Alien Psychology

[SpaceMarine93]

Many science fiction stories and writers spent so much effort trying to portray realistic alien biology, but few ever bothered to look at alien psychology. Many aliens we imagined often act too much like humans in terms of thinking and mindset.

Now, I accept the notion that nobody knew how intelligent aliens would think and behave, perhaps even if we do they would probably so alien they are beyond comprehension. But there must be some kind of general patterns that we could categorize.

For example, the Fithp from Footfall (by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle) operates in what is considered a herd-mentality; being originally herd animals, the aliens Fithp believed that whenever Fithp herds meet, they must fight it out until one herd is clearly stronger than the other, in which afterwards fighting stops and the losers joined the winning herd. Needless to say, when they invaded Earth and encountered Humans, they became very confused of Human nature.

Then there's the Zerg, the Tyranids and the Flood, which all operate as a hive mentality, where the individual is not just irrelevant unit that could be sacrificed for the whole, it is essentially a mega-cell of a metaphysical organism that is the hive mind. In this case, the maintenance of connection (often via telepathy) of units, the complete absence of regard to the individual of the species, inability to perceive individualism and free will, and a desire to increase their numbers often at the expense/exploitation/eating/extermination of other life forms is the norm

Can anyone tell me what other types of alien mindset had been postulated in science fiction? And how had such mindsets radically affected the alien's behavior and culture?

[Ahriman238]

Well, a lot of the later Posleen books are devoted to people finding out just how different, psychologically and culturally the Indowy, Tchpth and Darhel are from humanity. And how quick they are to dismiss all humanity as dumb thugs.

Then there's the Race, from Turtledove's Worldwar series, Reptiles who only mate when 'in season' and communally raise young, they have no concept of family as we understand it, and with a stable empire whose history goes back 80,000 years the concept of internal war is new to them as well. On the other hand, they are very culturally and technologically stagnant, making changes only over long periods of time with careful consideration. They spent centuries planning thei nvasion of earth only to find all their data horribly dated when the invasion fleet actually arrived.

They also have a bad habit of not improvising or deviating from the plan, even when the plan is clearly inadequate.

Then, I guess there's the Tamarians (Tanarians? Talarians?) from TNG. The race whose entire language consisted of references to their history and mythology, making it impossible for the universal translator to cope.

[Broomstick]

It's not just that SF writers have biological aliens that act human... they act as humans from a very limited subset of cultures, typically modern and what is called "western", or as caricatures of "Asian"/Chinese/Japanese. Consider, though, how very different something like Aztec culture was, a civilization where human sacrifice was seen not as a necessary evil but as a positive thing (near as I can tell), where to be chosen to make/be a sacrifice was a sought-out honor, and war was necessary to provide the captives to feed the gods. Human beings already have a hugely divergent range of cultures and values, and biological sentient aliens should be at least as diverse.

I recently read a novel called Blindsight where (spoilered, as it's a fairly major plot point) Spoiler

The aliens are so alien that human speech patterns were viewed as a weapon of war. You couldn't broker peace with them because our communications - not the methods, but the concepts - were perceived like an energy-wasting computer virus or something of the sort. The aliens were capable of interstellar travel and smart, but they weren't sentient. It was a somewhat weird novel.

But yes, usually the aliens come off as funny-looking humans.

[Batman]

Urm-if being sacrificed was considered an honour, what exactly did they need to go to war for the captives for? You'd think the local population would gladly volunteer.

[NecronLord]

I recently read a novel called Blindsight where (spoilered, as it's a fairly major plot point) Spoiler

The aliens are so alien that human speech patterns were viewed as a weapon of war. You couldn't broker peace with them because our communications - not the methods, but the concepts - were perceived like an energy-wasting computer virus or something of the sort. The aliens were capable of interstellar travel and smart, but they weren't sentient. It was a somewhat weird novel.

But yes, usually the aliens come off as funny-looking humans.

This just makes me think of Men in Black;
Spoiler

Human Thought is so primitive it's actually considered an infectious disease in some of the better galaxies

I wonder if that was a reference to that concept. I must find that book now, it sounds very cool.

[Ultonius]

The Kloros, from Asimov's short story 'C-Chute' have a similar group mentality to the Fithp, though their ancestors are described as being similar to eusocial insects, as opposed to herding mammals. One human character in the story who is familiar with them tells his companions that Kloros will always assume that a group of humans are related to each other, and warns them that a Kloro who found two humans in a group trying to kill each other would react like a human who found a mother trying to kill her children.

[Broomstick]

Urm-if being sacrificed was considered an honour, what exactly did they need to go to war for the captives for? You'd think the local population would gladly volunteer.

Different gods had different requirements. Tlaloc the rain god, for example, required drowned children, and the children had to be crying before they died. Another had a willing sacrifice who was chosen from the people and honored as a living god for a year before sacrifice (along with many other, perhaps less willing, sacrifices). Others required warriors. Some wanted gladiatorial combat. Others were happy with prisoners of war which, of course, required attacking neighboring nations. Tezcatlipoca supposedly invented war to provide sustenance to the gods, so war was a sacred/ritual activity with these guys. Huehueteotl the fire god wanted his victims roasted for a bit before they were taken from the fire, still alive but horribly burned, and their hearts cut out. By our standards it was all pretty appalling, systematized torture and killing.

The Aztecs could not have peace. It was incompatible with their system. There might be alliance with a specific group, but then another would have to be drawn into war. Even among the Aztec and their allies, wars were staged to provide victims for ritual sacrifice (called "Flower Wars". They probably also served as a form of military training and provided some social mobility as well. No reason they couldn't serve multiple purposes.)

The other problem was the sheer numbers required - tens of thousands. Attempting to supply all the required victims solely from among the Aztec would have severely depleted their own population. Estimates of number of annual victims varies widely, but it clearly numbered in the tens of thousands throughout the Aztec empire at its height, and may have numbered a quarter million per year at times.

I just don't see that as being compatible with our current "western" culture, do you? A clash between earthly empires of such differing views played out in the 15th Century, one can only wonder what the result would have been if the adversaries had had equal technology. Imagine if we ran into aliens who had a mindset more like the Aztecs than our own?

[Batman]

Note to self-apparently misplacing the smiley is just as bad as forgetting it entirely.

And frankly, I'm not at all worried about Aliens with technology equal to ours. It took us several decades to actually get something to leave this solar system. I don't expect them to be arriving anytime soon.

[evilsoup]

But would it have been possible for the Aztecs to become a modern society, while keeping their insane beliefs? If they had had an industrial revolution, would those kind of changes have allowed such ridiculous practices to continue? Would it be possible for those practices to continue into an age of space travel? Wouldn't the scientific method (which would be necessary for industrial revolution onwards stuff) kill off their religion, as it historically did in Europe (yes there was still religion around, but I mean the witch-burning insanity stopped and other forms of religious extremism died down and are dying down due to better education and the suffusion of scientific memes throughout the population)?

[Batman]

I give you the current day US and Middle East.

[evilsoup]

Neither of which have human sacrifice.

I know it's fashionable on this board to paint the US as some kind of theocratic shithole, but for all it's (many) faults it really isn't, so far as I can tell.

Large swathes of the Middle East are theocratic shitholes, but then I don't think those countries are going to be having a major say in earth's presence in space, and besides aren't radically alien as Broomstick was suggesting the Aztecs were (if it weren't for imperialist meddling, if they were allowed to develop, most would probably ditch the more damaging bits of idiot patriarchalism within two generations..).

[Broomstick]

But would it have been possible for the Aztecs to become a modern society, while keeping their insane beliefs? If they had had an industrial revolution, would those kind of changes have allowed such ridiculous practices to continue? Would it be possible for those practices to continue into an age of space travel?

Sure, those practices could have continued. With an industrial revolution and the assumed improvement in agriculture, health, and so on the population would have boomed, allowing such human sacrifice to continue without being so damaging to the overall population. In fact, it might have very nice controlled world population better than our current system, allowing more resources to be devoted to space travel. On top of that, they probably wouldn't be as deterred by inevitable deaths in flight testing and space travel as the US has been.

Wouldn't the scientific method (which would be necessary for industrial revolution onwards stuff) kill off their religion, as it historically did in Europe (yes there was still religion around, but I mean the witch-burning insanity stopped and other forms of religious extremism died down and are dying down due to better education and the suffusion of scientific memes throughout the population)?

It might have diminished religion to some degree, but a difference between European witch-burning and Aztec human sacrifice is that the witch-burning wasn't seen so much as desirable as a necessary evil to rid the world of witches. Aztec human sacrifice was to feed the gods themselves, and at least for some was seen in a positive light, a good thing for the society or the individual.

I don't see where space travel is incompatible with religion - there are plenty of religious people involved in the US space program, including scientists and astronauts.

[Lord of the Abyss]

The Chironians from the The Stolen Earth books are quite alien. They are cyborgs by our standards; or more accurately, their species is merged with technology at all levels and makes no distinction between organics and technology. They are also deeply controlled by programming/instincts; as one character puts it, they can think about how to do something, but not whether or not to do it.

[Johonebesus]

I recently read a novel called Blindsight where (spoilered, as it's a fairly major plot point) Spoiler

The aliens are so alien that human speech patterns were viewed as a weapon of war. You couldn't broker peace with them because our communications - not the methods, but the concepts - were perceived like an energy-wasting computer virus or something of the sort. The aliens were capable of interstellar travel and smart, but they weren't sentient. It was a somewhat weird novel.

But yes, usually the aliens come off as funny-looking humans.

This just makes me think of Men in Black;
Spoiler

Human Thought is so primitive it's actually considered an infectious disease in some of the better galaxies

I wonder if that was a reference to that concept. I must find that book now, it sounds very cool.

Be warned, it's as much a philosophical discussion of the nature of consciousness as a story. Watts' style is definitely not for everyone.

The author has published it online for free here.

[Ahriman238]

Weren't the Yuuzhan Vong basically Space Aztecs? I understand they'd originally planned for the religious fanatcism, torture and sacrifice to belong only to a relativly small section of the YV culture, Domain Shai, but after Dark Tide expanded that to fit the entire species. Kind of a pity, they'd have been more interesting with competing subcultures.

Oh, and we can't forget the eugenics-aliens form Babylon 5. Not only do they not grasp at all the concept of compassion, they think nothing of casual sex to "seal the deal." I seem to remember something about those guys being a parody of the Federation...

[Spoonist]

@OP
Actually those examples are flawed as well, since they are how 'we' think herd animals might behave. Problem is that humans are pack animals and thus should (and sometimes does) behave the same. So its not alien at all.
Same goes for most of the examples given above, they extrapolate from our way of thinking with a twist.
Most scifi after all is about the human condition, so those twists are predictably human.

Now if one would really be looking for an example of a description of real alien psyche it would be more akin to C J Cherryh's methane breathers. ie they are cracy fucks and who knows how they are thinking with topings of stay away or face mortal danger.

Knnn, the third methane breathing species, multi-legged tangles of wiry black hair, are the most technologically advanced in the Compact. Unlike other known species, they can maneuver in hyperspace and carry other ships with them. Only tc'a can communicate with them (or claim they can); the knnn are incomprehensible and therefore deemed dangerous by the other species, not to be provoked. They trade by snatching whatever they want and leaving whatever they deem sufficient as payment behind; it is an improvement over their prior habit of just taking trader ships apart.

[lordofchange13]

No one has mentioned it yet? A pretty good presentation of truly different aliens would be the Eldar gods from the Cthulhu mythos, Creatures like Azazoth and Yog-sothoth. Then to a lessor extent the Great Old Ones themselves, and those aliens that could swithc their minds with other name escapes me.

[Zor]

One idea, something like the Auditors from Discworld. Creatures that are incapable of (or have a very strong adversion to) making ANY decision alone. They either follow protocols that have laid out or they gather, consult, debate and discuss on the matter in groups of at least three until concensus is acheived. No one tries to dominate and dictate because their is no drive to do so.

Zor

[Batman]

Doesn't sound particularly alien to me, really. A lot of humans act that way too. It means when something inevitably goes wrong it isn't your fault.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

I started writing a novel once with a species of alien who basically had a distributed brain; they looked somewhere between a sauropod from the shoulders up and a solid octopus, and could multi- think to the extent that they could genuinely run several different simulations of consciousness- genetic/physiological factors meant that the mindstates would not be totally unlike each other, there's a common root to them all, but it gave "talking to yourself" a whole new meaning.
Childhood was generally terrifying, but by adulthood they had some conscious control over the process, and could deliberately build analogues of people or things they met- slowly to do it properly, but they were very good at getting inside someone else's logic, seeing the world from their point of view and understanding what they would do next- with the inevitable corollary that you can't just turn that off, there's a reality that goes with it, an inertia of identity. Constant old identities fading out and new identities fading in.


Oh, the idea of language as weapon goes back a bit further than that, to at least Samuel R. Delany's 1966 book Babel-17- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babel-17, except in that story it was us it was being done to, not the other way around.

[Tanasinn]

No one has mentioned it yet? A pretty good presentation of truly different aliens would be the Eldar gods from the Cthulhu mythos, Creatures like Azazoth and Yog-sothoth. Then to a lessor extent the Great Old Ones themselves, and those aliens that could swithc their minds with other name escapes me.

Not even them. You want Lovecraft's Colour Out of Space for a really weird example of alien "life."

[lordofchange13]

No one has mentioned it yet? A pretty good presentation of truly different aliens would be the Eldar gods from the Cthulhu mythos, Creatures like Azazoth and Yog-sothoth. Then to a lessor extent the Great Old Ones themselves, and those aliens that could swithc their minds with other name escapes me.

Not even them. You want Lovecraft's Colour Out of Space for a really weird example of alien "life."

I completely forgot about that story, Now i have to appease lord Lovecraft! Now that I'm thinking less mainstrem scifi horror how abotu the...thing from Algernon Blackwood's story "The Willows". Link

[Zixinus]

Mono-entities: not hive-minds, but entities who are the entire planet. One, massive super-organism with no ecosystem.

Two come to mind. The first, is StainsŁaw Lem's Solaris. It can be best described as a planet-wide ocean of weird organic goo that is somehow able to stablise the orbit of its parent planet (in a dual-star system). The entire book is about how humanity is incapable of understanding a so alien creature. It has been suggested within the book that it has trouble grasping the idea of an individual.

Another one is a god-like-entity from one of the EE Doc Smith novels (Skylark Three). I forgot the details, but I recall that he was a pretty arrogant character, whom the protagonists decided to give some big thinking task.

I recall that Clarke also had short stories about something similar, just with some sort of intelligence forming out of liquid-helium world.

[madd0ct0r]

Terry Pratchett had two of those: the Bank - a sentient, sapient moon sized lump of silicone that acts as the primary data processor for the planets around it, and a similar world with a single intelligent ocean.

They act mostly as understandable individuals though.

To be honest, I have a hard enough time getting inside the head of a 1900's Japanese or a greek slave ect.
A forgien language alone makes it difficult - there are thoughts you can have in Vietnamese you simply can't have in english, and visa versa.

[Batman]

Err-which of Pratchett's works would those be? Because I can't say I ever heard of them before.