He’s a man from outer space and we’re taking him to his spaceship

How do you go about creating an alien species that would be able to co-exist with humanity? What are the bonuses, and where are the pitfalls? Creating an alien creature – tentacles, slime, and all – is not hard. Creating an alien mindset that might pass for human is somewhat more of a challenge.

Any science fiction buffs will you that the genre has its amount of gory encounters and clichés, huge beasts with exoskeletons and psychic powers, existing to feed on mankind and break stuff. The buff would also tell you that it’s been seen and done to the point past exhaustion.

The term ‘alien’ does not mean big green things with too many teeth, out to conquer, invade, or just make a plain snack out of humanity. It means foreign, something unknown, and inexplicable, completely without precedent. And that’s where I think aliens get interesting.

Why do I want an alien in my game setting in the first place?
When you plan to introduce an alien NPC to your unsuspecting character group, the first thing to consider is what you wish to achieve. Do you want to scare the characters? Kill a few of them and have the survivors be the heroes who slew the monster of the blue nebula? If so, the homework’s already been done for you. Grab a box of munchies and let Sigourney Weaver take you back aboard the Nostromo.

If you want alien in that other sense, the truly foreign sense, you want to consider what conclusion you want your story line to have. Do you want a big epic shootout? Do you want humanity to learn to co-exist with its new neighbor eventually? It will not suffice to say that you’re not certain yet, and that it depends on how your players react. You are already making important decisions as to how alien these creatures will be and in what way.

The mindset of an alien that would be able to co-exist with humanity
An alien species that is able to co-exist with humanity, as we know it –not including futuristic utopias such as the Star Trek Federation — will have to meet some pretty tough requirements. We’re not a tolerant species. Any immigrant to a foreign country where he doesn’t speak the language, is unfamiliar with the social codes, and belongs to a minority will tell you this.

Our aliens will have to share most of humanity’s base characteristics — if not physically then at least mentally. Or to occupy a niche which humanity, even at its greediest, can’t find a use for. If the alien does not match either of those criteria, it will have to be extremely patient and forgiving of nature.

Aliens that are basically humans with an odd skin color aren’t really aliens. You may want to play with what sciences they posses and how mean their laser guns are, but you don’t need to think much about what really makes them alien.

Aliens who co-exist by inhabiting an ecological niche mankind has no use for have to be very alien. They are probably among the most mind-boggling of all. Just think about it. How many ecological niches is mankind is not trying to exploit? Yep. Very few. We’re talking parallel dimensions, existing in a non-physical sense only, or possibly symbiotic life forms. The latter option is only for real if the symbionts are willing to accept human values and mindsets for the good and bad of it. I wouldn’t be.

How fairly simple differences can invoke major inconveniences
Sometimes that which looks human – give or take exotic skin color, pointed ears, or a few extra fingers — may prove the most alien of them all. Not because it is the most weird – it does certainly not have to be weird — but because the familiarity that the characters expect is disappointed. This creates an unexpected set of circumstances — as opposed to a run-in with something eight meters long, green and scaly. The characters would at least expect the latter to act like a monster. That which is not human but looks it is often the most confusing. It can also provide a few comical situations, occasionally doused with a few deaths.

The most grateful way to create an alien goes through mapping out its cultural background. As immigrants will remind you, running head first into a foreign culture at warp 9 often produces embarrassing results — and in a story line where people may actually begin shooting at each other or declare stellar war, it can get even trickier.

Where the alien mind simply lacks one or more features of the human mindset
The classic mindset that humans find it difficult to interact with is the one that lacks a basic human feature: Imagination. A perfectly human looking alien who cannot relate to, nor express himself, in any fashion involving metaphors, long term thinking, or creativity, is almost impossible to lead a conversation with one of us.

Talk to anyone for ten minutes. Pay attention to all the times you use metaphors, speak of something in the near or not so near future, or compare to similar situations with no logical relevance. Not to mention the times you come up with a new idea based on a stroke of inspiration – even if it’s just ‘Hmm, the kitchen would really look better in blue.’

Your alien does not understand that. Your alien is baffled at ‘it’s raining cats and dogs’ and takes out an umbrella. When you tell him that ‘some quiet day we should really fix that engine’ he begins to wonder which days are less noisy. He’ll need to do a computer simulation of your kitchen in blue and won’t see any reason to paint it unless the old paint is coming off in flakes. Aesthetics, metaphors, slang, philosophy, creativity, and imagination go down the drain. Conversation as we know it becomes incredibly difficult.

Opposed cultural values may do the trick all by themselves
Given how perfectly well we are able to launch wars over conflicting or opposed political or religious interests, it shouldn’t prove difficult to conceive of an alien culture starting a war with us. You don’t need your aliens to be very alien to have at least a third of the Earth’s population instantly develop a dislike of them.

The quickest way to introduce your players to an alien culture that will most certainly upset them is to take one or other prejudice (or fact) of their own culture, which the players are familiar with from the real world, and expand on it. Take the 1970s fights for equal rights for women in the west. How do you think a 1972 militant lesbian feminist would respond to a culture in which one sex is considered inferior with no right to speak in public, look at males or wear clothes? This concept will work especially well if you manage to use a conflict that not only the characters but also the players can recognize and relate to.

How a different view at the so-called laws of physics may appear very, very alien
Our perception of the world and the way it works is based on the sensory input we receive from the day we’re born to the day we pass away. We taste, touch, see, hear, and feel our way through life, and we learn that there are things that we can’t do because they are not physically possible. A species to which some of the restrictions nature has laid on humanity are not present is obviously very alien.

A classic example is telepathy and other psychic abilities possessed by aliens. This basic and well-tested idea works on the assumption that just because most humans aren’t able to use these interesting powers, an alien species might easily have evolved which can and does.

Such aliens are usually depicted as balanced, controlled, and as having laid the chaos and disturbing elements of conflicts and basic human nature behind themselves. They are alien but also superior in many aspects. And they don’t need to use a remote control to turn off the TV either.

Western culture generally agrees that sorcery and magic does not work because – well, it doesn’t. Really – how many people have you met that truly could read the future in chicken entrails, whisper secret words to bring ill fortune on another, or were able to dance down the rain? Well, you’ve probably met some that believed they could, and maybe even some you’d believe could do it too. The vast majority of the human race does still not believe in the existence of magic, though.

Imagine a species to which the use of magic was as commonplace as the use of a laundry machine to us. Whether this species would do everything by magic instead of science is not as important as the effects its arrival here would have upon our culture. We’d go green with envy.

Wouldn’t you like to be able to snap your fingers, and zap! The dog is walked, the cat fed and the house cleaned! Many would develop an instant dislike of these aliens simply because they felt the aliens had it too easy in some fashion. Being jealous of others having it better, easier, or nicer than oneself is a base trait of human; ambition is a driving factor in the survival race.

Add to that that humans don’t approve of being left out or told that there is something they’re too quaint to learn. If humanity proved unable to master these magical powers, many would claim that they’re no good anyway, and should be refrained from. Mere jealousy combined with spite would make many people disapprove of magic simply because they couldn’t use it themselves. Speciesists would pop up everywhere that humans failed to produce an effect from snapping their fingers.

The purpose: What are the aliens\’ long-term goals?
This is a very important factor. Even if the alien culture’s long term goal really is as simple as ‘conquering everything in existence’, it’s what decides what they want to do and how they will go about doing it. This is also a decisive factor in determining the aliens’ ethical values and how far they’re willing to go to achieve what they want.

An alien culture that operates on the concept that they, and they alone, are the rightful heirs to the universe can justify any action and will not take anything from anyone. Conflicts are solved in the quickest, most efficient way, crushing future opposition. Ethics and humanitarian values are not a factor. This culture is not tied hand and foot by morals or conscience because it views itself as the rightful feudal lords of creation. There is no reason its members shouldn’t do pretty much what they want to do.

An alien culture, which believes in spiritual guidance and the individual’s ascension to a raised level of conscience, will be more forgiving of the individual’s mistakes. These will be more patient and more ready to accept the ethic flaws of other cultures as these still exist on a lower level of conscience (but at some point they can be expected to move upwards). This appears to be a major advantage at first. This culture is not likely to go to war over a minor conflict of interests. There is also a major disadvantage, though. This culture will make room for everyone to make his own decisions. Democratic decision-making is a very lengthy process if everybody has to agree to everything before anything can be done. It is very difficult to run any efficient business relationship with partners who feel a need to go sit down in a forest and hug a tree rather than working today.

A culture that takes individualism and anarchy to the extreme is also difficult to deal with on a governmental basis. Treaties only apply to the individuals who signed them. Agreements have to be made with every single member of the alien community. No one can speak for another. Everyone has the right to do what he or she wants, provided he or she is ready to face the consequences. No one can tell another how to behave or act.

You may not want to go to such extremes as those above. You do want to figure out what long-term goal you’re trying to achieve, from the master’s point of view. If you don’t want your aliens and humans to eventually overcome their differences and settle peacefully together, you don’t want to give the aliens any redeeming traits. You want to give them good reason to avoid an alliance with Earth.

If you’re hoping that your players’ characters eventually will bring peace to the sector and usher in a new era of prosperity for humans and aliens alike, you want to give both sides a reason to gain from the relationship. Make it worthwhile for ‘em both to behave.

The military and scientific use of alien resources
One major risk wherever humans and aliens meet is that of governments hoping to gain something. A healthy paranoia is not out of place when you try to map the outcome of such a meeting. Do what the Hollywood producers do. Play on people’s fear that the government is going behind their backs, making secret treaties, keeping weapons hidden, constructing new powerful biochemical weapons, or hiding the cure for cancer in a bunker in the Nevada desert.

Oh, that’s not alien. In fact, it’s very human. But once you’re through mapping out just how paranoid mankind, including your player characters, will be, think about how the aliens will respond to having set off such commotion. Will they be pleased? Shocked? Try to do penance? Will they cackle evilly and rub their paws in satisfaction, because the best way to conquer is to divide? Will they take off immediately, mortally offended, to return with the entire stellar fleet later on?

Remember to work with the stage as well as the stage crew. Handouts and clues may include newspaper clips, secret documents, prototype weapons and secret chemical formulas, videotapes never reaching the public, and other good old tools of the investigation plot. Don’t worry about laying it on too thick. If the public wasn’t ready to swallow it down, sensationalist reporters and morning press everywhere wouldn’t be thriving as they are. Play on the idea that the grass is always greener somewhere else. Use prejudice and the need for scapegoats to your advantage.

Setting up a meeting between two different cultures
At first, your aliens are obviously going to appear alien to humanity. This means that your players will happily go about finding out what their new neighbors are up to, fighting it out with them, learning about them, and whatever else catches their fancy. At some point the aliens lose their sensational aspect, though. Your players may begin to find them boring. This is the toughest trial your alien culture has to face, as to whether it’s well designed or not. Will it remain fascinating after having been in the game for six months?

This tests whether your psychological map of the alien culture is waterproof. Humanity has so many quirks, obscure rites and habits, so many far-fetched notions and such an immense history and culture to draw on, that if you happened to be game designer sitting in the next galaxy, you could go on exploring it for ages. The question is whether you, sitting in this galaxy, can go on exploring your aliens for long enough.

If the test seems to fail at first, don’t panic. Go through the steps above once more and try to focus on what effect you wish to achieve. Failure is often the result of trying to incorporate more features at once than you and your players are ready to cope with. Narrow it down. Cut away one or two things that aren’t really important and work with that which is. Make certain that you have a balance of power that remains consistent until you decide to overthrow it. This typically happens when your players find whatever that kills the aliens, repels the invasion, or whatever your long-term goal was.

Never ever panic. If all else fails, you can always wipe out your aliens, use some time to get them to work properly, and reintroduce them as the reinforcement fleet arriving. To cackling go where no alien has gone before, best of luck on your journey!

A list of some of the things to keep in mind while designing aliens
The list give here is far from conclusive. It contains a number of suggestions of things you must pay heed to when designing an alien culture.

Why?

• What effect am I trying to achieve?
• How would I prefer these effects to come about?
• What general styles of campaign and story line am I trying to set up?
• How tolerant will my aliens be?
• How much idiocy will they stand around and listen to before losing patience?
• Are my aliens truly alien or are they in fact \’just\’ humans — even if they have purple skin and bug eyes?
• Which environmental niche do my aliens occupy, and how much will they be competing with mankind for it?

Simple differences to large inconveniences

• Where does my alien culture differ from its Earth contemporaries?
• Which human expressions of body language, traits of culture, etc., exist as well in my alien culture, but have different meaning there?

The alien mind

• Which human emotions are my aliens incapable of?
• How do they deal with these emotions, and what are their emotional reactions to being confronted with them?
• Which emotions are my aliens capable of that humanity isn’t?

Opposed cultural values

• Which ‘bad’ cultural traits of humanity do my aliens share?
• How are these traits evident, and how will they offend the majority of mankind?
• Which ‘good’ cultural traits of humanity do my aliens share?
• How are these traits evident, and will they offend humanity — and /or invoke envy?
• Which seemingly human traits do my aliens also possess, and how do their interpretation of them differ from humanity’s?

Different laws of physics

• Are there any laws of physics and nature that do not apply to my aliens?
• If so, how is this evident?
• What effects has it had on the alien culture as opposed to Earth contemporary cultures?

Long-term goals

• How do my aliens view themselves on the galactic scale?
• How far will they go to achieve their goals?
• Is there anything they won’t do to get it?

Alien resources

• What are the reactions of human governments to the presence of aliens?
• What are the behind-the-scenes reactions?
• What are the reactions of mankind to how it thinks the governments are reacting?