WAS SUPPOSED TO POST THIS YESTERDAY, 9/6/25!
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...
My quotes below are from something Google calls an “AI Overview” from my query “Families in Space”. While I’ve used them in the past, I was somewhat irritated by a couple of things this overview presented: “For future space settlements, new family structures will be needed to address the unique challenges of microgravity, radiation, and isolation, possibly forming by necessity rather than just biological ties…Behavioral health programs are being developed to support astronauts’ families, addressing issues like…changing family roles…Space settlement families will likely be diverse, forming from biological ties or personal choice, and may take on various forms, including polyamorous or egalitarian structures…In a more metaphorical sense, stars are born in ‘families’ or groups, sharing characteristics and originating from the same place at the same time.”
While I’m sure Google wants to present this as a “totally logical computer speculation” and figures I’ll just accept it as the inevitable Progress Of Humanity, I find it oddly…myopic, blithely setting a “bold new course” into the future as Humanity changes the way families have functioned (admittedly with varying degrees of success) since they have pretty much been the same since the first family units formed half-a-million years ago. So, because of AI, computers, and the boundless wisdom of scientists, all that BS is about to come to an end, thank-technology?
Seems oddly…stupid.
What would alter a family who live on the back of an immense semi-sapient creature floating in the atmosphere of a gas giant, since apparently, “new family structures will be needed to address...unique challenges”? Living on the back of a gigantic blimp would probably present “unique challenges”, eh?
On the other hand, I’m going to assume that Humans will need somewhere to stand, something to breathe, something to eat, and somewhere to breed. None of those basics are unique challenges, are they? Humans have been dealing with them as the biological unit we call families for half-a-million years. The environments on different worlds, OBVIOUSLY will be different. But Humans evolved on the African continent. Of COURSE weather and other factors were different than they were today, in fact, that very change argues that the social groups those original primate families developed it won’t change as radically going so far as to require “new family structures”. But using cold as the environmental challenge, “The coldest place where humans have had a permanent presence is the Russian village of Oymyakon…(which is) The coldest permanently inhabited village…in Siberia, the village of Oymyakon has average winter temperatures of around -58°F. The lowest recorded temperature in this settlement was -89.9°F) in 1933. Despite the extreme cold, Oymyakon has a permanent population of a few hundred residents. The cold is so intense that residents must keep vehicles running constantly so the engines don't freeze. Plumbing is nonexistent due to the permanently frozen ground (permafrost), so most toilets are outhouses.”
Human family structure appears to have remained as it was half-a-million years ago…it seems that Human and/or AI lack faith in the resiliency of the Human family unit.
In the skies of River, a gas giant world I’ve been writing in for several years now (two published stories: “The Baptism of Johnny Ferocious” (Dragons, Knights, and Angels), and “Prince of Blood and Spit” (Perihelion, 2015: https://theworkandworksheetsofguystewart.blogspot.com/2021/06/prince-of-blood-and-spit-perihelion.html) the “nuclear family” is quite healthy. In fact, the backs of these gigantic bags of undulating gas are planted with genetically engineered crops – mostly medicinal, but also designed to concentrate Human-necessary compounds, minerals, and molecules (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK218751/), (https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/healthyliving/Vitamins-and-minerals). While gengineering Humans for particular environments may become necessary at some point, and while the propensity of the Human animal appeared to be directed to clumping in family units with variations (Navy Seals, for instance); or Western industrialized civilizations (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8294648/); it’s also clear that while what has been historically defined as a “family unit”, little has changed in Humans over that half-million-year period of time.
Where I take exception, is the assumption that in challenging conditions, the family as we know it will seemingly evaporate to be taken over by something more... “egalitarian” – by which I think those kinds of Human writers mean, “families as I know them are doomed to become whatever people want them to be”…in reading information of SF novels for YA readers, the absurd term I came across is “found family”. It SEEMED to mean that kids can choose whatever kind of family they want willy-nilly and with no thought except “what feels good and meets all of my needs” without giving much thought to the needs of the rest of the people in these “found families”.
It seems to me that the pressure of Humanity moving to alien worlds or living in alien environments and facing interactions with alien peoples – would necessitate the FIRM foundation of the nuclear family unit that evolved here on Earth among the various species of Homo. The idea of a family “forming from biological ties or personal choice, [that] may take on various forms, including polyamorous or egalitarian structures…” is not only silly, but bound to failure. How can an “egalitarian structure” “…a system…that promotes equality and equal access to rights, opportunities, and resources for all its members, regardless of their background or social status. It aims to dismantle hierarchies and power disparities, fostering a sense of shared responsibility, and ensuring everyone is treated with equal fundamental worth and moral status.” make for survival in an inherently hostile environment? How can we colonize and thrive on/in a world deadly to unprotected, naked Human life? If no one’s the boss of anyone and no one can tell anyone else what to do, (which is implied by “equal fundamental worth, status, power, and morality”, and no one’s opinion or experience is more or less valid than anyone else’s…
In the skies of River, there needs to be authority (do NOT read authoritarianism!) and direction (do NOT read dictatorship!) Would Humans – as a species – even exist if hierarchy and disparity of power was forcibly removed (which begs the question, WHO WOULD ENFORCE the disparities? Who would make certain that social status vanished? Who enforces the equal distribution of resources?
No, the pioneers of River, riding on the backs of immense cloudwhales will have families and institutions that have evolved after 500,000 years; NOT family units conceived of over the past 200 years…recognizable. Stable. Not all moms who say, “No, you can’t stick that fork in an electrical outlet! Stop now, or else!” will vanish.
Much to the relief of Human evolution…
Sources: (see embedded in essay above)
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