Human Attributes That Are Overlooked By Sci-Fi [Archive]

Leliel

2012-04-03, 07:40 AM

Transplanted from SpaceBattles.com. Thank you Mr. Weaver.

Basically, he noticed that in a lot of science fiction, humanity is well...average. We aren't particularly long or short-lived, we aren't psychics most of the time, etc. Even fiction where humans are bastards seems to ignore a lot of what humanity evolved in favor of (usually poorly-made) messages about the environment or some crap.

So, this thread is for showing our ideas of ways humans differ on the galactic stage, both adavantages and disadvantages, then the other races of the galaxy..

Basically, my idea (spoilered for length):

is basically a future nWoD, where humanity and it's supernaturally-empowered variants has spread out among the stars, and found that alien life doesn't take kindly to them. Even the nice, peaceable ones are afraid of us, and that means untrustworthy.

Why?

Because all life is inherently psychic...and humanity's psychic ability is telepathy. It's a low-level, subconscious ability, only really noticeably present in a few mortals without crossing the barrier into full supernatural critter. It's called Unseen Sense, and it's actually our capacity to detect self-aware thought patterns different then baseline humans. Naturally, this gave our ancestors a great advantage in war against their rivals...right up until a few populations developed unreadable minds.

In other words-minds that are so chaotic that it's impossible to pull anything other than surface thoughts without outright invasive-and thus, resistible-action. Humans act on whim, ignore logic when it suits us, fully capable of saying and doing something different, and can recognize all of that...it's outright Lovecraftian, except aliens in general don't have the crazed imagination of humanity that created vast, unknowable gods who were simultaneously apathetic and malevolent.

However, here's the rub-the telepathic abilities not only remained, they evolved as well. Whereas before humans only had the capacity to detect alien thoughts, but not read them. After the readable populations died out, it became possible for a weaker, but more generalized ability to evolve-such as the ability to get a read on the emotions of smarter, calmer animals. Hence, the advent of domestication.

On the galactic stage, this translated into what is now a proverb: "Do not trust a human, for he was born a spy."

So, what's your idea for humanity's often forgotten attributes in comparison to alien life?

DiscipleofBob

2012-04-03, 08:06 AM

I also get annoyed at the negative stereotyping of humans in sci-fi. Evolution's already worked this hard to get us to the position where we are today and all sci-fi writers can do is come up with bigger scarier things that refer to us as "pink-skins" and "two-arms" and "only one heart" like it's some kind of handicap. Either that or portray humanity as the worst race in the known universe because we do bad things like *gasp* go to war or damage the environment with technological progress, and there's no way any civilized race would do that.

Give me a sci-fi where humans are the dominant race throughout the galaxy (and aren't complete and utter jerks about it) because we're the only race with the sensibility to develop opposable thumbs. Those things are superpowers in their own right.

Aotrs Commander

2012-04-03, 08:24 AM

If you really wanted to be clever about it, you'd make humans be the ones with higher endurance (as humans were at one point cursorial hunters).

Mainly, I think, the fact it that by the time most of the aliens have got armour plates, teeth/claws/talons because it looks cool, and are larger, they are naturally more forbidable than humans. It's not confined to sci-fi, and the bulk of most fantasy races are "better" than humans (even if as mildly as being longer-lived, more resistant to disease etc etc). It's just natural fact that pretty much anyone making a race that's not a human with funny foreheads or pointed ears wants to make them interesting, and making them worse than humans is generally not helpful in that regard; therefore most races and most aliens, will be "better" than humans, rather than different (rarer) or "worse" (more common in "villain minion" races).

Some sci-fi generas are better at it than others; some of the races is Star Wars are not "better" than humans, just different, and in Star Trek, it was occasionally mentioned that some races had some atrriubtes that were inferior (Cardassian hearing for example.) Babylon 5 didn't seem to have huge differences between the races.

...

...

That and the fact humans are pretty lame, when you get down to it...

Soras Teva Gee

2012-04-03, 08:59 AM

I remember being obscenely thrilled waaaaay back in the day when I read Animorphs and it was either Ax or Elfangor (or both) who were floored, totally floored, by humans having the ability to climb and lift our own body weight with our arms.

Because most writers are writers and not zoologists I guess they don't nessecarily have any concept that humans are "better" at anything. We can run other species to death and keep on going. We can climb which many animals cannot do. Heck we have essentially HD high color vision. Were omnivorous with a broad diet. And have proven to be capable of surviving with minimal assistance in every environment for thousands of year.

All factors that could be toyed with but writers never seem to get around to it. Where's carnivorous aliens that can't stand the heat because they grew up in arctic climes? Or the species that needs to use braile because their vision is motion not color oriented and lack fine detail.

Ravens_cry

2012-04-03, 09:16 AM

The Uplift War, part of the Uplift Saga by David Brin mentions this particular attribute of humanity, endurance hunting.
Sure humanity tends to be the 0 point, but it isn't universal.

Flickerdart

2012-04-03, 09:19 AM

Binocular vision could be a superpower if nobody else in the galaxy has it.

Jan Mattys

2012-04-03, 09:41 AM

Socratov

2012-04-03, 09:56 AM

I think our superpowers are actually used today: imagination, insight, and enough survival skills to not die. it is the very reason we humans exist, and have existed for the last 10000 years because simply enough we were smarter then any animal we encounterd allowing us to climb to the top of the foodchain. The fact that we can envision abstract concepts like math and things that don't (yet) exist is quite the superpower.

Omergideon

2012-04-03, 10:03 AM

Hell if written right even as simple an attribute as the ability to see in colour could be significant.

Think about an alien universe that has no colour vision, only regular black and white. They may be able to use fancy gear to tell objects absorb and reflect different wavelengths of light but we do it naturally. A small range perhaps, but entirely naturally. For such a race camoflauge based on light/dark with no regard to colour would be pointless when facing humans. Our ability to use colour for producing signals and messages would seem almost incredible. It would lead to very subtle but noticable differences in attitude and behaviour that could be rich in worldbuilding.

I think though that most of the time the reason we don't see human skills as superpowers is that humans write our stories. The baseline for us, our average, is inherently human. As such whenever an alien race is invented we have to start with human and alter things. And if conflict happens with humans as the heroes then Drama suggests the villains (our aliens) have the advantage in various areas so the struggle is more meaningful.

My take on the why.

endoperez

2012-04-03, 10:04 AM

And have proven to be capable of surviving with minimal assistance in every environment for thousands of year.

Not only have humans had to to survive in all kinds of environments, they also have had those environments change constantly with four seasons and countless weather patterns.

In a book I once read, a race of amphibious frogs assault Earth. They and their technology, while seemingly superior to humans, have evolved on a humid planet with no seasons to speak of, no volcanic activity, no moon, and no storms harsher than a drizzle. The frogs have no trouble learning human languages, but have trouble telling the truth from the fiction.

A spirit of freedom that watches the seas? Ha!
A spirit that puts us all in a barbecue pit to cook us? Haven't seen it!
Santa Claus that comes with winter, carrying gifts? I wish, but who is this Winter any way?
Old Man Winter, spirit of death and decay that drives the life from the world? Yeah, right, that's the best one since the angry spirit of earth who spits out fire and smoke and boiling rock!

The aliens end up having to abandon their bases in the north when winter comes and devastates their ranks. They then find their equatorial base flooded and monsooned, so they move once again, this time making base in a mountain. Which erupts...

pffh

2012-04-03, 10:04 AM

Determination and endurance. We. Do. Not. Stop. We hunted by running after animals until they simply died from exhaustion, the reason wolves were domesticated is because they were the only species that could keep up, we took the chance of burning the atmosphere of our only planet. There is nothing that will stop us and there is nothing that we will not try to get to where we want to go.

Draconi Redfir

2012-04-03, 10:14 AM

Personally i think our "thing" is our sheer numbers and rabbit-like breeding. I could see it being likely that other Aliens have a few hundred thousand, or maybe a couple million members to it's population. Us humans? We have Billions. Even shorter-lived species have fewer numbers then us. And we're just so gosh darn expendable that we crew our ships with several thousand people each doing one or two jobs, while every other species crew their ships with a few hundred doing two or three.

Determination and endurance. We. Do. Not. Stop. We hunted by running after animals until they simply died from exhaustion,

Actually we walked. The human species is built for long-distance walking, we just wound an animal as best we can, then follow it until it finally falls down.

Serpentine

2012-04-03, 10:15 AM

I remember being obscenely thrilled waaaaay back in the day when I read Animorphs and it was either Ax or Elfangor (or both) who were floored, totally floored, by humans having the ability to climb and lift our own body weight with our arms.Yep, that's what I'm gonna talk about.
I forgot about the high upper body strength - they're also deeply puzzled by our ability to walk upright, btw. Another big one, though, was how fast we are. At one point Ax observes that it took us (iirc) less than 50 years to go from putting the first thing in space, to landing on the moon - it took the andalites more than 100 years to perform the same feat.
Then there's sheer numbers - a yeerk sent word to his superiors that there were more than 6 billion humans on Earth. The recipient of the message responded "surely you mean million..."
I thought the dual-brain thing was interesting. I don't really think it's all that accurate, but at one point we see a yeerk's first infestation of a human from the yeerk's point of view, and it marvels at the way our brains are split. As it puts it (rough paraphrasing; it's been a long time since I read it), "humans are literally in two minds about everything"; I can't remember the exact wording, but the yeerk observes that every decision we make involves a debate between both our brains, meaning we're more likely to come up with the best conclusion.
And then there's our ability to make food. Oh, don't get an andalite started on our food!

So, to begin with, the yeerks saw us as nothing but fodder, and the andalites saw us as intrinsically inferior and decidedly expendable. At the end of it, the humans had nearly single-handedly ended a galactic war, and the interplanetary community was having to come to terms with the prospect of a very big, very fast and - by their standards - completely mental species joining them in the stellar community. There was trepidation, but also excitement.

J-H

2012-04-03, 10:15 AM

Larry Niven has a good short story where a bar owner ends up (slightly drunk) explaining to a group from a pack-hunter species how human ancestors would run down and club prey with an antelope thighbone. He ends up going hunting with them... they flush the prey and he gets to bring it down.

At least they let him bring a knife for butchering and a microwave gun to cook it....

Ravens_cry

2012-04-03, 10:20 AM

If they have technologies equivalent to agriculture and animal husbandry, I really doubt their numbers would be that low unless they were recovering from an extremely devastating disaster.

Beacon of Chaos

2012-04-03, 10:23 AM

Dr. Bath

2012-04-03, 10:27 AM

A short story I saw online had a pretty cool idea: Namely that humans are drug factories. Think about adrenaline for example: heightened reflexes, higher pain threshold, greater strength.

Kind of like a natural super-serum. It had other species reproducing it and using it as a kind of frenzy drug for soldiers.

And the idea of humans being the only ones to produce it naturally means that the natural job niche for humanity was mercenary work.

Pretty cool I thought.

edit: dangit, beaten to the punch.

Also I'm not sure I like the idea of humans being the only imaginative ones. Imagination is pretty necessary for any race to even make tools. I can't see any alien species advancing to space travel without it. I guess they might reach a certain level of advancement and lose the ability, but still.

Beacon of Chaos

2012-04-03, 10:37 AM

Socratov

2012-04-03, 10:41 AM

and it doesn't jsut stop at adrenaline, think of all the substances we produce like serotonin and many others. We even produce acid and countless enzymes. we can filter poisons quite effectively (our livers and kidneys handle that) and use chemical reactions to generate energy. we have a neural network which gives us a body wide optic fibre grade internet for our brain to use our body and our brain... it's such a wonderful black box. Even now scientists only know aobut 25% of the things our brain does, and how it does it... I mean, come to think of it, the human body is quite an amazing piece of work. other then thant, i still think humanities notion of surviving no matter what, and the capability to imagine stuff and invent stuff is quite the superpower allready (and ofcourse our ability to procreate at near rabbit speeds)...

endoperez

2012-04-03, 10:47 AM

Also I'm not sure I like the idea of humans being the only imaginative ones. Imagination is pretty necessary for any race to even make tools. I can't see any alien species advancing to space travel without it. I guess they might reach a certain level of advancement and lose the ability, but still.

A Clarke short story "Rescue Mission" toys with something like this. The aliens marvel at what humans have managed, what their world was like, and what they have achieved, looking through abandoned cities. They end up assuming humans are specialized in purely technical things, with little knowledge of arts, because the idea of a species capable of both seems alien to them...

http://www.baenebooks.com/chapters/0743498747/0743498747___1.htm

Dr. Bath

2012-04-03, 10:54 AM

Adrenaline drug factory? Heh, neat idea.

And in a scenario where humans are the imaginative ones, I assume that any other races in that setting would have to be taught by humans how to use and build tools and such. Not sure how well they'd do after that, but it would likely put humans in the top spot.

Sure, that's an option... but really, if they have no concept of original thinking (or at least a very limited one) the species isn't going to have language, at least not properly. They would never develop at all beyond mutational changes. Seems like a dull sci fi setting if we're the only sapient creatures.

If you tone it down a bit, you could have humans be the only ones (or one of few species) that appreciates art perhaps?

@Socratov: We don't really reproduce all that fast AT ALL. In fact we're one of the slowest in terms of gestation period, and among the slowest developmentally. Fourteen years (ish) until we're reproductively viable? Geeeze what a snore-a-thon :smalltongue: We're only fast in comparison to fantasy staples like dwarves and elves really.

Worira

2012-04-03, 11:09 AM

Oh man I was just about to post about the effects of adrenaline but you rascals beat me to it.

I think one possible attribute to have be unique to humans is our capacity for acrobatics, and our extremely flexible shoulder and hip joints in general. Having humans be the only species with opposable thumbs is problematic because you need aliens to have some method of fine manipulation, or else explaining where everyone else got their spaceships becomes problematic. However, having limbs, especially upper limbs, capable of an unusually broad range of motion could easily be a trait unique to humans, or shared with only a few other species.

Other possibilities include having dedicated organs for auditory perception, having better than average eyesight in any of a number of ways, and having better than average tactile perception. In general, depending on where you set the average, humans can be better or worse at any given sense than most aliens.

Soras Teva Gee

2012-04-03, 11:09 AM

Yep, that's what I'm gonna talk about.
I forgot about the high upper body strength - they're also deeply puzzled by our ability to walk upright, btw. Another big one, though, was how fast we are. At one point Ax observes that it took us (iirc) less than 50 years to go from putting the first thing in space, to landing on the moon - it took the andalites more than 100 years to perform the same feat.
Then there's sheer numbers - a yeerk sent word to his superiors that there were more than 6 billion humans on Earth. The recipient of the message responded "surely you mean million..."

See though those later bits are not that uncommon though. It rather the cliche for humans to be somewhere between the Japan in Japan Takes Over the World (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/JapanTakesOverTheWorld) and an economic Horde of Locusts (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HordeOfAlienLocusts).

So its not an overlooked trait in my book.

And that's when its not played overtly as a negative. I recall being vaguely miffed (though it took longer to solidify my objections) to a book of similar vintage to Animorph, My Teacher Is An Alien, where humanity was on trial in absentia for having ridiculous tech growth rates mixed with our supposedly horrible moral deficiencies.

MLai

2012-04-03, 11:47 AM

I remember a Voyager episode where the aliens are absolutely floored by the human invention called music.

Raimun

2012-04-03, 11:47 AM

Humans might be giants compared to aliens. Imagine halflings... IN SPACE. Or better yet, quarterlings. :smallamused:
Imagine a first encounter where the other side is two to four times as tall.

Also, senses. Not all species in our planet have the array of senses we have. "Whoa, you humans have a fifth sense?"

Related to senses, speech. Ever notice how handy is it to communicate with waves of sound you are able to generate? Even though an intelligent species will certainly have a language, they might not have speech as we know it.

TheEmerged

2012-04-03, 12:04 PM

There was an old RPG named Star Frontiers by T$R back in the day where the listed advantage to the human race was essentially our adaptability, in particular our ability to cobble things together MacGuyver-style and/or make do with less than adequate tools/resources.

Raimun

2012-04-03, 12:11 PM

Socratov

2012-04-03, 12:18 PM

then again, an alien species which reads minds and communicates telepathically will be uterly stunned by the thoughts they encounter in human minds... I sincerely hope we humans never develop a form of mind reading, it would first of all halt the procreation process, second people will be schocked by what some peopel think. I for one amaze myself with the horrible thoughts i think from time to time... ...Not only dirty and eplicit in content, but other *ahem* disturbing thoughts. I guess I've been on the internet for too long and been corrupted...

Soras Teva Gee

2012-04-03, 12:22 PM

On a less serious note, perhaps the aliens have IT-technology from the sci-fi-movies of 70s and 80s. Perhaps they totally believed "640k ought to be enough for anybody."

We could throw them Angry Birds and conquer the galaxy while they are too busy to break our records.

Well aside from magical modes of travel simply being discovered you wouldn't be able to perform the sort of research likely need to get to FTL without computing technology exceeding our own.

Now whether alien psychology would value consumer goods or casual information exchange with slick graphical interfaces is another matter entirely. Which can also tie back into vision considerations. Our GUIs are base essentially around high definition high color vision. Change those factors and aliens might have something that looks like large print DOS because more advanced simply isn't worth it.

Calemyr

2012-04-03, 12:33 PM

Edible. Ball. Bearings.
Ball Bearings. You can eat.
Genius.
Doctor Who

Selrahc

2012-04-03, 01:26 PM

Xondoure

2012-04-03, 01:49 PM

Soras Teva Gee

2012-04-03, 01:54 PM

We have no idea what makes humans exceptional, because we haven't seen the aliens. Odds are the vast majority of what we do and what we are will be different.

First find the aliens, then find the differences and similarities.

From a purely inventive standpoint, it is very hard to think of anything that humans do, that an alien couldn't be imagined that would do it better. So the key is working out what you think is an interesting thing to serve as a differentiator. And if it's going to drive a story? It pretty much has to be mental and social. Things like strength, speed, stamina, tricks... they're going to be good for a few paragraphs of world building and atmosphere, but very little beyond that. You can't build a story off of the fact that humans can run for a long time, or have two manipulating hands instead of a tendril or whatever. You can build a story out of a human coming to terms with an entirely alien mindset.

So if you're building an alien race? Focus on the mindset as a differentiator. There is a lot more mileage in it.

While I don't nessecarily disagree there are a lot of implications between biology and psychology. What would be the differences in the thinking processes of a species that lacks color vision for example.

But on the purely physiological consider humans basic endurance in the scope of how long we can be active. We can be active for around 16 hours out of the day with no problem. Or to break our own particular cycle let's say 66% of the time we can be away and active. Consider the case of a ship. A ship requires some portion of its crew to be active 100% of the time. How do you close that gap, by working in shifts. Now lets say you have a race that needs more sleep to remain healthy... then they also need a bigger crew for the same job thus need a bigger ship.

To say nothing about say combat or extended campaigns. How long can you hound a species before their performance starts to drop from exhaustion. Or logistically when do they need to pull in somewhere for supplies. That's the sort of thing that isn't going anywhere as a consideration.

Brother Oni

2012-04-03, 02:00 PM

We even produce acid and countless enzymes. we can filter poisons quite effectively (our livers and kidneys handle that) and use chemical reactions to generate energy.

Actually related to this could be humanity's ability to eat anything and, the bit that really shocks the aliens, the desire to do so.

They could be shocked and horrified at our willingness to drink poison (alcohol), eat semi formed embryos (balut), offal (haggis, brawn), vermin (snails, locusts) and even cooking it is optional (sashimi).

It'd also tie in with Selrahc's point about getting mileage out of a trait - interplay between an alien crew member and a human foodie has potential to become a running joke.

Alternately, humans could develop an (unwarranted) reputation as carrion eaters and aliens are terrified about facing them in battle since they believe that any of their casualties are likely to end up on the menu.

But on the purely physiological consider humans basic endurance in the scope of how long we can be active. We can be active for around 16 hours out of the day with no problem.

Or even longer with chemical assistance (eg: caffeine, amphetamine). This could be extended even longer with suitability advanced technology such as genetic modification or biological/technological implants.

Leliel

2012-04-03, 02:04 PM

It is hard to imagine a space fairing race vastly different forms us, because a lot of the things that give us the potential to one day roam the stars are a result of our upbringing on this earth.

Reasonably, they would have to have some kind of fine motor control, highly evolved brains that are capable of more abstract thought, and some reason to fly into space be it resources or ambition. Probably ambition as there is very little evidence to be had that traveling much beyond the confines of your own system is in any way practical.

What you're left with is an inquisitive, ambitious, very intelligent and fine motion capable creature. Which in all likelihood would probably be far more similar to us than the more wild ideas in science fiction, while probably not being humans with different skin tones.

Either way, I'd guess that space faring races would have more in common than you would think. There might be differences, perhaps even major ones. But perhaps not as much as one might think.

Juts my two cents.

...Do you realize just how little that actually defines?

Yes, they would be that. They have also evolved on planets with completely different conditions then Earth, from completely different evolutionary paths, and minds adapted to completely different bodies.

They probably feel fear, friendship, regret, and happiness, since those are emotions which reinforce society-builders. Everything else, though? Just take a look at something like the Factors from Eclipse Phase, a race born from ambush predators. They're essentially slime molds who can temporarily merge to share info, resulting in a species that simultaneously have a concept of identity, but not a word for "I".

Skavensrule

2012-04-03, 02:20 PM

Babylon 5 didn't seem to have huge differences between the races.

Actually B5 had many differences between the various races. But each difference was brought in a bit at a time and other than "The First Ones" none had a distinct advantage physically over others. Examples: Minbari had the bone covering over their heads that did help with protection but suffer from violent mood swings if they ingested even trace amounts of alcohol, (meaning that a piece of overripe fruit could cause them to murder each other). The Narn were marsupials (from a biological survival standpoint this is inferior to humans. The Centari had 6 ...um...attributes...for procreation.

Technology was the biggest divider between the races and for that humans were close to the bottom of the pecking order simply because we had been in space less than the other races. The reasons for humans holding their own so well was that humans tended to adapt alien tech better than some races.

Spoiler about a short story by Harry Turtledove where humans prove to be tougher than we look.
Harry Turtledove wrote a short story set in the universe of his book "Earthgrip" called "Nasty, Brutish, and...", in it a human has been suffering from a cold for the last few days. He reflects that Human doctors have been promising to wipe out the "common cold" for over a thousand years and have never been able to do it. He speculates that the reason is that no one dies from a cold so there isn't any motivation to spend lots of money for a cure. He meets a member of a race that found Earth 50,000 years ago and decided to wipe out humanity because they believed that we might pose a threat to their interests later on. The race had a galactic "civil war" that reduced them to barbarism on the few planets that could even sustain life in their territory meaning that they never got around to check on the virus that they had set loose on humanity. It was a respiratory virus specifically designed to be fatal and to mutate so often that a cure would be impossible. As the alien finishes wondering why the virus didn't work on humans since like it had on thousands of other races the human sneezes.

edit: too bad spell check won't tell you when a word is spelled correctly but is the completely wrong word.

ThePhantasm

2012-04-03, 02:27 PM

Hopeless

2012-04-03, 02:31 PM

Been reading this thread and was wondering why noone has mentioned what aliens would think from all of the radio broadcasts being sent out into space since radio and then television was created.

If they could translate them just imagine what they think of the terrifying monsters such as Godzilla, the Daleks, the countless war films and thats not even covering what else was broadcast.

It wouldn't stretch the imagination that if there is alien life out there that could travel across the vastness of space they'd take one look at Earth and us and think, No thank you!

Given how much violence and horror that seem to be produced in tv, film, video games even literature just imagine the reaction when a truly hostile alien comes down to confront humanity and is promptly ignored or makes the mistake of trying to intimidate a drunk (or not) yob or football hooligan let alone someone military trained.

Can you imagine their reaction at some people's willingness to pick a fight even if by all rights it should be unimaginable simply because the human they challenged has no idea what they're facing?!

Then there's the domecticated cats and dogs, just imagine what an alien thinks when it is confronted by a series of deadly trials but not at the hands of the dominant life form but by their pets kind of makes you wonder what they think about a lifeform that keeps such dangerous creatures and behave as if nothing was untoward...

And remember the Matrix movie where one of the villains mentioned that the only creature that resembled humanity was some kind of plague or bacteria?

What if the one thing that makes us truly remarkable i the fact that no matter what trial confronts us we show even better survival prospects than the cockroaches...

Xondoure

2012-04-03, 02:37 PM

...Do you realize just how little that actually defines?

Yes, they would be that. They have also evolved on planets with completely different conditions then Earth, from completely different evolutionary paths, and minds adapted to completely different bodies.

They probably feel fear, friendship, regret, and happiness, since those are emotions which reinforce society-builders. Everything else, though? Just take a look at something like the Factors from Eclipse Phase, a race born from ambush predators. They're essentially slime molds who can temporarily merge to share info, resulting in a species that simultaneously have a concept of identity, but not a word for "I".

We don't really know how different they would be. We can imagine them to be totally alien, but my line of thinking is simply that certain traits inevitably win the evolutionary arms race so while certainly not the same, we would see analogues to creatures on earth given similar conditions. Life on planets with radically different climates (eg. ones that cannot be seen on earth, due to gravity or what have you) would be where the truly alien species might start to evolve. But given that we are reasonably sure life as we know it needs liquid water they can't be so different as not to account for that. Water on the scale we are considering, means oceans (at one point.) And creatures of this size means multicellular life. Once things start getting bigger there's really only so many basic shapes that are advantageous in such a world along with being mobile. After that things start to branch out. Questions of dry land, gravity, and such become more prevalent. I still wouldn't expect jelly creatures that can meld their minds together.

My point is mainly look at all the species on earth that could conceivably be smart enough and possess the necessary features for tools. It leaves us with primates (us), birds (crows), and cephalopods (octopi.) Yes there are a lot of shapes that could have thumbs/tentacles, but only so many of those forms make any sort of sense from an evolutionary perspective.

Any creature that gets far enough to make it into space is going to be intelligent enough to have empathy, and powerful enough to be considered an apex predator. Its going to have something resembling hands, and enough senses to be able to observe the way the universe works. That does leave a lot to the imagination. But it is within a spectrum of possible variations. Infinite variations, maybe, but holding on to enough similarities to find common ground, and be able to understand other space fairing races.

It's a little off topic I suppose, but the idea is that we probably won't see a race so alien we couldn't possibly understand their way of thinking. Or encounter a species unable to empathize with our morality at least to the extent it would take to understand our actions. And they would all be capable or adapting to new environments because you don't get to where we are without that trait.

Soras Teva Gee

2012-04-03, 03:00 PM

Or even longer with chemical assistance (eg: caffeine, amphetamine). This could be extended even longer with suitability advanced technology such as genetic modification or biological/technological implants.

Well that get into technological advantage. While sure its a physiological difference with say how effective stimulants might be I chose to keep it more organic. Also different people are affected differently, I get almost nothing positive out of caffine or any drug but alcohol.

There's almost infinite variation possible in details.

Spoiler about a short story by Harry Turtledove where humans prove to be tougher than we look.
Harry Turtledove wrote a short story set in the universe of his book "Earthgrip" called "Nasty, Brutish, and...", in it a human has been suffering from a cold for the last few days. He reflects that Human doctors have been promising to wipe out the "common cold" for over a thousand years and have never been able to do it. He speculates that the reason is that no one dies from a cold so there isn't any motivation to spend lots of money for a cure. He meets a member of a race that found Earth 50,000 years ago and decided to wipe out humanity because they believed that we might pose a threat to their interests later on. The race had a galactic "civil war" that reduced them to barbarism on the few planets that could even sustain life in their territory meaning that they never got around to check on the virus that they had set loose on humanity. It was a respiratory virus specifically designed to be fatal and to mutate so often that a cure would be impossible. As the alien finishes wondering why the virus didn't work on humans since like it had on thousands of other races the human sneezes.

Amusing though I might take issue with the detail since I don't think sneezing that effective for its supposed job. However it made me think that our single tube for breathing and eating might normally be considered ridiculous. Afterall insufficient chew our food can kill us, come again? But it might relative create an advantage against respiratory infection as its not going to be blocked completely by a respiratory disease. Imagine suffocating from a common cold.

Probably the idea that was after all the same though.

endoperez

2012-04-03, 03:55 PM

Been reading this thread and was wondering why noone has mentioned what aliens would think from all of the radio broadcasts being sent out into space since radio and then television was created.

Galaxy Quest is this with Star Trek. The aliens with no concept of theatre or plays recruit the crew of a pseudo-Star Trek, since only the feats they've performed in their "historical documentaries" can save their race.

Any creature that gets far enough to make it into space is going to be intelligent enough to have empathy, and powerful enough to be considered an apex predator. Its going to have something resembling hands, and enough senses to be able to observe the way the universe works. That does leave a lot to the imagination.

Sn elephant's trunk is capable of rather fine manipulation... There's all kinds of ways to grab stuff. Have a look at Larry Niven's puppeteers - intelligent herbivore herd species evolved for cowardice. Their two mouths (on separate, snakelike heads) act as manipulators.

Brother Oni

2012-04-03, 04:00 PM

Amusing though I might take issue with the detail since I don't think sneezing that effective for its supposed job.

In reality, sneezing spreading the disease around is a co-opted response by the cold virus hence why it appears so inefficient (it's an evolved response by the virus to take advantage of our bodily function).

Yora

2012-04-03, 04:10 PM

Binocular vision could be a superpower if nobody else in the galaxy has it.
I don't think so. Pretty much all animals on earth known for their intelligence are herd-living predators. Predators need a good forward focus and depth perception to catch prey. Big cats being an exception as solitary predators.
Herbivores are generally quite dumb, as the only advanced skill they really need is running away. But when you start hunting as a group, you really need a lot of brain power, as you have to keep track of the position of multiple fast moving animals in real time while navigating difficult terrain or even in three dimensions.
And when it comes to developing technology, simply transmitting knowledge from parent to child doesn't get you anywhere. You need large social groups where different individuals can provide different views on a subject and collectively develop advanced tools.

So my prediction is that all creatures of human level intelligence in the universe are social predators. Herbivores are naturally too dumb, and solitary predators lack the social infrastructure to develop beyond instinctive behavior. And predators need good forward vision or a similar mode of perception. All aliens we'll find will have something like it.

Something fun would be to make earth a relatively high gravity planet when it comes to inhabited worlds. Humans who are accustomed to move in .8 or .9 G environments would have stronger bones and muscles and be able to jump and lift more efficient than on earth.

hamishspence

2012-04-03, 04:12 PM

I don't think so. Pretty much all animals on earth known for their intelligence are herd-living predators.

Elephants have a certain reputation- but this may not be entirely deserved.

The Glyphstone

2012-04-03, 04:16 PM

So my prediction is that all creatures of human level intelligence in the universe are social predators. Herbivores are naturally too dumb, and solitary predators lack the social infrastructure to develop beyond instinctive behavior. And predators need good forward vision or a similar mode of perception. All aliens we'll find will have something like it.

Now I want to see a herbivorous predator, evolved on a world with really nasty plant life.

Soras Teva Gee

2012-04-03, 04:50 PM

In reality, sneezing spreading the disease around is a co-opted response by the cold virus hence why it appears so inefficient (it's an evolved response by the virus to take advantage of our bodily function).

It is my understanding that most cold symptoms are actually reactions from your immune system. Like a sore throat is because your body is killing cells in that area enmasse to stop an infection. A runny nose it your bodies attempt to isolate/insulate the rest of the body. I'd note for example you rarely sneeze during a cold's height but only when mucous is at certain levels before complete blockage.

So my prediction is that all creatures of human level intelligence in the universe are social predators. Herbivores are naturally too dumb, and solitary predators lack the social infrastructure to develop beyond instinctive behavior. And predators need good forward vision or a similar mode of perception. All aliens we'll find will have something like it.

I think we could actually come up with a list of what a viable alien race would need to build an industrialized society. Something very very vaguely humanoid has always seemed more likely to me the true Starfish Aliens. Mind you most don't go far enough often enough, we should be encountering say Non-Mammalian Space Bears rather then Rubber Forehead Green Skinned Space Babes.

Something fun would be to make earth a relatively high gravity planet when it comes to inhabited worlds. Humans who are accustomed to move in .8 or .9 G environments would have stronger bones and muscles and be able to jump and lift more efficient than on earth.

You mean the other way around right .8G humans would be underpowered but might over generations develop say larger spindlier frames. 1.2G or whatever is appropriate would be more powerful relative to Earthers, though most concepts suggest they'd end up somewhat stocky.

I do think Earth's 1G being high is somewhat underused, John Carter is the only one I can think of off the top of my head specifically from Earth.

erikun

2012-04-03, 05:01 PM

In a book I once read, a race of amphibious frogs assault Earth. They and their technology, while seemingly superior to humans, have evolved on a humid planet with no seasons to speak of, no volcanic activity, no moon, and no storms harsher than a drizzle. The frogs have no trouble learning human languages, but have trouble telling the truth from the fiction.
I think I read that book, as well. They did have fire either, did they? It was how the primative humans won out.

At this point I feel compelled to point out tha most sci-fi isn't science fiction. Sci-fi is supposed to be fiction based on scientific extrapolation, while a lot of sci-fi you see is really future/space fantasy. In that light, perhaps it isn't too surprising to see most "sci-fi" races that are just Tolkien elves IN SPAAAACE!!!

That, and unless you are willing to devote a large portion of the writing to the alien differences and mindset, it generally isn't worth it to have a lot of differences. Sure, you could have sentient fungi mounts that "see" through heat and communicate through scent, and have a lot to work with there. However, unless the story is primarily about the difficulties of the two lifeforms in communicating, it would be easier on the story if there wasn't such a strange gulf between the two.

Serpentine

2012-04-03, 06:49 PM

Now I want to see a herbivorous predator, evolved on a world with really nasty plant life.Oooo, I've been musing about something like that: what if you had a planet where most of the animals were like, say, sea anemones - anchored to the ground, waiting for food to come to them, and most of the plants were mobile - say, because a system that let them follow the sunshine around is beneficial; sort of like sunflowers, if they didn't just have to move their faces, but could get up and follow?

Eldan

2012-04-03, 07:10 PM

Don Julio Anejo

2012-04-03, 09:58 PM

Alan Dean Foster had an interesting concept in his Damned trilogy where humans were actually the BAMFs of the galaxy. You know how we imagine the Protoss, the Sangheili (Halo Elites) or Krogan to be either 10 foot tall super soldiers with Superman strength, or an indestructible dudes with a hard exoskeleton and lots of organ redundancies? Well, we seem like that to all the other species in that we're much stronger, faster and more resilient because we evolved under much harsher environmental conditions.

Every other planet with life on it in the setting had no axis tilt and a single Pangea-like continent, which meant extremely stable living conditions, no seismic activity, no seasons, etc...

Curiously, a lot of the story dealt with humans trying to prove we're more than Proud Warrior Race guys.

My points:
Our vision is pretty much almost as perfect as it's possible to make it without having significant drawbacks. About the only thing you could do better would be placing rods and cones in front of nerve endings so the latter don't block some of the light that bleeds through. Like with octopi.

We have a skeletal structure that makes us extremely flexible. Sure, we may not have the raw power of a Krogan, but we can run around one in circles. Our limbs have about as good a range of motion as is physically possible using tension muscles without sacrificing significant durability. A vertebrate tentacle (i.e. like a mammalian/reptilian tail but with a manipulator at the end of it) would be more flexible, but there's no way it'd match raw power or durability. On the other hand, a turtle-like structure would give you more raw power but you'll lose things like throwing ability.

PS: actually, there's an equal mix of herbivores amongs the smartest animals. Humans aren't really predators, they were originally scavengers that evolved the ability to hunt using intelligence (i.e. hunting parties and tools like spears) and endurance (running an animal to exhaustion). That said, we can perfectly well survive without hunting at all. Dolphins are probably the only true predator on the list.

Other than that... Chimps are social herbivores, ravens are scavengers and some species of parrots (i.e. African Grey) are herbivores. Then there's also elephants. Most predators (i.e. dogs) actually have very little cognitive capacity. Everyone else on this list is capable of basic speech, math, abstract concepts, etc. African Grey parrots are actually about as smart as human 6 year olds. They just don't care enough to make a civilization.

Don Julio Anejo

2012-04-03, 10:11 PM

Also, a personal idea I've had for a while. If I ever write a sci-fi story, I'll have aliens that are absolutely baffled by our ability to easily perceive and manipulate vibrations in the air, to the point where we use them to communicate. To them it would be like us finding a species that talks to each other using radiowaves... Possible to detect using technology and maybe even decipherable, but completely alien and confusing if they use a different way of communicating (ex: sign language).

After all, hearing gives us quite a few advantages. For example, deaf species trying stealth might be awesome at optical camouflage, but they'll never realize simply moving makes them "visible."

An Enemy Spy

2012-04-03, 10:15 PM

This is why I like Mass Effect. Humans aren't shown as anything particularly superior or inferior compared to everybody else. We're just another species in the galactic community.

Moglorosh

2012-04-03, 10:27 PM

This is why I like Mass Effect. Humans aren't shown as anything particularly superior or inferior compared to everybody else. We're just another species in the galactic community.
I seem to remember humans being seriously looked down upon in the first game.

An Enemy Spy

2012-04-03, 10:33 PM

I seem to remember humans being seriously looked down upon in the first game.

That's because they were the newbies. All the races probably went through that.

Xondoure

2012-04-03, 10:35 PM

[QUOTE=Raimun;13007012]
Also, senses. Not all species in our planet have the array of senses we have. "Whoa, you humans have a fifth sense?"

QUOTE]

We have somewhere between a dozen and about 30 senses, depending on who you ask.

I remember a Science Fiction Story, though I can't remember name or author, where humans were the only known consumer (in the biological sense) to achieve intelligence. Every other intelligent species out there is a producer, i.e. basically a plant. We are the only intelligent species that eats other creatures.

Which as has been pointed out, is while not impossible rather silly. Intelligence in animal creatures evolves from predatorily habits, and pack animal instincts. Couple that with sexual selection encouraging greater empathy and boom. You're pretty close to sentience.

Ialdabaoth

2012-04-03, 10:50 PM

#14347-11728-96:

{I|We} {do|experience} human not-{relevant(?)}-{body|physiology,morphism,capability} for our {difference|explanation|realization(?)} having.

Human {thought|pattern|process|desire|being(?)} {has|invokes|causes(?)} anomalous {direction|decision|outcome}-{plural form|branches(?)}.

{Suggest(?)|hypothesize(?)|conjecture(?)}-{untranslatable} continue with {untranslatable}-{thought|process|desire|pattern|being(?)} until anomalous {direction|decision|outcome}-{pluralizing form|branch-becoming(?)} completes {integration|utilization|digestion(?)} {before|until(?)|unless(?)} human-{plural collective essential form} {invokes|calls forth} becoming-{spawn|child|offspring} {of|from} {space}-{between}-{spaces|potentialities(?)}.

{Coming}-{being} {gate(?)}-that-is-{key(?)} {has|invokes|causes(?)} by human {direction|decision|outcome}-{plural form|branches(?)} into {gyrating(?)|dancing(?)|orbiting(?)}-{threat(?)|disease(?)}-{servant(?)|food(?)}.

Not-{imperative(?)}-{thing that happens(?)}-{has|invokes|causes(?)} {I|We}.

Eldan

2012-04-03, 10:56 PM

[QUOTE=Eldan;13009453]

Which as has been pointed out, is while not impossible rather silly. Intelligence in animal creatures evolves from predatorily habits, and pack animal instincts. Couple that with sexual selection encouraging greater empathy and boom. You're pretty close to sentience.

Oh? I'd seriously contest that. Let's look at some intelligent animals on here.

Ravens. Solitary, scavengers.
Crows. Social, but scavengers and predators on small things.
Grey Parrots. Social herbivores.
Octopodes. Solitary predators.
Gorillas. Social herbivores.
Chimps. Social omnivores, but with probably very little meat.
Dolphis. Social predators.

And so on. Pretty mixed, actually.

Edit: Also, sexual selection for empathy? I don't think I've heard that one. Got any sources? Usually what I hear is runaway selection for intelligence in order to compete with other members of the same species.

Soras Teva Gee

2012-04-03, 10:58 PM

That's because they were the newbies. All the races probably went through that.

Aren't they also still the middle of the road race though? I've played not a single game but I seem to recall races either going more spindly psychic or tough warrior.

Eldan

2012-04-03, 11:00 PM

The three main races on the council? Yeah. Omnisexual psychic ambassor species, stealth species and tough super-honourable warrior species.

Flickerdart

2012-04-03, 11:07 PM

The three main races on the council? Yeah. Omnisexual psychic ambassor species, stealth species and tough super-honourable warrior species.
Who are the honourable warriors, Turians? Turians aren't tough. Garrus takes one measely rocket to the face and goes down.

McStabbington

2012-04-03, 11:10 PM

Physically, there's always the possibility that another species sacrifices some of our flexibility for extra abilities at niche levels. For instance, our bones, muscles, tendons and ligaments essentially form a series of lever arms. By shifting the ligament attachment further down the arm, one can radically increase motive force with no increase in muscle mass, but you also decrease the range of motion in the joint. So maybe you would see some species that looks like hunchbacks simply because of how their muscles are attached, but could overpower the strongest Vulcan if they got their hands on them.

The other possibility, one that is actually subtly reflected in a lot of science fiction, is that humans are unique precisely because of psychology or socialization. For instance, humans seem to thrive quite ably despite being divided into opposing camps, each equipped with weapons that could end all sentient life on the planet, by simply agreeing "I won't shoot if you won't." This is seen as regrettable and quite weird by us, but imagine how baffling it might be to a more harmonious or single-minded species.

This is actually something one sees in Star Trek: what seperates humans out is not their aggressiveness (even among the founding Federation members, Tellurites and Andorians are more aggressive than humans), but their ability to mix peacefulness with militarization. When TNG started, the Romulans had been in self-imposed exile for 60 years, coming out only on occassion to skirmish with the Klingons. And yet when they did, they promptly found that their most awesome warship was matched in armament by a Federation cruiser designed for research and exploration and carrying families. In later Trek, when Starfleet builds ships purposely and exclusively designed for fighting, they create some of the most ridiculously overgunned ships in the quadrant. Yet they never lose their essentially reactive foreign policy.

Tiki Snakes

2012-04-03, 11:17 PM

I think the most often overlooked set of traits in such fiction is often that compared to other creatures on our own planet even, we are mechanically speaking a little rubbish. We are significantly more fragile than so many creatures of similar size, weaker, slower, etc. Early modern humans weren't even particularly amazing compared to some of the (perhaps less adaptable but also possibly just less lucky) species of human.

When Humans are set as the average baseline, that's fair enough but seeing a setting really embrace the fact that humans, though capable of great things, are physically probably a better match for Volus than Krogan would be entertainingly fresh.

The idea of a species who evolved to dominance on their planet despite in many ways NOT being any kind of legitimate Apex preditor/etc in their natural enviroment might be the defining trait of humans in the eyes of the galactic society. The sneaky, lucky, ratty little humans who get sick if they eat the wrong type of food, live at the wrong altitude range, have trouble fending off wild animals half their size without weaponry and are riddled with odd evolutionary quirks like a skeletal system poorly suited to our method of walking and so on.

Jackals in a universe of Lions, Tigers and Bears.

Ravens_cry

2012-04-03, 11:26 PM

The idea that humans were scavengers before we got smart, or at least technically sophisticated, is actually pretty hotly debated I understand.
In my opinion, we were probably endurance hunters as well at the very least. And , being omnivores, we also gathered.
In my sci-fi, I like to have humans as flawed, but with our own special qualities none the less that play an definite part of interstellar culture.
I had an idea that each species had their own idea of war. To one species, genocide is the order of the day because they are self fertilizing hermaphrodites who can quickly replace a lost population. Prisoners and civilians are of no use.
For another, it is a contest of champions, as they reproduce in a 'harem' system, like elephant seals, but don't mistake it for some knightly duel of honour. Basically each side creates on there utmost, there most powerful, single unit, with all others being support.
It's like watching moons wage war.
Still other it is raiding, another assassination.
All are terrible, horrific, being both praised and damned, honoured and reviled. But human way of waging war, caught them surprise.
Which was good for us because we got a bit of a reputation for being gullible rubes after falling for some con artists who claimed to have all the answers.
After encountering some immortals who were perfectly willing to stall until we caved to their negotiations, all human ambassadors are armed. Just a pistol, or a ceremonial dagger or sword, and peace bonded at all times, not really a threat.
But still there, as a warning, a warning that says "Don't waste my time. I come in good faith, I expect the same of you."

McStabbington

2012-04-03, 11:35 PM

I think the most often overlooked set of traits in such fiction is often that compared to other creatures on our own planet even, we are mechanically speaking a little rubbish. We are significantly more fragile than so many creatures of similar size, weaker, slower, etc. Early modern humans weren't even particularly amazing compared to some of the (perhaps less adaptable but also possibly just less lucky) species of human.

It depends what you mean. A horse can run significantly faster than a human, but by the same token, if you race a horse as fast as it can the distance of an average marathon, it will drop dead at the end from exertion. By contrast, thousands of humans, many of them profoundly out of shape, manage to do the same thing with no ill effects every year. Similarly, while Neanderthals are significantly bulkier and more heavily muscled than humans, they were also shorter and show no evidence of using endurance hunting as a method of taking prey. If anything, the number of fractures in the skeletons we've found, and the fact that all the skeletons had them, suggest that they took prey one way and one way only, which was to get very close and personal. If that's true, then it's very possible that like a horse, they simply didn't have the endurance that a Cro-Magnon man does.

Ravens_cry

2012-04-03, 11:45 PM

I believe humans also have a part of our brain that aids, basically enables, overhand throwing, the ability to look at a space and work out the math and movements to hit it from a distance with relative accuracy, our bodies are also adapted to this.
Suppose, suppose an alien didn't have that, if their minds restricted them to melee only, like we can not rotate objects mentally in 4D. Imagine how freaky, how terrifying it would be to have a species that basically 'bit' from a distance, who made that their primary attack.

Xondoure

2012-04-04, 12:45 AM

Oh? I'd seriously contest that. Let's look at some intelligent animals on here.

Ravens. Solitary, scavengers.
Crows. Social, but scavengers and predators on small things.
Grey Parrots. Social herbivores.
Octopodes. Solitary predators.
Gorillas. Social herbivores.
Chimps. Social omnivores, but with probably very little meat.
Dolphis. Social predators.

And so on. Pretty mixed, actually.

Edit: Also, sexual selection for empathy? I don't think I've heard that one. Got any sources? Usually what I hear is runaway selection for intelligence in order to compete with other members of the same species.

Scavenging requires a similar level of intelligence, albeit for different reasons, so I don't think it really disproves the theory on herbivores being lousy at civilization. Gorillas are interesting, but I'd have to go back and check on the common ancestors. It is possible they developed that intelligence back when they were omnivorous.

@edit: Actually the two are pretty similar. Competing with humans in the same tribe for a mate leads to runaway selection on intelligence because good social skills (not necessarily traditional romance) get you laid. And our brains are way overdeveloped for what they would need to be to survive successfully, so the logic follows we were competing with each other. And while I'm sure war, and tactics played into it at least to a minor level. The long periods of time this would need to shift the population in that direction suggests it was something that was a constant factor.

Unfortunately, it was one theory out of a few that were thrown at me in high school biology, and while a quick google search hits plenty of articles I must admit my scientific internet valid sourcing skills are lacking.

Knaight

2012-04-04, 01:07 AM

I believe humans also have a part of our brain that aids, basically enables, overhand throwing, the ability to look at a space and work out the math and movements to hit it from a distance with relative accuracy, our bodies are also adapted to this.
This isn't actually all that uncommon - most apes and monkeys can throw, and dogs have demonstrated some pretty impressive trajectory calculating skills (see: frisbees).

Regarding the original topic: Alan Dean Foster's The Damned had an interesting take on it. The aliens that showed up found human's survival absurd - somehow, humans had managed to create complex civilizations on a planet that was trying to kill them. This whole "plethora of natural disasters" nonsense had prevented development of civilization everywhere else, and humans thrived. Moreover, the societies produced under these conditions were extremely dangerous, a valuable trait in the middle of an intergalactic war - humans were far better warriors than almost any other species, and the only one that came close was far larger. It wasn't just the physical side either, conflict based thinking (strategy and tactics, fighting skills) was a human specialty.

willpell

2012-04-04, 01:25 AM

I'll come back to this topic for later but my off-the-cuff: in the computer game Deadlock: Planetary Conquest, they made humans the species with the most money, because we have natural mercantile tendencies far in excess of others. You could do a lot with the idea that we're a species of wheedlers and compromisers with a near-psychic gift for imagining ourselves in another's shoes....well enough to tell what they want and how much they'll pay for it. Other aliens are alien to each other, but we know their price, and they fear and hate us even while being utterly dependent on our ability to get them anything they have to have.

Ravens_cry

2012-04-04, 01:26 AM

This isn't actually all that uncommon - most apes and monkeys can throw, and dogs have demonstrated some pretty impressive trajectory calculating skills (see: frisbees).

Actually, an overhand throw with accuracy IS unique (http://carta.anthropogeny.org/moca/topics/accurate-overhand-throwing) among humans.

GenericGuy

2012-04-04, 01:40 AM

Well there is one other thing human males have that is more “enhanced” comparatively to other male primates.:smallwink:

This is actually part of a running joke in sci-fi story I’ve cooked up, where a human male is picked up by rogue alien scientists/mercenaries, who are convinced the human is some kind of genetically engineered sex slave(what with its “enhanced area”, endurance, and ability to breed at any time).:smalltongue:

nyarlathotep

2012-04-04, 01:49 AM

I think the most often overlooked set of traits in such fiction is often that compared to other creatures on our own planet even, we are mechanically speaking a little rubbish. We are significantly more fragile than so many creatures of similar size, weaker, slower, etc. Early modern humans weren't even particularly amazing compared to some of the (perhaps less adaptable but also possibly just less lucky) species of human.

I could see the argument for other primapes being better at our jobs than us (Gorillas and neanderthals being notably tougher and stronger), but not most animals of our size. Compare a large cat like a cougar, although they are about our same size they have to hunt almost exclusively via ambush because even relatively light injuries for a human will be permanently disabling. Similarly antelope and other hoofed animals of human size are able to run continuously for far less time than a peek human and fall to much less punishment.

Ravens_cry

2012-04-04, 01:50 AM

@GenericGuy:
Compared to other primates, yes, that is indeed true.

Avilan the Grey

2012-04-04, 01:55 AM

I think others have already said everything but I think what could make us special is what we evolved to do be able to do:

Our very high endurance; we have sacrificed a lot of our strength (that is still very significant, but a chimp would laugh at us) for the ability to jog (not walk, not run) after prey for a whole day, until it is close to exhaustion. THEN we SPRINT to get it.

Our combination of ferocity, battle pragmatism and our ability for high culture and art:
"Let me tell you something about Hew-mons, Nephew. They're a wonderful, friendly people, as long as their bellies are full and their holosuites are working. But take away their creature comforts, deprive them of food, sleep, sonic showers, put their lives in jeopardy over an extended period of time and those same friendly, intelligent, wonderful people... will become as nasty and as violent as the most bloodthirsty Klingon. You don't believe me? Look at those faces. Look in their eyes."

And the opposite: Our ability for compassion. The same situations that always brings out the worst in humans, also brings out the best.

This brings us to our ability to emote with other species. No matter if it is dogs, or horses, or even goldfish... If we stay close to one too long, we start treating it as family. Or at least as another "quasi-human". This is the main reason we will one day be able to, and willing to, court all those green-skinned space babes... :smallwink:

And finally, our curiosity. A cat has nothing on a human child. And we usually don't die, either... :smallbiggrin:

GenericGuy

2012-04-04, 02:01 AM

@GenericGuy:
Compared to other primates, yes, that is indeed true.

Well the primate part is important in this setting because
The technology the rogue alien scientists were working on was Wromhole tech, and it didn’t just transport our protagonist through space but time as well. The protagonist is actually millions of years in the future and in an enforced galactic technological dark age by future humanity (who had ascended/upload their intelligence to computer). Before ascending, humanity uplifted many alien species and molded them in our image (meaning hominid and primate like), and now enforces this dark age to prevent any of its creations reaching a technological capacity to threaten ascended humanity.

Knaight

2012-04-04, 02:07 AM

Actually, an overhand throw with accuracy IS unique (http://carta.anthropogeny.org/moca/topics/accurate-overhand-throwing) among humans.

If you narrow it down to an overhand throw, yes - though there are the small matter of extinct homo not-sapiens species. Even then, there's the matter of how accuracy is defined. Throwing in general is more widespread, and the mental processes regarding flying objects yet more widespread.

Ravens_cry

2012-04-04, 02:13 AM

Still, even if throwing in general is not unique to humans, one can still imagine a species to which it is completely alien.

Brother Oni

2012-04-04, 02:18 AM

It is my understanding that most cold symptoms are actually reactions from your immune system. Like a sore throat is because your body is killing cells in that area enmasse to stop an infection. A runny nose it your bodies attempt to isolate/insulate the rest of the body. I'd note for example you rarely sneeze during a cold's height but only when mucous is at certain levels before complete blockage.

By the time you mount an immune response, your body is fighting off the infection, thus the disease is now fighting for its 'life' so to speak.

The part when you first become infected and contagious, is where the virus is growing in ascendancy and since you're mostly asymptomatic, where the most spread happens.
In any case, I was referring to sneezing only as being the co-opted response, not all the bunged up nose, fever and coughing, etc.

It's like cholera - it wants to get into a host, breed like mad, then get out before the host can mount an immune response. To aid the getting out part, it has co-opted the human immune response to having something nasty in the gut - flood it with fluid and rapidly expand and contract the gut lining, resulting in the distinctive heavy watery diarrhea and vomitting.

I've been thinking about the story where the alien uses the cold virus as a bioweapon - replace it with influenza and you have a far more plausible scenario.

Bastian Weaver

2012-04-04, 02:55 AM

That's not really immune response, actually. It's the result of pathogens of cholera affecting the cells from inside, causing increased secretion which later leads to dehydration and death.

HandofShadows

2012-04-04, 02:57 AM

I think the trait that is most overlooked in Sci-Fi is that humans can be utter bastards.

Rockphed

2012-04-04, 03:40 AM

Resilience.

The human body can take an impressive amount of punishment before it breaks/gives up.

That could be interesting in a setting where most other races are really, really fragile. In order to kill other humans, mankind has developed weapons that, while "normal" from our point of view (think guns) are disproportionately powerful by galactic standards.

It could be an interesting inversion of the "Alien technology and weapons dwarf our own" cliché.

A flabby, totally overweight human can take about 4Gs without issue. Fighter pilots take up to what, 10? What if other races could only take 2 before blacking out? Human battle doctrine would quickly devolve into "Ramming Speed!" There would be much rejoicing.

Determination and endurance. We. Do. Not. Stop. We hunted by running after animals until they simply died from exhaustion, the reason wolves were domesticated is because they were the only species that could keep up, we took the chance of burning the atmosphere of our only planet. There is nothing that will stop us and there is nothing that we will not try to get to where we want to go.

If memory serves, most things we hunt like that just stop from overheating. We still have to walk up and clonk the thing. I like how humans are now terminators. It give me a tingly feeling.

Also, senses. Not all species in our planet have he array of senses we have. "Whoa, you humans have a fifth sense?"

I can name 7 senses that people use(though 2 of them tell us more about ourselves than our surroundings).

Avilan the Grey

2012-04-04, 03:52 AM

I can name 7 senses that people use(though 2 of them tell us more about ourselves than our surroundings).

Yes; the ability (whatever it is called) that makes us aware of our body part's position even with our eyes closed (like being able to make our fingertips meet with our eyes closed) is actually a sense, according to scientists. So that is six. What is the seventh?

Scowling Dragon

2012-04-04, 03:55 AM

Jhon carter has this idea. Because we live on a planet with high gravity we are essentialy super beings on planets with lower gravity.

That made me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

Brother Oni

2012-04-04, 04:09 AM

That's not really immune response, actually. It's the result of pathogens of cholera affecting the cells from inside, causing increased secretion which later leads to dehydration and death.

Maybe immune response isn't the correct term, but the human responses are definitely co-opted. Cholera toxin specifically causes transfer of electrolytes into the gut by hijacking the cAMP messenger pathway and the osmotic differential then causes massive movement of water into the gut.

The fact that this then causes the diarrhea and vomitting that cholera needs to spread itself isn't a coincidence.

Bear in mind that dehydration and death of the host isn't the intention of the organism, it's just a side effect of it propogating itself. The best adapted diseases are endemic to the host population and cause little or no fatalities, thus keeping the potential number of people it can infect as high as possible.

I think the trait that is most overlooked in Sci-Fi is that humans can be utter bastards.

I think it's been mentioned in other posts, but you could highlight our method of warfare as a distinguishing feature.
Scorched earth policies, q-boats, disinformation, deliberately targetting of supply lines, and all other sorts of sneaky unhanded ways we have of fighting.

Off the top of my head, it was how the Inner Sphere beat the Clans in MW3, despite the clanners' superior tech and pilots - the IS method of warfare simply left them without a base of operations and attrition/supply problems simply starved out and crippled the clan lances.

I think there was a story once about humans being regarded as a semi-mythical race of gods of war, and generally left well alone. A small coalition of alien races fighting another invader came to Earth to beg the humans for help - instead they found a mostly peaceful agricultural society.
The aliens managed to convince the humans to help but as they were preparing to leave the solar system, they were wondering whether our reputation was all it was cracked up to be.
That's when they noticed the moon was following their ships and they noticed visible weaponry being uncovered.

If memory serves, most things we hunt like that just stop from overheating. We still have to walk up and clonk the thing. I like how humans are now terminators. It give me a tingly feeling.

Exactly. The thing that most people seem to forget when mentioning our ability as endurance hunters, is that we're endurance hunters in hot climates.

We have excellent thermoregulation, allowing us to chase down animals that effectively collapse from heat exhaustion. In colder climes, we're not going to be able to catch a deer as it can stay cool for longer and simply out run us.

The tradeoff for this ability is our relatively high need for water - we simply can't stray too far from a water source (until we came up with tools to carry water over distances, but that's a separate issue).

Avilan the Grey

2012-04-04, 04:36 AM

The tradeoff for this ability is our relatively high need for water - we simply can't stray too far from a water source (until we came up with tools to carry water over distances, but that's a separate issue).

One theory that expands on this states that one of the reasons we became upright is not only to be able to detect predators and prey over tall grass, but this: To be able to carry water with us.

Beacon of Chaos

2012-04-04, 04:37 AM

Yes; the ability (whatever it is called) that makes us aware of our body part's position even with our eyes closed (like being able to make our fingertips meet with our eyes closed) is actually a sense, according to scientists. So that is six. What is the seventh?
Fashion sense :P

I'll come back to this topic for later but my off-the-cuff: in the computer game Deadlock: Planetary Conquest, they made humans the species with the most money, because we have natural mercantile tendencies far in excess of others. You could do a lot with the idea that we're a species of wheedlers and compromisers with a near-psychic gift for imagining ourselves in another's shoes....well enough to tell what they want and how much they'll pay for it. Other aliens are alien to each other, but we know their price, and they fear and hate us even while being utterly dependent on our ability to get them anything they have to have.
Ahh, that's the game I was thinking of earlier. Thanks.

Brother Oni

2012-04-04, 05:17 AM

And the opposite: Our ability for compassion. The same situations that always brings out the worst in humans, also brings out the best.

This brings us to our ability to emote with other species. No matter if it is dogs, or horses, or even goldfish... If we stay close to one too long, we start treating it as family. Or at least as another "quasi-human". This is the main reason we will one day be able to, and willing to, court all those green-skinned space babes... :smallwink:

Missed this point, but it's very true and it doesn't even have to be a living thing.

There have been reports of bomb disposal teams in Iraq and Afganistan becoming so attached to their little robots that they willingly put themselves into danger to go rescue them.
To put that into context, humans are risking their lives over a disposable bit of metal, plastic and electronics that is designed to be be blown up and easily replacable when it is.

There's then the old fantasy joke of how promiscuous humans are and how half-human/half-something else subspecies are floating around. I think the telling thing about that joke is that most objections are to the genetics issues, not that there's people into that particular kink. :smalltongue:

Avilan the Grey

2012-04-04, 05:38 AM

There's then the old fantasy joke of how promiscuous humans are and how half-human/half-something else subspecies are floating around. I think the telling thing about that joke is that most objections are to the genetics issues, not that there's people into that particular kink. :smalltongue:

One word: EDI.

:smallcool:

Hopeless

2012-04-04, 05:46 AM

Now I want to see a herbivorous predator, evolved on a world with really nasty plant life.

You mean nastier than having hay fever afflicted upon you practically every year?

I remember talk about huge insects and plant life back in the early days of earth history and got me wondering how we'd react if we found and travelled to a world where we seriously understimated what it would take to survive there?

SiuiS

2012-04-04, 05:55 AM

I love most of these ideas, especially humans having alien minds or simply being the only ones with imagination. You could do a lot with that.

Body wise, I like the idea of the adrenaline rush, those times when a human enters extreme stress and are able to shrug off injuries or break through doors. To an alien it might be like encountering an entire race that can barbarian rage when the chips are down.

I remember playing a sci-fi game once (don't remember the name, it was years ago) where humans were the commerce-focused race. They got bonuses to buying/selling/trading etc. Seems pretty funny with the current state of the economy :P

A short story I saw online had a pretty cool idea: Namely that humans are drug factories. Think about adrenaline for example: heightened reflexes, higher pain threshold, greater strength.

Kind of like a natural super-serum. It had other species reproducing it and using it as a kind of frenzy drug for soldiers.

And the idea of humans being the only ones to produce it naturally means that the natural job niche for humanity was mercenary work.

Pretty cool I thought.

edit: dangit, beaten to the punch.

Also I'm not sure I like the idea of humans being the only imaginative ones. Imagination is pretty necessary for any race to even make tools. I can't see any alien species advancing to space travel without it. I guess they might reach a certain level of advancement and lose the ability, but still.

Wow typing In black is hard.

Adrenaline is a hormone that locks the fight/flight reflex into "on" rather than leaving it as a momentary twitch; for this to be human power only, other species would have to develop without a nervous system that has a streamlined pain button.

Elcor?

Hopeless

2012-04-04, 06:22 AM

Have to say I'm really enjoying this thread!

I think there was a story once about humans being regarded as a semi-mythical race of gods of war, and generally left well alone. A small coalition of alien races fighting another invader came to Earth to beg the humans for help - instead they found a mostly peaceful agricultural society.
The aliens managed to convince the humans to help but as they were preparing to leave the solar system, they were wondering whether our reputation was all it was cracked up to be.
That's when they noticed the moon was following their ships and they noticed visible weaponry being uncovered.

Any chance you remember either the author or the title of that story, it sounds very interesting!

Exactly. The thing that most people seem to forget when mentioning our ability as endurance hunters, is that we're endurance hunters in hot climates.

We have excellent thermoregulation, allowing us to chase down animals that effectively collapse from heat exhaustion. In colder climes, we're not going to be able to catch a deer as it can stay cool for longer and simply out run us.

The tradeoff for this ability is our relatively high need for water - we simply can't stray too far from a water source (until we came up with tools to carry water over distances, but that's a separate issue).

No offence but wouldn't they also be trying to move in cooperation to trap their prey between them so if it does run they'll be in position to strike at it no matter what direction it goes?

You know I've been wondering whether these aliens would keep us under surveillance to decide whether we're worth conquering, allying or avoiding altogether and I think its most likely the last one as they'd have uncontrovertable evidence we're not worth bothering about I can just see them highlight their report with intercepted signals which they managed to "decode" and translate pointing out how all of their best ideas have already been either used or thought out by the resident primitives and then goes on to list all the ones they haven't thought about and their superior's decide that maybe a remote outpost would be worth kept in the system just so they can keep abreast of all these horrifying concepts this otherwise primitive race are coming up with and wondering who or what George Lucas and the other beings accredited in the transmissions are!

endoperez

2012-04-04, 07:42 AM

Have to say I'm really enjoying this thread!

Any chance you remember either the author or the title of that story, it sounds very interesting!

It's Alan Dean Foster's With Friends Like These... I haven't read it myself, but I noticed it in TVTropes yesterday.

willpell

2012-04-04, 07:52 AM

Personally I actually rather like the generic D&D (3E at least) portrayal of humans as the species with ultra-fast adaptation and diversity, due to our far shorter lifespans. (To put it in perspective, if you start at a typical character age and then add one year for every level gained, humans are the only species that will advance an Age Category before epic levels, even if they start as barbarians at the age of 16.) The book "Races of Destiny" details D&D's take on humans, and it repeatedly emphasizes the idea that while dwarves are upholding their grand ancient traditions and elves are brooding upon the most arcane mysteries of the cosmos, humans are the ones who are actually out doing stuff, simply because we have no time to sit back and watch the world turn. We're the race of revolutionaries and innovators who are never satisfied, never rest on their laurels and accept the status quo, and for that reason we're front-loaded with more raw capability than any other species (feat and skill point bonuses, and notably the only race that continues to gain something at every level throughout its career - a level 20 elf is no elfier than a level 1, but a human has picked up 19 more skill points in the interim if they were otherwise identical, so any advantage the elf might have once had is long vanished, and in an amount of time that barely registers in his worldview - granted we then drop dead, but we've also raised a mess of kids to take over for us, and they'll have gained 19 skill points long before the elf finishes the epic tier).

HandofShadows

2012-04-04, 08:04 AM

I think there was a story once about humans being regarded as a semi-mythical race of gods of war, and generally left well alone. A small coalition of alien races fighting another invader came to Earth to beg the humans for help - instead they found a mostly peaceful agricultural society.
The aliens managed to convince the humans to help but as they were preparing to leave the solar system, they were wondering whether our reputation was all it was cracked up to be.
That's when they noticed the moon was following their ships and they noticed visible weaponry being uncovered.

LOL. Reminds me of the back cover blub for a collection of stories from Known Space (Man-Kzin Wars)

"Once upon a time, in the very earliest days of interplanetary exploration, an unarmed human vessel was set upon by a warship from the planet Kzin- home of the fiercest warriors in Known Space. This was a fatal mistake for the Kzinti, of course; they learned the hard way that the reason humanity had decided to study war no more was that humans were so very, very good at it."

Serpentine

2012-04-04, 08:23 AM

Spacewolf

2012-04-04, 08:29 AM

maybe something that hasnt been mentioned yet is that human bodies used to full potential would rip itself apart as the muscles cracked the bones and tore the tendons, which is why it only happens in extreme circumstances.

Serpentine

2012-04-04, 08:40 AM

There was an extra bit in Animorphs about humans but I can't quite pinpoint exactly what it was. I think, basically, compared with other intelligent species, we're all a bit insane. We do one thing one day and another the next but don't consider it inconsistent. We keep fighting, even when we know we can't win. We do things that don't matter, just because we want to or because we feel like we should. That sort of thing.
I can't find specific passages about it, just a couple of quotes:

"Give me liberty or give me death." A human named Patrick Henry said that. I wonder if the Yeerks knew before they came to conquer Earth that humans said things like that. I wonder if the Yeerks knew what they were getting into.
—From the Earth Diary of Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill

Ax: (narrating) Humans are an odd species. They will proclaim a particular ethical and moral stance one day. And the next, they will proclaim an opposite stance with equal passion. When pressed, they explain such behavior as caused by "different circumstances." Also, depending on "the situation."

On another subject, what if all these assumptions we make about ourselves are flat-out wrong? All these classic ideas... Like, say, we're always beating ourselves up over our warmongering. What if it turns out that we're actually the most peaceful of the advanced species? We're talking so much here about our relative physical weakness but endurance and flexibility; what if on a galactic scale, we're the big lumbering brutes? We talk up our adaptability; what if our range of environmental adaptation is dwarfed by that of others? Our intelligence is without a doubt our supposed keystone and height of evolutionary glory; what if we're a little bit dumb compared with the others? We're like the mildly retarded little brothers of the universe, always lagging behind and trying hard but always failing to keep up?

Tiki Snakes

2012-04-04, 09:14 AM

On another subject, what if all these assumptions we make about ourselves are flat-out wrong? All these classic ideas... Like, say, we're always beating ourselves up over our warmongering. What if it turns out that we're actually the most peaceful of the advanced species? We're talking so much here about our relative physical weakness but endurance and flexibility; what if on a galactic scale, we're the big lumbering brutes? We talk up our adaptability; what if our range of environmental adaptation is dwarfed by that of others? Our intelligence is without a doubt our supposed keystone and height of evolutionary glory; what if we're a little bit dumb compared with the others? We're like the mildly retarded little brothers of the universe, always lagging behind and trying hard but always failing to keep up?

Look at the ranges of animal life across Earth's history. A lot of it has been incredibly savage. We're certainly not the only kind of creature to ever do something along the lines of War, look at Chimpanze troops competing over territory. Sure, it's small-scale stuff in comparison, but it's clearly the same instincts being played out at their own local level.
And often includes the same kind of horrors, with plenty of chimp-war-crimes and recriminations after the power-plays and brawls have finished.

It's entirely possible that should humanity have developed in any number of other era's, we simply would have been lucky to survive as anything more than scurrying prey. The sheer size and ferocity of our potential competitors, the harshness of the climates and the shifts and inbalances in the atmosphere.

As amusing as it can be, the idea that we would be significantly tougher and ferocious than a space-faring alien species doesn't seem very likely to me, really. Earth as it currently is, is actually in one of it's milder, safer periods with some of it's smaller and less dangerous species to compete with. Modern humans did not evolve on an earth that was spectacularly brutal even by Earth's standards. Chances are, Alien worlds are likely to be comparably tough more often than not, if not far more hostile than our little garden world.

And if we are assuming that the Alien races are already abroad on the galactic stage then us being phenominally smarter than them is pretty unlikely too, though if we're looking at the idea of us being the first onto the Galactic Stage then that is a lot more likely, at least until the results of any 'uplifting' start to play out.

As for the effects of gravity; Well, Earth is larger than a couple of the other planets in our solar system, but I'm sure I saw a headline about there being a vast number of 'Super-Earths' out there. Ah, here it is. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17532470)
In which case there's a good chance that an alien homeworld would be between one and ten times the size of earth, putting them quite firmly in the John-Carter role in any interactions.

Brother Oni

2012-04-04, 09:28 AM

No offence but wouldn't they also be trying to move in cooperation to trap their prey between them so if it does run they'll be in position to strike at it no matter what direction it goes?

That's more learned behaviour (pack hunting) which is technically independent of our physical adaptations for endurance hunting.

I believe study of Australian aborigines hunting techniques suggested solo hunting rather than pack hunting though and there's evidence that our ancestors took the easy route for pack hunting (set fires and drive the prey over cliffs or into pre-dug pits).

You know I've been wondering whether these aliens would keep us under surveillance to decide whether we're worth conquering, allying or avoiding altogether...

I think Calvin and Hobbes said it best: "The surest proof that there is intelligent life out there, is that it hasn't tried to make contact with us." :smallbiggrin:

Chances are, Alien worlds are likely to be comparably tough more often than not, if not far more hostile than our little garden world.

I'd debate that point about Earth being a comfortable little garden world. Without any sort of technological adaptation (eg clothing, housing, fire), we'd all be confined to a narrow range of climates on Earth, mostly clustered around the warm Equator.

You only have to look at the relatively mild conditions for hypothermia to set in, to realise how hostile Earth can be to humans.

That's not to say the alien worlds wouldn't be tougher, but let's not discount how hostile our own world is.

Aotrs Commander

2012-04-04, 09:33 AM

Popular media opinion to the contrary, it is unlikely that a creature of sufficient intelligence to form a tool-using, tribal up to space-flight culture is would be very much smaller than humans, unless they have a completely different and vastly more efficient brain structure, as much smaller and it wouldn't be big enough. (Also contrary to popular myth, there are not large unused chunks.)

It's worth noting that there is a direct correlation in most primates of brain size to typical social group - the larger and more complex the social heirarchy, the society, the larger the brain.

pffh

2012-04-04, 09:33 AM

I believe study of Australian aborigines hunting techniques suggested solo hunting rather than pack hunting though and there's evidence that our ancestors took the easy route for pack hunting (set fires and drive the prey over cliffs or into pre-dug pits).

I think it's a bit more then just suggestions considering that the native americans used to hunt buffalo by driving a herd off a cliff.

Aotrs Commander

2012-04-04, 09:35 AM

I think it's a bit more then just suggestions considering that the native americans used to hunt buffalo by driving a herd off a cliff.

Neanderthals are thought to have done the same to mammoths. (And the former, were, I believe as my last count, thought to have interbred with "modern" humans into extinction.)

...

Of course, Neanderthals were larger and has apparently larger brains, so there's a sort of interesting point there...

Scowling Dragon

2012-04-04, 09:39 AM

What if humans ARE the Klingons?

What if were the super strong brutes with tech thats made for perpous more then aesthetics whilst other races are the more weak but more advanced in tech.

Food for thought.

Misery Esquire

2012-04-04, 09:40 AM

Pain, temperature, balance, acceleration. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sense) Then there's electrical and magnetic sensing, echolocation, water pressure, direction...
Also: Cracked. (http://www.cracked.com/article_19296_6-lies-about-human-body-you-learned-in-kindergarten.html)

Touch, touch, touch, balance is achieved by the fluids in your head and the feeling of your feet on the ground (in addition to a few other things) so I'll go with touch, touch, touch, hearing, touch, and intelligence/noticing which way the sun is moving/etc.

The additional "senses" really fall easily under the original 5. (6 if you count the uncommon sense of Common Sense. :smalltongue:)

Brother Oni

2012-04-04, 09:59 AM

The additional "senses" really fall easily under the original 5. (6 if you count the uncommon sense of Common Sense. :smalltongue:)

Of course if you're using deliberately broad definitions of senses, then everything could be classified under the original 5.

If I used the definition of sense as 'anything that can be detected by the human body', then we'd only have one sense. :smalltongue:

Serpentine

2012-04-04, 10:02 AM

Touch, touch, touch, balance is achieved by the fluids in your head and the feeling of your feet on the ground (in addition to a few other things) so I'll go with touch, touch, touch, hearing, touch, and intelligence/noticing which way the sun is moving/etc.

The additional "senses" really fall easily under the original 5. (6 if you count the uncommon sense of Common Sense. :smalltongue:)By all means, just you go right ahead and tell all the highly educated expert specialists in the field that you just solved the debate :smallsmile:

http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m1uqhlInGZ1qbbqfd.jpg

Hopeless

2012-04-04, 10:26 AM

It's Alan Dean Foster's With Friends Like These... I haven't read it myself, but I noticed it in TVTropes yesterday.

Much obliged I've already ordered two of the other titles mentioned in this thread and I think I read one of them already but a reread is in order!

pffh

2012-04-04, 10:32 AM

"With friends like these..." is well worth the read if you like those sort of stories. It feels very much like "The road not taken" By Harry Turtledove.

Tiki Snakes

2012-04-04, 11:17 AM

I'd debate that point about Earth being a comfortable little garden world. Without any sort of technological adaptation (eg clothing, housing, fire), we'd all be confined to a narrow range of climates on Earth, mostly clustered around the warm Equator.

You only have to look at the relatively mild conditions for hypothermia to set in, to realise how hostile Earth can be to humans.

That's not to say the alien worlds wouldn't be tougher, but let's not discount how hostile our own world is.

The key phrase here is how hostile it is to humans.

There are life-forms on earth that can survive the temperature of a volcanic vent, life-forms that can survive being entirely frozen solid, creatures that can survive on one meal a year, that can pass their bodies through gaps significantly smaller than them, that can spend their entire lives in the artic circle despite being warm blooded mammals, creatures that can stun fish with a noise, punch hard enough to kill their prey even if they miss (because of the force of the resulting shockwave), and many other astounding things. And that's just creatures that we know are alive and present today, to say nothing of the inhabitants of other periods.

Soralin

2012-04-04, 11:27 AM

It's worth noting that there is a direct correlation in most primates of brain size to typical social group - the larger and more complex the social heirarchy, the society, the larger the brain.
That could be interesting if that was an unusual trait about humans, an ability to organize and work together in large groups.

Comparatively, you could have a species that was very intelligent and creative, but also highly territorial or individualistic. Where the largest coherent social structures were along the lines of extended family groups, clans, trading villages, etc. And where anything larger scale than that was at best a matter of tenuous and byzantine networks of alliances and trade agreements and such.

That humans could have millions of people living in a single city, or organize on the scale of billions, would be a rather alien concept. To such a people, doing something like using chemical rockets to get a person into orbit, or to another world, would seem absurd. Not because they lack the technology to do so, but simply because the amount of combined resources it would take might be beyond anything they could feasibly concentrate for that purpose.

It would be sort of like proposing to build something that could fly across the ocean using nothing but water bottles and compressed air tanks. I mean, yeah, it's technically possible, but it seems absurd to actually do it in practice, even if you don't have anything else that can do so. (Although, considering humans, we probably would try doing that anyway if we didn't have any other way of traveling across it).

Or the idea that landing on a human planet and trying to take a small occupied piece of land or property for yourself, could end up escalating to the point where the resources of millions of people are being directed against you. Rather than just having to deal with something the size of a family group and nearby allies.

I mean, even back with ancient humans, with just sticks or rocks, how we react is a major thing. If a lion attacks a pack of zebra, they would probably run and scatter. If a lion attacks a pack of humans, they might just all turn and attack, and even go to the point of chasing after it, hunting it down and making sure it's dead. That in itself can be a rather terrifying response.

Brother Oni

2012-04-04, 12:01 PM

And that's just creatures that we know are alive and present today, to say nothing of the inhabitants of other periods.

However how many of those organisms have developed into sparefaring (or near spacefaring) societies?

To become such an advanced society requires a certain technological and knowledge base and level of understanding - as somebody else said, they need to be of a certain size, else their brains simply aren't powerful enough to advance themselves (barring some alien hyperefficient neural matter).
This would also mean that certain physical characteristics or similarities could be regarded as a pre-requisite for such races - it'd be extremely difficult for a purely aquatic race with obligate gills to develop metallurgy for example, simply because smelting and refining ores would most likely be beyond them due to their environment.

Extremophiles are a fascinating group of creatures, but until they develop a culture and start lobbying the UN for recognition, they're going to be a scientific curiosity rather than a direct competitor to humans.

Tiki Snakes

2012-04-04, 12:09 PM

However how many of those organisms have developed into sparefaring (or near spacefaring) societies?

To become such an advanced society requires a certain technological and knowledge base and level of understanding - as somebody else said, they need to be of a certain size, else their brains simply aren't powerful enough to advance themselves (barring some alien hyperefficient neural matter).
This would also mean that certain physical characteristics or similarities could be regarded as a pre-requisite for such races - it'd be extremely difficult for a purely aquatic race with obligate gills to develop metallurgy for example, simply because smelting and refining ores would most likely be beyond them due to their environment.

Extremophiles are a fascinating group of creatures, but until they develop a culture and start lobbying the UN for recognition, they're going to be a scientific curiosity rather than a direct competitor to humans.

Well, the point was that those were all traits of real creatures. Which means that alien creatures could just as easily share them, along with a mix of heaven only knows what other qualities. Just because the Terrestrial Polar-Bear lacks a spaceflight program and a punch like a mantis shrimp does not mean that the polar-bear-men from Rigel seventeen will or must, so to speak.

Also, brain size is a tricky matter. As I understand it, complexity is much more the issue than sheer mass, or at least that's the direction that people are starting to think in. That and the size in relation to the body, anyway.

Ravens_cry

2012-04-04, 12:13 PM

Yeah, it's a huge question. Unfortunately, until we meet another species we can unequivocally say is intelligent, we really don't know.
Given the absurdly huge distances between stars, that is unlikely to happen any time soon.

grolim

2012-04-04, 02:21 PM

I think one was used by B5. When Delenn made the comment about what was different about humans.
If any other race had built that station it would have only been used by their own people. Humans build communities, wherever they go.

Rockphed

2012-04-04, 02:59 PM

Yes; the ability (whatever it is called) that makes us aware of our body part's position even with our eyes closed (like being able to make our fingertips meet with our eyes closed) is actually a sense, according to scientists. So that is six. What is the seventh?

My AP psych class descibed the 6th and 7th as "Kinethetic" and "Vestibular" senses. One is the ability to tell where stuff is in relation to eachother, especially our own body. The other is the sense of balance.

LOL. Reminds me of the back cover blub for a collection of stories from Known Space (Man-Kzin Wars)

"Once upon a time, in the very earliest days of interplanetary exploration, an unarmed human vessel was set upon by a warship from the planet Kzin- home of the fiercest warriors in Known Space. This was a fatal mistake for the Kzinti, of course; they learned the hard way that the reason humanity had decided to study war no more was that humans were so very, very good at it."

The relevant thought for that story was that anything capable of moving at interesting speeds is a viable weapon.

Pain, temperature, balance, acceleration. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sense) Then there's electrical and magnetic sensing, echolocation, water pressure, direction...
Also: Cracked. (http://www.cracked.com/article_19296_6-lies-about-human-body-you-learned-in-kindergarten.html)

I think balance and acceleration use the same data collection port(our inner ear), but I don't know. Also, I'm pretty sure humans are incapable of sensing electromagnetic fields directly.

Touch, touch, touch, balance is achieved by the fluids in your head and the feeling of your feet on the ground (in addition to a few other things) so I'll go with touch, touch, touch, hearing, touch, and intelligence/noticing which way the sun is moving/etc.

The additional "senses" really fall easily under the original 5. (6 if you count the uncommon sense of Common Sense. :smalltongue:)

No, kinethesia and vestibulation are pretty legit senses. And if you have ever been in a roller-coaster, you would be very aware that what direction your body thinks is down is primarily dependent on the forces your body is experiencing.

And whoever suggested humans might be the most peaceful space faring civilization, I cannot decide if I prefer that or humans being the best Samuel L Jackson fighters since the dawn of time.

Serpentine

2012-04-04, 03:17 PM

Also, I'm pretty sure humans are incapable of sensing electromagnetic fields directly.Well, yes. I was expanding to other species at that point.

HalfTangible

2012-04-04, 03:56 PM

A godhood game i played once had a race that was absolutely shocked at the notion that one race would have 5 nations on a planet.

Mass Effect 2 suggested that genetic versatility was what made us unique: When you looked at, say, a Salarian or an Asari, you could get a reasonable estimate on what the species as a whole was like based on what that individual was like: Wrex was intelligent but he was also brutish and violent, and almost all krogan are brutish. Humans, on the other hand, varied so widely that making an estimate based on an individual was impossible ("put six humans in a room, get 9 opinions") I liked that explanation, as humanity's many cultures are something we take for granted: i think differently from X because X lived over there his whole life, etc etc.

In Animorphs, Ax suggested that humans were not as advanced as the rest of the galaxy, but were highly industrious and so were advancing more quickly than even his own race. In the same series, Elfangor and his friend had a good laugh at the idea that humans walked on two legs without a tail to help them balance, and the former was shocked at all the things that humans could do with their arms. (Also, he nearly shat himself when he saw a human take off a shoe)

Determination/drive is a pretty good one, though I would argue that that only applies to a few individuals a generation, not to the race as a whole.

Personally i favor adaptation: humans have an almost insane ability to adapt to new ideas and areas, and then turn anything they get their hands on into something useful. That's how humans often advance: we discover a behavior almost by accident and then apply that to help us with whatever we need (Pennicilin was actually discovered completely by accident) or change our way of thinking to better suit our enviornments.

pita

2012-04-04, 04:02 PM

It could be an interesting inversion of the "Alien technology and weapons dwarf our own" cliché.

There's actually a short story called "The Road Less Traveled" (yes, it references the poem) where aliens attack Earth, and are beaten because their weapons are inferior.

Ravens_cry

2012-04-04, 04:03 PM

Calemyr

2012-04-04, 04:21 PM

Personally i favor adaptation: humans have an almost insane ability to adapt to new ideas and areas, and then turn anything they get their hands on into something useful. That's how humans often advance: we discover a behavior almost by accident and then apply that to help us with whatever we need (Pennicilin was actually discovered completely by accident) or change our way of thinking to better suit our enviornments.

Ah, the Pratchett answer: Humans are interesting enough to invent boredom. They are so adaptable that they can dance on the catastrophe curve and still believe in a lie so grand as "ordinary".

Calemyr

2012-04-04, 04:31 PM

That was more or less an attempt at justifying the "Planet of Hats" trope.
Unfortunately, compared to other species on Earth, humans are actually LESS genetically diverse. I believe it has been said that a single troupe of chimpanzees show more genetic diversity than all the humans on Earth.
It is theorised (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory) by some that a great disaster at one point that reduced our numbers to at most several thousand.

Well, first off, you gotta admit it's a darn good justification for the trope, and narratives rarely even lampshade it, much less attempt to justify it. It was also supposed to be a fairly major plot point in the finale, but the proper ending of ME3 got scrapped.

Second, the diversity referenced isn't the kind you're mentioning in your example. Mordin explicitly dismisses skin color, for instance, as being irrelevant. The diversity he's interested in is humanity's ability to generate individuals with a very diverse range of traits, aptitudes, talents, dispositions, etc. One race capable of producing individuals representing outliers on every axis of measurement, from Conrad Verner to David Archer to Kelly Chambers to Ashley Williams. That's the diversity he's talking about.

Tiki Snakes

2012-04-04, 04:41 PM

I don't know. Just because someone mentioned it in-universe doesn't even make it true. Still, even if we assume that it isn't the case, it's an interesting insight into how the alien races in question view humanity.

Ravens_cry

2012-04-04, 04:45 PM

Well, first off, you gotta admit it's a darn good justification for the trope, and narratives rarely even lampshade it, much less attempt to justify it. It was also supposed to be a fairly major plot point in the finale, but the proper ending of ME3 got scrapped.

Second, the diversity referenced isn't the kind you're mentioning in your example. Mordin explicitly dismisses skin color, for instance, as being irrelevant. The diversity he's interested in is humanity's ability to generate individuals with a very diverse range of traits, aptitudes, talents, dispositions, etc. One race capable of producing individuals representing outliers on every axis of measurement, from Conrad Verner to David Archer to Kelly Chambers to Ashley Williams. That's the diversity he's talking about.
It's not bad, it is true not many series do make note of it, but the problem is he explicitly mentions GENETIC diversity (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaTmhHT5Kr8).
Which is not true.
I love Mordin, I have not played the game and I already love him and his idiosyncratic speech patterns, his investigative yet compassionate attitude.
But this is an error.
@ ^post above: The man is a doctor, who has successfully been treating humans.
I would think think he would have to have a firm grasp of interspecies medicine to be able to do so.

Calemyr

2012-04-04, 04:49 PM

It's not bad, it is true not many series do make note of it, but the problem is he explicitly mentions GENETIC diversity (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaTmhHT5Kr8).
Which is not true.
I love Mordin, I have not played the game and I already love him and his idiosyncratic speech patterns, his investigative yet compassionate attitude.
But this is an error.
@ ^post above: The man is a doctor, who has successfully been treating humans.
I would think think he would have to have a firm grasp of interspecies medicine to be able to do so.

Perhaps you have a point, but I don't think Mordin would waste the time to say "genetic framework capable of generating unparalleled diversity" when talking to a soldier. Mordin never wastes words.

Ravens_cry

2012-04-04, 04:57 PM

Perhaps you have a point, but I don't think Mordin would waste the time to say "genetic framework capable of generating unparalleled diversity" when talking to a soldier. Mordin never wastes words.
Yes, but he also seems to like to make himself clear. So if 'genetically diverse' would have been unclear, he would have used something like what you said.
Or not, I have not played the game.
In any event, whatever he meant, using literal "genetic diversity" as an explanation in itself for human cultural and personal diversity is incorrect.

Knightofvictory

2012-04-04, 05:05 PM

Looks like a few have mentioned this, but I always 'assume' human's big advantage is our adaptability and innovation. I first remember noticing it in the original Starcraft: We don't have much in the way of psychic potential, or ancient technology, or the ability to spit poison spikes at 100 mph, but we do have the ability to quickly reverse-engineer and modify any new tech we find, or modify our existing equipment according to our needs. We have the capacity for individual thought and occasionally can train exceptional individuals, which makes us superior to a hive-mind race (Starcraft's Zerg, Animorph's Yeerk, Ender's Game Buggers), and are not afraid to change our strategies when things go against us unlike those 'ancient' races that are stuck in their ways. (Protoss, Everyone on that council in Mass Effect 1).

Most stories reinforce that in some form or another; there are countless stories where humans land on new planets and colonize, using their wits to adapt to the unique challenges of the planet and co-exist/fight off any native inhabitants. (Like in Avatar, or lots of classic Assimov stuff.)

You also see this when the aliens attack us in movies/stories. Alien, Predator, Independence Day- in all of these the aliens overpower us easily with monster appendages or superior tech. But our human heroes outsmart them, or turn the invader's own weapons against them.

Knaight

2012-04-04, 05:18 PM

Touch, touch, touch, balance is achieved by the fluids in your head and the feeling of your feet on the ground (in addition to a few other things) so I'll go with touch, touch, touch, hearing, touch, and intelligence/noticing which way the sun is moving/etc.

The additional "senses" really fall easily under the original 5. (6 if you count the uncommon sense of Common Sense. :smalltongue:)

I'd love to see an argument that folds proprioception into touch. It seems like it has the potential to be hilarious.

GFawkes

2012-04-04, 05:19 PM

Give a human an object, and s/he will discover two things about it:

1. How to blow it up
2. How to kill someone with it

dgnslyr

2012-04-04, 05:24 PM

Give a human an object, and s/he will discover two things about it:

1. How to blow it up
2. How to kill someone with it

I think you forgot "How it can be eaten."

Since there was some talk on the whole "Planet of Hats" thing, what stories have aliens that aren't a planet of hats?

Serpentine

2012-04-04, 05:28 PM

Since there was some talk on the whole "Planet of Hats" thing, what stories have aliens that aren't a planet of hats?Animorphs? Not sure whether "planet of hats" refers to species being like humans but with some little difference (i.e. Star Trek) or non-human species being all fairly homogeneous (ME, apparently), but either way, Animorphs has that covered, I think.
More detail in a sec, applying for a job.

Man on Fire

2012-04-04, 05:34 PM

So, what's your idea for humanity's often forgotten attributes in comparison to alien life?

Our distrust to each other - aliens would do us as they would want to and we would by every their word because we distruss each other so much we would run to trust anyone who is outside our web of lies. And they would then make us their ****es.

pffh

2012-04-04, 05:44 PM

Our distrust to each other - aliens would do us as they would want to and we would by every their word because we distruss each other so much we would run to trust anyone who is outside our web of lies. And they would then make us their ****es.

Why on earth would we trust an outsider? If anything we would trust them even less since they are well an outsider and different and humans tend to not like outsiders or things that are different.

Man on Fire

2012-04-04, 05:57 PM

Why on earth would we trust an outsider? If anything we would trust them even less since they are well an outsider and different and humans tend to not like outsiders or things that are different.

Because we are unable to trust each other anymore and we so much subconciously long to have somebody we can undeniably trust. And an outsider, somebody completely outside our human web of lies is that person.

Ravens_cry

2012-04-04, 05:58 PM

I did have an backstory where, shortly after first contact, certain humans, assuming the aliens to be smarter, wiser and just all around better, falls for a bunch of con artists.
Humans get an unfortunate reputation as being a bunch of rubes as a result.

Gnoman

2012-04-04, 06:06 PM

HalfTangible

2012-04-04, 06:27 PM

Yes, but he also seems to like to make himself clear. So if 'genetically diverse' would have been unclear, he would have used something like what you said.
Or not, I have not played the game.
In any event, whatever he meant, using literal "genetic diversity" as an explanation in itself for human cultural and personal diversity is incorrect.

It's possible to question him about physical appearance and he basically says 'No, it's deeper than that. Your geniuses are smarter, your idiots dumber'
Looks like a few have mentioned this, but I always 'assume' human's big advantage is our adaptability and innovation. I first remember noticing it in the original Starcraft: We don't have much in the way of psychic potential, or ancient technology, or the ability to spit poison spikes at 100 mph, but we do have the ability to quickly reverse-engineer and modify any new tech we find, or modify our existing equipment according to our needs. We have the capacity for individual thought and occasionally can train exceptional individuals, which makes us superior to a hive-mind race (Starcraft's Zerg, Animorph's Yeerk, Ender's Game Buggers), and are not afraid to change our strategies when things go against us unlike those 'ancient' races that are stuck in their ways. (Protoss, Everyone on that council in Mass Effect 1).

Most stories reinforce that in some form or another; there are countless stories where humans land on new planets and colonize, using their wits to adapt to the unique challenges of the planet and co-exist/fight off any native inhabitants. (Like in Avatar, or lots of classic Assimov stuff.)

You also see this when the aliens attack us in movies/stories. Alien, Predator, Independence Day- in all of these the aliens overpower us easily with monster appendages or superior tech. But our human heroes outsmart them, or turn the invader's own weapons against them.

The Yeerks are parasites, not a hive mind. There's a difference. Just sayin' :smalltongue:

Oh, and i like this one:

"Humans have the astounding ability to be utterly incapable of doing something, and be utterly convinced that they CAN."

Serpentine

2012-04-04, 06:31 PM

Animorphs? Not sure whether "planet of hats" refers to species being like humans but with some little difference (i.e. Star Trek) or non-human species being all fairly homogeneous (ME, apparently), but either way, Animorphs has that covered, I think.
More detail in a sec, applying for a job.Hokay, so. Animorphs aliens. Regarding the first definition of "planet of hats", you have:
- Yeerks. Squishy little slugs that reproduce by three of them smooshing together to make hundreds more, feed on the rays of their native sun, and squeeze their ways into more physically advanced creatures' brains to control their bodies.
- Can't remember their names, but a species that is the origin of the "grey" aliens, except they only walk around bipedally for the benefit of the humans they kidnap, for some reason.
- Taxxons, like enormous carnivorous cannibalistic millipedes that are basically defined by their constant ravenous hunger.
- Hork-bajir, 7-foot-tall raptor-like creatures that are covered in blades and have massive sharp claws and a long, barbed tail; look fearsome, but are actually big ol' gardeners.
- Of course, the andalites: sort of like a bluish deer-centaur, with a long, agile tail tipped with a vicious blade, an extra pair of eyes on stalks, and no mouth who eat through their hoofs. I've read that Applegate originally made the andalites "humans but a bit different"; someone pointed out that it was a bit boring (or something), so she deliberately designed a creature that would be really, really hard to produce for film.

The second version is trickier, just because we don't really get to know many of the aliens, beyond reputations and a few individuals. However, at the end of the books they go out of their way to point out that the andalites aren't all the arrogant, militaristic jerks they'd mostly previously come across, but rather are generally friendly, inquisitive and, well, unique individuals - it was paralleled with if the only people an alien race had only ever met our military - what sort of impression would they have of us as a species then?
Even the enemies - the yeerks - are given some variation. There's ambitious yeerks, insane yeerks, completely psychopathic yeerks, confused yeerks, philosophy-shifting yeerks, decent yeerks trying to come to a peaceful resolution...

Speaking of whom, anyone remember what happened to the yeerks at the end of Animorphs? I remember (and really like) what happened to the taxxons, but not the yeerks...

edit re. planet of hats explanation: Ah, I see. Well, I think it still holds up for the most part. Taxxons would probably come under a "ravenous" hat, but yeerks are more than just "parasite", andalites are more than just "chivalrous" and hork-bajir are more than "shocktroopers".

Ravens_cry

2012-04-04, 06:34 PM

It's possible to question him about physical appearance and he basically says 'No, it's deeper than that. Your geniuses are smarter, your idiots dumber'

You think human intelligence doesn't also have a genetic component?

HalfTangible

2012-04-04, 06:35 PM

Speaking of whom, anyone remember what happened to the yeerks at the end of Animorphs? I remember (and really like) what happened to the taxxons, but not the yeerks...

I didn't like the way Animorphs ended at all, really. I mean, we get introduced to something that's basically a parasitic god-thing but-

... No, not doing this again, it was too good of a series...

As I remember it, the Yeerk Empire was basically broken at the spine. Their ships scattered and many Pool Ships got away, some were captured as prisoners of war, others surrendered peacefully. I really don't remember that well (will look it up in a sec) but that's what i remember...

EDIT: Looked it up - those who surrendered peacefully were allowed to become nothlits. Not a great ending for the Yeerks... :smallfrown:

You think human intelligence doesn't also have a genetic component?

Everything about the mind has a genetic component to some degree or else the nature/nurture argument would not exist. You, however, implied said that that was not the case.

It's not bad, it is true not many series do make note of it, but the problem is he explicitly mentions GENETIC diversity (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaTmhHT5Kr8).
Which is not true.
I love Mordin, I have not played the game and I already love him and his idiosyncratic speech patterns, his investigative yet compassionate attitude.
But this is an error.
@ ^post above: The man is a doctor, who has successfully been treating humans.
I would think think he would have to have a firm grasp of interspecies medicine to be able to do so.

Yes, but he also seems to like to make himself clear. So if 'genetically diverse' would have been unclear, he would have used something like what you said.
Or not, I have not played the game.
In any event, whatever he meant, using literal "genetic diversity" as an explanation in itself for human cultural and personal diversity is incorrect.

The reason he specifically mentioned 'genetic diversity' was because of the nature of the tests being run on the humans were biological; they were not social tests. No need to mention society.

Xondoure

2012-04-04, 09:17 PM

Mass Effect is soft science, and I never liked the diversity / adaptive approach. It seems to be science fiction's go to on what makes humans special. And falls flat to me because any species is going to have to be very good at creative thinking if they're going to get much farther past the stone age. Whereas the diversity of human society is a pretty natural effect of different environmental pressures which you should expect to see in any species that exists in more than one place (possibly excepting hive minds.)

So... yeah. Using Mass Effect as an example seems silly. Great universe, but it is the world that brought us blue lesbian space elves.

Serpentine

2012-04-04, 09:20 PM

I didn't like the way Animorphs ended at all, really. I mean, we get introduced to something that's basically a parasitic god-thing but-

... No, not doing this again, it was too good of a series...

As I remember it, the Yeerk Empire was basically broken at the spine. Their ships scattered and many Pool Ships got away, some were captured as prisoners of war, others surrendered peacefully. I really don't remember that well (will look it up in a sec) but that's what i remember...

EDIT: Looked it up - those who surrendered peacefully were allowed to become nothlits. Not a great ending for the Yeerks... :smallfrown:Meeeeh, I liked it fine.The Animorphs'd gotten into stickier situations plenty of times before, it's just this time we don't get to see how they get out of it.

And nothlits as what? I liked that the taxxons got to become snakes - probably the nicest genocide ever - but what about the yeerks?

Tavar

2012-04-04, 09:46 PM

Let's see...

Well, Out of the Dark, by David Weber has several factors that make humanity special. We have a fast Tech progression, due to our need for continually better things. More importantly, our Psycology is, by the rest of the Universe's standards, completely bonkers. Everyone else has some sort of submission standard, basically that when beaten by a superior force, they stay beaten. Before us, they never encountered Guerrilla warfare, passive resistance, and the like. The fact that we're also pretty much the only species to have reached our tech level and not formed a world government/space travel also helps, as it means we have lots of weapons designed to fight on a planet. The biggest advantage, though, well, it's a major spoiler. Seriously, this is only reveals in the last, oh 15% of the book. Read at your own peril.

We have Vlad the Impaler, and through him a bunch of other vampires. Not joking.

The Stars at War series, by David Weber and Steve White also has an interesting take on Humanity. Our two best features seem to be our acceptance of massive population centers(allowing for massive economies/production centers) as well as our numerous cultures. The number of ideas this creates is credited as a major reason for Humanities Dominance on the Galactic Scale.

Anecronwashere

2012-04-04, 10:11 PM

I quite like the idea that Humans are unnaturally innovative and dangerous.
Also a lack of sexual-dimorphism. Have the aliens be surprised that Humans aren't a Hive-Minded Race despite having so few differences.

I think multiple-genders and dimorphism is overlooked quite a bit.
Alien X has 5 genders, 1-2 makes 3, 2-3 makes 4 4-5 makes 1 and so on.
Only 1 gender need be intelligent and makes all the inventions.

Many races follow this principle of Dimorphism, the Warriors, Artists, Scientists. They are all different genders.
Then they find Humans.
The only FTL-Capable Race that houses everything in one. Our warriors can make their own weapons, repair their ships and create music in their free time.

Our tech-gain rate would be higher too, because our inventions are fueled by war while theirs by scientific curiosity. We know what we need first-hand while their scientists have to have it translated from the moronic brutes needing "more dakka" to "improve accuracy, improve interface, this design is flawed because of X and Y but Z is still good"
We simply have scientists in place of the brutes.

Leliel

2012-04-04, 10:36 PM

And nothlits as what? I liked that the taxxons got to become snakes - probably the nicest genocide ever - but what about the yeerks?

Keep in mind another fact about Yeerk psychology-they realize they're parasites, and they hate it. No small part of their culture is based around self-loathing and the inferiority complex they posses towards the rest of the universe. Even if the vast majority isn't keen on admitting this. Certainly not to themselves.

Being allowed to have a body of their own, without having to return to a pool every three days, seems like a pretty good deal for a surrender.

Also-the Taxxons hate the constant hunger just as much, since it forces them into cannibalism. They actually asked for the anaconda morphs.

Eldan

2012-04-04, 10:40 PM

Soras Teva Gee

2012-04-04, 11:17 PM

Well, Out of the Dark, by David Weber has several factors that make humanity special. We have a fast Tech progression, due to our need for continually better things. More importantly, our Psycology is, by the rest of the Universe's standards, completely bonkers. Everyone else has some sort of submission standard, basically that when beaten by a superior force, they stay beaten. Before us, they never encountered Guerrilla warfare, passive resistance, and the like. The fact that we're also pretty much the only species to have reached our tech level and not formed a world government/space travel also helps, as it means we have lots of weapons designed to fight on a planet.

I'd point out this is not an OVERLOOKED trait. I'd infact say this is almost the Default. Humanity is generally younger, more insurgent, more clever, more determined.

Humanity is used as a race of Batman. We may be weak, puny on the surface... but in the end we still win through cleverness and our one superpower: never giving up.

Plenty of good stories about that, but its not overlooked. Everything is written along the lines of the D&D Hankbook for humanity. Where the setting where Humans get to be the Elves.

Eldan

2012-04-04, 11:25 PM

You also see this when the aliens attack us in movies/stories. Alien, Predator, Independence Day- in all of these the aliens overpower us easily with monster appendages or superior tech. But our human heroes outsmart them, or turn the invader's own weapons against them.

So, short version, humans are X-COM.

I'm not sure whether to cry, laugh or just shoot myself.

Ravens_cry

2012-04-05, 12:25 AM

The reason he specifically mentioned 'genetic diversity' was because of the nature of the tests being run on the humans were biological; they were not social tests. No need to mention society.
That wasn't what I meant to imply. But my basic point stands, humans do not HAVE genetic diversity, whatever Mordin may claim.

Gorgondantess

2012-04-05, 12:55 AM

Obligatory link to a very appropriate story. (http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/TheyMade.shtml)

Wiwaxia

2012-04-05, 01:10 AM

Ravens_cry

2012-04-05, 01:16 AM

Human brains are pretty much as advanced as brains can be. So the default sci-fi/fantasy idea of more intelligent species (complete with comically inflated heads) really doesn't work. We're them already (complete with comically inflated heads).

What is your evidence for that?:smallconfused:
While I personally don't like the trope of other races being wiser and more enlightened than us, acting like such smug bastards while claiming to be "above" our little foibles, I see no reason to think greater intelligence isn't *possible*.

Avilan the Grey

2012-04-05, 01:19 AM

I think you forgot "How it can be eaten."

Actually I was thinking of this last night: Another thing that we have going for us is our extreme omnivore nature. Give us a frying pan or a pot of boiling water, and we eat anything from tree bark, to other mammals, to fish, to seaweed, to slugs, grass, insects and roots.

That wasn't what I meant to imply. But my basic point stands, humans do not HAVE genetic diversity, whatever Mordin may claim.

Or the other species genetic diversity is even smaller.

Connington

2012-04-05, 01:28 AM

Human hands and arms are somewhat over-engineered. You probably need an opposable thumb or the equivalent to form any kind of advanced society, but the range of motion and fine motor control that humans posses is probably overkill even for a tool-using species.

It wouldn't be terribly surprising if aliens looked at things like tv remotes and Blackberries crowded with buttons as being completely unusable. Videos of basketball games in particular might be popular among alien races for the sheer novelty of watching creatures throw balls into tiny, tiny nets and actually connect on a regular basis.

Also, sexuality. Humans are physically receptive to having sex all the time. Most species have some kind of mating season in which they get their reproductive needs out of the time. Humans could easily acquire a somewhat squicky reputation in the galaxy. While it seems likely that any intelligent race is going to have its fair share of perverts, humans will probably stand in their own special corner (because nobody wants to get too close to them).

Visionwise, humans are probably going to be fairly colorblind by alien standards. Having three cone cells in our eyes is pretty good by mammalian standards, but that's only because mammals evolved from rodent-like things that spent most of their time in the dark. It's tempting to say that our highly focused binocular vision will be good, but that's probably close to standard for anything that evolves into an advanced tool-using species.

Regarding omnivorousness, it's not likely to be that strange. Presumably some alien species will be be herbivores or carnivores, but omnivores are evolutionary well-placed to develop intelligence, because scavenging and gathering food is a brain-intensive activity. Among omnivorous species, humans aren't more so than pigs, rodents, bears, or any other species. Every species will probably have plenty of meals that provoke a "you eat THAT?!" reaction from other species

Presumably even a species that's biologically carnivorous/herbivorous will have foodies that eat thing that don't provide much nutritional values. You think human foodies eat weird stuff? Try watching a catperson enjoy a salad, then vomit it back up again.

Ravens_cry

2012-04-05, 01:30 AM

Actually I was thinking of this last night: Another thing that we have going for us is our extreme omnivore nature. Give us a frying pan or a pot of boiling water, and we eat anything from tree bark, to other mammals, to fish, to seaweed, to slugs, grass, insects and roots.

And, the best part is, if it's toxic, even to us, we'll find a way to make it edible.
Case in point, the Greenland shark.
Let me put it mildly, this fish does not want to be eaten. It does bad and crazy things to your brain. But we found a way to make it, if only in a technical sense, edible (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%A1karl).
Heck, we found a way to make a toxic tuber a staple (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassava).
Cooking is badass, my friend.

Or the other species genetic diversity is even smaller.
I can imagine that maybe being possible for one other species or even two, but ALL the other intelligent biological species in the setting?:smallconfused:

Soras Teva Gee

2012-04-05, 01:56 AM

What is your evidence for that?:smallconfused:
While I personally don't like the trope of other races being wiser and more enlightened than us, acting like such smug bastards while claiming to be "above" our little foibles, I see no reason to think greater intelligence isn't *possible*.

I'd question whether better intelligence is possible on a conceptual basis. Intelligence, thought, and sentience are slippery to define... so what does "greater intelligence" even mean as a concept?

Note I wouldn't consider a species who for example have a strong math aptitude or eidetic memory as being "more intelligent" since it misses all the core points. If that's all that's meant by more intelligent okay, that just a matter of specs and inherently limited. For example check any major scientist and you can probably find at least one instance they were wrong about a theory. Not simply a century down the road but in contemporary debates. Einstein and the Cosmological Constant plus his distaste for Quantum Mechanics for example.

I don't think we are wired to be able to simulate a greater intelligence so it basically only boils down to: arrogant liars, author tract mouthpieces, Mary Sues, or a handwave for behavior.

Ravens_cry

2012-04-05, 02:03 AM

That's may be true, but a good author can at least,for the duration of the story, make certain characters feel more intelligent.
Take Sherlock. He feels, and is, a smug bastard, even a psychopath, but he gets the job done, even if, literally speaking only because the author lets him be right.
But the idea that nothing could ever possibly be better at this thinking stuff than us, whatever that 'better ' is?
I find that doubtful.
The scientist point is a bit of a strawman, any scientists can be wrong, as being a scientist is all about testing ideas and hypothesis, and if you're never wrong in your hypothesis, you're probably just treading familiar ground.

Brother Oni

2012-04-05, 02:21 AM

Cooking is badass, my friend.

And with the Japanese, even that is optional: fugu (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugu).

Take Sherlock. He feels, and is, a smug bastard, even a psychopath, but he gets the job done, even if, literally speaking only because the author lets him be right.

Depends on the incarnation of him. The Downey Jr and Cumberbatch versions highlight the socially awkward aspect of genius, but in the original novels he wasn't anywhere near as much of a git.

Scowling Dragon

2012-04-05, 02:44 AM

Ravens_cry

2012-04-05, 03:51 AM

And with the Japanese, even that is optional: fugu (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugu).

Well, if it is prepared right, it's edible.

Depends on the incarnation of him. The Downey Jr and Cumberbatch versions highlight the socially awkward aspect of genius, but in the original novels he wasn't anywhere near as much of a git.
I don't know, I've read many of the original stories, and he still seems like a real git, more so in fact. And I said Sherlock, not Sherlock Holmes, as in the recent modern era retelling.

General Patton

2012-04-05, 04:35 AM

What is your evidence for that?:smallconfused:
While I personally don't like the trope of other races being wiser and more enlightened than us, acting like such smug bastards while claiming to be "above" our little foibles, I see no reason to think greater intelligence isn't *possible*.

I think he's basing that off of analogy with computer theory type stuff. Limits on efficiency, computations per unit of energy. And the level of complexity you can have in fine structures and how much those proportions can be compressed into a smaller scale. We may very well be near the upper limits of what is physically possible for an organic structure. Perhaps the level of hardware required for space-faring civilization is so close to the absolute limit on computations/cm^3/calorie that any difference between our brains and aliens' is negligible compared to the differences introduced by software (the much harder to mathematically define concept of HOW we think about things, rather than WHAT we're thinking with).

Ravens_cry

2012-04-05, 04:42 AM

Perhaps, but I see no reason to assume that so strongly. The way I understand it, the line between hardware and software with meat brains is a little squishy anyway.
Besides, even if our neurons were the best neurons neurons could be, there might be the equivalent to transistors to our vacuum tubes out there.
If we're going to be all out speculating with no evidence, might as well go all the way.

Hopeless

2012-04-05, 04:57 AM

Got wondering the other evening (never a good sign!) and it occurred to me to wonder if aliens did start watching us wouldn't they attempt to infiltrate the growing computer network we call the internet and then I had this funny thought where an alien invader tries to take over the computer systems within the military only to fail miserably and to make matters worse a native of this primitive world gives them the hacker equivalent of the bird and pulls it off right in front of them... only to discover the reason they're failing is because the computer software is being forever updated and evolving almost like another lifeform and the alien in question retreats believing we're our own worst enemy... well it is true after all!

This got me remembering a film by Matthew Broderick called War Games where he accidentally hacks a military computer in control of their military war games and due to it taking control he ends up having to find a way to defuse the situation before world war 3 erupts.
This made me wonder what would happen if we turn this completely around and have the hacker accidentally hack an alien computer system thats being used to prime and invasion of the earth but due to the hacker utterly misunderstanding the scene before him he assumes he's playing a version of space invaders and he ends up using the alien forces to fight themselves ending up with the aliens fleeing the solar system and self destructing their invasion fleet just so they can escape with their lives with the hacker disappointed that the game crashed...

Ravens_cry

2012-04-05, 05:25 AM

Hopeless

2012-04-05, 06:06 AM

Having the computer systems of some alien race be so much like ours that a hacker would be fooled into thinking it was one of ours stretches incredulity a little in my opinion.
Interestingly, War Games was actually a surprisingly accurate picture of hoe hacking worked at that time, using social engineering and research to figure out a password rather than some super science software.

I agree but the way i was thinking is that the aliens themselves made their system compatible so they could infiltrate the earth based computer systems but in so doing left themselves vulnerable to someone hacking them but rather than allowing a commandeered spaceship being used to transport a nuclear weapon instead the aliens' own forces are used against themselves which would ordinarily be impossible except the hacker unaware of this finds their own way to pull it off all without realising whats really going on...

Admittedly with such films as Attack the Block, Independance Day I couldn't help but feel this would be a fun story if the climax revealed humanity was saved without anyone being aware they were ever in danger and the one person responsible ends up sorry he apparently crashed the interesting new game they had found rather than wondering why they can't find it afterwards...

Ravens_cry

2012-04-05, 06:16 AM

Hopeless

2012-04-05, 06:29 AM

Yes, but surely they would keep such a system separate from their systems that actually operate key functions, just in case of such a counter-attack? An airwall or the equivalent would do the trick.
That way the worst they would lose would be the infiltrating systems.

In Independence Day they used the satellites as a means of delivering a countdown all of their forces would akcnowledge and follow.

"If" they attempted to infiltrate the earth bound systems perhaps to organise the information to locate the primary, secondary and tertiary targets for their impending attack a firewall would seem a perfect counter should their infiltration be backtracked BUT we're not talking about someone using their tactics against them we're talking about someone wandering around their system looking for interesting stuff to do or ruin and part and parcel of this thread is the idea that some things wouldn't occur to aliens that might for humans especially if the avenue used to hack their systems uses methods the aliens wouldn't consider since from their point of view they have an otherwise mind boggling capability yet this falls far short of what they actually need because they're now dealing with a race whose own computer systems have had decades of dealing with people testing out the systems and unlike the aliens haven't learnt the limitations posed on testing their systems since being space travellers there are some things you don't do and won't so because they rely on their technology to survive and those on the world they're approaching don't have that complication...

I remember a documentary where they actually talked about what would happen if the world was invaded by extra terrestrials and what to do when that happened... can you imagine if the aliens picked up that broadcast what they'd think about a race of otherwise primitives who are actively planning and letting everybody who has access to this broadcast to know what to expect and what to do... a mite intimidating if an alien out there actually wants to invade and is trying to figure out whether to bother or just note down the advice that basically involves them not bothering and mining the other worlds in the solar systems since the natives don't have the means to interfere and not a single shot needs to be fired!

Serpentine

2012-04-05, 06:31 AM

Keep in mind another fact about Yeerk psychology-they realize they're parasites, and they hate it. No small part of their culture is based around self-loathing and the inferiority complex they posses towards the rest of the universe. Even if the vast majority isn't keen on admitting this. Certainly not to themselves.

Being allowed to have a body of their own, without having to return to a pool every three days, seems like a pretty good deal for a surrender.

Also-the Taxxons hate the constant hunger just as much, since it forces them into cannibalism. They actually asked for the anaconda morphs.Yes, yes, I know all that - lecturing me, me about Animorphs? Scoff! :smallamused: - but (spoilers please, not everyone's read to the end) what creature were the yeerks nothlit as?I really can't remember...

Selrahc

2012-04-05, 06:38 AM

I really can't remember...

Dolphins.
Presumably because of the "inherent joy" that came with Dolphin morphs.

Ravens_cry

2012-04-05, 07:00 AM

In Independence Day they used the satellites as a means of delivering a countdown all of their forces would akcnowledge and follow.

So their computers are similar enough to ours that we can upload a virus, but they don't have radio broadcasts?

"If" they attempted to infiltrate the earth bound systems perhaps to organise the information to locate the primary, secondary and tertiary targets for their impending attack a firewall would seem a perfect counter should their infiltration be backtracked BUT we're not talking about someone using their tactics against them we're talking about someone wandering around their system looking for interesting stuff to do or ruin and part and parcel of this thread is the idea that some things wouldn't occur to aliens that might for humans especially if the avenue used to hack their systems uses methods the aliens wouldn't consider since from their point of view they have an otherwise mind boggling capability yet this falls far short of what they actually need because they're now dealing with a race whose own computer systems have had decades of dealing with people testing out the systems and unlike the aliens haven't learnt the limitations posed on testing their systems since being space travellers there are some things you don't do and won't so because they rely on their technology to survive and those on the world they're approaching don't have that complication...

I can't read that. Seriously, I can not read that.
Periods man, periods, they're not just for chicks!

I remember a documentary where they actually talked about what would happen if the world was invaded by extra terrestrials and what to do when that happened... can you imagine if the aliens picked up that broadcast what they'd think about a race of otherwise primitives who are actively planning and letting everybody who has access to this broadcast to know what to expect and what to do... a mite intimidating if an alien out there actually wants to invade and is trying to figure out whether to bother or just note down the advice that basically involves them not bothering and mining the other worlds in the solar systems since the natives don't have the means to interfere and not a single shot needs to be fired!
Yes, that is the biggest problem with an invasion scenario for resources. Why descend into the deepest gravity well in the solar system of a non gas giant, non star, when almost any raw material resource you care to name is available for much less delta v elsewhere.
If you want cultural artefacts, invading seems a rather boneheaded way to go about it, rather killing the goose that laid the golden eggs, no?
The only real plausible reason I see for invading Earth itself is a religious motivation.
And that is all I am saying about that.

warty goblin

2012-04-05, 08:05 AM

If you want cultural artefacts, invading seems a rather boneheaded way to go about it, rather killing the goose that laid the golden eggs, no?
The only real plausible reason I see for invading Earth itself is a religious motivation.
And that is all I am saying about that.

Either that or they're after the biosphere. There's almost certainly massive numbers of creatures with unique functions and adaptations only found on Earth, and I find it believable such would be of immense value to aliens. Hell, just think of the value Europe received from New World plant species.

Which is probably bad news for us, because we start to look an awful lot like particularly destructive garden pests.

Ravens_cry

2012-04-05, 08:10 AM

Either that or they're after the biosphere. There's almost certainly massive numbers of creatures with unique functions and adaptations only found on Earth, and I find it believable such would be of immense value to aliens. Hell, just think of the value Europe received from New World plant species.

Which is probably bad news for us, because we start to look an awful lot like particularly destructive garden pests.
We are part of the biosphere, for better for worse, and many creatures have actually been aided in survival by our presence. Rats, mice, cockroaches, crows, raccoons, seagulls, pigeons, squirrels, house sparrows, and probably others have made adapted and in fact flourished under some of the changes we have made.
Tangential I know but the whole "Ooh, those aliens are going to give us what for when they find what a lousy job we've been doing!" just irks a little.
Technology often makes changes too fast for evolution to keep up. In light of this, I think it fairly safe to assume that any species that has gotten out of its solar system probably went through a period of environmental destruction.

DiscipleofBob

2012-04-05, 08:22 AM

The only real plausible reason I see for invading Earth itself is a religious motivation.
And that is all I am saying about that.

We could also be blocking their view of Venus.

Ravens_cry

2012-04-05, 08:26 AM

We could also be blocking their view of Venus.
Space is 3D, they could go above, below. It's also not like Earth is tidal locked to Venus, so Earth probably eclipses Venus pretty rarely.
And yes, I get the reference.
You're dithpicable.

Serpentine

2012-04-05, 08:27 AM

Ravens_cry

2012-04-05, 08:31 AM

There's that, but I think the main point might've been not that we're wrecking our planet, but that we're gonna get in their way when they try to harvest from it.
Ah. Well, we would certainly do that. We may be cowards, but we are greedy little cowards.
If they want Earth's bounty, they can buy it on the open market!

HalfTangible

2012-04-05, 08:41 AM

That wasn't what I meant to imply. But my basic point stands, humans do not HAVE genetic diversity, whatever Mordin may claim.

Compared to, say, Volus or Krogan? :smalltongue:

One I don't think I've ever seen done is charisma: we convince others to do things and treat our own race like mindless drones if we get them into a large enough group. Who says everyone else can do the same?

Calemyr

2012-04-05, 08:50 AM

Ugh I hate the sherlock holmes method of: "I notice things that I shouldn't notice to find things out".

If he worked like that in real life he would quickly go insane due to being unable to channel out pointless information. Imagine if you noticed every single little detail right now looking at the cupboard to your left? Would make you go crazy.

He is crazy. He's a high functioning sociopathic shut in who turns to narcotics (which were legal at that time) to quiet his brain when not on a case. And that's him in the books - the latest films only managed to reclaim his identity from that of a poised gentleman in a deerstalker.

His brother was always smarter than him, though: beer and laziness do a better job of mitigating the consequences of that sort of mind than narcotics with fewer side effects.

Compared to, say, Volus or Krogan? :smalltongue:

One I don't think I've ever seen done is charisma: we convince others to do things and treat our own race like mindless drones if we get them into a large enough group. Who says everyone else can do the same?

Master of Orion 2 (the last of that great series no matter what people might tell you) gave humans the charisma trait, other races found it rather hard not to like them, whether the were proto-krogan dinosaurs, businesslike space gnomes, or living crystal.

Radar

2012-04-05, 09:02 AM

Soras Teva Gee

2012-04-05, 09:33 AM

The only real plausible reason I see for invading Earth itself is a religious motivation.
And that is all I am saying about that.

Well that kinda raises the yarn about why you would ever colonize another planet when logically any resources on a planet would be obtainable in the same solar system at large. Even with the magic engines for free flight to escape velocity common to sci-fi it just really doesn't make sense to bother with the onerous task of moving in and out of the gravity well.

Barring that there is some technical reason that say O'Neill Cylinders are technically unfeasible over the long term for reasons we haven't worked out from never trying. Even then from a mathematical perspective you are vastly more likely to come upon an planet lacking sentient life. So it would need to be a highly limited transit method mixed with long mathematical odds.

That all said I generally find "religious belief they must" a poor sociological argument, scratch below the surface and such claims tend to be after the fact. Not something we can really debate here though. I'd see more plausible something like a non-FTL generation/cold-sleep ship about to fall apart in the near future. Why take the time to make a new habitat when you can carve one out in a few days by invading?

@Sherlock: Backtracking a bit, by the numbers Holmes is a Mary Sue type. He's always right because the Doyle thought out the solution then worked backward so of course he picks up on the pertinent details. Sherlock has a Grandfather Clause but wouldn't work well in anything presuming to be general or realistic. Even smart people should not "just happen" to have made a detailed study of the the dirt of their homeland and be able to identify a few unique details at a glance.

Ravens_cry

2012-04-05, 09:40 AM

Like I said, that. Is. All. I. Am. Saying. About. That.
I'm sure it would make an interesting discussion, but this is not the place.
The thing is though, unless alien life is EXACTLY like Earth life, Earth wouldn't be the most welcome place. Even if they are close enough to flourish on it, that just makes it all the more likely all the diseases, to which they would have no immunity, would be all "New food!" making a 'War of the Worlds' style ending almost plausible.
Better to round up some asteroids and comets than to risk it in a deep g hole.

warty goblin

2012-04-05, 09:58 AM

We are part of the biosphere, for better for worse, and many creatures have actually been aided in survival by our presence. Rats, mice, cockroaches, crows, raccoons, seagulls, pigeons, squirrels, house sparrows, and probably others have made adapted and in fact flourished under some of the changes we have made.
Tangential I know but the whole "Ooh, those aliens are going to give us what for when they find what a lousy job we've been doing!" just irks a little.
Technology often makes changes too fast for evolution to keep up. In light of this, I think it fairly safe to assume that any species that has gotten out of its solar system probably went through a period of environmental destruction.

I certainly agree we're part of the biosphere. However unless the aliens decide ground up human kidneys work well as an anti-aging cream or something like that, they wouldn't need anywhere near seven billion of us. Particularly since the continued existence of seven billion humans isn't doing a very large number species any favors. It's like spearmint or lemon balm: you want some of it in your herb garden, but unless you take a shovel to it every now and again it'll take over and exterminate a lot of other plants you also want.

And by shovel here I mean targeted bio-weapon.

Even if the aliens did degrade their environment similarly, they're here now, and just made a rather long trip. I have no idea whether any aliens we may or may not encounter will be morally superior to humanity by our standards, but we should hope like hell they are. If they treat technologically inferior indigenous peoples anything like humanity has a long history of doing, we're mostly going to die horribly.

Soras Teva Gee

2012-04-05, 10:19 AM

The thing is though, unless alien life is EXACTLY like Earth life, Earth wouldn't be the most welcome place. Even if they are close enough to flourish on it, that just makes it all the more likely all the diseases, to which they would have no immunity, would be all "New food!" making a 'War of the Worlds' style ending almost plausible.
Better to round up some asteroids and comets than to risk it in a deep g hole.

Mind I'm not a pathologist but I think it worth mentioning that for functioning on the same basic chemistry and even have for example DNA (something I consider reasonably likely until we can prove otherwise) doesn't mean super vulnerable. Even within say mammal species its fairly rare to have diseases cross-over. Eurasians IIRC are believed to have had all the major infectious diseases because they essentially forced the issue by having many domesticated livestock.

So an "oh noes we all drop dead sick" isn't likely in the short term. Also presuming the aliens understand basic public hygiene it should work as well for them as it has for us. Now diseases would presumably cross over at some point but it might not help us or be a motivating factor since it would be a generational concern.

And IF this isn't the case then well I dare say its double edged sword that will take both of us down since we'd be hit at the same time. If they have better functional care then us though...

HandofShadows

2012-04-05, 10:22 AM

Let's also keep in mind, that our contraptions weren't as reliable 100 or 200 years ago (early steam engines anyone?).

What? Steam Engines from 100 to 200 years ago where reliable? :smallconfused: I guess you could consider them reliable if you ingore that they blew up from time to time....

Socratov

2012-04-05, 10:22 AM

It's not bad, it is true not many series do make note of it, but the problem is he explicitly mentions GENETIC diversity (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaTmhHT5Kr8).
Which is not true.
I love Mordin, I have not played the game and I already love him and his idiosyncratic speech patterns, his investigative yet compassionate attitude.
But this is an error.
@ ^post above: The man is a doctor, who has successfully been treating humans.
I would think think he would have to have a firm grasp of interspecies medicine to be able to do so.

ehm... interspecies doctors don't always know all. Famous media example: Dr. Zoidberg...

Anecronwashere

2012-04-05, 10:34 AM

ehm... interspecies doctors don't always know all. Famous media example: Dr. Zoidberg...

Zoidberg was:
A: An idiot/comic relief
B: A doctor in Arts, not Medicine

Also it was Futurama, not the most reliable source (see: robots, how FTL works, anything truly Sci-Fi)

Socratov

2012-04-05, 10:39 AM

Zoidberg was:
A: An idiot/comic relief
B: A doctor in Arts, not Medicine

Also it was Futurama, not the most reliable source (see: robots, how FTL works, anything truly Sci-Fi)

oops, missed that, and right on the first one, but that doesn't mean that it's not possible... I mean, some human doctors are known to (have) mess(ed) up in the past and i doubt it will stop there...

Rockphed

2012-04-05, 10:43 AM

One idea I was toying with is this: our machines are quite shoddy. Our planes, power plants, rockets or kitchen appliances aren't safe because of their general design - we simply tack on an overaboundance of spare parts, backup systems, emergency procedures until it's not as likely to blow in our faces. Even so, they need constant supervision and costly maintance to keep working as intended. Let's also keep in mind, that our contraptions weren't as reliable 100 or 200 years ago (early steam engines anyone?).
We have a general tendency to work thinks out in practice and use every new invention before it's properly developed. It's, as if we are always in a hurry when it comes to technology. Such a behavior probably helps us develop new things faster, but we might as well be the mad scientists of the galaxy (or even Mekboyz).

I assure you, engineers are very good at making things as simple as possible. The biggest example is that TV sets used to be designed to be easy to fix. When we used Vacuum tubes, everything had to be designed like that. When we got solid state devices, we could design TVs that were impossible to repair, but worked for 20 years without breaking. We can design and develop stuff that doesn't break for a long time, we just don't because it is an exponential curve for cost versus lifespan.

And how about this for human attributes: Moral Superiority. No, not "Humans are always right," but "Humans think that they are right." I mean just look at how we have treated each other, yet we still walk around saying "HAH! You were wrong and I was right, now bow as I wave tiny paper envelopes!"

Radar

2012-04-05, 12:10 PM

What? Steam Engines from 100 to 200 years ago where reliable? :smallconfused: I guess you could consider them reliable if you ingore that they blew up from time to time....
They weren't - there was negation in that sentence. As reliable or failure-prone as our current machinery is, it was much, much worse back then.

I assure you, engineers are very good at making things as simple as possible. The biggest example is that TV sets used to be designed to be easy to fix. When we used Vacuum tubes, everything had to be designed like that. When we got solid state devices, we could design TVs that were impossible to repair, but worked for 20 years without breaking. We can design and develop stuff that doesn't break for a long time, we just don't because it is an exponential curve for cost versus lifespan.
True, but look at the the development of airplanes - flying at all first (wooden skeleton with an engine and linen plating), durability and performance second (use of steel, better engines etc.), human safety third (parachutes, catapults, safety procedures). Same thing goes for space flights, ships or anything else. People were trying to fly by straping wing-like structures to their arms and jumping from high places. In essence, we intentionaly put ourselves at risk to test our ideas and add safety and raliability as an afterthought.
As much as consumer goods are reliable, think how many times we push our technology to it's limit: modern jetfighters are highly unstable by design to achieve sharper turning and stabilised only by their computers, F1 engines are destroyed after a few hours of work. If we ever reach the stars, we will be first using an equivalent of a shoddily made raft with an oversized engine.

McStabbington

2012-04-05, 12:24 PM

I think he's basing that off of analogy with computer theory type stuff. Limits on efficiency, computations per unit of energy. And the level of complexity you can have in fine structures and how much those proportions can be compressed into a smaller scale. We may very well be near the upper limits of what is physically possible for an organic structure. Perhaps the level of hardware required for space-faring civilization is so close to the absolute limit on computations/cm^3/calorie that any difference between our brains and aliens' is negligible compared to the differences introduced by software (the much harder to mathematically define concept of HOW we think about things, rather than WHAT we're thinking with).

Human brains are pretty lousy compared to even the simplest calculating machine at straightforward computations per second. Where they excel, however, is at what is known as parallel processing: the ability to draw inferences and similarities from seemingly disparate and unrelated sources and integrate them. We use it all the time in combining sight and sound into a cohesive whole, and we also use it in arts and science. But even our best computers can't make the leaps of inference that a 3-year old could.

It's actually one of the central difficulties of testing machine intelligence: if you were to test a machine's intelligence using "understands geometry" as your metric, a graphing calculator is smarter than even the brightest human. Yet if you were to test with the metric of "understands analogies", computers can't compare with humans, and even if they could, it's possible that a machine's worldview would be so different from ours that their intuitive leaps would be entirely different from ours.

Soras Teva Gee

2012-04-05, 01:09 PM

True, but look at the the development of airplanes - flying at all first (wooden skeleton with an engine and linen plating), durability and performance second (use of steel, better engines etc.), human safety third (parachutes, catapults, safety procedures). Same thing goes for space flights, ships or anything else. People were trying to fly by straping wing-like structures to their arms and jumping from high places. In essence, we intentionaly put ourselves at risk to test our ideas and add safety and raliability as an afterthought.
As much as consumer goods are reliable, think how many times we push our technology to it's limit: modern jetfighters are highly unstable by design to achieve sharper turning and stabilised only by their computers, F1 engines are destroyed after a few hours of work. If we ever reach the stars, we will be first using an equivalent of a shoddily made raft with an oversized engine.

Airplanes are statistically among the safest machines on the planet. Yes when they fail they fail big but this really has nothing to do with their mechanical engineering and more to do with the laws of physics working against them.

If not so much space flight is also remarkable. Nobody (barring Soviet/Chinese conspiracies) has died in space despite 50 years of out presence there. Apollo 13 alone is a testament to man's ability to keep himself alive. And while its easy to say ooh 2/5 Shuttles were destroyed that hides their collective performance of 133/135 missions.

I fear the day people realize the most ridiculously unsafe, nay suicidal thing they will ever do is get into... a car.

Soralin

2012-04-05, 02:13 PM

If we ever reach the stars, we will be first using an equivalent of a shoddily made raft with an oversized engine.
Sounds like a plan :smallbiggrin: :
http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/images/slowerlight/stl11.jpg
http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/slowerlight.php#valkyrie
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Valkyrie
The Valkyrie is an antimatter rocket, directing the output by magnetic fields, and using a chunk of tungsten and keeping the payload 10km back from the engine, in order to mitigate the radiation.

The Valkyrie would have a crew module trailing 10 kilometers behind the engine. A small 20-cm-thick tungsten shield would hang 100 meters behind the engine, to help protect the trailing crew module from its harmful radiation.[2] The fuel tank might be placed between the crew module and the engine, to further protect it. At the trailing end of the ship would be a second engine, which the ship would use to decelerate. The forward engine and the tank holding its fuel supply might be jettisoned before deceleration, to reduce fuel consumption.[1]

Initially the Valkyrie's engine would work by using small quantities of antimatter to initiate an extremely energetic fusion reaction. A magnetic coil captures the exhaust products of this reaction and it is expelled with an exhaust velocity of 12-20% the speed of light (35,975-58,900 km/s). As the spacecraft approaches 20% the speed of light more and more antimatter is fed into the engines until it switches over to pure matter-antimatter annihilation.[2] It will use this mode to accelerate the remainder of the way to .92 c. Pellegrino estimates that the ship would require 100 tons of matter and antimatter to reach 0.1-0.2c, with an undetermined excess of matter to ensure the antimatter is efficiently utilized. To reach a speed of .92 c and decelerate afterward Valkyrie would require a mass ratio of 22 (or 2100 tons of fuel for a 100 ton spacecraft).[1]

And this great quote from the first link:

Riding an antimatter rocket is like riding a giant death-ray bomb. An unshielded man standing a hundred kilometers away from the engine will receive a lethal dose of gamma radiation within microseconds.

Mistral

2012-04-05, 02:17 PM

Airplanes are statistically among the safest machines on the planet. Yes when they fail they fail big but this really has nothing to do with their mechanical engineering and more to do with the laws of physics working against them.

If not so much space flight is also remarkable. Nobody (barring Soviet/Chinese conspiracies) has died in space despite 50 years of out presence there. Apollo 13 alone is a testament to man's ability to keep himself alive. And while its easy to say ooh 2/5 Shuttles were destroyed that hides their collective performance of 133/135 missions.

I fear the day people realize the most ridiculously unsafe, nay suicidal thing they will ever do is get into... a car.

Read that post again. He's not talking about modern vehicles, but rather the cycle of development, with all the teething pains involved. He's not referring to the space shuttle, but the N1 or Apollo 1. Not the Concorde or the Spirit of St. Louis, but Otto Lilienthal. To be honest, though, I don't think that's going to be something particular to humans anyways. It's just a natural consequence of the method and means of problem-solution in that era. See, for instance, the modern-day, where we have computer-modeling, wind tunnels, and all sorts of neat tricks to circumvent it. We have technological aids that people in the past didn't have, and a concept of problem-solving and systematic analysis that no longer requires us to take those sorts of risks. We don't need to fly a glider off Fliegerberg in person anymore to figure out that it lacks a viable method of stall recovery; we just run a simulation in the appropriate wind conditions. Even novel things like space flight can be modeled rather than done in person, reducing both risk and expense, and making the practical tests, done with an eye to the lessons we learn in modeling, more likely to succeed. It's not unique to us, I think, just our technology.

Besides, while while we push things to their limit, sometimes we push things like safety and reliability first. For instance, the AK-47. We didn't put extra features or fancy tricks in, except where it improved reliability and didn't require extra action by the user (like chromium-plating to reduce corrosion); it was designed to be something a completely untrained conscript could pick up in a desperate situation and use on the fly. In short, it was cheap, effective, and above all, reliable: an AK-47 buried in a bog marsh for decades, unearthed, was still operated safely and successfully.

Brother Oni

2012-04-05, 02:28 PM

Mind I'm not a pathologist but I think it worth mentioning that for functioning on the same basic chemistry and even have for example DNA (something I consider reasonably likely until we can prove otherwise) doesn't mean super vulnerable. Even within say mammal species its fairly rare to have diseases cross-over.

While I agree it's fairly rare to have diseases to cross-over (influenza and various prions are the main culprits for species jumping at the moment) there's still a whole bucketload of nasties that have multi-species hosts - malaria, toxoplasmosis, various tapeworms, etc.

Even outside of mammalian species you have some pretty nasty things like Leucochloridium paradoxum, a worm that infects birds but uses snails as an intermediate host.

So yes, even if the aliens decide to wipe us all out with a bioweapon, there's a pretty good chance that some native critter could do the same to them.

Soras Teva Gee

2012-04-05, 03:23 PM

Read that post again. He's not talking about modern vehicles, but rather the cycle of development, with all the teething pains involved. He's not referring to the space shuttle, but the N1 or Apollo 1. Not the Concorde or the Spirit of St. Louis, but Otto Lilienthal. To be honest, though, I don't think that's going to be something particular to humans anyways. It's just a natural consequence of the method and means of problem-solution in that era. See, for instance, the modern-day, where we have computer-modeling, wind tunnels, and all sorts of neat tricks to circumvent it. We have technological aids that people in the past didn't have, and a concept of problem-solving and systematic analysis that no longer requires us to take those sorts of risks. We don't need to fly a glider off Fliegerberg in person anymore to figure out that it lacks a viable method of stall recovery; we just run a simulation in the appropriate wind conditions. Even novel things like space flight can be modeled rather than done in person, reducing both risk and expense, and making the practical tests, done with an eye to the lessons we learn in modeling, more likely to succeed. It's not unique to us, I think, just our technology.

Besides, while while we push things to their limit, sometimes we push things like safety and reliability first. For instance, the AK-47. We didn't put extra features or fancy tricks in, except where it improved reliability and didn't require extra action by the user (like chromium-plating to reduce corrosion); it was designed to be something a completely untrained conscript could pick up in a desperate situation and use on the fly. In short, it was cheap, effective, and above all, reliable: an AK-47 buried in a bog marsh for decades, unearthed, was still operated safely and successfully.

Yeah the premise that in the galaxy humanity will be using shoddily constructed machines. And we won't.

While there is of course a development cycle you simply don't find technology being broadly distributed until it is essentially out of development. With what safety issues remain being more intrinsic then just because its some slapped together piece of mad science. That's just not how engineering works.

Heck I saw the Mekboyz invoke... and Orks are the most shoddily conceptually constructed space faring race ever. They are ridiculous failures that should be more like annoying weeds to the Imperium but are Tinker Belled into being viable because GW knows they can't ditch them now.

warty goblin

2012-04-05, 03:47 PM

While I agree it's fairly rare to have diseases to cross-over (influenza and various prions are the main culprits for species jumping at the moment) there's still a whole bucketload of nasties that have multi-species hosts - malaria, toxoplasmosis, various tapeworms, etc.

Even outside of mammalian species you have some pretty nasty things like Leucochloridium paradoxum, a worm that infects birds but uses snails as an intermediate host.

So yes, even if the aliens decide to wipe us all out with a bioweapon, there's a pretty good chance that some native critter could do the same to them.

It's possible, but it would require a bug capable of jumping to a species that probably has little to nothing in common with anything it had yet encountered. All of the foreign species annihilates native host scenarios I can think of involve a host very similar to the disease's normal host, but without any natural protection from it. I've never heard of a new world reptile ailment decimating old world earthworms or anything like that, and that's what you'd need for a War of the Worlds sort of ending.

Probably. As I've said before, when it comes to aliens the only truly safe stance is that we know nothing.

Flickerdart

2012-04-05, 03:51 PM

Pfft. Everyone knows that the prototype is always better than a final production version. An entire expedition of prototypes would dominate the galaxy!

Rockphed

2012-04-05, 05:01 PM

Read that post again. He's not talking about modern vehicles, but rather the cycle of development, with all the teething pains involved. He's not referring to the space shuttle, but the N1 or Apollo 1. Not the Concorde or the Spirit of St. Louis, but Otto Lilienthal. To be honest, though, I don't think that's going to be something particular to humans anyways. It's just a natural consequence of the method and means of problem-solution in that era. See, for instance, the modern-day, where we have computer-modeling, wind tunnels, and all sorts of neat tricks to circumvent it. We have technological aids that people in the past didn't have, and a concept of problem-solving and systematic analysis that no longer requires us to take those sorts of risks. We don't need to fly a glider off Fliegerberg in person anymore to figure out that it lacks a viable method of stall recovery; we just run a simulation in the appropriate wind conditions. Even novel things like space flight can be modeled rather than done in person, reducing both risk and expense, and making the practical tests, done with an eye to the lessons we learn in modeling, more likely to succeed. It's not unique to us, I think, just our technology.

Besides, while while we push things to their limit, sometimes we push things like safety and reliability first. For instance, the AK-47. We didn't put extra features or fancy tricks in, except where it improved reliability and didn't require extra action by the user (like chromium-plating to reduce corrosion); it was designed to be something a completely untrained conscript could pick up in a desperate situation and use on the fly. In short, it was cheap, effective, and above all, reliable: an AK-47 buried in a bog marsh for decades, unearthed, was still operated safely and successfully.

A good gun is one that can be used as a club when bullets and power packs run out.

On the other hand, consider the time frame wherein we went from wood frames covered in fabric to a modern jet-fighter? Yes, the first couple of interstellar human ships might be a little jumbled together compared with later models, but I doubt we will be fielding battleships that look like collections of junk. If nothing else, we will take modern warships into space.

Ravens_cry

2012-04-05, 05:43 PM

ehm... interspecies doctors don't always know all. Famous media example: Dr. Zoidberg...
Well, besides Zoidberg being from a comedy and is portrayed as comically incompetent, even if we assume Mordin Solus is incompetent, which the game demonstrably shows otherwise from what videos I have seen, it would also mean either a) there is a completely different, unrevealed reason why Krogen scientists were using human test subjects, which is bad storytelling in itself, or they were making the *exact same mistake*.

Seerow

2012-04-05, 06:03 PM

And, the best part is, if it's toxic, even to us, we'll find a way to make it edible.
Case in point, the Greenland shark.
Let me put it mildly, this fish does not want to be eaten. It does bad and crazy things to your brain. But we found a way to make it, if only in a technical sense, edible (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%A1karl).
Heck, we found a way to make a toxic tuber a staple (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassava).
Cooking is badass, my friend.

I can imagine that maybe being possible for one other species or even two, but ALL the other intelligent biological species in the setting?:smallconfused:

You don't know the half of it (http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/06/17/japanese-scientists-create-meat-from-poop/#ixzz1r7mqS0lF)

Lord Raziere

2012-04-05, 06:27 PM

Pfft. Everyone knows that the prototype is always better than a final production version. An entire expedition of prototypes would dominate the galaxy!

Yup, which is why I have my prototype universe with me. its better than all these production-quality universes paralleling each other! :smallwink:

Soras Teva Gee

2012-04-05, 06:31 PM

You don't know the half of it (http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/06/17/japanese-scientists-create-meat-from-poop/#ixzz1r7mqS0lF)

This post is spoilered because my only possible response involves a teary-eyed pony:

http://img.ponibooru.org/_images/41bed4ca4f1c5b976c885d69dc92d5b8/120516%20-%20animated%20crying%20macro%20rainbow_dash%20WHY_ WOULD_YOU_POST_THAT.gif

Ravens_cry

2012-04-05, 06:34 PM

You don't know the half of it (http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/06/17/japanese-scientists-create-meat-from-poop/#ixzz1r7mqS0lF)
I've heard claims that is a hoax, but even if not, think about it.
Bacteria and other decomposers decompose poop into a form plants can assimilate through their roots. The plant is eaten by a cow, which turns it into meat. That cow is in turn killed, processed, and cooked.
That steak, juicy, moist, tender, with all that rich, meaty goodness, is just as much made of poop as anything created by those scientists.
♪ It's the circle of liifffe, and it mooovvvess usss alllll!♫

Wiwaxia

2012-04-05, 07:26 PM

What is your evidence for that?:smallconfused:
While I personally don't like the trope of other races being wiser and more enlightened than us, acting like such smug bastards while claiming to be "above" our little foibles, I see no reason to think greater intelligence isn't *possible*.

There was a Scientific American article on it a few months ago. Essentially, having a bigger brain increases the number of neurons, and thus processing capacity, but at a heavy cost to processing speed and efficiency. Increasing the thickness of neurons increases their firing speed, but decreases how tightly they can be packed, cutting processing capacity. Decreasing the thickness of neurons lets you get more into a space, but increases the chance of misfires to the point that they become unusable.

Humans have neurons very close to the bottom limit of thickness, in clusters that are connected by long, thick, fast firing nerves, putting us at pretty much the optimal position in terms of brain design. Of course, the aliens likely wouldn't be using nerves as we know them, but physics still puts limitations on the capacity of biological intelligence (and human brains are still vastly more energy-efficient than computers) and humans are very, very smart.

probably should have put all this in my first post :/

Ravens_cry

2012-04-05, 07:50 PM

Thank you. That is indeed interesting.:smallsmile:

Brother Oni

2012-04-06, 09:15 AM

It's possible, but it would require a bug capable of jumping to a species that probably has little to nothing in common with anything it had yet encountered. All of the foreign species annihilates native host scenarios I can think of involve a host very similar to the disease's normal host, but without any natural protection from it. I've never heard of a new world reptile ailment decimating old world earthworms or anything like that, and that's what you'd need for a War of the Worlds sort of ending.

Some critters have very basic requirements - anything that causes myiasis for example just needs soft tissue, or some place warm and moist for the maggots to hatch.

Thinking about it, a lot of alien species would be prone to fungal infections since all they essentially need is moisture and some peace and quiet to get started.
Fungal spores and the lack are so pervasive that most species on Earth are so used to fighting them off and unless they're immunocompromised, they usually don't raise a blip on the immune system's radar.

Ravens_cry

2012-04-06, 02:31 PM

Not to mention the bacteria that cause decay. If they are similar enough to Earth life as to be able to make it a home, yet lack our immunities . . .
Let's just say the results would be not pretty (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gangrene). (Not Safe for Squeamish)

Science Officer

2012-04-06, 03:11 PM

deuterio12

2012-04-06, 06:54 PM

Probably. As I've said before, when it comes to aliens the only truly safe stance is that we know nothing.

+1 to that. The reason why humans are considered average in sci-fi is because it's science FICTION. Everybody already knows humans. The fun is in making crazy alien species.

Airplanes are statistically among the safest machines on the planet. Yes when they fail they fail big but this really has nothing to do with their mechanical engineering and more to do with the laws of physics working against them
...
I fear the day people realize the most ridiculously unsafe, nay suicidal thing they will ever do is get into... a car.

That's only because cars are only cheap enough for lots of people to afford them, and proceed to ram them in each other. If every average-salary adult could afford their own airplane, and drive them after taking alchool/drugs, or simply making speed races, well, you can bet airplane acidents would skyrocket (pun intended).

Otherwise, airplanes are automatically much more suicidical because you're siting in a massive bomb with no escape route whatsoever. But airplane companies make sure to keep their propaganda machine running, since they can't sell to the mass public, they've got to play the "security" card.

Yes, when something goes into mass-production and easy availability, the associated risk increases a hundredfold.

Anecronwashere

2012-04-06, 07:28 PM

Didn't read all the last few pages, but I liked the bit from Buck Godot, that of the galactic species, humans being the most reckless, specifically about genetic engineering. After a number of human sub-species were created, the Prime Mover eventually had to forbid the practice (I can't recall why).
Oh, and popsicles.

This is humanity.
Popsicles, after an explanation about recklessness Humanity had to add popsicles :smallamused:
Crazy, foolish, brilliant apes.

Note: This should be read in any Doctor (from Doctor Who) Voice (9th preferably)

Ravens_cry

2012-04-06, 07:33 PM

warty goblin

2012-04-06, 07:51 PM

+1 to that. The reason why humans are considered average in sci-fi is because it's science FICTION. Everybody already knows humans. The fun is in making crazy alien species.

Also it makes for crap drama if the aliens don't outclass humans at least somehow, particularly as antagonists. The Earth Space Fleet beating the crap out of a race of weaker, stupider, less numerous, less advanced enemies does not thrilling adventures make. It's like how there aren't a lot of stories about Grul the Mighty Barbarian valiantly beating the crap out of Sally the six year old. Except under very particular scenarios generally involving dark magic, dragons, ogres or other warriors of comparable skill are just better antagonists.

Admittedly super powered aliens can be a bit annoying on occasion. Usually I find this is when they're "like humans but ____" where ___ is something awesome like armor plating or acid spit or whatever. Good aliens, particularly in writing where you don't have to worry about effects budgets, in my experience tend to be quite divergent from humans.

Ravens_cry

2012-04-06, 08:14 PM

Yes, there is that, but it can be done in other ways than making the aliens themselves superior.
A technology disparity can be enough and is hardly indicative of greater mental or physical ability.

warty goblin

2012-04-06, 08:32 PM

Yes, there is that, but it can be done in other ways than making the aliens themselves superior.
A technology disparity can be enough and is hardly indicative of greater mental or physical ability.

And what's so wrong with fictional aliens being smarter and/or physically more able than us? It seems very arrogant, not to mention deeply limiting to the author, to assume we're some sort of cosmic supremum across all measurable attributes - particularly when evidence to the contrary abounds.

Ravens_cry

2012-04-06, 08:50 PM

And what's so wrong with fictional aliens being smarter and/or physically more able than us? It seems very arrogant, not to mention deeply limiting to the author, to assume we're some sort of cosmic supremum across all measurable attributes - particularly when evidence to the contrary abounds.
Who said anything about supreme? Equality is not supremacy. Heck, they don't even have to be the same, just. . .different. For example, I created a race for s story that is quadrupedal that used twin prehensile bifurcated tails for manipulation.
They are certainly not human in appearance and their needs,and therefore technology is quite different. But I don't put human smack dab in the centre of the spectrum as a kind of cosmic Mario.

Soras Teva Gee

2012-04-06, 08:56 PM

warty goblin

2012-04-06, 09:22 PM

Who said anything about supreme? Equality is not supremacy. Heck, they don't even have to be the same, just. . .different. For example, I created a race for s story that is quadrupedal that used twin prehensile bifurcated tails for manipulation.
They are certainly not human in appearance and their needs,and therefore technology is quite different. But I don't put human smack dab in the centre of the spectrum as a kind of cosmic Mario.

Technically if nothing exceeds some given value, then that value is supreme even if other things also attain it.

Although as I think my second to most recent post should have made clear, I generally prefer the different strain of alien as well. I have no objection however if different comes with exceeding humans in some regard, nor do I demand some sort of homo-relative deficiency to balance the equation. Different is really quite enough.

For any particular story nothing is wrong. But where's the aversion?

(Well with physical and/or definable traits, trying to make aliens actually smarter then use doesn't really work for other reasons)

Beyond my general distaste for strawman human self-aggrandizement? None, really.

Ravens_cry

2012-04-06, 09:27 PM

I hate the reverse just as much. Sure, within certain tolerances it's fine. After all, aliens are going to be different and in some ways superior.
But Mary Sue races that are all "Yes, I am smarter, more ethical, more moral than you, animals love me, and I can bench press a VW with one hand."
is what irks.
Sorry if I 'pounced' on your comment, warty goblin.

Wiwaxia

2012-04-06, 09:48 PM

Ravens_cry

2012-04-06, 09:54 PM

Lots of Earth species sleep.
Why is a question I wouldn't mind an answer to.

Soras Teva Gee

2012-04-06, 10:46 PM

Well I was about to say that sleep is useful for energy conservation but looking it up briefly it appears more fundamental then I thought. Apparently sleep has been observed in nematodes and even a rat will die from a lack of sleep so whatever its reason goes deep into the function of the nerve system. Even hibernation is not sleep apparently.

Sleep seems sufficiently deep I will provisionally put sleep under the category of something we can expect extraterrestrial life to also require.

Its fun to suggest any wild idea but chemistry is not infinitely diverse and its my opinion that aliens are likely to be fairly chemically similar too us. At least ones capable of getting all the way to space and beyond. You need for example the energy to be an active lifeform, which requires certain things shared by all animals. All of which would suggest reaching the threshold which requires sleep.

Unless someone can actually demonstrate how an alternate underlying physiology is supposed to work comparably well.

Ravens_cry

2012-04-06, 10:54 PM

Yeah, if it was simply energy conservation, it wouldn't make sense that some parts of the brain are actually more active during sleep than when awake.
It's weird, considering that you'd think any energy saved by sleeping could potentially be off set by using the time sleeping to find food, especially considering how helpless a person is while sleeping.
Conserving energy don't do you any good if you're in someone's GI tract.

Soras Teva Gee

2012-04-06, 11:09 PM

Oh there's a savings its just like 10% or so it just seems to be besides the point.

And continually finding food isn't always meaningful. First off you might not find any and waste a lot more that way. Second you can only eat as much as you can process and store. Then there's considerations as to what you eat, grazers must eat more continuously then predators I understand, the latter being able to have food for like a week off a single kill in some cases.

My inference is that in some way we don't understand sleep is like sending a ship into drydock for periodic maintenance but I can't really put that into technical terms other then that we know we need to do it to keep functioning in good order.

Wiwaxia

2012-04-06, 11:31 PM

No, sleep makes sense. Using that time to process information makes sense.

Doing it by wandering through imagined worlds makes considerably less sense.

And on top of that, we spend significant amounts of time awake doing the same kind of fantasizing, again as a way to process information.

Ravens_cry

2012-04-06, 11:36 PM

Thrawn183

2012-04-07, 12:21 AM

Here's a few:
Flight. Creatures that fly are generally extremely fragile for their weight (think hollow bones).

Vision. If a species developed on a world with minimal light or on the night side of one that was tidally locked or in a subterranean environment, they might not even be able to see at all.

Non-magnetic bodies. We're almost completely unaffected by magnetic fields. Maybe a species that evolved on a planet without its own magnetic field and fields play havoc with them. Think Turians with their metallic skin taken to the extreme.

Vulnerability to electric currents. Granted cows getting killed in large numbers by lightning strikes has more to do with their legs being far apart than susceptability to a current itself. On the other hand, what if a taser was always a lethal weapon to another species. Something we could take and then pretty much just get right back up.

Flexibility. I haven't seen anything about the possibility of a species that's similar in ways to say... a turtle.

Pressure change. Anybody who's fished for anything with a swim bladder more than about 75 feet down has seen what happens when you reel them in. Probably not the most pleasant way to go. Humans might have problems with the bends, but at least we don't vomit out our own internal organs.

Warm blooded. I think this one's fairly self-explanatory.

We might be short. One of the aspects of possibly evolving on a high gravity planet, is if a tall/bulky species came here they could be hurt just from falling over.

We don't experience Sessility. We remain mobile throughout our lives. This means we have the potential to be far more nomadic than some species of animals. It's a little tougher to stamp out a group (of any size) that can just relocate the entirety of their numbers.

Anyhow, that's what I came up with off the top of my head. I'll try and think of more tomorrow.

Soras Teva Gee

2012-04-07, 12:52 AM

Well, finding noms is but one example. Finding a mate, avoiding being noms, it must be one hell of an advantage to make up for basically putting yourself in a helpless state way for a third, or more, of your life.
The dry dock analogy may be an answer, or it might not, as the body doesn't go receive any external support when you sleep, so the question becomes, why can't you do this awake? In the case of a dry dock, you got tools and replacements that can't be carried aboard the ship, but with your body everything is internal.

I don't think advantage comes into it, I suspect there's something in the way nerves and even the body as whole function that demands it. While sure one can argue it would be one help of an adaptation to get around it, evolution has to have somewhere to start to get down the the level where realistic scale mutations can make an impact on survival. And sleep seems to go farther back then Chordates.

Though one might get "cheats" that surpass it via say quick meditative states or being able to break up the entire body doing it at once. And of course simply being more alert then we are, something we see in animals. That's all different then sleep being some kind of alien concept because any creature that had done that would also see sleep and progression to beyond it in their zoology.

Drydock was more to make an immediate contrast to underway but almost any sort of downtime from steaming would serve here. Almost any sort of mechanical maintenance involves turning what you are working on off even for internal matters.

Ravens_cry

2012-04-07, 01:18 AM

*sigh* While this is certainly a 'good lie', let's see if I can give the basics of evolution.

Let's say there is these critters and they get chased by critters who want to eat them, and lets say one of them can, say it has slightly long legs, can run faster. That means it is that much more likely to survive to reproduce and pass on those long leg genes, no pun intended. In time, every critter has slightly longer legs.
This what I mean by an 'advantage', something that helps a critters survive to reproduce and pass on the genes that helped it reproduce. Evolution is more complicated than this, but I believe this is the basics, the 'good lie' version.

Now, look at sleep.
Like I said earlier, you are unconscious for approximately, give or take, one third of your life.
And when you are in this state, things that want to kill you have a much, much easier time of it.
Moreover, that time could be spent looking for food. Sure, it's not certain you'll find it, but it's one more roll of the dice. If you were playing a dice game where you were betting to see if you could get doubles, would you want to roll twice or three times?
Food isn't just noms, it can also be given to others, stored for lean times, used to gain favours, influence people, even gain a chance to reproduce.
Which leads to the next thing you could be doing.
Looking for a mate.
Which allows your genes to pass on.
And yet, we sleep.

So there must be a huge evolutionary advantage Soras Teva Gee to sleeping and dreaming, or it would have gone evolutionary bye-bye literal eons ago.
Which is my question, why hasn't it?
Most of your answer so far seems to be a long way of saying "We sleep because we need to." which is rather circular unfortunately.

I apologize if this sounds condescending.

Flickerdart

2012-04-07, 01:21 AM

You can definitely cheat sleep, as seen with the "iron man" thing. However...what if an alien species had no choice in the matter? Say, they had to take quick 10-minute power naps at strict intervals of 4 hours or else suffer greatly for it. It would give them a powerful advantage in survival (as they would spend almost all of their time mobile) but when faced with a foe who can go awake for 24+ hours even without drugs, and who can vary their sleep schedule pretty much at will even in normal circumstances, they would be at a huge disadvantage.

Ravens_cry

2012-04-07, 01:44 AM

The longest documented period without sleep without the use of stimulants is 11 days (264 hours to be more exact).
So cheating is . . . temporary at best.

Flickerdart

2012-04-07, 01:54 AM

By cheating sleep I don't mean not sleeping at all. I'm referring to polyphasic sleep (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyphasic_sleep).

Soras Teva Gee

2012-04-07, 02:46 AM

So there must be a huge evolutionary advantage Soras Teva Gee to sleeping and dreaming, or it would have gone evolutionary bye-bye literal eons ago.
Which is my question, why hasn't it?
Most of your answer so far seems to be a long way of saying "We sleep because we need to." which is rather circular unfortunately.

I apologize if this sounds condescending.

Evolution is not a perfect optimizer. There no advantage for Birds of Paradise to have produced a dazzling array of plumage and mating rituals... but they did. Now as they are still alive it hasn't yet proved to be the Irish Elk but there more then simple efficiency going on and a lot of pure randomness. For sleep when everything sleeps it suggest a sort of statistical evening out

Also evolution is not open ended. We will not evolve to shoot laser beams from our eyes and be strong enough to push around planets while using super-ventriloquism. And that's not simply for the ridiculous either. Square cubed law puts a limit on how big a creature can get on land. You need to process energy in certain ways so you need to eat and use sugars etc.

What I'm basically positing is that sleep is nessecary are some deep physiological level to the point of chemically wetware processing can only function with sleep in it.

Now sure I could be wrong since as noted we humans don't really know why and there's no counter examples to study. But though unless there's something more complex then "well why does it have to be" I am comfortable with my working assumption.

Knaight

2012-04-07, 03:08 AM

Evolution is not a perfect optimizer. There no advantage for Birds of Paradise to have produced a dazzling array of plumage and mating rituals... but they did. Now as they are still alive it hasn't yet proved to be the Irish Elk but there more then simple efficiency going on and a lot of pure randomness. For sleep when everything sleeps it suggest a sort of statistical evening out.

No, but it does push for situational advantage very efficiently. Perhaps the best example of this is in trees - being tall really isn't that wonderful. Growing a huge trunk is a massive waste of resources, and not having leaves from the bottom to the top horrendously inefficient. Being taller than other trees nearby, not having leaves so low they are shadowed by other trees is a good thing, so on and so forth. As such, there is a selection pressure for height, particularly for trees that grow in dense forests. Now, take your dazzling array of plumage and mating rituals - they really don't help overall. Having better plumage, and better mating rituals than other birds in the population does, and as such you get species like the peacock.

As for sleep - either it provides an advantage, or it really can't be evolved out of for some reason (such as being attached to something else that provides an advantage). Granted, this is vastly oversimplified, as evolutionary biology is a gigantic mess in a lot of ways*, but the point basically holds.

*It's almost as if living systems are complex.

Radar

2012-04-07, 03:31 AM

Evolution is not a perfect optimizer. There no advantage for Birds of Paradise to have produced a dazzling array of plumage and mating rituals... but they did. (...)
Not quite - while those outlandish tails are a result of mating competition, they enforce optimization of vital features in order to compensate for the disadvantage. This has no short-term uses, but in case of a serious enviroment shift, they are more likely to survive, since they are one change away from being much better at survival. It's kind of like weight training in Dragonball or other classics: when the fight gets serious, you ditch the burden and show your real power.

As for sleep: some species (antilopes as far as I know) have the ability to sleep with just a half of their brain at a time, so they can be active all the time.

Selrahc

2012-04-07, 03:50 AM

Sleep isn't properly understood. It *seems* to be pretty fundamental but it isn't really understood why.

The amount of sleep though? Even amongst humans there exist many people who can get by fine with 2 hours of sleep a night. Even if sleep is truly fundamental. it's not much of a leap to say that an alien species gets by on a tiny amount of it, or has a dolphin like multi-lobed sleep pattern which means they can operate and remain alert even while "Sleeping".

Kato

2012-04-07, 03:59 AM

So there must be a huge evolutionary advantage Soras Teva Gee to sleeping and dreaming, or it would have gone evolutionary bye-bye literal eons ago.
Which is my question, why hasn't it?
Most of your answer so far seems to be a long way of saying "We sleep because we need to." which is rather circular unfortunately.

I apologize if this sounds condescending.

It's not all about advantage, it's also about efficiency. You can't expect to just have a bodywith the same abilities but no sleep. So if you remove sleep from a being, you have to average it out. There are many processes in a normal animal that for example run at too low a rate to work properly, e.g. your kidneys work too slow to filter your blood while you are awake, so you need to rest. I guess the alternative would be too improve the kidneys/whatever, but it's not that simple.

I guess it would be an interesting turn to have a "none sleeping, weaker on average" predator/species in an eco system to see how it fares but we're not quite there yet on a technological level to create it.

It is a pretty common trait of many species on earth and i guess it all goes back to some species who started it and there would be an alternative but apparently it worked out well enough. Maybe it is also a efficiency trait, like it has proven advantageous to use up less energy in a day even if you could gather more but in the common environment there is not such a huge amount of food available to sustain a whole eco system of 24/7 species roaming about.

Ooooor all goes back to day and night schedule and many species being less effective at night whether because of heat, cold, darkness or whatever.

Hopeless

2012-04-07, 07:02 AM

Ooh, I just thought of another one.

Humans spend 8+ hours out of every 24 inside their own mind, traveling through unreal worlds and made-up scenarios that are never quite the same twice and nobody else ever sees, as a way to process information and emotions.:smallconfused:

If that isn't absurd, alien and unique, I don't know what is.

Technically I believe a very small proportion of the time asleep actually involves dreaming, its entirely possible that sleep grants several benefits least of all some recuperation and as you mentioned it might hold some solace if they're under pressure whether staying alive or just through normal day to day grind.

But I get a really funny vision of an alien race that can either read minds just by being in sight or in physical contact and have to wait until their target is asleep to even make the attempt because whilst they're awake their minds' are heavily resistant to being read/altered or even duplicated because they're focusing on far too many things at once or just so emotionally charged that they dare not even try without risking harm to themselves.
And then they discover that even when we're asleep we're even more dangerous because there's nothing to impede a reflexive response to outide stimulae... and by that I mean I once woke up and lashed out hitting a wall because of something I dreamt that my still half asleep mind remembered and I didn't break my hand... fortunately but I still wonder at whats going on whilst I sleep...

deuterio12

2012-04-07, 07:04 AM

Sleep isn't properly understood. It *seems* to be pretty fundamental but it isn't really understood why.

It doesn't "seems", it is fundamental. Force a person to go whitout sleep at all and they'll go completely loony in a matter of days. And return to normal after geting some sleep back.

All evidence points out that sleeping is when our brain stops receiving exterior data and focuses on re-organizing all the data it has gathered recently. That's what makes dreams happens. It's our brain moving data around and figuring out how things fit in with each other.

Sleeping isn't an advantage, it's a drawback we had to pay for our ability to think.

You can observe the same with computers. Let one run enough time whitout a reboot, and it'll start working worst as data fragments pile up and aren't cleaned away.

The amount of sleep though? Even amongst humans there exist many people who can get by fine with 2 hours of sleep a night.

Urban myth. At best there's some lucky people who can get around with 4 hours of daily sleep, but even whose will be taxed if they just sleep 2 hours per day. The average is roughly 8 hours.

Even if sleep is truly fundamental. it's not much of a leap to say that an alien species gets by on a tiny amount of it,

No can do. The more you observe and think, the more rest your brain needs to properly process the data you've learned. Aliens of similar intellegence that need a fraction of the sleep is as realistic as aliens that need to eat a fraction of what they grow and spend, breaking the laws of termodynamics.

or has a dolphin like multi-lobed sleep pattern which means they can operate and remain alert even while "Sleeping".
That was an evolutionary necessity. Dolphins need to surface to breath air even while asleep, and there's nowhere to hide in the ocean, so a part of their brain to keep going. And thanks to that limitation, they never got to the more sophisticated aspects of civilization, as they can never get their full brain power going.

Well, sure, if you put everyone behind the stick of an individual aircraft, sure the rates would skyrocket, from congested airways alone if nothing else.
But as they stand now, measured by people transported, aeroplanes are safe, darn safe. Even when they fail, there is some amazing stories of pilots making them work long enough to get home. One of my favourites is a pilot who used the individual throttles on the engines after all hydraulics and therefore all flight surfaces, failed, to pilot the aircraft to a safe, if bumpy, landing.

That just suports my point, thank you very much. Planes aren't safer than cars. Planes just happen to be always driven by trained, competent people. It's those pilots that make up for the airplanes unsafeties, while dangerous and unresponsible people have easy acess to the safer cars.

In other words, anything will be quite dangerous if in the hands of a drunk idiot. But that airplanes still fall even if in the hands of trained professionals, it shows how actually dangerous planes are.

If a machine still crashes and burns horribly while the one using it is doing their best, it is unstable no matter how you try to pretty up the picture.

Selrahc

2012-04-07, 07:23 AM

It doesn't "seems", it is fundamental. Force a person to go whitout sleep at all and they'll go completely loony in a matter of days. And return to normal after geting some sleep back.

But is there an alternate system that could fill the roles of sleep without its considerable drawbacks?
We don't know, because Science doesn't know what sleep ultimately does.

So yes, *something* sleep accomplishes is fundamental. But without knowing exactly what we can't say that sleep is the only method of accomplishing it.

Urban myth. At best there's some lucky people who can get around with 4 hours of daily sleep, but even whose will be taxed if they just sleep 2 hours per day. The average is roughly 8 hours.

Why do you say urban myth?

The "average" used to be much higher. So the average doesn't matter a damn. People exist who can comfortably operate on much less sleep than average. Multiphasic sleep cycles can cut out a lot of sleep time. So the idea that 8 hours of sleep is the minimum necessary to operate an organism like a human is bunk anyway.

If we look at the animal kingdom we see wide ranging sleep lengths seemingly totally detached from both brain function and size. Chimps sleep longer than humans, despite being smaller and less intelligent.

Aotrs Commander

2012-04-07, 07:26 AM

That's only because cars are only cheap enough for lots of people to afford them, and proceed to ram them in each other. If every average-salary adult could afford their own airplane, and drive them after taking alchool/drugs, or simply making speed races, well, you can bet airplane acidents would skyrocket (pun intended).

Otherwise, airplanes are automatically much more suicidical because you're siting in a massive bomb with no escape route whatsoever. But airplane companies make sure to keep their propaganda machine running, since they can't sell to the mass public, they've got to play the "security" card.

Yes, when something goes into mass-production and easy availability, the associated risk increases a hundredfold.

That and the fact that aeroplane manufacturers have to got through much more rigorous safety regulations and testing. (My Dad is basically - by dint of Being In The Job Long Enough - nearly the world expert in fire precautions at Rolls-Royce (they periodically ship out all over the place).) They work to something daft like 1 in 10-9 failure safety features or something, and if it don't pass, it don't get airbourne (which has caused my Dad no end of trouble in recent years, with companies not wanting to spend the money to do the job properly, and then getting miffed when he won't sign 'em off...!)

But of course some of that is that as aircraft failures tend to be a bit more lethal if it really does gos wrong, they have to spend a lot more time and effort making sure if it does, there's redunancy and backups.

Even if they did mass produce aircraft, the regulations governing them would be vastly more restrictive than cars, for the simple reason aircraft have the potential to kill a lot more people is manhandled.

No can do. The more you observe and think, the more rest your brain needs to properly process the data you've learned. Aliens of similar intellegence that need a fraction of the sleep is as realistic as aliens that need to eat a fraction of what they grow and spend, breaking the laws of termodynamics.

Depends how complex the brain is. Something works in a way as yet not understood by 21st century science might prove to be more efficient as a data processor, allowing something to perhaps have a physically smaller, but faster processing brain, perhaps with more than one redundant "hemisphere" (we'll say, for the sake of argument) that allows it to effectve switch over and do the processing required by sleep while remaining active, by shunting that to one of the back-ups or swapping over or something.

So such an entity, sleep might be a foriegn concept.

That said, sleep is a function of pretty much all vertebrates, so it's quite likely that, aside from extremely physiologically advanced aliens, that sleep of some sort is quite likely to be found in higher-functioning aliens.

deuterio12

2012-04-07, 07:34 AM

But is there an alternate system that could fill the roles of sleep without its considerable drawbacks?
We don't know, because Science doesn't know what sleep ultimately does.

So yes, *something* sleep accomplishes is fundamental. But without knowing exactly what we can't say that sleep is the only method of accomplishing it.

Going whitout sleep will drive you mad. Sleeping will return your sanity. What more evidence do you exactly need?

Why do you say urban myth?

Because a lot of people think they can go with less sleep than normal with cheap tricks, and then we have cars and nuclear plants and space ships all crashing because people are doing their job at reduced brain efficiency and make idiotic fumbles that a 9-year old could've spoted.

Except the "average" used to be much higher. So the average doesn't matter a damn. People exist who can comfortably operate on much less sleep than average. Multiphasic sleep cycles can cut out a lot of sleep time. So the idea that 8 hours of sleep is the minimum necessary to operate an organism like a human is bunk anyway.

There's a key diference between "minimum" and "optimal". Yes, you can go with less sleep, but you'll pay dearly for it. Your brain will demand its rest back one way or the other, more often than not by limiting your thinking capacity and leading to grave mistakes you wouldn't commit if you had slept properly.

It's not for nothing that even multiphasic sleep defenders claim you should still sleep a total of 8 hours per day.

If we look at the animal kingdom we see wide ranging sleep lengths seemingly totally detached from both brain function and size. Chimps sleep longer than humans, despite being smaller and less intelligent.

They need more sleep precisely because they're smaller. Bigger organisms are more efficient in that they need relatively less rest and energy per mass unit than smaller ones. That's why evolution had a tendency to make things bigger until the limits imposed by physics in terms of how many mass your own muscles can hold.

endoperez

2012-04-07, 08:10 AM

Going whitout sleep will drive you mad. Sleeping will return your sanity. What more evidence do you exactly need?

That's true humans and several earth animals. We're talking about creatures that are, by definition, different from humans and earth animals. Until we know why humans etc need sleep, and how it works, we won't know if all intelligent life forms need it, or if there are different means to reach the same end effect.

They need more sleep precisely because they're smaller. Bigger organisms are more efficient in that they need relatively less rest and energy per mass unit than smaller ones. That's why evolution had a tendency to make things bigger until the limits imposed by physics in terms of how many mass your own muscles can hold.

This is the first time I've heard of this, and it doesn't seem to hold up.

Gorillas sleep about 13 hours each night and rest for several hours at midday.
koko.org (http://www.koko.org/about/basic.html)

Chimpanzees in this study slept 8.81 h per night, close to the averages reported for both industrialized and traditional human societies (7-9h), as opposed to that of previous chimpanzee studies (11-12h).
US National Library of Medicine (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16458369)

Total sleep time (TST) in the [adult asian elephants] comprised 4.0-6.5 hours per night.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1557589

Oh, now I found a quote aboutsize vs sleep:

"The greater the species' body weight, however, the less sleep it tends to need. For example, a tiny vole sleeps between 10 to 15 hours a day, while a massive giraffe usually sleeps about five. For the most part, this prediction factor holds up across the herbivore species, at least according to one study."
However, they mention carnivores vary more than herbivores.
http://curiosity.discovery.com/question/long-different-animals-sleep

Ravens_cry

2012-04-07, 08:21 AM

That's true humans and several earth animals. We're talking about creatures that are, by definition, different from humans and earth animals. Until we know why humans etc need sleep, and how it works, we won't know if all intelligent life forms need it, or if there are different means to reach the same end effect.

Well, whether we imagine aliens need it or not, sleep is hardly a uniquely human attribute.
And considering its nigh universality among multicellular life forms, it might not be too far fetched to assume other creatures that follow the same basic biochemical plan will also require sleep, despite our not knowing exactly why anything needs it.

Selrahc

2012-04-07, 08:34 AM

Going whitout sleep will drive you mad. Sleeping will return your sanity. What more evidence do you exactly need?

I'm not saying that sleep does nothing or that humans can do without it.
I'm saying that since we don't really know what it does, it is hard to argue that nothing could replace it.

And considering its nigh universality among multicellular life forms, it might not be too far fetched to assume other creatures that follow the same basic biochemical plan will also require sleep, despite our not knowing exactly why anything needs it.

However, I think it is a step too far to say that sleep is the only possible solution to a biological problem we can't yet even frame.
If somebody pitched an alien race that didn't sleep, that wouldn't break my verisimilitude.

endoperez

2012-04-07, 08:36 AM

Well, whether we imagine aliens need it or not, sleep is hardly a uniquely human attribute.
And considering its nigh universality among multicellular life forms, it might not be too far fetched to assume other creatures that follow the same basic biochemical plan will also require sleep, despite our not knowing exactly why anything needs it.

Multicellular life forms includes plants, mushrooms etc, and they don't sleep.

Multicellular animals do share it, but these are all EARTH animals... They share a common evolutionary path. Just because this evolutionary path adopted sleep early on doesn't mean there can't be alternatives for it.

pffh

2012-04-07, 08:37 AM

Multicellular life forms includes plants, mushrooms etc, and they don't sleep.

Multicellular animals do share it, but these are all EARTH animals... They share a common evolutionary path. Just because this evolutionary path adopted sleep early on doesn't mean there can't be alternatives for it.

Actually plants kinda do sleep or at least they show signs of an activity/chemical cycle quite similar to that of animal sleep patterns.

Ravens_cry

2012-04-07, 08:43 AM

I may not have been inclusive enough as cyanobacteria (http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/content/latest-questions/question/2043/) also have circadian rhythms. An interesting study would be to find out if cave creatures, creatures that live entirely in caves, forever in the dark, also sleep and if so, what patterns.
No, it would not bust my brain if an alien said "'Sleep', what is this 'sleep' you speak of?" but it still fascinates me with its broad commonality.
Ironically, I most often think about it when I can't.:smallamused:

Soras Teva Gee

2012-04-07, 09:14 AM

I think we can imagine going without sleep because its something we can all do to varying degrees. Most of us have probably pulled an all-nighter or done something where we end up just not sleeping. Not sleeping is by definition something we are all familiar with.

Just that biologically it seems to not be that simple as sleep goes deep into the roots of animal biology. So we just underestimate how if aliens are remotely like us (active reactive in seconds) they will probably have something like sleep, and have seen it in their own zoology.

Changing topic I think the most interesting conceit often given for aliens is clothing. Though reasonably averted we still see a high high number of aliens wearing clothes. Which really only is needed if one inhabits varied environments. While I can say something about the expansionist psychology that would create that behavior being a benefit, there no real reason why you couldn't found an industrial society while still occupying a single environment, assuming there are resources available like with coal in England.

Given Sci-Fi love of single biome planets its a wonder there aren't more nudist races.

endoperez

2012-04-07, 09:28 AM

"Cicadian clock/cycle" seems to be related to the fact that sun is only shining for part of the time... and I'll agree that this sort of adaptation is likely in even alien lifeforms, as long as their planet of origin also had some sort of day/night cycle. It could take different forms, though. Not sure what they'd be, exactly, but meh.

edit re: nudist races

There's lots and lots of nudist races. The farther away it is from the humanoid shape, the less clothes you see. Here (http://androidarts.com/starcontrol/umgah_08.jpg) are some (http://androidarts.com/starcontrol/supox_roughs.jpg) illustrations based on Star Control 2 races, found through this thread (http://forum.uqm.stack.nl/index.php?topic=4028.0). There is a human male in the first one, and even though he's been given something to wear, he is mostly naked. So shoo, if that scares you.