No aliens in the 'Verse...How do you feel?

POSTED BY: BWare42
UPDATED: Wednesday, February 8, 2006 03:25
VIEWED: 20169
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FERT1

Friday, February 3, 2006 9:55 PM

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As someone else-thread posted, aliens are too often used as shorthand stereotypes (all Klingons are stamped from this mold, all Vulcans from this mold, etc). I want a series that gives us some aliens with as much individuality as humans. Yeah, let humans be good, bad, and morally ambiguous, but let the other species do the same.

You just described Babylon 5. That was my first thought when I read your post. Think about it. Of the Centauri, the main characters you had on the show were Londo and Vir. Vir chose the high road, and Londo chose the low road. But...Londo wasn't entirely a villain. In fact, he was a very complex character whom you felt sorry for at times, even though he did some really despicable things. He was victim as much as villain, and in the end realized his mistakes, when it was too late, at least for him. He even had heroic moments. He was a very complex and layered character. He came across as very...human. All the characters on that show were 3 dimensional, and all evolved and grew as people, (so to speak). A very well done show if you've never seen it!

Now having said all that, I like Firefly just fine without the aliens. Why? Because it's original, and it makes a certain sense. Even if you believe there is alien life out there, when first exploring the universe, the likelihood of encountering it would be pretty slim. After all the tired old sterotypes and Star Trek aliens with speed bumps on their head, Joss's verse was quite refreshing, very new and different. That's one of the things I've always liked about Joss's projects. You can count on something new and refreshing, not the same old thing that has been rehashed a million times.

I've had an idea for some time for a storyline that I think would make a good SF book. Yes, it's very similar to an old Twilight Zone episode, but that is not what inspired me. The story would be of an alien invasion, similar to War of the Worlds, with cruel, heartless aliens that think nothing of killing off the people to take their planent from them. In the end, you would find out the invaders were from a place called Earth. What actually inspired me on that idea, was a friend telling me that our "top minds" had discussed and studied the whole alien encounter thing, and decided that if aliens contacted us, it would never be for a good reason. It would be to mean us harm in some way. My reaction was, "Yeah, they think that because that's exactly what we [humans] would do." Then it hit me, you know, that would make a good story.

While I don't think Firefly needs aliens, I do believe in sentient alien life. I don't necessarily think it's in our own galaxy or even particularly close. As someone else mentioned, it would most likely be too far away for our species to ever meet, even with advanced space travel capabilities. The Universe is very vast. I think it's very egocentric to think we would be the only life or only intelligent life.

1. If you believe God designed the Universe, then as others have pointed out, it's a terrible waste of space - just doesn't make sense.

2. If you think there is no God and it's all evolution, then it still makes sense that life would evolve. It would almost have to evolve. It could and most likely would be very different from life on this planet. I even think scientist are pretty short-sighted to think that a planet would have to have a very similar atmosphere and climate to our own in order for life to evolve.

One of the main concepts behind the theory of evolution is that life adapts to the environment, not the other way around. Just because life on this planet could not live there, doesn't mean it couldn't have it's own ecosystem with creatures that evolved to live under those conditions. Am I making sense?

KIZYR

Friday, February 3, 2006 10:18 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by ThePistonEngine:
But I disagree with those who say it undermines the viewers ability to connect on human emotions. Babylon 5 was a great series with aliens, at least the first two seasons (definately not the last two)

...
......touché

B5 was great in that regard. Probably the paragon of your more 'classic', unblended sci-fi. I think it's a lot of what was reiterated in this thread about B5's aliens being just as diverse as humans, mostly.

Quote:
Originally posted by Fert1:
1. If you believe God designed the Universe ... it's a terrible waste of space

2. If you think there is no God and it's all evolution, then it still makes sense that life would evolve.

Ok, I'd like to chime in on this tangent of the discussion, since I find it most interesting. That and I believe God designed the universe through the natural laws that we've been discovering for the past 20,000 years, evolution included (then again, my thoughts on evolution as a theory are too long-winded, so I'll skip it for now).

I believe that alien life is possible. I think any shred of evidence, right down to the Martian rocks with evidence of extraterrestrial bacteria, is enough to firmly place alien life within the possible category.

Plus which, religiously, I see nothing that'd limit God from creating life anywhere and everywhere, on up 'til sentient life evolved. Scientifically, evolution isn't supposed to be a localized theory, but a generally-applicable one; therefore it doesn't make much sense to completely rule it out once we leave the atmosphere. Sure, there are factors that would inhibit life--heat, lack of heat, lack of water, etc. But it's not far-fetched to think that somewhere in this universe exists a few planets in a similar situation as Earth, at least as far as things like the presence of water and carbon are concerned.

By the way, before the Renaissance period, in some churches the idea of a round world was prohibited because it would mean the possible existence of other people who hadn't received God's revelations. And that would open up too many theological questions. So, some folks have used religion to limit how big the world--or 'verse--can be. KF

~KF

Lord, I'm walking your way. Let me in, for my feet are sore, my clothes are ragged.
Look in my eyes, Lord, and my sins will play out on them as on a screen. Read them all.
Forgive what you can and send me on my path. I will walk on until you bid me rest.
~Haven Prayer

CHRISTHECYNIC

Friday, February 3, 2006 10:24 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Fert1:
I've had an idea for some time for a storyline that I think would make a good SF book. Yes, it's very similar to an old Twilight Zone episode, but that is not what inspired me. The story would be of an alien invasion, similar to War of the Worlds, with cruel, heartless aliens that think nothing of killing off the people to take their planent from them. In the end, you would find out the invaders were from a place called Earth. What actually inspired me on that idea, was a friend telling me that our "top minds" had discussed and study the whole alien encounter thing, and decided that if aliens contacted us, it would never be for a good reason. It would be to mean us harm in some way. My reaction was, "Yeah, they think that because that's exactly what we [humans] would do." Then it hit me, you know, that would make a good story.

That has been done before, you mentioned The Twilight Zone, Outer Limits had one where they pointed out the invaders were from Earth to begin with. (The twist, becasue they always have one, was that the place they were invading was more or less a campground and the race was actually far more advanced than humans, and when the people came to pick up their kids they were pissed.)

I don't actually like either show, and I think it can probably be done much better than they did it.

I'm not trying to talk you out of your story, btw.

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The sci-fi thing I've had in my head was one where there were simply people, a lost colony in a space faring future, and they had grown into two groups, one of which had the ultimate version of an, "us and them," mentality and they had a concept that I think is pretty alien, perhaps even more so than most aliens in sci-fi. It was that they were "us versus them" and never "us vs. us" no matter what.

So when the colony was found, and the explorers who found it tried to overthrow the people in charge because of moral differences the ones in charge wouldn't punish or harm them in any way because the explorers had certain genetic markers making them a part of "us."

I don't think anyone's ever done that. The closest I can think of is the Deep Space Nine creed, "No changeling has ever harmed another." But that is hardly the same as members of a very violent society saying, "No matter what you do to us, even if you kill some of us, we will not harm you."

Which is sort of what I mean by human beings being alien, you can see that some people might do that, the roots of it exist here and now, but if you saw a culture doing that, a group of people who would kill an outsider for little or no reason getting beaten to death (or some such) without a fight because the ones doing it shared a couple of gene sequences, wouldn't that seem alien?

CHRISTHECYNIC

Friday, February 3, 2006 10:41 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by MichaelAngelo:
Secondly, they cost too much! In a TV show they end up being humans with a bumpy nose or vestigial horns & yellow skin... ruttin lame. If you are gonna do aliens, *DO* aliens, not Joe Schmoe actor with a bit more makeup on.

One of the things about Aliens that I like, one of the many things, is that there is a reason the aliens are bipedal beyond the fact that they are people in suits.

The reason is the same reason that cloning Ripley produced an alien, and the one born of a dog was different than the ones born of people.

The aliens were produced not just by the host's body, but by the host's genetics. Some traits were taken. It always seemed like a nice touch, just giving a reason why they look like people in funny suits. I also liked the fact that instead of making the creatures look alien only by costuming they put effort into making the body movements alien too.

On the other hand an explanation isn't enough Star Trek had an episode in The Next Generation to try to explain why everyone looked like a human in makeup, but it really didn’t make it any more believable.

Just the idea that all aliens would communicate vocally is kind of shortsighted, there are animals here on earth that communicate (to some degree) based on color, you can fit in a lot more shades than you can phonemes so why not have things talk like that?

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There are some limits to alien life, there's only so many legs you need (but I have no idea what the limit is), if you're in a cold place it helps to be warm blooded, if you're a predator you only really need two eyes (though you certainly can have more) and they should be pointed in the direction you generally move. It goes on, but the limits are hardly enough to make all aliens look like people. My point is that that should be taken into account when making up an alien, if something lives underwater for God’s sake make it hydrodynamic, for example.

CHRISTHECYNIC

Friday, February 3, 2006 10:43 PM

Someday everything will work correctly and there will be no more double posts. Perhaps three days after the end of everything.

MICHAELANGELO

Friday, February 3, 2006 10:48 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Fert1:
One of the main concepts behind the theory of evolution is that life adapts to the environment, not the other way around. Just because life on this planet could not live there, doesn't mean it couldn't have it's own ecosystem with creatures that evolved to live under those conditions. Am I making sense?

We continue finding life on *this* planet where scientists didn't think for a second it could survive... fact is indeed stranger than fiction.

PSYCHICRIVER

Friday, February 3, 2006 10:49 PM

Little groggy.

PsychicRiver

"Two by two, hands of blue."
"We'll take care of each other. I'll knit!"
"I swallowed a bug."

CHRISTHECYNIC

Friday, February 3, 2006 11:12 PM

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Originally posted by PsychicRiver:
Little groggy.

Congratualations, you get the, "First person to answer the actual question," award.

MISBEHAVIN

Saturday, February 4, 2006 2:35 AM

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...I think that it is a bit naive to think that we are the only species in the universe & that Earth is the only populated planet...

We haven't found any other life out there, so until we do, it isn't really naive to believe we're alone. I've noticed that many are quick to believe in a universe teeming with life even though there's no evidence to support it, and I wonder how many of these same people reject the idea of God or creation because they think it unscientific.

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...But I saw Joss's quote about sentient beings the other day and wondered how many believed it. I certainly don't. Like Jodi Foster said in "Contact.": "I don't know if ther's life on other planets...If not, it seems like an awful waste of space."...

I agree with Joss. As to whether it is wasted space, it can be largely empty without being a waste. Artists and graphic designers know the power of empty space: it draws attention to everything else. Like a diamond on black velvet, Earth itself is very beautiful against the black of space. We saw this for the first time when we went to the moon. I believe in a very creative God who does things on a grand scale because he can. God may have created the vastness of the universe because he liked it as a canvas for Earth. Maybe he created it for us to appreciate his power and beauty. Or, maybe he created it as a playground for us to explore.

CHRISTHECYNIC

Saturday, February 4, 2006 6:07 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by misbehavin:
Quote:
...I think that it is a bit naive to think that we are the only species in the universe & that Earth is the only populated planet...

We haven't found any other life out there, so until we do, it isn't really naive to believe we're alone.

I've got a nickel, I flipped it two times, thus testing it twice as much as we've tested for life, both times it came up tails. I've checked it and it does indeed have heads on one side. So, knowing that it is fair, do you think it is naive to think it will come up tails every time I flip it from now to eternity?

I do, but that's just me. Just because something is naive doesn't mean it is wrong, it could be that the fair nickel will come up tails every time I flip it from now on.

BUT, if we start on the base assumption that the universe isn't fixed and probability is real we have to conclude that it is naive, though not necessarily wrong, to believe that there is not life on other planets or that the nickel will not eventually come up heads.

Quote:
I've noticed that many are quick to believe in a universe teeming with life even though there's no evidence to support it, and I wonder how many of these same people reject the idea of God or creation because they think it unscientific.

Well that would be pretty damn stupid, I mean science was founded by the devout and, on the flip side, some of the strongest supporters of the belief of life on other planets when science was just kicking off were Christian theologians.

The most scientific stance on god has always been, “We don’t know.” I mean I’ve never heard of any atheist who believed in science rejecting god on the grounds of science, heard of quite a few who didn’t believe in science doing that, but they really don’t count when talking about science now do they?

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Or, maybe he created it as a playground for us to explore.

You know sometimes people say something innocently enough and it just makes me want to hit god. A giant playground for humanity and not a single playmate in the whole thing, humanity just has to play with itself forever. Seems awfully lonely, more than somewhat traumatic too.

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