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I do some small writings and world building and one problem I keep coming up against is when making truely alien creatures. Notably, how differing physical structures may affect how a civilisation develops.
Does anyone have any broadly applyable advice for creating alien cultures without falling into the trap of making them idiotically absurd and impossible or making it a caricature or close copy of well-known human civilisations?

A society of winged creatures would have no need of stairs or elevators, and all buildings would have patios for landing. The buildings themselves would be airy, built to accomodate the occassional necessary wing-stretch, with high ceilings and possibly perches instead of furniture.

In addition to purely physical motivators for non-human society, you could also have the aliens think in a way that is different from the way in which most cultures and peoples do. For example, one of my creations, the Deldeians, don't think of the world and time in a linear sense, but rather as an ever-changing and cycling set of possible outcomes, placing themselves at the center of the universe. It might be hard to explain or even comprehend such a different mind-set, but one can guess, and try to extrapolate a society based around creature like that, or ones otherwise "different".

Creatures with three-dimensional mobility might also have less tolerance for crowding than we would, and possibly an architecture that may not be so based on stacking flat planes.

Hmm... I think I have an idea for a new story.

I should get out more, I should have thought of that

About the creatures with three dimensional mobility having less tolerance for crowding, that may not be entirely true depending on what exactly their physiology and ancestry is. For example, many species of bats like to congregate into large, crowded communities in caves, and thus a sentient species of alien descended from a creature with similar characteristics may find crowds comforting. In fact, there are many social species that if they were to evolve into an intelligent being may leave traces of herd behavior such that for one of these creatures to be alone in isolation brings about uncontrollable panic.

Also, another good way to make something alien is to think about how it perceives the world and how that would affect its thinking patterns. For example, to continue with the bat analogy, a creature that uses echolocation might see the world not in terms of light and dark, but in terms of hard and soft. Add in environment and you can create interest ways for them to interact with others. For example, if an echolocator comes from a planet where most of the species have a hard exoskeleton and is thus is adapted to perceiving very hard objects as normal, imagine if they encountered a soft bodied human and could only make out the skeleton as a vague outline. The humans would see an armoured biological tank, the aliens would "see" near invisible creatures from myth and nightmare. Might make relationships between the two species difficult at first.

Generally, when crafting aliens I find it most useful to first think up a basic idea or two and then start brainstorming the conditions that might be required for such a being to evolve and create a rough ecology and evolutionary history to see what new traits I've come up with and how these would affect the formation of thought patterns and culture.

It's also important to think of how long that different races have been interacting, and at what level. In my own writings, humanity has been interacting and mingling with other alien races for about six thousand years. In addition, alien races have been interacting with each other for about a hundred thousand years before that as well.

Another thing is races may come from planets with diferent atmosphere's and gravity levels.

A species that could fly wouldn't have bridges, and may not build on the ground at all considering they would associate height with safety.

A species that evolved from herbivores would probably be very communal and have little history of major wars. Probably more along the lines of Homeric champions fighting for the outcome of an entire war. Also, they would probably view more predatory species with apprehension and distrust.
Strict carnivores OTOH may have no problem with eating other sentient species.
Also, environment would have an impact with species evolving on harsh, less hospitable worlds being more ruthless, pragmatic, and amoral. Also, perhaps having greater birth rates, tight group relations, and distinct us-them views.

Another example of alien thought would be the Minbari from Babylon5. Think about this, they (Minbari) have a first contact with Humanity, and the first thing they (Minbari) do is open up their gun ports, and turn on their sensors. To a human, that would be a very hostile action. But if you look at the Minbari crest bone on their heads, you can see that it (the crest bone) is as much a ceremonial display, as well as a sexual one, which means that Minabri would greet each other by displaying their crests as a sign of power, dominance, and respect for the power and dominance of the one they're greeting.

That's why the Minbari would think nothing of opening the gun ports and turning on the scanners on their ships, as they'd see it as a sign of both power, and respect, while another species could totally misinterpret those actions as ones of hostility.

Robo Jesus wrote:Another example of alien thought would be the Minbari from Babylon5. Think about this, they (Minbari) have a first contact with Humanity, and the first thing they (Minbari) do is open up their gun ports, and turn on their sensors. To a human, that would be a very hostile action. But if you look at the Minbari crest bone on their heads, you can see that it (the crest bone) is as much a ceremonial display, as well as a sexual one, which means that Minabri would greet each other by displaying their crests as a sign of power, dominance, and respect for the power and dominance of the one they're greeting.

That's why the Minbari would think nothing of opening the gun ports and turning on the scanners on their ships, as they'd see it as a sign of both power, and respect, while another species could totally misinterpret those actions as ones of hostility.

Doesn't sound really alien to me. Sounds like a variation of human culture.

The reason we shake hands, and wave is to show that we're not armed. Bowing and kneeling shows respect, because it makes you vulnerable to someone. Eating with your hands on the table comes from an old practice, where everyone would be armed at a dinner table, and having your hands on the table means you aren't pulling your dagger and so on.

Gunports open is just another variation on that whole type of greeting.

I read somewhere that a carnivorous species with sharp teeth and claws would probably be less likely to engage in actual combat than us puny humans, since they could kill each other far more easily. So a carnivorous species might engage in 'battles' where the two armies just stand facing each other playing their instruments as loud as they can and waving banners and suchlike in an attempt to make themselves look big and intimidating. They would also be more likely to try and intimidate during negotiations.
Any species which had a much better sense of smell than us would probably use odours on everything in the same way we use colour.
A cold blooded creature wouldn't have the same reaction to body contact as we do, they might get angry at an invasion of personal space, but they wouldn't associate it with love, affection, comfort or (probably) sexual arousal like we do because the extra body heat of another person is mainly responsible for activating them.

Noble Ire wrote:For example, one of my creations, the Deldeians, don't think of the world and time in a linear sense, but rather as an ever-changing and cycling set of possible outcomes, placing themselves at the center of the universe. It might be hard to explain or even comprehend such a different mind-set, but one can guess, and try to extrapolate a society based around creature like that, or ones otherwise "different".

Hardly alien at all. If I'm understanding you right, the Egyptians also saw life as cyclical, and believed in the power of the written history so much that they would lie in their histories in an attempt to make their victories come true in the next cycle of history.

MRDOD wrote:

Noble Ire wrote:For example, one of my creations, the Deldeians, don't think of the world and time in a linear sense, but rather as an ever-changing and cycling set of possible outcomes, placing themselves at the center of the universe. It might be hard to explain or even comprehend such a different mind-set, but one can guess, and try to extrapolate a society based around creature like that, or ones otherwise "different".

Hardly alien at all. If I'm understanding you right, the Egyptians also saw life as cyclical, and believed in the power of the written history so much that they would lie in their histories in an attempt to make their victories come true in the next cycle of history.

Rereading my post, I realized that I worded their mind-set badly.
It's hard to explain, but the cyclical aspect is less significant than the individual-centric way they see the universe. To them, the physical world is just part of their own personality, other individuals aspects of themselves. When they see or feel something, they don't think of it as a seperate form or event, but as something about themselves, even other people. As such, they rarely do anything that they think would harm or incovience another, as they would only be hurting themselves.

As I said, difficult to put into words. You're probably just better off making them different physically.

Noble Ire wrote: As I said, difficult to put into words. You're probably just better off making them different physically.

Or just mix in enough cultures that they're a hodgemodge of so many that you can't still consider them too humanlike (Khar = Ur-Quan + Feudal Japan + Later Rome + a touch of Caliphate + Foundation Manifest Destiny + Yehat + etc.)

A species within my own universe that lives exclusively in the habitable zone of a gas giant is an interesting study in what might happen if something evolved in such a different environment.

One particular quirk they have is that they can't conceptualize the idea of "ground". They use a variant on radar to see so they can see our ships but they have a lot of trouble seeing a single man if he were to come out in any kind of flying suit. They have trouble understanding what we mean when we try to describe ourselves to them and they prefer to just think of us as our ships.

They also communicate via radio waves, and interpret "sound" as dangerous, because loud sounds are instinctivily associated with approaching storms, something lethal to a creature living in the air.

Also, due to the lack of metals of virtually any kind, they never developed a technological civilization and were, thus, stuck at a pre-stone age level of technology permanently. They did have amazing pattern recognition abilities, though, which is believed to be why they evolved sentience: as those abilities got better and better, they moved up the scale.