue for a million years what sort of beings would we alter ourselves into? And then there's hive minds, symbiotic beings etc.

However, that's just my preference. And there's a time and a place for Catmen or aliens with cornish pasties stuck on their heads, as Star Trek/Star Wars proves!

So stepping into your idea,

What about love?

I think you have to step further back. Now this is a complex topic, so one has to be careful. I am sure there will a multi-faceted answer to the next question. Why have we evolved to have emotions like that? I'd argue that part of the answer is something to do with our frailty.

We are born helpless. I am sure many of you know that even in the age of central heating and supermarkets, bringing a baby into the world is still a stressful endevaour. What about our ancestors in the rift valley about 200,000 years ago. Naked, on foot and living off the land. An animal having a baby like a human in that environment looks crazy. He'she will be unable to even move properly on foot for years and will need to be weaned for much longer - perhaps food could be prepared, in the way that is still done in some hunter gather tribes by women chewing plants and then passing the mastigated mush to their infants. But either way a human is generally helpless, as, I believe, we evolved to put a great deal of energy and growth into developing the brain rather than the body. And it is years and years before the human animal comes close to being able to survive by itself.

So the mother has to have deep bonds with her children and they return that. Of course we further aid this because we are social animals, so alongside this we have the father, the aunts & uncles, the cousins etc. that make up the social group. And these social bonds must also play a part in evolving the emotion of love.

To take a counter example, a great many mammalian predators seem, from my incomplete knowledge, to be in a different place. So looking at animals such as tigers, there are no social groupings.... Yes the mother/cub relationship is very strong, she takes care of them, but what does the male 'feel' about his offspring. Probably very little. In fact he may even attack and kill his offspring if he was given the opportunity. And then there are other 'flavours' of social structure. Elephants are dominated by their matrons - so yes there is a complex social order - but what about the males, most of which seem to be shunned and ejected when they get big and aggressive.* Do these animals have an emotional state we could call 'love'. Maybe but it would be different.

Now it's an interesting debate if an animal like a tiger could ever develop a technological intelligence, given that we believe social structures are so important in developing that. (Of course we as writers could just stike in anything plausible if we want a race of tiger people!)

But I think my point is, perhaps by tweaking the evolutionary path that your aliens took perhaps this could have profound impact on the types of emotions they will have or even subtly different ones. What if we weren't helpless when born but took much less time to develop into an animal that could have survived? Would we have been much less social creatures? Colder and more pragmatic? What if we took the elephant model - and society was a female thing, males being generally ejected out into the wilds. What sort of thought processes/emotions would be required to make this work?

Anyway good question. And I think I've blathered too long for the moment.

Cheers!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* This is my knowledge from watching BBC nature shows, so I may we wildly incorrect or probably a bit incorrect. Apologies if so.

 

[sknox]

I've read very good SF stories about genuinely alien aliens. For the most part the stories, however well-written, are just ... alienating. There are no handholds, no points of empathy.

Because making an alien truly alien means making them not only unlike humans but also unlike dogs or elephants or dolphins. Some of my favorite aliens are ones that are in fact quite a bit like some Earth life form (e.g., dogs), with that premise extrapolated with good SF rigor. And the best aliens are the ones that are much like us, with one or two tweaks that allow the author to make commentary on the human condition.

Another way to look at the matter is to look not at humanity and alienness, but to look at story. The heart of any good story is conflict. If the other party is too alien, there's no conflict, because its desires will never intersect with our own. So the aim is not to make the other truly alien, but to make them just alien enough.

 

[Paul_C]

I'd say that starting off with a relatively complex argument as a first post, without so much as a "Hi, I'm . . . " is quite adventurously alien behaviour.

 

[K174]

I think your approach @K174 is an okay first step, after all you're trying to make aliens compelling in some manner to readers. And you're using the tried and trusted - aliens as humans with a rubber face tactic . Nothing wrong with that, we all grew up with Star Trek where all the main alien races are really just humans but with some aspect of our nature amped up or removed.

Personally I'm more interested in seeing depictions of truly alien aliens. Not just aliens that may have arisen from wildy divergent geneses via natural evolution (also I do think there will be interesting similarities because of convergent evolution as an aside), but those, as we are on the cusp of, have the ability to change and alter themselves via their intelligence, i.e. teleological evolution. If we humans were to continue for a million years what sort of beings would we alter ourselves into? And then there's hive minds, symbiotic beings etc.

However, that's just my preference. And there's a time and a place for Catmen or aliens with cornish pasties stuck on their heads, as Star Trek/Star Wars proves!

So stepping into your idea,

What about love?

I think you have to step further back. Now this is a complex topic, so one has to be careful. I am sure there will a multi-faceted answer to the next question. Why have we evolved to have emotions like that? I'd argue that part of the answer is something to do with our frailty.

We are born helpless. I am sure many of you know that even in the age of central heating and supermarkets, bringing a baby into the world is still a stressful endevaour. What about our ancestors in the rift valley about 200,000 years ago. Naked, on foot and living off the land. An animal having a baby like a human in that environment looks crazy. He'she will be unable to even move properly on foot for years and will need to be weaned for much longer - perhaps food could be prepared, in the way that is still done in some hunter gather tribes by women chewing plants and then passing the mastigated mush to their infants. But either way a human is generally helpless, as, I believe, we evolved to put a great deal of energy and growth into developing the brain rather than the body. And it is years and years before the human animal comes close to being able to survive by itself.

So the mother has to have deep bonds with her children and they return that. Of course we further aid this because we are social animals, so alongside this we have the father, the aunts & uncles, the cousins etc. that make up the social group. And these social bonds must also play a part in evolving the emotion of love.

To take a counter example, a great many mammalian predators seem, from my incomplete knowledge, to be in a different place. So looking at animals such as tigers, there are no social groupings.... Yes the mother/cub relationship is very strong, she takes care of them, but what does the male 'feel' about his offspring. Probably very little. In fact he may even attack and kill his offspring if he was given the opportunity. And then there are other 'flavours' of social structure. Elephants are dominated by their matrons - so yes there is a complex social order - but what about the males, most of which seem to be shunned and ejected when they get big and aggressive.* Do these animals have an emotional state we could call 'love'. Maybe but it would be different.

Now it's an interesting debate if an animal like a tiger could ever develop a technological intelligence, given that we believe social structures are so important in developing that. (Of course we as writers could just stike in anything plausible if we want a race of tiger people!)

But I think my point is, perhaps by tweaking the evolutionary path that your aliens took perhaps this could have profound impact on the types of emotions they will have or even subtly different ones. What if we weren't helpless when born but took much less time to develop into an animal that could have survived? Would we have been much less social creatures? Colder and more pragmatic? What if we took the elephant model - and society was a female thing, males being generally ejected out into the wilds. What sort of thought processes/emotions would be required to make this work?

Anyway good question. And I think I've blathered too long for the moment.

Cheers!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* This is my knowledge from watching BBC nature shows, so I may we wildly incorrect or probably a bit incorrect. Apologies if so.

What makes a person more? What happens to them or how they react?

Star Trek throws out emotions entirely with Vulcans, but all other races retain their human emotions.

Changing the society and circumstance won't change human emotions, if they retain them.

For what it's worth, humans have lived through many extreme circumstances and died as well, not unlike the animal ones you mentioned.
Animalize the humanoid or humanize the animal, either way what you get in the end will be humanish.

Playing with human emotions is one way I have found that changes alien society enough from human society thathumans would find it perplexing.

Which is good to me, since they ARE aliens afterall. Even better if they are humanoid, since having red or blue skin but looking human otherwise requires counterpoint in my opinion.

I've read very good SF stories about genuinely alien aliens. For the most part the stories, however well-written, are just ... alienating. There are no handholds, no points of empathy.

Because making an alien truly alien means making them not only unlike humans but also unlike dogs or elephants or dolphins. Some of my favorite aliens are ones that are in fact quite a bit like some Earth life form (e.g., dogs), with that premise extrapolated with good SF rigor. And the best aliens are the ones that are much like us, with one or two tweaks that allow the author to make commentary on the human condition.

Another way to look at the matter is to look not at humanity and alienness, but to look at story. The heart of any good story is conflict. If the other party is too alien, there's no conflict, because its desires will never intersect with our own. So the aim is not to make the other truly alien, but to make them just alien enough.

I agree with you. Alien enough for me is not like your average human behavior.

 

[Cathbad]

I can understand aliens having different emotional focuses, but I'm afraid I can't imagine them totally without any of these emotions.

 

[K174]

I can understand aliens having different emotional focuses, but I'm afraid I can't imagine them totally without any of these emotions.

I do not recommend the Vulcan way of deleting alll emotions.

Writing fiction requires a good degree of Imagination.

I actually can imagine the results of deleting an emotion or two, and find them interesting to say the least. It just means in situations that would normally trigger the missing emotion... they feel nothing.
In short, they would fall back on and rely on their remaining emotions more.

Not unlike a person gone blind who then develops enhanced hearing and relies on it more for navigation than they ever did when they could see.

 

[Cathbad]

I do not recommend the Vulcan way of deleting alll emotions.

But they didn't... they just learned to suppress their emotions. Which, as we have seen, doesn't always work. And a Sect of Vulcans - including Spock's brother - do not agree with that decision at all.

 

[sknox]

I agree with @Cathbad on Vulcans. They became interesting exactly on the point where their famous logic failed or was inadequate or was suberted. It was also useful as a foil, usually played for small comedy. In all cases, it was the connection to human emotions that sold the scene.

 

[sknox]

A couple of examples of alien species done well: the not-elephants of Robert Silverberg's Downward to Earth, Vernor Vinge's dog people in A Fire upon the Deep, and of course Ted Sturgeon's marvelous creation in More Than Human. That last is not exactly alien, yet manages to be somehow even more alien for it.

 

[K174]

I agree with @Cathbad on Vulcans. They became interesting exactly on the point where their famous logic failed or was inadequate or was suberted. It was also useful as a foil, usually played for small comedy. In all cases, it was the connection to human emotions that sold the scene.

In both Star Trek and Babylon 5, aliens although often possesing superior technology, are often beneath humanity in other ways.

I aim to not imply humans are either the best or the worst that ever entered onto the interstellar stage. They are just actors on the galactic stage, like all other races.

There are other ways besides manipulating emotions that can make a race seem more alien. But to do that it helps to understand the basic needs of man, so that those can also be partially deleted or modified for effect.

Basic human needs include:

Physical, emotional, spiritual, social, and intellectual/the capacity to understand.

Modify any one of these as you wish and you will have a society that would seem extreme to us, but normal to them.

For example, social. Perhaps males and females do not really socialize but still reproduce?

Or maybe they have no male or female? Maybe they divide like cells once they intake enough food?

The possibilities are virtually endless.

 

[Brian G Turner]

If you look at different cultures on Earth, you can often find fascinating differences and approaches to what we would normally encounter in the West. Playing with emotions is one way to imagine aliens, but I would suggest to never underestimate culture - and our own world can be a great source of inspiration for that.

Btw, welcome to the chronicles forums.

 

[K174]

If you look at different cultures on Earth, you can often find fascinating differences and approaches to what we would normally encounter in the West. Playing with emotions is one way to imagine aliens, but I would suggest to never underestimate culture - and our own world can be a great source of inspiration for that.

Btw, welcome to the chronicles forums.

Aware of them.

Probably the most 'alien' of them all compared to western civilization were the Inca.

The economy was virtually moneyless and operated via work or literally we kill you ethos.

Labor tax, since money was mostly for dealing with outsider trade.

 

[Phyrebrat]

I think we can mine far deeper with our imaginations than the usual run of the mill ST aliens. I’m trying to think of an interesting alien concept species in any of the ST franchises that is no longer hackneyed.

I very much liked the idea of the tardigrade stuff in Discovery but must admit the same-old Vulcan-struggling-with-emotions or not-struggling is very played out and boring to me.

Stephen King’s Pennywise and Dean Koontz’ short Miss Attila the Hun and his novel The Taking present far more interesting alien concepts than humanoids.

I’d advise authors trying to uncover new alien storylines and characters err towards the Niven puppet master than the same-ol same-ol.

pH

 

[tinkerdan]

I think if you look a C J Cherryh you can see good examples of how taking notions about diversity in cultures and some sociological aspects here on Earth and giving them a bit of twist can enhance the alien nature of your characters. I'm re-reading Hunter of Worlds presently and if you read that and The Fade Sun series you will get the same feel. Her characters feel and act quite alien while at the same time they suffer that aspect[based on human qualities] that helps bring the reader closer to them no matter how strange their behavior might seem at times.

The side effect to this is that the characters often sound like slightly divergent and warped members of cultures here on Earth while bearing little actual resemblance, which might account for the alien feel of the stories.

 

[Josh K]

Another thing to consider isn't only the emotions, it's the culture. I think in almost every way culture has a bigger impact on emotions than the biological factor itself. Look at Klingons in Star Trek. They were my favorite race (until they got absolutely butchered in the new series), and they had an incredibly rich culture of honor and war. At least to me, it is the culture, as well as characters, that makes alien races interesting. Look at babylon 5, my favorite sci-fi TV series. They did an absolutely amazing job of creating alien races, going so far as to have races that were completely alien from human experience. However, when I look back on that series you know what was most compelling? It was the interactions between G'kar and Lando (the Narn and Mollari people). I can honestly tell you that I have never, in all my time reading sci-fi/fantasy, seen a more intriguing and compelling dynamic than those two characters. And why were they compelling? Well, it was the interactions, it was the cultural dynamic and the tension between their races. It wasn't their emotions as a people. Another thing to consider is this. Some humans don't feel love. Some humans don't feel guilt. There are words for that in the human language, because they currently happen. I don't think emotion is really what you're looking for here, not with your goal to make alien races.

 

[K174]

Another thing to consider isn't only the emotions, it's the culture. I think in almost every way culture has a bigger impact on emotions than the biological factor itself. Look at Klingons in Star Trek. They were my favorite race (until they got absolutely butchered in the new series), and they had an incredibly rich culture of honor and war. At least to me, it is the culture, as well as characters, that makes alien races interesting. Look at babylon 5, my favorite sci-fi TV series. They did an absolutely amazing job of creating alien races, going so far as to have races that were completely alien from human experience. However, when I look back on that series you know what was most compelling? It was the interactions between G'kar and Lando (the Narn and Mollari people). I can honestly tell you that I have never, in all my time reading sci-fi/fantasy, seen a more intriguing and compelling dynamic than those two characters. And why were they compelling? Well, it was the interactions, it was the cultural dynamic and the tension between their races. It wasn't their emotions as a people. Another thing to consider is this. Some humans don't feel love. Some humans don't feel guilt. There are words for that in the human language, because they currently happen. I don't think emotion is really what you're looking for here, not with your goal to make alien races.

G'kar and Londo's relationship is certainly entertaining... but also very human in nature.

In fact, every alien on B5 acts human. Even the Shadows and to a lesser extent the Vorlons who go out of their way to act weird.
That is why some like myself, like B5 aluens better than Trek, because they act like REAL people.

Even so, just for the sake of living up to the alien name, I play with emotions and other factors.

Culture is not something I consider a challenge, inasmuch their emotions or limitations in other ways will inform what I create culturally.

I can create lots of races easily as it is with culture and more.