Aliens in Science Fiction

I recently posted this in my science fiction discussion groups at Yahoo, so if you come from there, there's nothing especially new here. I must admit that it didn't get much of a response then, so maybe this is one of those things that only I find of interest? No problem. I'll just talk to myself. :)

I've heard SF fans say that they wanted aliens that were really alien, not just funny-looking people, not just the equivalent of human beings in alien suits. After all, how similar would creatures be when they evolved separately, on a completely different planet. I understand that. But there's another, very traditional way to look at aliens in science fiction, and that's to show that they're still people, despite their weird appearance.

After all, our history is filled with horrors caused by human beings who didn't see other humans as "people" (sometimes literally) because of their race, gender, nationality, or religion. We might have moved beyond thinking that - in a literal sense, at least - but we're still struggling with bigotry. And one of the classic themes in science fiction is in extending this idea of personhood to nonhumans - intelligent aliens, androids, robots, clones, uplifted animals, artificial intelligences, etc.  When can you keep another entity as a slave, and when is he, she, or it a person? When do you tell them what to do, and when do you give them civil rights and let them decide for themselves?

Well, that could be the topic of a whole 'nother post, but I do value the intent of showing aliens as, basically, weird-looking people. It is part of a classic theme in science fiction - or perhaps a closely-related theme - which continues to show us that "different" doesn't necessarily mean evil or dangerous or even wrong, and that diversity is actually a very good thing. If we can relate to weird-looking aliens, even like them, that tells us something important. And personally, I don't find it implausible that even completely separate lines of evolution might produce more similarities than differences. It's happened on Earth (admittedly, those separate lines weren't always separate).

Anyway, let's look at examples of both kinds of aliens in science fiction? For really alien aliens, I'm not sure. Hmm,... perhaps a good example might be William Tenn's "Firewater"? In that short story, advanced aliens are visiting the Earth, but they're so strange that our best scientists become insane when studying them. The specific comparison, in this 1952 story, is with the European arrival in America, which was a disaster for native Indian cultures. Natives getting too close to the white man's culture were often destroyed by alcohol, which might well be considered insanity from their culture's point of view.

Of course, we never understand the aliens in "Firewater," not even close. Maybe that's the point, that they're just too different to ever understand. But then, it's also just a short story, not a novel. There's no time to learn very much about them.

Another example might be the methane-breathers in C. J. Cherryh's Chanur novels. The "Compact" is a multi-species association (not including humans, who are the real aliens in this part of the galaxy) separated between the oxygen-breathers and the methane-breathers. Despite their association - they build space stations together - these are two very different groups, and communication between them is extremely difficult. The oxygen-breathers are all distinct enough, but they're understandable (to us). The methane breathers are not - or only in a very, very limited way. And they clearly don't understand oxygen-breathers any better. It's a neat situation. (Note that I consider the trilogy that followed The Pride of Chanur - Chanur's Venture, The Kif Strike Back, and Chanur's Homecoming - to be a real masterpiece of science fiction. It basically retold the same story as in the first book, but this time it was expanded enough to be absolutely incredible.)

C. J. Cherryh did it again with her Foreigner series, another masterpiece. In these books, the aliens look very similar to human beings - remarkably similar, in fact (though you would never mistake one for the other). But that's the problem, because they're a lot more alien than they appear. Their forms are humanoid, but their instincts are completely different. "Friend," for example, does not translate. Humans can like the atevi, but the atevi can't "like" them back. It's biologically impossible for them to "like" anyone, since their instincts don't work like that.

But the atevi have their own instincts, just as powerful as ours, that we humans can't feel. It's not that they're missing something, but just that they're different. Neither side realized this at first, which led to all-out war (just when the humans were feeling comfortable with their new "friends," and the alien culture was being torn apart by human behavior they simply could not understand). When Foreigner (1994) begins, long after the war, both sides have separated completely, with a single human translator as the only point of contact between them. Anything else was just too dangerous.

Cherryh's genius is that she really makes this work (and that she makes an entertaining story out of it, too). She makes the atevi seem quite plausible. Bren Cameron, the official translator, can't help but like the atevi he knows, but he must keep reminding himself that they can't be "friends." At the same time, his association becomes stronger and stronger with certain atevi who clearly feel very strongly about him, but their own emotions are something Bren can't actually feel. There's a gap here that can't be crossed by either species, because it's biological. They can only recognize the goodwill involved, and try not to be hurt when the other does something incomprehensible.

These might be the best alien aliens I've ever seen (even though - or perhaps because - they're only weird on the inside). Although we can't feel what they feel, we still come to understand them, at least a bit. And they're still people. Cherryh does an incredible job with this. I'm just amazed at how plausible she makes it all seem. But I can't imagine another author doing something like this. Could someone else create another alien species this different - from both humans and the atevi - and yet this plausible? The Foreigner series is up to ten books now (too many, IMHO), and she's even showing us how the atevi children grow up with these kinds of instincts (which change, as ours do, during adolescence).

The other kind of aliens, the funny-looking-human-beings kind (to give them the least flattering description), seems to be far more common in science fiction. I fondly remember Hal Clement's 15-inch-long multi-legged cockroaches (not really, but you get the idea) in Mission of Gravity (1954). Despite their weird appearance and very weird planet, they were very much like us. You may think that's simplistic, but back then, aliens were all too often something to fear and to simply exterminate. In this and his other books, Clement showed us that humans and the weirdest of aliens could work together in peace - indeed, even liking each other. I suspect that was rather refreshing in 1954.

I also loved Poul Anderson's stores featuring the multi-species team of David Falkayn, human; Adzel, a huge centauroid lizard with a long crocodilian tail; and Chee Lan, a tiny, bushy-tailed "cross between an Angora cat, a monkey, a squirrel, and a raccon." These were from the 1960's to 1970's, so not real early in science fiction. But these three people were really dedicated to each other, and their differences just made the team stronger. It's not a bad message, even today.

I should mention Alan Dean Foster, too, though he's probably not in the same league as these other authors. But in his Humanx Commonwealth books, he invented an insect-like species which fits in so well with human beings, with both species complementing the other, that they've combined their separate civilizations into one. There are other species in the galaxy, some allied and some hostile, but humans and thranx have created a single society of both species. This goes beyond the usual multi-species governments, relatively common in science fiction, which normally exist to keep the peace between separate planets. In this case, humans and thranx mix so freely at all levels, that it's rare to see one without the other. They really see each other as people, with species being a relatively minor detail (that's particularly remarkable when they're biologically so very different).

OK, still with me? (Or did you ever start?) Julie E. Czerneda's Species Imperative trilogy, reviewed yesterday, is just full of aliens - very weird aliens, who are very definitely people. On the whole "alien" vs "people" scale, she's definitely at the "people" side of things. Yet, with the basic "species imperative" theme in this trilogy, her aliens are very definitely different, too. In some ways, they act very much like human beings, so they're easy to like. But they have their quirks, due to both biology and culture, which makes them very funny sometimes and very scary other times.

These aliens are real people, and Mac, the biologist hero of the trilogy, gets to like them and even love them. And so do we. But always, usually in the background, is the recognition that they are alien. They have biological imperatives that we can't feel and might not understand. And if it ever came down to species against species - especially when extinction was a real possibility - friendship might not be enough. Still, with goodwill and effort, there's something special in their multi-species association, and people of all species are willing to give their lives for that and for each other.

I see in this trilogy, and in Cherryh's Foreigner series, a real maturing in how aliens are presented in science fiction. It's not so black and white, not so simplistic as aliens used to be presented. Their aliens are very definitely people - people we can care about and even love - but they're also alien. You can never be certain that you understand each other, so goodwill is always necessary. I really like that.

[Incidentally, in these books and in other science fiction I've read, humans generally tend to be the species which can best get along with everyone else. Other species may have trouble with each other, but humans can work with everyone. Considering our history, that's kind of funny, don't you think? But, of course, it would be nice if this were the case. And obviously, all of these books are written by and for human beings. Still, I appreciate the sentiment, that this is considered to be a good thing.]

Maybe I'm alone in seeing this dichotomy in the treatment of aliens in science fiction, the difference between aliens as people, just like us, and aliens so different as to be almost impossible to understand. (Or maybe I'm just the only one to find it interesting.) As Cherryh and Czerneda have shown us, it doesn't have to be one or the other. But to some extent, they are at opposite ends of a continuum, don't you think?