CREATING ALIEN ALIENS Part 42B: Alien Families and What That Might Mean When Colonizing a Gas Giant…

WAS SUPPOSED TO POST THIS YESTERDAY, 9/6/25!

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...

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)

Image: 

CREATING ALIEN ALIENS Part 42A: Human Space Families and What That Might Mean For First Contact

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...

You know, it’s weird that there are SO FEW ALIEN MOVIES, NOVELS, or STORIES that include families. I'm going to do this post in two parts. FIRST, I want to take a QUICK look to see how writers have handled HUMAN families in outer space.

The stories usually allude to familial units by introducing kids, but that’s often as a matter of “they’re succeeding the Throne after the death of their “parent”…or the kid’s overthrowing the evil parent…or the parents spawn eighteen quadrillion children who invade Earth to eat as much of the life on it as they can.

But, mostly, there are few families. Old-timey books include families: PODKAYNE OF MARS by Robert A. Heinlein seems space travel as totally normal and a teen kiddo and younger brother lit through the Solar System like they were on a trip to the Wisconsin Dells. Speaking of which, LOST IN SPACE was literally about a family who was “lost in space”…though, of course, it was basically a joke.

A novel I’m reading today, which I HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend to your attention is SWEEP OF STARS by Maurice Broaddus, which fascinating, complex, and has Solar Civilization arranged along the lines of traditional/and wildly variable African families – a TRUE Diaspora. I’m 2/3 through it and you should read it AND it’s about Families In Space!

But…but…but…just finishing up the STAR TREK: PICARD series, and for once, it has a HEAVY family component. But that’s mostly a recent development…SF writers never USED TO explore families in space. It was always INTREPID explorers doing things the Old Military Way – the men left their families behind to save the world! So, SF writers tended to take the easiest route and had the men (occasionally women) leaving their families behind. Of course, exploring that would have HAD to have led to showing men weeping when their children die (or are born) while they’re away “exploring Outer Space” or “Colonizing The Universe”. So, today, we have a dearth of REALISITC Families In Space. I’d be happy if we explored OTHER kinds of families than Nuclear…but I’d be happier if we DID explore using families as the foundation of Human exploration of space.

I also see that I, myself had contributed to that dearth of “Families IN OUTER SPACE” tales. I think I need to get to work on that idea…see ya!

Sources: ONE list from 2023 that lists “Family SciFi – https://bookriot.com/found-family-young-adult-books-in-space/ 

Image: https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/astronaut-family-on-space-2206022229

CREATING ALIEN ALIENS Part 41: The Unreliable Narrator & A Culture of Lying

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...

Let me say first that I don’t believe that there is any chance left that an “honest politician” exists. I don’t care who they are or who they claim to be. Politicians (even our “best and brightest”) have one word in mind: Power. They desire above everything else to get power, keep power, and use power to help a) themselves; b) people they consider family; c) people in my party who think very much the way I do; d) (which normally doesn’t happen) “serve” my city/district/county/state/country/world.

Now that I have that cleared up (and I am uninterested in seeing your arguments unless you can offer me undeniable proof that I am wrong), how can I tell any kind of story about any kind of future I’d like to live in?

Star Wars? No – that’s just 20th Century Earth spread like manure over other planets.

Star Trek? No – that’s just a single man’s absurd belief that the universe would work the way HE wanted it to and that anyone who disagreed in any detail was wrong.

Babylon 5? It’s already just Earth written…well, not larger but spread farther than is believable but during which absolutely nothing changes.

Other Interplanetary Fictions that other people besides geeks read are irrelevant because not enough people know about them or read them (in any visual format that involves visible words) to take the tenets and apply them to reality. The only exception is George Orwell’s 1984, and as we have read (those of us who still read) it’s already been and is gone.

Dune? It offers absolutely nothing new or applicable to human existence – even at its simplest form, we can say that it’s here already (but without sandworms).

Fewer people read because first of all, reading is expensive: doesn’t matter what you read ON, you have to first be able to afford it and all the accoutrements that go with it (NOT including affordable electrical energy whether generated, stored, or created by some kind of chemical reaction.) cost some amount of money or trade.

Religion is unprovable. I happen to be an evangelical Christian myself, but I cannot in any convincing way offer you proof of my faith. The same goes for anything else based on something invisible – which also includes political systems: republic, democratic (true or any one of its various hybrid forms), theocratic, communist, or anarchy, or socialism (which inevitably devolves into dictatorship); or thought or emotion, neither of which is quantifiable in any way. (Of COURSE some aliens somewhere can quantify thought and emotion…it’s what we hope. It’s why Humans created every science fiction world – we want SOMEDAY to be better than we are.

BTW: Fantasy doesn’t count because ALL of it is based on thought or emotion, neither of which is quantifiable in any way.

So, is there any way for the Human organism to create an interplanetary society, explore space, and expand our place in the universe WITHOUT resorting to force?

Because that was the ONLY way Humanity could have evolved/was created – I can’t think of any way Humanity came to be. Every science fiction writer who has ever created a universe based on some science principle or another (or group of them) are only ENTERTAINING THEMSELVES AND EVENTUALLY OTHERS who choose to join them in their fun.

So, is there anywhere for Humanity to go? Once we create the energy to “get to the stars”, we’ll just transport all of the above off Earth and nothing will change; nothing will be different.

NOW, if you want to keep trying, that is up to you…well, not you PERSONALLY! YOU as a single person can’t do anything that would effect the future of Humanity. You’ll be dead in a genetically predetermined amount of time. You can certainly try and “make a difference” – but after watching the fantastical “Monuments Men”, it’s once again clear that Adolph Hitler CERTAINLY did make a difference.

So, what is my reason for writing science fiction? Sometimes I write it long; sometimes short. I certainly want people to READ what I write, but few people have published my writing, so a very small number had READ what I have to say; of course some have read it, but as far as I can tell, my writing hasn’t made any kind of difference in their lives. I haven’t converted anyone to my point of view.

How can I create a world people want to read about as avidly as I read about Anne McCaffery’s world of PERN (which stands for, apparently, Parallel Earth Negligible Resources – now isn’t THAT a joke on me!)?

I can’t be any more sure of my writing leaving a lasting impression on a young person’s mind and heart than she did, or Frank Herbert did, or JK Rowling did (ignore what I said about fantasy, it’s important! Just not my pot of tea!).

Every year fantasy and science fiction is written AROUND THE WORLD. In how many languages? A Western newspaper writes with self-assured authority (and jabs at people who disagree with it as NOT as superior as they are!) here: https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2015/sep/11/seek-out-new-worlds-of-science-fiction-damien-walter#:~:text=Seek%20out%20new%20worlds%20of%20science%20fiction,a%20global%20language%20describing%20our%20shared%20future.

They self-righteously concluded in 2015: “If any single theme unites…African folktales to Chinese legend – into to the science fiction canon…science fiction has become the mythology of today’s…world…embrac[ing] the rich and valuable world mythologies that came before it.”

Sources: Image: https://image.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/alien-human-600w-136457129.jpg

CREATING ALIEN ALIENS Part 40: Why Do We Think “The Worst Aliens” Are…Unbelievable?

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...

I am a brutal critic of aliens in ANY TV series, movie, book, or any other media format. Part of the reason is that my undergraduate degree is in biology and my graduate degree is in psychology/school counseling. My life experience is in teaching 4th-12th graders, mostly in science…

I expect my aliens to MAKE SENSE. I don’t really care if they’re “scary” or “monstrous” or disgusting. They NEED to make sense to me.

Take for example, as much as the “Alien” xenomorphs scared the living crap out of a friend of mine and I, the possibility of something like them walking around, being insectoid, and under 1g, Earth normal gravity? (“How can you tell that???? They could have evolved under a different gravitational field that we did!” While all that wailing is true, the fact is that from the first movie, the xenomorphs interact with Humans UNDER EARTH-NORMAL GRAVITY!

“How do you know it’s Earth normal?” Mostly because none of them appear to have either technological nor biological adaptations to work or live under any level of g higher or lower than Earth normal. Ergo, to me, while they startled me and give me the heebie-jeebies, they don’t work biologically.

There’ve been all sorts of alien invasion movies, too with aliens who make no sense at all. The original 1953 version of HG Wells classic novel, WAR OF THE WORLDS made no sense, either. The screenplay writing tried, I’ll give them that! But the aliens really WOULDN’T be able to walk around under Earth’s gravity. Plus, the possibility of them catching a cold from us or US catching some sort of plague (UNLESS it was specifically designed from one or another of the Diseases of Humanity for a very specific purpose. As we all saw with H1N1, even COVID19, while killing a vast swath of Humanity, couldn’t take out ALL of us. (Current totals for world-wide death due to COVID 19, from 28 days through January 25, 2025 = https://data.who.int/dashboards/covid19/deaths?m49=001
My question then is this: “What qualifies anyone to judge that an alien is ridiculous?”

We have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING on which to base such a statement. We have had no VERIFIABLE experience with extraterrestrial life of ANY sort. We have NO data regarding life existing ANYWHERE but on Earth – oh, we have VERY imaginative people coming up with VERY imaginative guesses. We have POWERFUL arguments against anyone, anywhere DENYING that our VERY AND TOTALLY IMAGINATIVE GUESSES are ridiculous. We will fight to the DEATH insisting that everyone else’s guesses are stupider than our.

If a five-year-old decides that there are candy-cane aliens out there somewhere, upon WHAT AUTHORITY does anyone on Earth base their categorical rejection of such an alien? “Science”? I was a biology major who graduated in 1981. I KNEW the categories of life and if you were to tell me that there was “an exotic new disease” that appeared in May of 1981 that was variously refered to as lymphadenopathy, KSOI, GRID, the 4H disease and would be resistant to virtually every antibiotic, and any other way of treating it, I’d have agreed. My IMMUNOLOGY textbook had nothing in it about Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome…because it was a mystery. It was an unidentifiable, undefeatable form of life – of course, viruses aren’t technically alive, but they didn’t know WHAT it was at that time (and before you decide to unleash judgmental anger at me, my brother-in-law died from complications caused by AIDS.)

Our attempts to replicate alien BEHAVIOR are actually more than pathetic! Kira Nerys and Dr. Bashir? Worf and Jadzia Dax????? REALLY? Not even a snowball's chance of being even CLOSE to making any kind of sense at ALL!

What DO we know about the possibility of life on other worlds? What CAN we say is categorically “impossible”? Heavier-than-air flight was impossible. So was landing on the Moon. Treating AIDS was once impossible. Microorganisms living in boiling water were CERTAINLY impossible! So was life in ice! ABSOLUTELY life in lava was impossible…

Yet, all of them are now known to be fact.

Maybe the best we can say at this point is, “Well, it doesn’t seem likely – I certainly can’t imagine it – but who knows? Somewhere in the universe…”

I DO know people who would accuse anyone who subscribes to the “somewhere in the uiverse” response as downright absurd, a copout, naïve, and just plain stupid.

Then again, “Zoologist George Shaw was the first westerner to describe a platypus, the pelt and bill of which he was sent in 1799 from Australia. Shaw tried to understand the platypus but, like many of those who studied the strange creature after him, couldn’t shake the feeling he was being tricked.” 

Who am I to deny someone else’s sincere attempt to theorize what is and isn’t a believable alien?

LIST OF WEBSITES CATALGOGUING THE WORST MOVIES WITH EXTRATERRESTRIALS IN THEM:
https://showtimeshowdown.com/top-5-worst-alien-invasions/
https://screenrant.com/worst-science-fiction-movies-rotten-tomatoes/
https://www.ranker.com/list/underrated-alien-movies/tyler-mitchell
https://www.ranker.com/list/underrated-alien-movies/thomas-west?ref=collections_btm&l=2912334&collectionId=1612
https://www.flickchart.com/charts.aspx?genre=alien+invasion+films&perpage=50&order=desc
https://orbitaltoday.com/2023/11/03/best-alien-films/
Platypus lore: https://www.ripleys.com/stories/platypuses-were-fake

Image: https://image.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/alien-human-600w-136457129.jpg

CREATING ALIEN ALIENS Part 39: The Exploration of Radiation-Proof Intelligences

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, let’s stipulate that aliens who are sapient intelligences invade our Solar System and out of desperation, we use the most powerful of the vast store of Human weapons from around the world to attempt to halt their implacable invasion of Human space…

A barrage of nuclear weapons explode, including antimatter weapons Humanity has cobbled together solely in an attempt to save themselves.. The aliens keep on coming. Their ships are disintegrated as are some of the aliens, but a number of the bodies of the aliens themselves head for Earth, stopping to take out the Martian and Lunar colonies, and then swing around the Sun and take out the Venusian colonies.

Why didn’t our nukes stop them???

Using Earth’s elite space forces, we manage to capture several of the Invaders. Using physical impacts, we knock two dozen out and rush them to a Lunar research station.

Under an atmosphere collected from an Invader ship, we recreate their air and begin an extensive and detailed bioassay.

We also discover that no matter how much we try and sterilize the samples of Invader tissue to prevent the contamination of Earthly biological forms with the alien ones, they are impervious to RADIATION…in fact, once we get more samples, we discover that the Invaders have nothing even remotely resembling CANCERS or MUTUATIONS. Among FURTHER facts, the Invaders (and a few other non-sapient lifeforms we got while capturing the intelligences, appear to be virtually identical within a species…) Specifically, their “rat-equivalents” and “sparrow-equivalents” appear to be singular species. Their paramecia seem to all be one species. Even a sort of furry green ball with multiple eyes and several manipulation limbs are all identical – no variation. ALL OF THE “GREEN POOFBALLS” are the same. They are genetically identical.

ALL of the sapient, intelligent aliens are exactly the same as well…if you examine ONE alien from its external anatomy to its DNA, you find that each and every one is EXACTLY THE SAME… Baffled, an elderly physician sends a memo for a presentation that they think will explain what Humanity has just discovered. They have a theory based on the discovery of a bacterium during the first quarter of the 21st Century.

They have cells and DNA that are immune to mutation because RADIATION HAS NO EFFECT ON THE CELLS…

“In fact, it appears that every single intelligence we’re captured is essentially a clone of every other intelligence.”

The conference erupts into chaos…

The horror never abates. Fear grips the entire Solar System and there are plans to destroy the Moon along with all lifeforms on it. The plans proceed swiftly until someone realizes that heat, laser, and energy weapons are all radiation-based.

They have no effect on the Invaders. Almost immediately, the politicians and ambassadors assemble and a conference proposed to the Invaders through a modified form of Morse Code. They accept.

From then on, communication is perfect, but the psychology of Humanity and Invaderity appear to be mutually incomprehensible…even though they have created an artificial language both seem to be able to use to communicate mathematical concepts.

The rest of the Human and Invader experiences are mutually incomprehensible… Neither side appears to ONLY understand destruction of the other. They appear to comprehend one word: war.

Abstract
“This report presents the recommendations of an international group of experts convened by the World Health Organization, in association with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the International Atomic Energy Agency to consider the implications of food irradiated to doses higher than those recommended in 1980 by the Joint Expert Committee on the Wholesomeness of Irradiated Food. Irradiation ensures the hygienic quality of food and extends shelf-life. The public perception of the safety of food irradiation has generally precluded its widespread use. However, current applications of food irradiation to doses over 10 kGy have been in the development of high-quality shelf-stable convenience foods for specific target groups such as immunosuppressed individuals and those under medical care, astronauts and outdoor enthusiasts. The Study Group reviewed data relating to the toxicological, nutritional, radiation chemical and physical aspects of food irradiated to doses above 10 kGy from a wide range and number of studies carried out over the last forty years. This report presents a comprehensive summary, along with references, of the effectiveness and safety of the irradiation process. It concludes that foods treated with doses greater than 10 kGy can be considered safe and nutritionally adequate when produced under established Good Manufacturing Practice.” (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10524010/)

Sources: Human-Induced Radioresistance as a Possible Mechanism for Producing Biological Weapons: A Feasible Bridge between Radioresistance and Resistance to Antibiotics and Genotoxic Agents - PMC ; https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4450694/ 

Image: https://image.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/alien-human-600w-136457129.jpg

POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAYS: An Alien Invasion May Already Be UNDERWAY!!!!

Several summers ago, I spent sporadic weeks chopping down the invasive tree/bush known as the common buckthorn…For my money, it is not only annoying, it is an horrendous MONSTER! (https://scontent.ffcm1-2.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/106777038_10156827573131324_1338251936212348319_n.jpg?_nc_cat=101&_nc_sid=8024bb&_nc_ohc=9q9yeayXZNAAX8wacF5&_nc_ht=scontent.ffcm1-2.fna&oh=0578f6e378467324c0b4b97446be1500&oe=5F25001B

Oddly, this got me to thinking about a set of novels I read during my young adulthood. I was a pretty freshly minted science teacher. I could teach lots of the sciences, but my interest had always been in biology.

David Gerrold, of STAR TREK fame (“The Trouble with Tribbles” in particular), wrote a unique alien invasion novel (actually a series), that detailed how the Chtorr had begun their invasion by wiping out a substantial portion of Humanity through a viral attack.

The survivors began to find weird plants, animals, and “stuff” all over. The “worms” are only the most voracious members of the “invasion suite” – but they are terrifying: “…they range in size from as small as a dog to as large as a bus…They have two double-jointed ‘arms’…with incredibly sharp claws. Their bodies are covered with symbiotic ‘fur’, each strand of which is a distinct lifeform and acts as a sensory input.”

This is a sort of invasive species on steroids.

After spending weeks attacking an invasion of a European plant called “common buckthorn”, whose scientific name is Rhamnus cathartica. It was brought here as an “ornamental shrub” from “from the central British Isles south to Morocco, and east to Kyrgyzstan.”

It blends in and is seemingly innocuous, though its scientific name hints at one of its uses in herbal medicine: “The seeds and leaves are mildly poisonous for humans and most other animals… [causing] stomach cramps and laxative effects…[suggesting a] common name purging buckthorn…”

It’s a nasty thing that grows leaves before most of the rest of the northern species of trees and grows fast. Local animals don’t graze it; though birds eat the seeds. As well, the plant contains a chemical called an “emodin”. It made me think of Imodium when I first saw it and while this over-the-counter anti-diarrheal medication STOPS diarrhea, emodin causes it. Animals that try and eat the little hard, black berries drop them all over the place – effectively seeding the bush and helping it spread.

This is just one example of a particularly obnoxious plant that is insidiously taking over vast swaths of North America. The species is naturalized and invasive in parts of North America. Rhamnus cathartica has a competitive advantage over native trees and shrubs in North America because it leafs out before native species. Of the annual carbon gain in R. cathartica, 27–35% comes from photosynthesis occurring before the leaves of other plants emerge. Soil in woodlands dominated by R. cathartica was higher in nitrogen, pH and water content than soil in woodlands relatively free of R. cathartica,[15][18] probably because R. cathartica has high levels of nitrogen in its leaves and these leaves decompose rapidly.

"Rhamnus cathartica is also associated with invasive European earthworms (Lumbricus spp.) in the northern Midwest of North America. Removing R. cathartica led to a decrease of around 50% in the biomass of invasive earthworms.

"Soils enriched by extra nitrogen from decayed buckthorn leaves and…Invasive earthworms (which in MN means ALL earthworms…)…need rich litter, break [buckthorn leaves] down rapidly, destroying beneficial fungi and exposing bare soils in the process. These soils provide ideal conditions for buckthorn germination and seedling growth but many native trees and shrubs need the beneficial fungi and will not reproduce without it…it is particularly prevalent in the Great Lakes states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan.”

Why can’t we fight it with 21st Century science? “Numerous potential biocontrol insects for common and glossy buckthorn were screened for host-specificity and impacts. Early on, glossy buckthorn biocontrol was eliminated from consideration due to lack of promising agents. Research continued on common buckthorn. After 11 years of searching for a biocontrol insect that is both host-specific and damaging to common buckthorn, we concluded that we do not have any promising agents at this time so we ended the project.”

So, while I’ve always laughed at the labels that say “Non-GMO” (because Humans have been genetically modifying organisms since the first Mayan crossbred the first corn plant to get bigger seeds – by hand and by century: (https://i.redd.it/mbe42vdt49841.jpg), I’m surprised that we haven’t tried to modify some kind of bug to take care of it. It does have an economic impact here; it certainly has an impact on the timber industry in other states – but none of the states affected by buckthorn are LUMBER-producing states, so…we don’t do it.

It's kind of creepy to realize that some sort of alien Chtorr could set up an alien ecosystem and we might not even notice it. What if biological invasion is a LONG-TERM proposition? What if some sort of AI ship or landcraft landed and proceeded to introduce various species across their normal boundaries, weakening the entire ecosystem. Then instead of the dramatic “red” invasion of the War Against the Chtorr, you’d have something virtually unstoppable.

How would we even know?

How about the first starship to reach an Earth-like world finds that the lifeforms are incredibly…familiar; and that the survey shows that a number of the species they find on the planet are what we would call “invasives” or even “introduced” – and as far as that goes, pheasants are “introduced” in Minnesota rather than invasive, because “some people” released them for hunting purposes…

So, I have a scenario where one of the new colonists is from around here – or find out where the most invasive species reside – is on the bio-survey team. They can’t find anything of Human-level intelligence. Then another, farther-reaching mission finds and makes a First Contact, and their “home world” has species very familiar on Earth…in fact, their biology is suspiciously Earth-like…

To finish up, I checked up on methodologies under investigation to destroy our accidental destroyer: Fungus Among Us: MTU Student Using Native Fungi to Weaken Invasive Trees. Seems this youngster has discovered a FUNGUS that seems to enjoy feasting on buckthorn! Cultivating SuperPurp as Stone does makes it easier to process into a sprayable liquid. Stone uses an immersion blender to whir the solution to the proper viscosity, then pours the broth into a garden-variety sprayer used for application in outdoor test areas.

“It’s literally mushroom soup,” he says.

Stone, an undergraduate majoring in ecology and evolutionary biology is living proof that you don’t have to wait until you graduate to tackle the complex problems facing the world.

"SuperPurp is Stone’s not-so-secret weapon to beat back the widespread Midwest invasion of two species of invasive buckthorn trees: Rhamnus cathartica and Frangula alnus. The trees are gaining a foothold across the upper Midwest and altering the character of forests. Stone inoculates them with the fungus, weakening the aggressive invaders to give native species a chance to rebound.
Abe Stone, an undergraduate majoring in ecology and evolutionary biology at Michigan Technological University, a public research university founded in 1885 in Houghton, Michigan, is living proof that you don’t have to wait until you graduate to tackle the complex problems facing the world."

Foundation: https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/invasives/index.html#:~:text=Minnesota's%20natural%20resources%20are%20threatened,land%20or%20in%20the%20water., https://files.dnr.state.mn.us/natural_resources/invasives/terrestrialplants/is-bmp.pdf
Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_Against_the_Chtorr#A_Matter_for_Men_(1983), https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/invasives/terrestrialplants/woody/buckthorn/index.html, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhamnus_cathartica, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emodin, https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/invasives/terrestrialplants/woody/buckthorn/index.html
NEWS!: https://www.mtu.edu/unscripted/2024/03/fungus-among-us-mtu-student-using-native-fungi-to-weaken-invasive-trees.html
Image: https://www.honey-plants.com/img/picforcontent/rhamnus-cathartica_3_large.jpg

POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAYS: Will Aliens Have A Sense of Humor We Can Understand?

On October 7, 2007, I started this blog. Seventeen years later, I am revising and doing some different things with my blog. My wife and I are now retired senior citizens, our kids are both married, we have a bonus daughter and her wife and we have three grandchildren, the oldest of which just became a teenager. I have forty-five professional publications, plus countless other publications as a slushpile reader, and sometime essay contributor to Stupefying Stories https://stupefyingstories.blogspot.com/.

These days, I write whenever I want to – or when I’m not busy exploring the world with my wife or kids or grandkids. I write and read constantly. Then I discovered that I was writing longer and longer pieces. My new focus is to write shorter; and to write HUMOR. On purpose. Maybe I can still irritate people while being funny. It works pretty well for John Scalzi! We’ll see what happens.

I think our sense of humor makes us Human…and that ALL OF US play with language in order to make ourselves laugh. Take for example the silly words we create.

HOBBIT: The vast majority of those of you reading this know that this word is a pronoun denoting a very specific imaginary being as depicted in JRR Tolkien’s LORD OF THE RINGS novels. He invented the word.

NARNIA: A large number of you know that this is a proper noun attached to an imaginary land found in the works of English author, C. S. Lewis. He invented the word.

PERN: Many of you know that this is an acronym from an interplanetary survey done by a future Humanity imagined by Anne McCaffrey. It stands for Parallel Earth Resources Negligible. For some of us, that abbreviation explodes into memories of a world colonized by Humans seeking a simpler, agrarian existence on an alien world inhabited by nothing that seemed capable of harming us. Fate of course constantly surprises – and Pern was a cyclical victim of an alien plague that jumped from an eccentrically orbiting moon. Humans had to bioengineer a creature to combat these “threads”. From tiny, harmless flying lizards who could also teleport themselves when face with grave danger; Humans gengineered telepathic dragons…

FOIPIARGNAAADI: None of you will recognize this as a word meaning something like “the humorous power of made up words”. That’s because some years ago, myself, my wife and four young adults (two of them related to us, two of them not) invented it one night playing an impromptu game of SCRABBLE®. We even invented a grammar: the triple “a” pluralizes the word and the suffix “di” feminizes the noun. Why did we do this then conclude the game with gales of laughter?

I think it’s because on Earth, language (and the humor it creates) is innate and perhaps even unique to Humans. Don’t get me wrong. Every living thing communicates. There are levels of communication as well. Few people would question that flax plants and flatworms communicate differently than orcas and octopi.

There is good evidence that certain animals have a sense of humor: Dogs, meerkats and rats laugh…chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and orangutans do, too. Chimpanzees and bonobos, our closest relatives, have the most human-like laughter. The Dogs of Spokane laugh, as do ravens and dolphins – at least provisionally. However, I think I’m safe in saying that two adult chimpanzees with four young adult chimpanzees in a safe environment at a Primate Research Center somewhere; would be unlikely to make up a word, create a simple grammar then find the whole thing amusing.

I contend that it is the “spark of the divine” in us that gives Humans the ability to use language of extreme complexity. In the Bible, Numbers 22 tells the tale of a man who was beating his donkey who had refused to walk past an angel because it recognized that the angel was about to kill the man. The man’s name was Balaam. In the end, the angel granted the donkey the ability to speak to the man. Even the rankest “animals-are-the-same-as-humans” activist and those who believe that animals deserve all the protection granted humans under law, would find it hard to credit this story as fact. At best, I could muster up enough BELIEF to grant that it might be possible. Even so, when talking about having a sense of humor, there are more complex ways to communicate and simpler ways to communicate.

Humor is communication at its most complex and least understood. “What makes us special is the range and amount of laughter we seek and produce, which in large part stems from our unique evolution, as well as our culture. Indeed, as Martin writes: ‘…being able to enjoy humor and express it through laughter seems to be an essential part of what it means to be human.’” (SURVIVAL OF THE FUNNIEST)

It is the complexity of humor that separates us from the animals. While it’s been said that “a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type a given text, such as the complete works of William Shakespeare.” (The Infinite Monkey Theorem:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_monkey_theorem ), the same article goes on to explain that the obvious meaning isn’t the significant meaning of this statement. Monkeys aren’t going to write “Much Ado About Nothing” because monkeys aren’t Human. I suppose, though that it might be that monkeys would write a MONKEY equivalent of “Much Ado About Nothing” – but would a Human find it funny?

If or when we meet sapient aliens, will we be able to share a sense of Humor? I suppose that the family of STAR TREK aliens might be able to. Supposedly Humans, Cardassians, and Klingons – and at the end of the episode, Romulans, implying that Vulcans, Ferengi, Bajorans, Tellarites, Andorians, and all other Humanoids in and near the Federation are descended from a single race of sapient aliens who “seeded our” part of the galaxy with their DNA. [“…the 20th episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation’s sixth season, “The Chase,” in which Picard and crew discover pieces of a computer program hidden inside the DNA of species from dozens of different planets.”]

It makes sense that Klingons and Humans can laugh together; certainly that Cardassians and Humans can forge relationships based on humor, and while Vulcans and Humans don’t “laugh together” per se, they can certainly share a sense of humor.

All this to say that we play with language in order to make ourselves laugh. It MAY be possible, but unlikely that Humans and aliens can EVER share a laugh, though I suppose they MAY share some sort of alcoholic (or its metabolic equivalent) beverage that would ease relationship tensions.

I am working at being able to WRITE funny for my fellow Humans – whose to say that an alien wouldn’t find my writing funny?

Sources: https://english.elpais.com/science-tech/2023-07-29/do-animals-have-a-sense-of-humor-this-scientist-has-been-tickling-rats-for-years-to-prove-it.html, https://exploringyourmind.com/do-animals-have-a-sense-of-humor-science-says-yes/, https://www.smallanimalplanet.com/the-science-behind-animal-laughter-do-animals-have-a-sense-of-humor/, Survival of the Funniest: A review of Rod Martin, Psychology of Humor: An Integrative Approach https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/147470490800600111
Image: https://static1.cbrimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/resident-alien-harry-and-joseph-laughing.jpg

CREATING ALIEN ALIENS Part 38: Talking To A Sapient Apartment Building

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...

You can check out the Wikipedia article linked below as well as a POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY I wrote a couple of years ago when I first started poking around the idea of “intelligent jellyfish”. First thing I found out was that jellyfish are single organisms – like Humans. But the siphonophores are COLONIAL organisms are made up of thousands – and potentially millions of individual creatures working together but still separate. One way to look at it is that Humans are individually identified; and Le Lignon in Switzerland is considered the largest apartment building on Earth with 6000 full-time residents. A jellyfish would be a Human; the apartment a siphonophore.

In the event of a first contact, the Siphon (I’m calling them that for the sake of brevity and admitting that, like every other long word, Americans would shorten names to nicknames; but not all cultures do it so, it’s my blog and I’ll do it how I want to! ;-)…Sorry, let me pick up the statement before I wandered off…wouldn’t be speaking to a Human as an individual, but as if it were a…I suppose “city” or “town” would be closer as the siphonophore is a co-dependent colonial organism. While distantly related, they are NOT jellyfish.

OK – enough biology.

How would I communicate with a sapient apartment building? Unlike talking to an individual Human, talking to a Siphon would of necessity be like talking to each resident of the apartment building alone. A decision made by one of the residents would be completely independent of every other resident.

That’s how it would go with a non-sapient creature. While incredibly tedious, it could, I suppose, be done. “A siphonophore is much more than the sum of its parts. In fact, none of its parts could function on their own. Each siphonophore is actually a colony of individual parts, called “zooids”, which are produced as the siphonophore grows, and stay connected together. Some form rope-like chains that can grow longer than a whale. Each zooid has a distinct job in this colony: some catch prey, while others digest it, and still others reproduce, swim, and keep the colony upright. The result is a biological marvel that makes us wonder just what it means to be an ‘individual’!”

But if a Siphon were to evolve to Human-equivalent intelligence there would be other types of organisms – probably brain-type cells as well as electrical communication-type cells. These would link up with the light-emitting cells, and while the Siphon would NOT have a brain or a mouth or one voice…hmmm…

Siphonophores live (at least on Earth) in the oceans, so if an alien Siphon came to Earth, we would likely be speaking to them in the open ocean. Probably the best way to work this is to bring a large submarine with Humans who serve all kinds of capacities. And once we made contact, the Siphon should be able to understand that while we appeared as they do – a huge massive “creature”, they would instead be a colony serving individuals. Maybe something like this:

The entire Contact team gathered in the forward Light Emitter of the Contact Ship. A disk of transparent plastic, each Human lay in a tube with a light disk facing outward – something like a giant, circular honeycomb.

The Siphon alien drifted across from them. Each Human Emitter was linked with the others via headset. At the back of the disk, Control was made of a cluster of Human monitors. Still others controlled the buoyancy and forward and reverse motion of the Contact Ship. They were banking on the probability that the Siphon would use light to communicate. As far as Humanity was concerned, if they were going to contact them via mental telepathy…well, it could be argued that if it WERE possible, some Human, somewhere would have heard the Siphon already.

WHAT they would have heard was a complete unknown. They had proceeded under the belief that “psionic powers” continued to remain fictional. Light seemed the most logical.

Control sent out a message from each console – scripted, but allowing for slightly different expressions. They had decided to initially use the ten most common languages on Earth, including JavaScript: Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, English, Bengali, Hindi, Portuguese, Russian, Japanese, and German. The language was transcribed into electromagnetic pulses and translated into the same frequency of light the Siphon was emitting in and appeared on multiple light emitting disks of different intensities.

The first message: “Do you wish to speak to us?”

The response was nothing less that powerful and stunningly beautiful. Rather than a simple disk of light, messages flashed back to the Human Contact Ship from many parts of the Siphon. Not every message was identical, which the Humans had expected, but sometimes the response was radically different, not just in frequency, but in content.

At least that’s what appeared after that first flash of communication…

Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siphonophorae, Youtube: https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=566487c1e8374dca&sca_upv=1&hl=en&authuser=0&q=flashing+siphonophores&tbm=vid&source=lnms&fbs=AEQNm0AiWqXpwpi4y_F8VDYetL6Dlnkps_EIKkohBFm2lDUsiBepNBjmASBr9uelbUYBbgOgSinKnsikOw8eX0WEsCCwGvOIvfwleINDrjuVTRluMTv3nX8Frtmxn4Qe_W2QKK1dJN5mLvfVGYgDzBpTcFZ4qRW9sb2H-dwGidyfFM4hXfFGP2K7PF0m3LKNusD786nNUaJGQIHCM3Az9G-LUbh-I4FUCw&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjb_-yiiNKIAxX7nokEHbhUM1gQ0pQJegQIEhAB&biw=1528&bih=704&dpr=1.25#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:bbefe8ba,vid:OeflgYWxyVI,st:0;
https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/search?q=siphonophores; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPUF40j47-o, https://twilightzone.whoi.edu/explore-the-otz/creature-features/siphonophore/
Image: https://www.mbari.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/blue-siph-glow-640b.jpg (Frillagalma vityazi)

CREATING ALIEN ALIENS Part 37: Communicating With Aquatic Aliens? Impossible or Not?

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...

Obviously, I know Humans have been “speaking to dolphins” for centuries. Dolphins OBVIOUSLY know us and LOVE us!

David Brin even started his iconic novel, STARTIDE RISING like this: “Fins had been making wisecracks about Humans for thousands of years. They had always found men funny. The fact that Humanity had recently meddled with their genes and taught them engineering didn’t change that attitude.”

The assumption with this opening – as much as I adore the novel and the following five – is that Dolphins will think so much like us that they’ll find us amusing and will forgive ten-thousand years of slaughter and torture.

The website for DOLPHINS-Plus puts it this way, “It seems humans have always been fascinated with dolphins, and, arguably, vice versa. Ancient drawings and frescos featuring dolphins have been uncovered in the Bronze Age ruins of Knossos, Greece. Amazing tales of dolphin and human interaction have been passed down among island communities for countless generations. It’s also believed that some ancient civilizations saw dolphins as a spiritual connector linking the Gods and humans. There’s also no shortage of modern stories that support a meaningful and genuine affection between our two species.”

Really? Wikipedia: “Historically, marine mammals were hunted by coastal aboriginal humans for food and other resources. The effects of this were only localised as hunting efforts were on a relatively small scale. Later, commercial hunting was developed and marine mammals were heavily exploited. This led to the extinction of the Steller's Sea Cow and the Caribbean monk seal…[populations of] blue whales; the North Pacific right whale, are much lower…Despite the fact commercial whaling is generally a thing of the past…a number of marine mammals are still subject to direct hunting. The only remaining commercial hunting of whales is by Norway…the illegal trade of whale and dolphin meat is a significant market in some countries…”

The author actually justifies what we have done to cetaceans by having the dolphins explain to one of the characters that it’s OK Humans hunted them. It was how they understood the world – there were the Hunters and the Hunted. No big deal. Humans were just the Hunters and cetaceans the Hunted. And genetically altering dolphins to be engineers, have brains adapted to space, and their bodies adapted to have “tingers” in order to manipulate Human-style machines.

So…have we ever given serious thought to COMMUNICATING with beings evolved to live underwater? Have we ever considered constructing a radically different technology that does NOT depend on electricity or fire or even living surrounded by breathable air?

While I can’t say “nope” definitively, I can’t readily bring to mind an SF story or novel or series where aquatic aliens reached a point of creating a technologically advanced civilization that reached for and gained “the stars”.

As a matter of fact, WE haven’t even achieved “the stars” yet. We’re just planning on going back to our nearest celestial body after a fifty year hiatus – all the while stomping like Godzilla across the surface and in the oceans as if we’re Masters of the Universe! If you wonder how MUCH we haven’t done, read the first entry in my Alien Aliens series from six years ago: https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2018/03/slice-of-pie-exploring-solar-system.html

So, how about I start with something easy? Stories, tales, and legends: “Amazing tales of dolphin and human interaction have been passed down among island communities for countless generations. It’s also believed that some ancient civilizations saw dolphins as a spiritual connector linking the Gods and humans. There’s also no shortage of modern stories that support a meaningful and genuine affection between our two species.”

Hasn’t anyone EVER noticed that all of this wonderfulness is STRICTLY from the Human point of view?

So, let me start with a “tale” from a Delphinic POV:

*supersonic sounds and flesh-penetrating ultrasound*

There you go, the FIRST Delphinic Legend! But there’s no Human from the past who would have any way of hearing OR understanding it. It’s in the wrong frequency for Human hearing!!!

DANG! JUDGEMENT ALERT! “in the wrong frequency” is a judgement implying that if Humans can’t hear it, it’s WRONG. What if in Delphinic, OUR frequency is the wrong one?

Do Tursiops truncatus (whose “Conservation status is ‘least concern’…(a somewhat arrogant judgement, don't you think?) speak the same language as Tursiops aduncus or Tursiops erebennus. Does ANY Homo sapiens sapiens speak the same language as Homo neanderthalis?

So, have Humans ever made an attempt to translate Delphinic language? As a matter of fact, yes we have: https://spinnaker-watches.com/blogs/deep-time-chronicles/the-language-of-dolphins-decoding-clicks-whistles-and-squeals “While researchers have made significant strides in understanding dolphin communication, much of their language remains a mystery. Ongoing studies aim to decipher the intricate code of clicks, whistles, and squeals, hoping to unveil the depth of dolphin intelligence and emotion.”

But is it MORE than that? https://spinnaker-watches.com/blogs/deep-time-chronicles/the-language-of-dolphins-decoding-clicks-whistles-and-squeals

“As we plunge into the depths of dolphin communication, we find ourselves in awe of the intricate language that binds these marine marvels. Clicks, whistles, and squeals form the basis of a communication system that goes beyond survival—it reflects the complex social fabric of dolphin society. As scientists continue their efforts to decode the language of dolphins, we remain ever more enchanted by the symphony that resonates beneath the waves, reminding us of the incredible diversity and intelligence that thrives in the ocean's depths.”

What IF, dolphins have been trying to figure out whether or not Humans are intelligent and have a language? They could no sooner eavesdrop on us as we can actually eavesdrop on THEM.

More distressing to Humanity thought, would be the question: "What if most dolphins don’t really care?"

Of COURSE the response of most Humans would be, “How could they NOT CARE about communicating with us! We’re the main intelligence on Planet Earth!!!”

Are we, though? Not. Not really. We occupy far less than one-fourth of the surface of this dirtball. In fact, MOST of the planet is NOT a dirtball, rather it’s more like a gigantic raindrop of salty water. “But they don’t have TVs, computers, cellphones, cars, restaurants, fashion shows, the 2024 Olympics! They don’t even have a CALENDAR to know it’s the 2024 Olympics with!” 

Apparently, they have, um...names for us: https://dashmacintyre.medium.com/biologists-have-translated-the-dolphin-language-and-they-say-its-filled-with-slur-words-for-9eb3c4ddb6a4

I think I have a lot more to think about on the subject. Surely, I have several dozen more posts needed to exploring NOT Alien Aliens, rather exploring Alien Dolphins…

Sources: (see above)

Image: https://aquaworld.com.mx/uploads/0000/1/2023/08/21/1-1323.jpg

CREATING ALIEN ALIENS Part 36: If We Altered Aspects Of Humanity, What Kind Of Alien Aliens Would We Get?

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...

At one of the sites I was skimming in preparation for this post, I was one written by Veronica Sicoe. Her site is linked below.

One statement leaped out at me, “Completeness – some things habitually get lost in worldbuilding, unless they’re specifically needed, and we ought to remember to at least give them a cursory glance, such as: the legal systems, burial rituals, infant care systems, medical systems, recreational facilities, etc.”

You can access her site and insight here: How To Create An Alien Species In 3 Stages – Veronica Sicoe (wordpress.com)

HOWEVER, what happened when I read this was something not AT ALL intended by the issue she was opining on. I TOOK IT TO MEAN, “In what way might aliens experience ‘completeness’ that would be entirely WEIRD to us?”

Let me examine my own Human self. I’m cis-gendered, a hetero husband happily married for the past 36 years (almost 37). I am also white, so (by implication), I have had every opportunity that this American society can offer.

HOWEVER…if you stop there, some people will immediately turn on me, vilify me, and make all sorts of assumptions about me that simply are not true. One (for example), is that I will be homophobic. I could provide proof that I’m not, but while it might be entertaining, MY POINT IS THIS: I was not MY OWN PERSONAL-AND-NOT-IMPLYING-THAT-EVERYONE-ELSE-SHOULD-BE-LIKE-ME…most complete. I needed to be in a traditional marriage with a traditional woman. Now again, please don’t leap to assumptions about what I mean by “traditional”. I could once again provide references that would refute many assumptions people would make about me.

MY POINT IS THIS: Completeness for ME MYSELF PERSONALLY is that to be complete, I needed to be in a permanent (as permanent as Humans can be!) marriage relationship to be my best self.

But no matter WHO YOU ARE OR WHAT CREATES THE BEST YOU THAT YOU CAN BE…what might truly ALIEN ALIENS need to “be complete”?

For example, what if instead of being born as I and my wife were – one each of a dual gendered variety of Humanity; aliens were born as followed:

At birth (we’ll make it a mammalian-style birth to keep this simple and something I can understand – if you’re going to accuse me of playing it safe and assuming all Humans are like me, please read this post: https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2020/02/possibly-not-irritating-essay-other.html) I just don’t want to add too many variables into this intellectual experiment because I had difficulty imagining how a school of sharks might relate to each other…as I’m certainly not a shark, but I’m not a fish, either, and I’m really NOT an ancient fish…

So, let’s say aliens have a mammalian birth. Let’s say they’re triplets; not identically gendered. We already know that Human triplets – especially if they came from the same egg and are genetically identical. We already KNOW that creates all kinds of assumptions and comments in our heads when we see them. At one time, the Keinast Quintuplets made the news. “The quintuplets were the first American set of surviving quintuplets to be conceived through the use of fertility drugs.” They were SO unusual, that “Good Housekeeping magazine had an exclusive deal to publish four articles about them in their first two years.”

That was in 1970. They were styled “The Keinast Quints”. Today, they are in their fifties. After their father committed suicide in 1984 when the quints were fourteen. When they were all 31, they gave their last public interview. (If you’re interested and want more information, follow this link: https://www.mrlocalhistory.org/where-are-the-kienast-quintuplets-from-liberty-corner/)

What it DOESN’T talk about is the Quint’s perceptions of each other. They shared the same uterus until birth; they shared the same upbringing. How did that affect them? How did having the same birthday as four other people matter? WERE THEY PSYCHICALLY LINKED???? (JK)

But, oddly, there’s not really much about them besides a few magazine articles, interviews, and this and that. Wasn’t anyone interested in their mental/psychological/intellectual interactions? Apparently not. So, let me speculate.

I had two other brothers and a sister. Birth order among the Quints would have been irrelevant – but perhaps gender or even SIZE would have taken on aspects that we aren’t used to considering (though in many families, the “biggest kid” was the one who got the most things…)

What if, in aliens where multiple, simultaneous mammalian-style birth was NORMAL, something ELSE drove the development of relationships among themselves? What are some things that MIGHT drive their psychology?

1) First to kill a meal.
2) First to identify, choose, and latch onto the strongest being in the birthing tent?
3) First to feed the one who carried them until birth – with one of the other young?
4) First to escape a gauntlet?
5) Last to be born by forcing the rest out first to feed hungry family?
6) Birth is into a cage; first to solve the lock and escape?
7) All are delivered at once; the one who protects the mother best (obviously killed by the rest, which are disintegrated and the protector is resurrected)? Eaten by the father, and its brain joins with his and whose hormones regenerates the father’s body?

Each BIOLOGICAL scenario would generate an entirely different sociological structure leading to a particular civilization that makes sense with the prevailing biology. It would impact what a family is, how it’s organized, and what it’s FOR. In Human biology, take a Bible story as an example: the Hebrew infant Moses was destined for death. He was born, certain to bel slaughtered as all of his peers were. His mother puts him in a basket, he’s discovered by the Pharaoh’s daughter and raised as an Egyptian…history is altered. For the rest of the story, if you’re interested, go to a Bible or a Torah or a Koran, locate, and read the story of Moses.

This is just one aspect of alienness you can explore. How does all of the above relate to how CLOSE the siblings are -- to their parent/s; to their society or protectors? Choose a few aspects and explore them, following the logic of what you image will happen.

You SHOULD come up with a really ALIEN alien!

Sources: https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/27103/the-alien-perspective-generating-alien-pov-characters-via-twists-on-human-psyc; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kienast_quintuplets
Image: https://image.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/alien-human-600w-136457129.jpg

CREATING ALIEN ALIENS Part 35: ALIEN ALIENS HAVE INVADED MY WIFE!!!!

MY POST IS A DAY LATE BECAUSE...WELL READ THE POST AND IT MIGHT MAKE SENSE...

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...

My wife of 36 years was invaded Friday (though on reflection, probably the actual assault began the day before on Thursday while we were preparing our gardens) by an organism that is NOT supposed to be inside the "Universe known as My Wife".

 How do I know it was an alien invasion?

She had a violent allergic reaction to it after the organism breached the protective layer of the body called the Skin and began to reproduce.

If it was a virus, it invaded My Wife’s Cells, injected a bit of DNA into the original cell, that replaced a bit of DNA in the original cell’s copying program and induced My Wife’s Cell to begin to make copies of the Viral Cell.

My Wife’s Cell became a minion of the Alien Cell and set about creating copies of ITSELF to take over other of My Wife’s Cells.

This is purely and completely the plot of the 1950s movie, “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”.

If the invader was instead, a single-celled organism, it did a much more “HG Wells War of the Worlds invasion”: aliens overwhelm the rightful inhabitants of the world known as My Wife’s Body and go about wreaking havoc on My Wife until most of My Wife has been annihilated and the Aliens have taken over – for whatever their Nefarious Purpose is.

Entire organisms are a different story, so I’ll only point out that a creature many of us know, love, hunt, and eat in this central part of Abya Yala is known by the Latin name, Phasianus colchicus. The Common pheasant was introduced in Abya Yala in 1773 to become well established throughout many of the Rocky Mountain states, the Midwest, the Plains states, as well as Canada and Mexico. This is, also, an invasion of massive proportion, which few (if any of us) care about.

But, who the freak cares?

Funny you should ask! The INVASIVE pheasant, who is definitely NOT FROM AROUND HERE, ie: an ALIEN, “There are a number of negative effects of common pheasants on other game birds; pheasants lay their eggs in the nests of grey partridges, prairie chickens, ducks, grouse, and turkeys. Pheasant eggs also have a shorter incubation time and when they hatch, the female parasitized by the common pheasant abandons the rest of the incompletely incubated eggs, which then die. Also, pheasants raised in other species' nests imprint on their ‘alien mom’ which result in them act totally weird for pheasants. They often use resources for bobwhites, partridges, and grouse due to habitat and food competition, and also survive certain infection easily, while ruffed grouse, chukar, and grey partridge die. 

Pheasants also harass or kill other birds like prairie chickens.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_pheasant)

We are surrounded by Alien Invasions…maybe that’s WHY the idea of Alien Invasion and Alien Aliens are so fascinating to us? It’s written into our very DNA. Maybe the Universe is trying to tell us to FIGURE OUT WHAT TO DO TO PROTECT FROM ALIEN INVASIONS!

*ahem*

Just a bit of food for thought…

Sources: Image: https://image.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/alien-human-600w-136457129.jpg