Let us take a moment to revel in our deep memory of fantasy and sci-fi lore and think of all the strange mysterious intelligent races inhabiting the countless worlds spawned by the authors’ imagination. There’s surely a lot of them, we could in fact spend the whole day counting them. Now let’s remove the humanoids from our list. How is that all the infinite possibilities given by physical deities, magic and billions of alien planets always come down to the bipedal monkey lookalike? Now, among the remaining species, let us also remove those which, even if non-humanoid, still behave in a manner similar to humans.
How many are left?
Human or Non-human?
I understand it is hard to create an entirely new and original sapient species, ours is already pretty complex and its features yet to be completely examined. Since it is by now the only one, it would be natural for the writer to imitate humankind when creating other sentient beings for his works, but, if all the differences he can come up with are just horns or pointed ears, the author should ask himself if it really is necessary to add other species to the Plot.
After all, dwarves, elves, orcs in modern fantasy, for the way they are depicted, could be very well be substituted by human societies as their behavior and their appearance does not really differ that much in the first place. Let us take a look at others renowned historical stereotypes: is the ugly Mongol barbarian coming from East with his horde that different from an orc? Is the fragile cultured nature-loving French illuminist that different from an elf? Is the silent short diligent Chinese worker that different from a dwarf?
If the previous examples look offensive, that’s exactly the point: so many times authors create species like they would create a single character; they put together a dominant physical feature and a dominant psychical feature and call it a race, so we can have short grumpy dwarves, tall self-righteous elves, sturdy warmongering orcs and so on. You could say in the last years it’s getting better, but I would say still not so much, let us try with a modern sci-fi example, Mass Effect, and we’ll still have: asari/elves, krogan/orcs, vorcha/goblins, salarians/gnomes, turians/dwarves, quarians/halflings. Someone could say ‘How about the hanar?’; yes, well, how much screen-time did they have in the whole trilogy again?
As the previous examples show, it is possible a society can create stereotyped visions of other societies, the problem arise when the author does it: if the dwarf NPC describes the elves as uppity effeminates living in trees, there is nothing wrong with him having a racist stereotyped view of the species, it starts becoming something wrong when the Plot shows us the elves actually are all uppity effeminates living in trees. A culture can have countless facets, if it hasn’t then that’s already an unusual feature to explore right there: after all to describe human species in its entirety a couple of adjectives are certainly not enough.
At this point I would say, when creating a fantasy or sci-fi society which is basically mankind with a difference or two, is it really needed to be another species? Can’t it be directly mankind? You might be surprised the original ideas coming with a different closer perspective.
The elves might be substituted by a realm of druids, who abandoned the more “classic” medieval human fantasy societies and decided to create their own utopia closer to nature. Maybe they actually sharpen their ears with blades, as sign of distinction from other people, perhaps each newborn cuts his own in the coming-of-age ritual.
And what do you know? Vulcan might have be one of the first planets to be colonized by the Federation, mostly by scientists and researchers. They settled there and built their own society in their laboratory base, which was then inherited by their descendants. They were all top IQ doctors, should there be any surprise earthlings now call vulcanians irritating wiseguys?
There is no need to create a parallel line of evolution when the result is a human-by-any-other-name. Both in fantasy and sci-fi there are plenty of ways for humans who wish to differentiate themselves as part of particular group to change their appearance anyway. Fantasy has magic, which can transfigure and warp matter, sci-fi has plastic surgery. Heck, even today there are plenty of ways to permanently change the color or shape of your eyes, hair, skin and teeth, is it really that hard to imagine a probable future where LOTR fans and trekkies could all feature surgically sharpened ears? There you have your obnoxious society of ear-pointed brats, was there the need to go search outside the human genetic pool?
But if we want to go all the way, to create a sentient species which is not human, what to do? How to behave?
The Physiology
The first basic quandary lays on the nature and origin of the species. How its exemplars came into being and how do they look now. To understand how the members of the species will think and how they will be perceived by other species, it is fundamental to dig deep in their biology.
The Origin
Evolution: In fantasy it is a highly disregarded option (perhaps because it would imply dwarves, elves and humans are subtypes of the same species?), but nevertheless it should be taken into account, even if there are living fully-interacting gods in the setting, that doesn’t automatically mean life will automatically be frozen or incapable of finding its own way. I would still put evolution as the cause for the majority of species in a setting, since being artificial it’s a special case unto itself which would need plenty of attention; anyway that’s more of a personal taste. If the prototype species evolved from lesser creatures, than it is a priority to imagine which were those and how they differentiated themselves in the course of ages: you’re not adding a single species dropped from above, you’re most likely adding a whole Order, if not an entire Class or Phylum. If you take humans, we’re mammalian primates, try and take a look at all the other mammalian primates which separately evolved from the same root in the course of the last couple million years. If the creature does not belong to an ordinary Class (mammalian, reptile, bird, etc.), then you have to invent all the Orders, Families, Subfamilies, Genus and Species which belong to that new Class. If there aren’t, what conditions killed them? What conditions allowed that one species of that particular customized Order to survive alone? More important: what allowed our prototype species to develop intelligence (let us not quibble on the kind for now)? Every form of life evolves in different ways and only if certain conditions are met and always in the most minimalized and efficient way. The humans’ way is not the only way nor the most complex one, it was only focused on a specialization and development of neural cognitive functions necessary for the creation of tools needed to defend the exemplars from dangers and to allow them to find food in an easier way. It is not the only way an intelligent species could evolve, there may be other needs requiring other areas of the brain to develop, which of course will greatly influence the way of thinking of our prototype.
Indipendent Genesis: This is an intermediate way, it is when a species is created by something (which can be one or more beings or just an unnatural disaster), but it has all the requirements to survive on its own (which mostly means its members can reproduce themselves). In this case nevertheless the species is something created outside the natural order; in a way, this means the author can take greater liberties in its features, he can overdo or underdo as much as it would be realistic in the condition of his particular setting and the species can be alone and isolated if confronted to all the existing other species generated through nature and evolution. It does not automatically mean the species does not abide to rules of nature or that it cannot evolve, far from it in fact: since it is not dependent from the cause of creation, it can and most likely will be integrated in the setting’s biosphere (or, if not fitted, destroyed by local creatures) and possibly evolve to adapt to the indigenous dangers. I guess it would be an easier path for a writer to go, since it has so less problems and research to be attended to, but the author should also beware that, if the creation happened sufficiently long before, the numerous generations passed interacting and interbreeding in the setting will also provide diversity and multitudes of subcategories. Droids in recent fiction are often depicted like this: they were created, but they learn out to duplicate themselves and try to find their own path.
Dependent Genesis: This is rarer and, albeit the easiest one, a less used way since it is highly dehumanizing. A species with dependent genesis not only was created, but remains subjected to the cause of its creation, to the point it cannot survive without it. Angels, demons, blobs, laboratory abominations and other unearthly creatures fall all into this category: depending on the setting other of their kind might be produced, but they cannot reproduce themselves on their own or they need to remain linked with a particular source of energy or maintain connection with their creator or they’ll either stop functioning correctly or outright die. For this category I would say it should be a great concern of the author to focus on their basically enslaved existence, much more than instinct (which would be a first reason for the previous two categories) their link with their origin or creator should be one of the main influences on their psyche and society. How were they created? Why? And do they know why (if there is a reason)? Was their habitat created with them in mind or were they created to fit in a particular habitat? Do they find themselves in that particular habitat during the Plot or were they forced to move somewhere else? If the cause of their creation was singular and unrepeatable, how do they cope with their slow inevitable extinction?
The Habitat
Talking of the setting at large would be a book by itself, therefore I shall keep this simple for a single little paragraph. The topic boils down on the compatibility of the creature to the current habitat (or habitats). It doesn’t matter if the species was created or evolved, since the habitat might have been created as well to accommodate an alien artificial being or, on the flip side, a natural creature may find itself roaming outside of its atavic land. The creature likely is structured for a particular purpose in a particular food-chain of a particular habitat (even if no habitat like that ever existed, as it could be for a laboratory experiment gone wrong). If it isn’t in its habitat, it will still try to perform its basic purpose and satisfy its basic needs; depending on the creature and the habitat, this could provoke an adaptation with catastrophic consequences from the former or the latter. There are plenty of historical examples of exported species who either went extinct or wrecked their new home. If the species disposes of the means to make a foreign place more suited for its needs, it will naturally try to change it. It’s instinctual, it applies to humans as well to any other form of life. The point is in how differently from humans the prototype species will reshape the world and in how the world will reshape the prototype species, in time.
The Features
The premises have been put, now let’s try to build it:
Sustenance: How do we classify our species? What does it need to keep going? Carnivores or omnivores usually have enhanced senses and metabolism compared to herbivores, but let us not stop here: our sentient species could very well be derived from a plant or a fungus or some other homebrew form of life. If it needs meat, what kind of meat? Of a particular group of animals, or from a particular organ? Does the creature need to breathe? And, if so, does it breathe oxygen? Does the creature needs sun to survive (even humans do to fully develop their bones)? Does the creature needs to rest? For how long? If doesn’t sleep it doesn’t dream, imagine possible consequences on its culture. Does the creature needs to drink water (or some other liquid)? And how much? Remember the creation goes in parallel: if you say the species does not need water, for example, you need to justify how it evolved (or was designed) to survive without it, especially if the setting is earthlike. The basic needs of the species not only greatly influence its appearance but will also define its way of thinking and its society. A creature evolved to be a ravager does not think as a creature evolved to be a hunter, even if both eat meat, therefore imagine how different a sentient plant would think… It is also of a certain importance how does the creature takes what it needs: does it breathe from the mouth or directly from the skin (amphibious do it)? Does it eat from the mouth or has it some other way of assimilating its favorite meal? Finally, creatures dependent from magic or completely without needs (usually artificial ones) will also have a very different approach to life.
Senses: How does the creature perceive the world? We base our interaction mostly on sight, other animals in our world do not, preferring sound or smell or touch (of course, there are others with a sight far more developed than ours too). As some creatures perceive the visual frequencies, others may perceive the infrared or the ultraviolet or whatever might be possible in the setting. And so, the way the creature perceives the world will influence how it interacts with the world. A blind species may have a different equivalent of painting focused on touch. In Star Wars Episode II you might have seen the blinding white kaminoans’ cloning facilities, it would interest you to know they are actually bright colored in the ultraviolet tones which are not perceivable by human watchers, but can be admired by the indigenous aliens.
Body: This is the most problematic point: it is easier to go with the biped humanoid line and create variation out of it: the author will see on one side the human-like form and on the other the quadruped beast-like form and automatically decide the biped one is the more fitted for another sentient species. But why should someone limit himself? You’re creating a different species, create a different form. A bird is also a biped, but its back is not straight directly on the feet and the prehensile limbs are not the first pair. The habitat the creature was meant for will greatly influence its form, if the body is protected and from what (concussions, radiations, cold, pressure, etc.). A creature might be able to fly in the dense air of its homeland as if it was swimming, and then suffocate, crushed by ours. Remember also the size, it will influence how the species treats other animals, it will influence its metabolism (the bigger it is, the more it needs to consume to keep going) and it will influence the way it treats its spawn (if it has any): imagine, if our newborn babies were just a couple of inches big when they came out, all the problems arising to take care of them without accidentally squashing them; for a forty-meters long creature remaining close to its spawn after birth might be more dangerous than just leaving it to itself. The metabolism is also of great importance to determine the psyche of our species: as homoeothermic beings, mammals are very active and with quick reflexes (which also means they need more food to maintain a constantly high body temperature and to keep moving); reptiles need less food in proportion, but they are highly dependent (without considering exceptions) on the surrounding temperatures, they are sleepy and slow until they have heated enough themselves under the sun and have reached a body temperature acceptable to search for food successfully. A society of reptiles might go in complete hibernation in winter, its members may be active only for a shorter part of every day, just to make an easy example.
Limbs (prehensile): We humans depend greatly on our prehensile pawns, which have greatly helped our ascent in the local food chain, but again, having hands is not the only way. In real world octopi have been seen performing pretty accurate feats of manipulation of objects with their tentacles, elephants are just a little far off with just one appendix. Tentacles, proboscises, tongues and the like can all help our species prototype while greatly differentiating it from ours. Just imagine a simple difference like having three fingers for each hand.. well the decimal system and all mathematic have to be rearranged already. What’s like if the species doesn’t have fingers at all? The complete lack of prehensile limbs isn’t nevertheless an absolute requirement for an intelligent species to create cities and societies when other factors may be considered. Maybe a species evolved to exploit a condition or another species with the opposable thumb to its benefit, maybe a species has telepathic or telekinetic powers, since it can delegate or otherwise use other beings as its tools, it doesn’t need to do the work with its own body. Perhaps some of the readers will remember the glukkons from the Oddworld videogame series? They didn’t have prehensile limbs, but they were big carnivores, influential and smart enough to bully smaller and weaker (and in some cases stupider) species into building their industrial empire for them.
Limbs (locomotory): Wings, fins and the like in the more likable and realistic combination. I seem to recall there have been a lot of instances of flying fishes, just another type of amphibious life form. In this category, when an author wants to create an original species, there can be the risk of overdoing, placing too many body parts and making a mess out of it. Whether the species evolved or was created, it’s likely to have a minimalistic and efficient design (in the previous case the way the same limb can be employed for both swimming and flying or swimming and walking, there will not be two different sets); the only exceptions might be erratic or artificial creatures, something born of a magical disaster or an unsuccessful experiment might not be particularly elegant and a powerful creator can add all the pieces he wants, but remember, like size, the presence of many limbs implies the need for a lot of sustenance, but it also implies the need for a specialized mind to allow a minimal form of control over those limbs by the creature. Exactly like for the prehensile limbs, it is not implied for a species to require locomotory limbs if particular situations apply, a creature able to levitate will likely not need any, a creature dependent on others might not need them as well (as a termite queen); if the prototype species is a sentient plant, its exemplars will be stuck in the ground, they would not necessarily need to move because they can feed and reproduce themselves without walking an inch from their position.
The Psychology
The Instinct
As a starting point now, the author should recollect all the physical characteristic of the prototype and think of how they will influence the instinct of the species’ members. Their instinct will still influence them as they acquire sentience, the same way humans still fear dark, are driven to eat food and search for mates. If the species is artificial, the instinct may be built in or acquired once it is released in the setting’s habitats.
Usually a large creature fears less from predators once it has grown, a large creature has still less capacity of manipulation than a smaller one and it’s likely to be less agile or slower. Depending on the setting a species of land may fear sky and water alike: it may fear to drown or to fall and crush; species of sea will be even more scared of the dry ground, especially if you consider in our setting a lot of walking creatures are able to swim, while most of fishes are near-helpless outside the water. The instinctual need to find a mate and procreate has spawned countless quarrels and stories about Love in our case, but if our prototype reproduces by gemmation and each member doesn’t need a mate to create spawn, the whole mentality and culture change. If the creature is large or a top predator, it may be that it is solitary, it will feel fine when alone and threatened and violent when with others of its kind: a human can search comfort in the multitude, but for a tiger another tiger is a rival and an enemy. On the opposite side, species developed in hive-mind may actually be unable to live outside their groups, their members’ utter lack of individualism may result equally unsettling to the human point of view as the aggressive selfishness of solitary species. As pointed out before, the source of sustenance greatly influence physic and psyche alike, but it has to be remembered that being a carnivore (for example) doesn’t automatically make a species more threatening or aggressive, hippopotamuses are herbivores yet far more dangerous and violent than crocodiles; the same way, a person may have more to fear from a bull than it has from a vulture: if our prototype species evolved from opportunistic carnivores, we’re not talking about aggressive predators, but of meek and cautious scavengers. If the species can reproduce itself quickly and with many hatchlings, the relationship between parents and spawn will be different: remember mammalians evolved precisely to spend a heap load of energies to nurse single younglings, our very name comes from the characteristic appendixes whose only purpose is to feed the cubs. Ours take a lot of time to come out, a lot of time to grow, a lot of time to become independent; a fish will just leave clusters of dozens of eggs and be on its way, hoping a male will eventually come around to shower them with fertilizer, and that’s it. The differences in the care of infants will be brought on in the species even when it becomes sentient. The same goes for the longevity: the way an Ancient Egyptian farmer with a 30 years of life expectancy could cope with the world and society was considerably different from the way a modern day First World citizen with a 100 years of life expectancy does (we’ve topped the century: we’ve become pretty much elves by now).
Variations
This is one of the main mistakes when creating other sentient species: they are made all the same, both in physic and psyche. Humans are divided in many ethnic groups with appreciable physical differences and, even inside the same ethnos, there are infinite differences granted by the recombination of genes in the reproduction process; why must every other species be composed by clones? Of course, if we are talking about some sort of synthetic species or actual clones, the topic changes, but, if not, isn’t it possible to add variety to the species?
When I say variety of course I do not mean the lonely group of Drizzts who rebel against the otherwise fully concurring single-minded society and end up always somehow accepting the humans’ values for some reason (figures…).
The problem here lies in the fundamental error in the creation of other species I was talking about before: pick up a trait from mankind and overblow it: if we take the orcs, warmongering and with the belief the strong should rule over the weak until it is toppled by the stronger.. guess what, we had human societies who thought that way, this way the author is extending to entire species the set of belief which constitutes only a tiny winy bit of all which was spawned by human mind in the course of history. For any given subject, we have at least two opposite parties and all other of different crazy stands, this because each one’s mind reaches different conclusions according to its intrinsic characteristics and to how it was nursed and influenced over the years by different sources. If we are talking about a species with a conscious developed mind, it should have at least as many contrasting ideas as humans have.
Depending on how and with whom the species evolved, it is true it might share some traits in common with humans, but, rather than focus on some of those, the author should try to create traits which are completely alien to us, positions to which, one way or the other, we still are baffled or incapable of taking a relatable standing point. To remain in the D&D setting for another example: in illithid society there are two lines of thought about the sun, one states the Empire’s energies should be focused on creating an artifact of doom to shut off the star as soon as possible to facilitate the ascension to surface, the other states it would be better to search for ways and spells to shield the members of the species from the light without wasting too much time and energies on the star itself which will, after all, die on its own, in time. They are diametrically opposed, but neither is more favorable from the humans’ point of view.
The Society
Requirements
Nothing says an intelligent species will automatically create one or more societies as we did. As stated many times before, if the species evolved from solitary creatures, it will long for solitude, it won’t search for others of its kind (unless in the mating season), thus not providing the progressive gathering of knowledge from a generation to another which eventually creates the base for a culture. The nature of the species is not however the only requirement or impediment for the formation of a society, a Star Wars example: even if lonely, selfish and fiercely territorials, Hutts managed to create one of the oldest and most powerful societies in the Galaxy, that because for every one of them there were thousands of minions of other species to link the whole system.
Communitarian species in a hostile environment will on the other hand find themselves lacking for the requirements needed for a society to emerge; wood and stone are some of the basic materials to build solid long-term houses, if a population does not dispose of them, it will not likely reach the point when it will learn to build in concrete and steel; the possibilities of creating a stable settlement requires the capability of providing food without moving (be it agriculture as for humans or a different source of food), else the species will likely remain nomadic. For the potential expansion of the prototype society there is also to be considered the basic means of transportation the setting would provide, especially if the species cannot fly on its own or hasn’t a high endurance allowing its members to run for long distances: try to compare the different spans of the Aztec Empire (with nothing), the Inca Empire (with lamas) and the Roman Empire (with horses).
Particular circumstances are also to be considered: so many times there have been depictions of abyssal cities of mermaids and other aquatic species which do not take into account the problems of high pressure and total lack of light (and their repercussions on the species’ evolution itself); depending on the depth, the ocean has a very distinct stratification of life forms with specific needs and qualities, it’s unlikely an abyssal creature will ever see light or swim close to the surface as it’s unlikely surface fishes will go too deep down to ever see the bottom.
Other particular circumstance are the natural means of communication: a species which is provided with telepathy or long-distance pheromone contact and the like may not feel the same drive to create close packs since its members can still speak with each other from afar; on the other hand the complete lack of natural means of communication may provoke the need for closeness to maintain at least a basic understanding on each other’s state.
After having created the original species, the author should once again look at its and the setting’s characteristics and see if they provide the right conditions for societies of said species to emerge, and how.
Laws and Customs
We’ve already seen how setting and biology can influence the psyche of a particular species, the same applies on the possible culture spawned by that species. The common mistake of authors in this instance is to create cultures which are either more or less advanced than the local human population, which is just a cheap excuse to avoid spending time on creating an equivalent non-humanlike society (of course, as for the less advanced ones, the protagonist may say they’re not really primitives, just different, to remain politically correct, but, once again, it’s what we see that counts).
Since the features are mostly depending in each case, I will just provide some of the most common examples:
Contrary to what writers of elves usually say, I would think a potentially immortal species will have (or try to employ) a very strict birth control, especially if it evolved already as long-lived (and thus is sustainable in savage state), especially if one or both genders never become sterile: the comforts of society will undoubtedly increase the birth rate and decrease the infant mortality rate and the deaths by disease and starvation, and if natural death is out of the equation from the start, no matter how much infertile is the species, it would have the potential of overrunning the world. The system is doubly detrimental as a calamity or a very vicious war could suddenly bring the civilization to its knees, but an unchecked relatively short period of peace could create an overpopulation problem. Also, there is the very sensitive point that, without the fear of inevitable death by old age, such a species will be less likely to develop a religion or maintain it after some times, unless gods actively meddle in the setting (if the species’ members already have immortality, they won’t need to search for it in the afterlife).
A flying species reunited into a society might have a considerable amount of regulation for building constructions, just think of the possibilities of blocking someone’s diving point with a wall, or creating unfavorable and possibly deadly currents by raising a tower in a particular place or in a particular manner. There will also be regulations to avoid problems with aerial traffic, it is a lot harder to create roads in a tridimensional space with no base, a small settlement of ten thousand people could already be at risk of potential multiple crashing, which again could be deadly or permanently damaging (it takes very little for a bird to be unable to fly again). Such a society could also acknowledge the overweight problem a lot faster than humans, as a flying creature, if it wants to stay a flying creature, needs to always remain in top shape; else the species might have evolved from its flying ancestral predecessors to be terrestrial (you know, like pigeons are about to).
A nocturnal species might have instinctual fear of light and seek solace in the darkness, if its members have the need to warm themselves, fire might not be an option, it would appear more disturbing than it does to humans. A species living underground will fear fresh air and the sky, but it will also shun away from any open space, it will need to be closely surrounded by walls which would easily make a human claustrophobic (a nice example were Dragon Age dwarves, who genuinely feared that if they went on the surface they would have fallen into the sky).
A cold-blooded species will fear cold seasons (if there is any) or cold lands (if there are any), if technology progresses they may be likely to create complex heating systems (maybe even implanted on their own body) to remain active during winter rather than go into hibernation. They will usually alternate long periods of sleep and sloth to quick moments of febrile activity; if we are talking about reptiles, a matriarchal society might be more likely as females would generally be bigger and meaner than males.
A species living underwater, unless it has adapted to inhabit the bottom of the ocean, will face serious problems to establish settlements (again, if its biology encompasses the need and the tools to create them), maybe it will solve with travelling cities made of light materials slowly roaming into the established paths of the warm currents (which again would be necessary for cold-blooded activities). The lack of possibilities for agriculture or analogue sources of sustenance would also force the nomadic way (unless special circumstances apply, of course).
Tongues and Kingdoms
This is another point usually ignored for simplicity, it boils down to the monology of the non-human species: many authors create a sentient species and round all its members into a single society. It is the same problem I’ve written of in the previous paragraph about the psyche, applied to culture: there are and have been tens of thousands of different human societies, why there has to be only one per non-human species? Customs, cultures, religions, technology, magic knowledge and languages change for every group; you can say you talk elvish but you cannot say you can talk humanish, why is that so? Because there are countless human languages and, for each one, countless local dialects, especially if the culture lacks the universal medias (State education, television, internet, etc.) to uniform the speech and writing patterns. Unless we are talking about a species with a very reduced population, the mere spreading of individuals into different lands and the creation of more than one settlement will be enough to provoke the rise of different behaviors and cultures, heck, there are historical examples of strong cultural and ethnic divisions even inside the same city.
Interspecies Intercourses
Which brings us to the final point: how does the species (and its societies) interact with one another and other species (among which there may be humans)?
If more than one sentient species exists at the same time in the same setting, the author should ask himself what places did they occupy in the local habitat, because, since they both evolved to be smart (in the same or different way), there is a high chance they were biological rivals, like Sapiens and Neanderthal (and we have a slight idea of how that turned out…), there is to be a reason why they managed to survive both long enough to become sentient and create more or less advanced societies (whether they are integrated or separated).
In real life, we have yet to resolve our quarries about racial discrimination even if we are all of the same species, just imagine what could happen in a setting were societies are made up of actually different species, the likelihood of genocidal courses of action increase to near-certainty levels. With genocide I do not necessarily mean a WWII extermination, the process may be subtle and unconscious as one species slowly occupies the vital space and resources of the other, grows in numbers and, since the possibility of interbreeding is biologically impossible, the other becomes doomed to slow extinction.
If the different species evolved in different habitats, the clash will not be less disturbing, if you think about the Aztecs mistaking the Spanish for gods or the Europeans mistaking the Mongols for demons (hence calling them Tartars), then remember in a fantasy setting the invading species might actually be composed of supernatural creatures coming from the netherworld.
And even when a pacific relationship is reached, how will two different sentient species interact? The barrier between the two cultures might very well be a lot deeper than any historically experienced, the biological differences might prevent a total or even partial compatibility and create further reasons for conflict. Let us take a fitting juristic example to conclude:
Should an elf killing a human and human killing an elf be punished in the same way?
You see, if the elves are immortals and medieval humans can only hope for half a century (more or less), shouldn’t the second murder be graver than the first? After all the elf has only stolen some decades from the human he killed, the human has taken away eternity from his victim. Yet the act is the same, why the elf should be favored? Would this imply the value of human life is considered less than the value of elven life? How humans are likely to react?
I realize the paragraphs of this essay are obviously incomplete, but generally speaking of xenobiology and xenosociology could theoretically cover entire books and take a lot more research and time I could muster. With this article I only try to offer hints on some sensitive particulars, it is for the author to expand then the research for what he needs on more specialized sources.
Fireshark on 18 July 2013, 10:12 said:
Another good article! This one hits fairly close to home since I’m currently writing a story that focuses on humanoid aliens. I’m doing my best to think it all out well, but it still wouldn’t be acceptable as hard SF.
Sometimes I think realism can be sacrificed for better storytelling, though. For example, if the audience can’t relate to an alien species at all, then that’s a problem if humans and aliens are supposed to communicate and relate to one another in-story. There might be aliens somewhere without recognizable faces, but that would just, uh, alienate them from all but the most imaginative people.
Still, writers make a species stand in for a human culture/country all too often. So that extreme is clearly more of a problem at present than making them too weird is.
Related, does anyone remember Animorphs? That had some pretty bizarre alien designs, and the author made it work.
Sìlfae on 18 July 2013, 10:47 said:
Thank you. Of course in the article I do not mean other humanoid species should be avoided on principle at any cost; if their form is justified, I would say the problem lays in the psyche more than the physic. As I was pointing out in the previous article about Morality, different kinds of creatures may evolve following similar patterns to address similar difficulties (as a dolphin or an ichthyosaurus), but in such cases the similarity should only be apparent and the behavior and the societies of said creatures may very well deeply differ from humans’, even if they’re humanoid.
What I meant in the article was that, if the author wants to create a species which is both in psyche and in physic akin to mankind (as it is for elves, dwarves and the like), then it would be best for the author to consider it just another society of the very same human species.
I would think that’s a point the author should exploit: if his story provides examples of a human (or a group of humans) relating to a non-humanoid species, it should be part of the writing process to make the characters (and the readers) go beyond the differences in appearance; if we already managed to do so with “ugly” people (more or less), it could be time to pass to other beings as well. As the differences are not just in the phisic, the difficulties to reach empathy increase, and so does the scope of the fictional struggle.
For what concerns the difficulties in physical interactions, I’d say they would add to the realism and the originality of the setting: if it’s hard for the human character to even speak with the alien, it just adds another layer of anguish in their attempt to relate with each other. It is not something completely unheard of, there are plenty of historical examples about clashing of separate human cultures with no linguistic links.
Yes, I would say the problem lays in the difficulty in characterization: for obvious reasons it is already hard to come up with a line of thought genuinely non-humanlike, it would be near-impossible to create countless, but its mere repetition flattens the culture and the species; to dig into the species’ biology and natural or supernatural origin should offer the author more hints and bases from which creating the different mindset by comparison.
swenson on 18 July 2013, 11:45 said:
Re: Mass Effect: if ME’s species have a saving grace, it’s that species truly are portrayed as having facets. The krogan are the obvious example—while they truly are a warlike and violent species, that’s not all they are. Some krogan like science (even if it’s warlike science). Some want to make alliances and figure out a way to have peace (Wrex). I always go back to that krogan mechanic in ME2—he doesn’t seem to even remotely care about the fighting, he just is annoyed because people keep breaking his trucks. So that’s at least a start.
Buuuut… they all appear to have one single government, which okay, I know it’s the future and humans have basically one government too, but still…
Ah, but that’s the point in my urban fantasy world! Dalar (let’s be honest: elves) are humans, just a subspecies descended from perfectly ordinary humans who were radically changed by magic, they just really hate to admit it, because humans have cooties.
Love the dwarf/elf picture, by the way!
At any rate, this is of interest to me because my current fantasy WiP has rather non-traditional species in it, quite deliberately. Two of the three are still humanoid (the third are essentially sentient pterosaurs), but I’ve tried to at least make them unusual… and figure out how humans are different from them, not just how they’re different from humans. At least with the two who appear vaguely humanoid (iskene routinely hit seven feet, have blue skin and skinny, long limbs; hrata are three to four feet and almost entirely covered with fur, except for their heads, which are entirely bald), it’s mostly external. Internally, they’re quite different (for example, the iskene have hemocyanin in their blood and two hearts).
Yeah, this one I’ve worked very hard to avert, because it makes no logical sense. Certain languages might be particularly common with people of a particular species in the part of the world I’m focusing on, but that’s because they often come from the same place (Praeston is the largest hrata nation in the area, for example, so obviously most hrata come from there). And plenty of languages are spoken by people of the “wrong” species.
A good example of where this is done well, as with all other things in his work, is Tolkien’s Middle-earth. You don’t speak “Elvish”, you likely speak either Quenya or Sindarin (but there are other elvish languages). And the elves rather importantly are not a single group. You’ve got the Noldor, the Sindar, the Teleri… etc.
Sìlfae on 18 July 2013, 13:35 said:
Of course, it’s a start, but I’d say we need to go further; at least the Mass Effect universe explored the causes of some of the most prominent behaviors of its species (such as the Krogan history, the vorcha rejuvinating biology etc.).
I would think for this sci-fi settings that overnational organizations linking colonies and States on different planets might be more probable than centralized actual government (something like the EU, but on a greater scale). Not that it would be necessarily unlikely for a State to have interplanetary borders, but, even in such circumstances, the people of different planets are likely to inevitably develop cultural differences (it already happened in our continental Empires…).
Yes, why not? After enhancing their life-span (and ears) with magic, why shouldn’t the “elves” actually try to use their influence and power to spread false propaganda about their origin: they’re going to live far longer than normal humans, they’d have more time to plan it and falsify sources and evidence, so as to be aknowledged as a completely different species to further justify their sense of superiority.
Why, thank you; I usually try to put something in the middle of the walls of text to avoid discouraging too much the reader.
Uh, the sentient pterosaurs looks interesting.
The comparative method is always a safe way to point out the features of something which wouldn’t exist in real life, I would say the only risk is to fall into the opposition block (the humans are X, so the aliens will be -X; the humans are Y, so the aliens will be -Y, etc.), but, short of that, it’s also the way I go for.
Yes, it depends on where they grew and with whom; the presence of an egemonic culture or particular circumstances might provide a common language (like latin in the past, english in the present or huttese in Star Wars), but it does not automatically suppress the local ones; there might be languages associated to particular social castes rather than species or race, like latin in Middle Age as the language of priests and (later on) doctors or like the imperial russian or imperial japanese, highly differing from the commong talk to the point of being incomprehensible to peasants in the past.
Well, yes, Tolkien spent a great deal of time on the linguistic (and the setting) development.
Brendan Rizzo on 18 July 2013, 19:08 said:
I find it amusing that the title of this article suggests than it will be about humanoid aliens, but then three-fourths of it is about sentient species radically different to humans.
Regarding the truly alien, while I agree that other fantasy species shouldn’t just be humans that look funny, at the same time I would have to say that making the setting such that humans and other species will never be able to understand each other even with effort opens up a whole other can of worms. Leaving alone the question of whether a species whose actions are incomprehensible can even be considered intelligent at all (e. g. your solitary predators would probably never evolve human-level intelligence if they only ever interact during mating season, and conversely I would think that humans who studied the culture of eusocial insects would be able to learn to understand their rationale for their actions.) I’d just like to remind everyone that back when racism was unquestioned, it was taken as an article of faith that Europeans would never be able to understand Asians, so writes shouldn’t underestimate humanity’s ability to socialize with those not like itself.
But I am glad to see that I’m not the only one who thinks that there’s no need to have more than one humanoid species in a setting. It’s quite telling that that “elf-dwarf hybrid” is just someone who hasn’t shaved in a while. But still, I am disappointed that there wasn’t more in here about how cliche the whole “elves are just like humans, but better, even though they’ve remained at a medieval tech level since humans were living in caves” thing is. I blame Tolkien.
Pryotra on 18 July 2013, 19:56 said:
Meh, Tolkien took from norse myths, so you might as well blame them.
I’m not necessarily against non-human races having traits that are human, but I definitely think that their should definitely be something alien about them, which makes them more than ‘short bearded humans who mine’ and ‘tall awesome humans who live in trees and have magic’. For instance, immortality would give the Fair Folk some really, really odd views on morality and suffering. I was pretty influenced by Lady Wilde, so I never saw the Fair Folk quite comprehending the idea of money or food as something to be horded, and judging people by their own standards.
As far as origins, if you want to be purely mythical, dwarfs are carved from stone looking the way they do all their lives, and they carve other dwarfs from stone. The Fair Folk are…complicated. The opinions on what they are very from elements, to angels who are kind of neutral, to the old gods of Ireland, so unless you’re making a world of your own where you don’t have to worry about this sort of thing, I’ve always found it best not to worry to much about the ‘where did you come from’ issue. I guess it depends on how closely you want your world to follow the original stories and how unique you want to be.
Sìlfae on 19 July 2013, 03:21 said:
Well, yes, the rant is about the habit of creating aliens which are basically humans.
I wouldn’t say that creating a truly alien species would automatically make it incompatible with humans (or others); as you yourself say right after, it shouldn’t be underestimated the ability of humans to relate with other species (or of other species to relate with humans).
I’d say that, as almost all features, it depends on the particular setting one is creating. The evolutionary drive to intelligence is not necessarily focused on socialization. Octopi need a specialized nervous system to deal with their complex multiple appendixes; if you take Anzati (Star Wars again), they only met with themselves on mating season, but they developed a nervous system even more advanced than average humanoids to control their telepathic and mind-controlling abilities they need to better hunt other humanoids.
If a dragon needs to control is movement on land, air, check is fire and so on, is likely to be driven to develop is brain on the course of the generations; generally I would say predators are more likely to be considered as possible sentient candidates, as their need to fight and hunt already requires greater mental capabilities than herbivores. A lonely species (carnivore, omnivore, herbivore, plant or whatever) may be less likely to create a society, but I would not automatically link the lack of society with a lack of intelligence, to link too much the two would imply one is seeing the species through the human point of view, even if it evolved from another root.
Well, I did talk a little about that on the first paragraph, I didn’t dwell on it because I’d say it was obvious, the whole article is about avoiding to make aliens looking like humans (both on the outside and on the inside).
Of course, a fairy playing with a human may not take into account some of its games might be excruciating or lethal for him, like the fireys in Labyrinth trying to help Sarah take off her head.
Yes, I know some of the mythos, in this case I was mostly considering completely original stories and settings; of course, if the author wants to integrate real-world legends in his story (and eventually adapt them to it), that’s another matter.
Finn on 21 July 2013, 14:53 said:
I’m working on worldbuilding for my book right now and this has been so helpful . I can’t believe how many things I’ve overlooked all this time. (Well, actually, I can. I overlook things on a regular basis.)
Woofb on 21 July 2013, 19:01 said:
All very fascinating. I always prefer to read about ‘different’ aliens (and aliens who are different from each other).
I like Cherryh’s hani not only because they’re feline but because Cherryh reversed the normal set-up by having one human in a book about alien cultures. Also, unlike Tolkien, she’s almost employing reverse philology by using the random white noise of the translator device to emphasise the gaps in what Tully the human says, and the terrifying extent to which the knnn are incomprehensible to everybody! (not a shot at Tolkien, more pointing out that exact translations smooth over differences, while it’s sometimes interesting to see where the gaps are).
Other books with interesting aliens include: The Gods Themselves (Asimov), Up the Walls of the World (James Tiptree Junior), Out of the Silent Planet (C S Lewis, specifically discussing what makes sapients different from animals on a planet without an ‘only child’ sapient species like humanity), the Uplift books (David Brin, except they always annoy me by having lots of different aliens morally judged by how like humans they are), Mary Gentle’s Orthe books and Ursula Le Guin’s Left Hand of Darkness (which both explore concepts of humans with non-fixed gender)…
Interesting supernaturals are harder to judge at the moment because there’s such a flood of paranormals written at the moment, it’s the hot new genre. Incidentally, am befuddled by the many people who think were!sex is bestiality: bestiality is bestiality because animals can’t give informed consent, because they’re animals. Werewolves, were-dolphins or selkies are probably good at defending themselves, and capable of giving reasoned consent.
Before all that, Terry Pratchett’s Discworld manages a few very distinctive types that go beyond the post-Tolkien high-fantasy average, and he’s particularly good at the glamourous nastiness of the (Un)Fair Folk, or vampires. I like a lot of Stephen King’s work because he’s good at the real depth and meaning that would come from particular sorts of scary stuff being true (Pet Sematary is about loss and grief, and whether it would tempt you to do the impossible, the unthinkable, the…just wrong, for example). M. R. James’s ghosts and horrors are still thoroughly creepy, and still thoroughly Edwardian.
Incidentally, Silfae, a matter of spelling. Appendix != appendage. Two different words.
Sìlfae on 22 July 2013, 03:02 said:
Thank you, glad I could be of assistance; remember these are just hints, there could be other points still to consider for your book; it greatly depends on the setting.
Yes, that’s a particular in the Laguages topic; although I would say there would be the need for a truly alien concept for a complete lack of translation. Even if a single term in the human languages does not exist, the concept might be summarized by a couple of words or a phrase. The species in Middle-Earth have been interlinked for a long part of their history and are pretty similar to each other, I’d say it would be less likely for them to have completely incomprehensible terms.
Thank you for the recommended readings, you’ve touched some of the hot points of the topic; maybe I should have dwelled more in the gender differences, since they had a considerable influence in our cultures; species who change their gender (like some fishes) or whose sexual traits are inverted (like for some bugs and reptiles) would have developed different societies (without talking about completely asexuate species or species with the necessity for more than two sexes for reproduction).
For supernatural in this instance I mostly consider creatures whose evolution or creation was influenced by magic or other unnatural means more than the supernatural genre. I would consider a classic werewolf a human being with special circumstances; if we are talking about a sexual intercourse in its bestial form, I’d say it depends on the setting: if the werewolf loses is conciousness and devolve to a feral state, then I would consider a form of abuse to mate with it in that particular circumstance. But I agree for any beast-like species with intelligence (satirs, centaurs, lizardfolk, Egyptian gods); it doesn’t matter the perception other people have (considering many would have considered gross interacial intercourse a century back), as long as the parties who partake the action are in agreement with each other.
While the bestiality issue in fantasy/sci-fi is more discussed, I would say the necrophilia issue is the more shifty right now, although it is less considered, perhaps because the average dead party doesn’t rot. If the mind inhabiting the body is not the one which was there when it was alive, or the reanimation forced a bond between spawn and creator, then, even if the undead appears to be enjoing the intercourse, it would still remain an abuse.
Sorry, thank you for pointing it out, I’ll try to remember it (English is not my mothertongue).