CREATING ALIEN ALIENS Part 32 A: Human Manners; Alien Manners

Five decades ago, I started my college career with the intent of becoming a marine biologist. I found out I had to get a BS in biology before I could even begin work on MARINE biology; especially because there WEREN'T any marine biology programs in Minnesota.

Along the way, the science fiction stories I'd been writing since I was 13 began to grow more believable. With my BS in biology and a fascination with genetics, I started to use more science in my fiction.

After reading hard SF for the past 50 years, and writing hard SF successfully for the past 20, I've started to dig deeper into what it takes to create realistic alien life forms. In the following series, I'll be sharing some of what I've learned. I've had some of those stories published, some not...I teach a class to GT young people every summer called ALIEN WORLDS. I've learned a lot preparing for that class for the past 25 years...so...I have the opportunity to share with you what I've learned thus far. Take what you can use, leave the rest. Let me know what YOU'VE learned. Without further ado...

So, once we contact/are contacted by THEM, where do we go? How do we behave? Will aliens simply believe what they see from our well-behaved diplomats or Congresspeople er…common everyday folk, scientists, ummm…who, exactly WILL represent Humanity to an alien civilization and/or alien representatives?

The United Nations…well…not exactly, as they aren't EXACTLY "united".

The wealthy? Hmmm, problematic at best, but more likely to have something to talk about with aliens, who invested LOTS OF…well, SOMETHING to travel light years to reach Earth. Wealthy Humans may feel they have more in common with aliens they know came from vast distances.

The poor? Sometimes the poor WERE wealthy! Perhaps the ideal First Communicator would be someone who once experienced wealth, then lost that wealth. People like Martha Stewart. Larry King. Dorothy Hamill. Walt Disney. All of them were wealthy (PLUS Stewart spent five months in prison), then recovered their wealth. They understand the attitude – but that also they know the feel of poverty, making them sympathetic to most of the inhabitants of Earth (“81 billionaires have more wealth than 50% of the world combined”) – for those of us mathematically inclined that’s 2 x 10 (to the) -9 % of the world’s population is richer than 4,000,000,000 of the rest of us.

Yet, there’s a good chance that some of those wealthiest Humans will call the shots in the event of an alien landing. Certainly some will argue that they are more QUALIFIED to speak with aliens...so we need to be prepared to deal with them and actually CHOOSE people who would be qualified and not just the "right party" (would aliens even UNDERSTAND something like a "political party"???).

I’d be hesitant to put soldiers in charge of talking to aliens as well – and I’m the father of an Army Staff Sergeant, and have known fine, upstanding soldiers of ranks all the way up to Major -- but I'd still be hesitant to put a soldier as the sole contact to aliens. But, being in the military carries with it a very clear mindset that may or may not be important when welcoming (or confronting) aliens who have landed on Earth.

I suppose a TEAM would be best, but then that smacks of manners and protocol, doesn’t it? Can we make an assumption that aliens would have the same or similar manners and protocol as we would -- or even that they are more "mono-thought" than we are?

It seems to me that we COULD assume that.

The aliens coming to Earth have invested an immense amount of whatever passes for “cash” on their world – or however they coerced someone on their world to foot the bill to construct or grow a ship capable of traveling across tens to millions of light-years AND to deliver people of alien origin WHO ARE STILL ALIVE after crossing those distances.

The first question our former-millionaire-poverty-stricken-again-millionaire first contact group will be, naturally, “Why are you here?”

The assumption is that we would understand any answer the aliens would give. We would be expecting (the ONLY ANSWER WE COULD POSSIBLY EXPECT is "We've come to take over everything and vaporize all of you.") an answer we could understand – and yet, can we MAKE such an assumption? 

Think about it: the first white person landing on any shore of the Americas is confronted by someone who already lives there. (It seems to me that the first question European “explorers” asked, was “What are YOU doing here?” then they proceeded to be enraged that someone else claimed to have been there FIRST and weren’t interested in giving up their homeland…but I digress.) 

An alien standing in front of our Greeters SHOULD face a small group of the MOST diverse individuals we can assemble. They should NOT be from the area of the landing (though least ONE should be a true local, I suppose as the aliens chose to land THERE) rather they should have one person from each SUB-Continent, though NOT from each country. That would be a somewhat overwhelming number of Humans – if it happened today, that would be 195 people.

Unless the Aliens brought that many with them (which means, if the brought 195, that they understand the significance of the nation-states of Earth and are willing to deal with us that way) it seems reasonable that we might (instead of bringing up the RICHEST countries) bring a pair of people from each of the most POPULOUS countries – one rich person, one poor person.

These individuals would have to be trained as well as we can train them. IF the aliens adhere to manners we can understand, they will send us a dictionary with a common language everyone could speak; preparing us for that contact – rather than like the movie “Arrival” where linguists had to figure out the language of the Heptapods and put it all together just moments before an all-out planetary war erupted... 

This would reduce the number of Humans greeting the aliens to some sixty. These individuals would then be able to represent nations with populations ranging from 1.5 billion to .05 billion, and speak with some authority – but NOT BE FROM ANY RULING GROUP WHETHER DICTATORSHIP OR REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY. They need to be regular people; because it's regular people who will be most profoundly affected by an alien visitation.

All right, that’s all I can think of for now, but rest assured – I’m not done yet! I’m sure as I ponder this, I’ll think of more things that we might need to make a first contact with an alien civilizations.

Sources: https://www.wisebread.com/12-lessons-in-manners-from-around-the-world ; https://www.sciencealert.com/these-7-rules-form-a-universal-moral-code-shared-by-every-culture-study-finds ; https://bss.au.dk/en/cognition-and-behavior-lab/for-participants/examples-of-studies-in-cobe-lab/what-aliens-can-tell-us-about-politeness ; https://www.entrepreneur.com/leadership/9-multimillionaires-who-lost-it-all-but-came-back/335042 ; https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/wealth-inequality-oxfam-billionaires-elon-musk/#:~:text=The%20richest%201%25%20own%20almost%20half%20of%20the%20world's%20wealth,99%25%20of%20the%20world's%20population. ; https://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/states.htm#:~:text=List%20of%20all%20Sovereign%20Nations,including%20de%20facto%20independent%20Taiwan Image: https://image.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/alien-human-600w-136457129.jpg