realistic aliens and the necessities of storytelling
Ben Crowell
preference for writing SF that plays "with the net up." I'm not trying
to be a hair-shirted ascetic about it, but I feel that scientific
correctness should be my default. That means no FTL, and no
anthropomorphic aliens who just happen to be at exactly the same
level of development as the human race. I'm not saying I'd refuse to
write a Star Trekky kind of story if I had a wonderful idea for one,
but as I develop story ideas, I'm generally trying to steer toward
what's scientifically plausible.
So far, I've written several stories that involve aliens. One is a
novel in which the aliens have been doing things behind the scenes,
but are never seen onstage. Another is a first contact story set
in medieval Spain, and the third one involves an automated
alien space probe doing a flyby of an earth-orbiting space station.
In all three cases, I've had to struggle with the inevitable problems
posed by creating a story that's meaningful on the human level,
despite the involvement of aliens who discovered the proof of
Fermat's last theorem while my ancestors were still climbing
trees. What experiences have folks here had with this kind of
thing, what solutions have they found, and what literary models
would they have in mind for successful situations? Some of the
literary models I'd have in mind would be:
Clarke, 2001
The aliens are way ahead of us, and the story is about our initiation
into a new level of understanding.
Clarke, Childhood's End
Similar, and also successful IMO, but more toned down.
Pohl, Gateway
This is an interesting example, because the heechee start off being
presented as aliens who are offstage, developed interstellar (FTL)
travel while we were still hanging from our tails, and left behind
some million-year-old artifacts ... but ... in the later books of
the series, they come on stage as anthropomorphic creatures who seem
strangely similar to humans, both in psychology and in their
level of technological/moral/spiritual/... development.
Heinlein
I think Heinlein does a beautiful job on this kind of thing in his
juvenile novels. Typically the aliens are nothing like us, but
he manages to make good, compelling plots anyway. Examples:
Red Planet, The Star Beast. Another good example from his adult-
oriented work is Methuselah's Children. (It's also interesting
how aliens disappear completely in Time Enough for Love; it's like
the Old West without those pesky Indians.)
Michelle Bottorff
> (It's also interesting
> how aliens disappear completely in Time Enough for Love; it's like
> the Old West without those pesky Indians.)
No pesky Indians... er... aliens in my Black Flag stuff either.
Except that no Indians is an alternate earth like what Patricia's
working on and no aliens is reallly just projection of current reality.
If there are advanced aliens out there, maybe they will continue to
avoid us. So I'm tempted to say, "if advanced aliens are giving your
problems, don't use them," but it's not helpful, so I will refrain. ;)
Just to throw something out there, I have a story in my Juvenalia where
I was going to have advanced aliens that worked by a set of rules that
made no sense to anyone, including me.
--
Michelle Bottorff -> Chelle B. -> Shelby
L. Shelby, Writer http://www.lshelby.com/
Livejournal http://lavenderbard.livejournal.com/
rec.arts.sf.composition FAQ http://www.lshelby.com/rasfcFAQ.html
Ben Crowell
> If there are advanced aliens out there, maybe they will continue to
> avoid us. So I'm tempted to say, "if advanced aliens are giving your
> problems, don't use them," but it's not helpful, so I will refrain. ;)
That's sort of how I feel about FTL. But aliens are just too much fun!
R.L.
/snip/
> In all three cases, I've had to struggle with the inevitable problems
> posed by creating a story that's meaningful on the human level,
> despite the involvement of aliens who discovered the proof of
> Fermat's last theorem while my ancestors were still climbing
> trees. What experiences have folks here had with this kind of
> thing, what solutions have they found, and what literary models
> would they have in mind for successful situations?
Niven's Puppeteers were pretty puzzling, though not too much further along
than his humans. His Outsiders were more puzzling, and further advanced.
R.L.
--
del...@sonic.net -- emails welcome
J.Pascal
I try to avoid FTL but some stories just want it.
I don't quite understand what your question is about writing aliens.
I can
say what I've done. Firstly, my human shaped aliens are human in
origin.
I didn't get very far on a "far future humans meet human's from our
time"
story, but I really liked the bat-people adapted to low gravity
caverns with
very bad air. I've had lizards who speak by vibrating membranes
between
their dorsal bumps and who slap their tails (plural) for emphasis try
to
breed humans in captivity. I did a first contact with insect like
aliens that
ran down mostly because I'd avoided having the aliens do anything
active
in the plot even though they had the most to lose. When I started I
was
trying for the "they are so alien that we pretty much are never going
to
be able to talk and should view not killing each other as supreme
success."
If the aliens weren't going to do anything, what was the point of
having
them there? The humans trying to kill each other could find any
number
of reasons to do it so the aliens started to seem... superfulous.
I started a different first contact story with aliens that look very
different
from us but can breathe our air but not eat our food without some
major
processing of it. In that one the humans were the "indians" and the
aliens the ones in hostile territory. That one ran down because I
didnt'
properly identify the conflict. But the "smart" human in that story
was the
one who very matter-of-factly decided that trying to think like an
alien
was every bit as likely to lead to terrible mistakes so it was best to
just
be ourselves and hope for the best. Other of my human "aliens" are
some black glass people and a later model (not contageous like the
black
one) of sapphire people. They are very like people but enough
different
that they have their own concerns. Oh, I forgot the spiders that
communicate
at frequencies too high for people to hear and who see different
frequencies
of light.
I think that a story can have aliens as scenery without a lot of
trouble but
if they are going to be important to the story they have to take an
active
part, which is probably easier if, no matter how alien they are, they
can
talk to humans and relate in some fashion to humans.
-Julie
Sea Wasp
> On Mar 21, 8:34 pm, Ben Crowell
> <crowel...@lightSPAMandISmatterEVIL.com> wrote:
>
>>Michelle Bottorff wrote:
>>
>>>If there are advanced aliens out there, maybe they will continue to
>>>avoid us. So I'm tempted to say, "if advanced aliens are giving your
>>>problems, don't use them," but it's not helpful, so I will refrain. ;)
>>
>>That's sort of how I feel about FTL. But aliens are just too much fun!
>
>
> I try to avoid FTL but some stories just want it.
While I begruge the loss of the days when Doc could just declare
"inertialess drive" and then get to the real business of blowing up
planets in wars between dozens of alien species, some so alien you
couldn't understand their words and others human enough to offer Space
Babaliciousness.
I'm working on a space opera (two, actually) now, but I still find I
have to work on at least pretending to excuse the technology somehow.
Maybe I need to forget about that and blow something up soon.
--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Live Journal: http://www.livejournal.com/users/seawasp/
Ben Crowell
> On Mar 21, 8:34 pm, Ben Crowell
> <crowel...@lightSPAMandISmatterEVIL.com> wrote:
>> Michelle Bottorff wrote:
>>> If there are advanced aliens out there, maybe they will continue to
>>> avoid us. So I'm tempted to say, "if advanced aliens are giving your
>>> problems, don't use them," but it's not helpful, so I will refrain. ;)
>> That's sort of how I feel about FTL. But aliens are just too much fun!
>
> I try to avoid FTL but some stories just want it.
>
> I don't quite understand what your question is about writing aliens.
It's just that I don't think it's scientifically plausible that they
would just happen to match our level of development. Compared to us,
they should really be either like gods, or like animals. Life has
existed on earth for several billion years, and out of that time,
the span from ancient Egypt to the present day represents
something like 10^-6. Even mentally modern H. sapiens has only been
around for about 100,000 years. (There's evidence for a certain
gene having changed around 100k years ago, allowing speech to
occur.) So just having humans who can speak in sentences
is only about a 10^-4 slice of the history of life on our planet.
Ben Crowell
Yeah, it was a nice perspective to see the puppeteers being more
advanced than the humans, and manipulating us genetically from behind
the scenes. But I do feel it was a bit too much to swallow to imagine
that one of the first species we encountered would be the kzin, who
would be so anthropomorphic, and also so incredibly close to us in
their level of technological development.
R.L.
> J.Pascal wrote:
>> On Mar 21, 8:34 pm, Ben Crowell
>> <crowel...@lightSPAMandISmatterEVIL.com> wrote:
>>> Michelle Bottorff wrote:
>>>> If there are advanced aliens out there, maybe they will continue to
>>>> avoid us. So I'm tempted to say, "if advanced aliens are giving your
>>>> problems, don't use them," but it's not helpful, so I will refrain. ;)
>>> That's sort of how I feel about FTL. But aliens are just too much fun!
>>
>> I try to avoid FTL but some stories just want it.
>>
>> I don't quite understand what your question is about writing aliens.
>
> It's just that I don't think it's scientifically plausible that they
> would just happen to match our level of development. Compared to us,
> they should really be either like gods, or like animals.
If some aliens are advanced enough to be indistinguishable from gods (or
even are to us as we are to animals), and if our planet had anything they
wanted, they could just take it. Our communication with chimps and dolphins
is difficult, slow; why would a 'higher' form bother inventing a way to
communicate with us?
'Lower' animals with space travel is a fascinating idea, but do you think
it likely? And likely that we'd have anything they want? Most of the higher
earthly animals run and hide from us; space travelling animals might well
be as wise as they.
So what's left for us to interact with ... would be our peers.
James A. Donald
> plausible that they would just happen to match our
> level of development. Compared to us, they should
> really be either like gods, or like animals. Life has
> existed on earth for several billion years, and out of
> that time, the span from ancient Egypt to the present
> day represents something like 10^-6. Even mentally
> modern H. sapiens has only been around for about
> 100,000 years. (There's evidence for a certain gene
> having changed around 100k years ago, allowing speech
> to occur.) So just having humans who can speak in
> sentences is only about a 10^-4 slice of the history
> of life on our planet.
Let us assume they get advanced enough to have
immortality, and then get stuck. The old folks don't
like too much change, and reminisce constantly about the
good old days when there were a lot more blue giants in
the night skies, and other galaxies were not so far away
The conservation movement has brought all artificial
star making to a complete halt, and has classified much
of the galaxy, including earth, as nature reserves. Not
only is illegal to dismantle the planets of our solar
system, there is only single team of scientists allowed
to visit earth, and for the last few million years, they
have been away preparing their report on their
previous visit.
--
----------------------
We have the right to defend ourselves and our property, because
of the kind of animals that we are. True law derives from this
right, not from the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state.
http://www.jim.com/ James A. Donald
Rich Weyand
>Let us assume they get advanced enough to have
>immortality, and then get stuck. The old folks don't
>like too much change, and reminisce constantly about the
>good old days when there were a lot more blue giants in
>the night skies, and other galaxies were not so far away
>The conservation movement has brought all artificial
>star making to a complete halt, and has classified much
>of the galaxy, including earth, as nature reserves. Not
>only is illegal to dismantle the planets of our solar
>system, there is only single team of scientists allowed
>to visit earth, and for the last few million years, they
>have been away preparing their report on their
>previous visit.
James, I just ignore the arguments you get into with people, and don't
killfile you, and this post and its ilk are why.
Excellent. Just -- excellent.
When humans finally contact this super-race, and we ask why they never came to
Earth, never revealed themselves to us, the answer we receive will be:
"Um. We were real busy."
--
Rich Weyand
WIS: "Message Received" - 110 kwords
WIS: "Hero of the Captaincy" - 2300 words
WIP: untitled sequel to "Message Received"
R.L.
/snip/
> Let us assume they get advanced enough to have
> immortality, and then get stuck. The old folks don't
> like too much change, and reminisce constantly about the
> good old days when there were a lot more blue giants in
> the night skies, and other galaxies were not so far away
> The conservation movement has brought all artificial
> star making to a complete halt, and has classified much
> of the galaxy, including earth, as nature reserves. Not
> only is illegal to dismantle the planets of our solar
> system, there is only single team of scientists allowed
> to visit earth, and for the last few million years, they
> have been away preparing their report on their
> previous visit.
Rather anthropomorphic.
Well, it ought to be anthropopsychic or anthroposentient or something.
R.L.
--
del...@sonic.net works, emails welcome
Gerry Quinn
@lightSPAMandISmatterEVIL.com says...
> It's just that I don't think it's scientifically plausible that they
> would just happen to match our level of development. Compared to us,
> they should really be either like gods, or like animals. Life has
> existed on earth for several billion years, and out of that time,
> the span from ancient Egypt to the present day represents
> something like 10^-6. Even mentally modern H. sapiens has only been
> around for about 100,000 years. (There's evidence for a certain
> gene having changed around 100k years ago, allowing speech to
> occur.) So just having humans who can speak in sentences
> is only about a 10^-4 slice of the history of life on our planet.
It may be too strong an assumption that continued development of the
human race along the same lines as in the past will result in godlike
beings.
- Gerry Quinn
Sea Wasp
This is just another version, basically, of the Fermi "paradox", and
has as many arguments and counter-arguments.
If you WANT aliens, choose the assumptions that give you aliens. If
you want humans-only, choose THOSE assumptions. None of them, despite
the passionate arguments on both sides, have any real leverage on the
other.
Jonathan L Cunningham
> ... and no
> anthropomorphic aliens who just happen to be at exactly the same
> level of development as the human race.
I like one of the races in the Brin "Uplift" universe, for a subtle
detail he put in. The members of species A think this race are like
species A, ditto B, to humans they seem more human than most other
races, etc.
That seemed to me a clever way to indicate superior intelligence.
Another solution, which no one in the thread has mentioned yet, is the
"singularity" solution. Any aliens below us in tech level don't have
spaceflight, so we don't meet them (unless we go to their world, where
they might be the equivalent of H. erectus etc.) Aliens who get much
ahead of us experience a singularity, and transcend into a civilisation
that has no interest in humans and avoids and ingnores them.
So the only other spacefaring civilisations will be at about human tech
level. The problem with the "singularity" solution is that it is hard to
imagine that *all* transcended civilisations would ignore us completely,
so you have to also assume some sort of transcended government which
enforces it (or that *all* transcended civilisations burn out quickly,
and go extinct).
Jonathan
--
(I'm seeing a number of replies to things that never showed up on my
newsserver; I guess it's dropping stuff, maybe about 1% at the moment.)
Remus Shepherd
> 'Lower' animals with space travel is a fascinating idea, but do you think
> it likely?
There's a trope that pops up every now and then where a primitive species
overtakes an alien visitor, steals its technology and becomes a starfaring
race through no actual scientific advancement of their own. I seem to recall
the Kzinti being retconned into this.
> And likely that we'd have anything they want?
The 'primitive space traveller' race is almost always an invader, taking
whatever they need from any planet they come across. Space pirates. Don't
see why they have to be like that, but they usually are.
... ...
Remus Shepherd <re...@panix.com>
Indefensible Positions -- a story of superheroic philosophy.
http://indepos.comicgenesis.com/
Patricia C. Wrede
"Ben Crowell" <crow...@lightSPAMandISmatterEVIL.com> wrote in message
news:4601feed$0$4900$4c36...@roadrunner.com...
> J.Pascal wrote:
>> On Mar 21, 8:34 pm, Ben Crowell
>> <crowel...@lightSPAMandISmatterEVIL.com> wrote:
>>> Michelle Bottorff wrote:
>>>> If there are advanced aliens out there, maybe they will continue to
>>>> avoid us. So I'm tempted to say, "if advanced aliens are giving your
>>>> problems, don't use them," but it's not helpful, so I will refrain. ;)
>>> That's sort of how I feel about FTL. But aliens are just too much fun!
>>
>> I try to avoid FTL but some stories just want it.
>>
>> I don't quite understand what your question is about writing aliens.
>
> It's just that I don't think it's scientifically plausible that they
> would just happen to match our level of development.
"Scientifically plausible" in this context isn't a really useful term.
There's too much we don't know, and too many possibilities that can be
plausibly justified. Things like the distribution of Earth-like planets, or
the speed/type of evolution of life on non-Earth-like worlds (and/or with
non-Earth-like biology). You can either pick whatever set of assumptions
you think is most likely "real," and then project your aliens from there, or
decide what kind/level/number of aliens you want and then backfill your
plausible assumptions.
> Compared to us,
> they should really be either like gods, or like animals.
Well, no -- assuming that there are lots of alien life-forms out there and
nothing else that would affect the distribution, there should be some at
pretty much any/every stage...that is, there'd be some who are at the
"sufficiently advanced technology indistinguishable from magic" stage, some
at the "so primitive there's debate about their intelligence" stage, some
that are at their industrial revolution stage, some that have just started
in on star travel, etc. You can then look at plausible ways of messing with
the distribution to get whatever end result you want for your story.
This isn't an area like, oh, orbital mechanics, where there are mathematical
formulae that you have to follow or the results aren't right. You're
talking about things like biology and sociology and psychology and
evolution, all of which would affect things like when/whether an alien race
could/would go looking for other planets and/or intelligent life, and none
of which have, as yet, reached the point of always giving clear,
unambiguous, predictable results. And you're talking about them in
combination with each other and with things like the physics of things like
planetary formation (which was still changing, last time I checked).
In other words, you can make it up within *extremely* broad parameters, even
if you are trying to be hard-SF to the max. The super-hard-SF restrictions
on FTL seem to me to be far more of a stumbling block to having aliens of
whatever level you want in your stories than the tech level of the aliens
themselves.
Patricia C. Wrede
J.Pascal
wrote:
> Ben Crowell <crowel...@lightSPAMandISmatterEVIL.com> wrote:
> > ... and no
> > anthropomorphic aliens who just happen to be at exactly the same
> > level of development as the human race.
>
> I like one of the races in the Brin "Uplift" universe, for a subtle
> detail he put in. The members of species A think this race are like
> species A, ditto B, to humans they seem more human than most other
> races, etc.
>
> That seemed to me a clever way to indicate superior intelligence.
>
> Another solution, which no one in the thread has mentioned yet, is the
> "singularity" solution. Any aliens below us in tech level don't have
> spaceflight, so we don't meet them (unless we go to their world, where
> they might be the equivalent of H. erectus etc.) Aliens who get much
> ahead of us experience a singularity, and transcend into a civilisation
> that has no interest in humans and avoids and ingnores them.
>
> So the only other spacefaring civilisations will be at about human tech
> level. The problem with the "singularity" solution is that it is hard to
> imagine that *all* transcended civilisations would ignore us completely,
> so you have to also assume some sort of transcended government which
> enforces it (or that *all* transcended civilisations burn out quickly,
> and go extinct).
That seems to be what Ben is suggesting but with the idea that the
amount of time between low tech and transcendence is so very
narrow that, statistically speaking, no one is in it.
At one time (it seems to me, I'm not quite old enough to remember this
first hand) a far future with humans in it seemed unbelievably
optimistic.
Now, we're not going to destroy ourselves with nuclear war, we're
going
to transcend in this singularity thing. Which is a really cool idea
and all,
but just because a couple of writers have captured our imaginations
with
it doesn't mean that the future has to happen that way. We haven't
been
there yet. We don't know.
My future humans do a variety of things and change themselves in a
variety of ways. They both gain and lose technology so that, just
like
human civilizations on Earth today, they represent a wide range of
technological stages. Traditional tribal people in odd corners of
the
world know that astronauts exist. Technology doesn't have to be
forgotten
by a culture that becomes isolated and can't sustain it. But they
might
begin working upward again. And it seems to me that the more widely
spread out a civilization becomes the more it will come to represent
different levels of advancement and the less likely that it will
advance
together into singularity. And why should an advanced alien race be
any different? And if some of those aliens represent the stone age,
what's to say that aliens on the other side of their planet aren't
planning
a moon landing?
-Julie
Denni
> On Mar 22, 6:36 am, s...@sofluc.co.uk.invalid (Jonathan L Cunningham)
> wrote:
>
>
> > That seemed to me a clever way to indicate superior intelligence.
> Traditional tribal people in odd corners of
> the
> world know that astronauts exist. Technology doesn't have to be
> forgotten
> by a culture that becomes isolated and can't sustain it. But they
> might
> begin working upward again.
It strikes me that there are plenty of tribal societies who don't have
any desire to work 'upwards'. Intelligent life may well be common, but
a technological/spacefaring culture may not necessarily follow.
On the other hand, a nice example of plausible aliens which are
anything but anthropomorphic can be found in Peter Watts'
'Blindsight' (I'm a recent fan): http://www.rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm
J.Pascal
> On Mar 22, 4:40 pm, "J.Pascal" <j...@pascal.org> wrote:
>
> > On Mar 22, 6:36 am, s...@sofluc.co.uk.invalid (Jonathan L Cunningham)
> > wrote:
>
> > > That seemed to me a clever way to indicate superior intelligence.
> > Traditional tribal people in odd corners of
> > the
> > world know that astronauts exist. Technology doesn't have to be
> > forgotten
> > by a culture that becomes isolated and can't sustain it. But they
> > might
> > begin working upward again.
>
> It strikes me that there are plenty of tribal societies who don't have
> any desire to work 'upwards'. Intelligent life may well be common, but
> a technological/spacefaring culture may not necessarily follow.
I think that there are usually members of those societies who
do have a desire and who leave to follow it. The result being
that the "tribal society" only contains those that don't. Or
*appears*
only to contain those that don't. Because the ones that do went
to places where they could.
Individuals who are curious and who experiment and who try to
solve puzzles *may* die young but they may also discover new
food sources and tools that enhance their survival and the survival
of their genetic group. More of their children may live because
they are able to obtain food and shelter for more individuals.
I don't find a lack of desire to discover new things the least bit
believable. In individuals, sure. I know lots of people like that.
But for everyone? No way.
-Julie
Keith Morrison
>> 'Lower' animals with space travel is a fascinating idea, but do you think
>> it likely?
>
> There's a trope that pops up every now and then where a primitive species
>overtakes an alien visitor, steals its technology and becomes a starfaring
>race through no actual scientific advancement of their own. I seem to recall
>the Kzinti being retconned into this.
The Goa'uld in the Stargate series developed this way. The tech they used to get started
in the game of Galactic Domination was found or stolen. Which, of course, was stolen in
turn by the Taur'i who proceeded to use it against them, making htier own improvements
along the way.
Bill Swears
> On Mar 22, 11:12 am, "Denni" <DSchn...@googlemail.com> wrote:
>> It strikes me that there are plenty of tribal societies who don't have
>> any desire to work 'upwards'. Intelligent life may well be common, but
>> a technological/spacefaring culture may not necessarily follow.
>
> I think that there are usually members of those societies who
> do have a desire and who leave to follow it. The result being
> that the "tribal society" only contains those that don't. Or
> *appears*
> only to contain those that don't. Because the ones that do went
> to places where they could.
I think that so far, people trend to want to go where they have the
perception of better living conditions. So these pocket communities
tend to shrink away, unless their population losses are offset by people
who join them to 'get away from it all'.
>
> Individuals who are curious and who experiment and who try to
> solve puzzles *may* die young but they may also discover new
> food sources and tools that enhance their survival and the survival
> of their genetic group. More of their children may live because
> they are able to obtain food and shelter for more individuals.
I think our current civilization is clunking along because people have a
certain degree of freedom to choose their lives. In the first world, at
least, even the most hazardous career paths don't interfere with the
ability to bear young.
>
> I don't find a lack of desire to discover new things the least bit
> believable. In individuals, sure. I know lots of people like that.
> But for everyone? No way.
I've finally gotten myself set up on a beautiful piece of land, in a
house with plenty of room, and a view to die for. My exchange daughter
stays weekends in a much smaller house in the nearest town -- she loves
the view out here, but she's bored. My eight year old daughter is
running a low level campaign to get us to move back to Hawaii, or down
to the lower forty-eight. She's bored.
Bill
--
Ourdebate.com lifts free debate between writers and dilutes it with ads.
rec.arts.sf.composition is a USENET group, and can be accessed for free.
Ourdebate.com therefore sucks (the life from discourse),
and dribbles (deceit when integrity would have worked just as well).
Suzanne Blom
"R.L." <see...@no-spams.coms> wrote in message
news:1bq8jexlmma5o$.14ipcqv3j0a0d$.dlg@40tude.net...
animals who seek us out. One was a sick peccary who hung around a
scientists' camp until it was well, then went off with the next peccary herd
that went by--possibly cuz jaguars avoided the human camp. One was a pair
of howler monkey brothers who liked the scent of the diswashing soap. Lots
of different reasons for aliens to visit.
Michelle Bottorff
> In other words, you can make it up within *extremely* broad parameters, even
> if you are trying to be hard-SF to the max. The super-hard-SF restrictions
> on FTL seem to me to be far more of a stumbling block to having aliens of
> whatever level you want in your stories than the tech level of the aliens
> themselves.
Which is likely why that's the superhard restriction most often ignored
by otherwise pretty darned hard science fiction. :)
Michelle Bottorff
> Now, we're not going to destroy ourselves with nuclear war, we're going to
> transcend in this singularity thing. Which is a really cool idea and
> all, but just because a couple of writers have captured our imaginations
> with it doesn't mean that the future has to happen that way. We haven't
> been there yet. We don't know.
I'm afraid I don't even find it all that cool.
Which may explain why I'm not coming up with any helpful ideas. :(
J.Pascal
> J.Pascal <j...@pascal.org> wrote:
> > Now, we're not going to destroy ourselves with nuclear war, we're going to
> > transcend in this singularity thing. Which is a really cool idea and
> > all, but just because a couple of writers have captured our imaginations
> > with it doesn't mean that the future has to happen that way. We haven't
> > been there yet. We don't know.
>
> I'm afraid I don't even find it all that cool.
>
> Which may explain why I'm not coming up with any helpful ideas. :(
I tend to figure that singularity is extinction by another name.
So by "cool" I sorta meant "edgy and strangely different" or
something.
-Julie
R.L.
> "R.L." <see...@no-spams.coms> wrote in message
> news:1bq8jexlmma5o$.14ipcqv3j0a0d$.dlg@40tude.net...
>> 'Lower' animals with space travel is a fascinating idea, but do you think
>> it likely? And likely that we'd have anything they want? Most of the
>> higher
>> earthly animals run and hide from us; space travelling animals might well
>> be as wise as they.
>>
> There was a wonderful piece in Natural History a while back about wild
> animals who seek us out. One was a sick peccary who hung around a
> scientists' camp until it was well, then went off with the next peccary herd
> that went by--possibly cuz jaguars avoided the human camp. One was a pair
> of howler monkey brothers who liked the scent of the diswashing soap.
I think the OP was looking at overall probabilities, or something.
> Lots of different reasons for aliens to visit.
Fsscinating stories could be made of those.
But I'm not quite sure what kind of 'animal' could do space tech, even if
they'd got it secondhand.
R.L.
Logan Kearsley
Wasn't that explained as being due to Puppeteer manipulation?
-l.
------------------------------------
My inbox is a sacred shrine, none shall enter that are not worthy.
Suzanne Blom
"R.L." <see...@no-spams.coms> wrote in message
intelligent than ours expending all their efforts & brain power into trying
to find their lost masters wherever they might be. Say a rich person's
yacht crashes on a terraformed but unpeopled planet....
Tina Hall
>> Now, we're not going to destroy ourselves with nuclear war, we're
>> going to transcend in this singularity thing. Which is a really cool
>> idea and all, but just because a couple of writers have captured our
>> imaginations with it doesn't mean that the future has to happen that
>> way. We haven't been there yet. We don't know.
> I'm afraid I don't even find it all that cool.
Yeah. I'd call it silly, but no one asks me. :) (It isn't 'hard'
sci-fi either. More like what some would call science fantasy; very
soft sci-fi, on the level of space operas.)
> Which may explain why I'm not coming up with any helpful ideas. :(
If the restriction of 'no FTL' is kept, then it could be a
generationship (from either aliens or humans) that meets the other,
after paddling around space for ages. Without all that many
resources, perhaps the only technological super-mega-uber-advance
would be on recycling techniques, and perhaps a bit of gentechnology
to keep them all from degenerating with all the interbreeding within
limited numbers.
The only oddity in that is, why would they meet the other just when
they have roughly the same techlevel. But perhaps it was the only
star that looked like it could have a planet that might sustain
life? Hm. Still has a 'just the right moment' feel.
--
Tina
WIP: Working title: The Knight's Journey 11005 words
WISuspension: Seasons & Elements trilogy | Magic Earth series
Posted to Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.sf.composition.
Mary K. Kuhner
Suzanne Blom <sue...@execpc.com> wrote:
>"R.L." <see...@no-spams.coms> wrote in message
>news:4c478l6utpl4$.qufsnkn0lwg4.dlg@40tude.net...
>> But I'm not quite sure what kind of 'animal' could do space tech, even if
>> they'd got it secondhand.
>Well, of course, that would be the story. I can imagine dogs, somewhat more
>intelligent than ours expending all their efforts & brain power into trying
>to find their lost masters wherever they might be. Say a rich person's
>yacht crashes on a terraformed but unpeopled planet....
It could be space tech that had been deliberately made very user-friendly.
Say, "Your Child's First Spacecraft" for the under-eight set. Just needs
a bit of nudging to do its thing, and the dog-like folk can learn to nudge
it in the right ways.
I can imagine a spaceship meant to teach its operator how to operate
it, and so insanely patient that it can eventually teach a smart dog
how to operate it. (Easier with a planetary craft, though, because
that could take a dog places it knew it wanted to go.)
Maybe chimpanzees would be a better model than dogs. They pick up
video games, despite not being able to read the documentation. If the
ship were video-game-like enough, they might do quite well!
Mary Kuhner mkku...@eskimo.com
R.L.
/snip/
R.L.:
>> But I'm not quite sure what kind of 'animal' could do space tech, even if
>> they'd got it secondhand.
>>
> Well, of course, that would be the story. I can imagine dogs, somewhat more
> intelligent than ours expending all their efforts & brain power into trying
> to find their lost masters wherever they might be. Say a rich person's
> yacht crashes on a terraformed but unpeopled planet....
That could be a lovely story! I was thinking large-scale was unlikely: a
whole planet of 'animals' deciding (presumably in a parliament of fowls) to
continue an existing space program (much less build their own from a few
stolen models).
R.L.
Monique Y. Mudama
>
> The only oddity in that is, why would they meet the other just when
> they have roughly the same techlevel. But perhaps it was the only
> star that looked like it could have a planet that might sustain
> life? Hm. Still has a 'just the right moment' feel.
I think most fiction depends on "just the right moment" -- these
people just happened to be here, I just happen to be following this
character.
I mean, if you have your choice of two characters to write a story
about, do you write about the one that's boring or the one that's
interesting?
--
monique
Charlie Allery
"Bill Swears" <wsw...@gci.net> wrote in message
news:1305jct...@corp.supernews.com...
> J.Pascal wrote:
>>
>> I don't find a lack of desire to discover new things the least bit
>> believable. In individuals, sure. I know lots of people like that.
>> But for everyone? No way.
>
> I've finally gotten myself set up on a beautiful piece of land, in a house
> with plenty of room, and a view to die for. My exchange daughter stays
> weekends in a much smaller house in the nearest town -- she loves the view
> out here, but she's bored. My eight year old daughter is running a low
> level campaign to get us to move back to Hawaii, or down to the lower
> forty-eight. She's bored.
>
What? Can't they read? *g*
Charlie (who was never bored as a child and never told to put out the light
and stop reading)
Dan Goodman
> J.Pascal wrote:
> > On Mar 21, 8:34 pm, Ben Crowell
> ><crowel...@lightSPAMandISmatterEVIL.com> wrote:
> > > Michelle Bottorff wrote:
> > > > If there are advanced aliens out there, maybe they will
> > > > continue to avoid us. So I'm tempted to say, "if advanced
> > > > aliens are giving your problems, don't use them," but it's not
> > > > helpful, so I will refrain. ;)
> > > That's sort of how I feel about FTL. But aliens are just too much
> > > fun!
> >
> > I try to avoid FTL but some stories just want it.
> >
> > I don't quite understand what your question is about writing aliens.
>
> It's just that I don't think it's scientifically plausible that they
> would just happen to match our level of development. Compared to us,
> they should really be either like gods, or like animals. Life has
> existed on earth for several billion years, and out of that time,
> the span from ancient Egypt to the present day represents
> something like 10^-6. Even mentally modern H. sapiens has only been
> around for about 100,000 years. (There's evidence for a certain
> gene having changed around 100k years ago, allowing speech to
> occur.) So just having humans who can speak in sentences
> is only about a 10^-4 slice of the history of life on our planet.
One possibility: Any intelligent species will rise to the level of
technology needed to bomb themselves back to the earliest parts of the
stone age. Rise up again, and ....
Another: Every intelligent species will avoid that temptation, but
will manage to exterminate itself. Another intelligent species will
evolve, but that takes time.
--
Dan Goodman
All political parties die at last of swallowing their own lies.
John Arbuthnot (1667-1735), Scottish writer, physician.
Journal http://dsgood.livejournal.com
future http://dangoodman.livejournal.com
Links http://del.icio.us/dsgood
J. F. Cornwall
Yes. Along with Earth's birthright lotteries, the "coincidental
encounter of humanity with the Outsiders who sold them hyperdrive, and a
couple of other thing the wetware can't quite dredge up from the muck...
Jim
Charlie Allery
"Ben Crowell" <crow...@lightSPAMandISmatterEVIL.com> wrote in message
> Although I'm not a big fan of Hal Clement-style hard SF, I do have a
> preference for writing SF that plays "with the net up." I'm not trying
> to be a hair-shirted ascetic about it, but I feel that scientific
> correctness should be my default. That means no FTL, and no
> anthropomorphic aliens who just happen to be at exactly the same
> write a Star Trekky kind of story if I had a wonderful idea for one,
> but as I develop story ideas, I'm generally trying to steer toward
> what's scientifically plausible.
>
> So far, I've written several stories that involve aliens. One is a
> novel in which the aliens have been doing things behind the scenes,
> but are never seen onstage. Another is a first contact story set
> in medieval Spain, and the third one involves an automated
> alien space probe doing a flyby of an earth-orbiting space station.
> In all three cases, I've had to struggle with the inevitable problems
> posed by creating a story that's meaningful on the human level,
> despite the involvement of aliens who discovered the proof of
> Fermat's last theorem while my ancestors were still climbing
> trees. What experiences have folks here had with this kind of
> thing, what solutions have they found, and what literary models
> would they have in mind for successful situations?
Amy Thomson's 'The Color of Distance' and 'Through Alien Eyes' have aliens
who are basically humanoid in shape but that's about as far as it goes.
Their planet is hostlie to humans, their social system is totally different,
their language is visual not oral and as a species, they're not remotely
human. Oh, and no space travel. But they're in no way primitive, their
development is way beyond human. And it does have FTL.
Karen Traviss doesn't use FTL in her wess'har books (City of Pearl). Her
space-travelling aliens are an arthropoid/insectoid species which is looking
for new worlds for its ever-expanding civilisation, a meerkat-like very
aggressive species which nevertheless functions in a diplomatic role, and a
bipedal species with some sea-horse traits but otherwise broadly humanoid in
basic plan - and the busk stops with them. Her native species include
intelligent squid, predatory clingfilm and a microscopic symbiote which
practises genetic manipulation on its host. The nice thing about these
aliens is that some of them are more human than the worst humans and some of
them are more human than the best humans.
And I always kind of liked John Christopher's tri-symmetrical aliens in The
White Mountains/ Pool of Fire/City of Gold and Lead
I have an idea for an SF novel with an alien species but it's only in notes
so far and it would postulate similar levels of technology. And I would and
do use FTL. I have a short story that uses humanoids of about our current
level of technology (no FTL), but it's deliberate mis-direction because they
are in fact fruiting bodies for a planetary lifeform. I have a story with an
insectoid race that is part of a larger union of species. And I appear to
have a story I'd completely forgotten about with an insectoid ambassador and
a small child.
I'd have to say that in writing a story I'm more interested in constructing
biologically plausible aliens than in the technology which brings us into
contact with them or vice versa. I'm certainly not prepared to rule out
technology simply because we currently think it's not possible. Partly
Clarke's Law and partly that we've had so many instances of the majority
absolutely knowing that something is not possible. *shrug* I like to have
my aliens have at least one biological or behavioural characteristic which
appears unnatural to humans.
I guess I'm conditioned by the books I read growing up to accept FTL without
raising an eyebrow and also to accept aliens in whatever form and of
whatever technology level are offered, as long as they're consistent with
the background offered and within the story. FTL not a problem, but nothing
gets my back up like a biological system or structure mis-represented or
just got plain wrong. I have read a story with a slithering tentacled
creature that turned out to have bone in the centre of the tentacle. The
context made it apparent that the author didn't actually know about tentacle
structure and so had assumed they were like hairless tails and needed bone
or cartilage to support their movement. Another thing that raises the same
hackles is a lack of understanding of pressure changes for humans breathing
air - usually in underwaer sequences.
Charlie
Charlie Allery
"Monique Y. Mudama" <sp...@bounceswoosh.org> wrote in message
news:slrnf062b...@home.bounceswoosh.org...
This is so true, most of real life is soooo booooooring. I live it, I don't
want to read about it. If the realistic situation is that 2 species never
meet each other and interact, well, there's no story. I want to hear about
the times when they do. And I think the advantage of the similar levels of
technology is that your human protags are not powerless (nothing more
irritating that powerless protags, swept along by events), nor are they
relatively omnipotent (no tension or conflict), and there's the whole
looking-into-a-mirror thing, seeing how someone else has got to the same
place along a different path, or gone somewhere very different from similar
beginnings.
Charlie
Tina Hall
> Tina Hall penned:
>> The only oddity in that is, why would they meet the other just when
>> they have roughly the same techlevel. But perhaps it was the only
>> star that looked like it could have a planet that might sustain
>> life? Hm. Still has a 'just the right moment' feel.
> I think most fiction depends on "just the right moment" -- these
> people just happened to be here, I just happen to be following this
> character.
That's two different things.
Following this character is explained because it's this character
that is experiencing the story.
These people just happening to be here, at 'just the right moment',
bugs me though. I don't like it, and try to evade it or have an
explanation ground in the plot. (And that while I don't care about
plot. Shows how picky I am about this.)
I've got a whole crowd of, let's say unusual, people crawling out of
the bushes in the S&E, but as it turns out, every one of them only
exists for the same reason as one half of the cause for the story.
(The other half is non-native, and has been lying around for ages,
until the native half ran into it, causing the 'shit happens' that
occurs and is fought in the story.) It's no coincidence that they
happen to live right when the story takes place.
> I mean, if you have your choice of two characters to write a story
> about, do you write about the one that's boring or the one that's
> interesting?
That the character who has an interesting adventure with aliens
_meets_ aliens who _just happen_ to reach earth in the tiny window
that earth is inhabited by humans with technology is the thing that
bugs me. It would be ok if you have a universe that's crawling with
all sorts of alien life forms, but the only other one in the galaxy
or something?
That's like me going to the library up the street here and meeting
_you_ there. (That's supposing as nothing out of the ordinary that
you happened to have a reason to travel all the way to attend CeBit,
a yearly computer exhibition here in Hannover.) It would be a bit
much to expect that you choose to go to this small library, and even
more that I haul myself outside just that moment. :)
R.L.
/snip/
> I have an idea for an SF novel with an alien species but it's only in notes
> so far and it would postulate similar levels of technology. And I would and
> do use FTL. I have a short story that uses humanoids of about our current
> level of technology (no FTL), but it's deliberate mis-direction because they
> are in fact fruiting bodies for a planetary lifeform. I have a story with an
> insectoid race that is part of a larger union of species. And I appear to
> have a story I'd completely forgotten about with an insectoid ambassador and
> a small child.
/snip/
> I like to have
> my aliens have at least one biological or behavioural characteristic which
> appears unnatural to humans.
At least!
Your aliens sound fascinating. But -- if their psychology lives up to the
differences in their physiology, it must be quite a challenge to write in
their pv or to show them in close interactions with humans.
Again Niven did it well, but he kept the pv with an Everyman sort of human,
and with some aliens he used familiar animal stereotypes ('herd animal',
macho tomcats).
R.L.
Tina Hall
> "Monique Y. Mudama" <sp...@bounceswoosh.org> wrote
>>> The only oddity in that is, why would they meet the other just when
>>> they have roughly the same techlevel. But perhaps it was the only
>>> star that looked like it could have a planet that might sustain
>>> life? Hm. Still has a 'just the right moment' feel.
>>
>> I think most fiction depends on "just the right moment" -- these
>> people just happened to be here, I just happen to be following this
>> character.
>>
>> I mean, if you have your choice of two characters to write a story
>> about, do you write about the one that's boring or the one that's
>> interesting?
> This is so true, most of real life is soooo booooooring. I live it, I
> don't want to read about it.
Funny, most people want ordinary characters that you find in real
life. That's what's on the shelves, which is why I don't buy it.
But what I really wanted to comment on...
> If the realistic situation is that 2 species never meet each other
> and interact, well, there's no story. I want to hear about the
> times when they do.
Sure, but I'd prefer an environment where that is actually likely.
Nothing against the meeting itself, just the coincidence being
larger than the universe it happens in.
> And I think the advantage of the similar levels of technology is
> that your human protags are not powerless (nothing more irritating
> that powerless protags, swept along by events),
Depends on the story. I can't stand characters who _feel_ powerless
when all they would have to do is speak up. Not doing so is just
stupid, so I don't care what happens to them.
In the first book of the ME I've got powerless protagonists played
with by the evil overlord, and in the end nothing has changed. Not
that you would agree, but I rather like the story. And I rather do
like the protagonists. (No sane person would like the evil overlord.
I think he's interesting as evil overlords go, as in properly
nasty.)
> nor are they relatively omnipotent (no tension or conflict),
Can't stand tension. But the relatively omipotent might have their
own ideas that can't be accomplished by just snipping their fingers.
(My two main evil overlords in the ME want a certain type of people
to play with, and no puppets. They could grab anyone, but just
anyone would be boring. To them I mean. Their motives aren't what
you would find in ordinary humans, not even unusually nasty ordinary
humans. They've been around for millenia, of course originating in a
different culture, and grown so strong that to them ordinary people
are no more than bugs.)
--
Tina
WIP: Working title: The Knight's Journey 11482 words
Dan Goodman
> Again Niven did it well, but he kept the pv with an Everyman sort of
> human, and with some aliens he used familiar animal stereotypes
> ('herd animal', macho tomcats).
And those stereotypes didn't match either scientific evidence or what
people who've been around animals know.
Herd animals are a long way from being nonviolent.
Carnivores are not particularly brave.
R.L.
> R.L. wrote:
>
>> Again Niven did it well, but he kept the pv with an Everyman sort of
>> human, and with some aliens he used familiar animal stereotypes
>> ('herd animal', macho tomcats).
>
> And those stereotypes didn't match either scientific evidence or what
> people who've been around animals know.
>
> Herd animals are a long way from being nonviolent.
Does someone think herd animals are non-violent? The Puppeteers turned
their backs on danger -- the better to kick.
Quote from memory:
"Louis, the majority is always sane."
"Herd animal!"
R.L.
Ben Crowell
>> would just happen to match our level of development. Compared to us,
>> they should really be either like gods, or like animals. Life has
>> existed on earth for several billion years, and out of that time,
>> the span from ancient Egypt to the present day represents
>> something like 10^-6. Even mentally modern H. sapiens has only been
>> around for about 100,000 years. (There's evidence for a certain
>> gene having changed around 100k years ago, allowing speech to
>> occur.) So just having humans who can speak in sentences
>> is only about a 10^-4 slice of the history of life on our planet.
>>
>>
>
> has as many arguments and counter-arguments.
>
> If you WANT aliens, choose the assumptions that give you aliens. If
> you want humans-only, choose THOSE assumptions. None of them, despite
> the passionate arguments on both sides, have any real leverage on the
> other.
I think it's qualitatively different from the Fermi paradox, because the
Fermi paradox is closely related to the Drake equation, and the Drake
equation has a whole bunch of inputs that we don't even know to within
many orders of magnitude. The argument against close technological
parity is a very simple one based on time scales. There is a time
scale set by the amount of time for which our galaxy has been suitable
for the evolution of life, and that time scale is in the billions of
years. That makes it extremely implausible that you'd get a scenario
like Larry Niven's, in which first contact is with the
kzin, who happen to have a technological level extremely close to
ours.
Ben Crowell
is at all typical, the rate of technological progress is extremely
uneven. There were mind-boggling amounts of time over which H sapiens
made a single, stereotyped set of tools, and never achieved any
innovation. That was followed by a flash of technological innovation
that went by in a blink of an eye. If that's a common pattern, then
you'd expect that at any given time, virtually all intelligent species
in the galaxy would be in the stone age.
Forgetting about the demands of SF storytelling, my own guess is that
there's lots of life in the galaxy, but it's all unicellular. If you
look at the history of life on our planet, multicellular life occurs
very late in the game, and even now, bacteria are arguably the dominant
form of life on our planet.
Zeborah
> I've finally gotten myself set up on a beautiful piece of land, in a
> house with plenty of room, and a view to die for.
I've got myself finally in a wonderful new (80 years old) house and the
newspaper goes and publishes a map of what the city will look like with
another seven metres of sea. One of my colleagues reckons he'll have a
beachfront property, according to that. I'll get a good view of the
sea, too, from 360 degrees. In all dimensions. <sigh>
Zeborah
--
Gravity is no joke.
http://www.geocities.com/zeborahnz/
rasfc FAQ: http://www.lshelby.com/rasfcFAQ.html
David Goldfarb
Dan Goodman <dsg...@iphouse.com> wrote:
>Another: Every intelligent species will avoid that temptation, but
>will manage to exterminate itself. Another intelligent species will
>evolve, but that takes time.
In my darker hours, I imagine that the solution to the Drake equation
is very low -- that the number of technological species in the galaxy
is something like 10^-6. Which is to say, that most of the time there
are none, but every so often one arises...for a brief period.
--
David Goldfarb |"All is strange and vague."
gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu | "Are we dead?"
gold...@csua.berkeley.edu |"Or is this Ohio?" -- Animaniacs
James A. Donald
> Forgetting about the demands of SF storytelling, my
> own guess is that there's lots of life in the galaxy,
> but it's all unicellular. If you look at the history
> of life on our planet, multicellular life occurs very
> late in the game, and even now, bacteria are arguably
> the dominant form of life on our planet.
But a galaxy full of bacteria living deep in the hot wet
rocks is not one of the most exciting stories, so what
scientifically half plausible ways can we avoid that?
1. Repression: God like civilization picks up all
potential competitors, and any life form that has the
potential to make changes in the galaxy that they regard
as unaesthetic, and puts them in zoos.
2. Stagnation: Damned greenies. And if you think the
EPA is bad, imagine an EPA staffed by immortals.
3. Transcendence: Godlike civilizations build homes
for themselves outside of space and time, and take all
related life forms with a discernable level of
consciousness with them.
4. War: As we become more complex and highly evolved,
we reproduce more slowly, our civilization is more
easily shattered, and our weapons become more deadly.
Trouble with this argument is that space is big. Once a
lifeform is spacedwelling, war should no longer be an
intolerable problem for it.
5. Reset. The last galactic civilization wiped out
itself and all civilized species about one hundred
thousand years ago. A new batch is now appearing, all
that the same time, just as the largest new trees
following a forest fire are all about the same size.
6. Galaxy wide Flynn effect. The physics underlying
intelligence is changing, allowing all species
everywhere to get smarter rather quickly, so we all turn
civilized at about the same time.
7. Manipulation: Godlike beings found they were all
alone in the universe. Since this was boring, they
started tinkering with evolution everywhere to bring a
variety of sentient beings into being. A large
proportion of these species approximate the shape that
the gods find sexually attractive - which is why we lost
our tails, our body hair, and our claws. They timed the
process so that all would come to fruition at the same
time. The first aliens we meat are hot space babes
whose ancestors looked like a combination of a spider
and a squid, but due to astonishingly convergent
evolution they now look remarkably like us, though the
females generally complete sex by devouring their mates,
and during sex reveal they have rather more limbs than
we do. They also have frontward and backward looking
eyes. Their frontward looking eyes look very like our
eyes, and their backward looking eyes are insectoid, and
look like head ornaments, and their primary reproductive
organ is not where you would think it is. What you
think is their primary reproductive organ is only for
evacuating wastes.
--
----------------------
We have the right to defend ourselves and our property, because
of the kind of animals that we are. True law derives from this
right, not from the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state.
http://www.jim.com/ James A. Donald
Sea Wasp
>>> It's just that I don't think it's scientifically plausible that they
>>> would just happen to match our level of development. Compared to us,
>>> they should really be either like gods, or like animals. Life has
>>> existed on earth for several billion years, and out of that time,
>>> the span from ancient Egypt to the present day represents
>>> something like 10^-6. Even mentally modern H. sapiens has only been
>>> around for about 100,000 years. (There's evidence for a certain
>>> gene having changed around 100k years ago, allowing speech to
>>> occur.) So just having humans who can speak in sentences
>>> is only about a 10^-4 slice of the history of life on our planet.
>>>
>>>
>>
>> This is just another version, basically, of the Fermi "paradox",
>> and has as many arguments and counter-arguments.
>>
>> If you WANT aliens, choose the assumptions that give you aliens.
>> If you want humans-only, choose THOSE assumptions. None of them,
>> despite the passionate arguments on both sides, have any real leverage
>> on the other.
>
>
> I think it's qualitatively different from the Fermi paradox, because the
> Fermi paradox is closely related to the Drake equation, and the Drake
> equation has a whole bunch of inputs that we don't even know to within
> many orders of magnitude. The argument against close technological
> parity is a very simple one based on time scales.
Which is one of the principle reasons that the Fermi paradox exists:
"why aren't they here already" -- i.e., why haven't they taken over
everything.
All you need do is answer that with "lower down, you only meet them
if you go to their planet. Higher up, they've Transcended and you may
not even recognize they EXIST unless they want you to. The only ones
you're going to meet AND have any interaction with are those in
shouting distance of your own technology."
--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Live Journal: http://www.livejournal.com/users/seawasp/
Denni
> On Thu, 22 Mar 2007 21:45:10 -0700, Ben Crowell
>
>
> alone in the universe. Since this was boring, they
> started tinkering with evolution everywhere to bring a
> variety of sentient beings into being. A large
> proportion of these species approximate the shape that
> the gods find sexually attractive - which is why we lost
> our tails, our body hair, and our claws. They timed the
> process so that all would come to fruition at the same
> time. The first aliens we meat are hot space babes
> whose ancestors looked like a combination of a spider
> and a squid, but due to astonishingly convergent
> evolution they now look remarkably like us, though the
> females generally complete sex by devouring their mates,
> and during sex reveal they have rather more limbs than
> we do. They also have frontward and backward looking
> eyes. Their frontward looking eyes look very like our
> eyes, and their backward looking eyes are insectoid, and
> look like head ornaments, and their primary reproductive
> organ is not where you would think it is. What you
> think is their primary reproductive organ is only for
> evacuating wastes.
>
Stacks of good ideas, but this one is priceless! Please write this
story :D
Jonathan L Cunningham
> Bill Swears <wsw...@gci.net> wrote:
>
> > I've finally gotten myself set up on a beautiful piece of land, in a
> > house with plenty of room, and a view to die for.
>
> I've got myself finally in a wonderful new (80 years old) house and the
> newspaper goes and publishes a map of what the city will look like with
> another seven metres of sea. One of my colleagues reckons he'll have a
> beachfront property, according to that. I'll get a good view of the
> sea, too, from 360 degrees. In all dimensions. <sigh>
I live by the sea, but several metres above sea level.
But even if it's not seven, there's a lot of development going on which
would spoil my view, if my view consisted of more than a brick wall
about thirty feet away. (It will spoil the view of the people who live
in flats at the front, with balconies and sea views.)
I expect that these developers will want to protect their investment,
and that sea defences will be built in plenty of time. (Probably at
taxpayer's expense.)
You, also, live in a rich country. I expect your country will build sea
defences to protect major population centres; unless you are on a little
spit of land poking out to sea, you are probably ok.
You might consider importing a hundred million people from India and
China (they won't notice) -- just in case your population density is not
great enough to justify the expense. (What *is* the pop. of NZ anyway?)
I don't see New York vanishing under the sea, but I wouldn't go buying
properties in the Nile delta, or Bangladesh, without a bit more research
into the issues ... Hmmm. What about Florida? Does it have a high
enough, rich enough, population to justify the expense of building a
dyke around it?
Jonathan
--
(I'm seeing a number of replies to things that never showed up on my
newsserver; I guess it's dropping stuff, maybe about 1% at the moment.)
Constantinople
Listing all the science fiction that speculates about each of the
scenarios (approximately) might be a fun exercise. In any case this
one is very close to Star Trek, right down to the progenitor species
if I remember correctly.
Julian Flood
ch
> into the issues ... Hmmm. What about Florida? Does it have a high
> enough, rich enough, population to justify the expense of building a
> dyke around it?
You don't know anything about stilling wells do you?
JF
John W. Kennedy
> Yes. Along with Earth's birthright lotteries, the "coincidental
> encounter of humanity with the Outsiders who sold them hyperdrive, and a
> couple of other thing the wetware can't quite dredge up from the muck...
Something like this is also true in the "Babylon 5" universe, where the
Centauri decided Humans were so cute that, instead of conquering us
(their usual policy), they made us protégés (and tried at first to make
us believe we were their lost colony), so that human technology advanced
about a thousand years' worth in the hundred years between first contact
and the Babylon Project.
Not to mention the Vorlons....
--
John W. Kennedy
A proud member of the reality-based community.
* TagZilla 0.066 * http://tagzilla.mozdev.org
John W. Kennedy
> I don't see New York vanishing under the sea, but I wouldn't go buying
> properties in the Nile delta, or Bangladesh, without a bit more research
> into the issues ... Hmmm. What about Florida? Does it have a high
> enough, rich enough, population to justify the expense of building a
> dyke around it?
The coast is rich. The interior, except around Orlando, is... not.
--
John W. Kennedy
"Those in the seat of power oft forget their failings and seek only the
obeisance of others! Thus is bad government born! Hold in your heart
that you and the people are one, human beings all, and good government
shall arise of its own accord! Such is the path of virtue!"
-- Kazuo Koike. "Lone Wolf and Cub: Thirteen Strings" (tr. Dana Lewis)
Nicholas Waller
wrote:
> There is a time
> scale set by the amount of time for which our galaxy has been suitable
> for the evolution of life, and that time scale is in the billions of
> years. That makes it extremely implausible that you'd get a scenario
> like Larry Niven's, in which first contact is with the
> kzin, who happen to have a technological level extremely close to
> ours.
Ken MacLeod's _Learning the World_ has one solution to this. Our
(initial) heroes are heading in a kind of* generation ship to what
they think is another empty system, only by the time they get there a
fairly advanced (early 20thC) civilisation has popped up and got
going.
Not only that...
[sort of a SPOILER]
... by the end of the story yet another alien civilisation seems to
have popped up some light years off. In a universe that seems empty,
where are they coming from and why at much the same time?
[more of a SPOILER, but not completely]
I won't be too specific, but MacLeod provides an answer of sorts,
which boils down to the nature of the universe we and/or the
characters are in, and where it came from; the assumption being that
new universes can be and are being created.
*"kind of"; although it takes centuries to get places people live much
longer than that, so there are people at the start of the journey who
make it to the end.
--
Nick
Ben Crowell
>> Fermi paradox is closely related to the Drake equation, and the Drake
>> equation has a whole bunch of inputs that we don't even know to within
>> many orders of magnitude. The argument against close technological
>> parity is a very simple one based on time scales.
>
> Which is one of the principle reasons that the Fermi paradox exists:
> "why aren't they here already" -- i.e., why haven't they taken over
> everything.
>
> All you need do is answer that with "lower down, you only meet them
> if you go to their planet. Higher up, they've Transcended and you may
> not even recognize they EXIST unless they want you to. The only ones
> you're going to meet AND have any interaction with are those in shouting
> distance of your own technology."
That's essentially the scenario I was assuming in my original post.
The other likely solution is simply that the number of technological
civilizations in our galaxy is equal to one, and we're it. There's
plenty of room on the low end of the Drake equation.
Ben Crowell
> In article <46030e6d$0$953$8046...@newsreader.iphouse.net>,
> Dan Goodman <dsg...@iphouse.com> wrote:
>> Another: Every intelligent species will avoid that temptation, but
>> will manage to exterminate itself. Another intelligent species will
>> evolve, but that takes time.
>
> In my darker hours, I imagine that the solution to the Drake equation
> is very low -- that the number of technological species in the galaxy
> is something like 10^-6. Which is to say, that most of the time there
> are none, but every so often one arises...for a brief period.
Why is that in your "darker hours?" It sure beats living in a galaxy
that's run by godlike crustaceans who happened to become top dog because
they were the first to develop technology.
Rich Weyand
>Charlie (who was never bored as a child and never told to put out the light
>and stop reading)
I was. I would read well past bedtime (long into the night in fact), and
finally my dad would kill the power to my room. At which point I switched to
a flashlight. I finally told him that I had a lot more headroom in my studies
than in my finances, and battery costs were killing me. He relented.
--
Rich Weyand
WIS: "Message Received" - 110 kwords
WIS: "Hero of the Captaincy" - 2300 words
WIP: untitled sequel to "Message Received"
Rich Weyand
>But a galaxy full of bacteria living deep in the hot wet
>rocks is not one of the most exciting stories, so what
>scientifically half plausible ways can we avoid that?
>
>1. Repression: God like civilization picks up all
>potential competitors, and any life form that has the
>potential to make changes in the galaxy that they regard
>as unaesthetic, and puts them in zoos.
Such as here on Earth.... Nah. Been done, I think.
>2. Stagnation: Damned greenies. And if you think the
>EPA is bad, imagine an EPA staffed by immortals.
ROTFL -- That's a great one! Actually, any bureacracy staffed by immortals is
terrifying. It's only their hurry to consolidate power that causes them to
overreach and get in trouble. With a long time horizon, though....
>7. Manipulation: Godlike beings found they were all
>alone in the universe. Since this was boring, they
>started tinkering with evolution everywhere to bring a
>variety of sentient beings into being. A large
>proportion of these species approximate the shape that
>the gods find sexually attractive - which is why we lost
>our tails, our body hair, and our claws. They timed the
>process so that all would come to fruition at the same
>time. The first aliens we meat are hot space babes
hehehe
>whose ancestors looked like a combination of a spider
>and a squid, but due to astonishingly convergent
>evolution they now look remarkably like us, though the
>females generally complete sex by devouring their mates,
Eeewww. Though I have known people of both genders who seem to fit that mold
psychologically at least.
Rich Weyand
>In article <46030e6d$0$953$8046...@newsreader.iphouse.net>,
>Dan Goodman <dsg...@iphouse.com> wrote:
>>Another: Every intelligent species will avoid that temptation, but
>>will manage to exterminate itself. Another intelligent species will
>>evolve, but that takes time.
>
>In my darker hours, I imagine that the solution to the Drake equation
>is very low -- that the number of technological species in the galaxy
>is something like 10^-6. Which is to say, that most of the time there
>are none, but every so often one arises...for a brief period.
I'm not so pessimistic. The numbers are too large, and the probability of
planets within the liquid-water zone looks to me like it could be higher than
most estimates.
Now, whether or not we want to *meet* any is a different question. The
"meeting the benevolent aliens" scenario (a la Star Trek first encounters) is
much less likely IMO than the "being quickly at war with someone we didn't
know was there" scenarion (a la Ringo's Posleen universe or Weber's Dahak
series).
Rich Weyand
>R.L. wrote:
>
>> Again Niven did it well, but he kept the pv with an Everyman sort of
>> human, and with some aliens he used familiar animal stereotypes
>> ('herd animal', macho tomcats).
>
>And those stereotypes didn't match either scientific evidence or what
>people who've been around animals know.
>
>Herd animals are a long way from being nonviolent.
>
>Carnivores are not particularly brave.
Indeed. Carnivores seem to be particularly sensitive to the fact that they
can also be prey. If I take one of my housecats and put them in the
open middle of the backyard, they will immediately slink quickly to cover,
there to reconnoiter before venturing out into the open.
Rich Weyand
Indeed, I prefer the converse:
"Never underestimate the stupidity of people in large groups."
Rich Weyand
>Bill Swears <wsw...@gci.net> wrote:
>
>> I've finally gotten myself set up on a beautiful piece of land, in a
>> house with plenty of room, and a view to die for.
>
>I've got myself finally in a wonderful new (80 years old) house and the
>newspaper goes and publishes a map of what the city will look like with
>another seven metres of sea. One of my colleagues reckons he'll have a
>beachfront property, according to that. I'll get a good view of the
>sea, too, from 360 degrees. In all dimensions. <sigh>
You'll probably get a lot more beach in the next 30 years or so, as the cycle
reverses....
Remus Shepherd
> >Herd animals are a long way from being nonviolent.
> >Carnivores are not particularly brave.
> Indeed. Carnivores seem to be particularly sensitive to the fact that they
> can also be prey. If I take one of my housecats and put them in the
> open middle of the backyard, they will immediately slink quickly to cover,
> there to reconnoiter before venturing out into the open.
You need a third category, then -- pack animals. Most dogs are stupidly
brave, unless they've learned hard lessons about bravery early in life.
They always assume the pack will be there to bail them out.
... ...
Remus Shepherd <re...@panix.com>
Indefensible Positions -- a story of superheroic philosophy.
http://indepos.comicgenesis.com/
Tina Hall
[rising sea level]
> I expect that these developers will want to protect their investment,
> and that sea defences will be built in plenty of time. (Probably at
> taxpayer's expense.)
> You, also, live in a rich country. I expect your country will build
> sea defences to protect major population centres; unless you are on a
> little spit of land poking out to sea, you are probably ok.
Optimist.
There aren't only oceans, but rivers, too. Over here, some regions get
flooded every year, cellars of full of water, historical buildings
having their foundation eaten away bit by bit.
One would think they'd do something about that. But they're back on the
news every year.
--
Tina
WIP: Working title: The Knight's Journey 12168 words
Michelle Bottorff
> You need a third category, then -- pack animals. Most dogs are stupidly
> brave, unless they've learned hard lessons about bravery early in life.
> They always assume the pack will be there to bail them out.
I really don't think that cowardly/brave really work as attributes when
trying to describe animals. They're too point of view dependant.
And the pov required usually invovles a greater degree of hindsight than
animals are reputed to possess. :)
--
Michelle Bottorff -> Chelle B. -> Shelby
L. Shelby, Writer http://www.lshelby.com/
Livejournal http://lavenderbard.livejournal.com/
rec.arts.sf.composition FAQ http://www.lshelby.com/rasfcFAQ.html
Crowfoot
> Bill Swears <wsw...@gci.net> wrote:
>
> > I've finally gotten myself set up on a beautiful piece of land, in a
> > house with plenty of room, and a view to die for.
>
> I've got myself finally in a wonderful new (80 years old) house and the
> newspaper goes and publishes a map of what the city will look like with
> another seven metres of sea. One of my colleagues reckons he'll have a
> beachfront property, according to that. I'll get a good view of the
> sea, too, from 360 degrees. In all dimensions. <sigh>
>
> Zeborah
We're many miles inland in a city on a 5000 mile high plateau, so
I guess we're all right. This used to be an ancient sea-bed, but got
one hell of an uplift afterward. Our problem, of course, is the (lack
of) availability of fresh water. But if the sea is so much expanded
by Global Warming, won't the ocean become fresh water itself, by
virtue of dilution?
SMC
J. F. Cornwall
Well, yes, I think a 5000 mile high plateau *ought* to be safe from
slightly elevated sealevels... <GRIN>
Jim
Logan Kearsley
news:e5CdnYGndYTRY57b...@wideopenwest.com...
> In article <eu077n$2mlh$1...@agate.berkeley.edu>, gold...@OCF.Berkeley.EDU
(David Goldfarb) wrote:
> >In article <46030e6d$0$953$8046...@newsreader.iphouse.net>,
> >Dan Goodman <dsg...@iphouse.com> wrote:
> >>Another: Every intelligent species will avoid that temptation, but
> >>will manage to exterminate itself. Another intelligent species will
> >>evolve, but that takes time.
> >
> >In my darker hours, I imagine that the solution to the Drake equation
> >is very low -- that the number of technological species in the galaxy
> >is something like 10^-6. Which is to say, that most of the time there
> >are none, but every so often one arises...for a brief period.
>
> I'm not so pessimistic. The numbers are too large, and the probability of
> planets within the liquid-water zone looks to me like it could be higher
than
> most estimates.
Further augmented by adding in the probability of life developing in
different temperature zones with different solvents.
> Now, whether or not we want to *meet* any is a different question. The
> "meeting the benevolent aliens" scenario (a la Star Trek first encounters)
is
> much less likely IMO than the "being quickly at war with someone we didn't
> know was there" scenarion (a la Ringo's Posleen universe or Weber's Dahak
> series).
-l.
------------------------------------
My inbox is a sacred shrine, none shall enter that are not worthy.
Crowfoot
> In article <46030e6d$0$953$8046...@newsreader.iphouse.net>,
> Dan Goodman <dsg...@iphouse.com> wrote:
> >Another: Every intelligent species will avoid that temptation, but
> >will manage to exterminate itself. Another intelligent species will
> >evolve, but that takes time.
>
> In my darker hours, I imagine that the solution to the Drake equation
> is very low -- that the number of technological species in the galaxy
> is something like 10^-6. Which is to say, that most of the time there
> are none, but every so often one arises...for a brief period.
But -- one of our limiting problems is our tendency to define
"intelligent" as "technological" in the sense of using physical tools.
There could be intelligent species without hands which we would
not recognize as intelligent even if we came across them because
their technologies are not about physically manipulating the
environment in the ways that we do (I'm thinking of findings
about the intelligence of cetaceans, for example, which continue
to upgrade the status of our estimation of their intelligence and
complex social organization). And vice versa, of course (I have
no doubt that there are whales who scoff at the idea that humans
are seriously intelligent beings). Nor does intelligence per se
demand a drive to reach out and find other intelligent species,
particularly if you are in a fairly restricted environment with
regard to creating broadcast waves (in the present example,
living in the ocean without hands to build radios with).
Maybe species *with* hands or something like them are more
likely to destroy their environments and so themselves than
those without, cleverness at manipulation swiftly outrunning
the much slower development of common sense and forward-
looking thought. Maybe handed species that do get past the
baby-with-a-bomb stage (ours, at present) move into concepts,
values, and behaviors that work against their either discovering
us or being discovered by us.
SMC
Irina Rempt
> We're many miles inland in a city on a 5000 mile high plateau, so
> I guess we're all right.
Five *thousand* miles? Goodness, where are you?
Irina
--
Vesta veran, terna puran, farenin. http://www.valdyas.org/irina/
Beghinnen can ick, volherden will' ick, volbringhen sal ick.
http://www.valdyas.org/foundobjects/index.cgi Latest: 18-Mar-2007
Tim S
> Crowfoot wrote:
>> We're many miles inland in a city on a 5000 mile high plateau, so
>> I guess we're all right.
<Swallows>
Jeepers, what size planet do you live on? What's the local grav like
there? ... _How does it stay up???_
>> This used to be an ancient sea-bed, but got one hell of an uplift afterward.
You're telling me!
>> Our problem, of course, is the (lack
>> of) availability of fresh water. But if the sea is so much expanded
>> by Global Warming, won't the ocean become fresh water itself, by
>> virtue of dilution?
Not unless it boils ...
Tim
Charlie Allery
"R.L." <see...@no-spams.coms> wrote in message
news:1b3mbfzsrqpuh$.r6xs4x3x2vpw$.dlg@40tude.net...
> On Thu, 22 Mar 2007 23:50:04 -0000, Charlie Allery wrote:
> /snip/
>
>> I have an idea for an SF novel with an alien species but it's only in
>> notes
>> so far and it would postulate similar levels of technology. And I would
>> and
>> do use FTL. I have a short story that uses humanoids of about our current
>> level of technology (no FTL), but it's deliberate mis-direction because
>> they
>> are in fact fruiting bodies for a planetary lifeform. I have a story with
>> an
>> insectoid race that is part of a larger union of species. And I appear to
>> have a story I'd completely forgotten about with an insectoid ambassador
>> and
>> a small child.
>
> /snip/
>
>> I like to have
>> my aliens have at least one biological or behavioural characteristic
>> which
>> appears unnatural to humans.
>
>
> At least!
>
> Your aliens sound fascinating. But -- if their psychology lives up to the
> differences in their physiology, it must be quite a challenge to write in
> their pv or to show them in close interactions with humans.
>
Yup, a lot of the point of using aliens for me is to investigate a really
alien psychology.
Charlie
Charlie Allery
> In article <etv1jj$g7t$1$8302...@news.demon.co.uk>, "Charlie Allery"
> <cha...@charlieallery.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>Charlie (who was never bored as a child and never told to put out the
>>light
>>and stop reading)
>
> I was. I would read well past bedtime (long into the night in fact), and
> finally my dad would kill the power to my room. At which point I switched
> to
> a flashlight. I finally told him that I had a lot more headroom in my
> studies
> than in my finances, and battery costs were killing me. He relented.
>
My parents' response to "I can't sleep" was "well, read then". They might
say goodnight if I was still reading when they went to bed (as I frequently
was) but that was it. I think they figured the sleep thing was
self-regulating, if I was short on sleep one night I'd fall asleep earlier
the next. And as teachers, they had no intention of disuading us from
reading, whatever it might be. In fact, my mother was the one who insisted
on keeping my Enid Blytons for me.
Charlie
Dan Goodman
> On 23 Mar 2007 03:04:49 GMT, Dan Goodman wrote:
> > R.L. wrote:
> >
> >> Again Niven did it well, but he kept the pv with an Everyman sort
> of >> human, and with some aliens he used familiar animal stereotypes
> >> ('herd animal', macho tomcats).
> >
> > And those stereotypes didn't match either scientific evidence or
> > what people who've been around animals know.
> >
> > Herd animals are a long way from being nonviolent.
>
>
> Does someone think herd animals are non-violent?
Larry Niven did.
> The Puppeteers turned
> their backs on danger -- the better to kick.
That's a retcon.
> Quote from memory:
> "Louis, the majority is always sane."
> "Herd animal!"
>
>
> R.L.
--
Dan Goodman
All political parties die at last of swallowing their own lies.
John Arbuthnot (1667-1735), Scottish writer, physician.
Journal http://dsgood.livejournal.com
future http://dangoodman.livejournal.com
Links http://del.icio.us/dsgood
Dan Goodman
> Rich Weyand <wey...@rcn.com> wrote:
> > > Herd animals are a long way from being nonviolent.
> > > Carnivores are not particularly brave.
>
> > Indeed. Carnivores seem to be particularly sensitive to the fact
> > that they can also be prey. If I take one of my housecats and put
> > them in the open middle of the backyard, they will immediately
> > slink quickly to cover, there to reconnoiter before venturing out
> > into the open.
>
> You need a third category, then -- pack animals. Most dogs are
> stupidly brave, unless they've learned hard lessons about bravery
> early in life. They always assume the pack will be there to bail
> them out.
Wolves aren't that way, and I believe by the third generation, feral
dogs aren't either.
Dan Goodman
> Dan Goodman wrote:
> > Ben Crowell wrote:
> >
> > > J.Pascal wrote:
> > > > On Mar 21, 8:34 pm, Ben Crowell
> >>><crowel...@lightSPAMandISmatterEVIL.com> wrote:
> > > > > Michelle Bottorff wrote:
> > > > > > If there are advanced aliens out there, maybe they will
> > > > > > continue to avoid us. So I'm tempted to say, "if advanced
> > > > > > aliens are giving your problems, don't use them," but it's
> > > > > > not helpful, so I will refrain. ;)
> > > > > That's sort of how I feel about FTL. But aliens are just too
> > > > > much fun!
> > > > I try to avoid FTL but some stories just want it.
> > > >
> > > > I don't quite understand what your question is about writing
> > > > aliens.
> > > It's just that I don't think it's scientifically plausible that
> > > they would just happen to match our level of development.
> > > Compared to us, they should really be either like gods, or like
> > > animals. Life has existed on earth for several billion years, and
> > > out of that time, the span from ancient Egypt to the present day
> > > represents something like 10^-6. Even mentally modern H. sapiens
> > > has only been around for about 100,000 years. (There's evidence
> > > for a certain gene having changed around 100k years ago, allowing
> > > speech to occur.) So just having humans who can speak in sentences
> > > is only about a 10^-4 slice of the history of life on our planet.
> >
> > One possibility: Any intelligent species will rise to the level of
> > technology needed to bomb themselves back to the earliest parts of
> > the stone age. Rise up again, and ....
> >
> > Another: Every intelligent species will avoid that temptation, but
> > will manage to exterminate itself. Another intelligent species will
> > evolve, but that takes time.
> >
> One possible problem with these ideas is that if our species'
> experience is at all typical, the rate of technological progress is
> extremely uneven. There were mind-boggling amounts of time over which
> H sapiens made a single, stereotyped set of tools, and never achieved
> any innovation. That was followed by a flash of technological
> innovation that went by in a blink of an eye. If that's a common
> pattern, then you'd expect that at any given time, virtually all
> intelligent species in the galaxy would be in the stone age.
>
> Forgetting about the demands of SF storytelling, my own guess is that
> there's lots of life in the galaxy, but it's all unicellular. If you
> look at the history of life on our planet, multicellular life occurs
> very late in the game, and even now, bacteria are arguably the
> dominant form of life on our planet.
I believe one theory says unicelllular life below the surface (and
below soil and seabed) is equal in bulk to life on the surface.
Crowfoot
sp...@sofluc.co.uk.invalid (Jonathan L Cunningham) wrote:
> Zeborah <zeb...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Bill Swears <wsw...@gci.net> wrote:
> >
> > > I've finally gotten myself set up on a beautiful piece of land, in a
> > > house with plenty of room, and a view to die for.
> >
> > I've got myself finally in a wonderful new (80 years old) house and the
> > newspaper goes and publishes a map of what the city will look like with
> > another seven metres of sea. One of my colleagues reckons he'll have a
> > beachfront property, according to that. I'll get a good view of the
> > sea, too, from 360 degrees. In all dimensions. <sigh>
>
> I live by the sea, but several metres above sea level.
>
> But even if it's not seven, there's a lot of development going on which
> would spoil my view, if my view consisted of more than a brick wall
> about thirty feet away. (It will spoil the view of the people who live
> in flats at the front, with balconies and sea views.)
>
> I expect that these developers will want to protect their investment,
> and that sea defences will be built in plenty of time. (Probably at
> taxpayer's expense.)
>
> You, also, live in a rich country. I expect your country will build sea
> defences to protect major population centres; unless you are on a little
> spit of land poking out to sea, you are probably ok.
>
> You might consider importing a hundred million people from India and
> China (they won't notice) -- just in case your population density is not
> great enough to justify the expense. (What *is* the pop. of NZ anyway?)
>
> I don't see New York vanishing under the sea, but I wouldn't go buying
> properties in the Nile delta, or Bangladesh, without a bit more research
> into the issues ... Hmmm. What about Florida? Does it have a high
> enough, rich enough, population to justify the expense of building a
> dyke around it?
>
> Jonathan
Sure, but it's politics are so corrupt that actual measures, realized and
effective, will never happen; Louisiana, same. America doesn't do
big outlays for the community unless there's an FDR style revolution
in thinking that overcomes the current greed-and-grab mentality that
rules the nation.
Just my humble opinion . . .
SMC
Crowfoot
> "why aren't they here already" -- i.e., why haven't they taken over
> everything.
>
> All you need do is answer that with "lower down, you only meet them
> if you go to their planet
and if when you get there you realize that those clusters of exploded
tropical fruits which sing songs at a pitch you can't register are, in
fact, intelligent in the sense off having language, aesthetics, a sense
of both past and future time, and ethical values of some explicit
kind (as opposed to just running on instinct).
SMC
David Goldfarb
Ben Crowell <crow...@lightSPAMandISmatterEVIL.com> wrote:
>David Goldfarb wrote:
>> In my darker hours, I imagine that the solution to the Drake equation
>> is very low -- that the number of technological species in the galaxy
>> is something like 10^-6. Which is to say, that most of the time there
>> are none, but every so often one arises...for a brief period.
>
>Why is that in your "darker hours?"
Because it implies that technological civilizations *always* destroy
themselves, and that therefore we are doomed.
>It sure beats living in a galaxy
>that's run by godlike crustaceans who happened to become top dog because
>they were the first to develop technology.
Frankly, I disagree.
--
David Goldfarb |"As an experimental psychologist I have been
gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu |trained not to believe anything unless it can be
gold...@csua.berkeley.edu |demonstrated in the laboratory on rats or
|sophomores." -- Steven Pinker
Crowfoot
wey...@rcn.com (Rich Weyand) wrote:
> In article <1oxt8g4asdt6.15...@40tude.net>, "R.L."
> <see...@no-spams.coms> wrote:
> >On 23 Mar 2007 03:04:49 GMT, Dan Goodman wrote:
> >> R.L. wrote:
> >>
> >>> Again Niven did it well, but he kept the pv with an Everyman sort of
> >>> human, and with some aliens he used familiar animal stereotypes
> >>> ('herd animal', macho tomcats).
> >>
> >> And those stereotypes didn't match either scientific evidence or what
> >> people who've been around animals know.
> >>
> >> Herd animals are a long way from being nonviolent.
> >
> >
> >Does someone think herd animals are non-violent? The Puppeteers turned
> >their backs on danger -- the better to kick.
> >
> >Quote from memory:
> >"Louis, the majority is always sane."
> >"Herd animal!"
>
> Indeed, I prefer the converse:
>
> "Never underestimate the stupidity of people in large groups."
Yup. In numbers and under perceived threat, we revert all too easily
to running almost entirely on instinct and leave the thinking for later.
Unfortunately, instinct alone, operating in situations a lot more
complex than those that crop up in animals that always operate on
instinct, leads to crude, usually stupid (in terms of the outcome)
behavior.
We're much better at using our heads individually and in small
groups, I think.
SMC
Sea Wasp
>>> I think it's qualitatively different from the Fermi paradox, because the
>>> Fermi paradox is closely related to the Drake equation, and the Drake
>>> equation has a whole bunch of inputs that we don't even know to within
>>> many orders of magnitude. The argument against close technological
>>> parity is a very simple one based on time scales.
>>
>>
>> Which is one of the principle reasons that the Fermi paradox
>> exists: "why aren't they here already" -- i.e., why haven't they taken
>> over everything.
>>
>> All you need do is answer that with "lower down, you only meet
>> may not even recognize they EXIST unless they want you to. The only
>> ones you're going to meet AND have any interaction with are those in
>> shouting distance of your own technology."
>
>
> That's essentially the scenario I was assuming in my original post.
>
> The other likely solution is simply that the number of technological
> civilizations in our galaxy is equal to one, and we're it. There's
> plenty of room on the low end of the Drake equation.
But that's no fun at all. How can we subjugate the alien races -- or
fight against the monstrous alien hordes -- if there aren't any aliens?
--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Live Journal: http://www.livejournal.com/users/seawasp/
Crowfoot
Remus Shepherd <re...@panix.com> wrote:
> Rich Weyand <wey...@rcn.com> wrote:
> > >Herd animals are a long way from being nonviolent.
> > >Carnivores are not particularly brave.
>
> > Indeed. Carnivores seem to be particularly sensitive to the fact that they
> > can also be prey. If I take one of my housecats and put them in the
> > open middle of the backyard, they will immediately slink quickly to cover,
> > there to reconnoiter before venturing out into the open.
Worried about coyotes and hawks, or some kind of instinctual memory
of same; also bobcats and other larger wild felines, which will happily
and easily make a meal of your pet. I've just read a book called
"Predators of the Southern Rockies" (more or less) which was a real
eye-opener, boy. The author is a hiker and amateur (I think)
naturalist who regularly treks through the more remote areas of our
national parks and refuges, and what he reports shines a whole new
light on the nature of the predatory life in nature. As a predator, you
are mostly pouncing on creatures that have developed defenses of
some kind, usually involving slicing, ramming, clawing, etc., and even
a minor injury suffered in the process of killing your dinner can lead
to a horrible, lingering death from infection or starvation or both.
Put it this way: the *average* life-span of a wolf in the wild is -- 18
months.
I recommend the book; it's a fine antidote to the tendency of modern
city people to romanticize "nature red in tooth and claw". A black
bear will run from you if you startle it, but if nothing else happens it
is likely to creep back for a better look, and upon realizing that you
are not very scary it may very well have a serious try at turning you
into its dinner. A grizzly bear will run down a black bear and kill it
and eat it. Likewise the cougar or puma with the bobcat, and so on.
When we draw conclusions about animal attitude and behavior from
domesticated or captive animals, we're getting a lot about their
*potentialities* -- aspects they can develop when protected from the
harshness their lives would encounter in nature --- but not much
about that natural life.
Which is pretty damn ugly. At one point the writer remarks that
animals in nature do not die of old age: they sicken, or starve because
something in their environment or their own condition prevents
them from eating, or they are killed by an accident or a predator (he
has an interesting aside about bears hanging around rocky scree at
the feet of cliffs to find the carcasses of mt. goats that have slipped
(yes) and fallen to their deaths . . .
Sorry, I don't mean to burble, but this stuff is still bubbling and
steaming right in the front of my brain, so I've taken the opportunity
to pour off a little here.
SMC
Zeborah
> Zeborah <zeb...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I've got myself finally in a wonderful new (80 years old) house and the
> > newspaper goes and publishes a map of what the city will look like with
> > another seven metres of sea. One of my colleagues reckons he'll have a
> > beachfront property, according to that. I'll get a good view of the
> > sea, too, from 360 degrees. In all dimensions. <sigh>
>
> I live by the sea, but several metres above sea level.
>
> But even if it's not seven, there's a lot of development going on which
> would spoil my view, if my view consisted of more than a brick wall
> about thirty feet away. (It will spoil the view of the people who live
> in flats at the front, with balconies and sea views.)
>
> I expect that these developers will want to protect their investment,
> and that sea defences will be built in plenty of time. (Probably at
> taxpayer's expense.)
>
> You, also, live in a rich country. I expect your country will build sea
> defences to protect major population centres; unless you are on a little
> spit of land poking out to sea, you are probably ok.
I'm not sure you quite appreciate the high seacoast:land area ratio of
New Zealand. New Zealand *is* a little spit of land poking out to sea.
Auckland is built on the narrow part of a peninsula, essentially between
two oceans. Wellington surrounds a harbour, though it's mostly on hills
due to a swindle perpetrated by a man from jail in the 19th century (and
indeed it gained a bit of height in its last major earthquake).
Christchurch is reclaimed swampland. Maybe I won't have to worry about
sealevels; if there's a big earthquake in the meantime, I believe most
of the city is expected to be swallowed up as in quicksand. (Even
allowing for hyperbole, that still can't be good.)
Still, yes, I'm sure someone will try to do something to protect those
expensive beachfront properties.
> You might consider importing a hundred million people from India and
> China (they won't notice) -- just in case your population density is not
> great enough to justify the expense. (What *is* the pop. of NZ anyway?)
4 million odd, and fewer sheep than there used to be. (Time was we had
20 times as many sheep as people.)
Zeborah
--
Gravity is no joke.
http://www.geocities.com/zeborahnz/
rasfc FAQ: http://www.lshelby.com/rasfcFAQ.html
Andrew Stephenson
zeb...@gmail.com "Zeborah" writes:
> [...] Wellington surrounds a harbour, though it's mostly on
> hills due to a swindle perpetrated by a man from jail in the
> 19th century (and indeed it gained a bit of height in its last
> major earthquake). [...]
The way its planned harbour extension, into boggy ground, became
a dry, level cricket field after the 'quake? I grinned, hearing
about that one.
--
Andrew Stephenson
Tina Hall
> But that's no fun at all. How can we subjugate the alien races -- or
> fight against the monstrous alien hordes -- if there aren't any aliens?
<g>
Just want to say that's sig-worthy. :)
--
Tina
WIP: Working title: The Knight's Journey 14443 words
Zeborah
Basin Reserve is the most well-known, I think, but there are cliffs
right around the harbour where you can see the old sea-level line.
Sea Wasp
> Sea Wasp <seawasp...@sgeobviousinc.com> wrote:
>
>
>> But that's no fun at all. How can we subjugate the alien races -- or
>>fight against the monstrous alien hordes -- if there aren't any aliens?
>
>
> <g>
>
> Just want to say that's sig-worthy. :)
>
Anyone who wishes is welcome to use it (with appropriate attribution,
of course!) :)
Andrew Stephenson
seawasp...@sgeobviousinc.com "Sea Wasp" writes:
> But that's no fun at all. How can we subjugate the alien races
> -- or fight against the monstrous alien hordes -- if there
> aren't any aliens?
That's easy. <g> We copy what terrestrial politicians have been
doing since forever: we invent them. Then we wipe them out. In
histories, any ethical tergiversation can be made to look shiny.
--
Andrew Stephenson
Ric Locke
> Bill Swears <wsw...@gci.net> wrote:
>
>> I've finally gotten myself set up on a beautiful piece of land, in a
>> house with plenty of room, and a view to die for.
>
> I've got myself finally in a wonderful new (80 years old) house and the
> newspaper goes and publishes a map of what the city will look like with
> another seven metres of sea. One of my colleagues reckons he'll have a
> beachfront property, according to that. I'll get a good view of the
> sea, too, from 360 degrees. In all dimensions. <sigh>
>
> Zeborah
This sort of thing is the reason I am convinced that the current "global
warming" campaign has nothing to do with realistic evaluations of public
policy and everything to do with a power grab. Even the IPCC can't come
up with a justification for more than about 50 cm. rise, down from the
80 cm. that was the "consensus" before -- yet we've got all these
terrifying predictions being promulgated.
There will also be people who *benefit* from warming, sometimes by quite
a lot. It only takes a few tenths of a degree to move all the climatic
zones for plant growth one number north, for instance. A realistic
assessment of public policy would include finding ways to transfer the
profits from better plant growth farther north, therefore more efficient
production of food, to ways to support flooded Bengladeshi.
But a "news" business that only reports disasters because scare stories
sell newpapers -- or do they? current experience suggests that may be
incomplete at best -- combines with a fanatic belief in communitarian
solutions to lead us toward what I consider a disaster from a political
point of view. At which this comment ends.
Regards,
Ric
--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com
Tina Hall
> Tina Hall wrote:
>> Sea Wasp <seawasp...@sgeobviousinc.com> wrote:
>>> But that's no fun at all. How can we subjugate the alien races -- or
>>> fight against the monstrous alien hordes -- if there aren't any
>>> aliens?
>>
>> <g>
>>
>> Just want to say that's sig-worthy. :)
> Anyone who wishes is welcome to use it (with appropriate attribution,
> of course!) :)
Hm. I've still got room in the more general sig.
Do you want to go down in history as Sea Wasp or Ryk E. Spoor? (I'd
guess the former, as that's what you're known as on Usenet.)
Sea Wasp
> Sea Wasp <seawasp...@sgeobviousinc.com> wrote:
>
>>Tina Hall wrote:
>>
>>>Sea Wasp <seawasp...@sgeobviousinc.com> wrote:
>>
>
>>>> But that's no fun at all. How can we subjugate the alien races -- or
>>>>fight against the monstrous alien hordes -- if there aren't any
>>>>aliens?
>>>
>>><g>
>>>
>>>Just want to say that's sig-worthy. :)
>>
>
>> Anyone who wishes is welcome to use it (with appropriate attribution,
>>of course!) :)
>
>
> Hm. I've still got room in the more general sig.
>
> Do you want to go down in history as Sea Wasp or Ryk E. Spoor? (I'd
> guess the former, as that's what you're known as on Usenet.)
>
Yep. I made the quote as Sea Wasp so that's how it should be
attributed. :)
Keith F. Lynch
> "R.L." <see-...@no-spams.coms> wrote:
>> 'Lower' animals with space travel is a fascinating idea, but do
>> you think it likely?
Sure, why not? Animals have evolved that can swim, that can fly, and
that can survive extreme conditions. So why not animals that can fly
through space?
> There's a trope that pops up every now and then where a primitive
> species overtakes an alien visitor, steals its technology and
> becomes a starfaring race through no actual scientific advancement
> of their own.
That seems much less likely to me. Maybe they could steal a single
starship, just as a stone age savage might steal a car. Maybe they
could even figure out how to work it, though it seems unlikely in both
cases. But there's no way they'd be able to duplicate it, or even
keep it running for long.
--
Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/
Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me.
James A. Donald
> Because it implies that technological civilizations
> *always* destroy themselves, and that therefore we are
> doomed.
Obviously, if we remain on earth, we are doomed. Our
weapons are becoming progressively more powerful, and as
a result of improved communications, we increasingly
demand "global" solutions - one rule for everyone, to be
imposed on everyone. But if we can settle space, the
settlers will survive.
At the moment we are rapidly moving to the situation
where the average well financed Muslim fanatic or global
warming fanatic will be able to afford nuclear weapons.
This will probably result in much of the west going
dhimmi - except that those who resent dhimmitude will
also be able to afford nuclear weapons.
--
----------------------
We have the right to defend ourselves and our property, because
of the kind of animals that we are. True law derives from this
right, not from the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state.
http://www.jim.com/ James A. Donald
James A. Donald
> >> you think it likely?
"Keith F. Lynch"
> Sure, why not? Animals have evolved that can swim, that can fly, and
> that can survive extreme conditions. So why not animals that can fly
> through space?
Consider comets with high internal heat (they have a good dose of
fresh radioactives from a recent supernova) and animals living in and
near the geysers on the surface of those comets. Low surface gravity,
and the fact that stuff gets blasted into space from time to time,
gives you a starting point to evolve space travel - starts out with
animals trying to control the situation when they get blasted off the
comet, and they evolve better and better control.
Cyli
(Jonathan L Cunningham) wrote:
>Hmmm. What about Florida? Does it have a high
>enough, rich enough, population to justify the expense of building a
>dyke around it?
The rich population is not working there, they just have their
fashionable homes, probably not year around homes, there. They'll
take their losses, screaming heartily, and go build mansions
elsewhere.
A lot of Florida is devoted to retired people and service people for
their needs. Most of whom can't afford dikes and dams. Which would
almost certainly be utterly useless, anyway. Florida is pretty low
and pretty flat. It has too much coastline to take care of that way.
I believe their high point is Mount Ida, which is a few hundred feet
above sea level. I assume it'll be an island if there's a rise of
more than a couple of meters in sea level.
New Orleans will be gone for good. Venice will go first, I assume,
though there will be valiant efforts to conserve it, as organizations
are already in place trying to keep it going in present conditions.
--
r.bc: vixen
Minnow goddess, Speaker to squirrels, willow watcher.
Almost entirely harmless. Really.
John F. Eldredge
<jam...@echeque.com> wrote:
>> >> 'Lower' animals with space travel is a fascinating idea, but do
>> >> you think it likely?
>
>"Keith F. Lynch"
>> Sure, why not? Animals have evolved that can swim, that can fly, and
>> that can survive extreme conditions. So why not animals that can fly
>> through space?
>
>Consider comets with high internal heat (they have a good dose of
>fresh radioactives from a recent supernova) and animals living in and
>near the geysers on the surface of those comets. Low surface gravity,
>and the fact that stuff gets blasted into space from time to time,
>gives you a starting point to evolve space travel - starts out with
>animals trying to control the situation when they get blasted off the
>comet, and they evolve better and better control.
Given that a comet has little, if any, atmosphere, and a high
surface-to-volume ratio due to its small size, it would have to
contain a fairly high percentage of radioactive elements in order to
sustain much warmth. I can see life evolving to the microbial stage,
but it doesn't seem likely that the comet would stay warm enough for
long enough for complex multicellular life to develop. On the other
hand, you could have the comet-dwelling critters be descended from
bioengineered life forms, having originally been developed by some
planetary-origin alien race. Perhaps they are left over from a space
industry and/or space colony that failed, or, if the aliens have FTL
travel, perhaps they seeded the cometary belt with such lifeforms and
plan to come back and harvest them later.
--
John F. Eldredge -- jo...@jfeldredge.com
PGP key available from http://pgp.mit.edu
"Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better
than not to think at all." -- Hypatia of Alexandria
Marilee J. Layman
wrote:
>In article <eu077n$2mlh$1...@agate.berkeley.edu>,
> gold...@OCF.Berkeley.EDU (David Goldfarb) wrote:
>
>> In article <46030e6d$0$953$8046...@newsreader.iphouse.net>,
>> Dan Goodman <dsg...@iphouse.com> wrote:
>> >Another: Every intelligent species will avoid that temptation, but
>> >will manage to exterminate itself. Another intelligent species will
>> >evolve, but that takes time.
>>
>> In my darker hours, I imagine that the solution to the Drake equation
>> is very low -- that the number of technological species in the galaxy
>> is something like 10^-6. Which is to say, that most of the time there
>> are none, but every so often one arises...for a brief period.
>
>But -- one of our limiting problems is our tendency to define
>"intelligent" as "technological" in the sense of using physical tools.
>There could be intelligent species without hands which we would
>not recognize as intelligent even if we came across them because
>their technologies are not about physically manipulating the
>environment in the ways that we do (I'm thinking of findings
>about the intelligence of cetaceans, for example, which continue
>to upgrade the status of our estimation of their intelligence and
>complex social organization). And vice versa, of course (I have
>no doubt that there are whales who scoff at the idea that humans
>are seriously intelligent beings).
Particularly because if we were really intelligent, we wouldn't keep
aiming sonar noise at them and damaging them.
> Nor does intelligence per se
>demand a drive to reach out and find other intelligent species,
>particularly if you are in a fairly restricted environment with
>regard to creating broadcast waves (in the present example,
>living in the ocean without hands to build radios with).
>
>Maybe species *with* hands or something like them are more
>likely to destroy their environments and so themselves than
>those without, cleverness at manipulation swiftly outrunning
>the much slower development of common sense and forward-
>looking thought. Maybe handed species that do get past the
>baby-with-a-bomb stage (ours, at present) move into concepts,
>values, and behaviors that work against their either discovering
>us or being discovered by us.
>
>SMC
--
Fabulous jewelry and art at auction right now at eBay:
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All winning bids to charity!
Marilee J. Layman http://mjlayman.livejournal.com
Marilee J. Layman
wrote:
> It only takes a few tenths of a degree to move all the climatic
>zones for plant growth one number north, for instance.
Already happened in the DC area.