I’ve ended up going
on with the idea of creating “alien aliens” by reading some classic short
stories in which alien aliens were front and center. So far:
“Can These Bones
Live?” by Ted Reynolds (ANALOG, March 1979) – in which a Human has to plead for
the resurrection of a race of extinct aliens after dreaming about the greatness
of the aliens. She also ends up asking questions about the aliens who have the
power and eventually about an alien people who the powerful ones respect. This
gives a fascinating view of what different sapients might find important. (Nominated
for several awards)
“Slow Life” by
Michael Swanwick (ANALOG, December 2002) – in which astronauts are exploring
the oceans on Saturn’s moon, Titan. A perfectly rational scientists gets into
trouble and starts to have weird dreams, eventually believing that some form of
intelligent life who live in black smoker type stacks in the methane oceans of
the moon are communicating with her through dreams. (Won Hugo for best
novelette of that year)
“Camouflage” by
Joe Haldeman (ANALOG, March-May 2004) – Two aliens landed on Earth a long, long
time ago and eventually take on Human form and live a small portion of their eternal
lives on Earth. (Won James Tiptree, Jr award and 2005 Nebula for best novel)
“Blood Music” by
Greg Bear (ANALOG, June 1983) – A scientists injects himself with his own
cells, enhanced and transformed into colonial sapient beings, alien in every
way but origin. In the magazine story, they might have been stopped; in the novel,
they weren’t. (Story: Hugo 1983, Nebula 1984; novel nominated for both plus
British Science Fiction Award).
Recently,
I have read all of David Brin’s UPLIFT books and stories, which are full of
aliens of every variety. Julie Czerneda works with aliens in all but her
fantasy novels with various levels of “out-there-ness”. CJ Cherry has spent 20
years exploring the society of the “alien” atevi.
What
ALL of these have in common may seem obvious to you, but it was a startling
surprise to me. I finally figured out that aliens are best presented and realized
when they are metaphorical representations of the Humans they interact with.
Of
course, this raises the question: “Is this what REAL aliens will be like?”
The
answer (also “Of course!”) is “Are you kidding?”
They won’t be like Shram, T’Pol, The Horta,
Alien, Jar Jar Binks, Solaris (though this one comes close to being really “alien”),
ET, or even Esen-alit-Quar, who, while physically alien, has a personality that’s
as Human as mine.
They’ll
be alien. Most likely incomprehensible. Alien.
So,
once we reach the year that we make Contact, what do we do? Probably spend
forever trying to figure it out. It’s unlikely that there will be a Federation
we can join; probably not an Evil Empire to fight or even a Rebellion we can join; we’ll probably continue on the same way we are going today. They won’t be
our Alien Saviors or our Alien Enslavers. They probably won’t even notice us.
So
the function of aliens in science fiction is to explore HUMANS; us. Not figure
out what will happen at First Contact. Nothing will happen. It’ll hit the
headlines, then vanish from our normal navel gazing life. Even the ones who
SWEAR they’re ready and are smirking at the rest of us will move on to the next "interesting thing".
So.
How do I create aliens to explore Humans? They have to interact with Humans and be a metaphor of something profound that I’m trying to say. Something
related to my themes: Education. First contact. Faith in God. How we interact
with very alien. Domestication. Technological solution to problems today. Self-sacrifice.
Humor.
I
do NOT have these down yet. In fact, I’m not even certain these are the themes
I’m working on. But, I AM working on them. It’s just going to take time to learn
to focus!
Resources:
http://astronomy.com/bonus/alien-contacthttp://astronomy.com/bonus/alien-contact,
https://medium.com/@adammann930/we-need-to-do-a-better-job-of-imagining-aliens-8fc7dff0af44,
Image: https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/memoryalpha/images/1/12/Horta.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/340?cb=20110626014559&path-prefix=enhttps://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/memoryalpha/images/1/12/Horta.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/340?cb=20110626014559&path-prefix=en
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