Do you think it is possible for a human to create original aliens?

[Navaros]

Do you think it is possible for a human to create original aliens?

By "original," I mean something that has not ever been done before. Most likely, this would need to be something like an alien that isn't relatable in human terms.

Is the human mind even capable of achieving such a thing?

Supplementary question: if not, does this make you less excited about the SciFi genre, knowing that you will never see any original alien become created within it?

 

[RoJoHen]

I would say yes, it's possible to imagine such a creature, but it wouldn't make for a terribly good story. Part of what makes fiction interesting is our ability to relate to it.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

No. All imaginative concepts and images are assembled from experience. It's the same as asking someone to invent a new color.

 

[Navaros]

I would say yes, it's possible to imagine such a creature, but it wouldn't make for a terribly good story. Part of what makes fiction interesting is our ability to relate to it.

I am finding that SciFi aliens are not interesting precisely because of our ablility to relate to it. Because they are not original, and therefore bring nothing new to the table, what's the point of taking an interest in them?

If all SciFi aliens are just going to be aspects of humans repackaged into a new body (a body which most of the time is not even the slightest bit original either), then why bother getting excited about them?

No. All imaginative concepts and images are assembled from experience. It's the same as asking someone to invent a new color.

I think this is probably true. Do you find what you've said to be disheartening?

The phrase "To boldly go where no man has gone before" is famous, but doesn't the lack of original aliens defeat its sentiment? If man cannot create an original alien, then he has already been everywhere, and there is nowhere new to go.

 

[RoJoHen]

I would say yes, it's possible to imagine such a creature, but it wouldn't make for a terribly good story. Part of what makes fiction interesting is our ability to relate to it.

I am finding that SciFi aliens are not interesting precisely because of our ablility to relate to it. Because they are not original, and therefore bring nothing new to the table, what's the point of taking an interest in them?

I guess it depends what you mean by "relate to it." I mean, the xenomorphs from the "Alien" franchise aren't very relatable, but at the same time they're basically just monsters. We're never going to see them engaging in intelligent conversation.

 

[Myasishchev]

Do you think it is possible for a human to create original aliens?

By "original," I mean something that has not ever been done before. Most likely, this would need to be something like an alien that isn't relatable in human terms.

Original as a sum of its parts? Sure. Original in every part? Probably not, nor should it be by necessity. There are hundreds of millions of multicellular species on Earth. Why shouldn't an alien life form be similar in function to some of them?

I mean, is an alien unoriginal because it respires oxygen? What do you want it to breathe? Something shockingly unlikely in the grand scheme, like fluorine? Or something that doesn't actually work, like methane?

 

[C_Miller]

I mean, when you really break it down, were Klingons, Cardassians, Romulans, Vulcans, Ferengi, or even The Borg all that original when they first appeared? In many ways they were just representations of different aspects of humanity. It sure doesn't take the world's most creative person to create a group of fascist imperialists, a warrior race driven by their own code of honor, capitalists on steroids, a group of people based solely around paranoia. However, the creativity comes in the stories and even deeper than that, the character interaction and writing. If those things are good enough, does it really matter if the aliens (vehicles for the story) are completely 100% original?

 

[Meredith]

Orion's Arm has some good ideas: http://www.orionsarm.com/

 

[Trent Roman]

Unlikely, and if somebody did somehow manage to create a truly alien concept... would they even be able to write it in a way that would be intelligeable to the rest of us?

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

[Admiral_Young]

Are we talking visually or in a novel? I would suggest reading Robert Sawyer's work because he's created some interesting concepts of aliens in his work.

 

[JanewayRulz!]

Hmmm.

I'd have to go with the cranky cartoon lady, Maxine on this one.

"The trouble with science fiction books is that the creatures in them are never as weird or scary as my neighbors."

http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&...ns&gbv=2&aq=0&aqi=g10&aql=f&oq=maxine&gs_rfai=

 

[The Wormhole]

Do you think it is possible for a human to create original aliens?

By "original," I mean something that has not ever been done before. Most likely, this would need to be something like an alien that isn't relatable in human terms.

Is the human mind even capable of achieving such a thing?

I for one prefer Enlgish speaking aliens who are so obviously guys in a costume, though I admit sometimes laziness does get to me. The Forehead Aliens of the Week on Star Trek for example.

Truly alien creatures who can't communicate with humans might have some entertainment value, but is generally not the best thing. Just take SGU for example, all the aliens there are CG who don't speak English, or don't even speak at all. It's boring as hell.

Supplementary question: if not, does this make you less excited about the SciFi genre, knowing that you will never see any original alien become created within it?

Like what was already mentioned above, there is no more originality, just different variations on old ideas. Besides, who cares if the alien is "original" as long as it's cool?

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

No. All imaginative concepts and images are assembled from experience. It's the same as asking someone to invent a new color.

I think this is probably true. Do you find what you've said to be disheartening?

No, for the same reason (extending the analogy) that I don't find being limited to the actual colors of the spectrum in designing visual art to be discouraging. The tools and resources and human nature are what they are, and we do whatever we can.

Science fiction isn't actually about the future or the real nature of those parts of the Universe that we don't have any knowledge of. It's a subgenre of fantasy literature and its concerns are the same as any other storytelling.

 

[Christopher]

I think one question that needs to be clarified here is this: Is the original questioner speaking about literary SF or film/TV SF? Because as a rule, there are far more original and imaginative aliens in the former than the latter.

There is one way to develop aliens that aren't merely variations on ideas in the human mind, and that's to base them on real science -- physics, chemistry, evolutionary biology, etc. I've found in my own writing, and in reading hard-SF authors like Clement and Niven, that real science can provide a framework you can follow to new possibilities that never would've occurred to you without it. You're not stuck with what's already in your imagination because you can follow that extrapolative framework to new possibilities.

And I agree with the statement above that aliens will probably have some familiar qualities, because form follows function. The elements our life is based on are the most abundant ones just about everywhere. An oxygen-based metabolism is the most energetic one known and thus the most likely basis for active life processes. Any intelligent species is likely to be social and communicative, since complex social interaction requires a larger brain, so they probably wouldn't be completely beyond our comprehension. And so on. Weirdness just for the sake of weirdness is not plausible design. Though of course that doesn't mean that aliens would happen to resemble specific Earth taxa like cats or pigs or praying mantises. That's as implausible as it is unoriginal.

 

[lennier1]

There was a nice fake documentary a few years ago, but IMHO it was still too close to Terran life: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8fpnKMWl1U
IIRC there also was a similar mockumentary called "Alien Worlds" or "Aurelia and Blue Moon".

 

[23skidoo]

I'd say it's doubtful that any truly original alien could be created for fiction by this point. Minds more scholarly than mine have already proven that it's no longer possible to come up with a completely original plot, as all variations have now been done (the best we can do is put different colors and combinations together). The same can be said for fictional aliens - at least insofar as fictional aliens that can be depicted on screen or on the page in such a way that one can actually tell stories using them. One could come up with original aliens from a scientific perspective - no one had arsenic-based earth microbes on their radar before last week, after all - but while you can make a PBS or Discovery Channel documentary about such things, they don't really make for good entertainment, which is the prime function of fiction.

What's sad is when people go hog-wild about what they think are new aliens (or tech) in a film or TV show, only to find out "oh". The Borg is Exhibit A. When they were introduced in TNG everyone raved about them, and indeed in the late 1980s nothing like them had ever been seen on American TV. British viewers, however, had been watching the Cybermen on Doctor Who for 20 years by that point.

They weren't aliens, per se, but I saw a few comments where people talked about how original James Cameron's avatars were in Avatar, not realizing the basic concept of the avatars (using tech to implant human consciousness into organic constructs to explore inhospitable territory) was written about in 1957 in Poul Anderson's classic story "Call Me Joe", only substitute Jupiter for Pandora. What Cameron did was give everything a different coat of paint, drew in elements from a dozen different films ranging from Dances with Wolves to Aliens, hid the "joins" with 3-D distractions, and ended up with a combination that appealed to the masses. Therefore he gave the illusion of originality.

The closest I've seen in recent years to a fully original alien is Steven Moffat's Weeping Angels in Doctor Who. But even then, I recognized elements in them from other stories and films I've seen in the past.

Alex

 

[Pemmer Harge]

No. All imaginative concepts and images are assembled from experience. It's the same as asking someone to invent a new color.

http://wiki.lspace.org/wiki/Octarine

 

[Shatnertage]

No. All imaginative concepts and images are assembled from experience. It's the same as asking someone to invent a new color.

This made me think of Douglas Adams' Hooloovoo, who were a hyperintelligent shade of blue.

 

[Myasishchev]

Science fiction isn't actually about the future or the real nature of those parts of the Universe that we don't have any knowledge of. It's a subgenre of fantasy literature and its concerns are the same as any other storytelling.

That's not really true. There is a significant amount of science fiction that has a predictive aspect to it.

Anyway, generally, if one's definition of "original" requires that no aspect of a creation can have ever been heretofore seen, I'd suggest broadening one's definition of "original" a bit.

 

[Silvercrest]

This made me think of Douglas Adams' Hooloovoo, who were a hyperintelligent shade of blue.

What do the Hoovooloo say when they're depressed? Surely not "the blues."