I am in the midst of designing a series (possibly to be animated or be put into comic form) and I am in need of the following things * People with which I can discuss: * how various forms of fiction have depicted aliens * various aspects of a galactic society (how they measure time, currency, economy, etc) * Theoretical alien species and how they function * Alien technology * Artists to: * design alien spacecrafts/architecture * design various alien species and races within them If you are interested, please email me. Please feel free to ask general questions in this thread.
I am too lazy for email discussions.But, on the subject of Aliens in Fiction:The primary thing to note about Aliens, fiction, and sci-fi in particular is that our own understanding and reach in the universe could preclude a lot of things. We only understand how carbon-based life forms function because we only have carbon-based life forms to study. Same thing with tech: our imagination is the only thing that can invent these things. Orson Scott Card is one of the few authors who write actual "Science Fiction", because not a bit of his outlandish scenarios are based around actual theoretical sciences (string theory, what would actually happen if we hit light speed, etc.). Most classical sci-fi actually falls more into the realm of speculative fiction (when they're trying to be sciency), and is more about introducing a crazy element or species and talking about how people would react. It's just simpler. It is because of this difficulty that you get "Rubber Mask" syndrome like on Star Trek; most "alien" creatures are bipedal and humanoid because it's easy to imagine and easy to do make up for. But it's also an easy trap to fall into. I'm reminded of a story about a workshop where a whole bunch of people got together to imagine what aliens would look like, one guy in particular overlooking the whole thing. Somebody brings a drawing up to him, he looks over it and goes "where's the anus?".But that's just it: aliens don't necessarily need anuses. Or arms, or eyes, or anything resembling a carbon-based life form. But those changes will inform their entire society. If a species is made of sentient beings that have no legs and float around on air pouches, they will never invent chairs per se.More later maybe.
What Fang saidThe whole hard scifi vs soft scifi is an interesting thingStar Trek, and Mass Effect and Halo have great fleshed out universes with some interesting species. Maybe you should take a look at those franchises.
I'm a bit of a douchebag asshole, but the one thing I can absolutely do is design alternate cultures and histories based around how a civilization can be completely different from us, yet still similar enough to relate to.my AIM is ShaedoK, if you'd like to contact me through some other client, say.