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Let us go Write! — Horror Edition

Posted by Aibird on September 14, 2014
Posted in: Aliens, Characters, World Building, Writing. Tagged: , , , , , , . 3 Comments

I write speculative fiction, where most of my focus is on science fiction with a dabble of horror. However, my roots were in fantasy, partly because when I first started writing in middle school I simply did not have the scientific foundation to write science fiction well, but that didn’t stop me. I tossed aliens into my stories, clones, and mind controlling gadgetry, all of which lived alongside feats that would only work if magic existed. I had dragons and demons and monsters. This need to understand science better to more effectively write science fiction played a large role in me earning the physics degree I have today.

Now I look back at those tales and recognize them for what they were: my practice sessions and my imagination garden. There I planted the seeds of my future fiction, and over the years I cultivated my imagination garden, helping it become more refined and less chaotic. I learned how to write a story arc. How to craft a consistent and coherent plot, and most of all, I learned how to build a science fiction world. This new series, that I’m starting with this post, will focus on various aspects of speculative fiction and will offer myself and my readers a challenge for their writing. It’ll help me plant more seeds in my imagination garden and hopefully expand my capabilities as a writer.

I’m still not perfect at writing speculative fiction, but no one ever is. We simply keep trying and keep writing the best we can. It’s always good to push our boundaries to the limits because the challenges are what helps us to grow the most. This is why I’ve tried to start learning how to write horror. So this first post in my “Let us go write!” series will focus on the horror story.

In the Now Write! Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror edited by Laurie Lamson, several articles discuss horror directly. Glenn Benest, a horror screenwriter and producer, writes:

Unlike other works of fiction or film, the protagonist in this genre does not need to go through a character arc.

He goes on to explain how horror’s main focus is not necessarily on the protagonist character.

… we must realize that the real star in the horror genre is not the hero but the source of the horror itself. Whether it’s a haunted hotel in The Shining or the great white shark in Jaws, the crucial thing that makes a horror project really work is that which scares us.

This isn’t to say strong characters shouldn’t exist in horror pieces, but it is important to take notice that the focus isn’t really on the characters. They are the vehicle that brings the reader to the confrontation with the terrible evil; this means that there is something even more important that the protagonist character when it comes to writing good horror fiction. Another point the essayist makes is that often the audience for horror pays money to be scared silly, and so expect to be scared silly. It’s not the nuances of the characters that impress them, but more how well they are scared and how much of a lasting impact that has on them. Understanding this aspect of the horror audience can aid a writer in getting their story sold.

When I think back on my own experiences with horror, I notice that the pieces that stood out to me the most were indeed dependent upon the source of the horror. I don’t remember the characters as much, nor was their character arcs that important. What made the piece good was the source of the fear. For example, in the Alien Franchise, the aliens had a very lasting impact on my psyche. Yes, Ripley has become an iconic character, but examine her storyline. She is shown from the beginning of the film to be a strong-willed and courageous woman. This doesn’t change at all during the course of the movies. She remains strong and courageous, but what changes is that she confronts the terrifying aliens and finds a way to survive. Her confrontation is what made the imprint in my mind, and has made those movies some of my ultimate favorites in the genre. It’s that confrontation that made the movie, not necessarily her story arc (or lack thereof).

So when I write horror, I need to be cognizant of this factor. The horror that is confronted is the focus of the piece, and the characters are there to help force the confrontation. I need to bring out that confrontation, really examine ways to showcase the horror and the scare factor, but to do so in creative ways. I can’t use just one method of scaring a person, but instead, I need to utilize a whole tool belt of scare methods. If I use just one method, I risk losing the element of surprise and the piece becoming lackluster and boring. Surprise can play a large role in pulling off horror well. One way to utilize different methods is to cross-cut scenes with another line of action to build the suspense. Or the writer can utilize a fake-scare, where it seems like something terrifying will happen, but it turns out to be mundane, and then start the real terror directly afterward. Another way to add variety and keep the reader on their toes is to build the suspense slowly by adding creepier and creepier situations, and then add an unexpected scare. Alien was excellent in this regard, as the creepiness of the discovery started slow, and then the alien bursting from the guy’s chest was an unexpected terror.

If a writer is having trouble finding scenarios that could be scary, examine what scares you. What causes you to jump in fear at night? What sort of dream causes you to wake up in a cold sweat or with a stifled scream? Ask friends and family about what truly scares them, and compile a list of ideas. Then try honing that list and creating ways of writing them effectively.

The essayist also points out that humor, especially in longer pieces, is a very useful tool to have in the horror tool be;t as well.

Humor always plays well in the horror genre because it gives the audience a chance to laugh and dispel tension, before you ratchet up the suspense and horror even more. When you scare us, it makes every fiber in our being taut with tension — so occasionally we need a reprieve, and humor is how that reprieve is achieved.

So it’s not enough to just learn how to utilize various scare methods. I also need to become more fluent in the use of humor done well. That will, of course, take practice, but then that’s all part of the job of writing. Now, my readers, let us go write!

Feel free to share your thoughts on horror in the comments below, or even excerpts of your own horror pieces. How else can we improve our horror fiction, and what methods (and combinations of methods) do you find most useful?

Book Review: Grass by Sheri Tepper

Posted by Aibird on July 6, 2014
Posted in: Aliens, Reviews, Science, World Building, Writing. Tagged: , , , , , , . 2 Comments

Grass by Sheri Tepper is a fascinating science fiction book.

Here is the blurb on the back of the book:

Here is a novel as original as the breathtaking, unspoiled world for which it is named, a place where all appears to be in idyllic balance.

Generations ago, humans fled to the cosmic anomaly known as Grass. Over time, they evolved a new and intricate society. But before humanity arrived another species had already claimed Grass for its own. It, too, had developed a culture…

Now, a deadly plague is spreading across the stars. No world save Grass has been left untouched. Marjorie Westriding Yrarier has been sent from Earth to discover the secret of the planet’s immunity. Amid the alien social structure and strange life-forms of Grass, Lady Westriding unravels the planet’s mysteries to find a truth so shattering it could mean the end of life itself.

Although Lady Westriding is featured as the main character, she is but one of many in a large and colorful cast of characters within Grass. Although sometimes it can seem a bit much to keep track of them all, each of them are beautifully imagined, their personalities clear and stark on the page, that I found no difficulty in keeping track of them all. The book takes time with each character, even minor ones, to give a glimpse of who they are and how they view the world around them. If there is anything this book does well, it’s an examination of events from multiple perspectives. This book tackles quite a few questions all at once and does a marvelous job of juggling and answering each one.

We all enter a situation with our own experiences, biases, and worldviews coloring our actions, thoughts, and words. This book shows how each of the characters maneuver through a complex world of politics, religion, strict traditions, and the mystery of the unknown. The book begins on Grass within the family of the bon Damfels, who are an aristocrat family who believe that they are the true rulers of Grass. Those that live in the Commons, the ones that craft much of their furniture and other necessities, are seen as lesser and not as important. The world itself is one giant biome that is various types of grass. There is some seas and Commons is built on a highland surrounded by swamp, but these are anomalies on a world that is nothing but colorful and often enormous varieties of grass. Trees are often few and far between. It’s interesting that even the landscape of the world will play a role in the unraveling of the plot and climax of the book.

The bons society is a stratified tradition-based society that centers around the hunt, where they ride the mysterious Hippae, a life-form native to Grass to hunt the Foxen, another native life-form that is even harder to see and more mysterious than the Hippae. It is on this bizarre little colony world that humanity will find the answer to its biggest and most dangerous problem: a plague that kills indiscriminately.

Back on humanity’s homeworld of Earth, Sanctity, a religious organization that also rules as the main government of Terran and its colonies, is dealing with the onslaught of the plague, trying to keep it a secret, but trying to find a way to investigate why Grass has not been affected. There’s been reports of people who have come to Grass with the plague and have left it cured. How and why? To find out, Sanctity’s dying monarch will send the Yrariers, an Old Catholic family, as ambassadors to Grass, to secretly determine why those on Grass are unaffected by the devastating plague.

Rigo, Lady Westriding’s husband, is a fiery character, who serves as a catalyst for the book’s examination of gender roles. As Old Catholics, Rigo and Marjorie often fight to stay within the realms of their gender roles, often confessing to their priests (who travel with them and often serve as their advisors) their sins and struggles to stay true to masculinity and femininity as defined by Earth society. Yet as the story progresses, both are limited by their adherence to their gender roles, and while Marjorie begins to fight past them, doing what she must to find the answer the larger questions, Rigo falls behind, trapped in this constant state to live up to his false ideal of masculinity. The book does a marvelous job of showing how the two interact and often fail to understand each other due to the great differences in their personalities. It also shows that their lack of understanding of one another isn’t because men can’t get women or vice versa, but is instead a breakdown in communication stemmed partly because of the strictness of gender roles, and the lack of patience and unwillingness to view another’s perspective that both suffer from, Rigo far more than Marjorie. Marjorie, as the book progresses, learns how to put herself into another’s shoes and grows because of it; however, Rigo struggles with this the entire book, often trapped by his own rigid adherence to traditional ideas of masculinity. Tony, his son, is depicted in sharp contrast to his father, and offers up another way to view masculinity — one that is softer, less rigid, and more empathetic, which Stella, his sister, offers up another way to view femininity, which is harsher and more fiery. Stella also serves as a disturbing catalyst for one of the biggest turning points in the entire book; what happens to Stella is the final push that forces Marjorie to act brazenly without regard to the rigid traditions that govern Grass. Through this action, she pushes a train of events that will change everything and bring her closer to the answers she so desperately seeks.

Another issue tackled by this book is the idea of what constitutes a person’s identity. Where is it housed? One of the most disturbing moments of the book lays in what happens to girls who disappear within the grass. The people within Commons eventually find the missing girls, but why they turned up at the port and the fact their minds seem to be wiped clean offers a disturbing examination of consciousness and what constitutes a person’s identity. How malleable our minds may be. This provides a horror element to the tale that weaves its disturbing thread all the way to the climax, for the role these girls play in the larger conflict is one that is just as disturbing as the mind-wipe they suffered from.

The book also examines politics, religion, and belief in wonderfully complex and intriguing ways. The society of the bons sits in stark contrast to the freer and less rigid society of the Commons. Here we examine how two very disparate societies work in tandem, and we see the differences aren’t truly caused by the location or even the people themselves but the interactions one group has with the native lifeforms that the other group does not have. Here we see how alien contact can alter and change a society, and it offers up questions as to what constitutes intelligent life? What if one intelligent life seeks dominance over another? How does one mitigate the violence or seek understanding, especially if there is a wide gap in understanding? How is the native lifeforms of Grass interconnected? The story hints at a biological connection between the main life-forms of Grass — ones most prevalent that has the most interaction with humanity. This plays a huge role in the plot of the story, and serves as the catalyst for finding the cure for the plague as well as an explanation for how the plague came to be. These lifeforms even play a role into why the Arbai, the extinct intelligent race with its abandoned cities spanning numerous planets, died. They are fascinating alien creatures, and their role in the plot was a wonderful twist that I didn’t see coming.

Another contrast is between Sanctity, the Green brothers — where those who fail their oaths are sent as punishment — who are studying the ruins of the extinct Arbai, and the Old Catholics. Here the conflict of religion and how it intersects one’s decisions, behaviors, and worldviews is examined in detail. Marjorie in particular has a crisis of faith as she struggles to deal with her duty to discover a cure for the plague and solve the mystery of Grass and her duty to be a good wife and mother; her crisis of faith digs deep into the nature of belief and how it influences us. Does God truly know us as individuals? Or are we similar to white blood cells within a larger body, only little things that are set into motion, but not truly distinct in the larger scheme of things? The Green brothers examine what it is like to be thrown into religion, where you are not given a choice as to whether you want to believe or not, and the consequences of such an approach. Sanctity itself provides insight into the question of how far is a religion willing to go to assert its dominance over its believers?

There is a lot of complex questions tackled by this book, and each one is deftly and thoroughly explored through the characters, the intricate worldbuilding, and the complex but beautifully woven plot. As disturbing as this book was at times, it was a fascinating read and one I highly recommend.

I’ve done my best to keep this review spoiler free, but for those that wish to discuss this book in the comments, feel free to discuss in detail. The comments will not be spoiler free.

How I craft a language Part 1

Posted by Aibird on July 21, 2013
Posted in: Aliens, Elivera, Linguistics, World Building, Writing. Tagged: , , , , , . 1 Comment

Note: This will be the first in a series. I apologize for how late this is coming out. I had a health issue that was paramount, and now that has cleared up, I will be returning to writing in this blog once a week. Thank you for your patience!

Whenever I create a language, I never fully finish it, simply because such a task isn’t possible in my lifetime. No matter how many hours I may spend, how many excel spreadsheets I make, or dictionaries I try to create, there is always more words to create for a language, and the best part? Languages also evolve over time as they are used and generations pass it down to other generations, so to create the evolved forms of words for future generations? I have barely touched that aspect of language building, and I doubt I could ever do it as well as J.R.R. Tolkien, but it won’t be for lack of trying. This post will be the first in a series, where I’ll show you how I go about crafting a language.

The first aspect to language creation is if the person speaking it is human or alien.  A human is a lot easier to create a language for since we know the biology of a human being, and have a template for construction sounds for that biology already on our earth. IPA is very useful for it has a set of figures one can use to represent the variety of sounds humans can make that tends to be used throughout the world, so it’s the closest we can come to a universal template for human language.

For an alien, it’s a bit more challenging for we must consider how their mouth is constructed, how their head is constructed, if they have nasal and sinus cavities and how large or small they are, the construction of their throat, vocal chords, how much their lungs can hold — how their lungs work — and the reverberation within their mouth and nasal cavities.  This is a lot to consider when construction an alien race and their language, but if you want a fairly representative language for them, it’s important.

However, knowing the biology of your species isn’t enough when it comes to language. You also have to take into account their cultural and environmental heritage. What is the environment they inhabit?  How hard is it to communicate in such an environment?  What are some of their cultural ideologies?  All of this can influence the types of sounds a group of people will focus upon, and as cultures change over time, those same set of sounds may evolve into slightly different sets of sounds to accommodate the new sets of cultural mores as well. Language definitely isn’t static, but is very dynamic. Always changing to some degree.  Keeping all of this in mind as one creates a language will be helpful, especially the further one goes into language creation.

For my example, I’ll focus on my Dragios species, which is an alien race. To do this, first let’s devise into steps:

  1. Examine how Dragios communicate in depth, especially how they vocalize sounds.
  2. Start with sound patterns
  3. Word construction and what is and is not allowed for sound combinations.
  4. Syntax in depth.
  5. Semantics.

In the above list, I split syntax into two steps. To better understand what I mean, let’s look at the basic building blocks of a language:

Phonology Sound patterns
Syntax Arrangement of words and word construction
Semantics Meaning

The above table simplifies the process a bit, but this basic structure seems to be universal in nearly all the studied languages on earth. Now when we examine each in depth, you’ll notice that this becomes quite a bit more complex. For example, in syntax alone, there is the classes of words such as nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, ect. ect. There is also the types of verbs, aspects, and other parts of a sentence construction, which is really just the arrangement of words into a specific pattern. Semantics deals with meaning and how meaning is ascribed to words and various sentences, and what arrangement of words in sentences actually hold meaning for a culture and what may not; this also explores how words relate to physical reality and how one culture could have numerous words for say a camel, while another culture may only have one word for a camel, depending on how important the camel is to that culture.

I’ll go over each as I chronicle how I created the beginnings of the Dragios Language. I’ll save that for the next post, which will include diagrams of my species vocalization organs as well as charts to begin our exploration into the phonology of the Dragios people. So stay tuned readers!

The Science of Aliens Part One

Posted by Aibird on January 27, 2013
Posted in: Aliens, Biology, Science, World Building. Tagged: , , , , , . 2 Comments

I have been reading the Science of Aliens  by Clifford Pickover, which has been incredibly fascinating. It included a lot of pictures to help supplement the discussion.  Since I have my world-building series about creating worlds for your stories, this seemed to be a good supplement to that series.  Now we need aliens to populate the worlds you’ve created.  Thus, I have decided to start a new world-building series that discusses aliens.  I’ll use this book as one of my references — my main reference, though I will reference other useful materials as necessary, so if you’d like to read along, you can find this book for fairly cheap at Amazon.

Today, I’ll mostly discuss evolution and other basics Mr. Pickover covers in Chapter 1: What Aliens Look Like.  Consider this the first part in this series.

In order to create an alien species, we need to understand the basics of evolution.  Evolution is a process helps species alter their characteristics to better suit their environments and optimize their survival.  Evolution is about problem-solving, and various traits is nature’s ways of solving problems that crop up as species adjust to various environments.  Here Mr. Pickover explains the concept of convergent evolution (a useful concept to keep in mind when creating aliens):

Evolution on Earth tells us a lot about possible alien shapes. Although every detail must be different, there are patterns of general problems, and common solutions to those problems, that would apply to life on alien worlds.   In the course of Earth’s history, whenever lifeforms have had a problem to solve, they solved it in remarkably similar ways.  For example, three very unrelated animals — a dolphin (a mammal), a salmon (a fish), and an ichthyosaur (an extinct reptile) – have all swum in coastal waters darting about in search of small fish to eat.  These three creatures have very little to do with one another biochemically, genetically, or evolutionarily, yet they all have a similar look. On first glance, they look like nothing more than living, breathing, torpedoes.  Although they are biologically quite different, they have all evolved streamlined bodies to help them travel quickly through the water.  This is an example of convergent evolution, and we might expect aquatic aliens that feed on smaller, quick-moving aliens also to have similarly streamlined bodies.  ~ Chapter 1; Page 16 of hardback copy of Science of Aliens 

Convergent evolution is incredibly useful to remember for often when one solution works for that particular type of environment, then it’s fairly given that other species may end up evolving that solution. This makes alien creation a trifle easier, especially considering that there’s really an infinite set of possibilities for how a species can evolve — depending on the numerous factors within one’s environment and the species itself.

Another aspect to consider is symmetry.  As defined by Mr. Pickover:

To a biologist, symmetry refers to the orderly repetition of the parts in an animal or plant. Often symmetry refers to the position of body parts on opposite sides of a dividing line or distributed around a central point or axis.

The use of this idea will be very beneficial for species development. For example, bilateral symmetry is when one plane of symmetry divides a creature into symmetrical halves. A good example of this idea is humans; if you were to slice a human in half, you would get two very similar pieces.  (Not that you ever should, and so not endorsing trying that at home!)  This is a characteristic of a vast assortment of animals, including birds, mammals, insects, amphibians, reptiles, fishes, and some crustaceans.  Aquatic creatures in particular may tend toward bilateral symmetry because it offers a fairly efficient way to create a streamlined, muscular body, which allows the animal to more efficiently catch food and fleeing predators.

Another possible symmetry is radial symmetry.  As defined by Mr. Pickover:

In radial symmetry, the body has the general form of a cylinder or bowl with a central axis from which the body parts radiate, or along which they are arranged in a regular fashion.

Starfish, urchins, and jellyfish are all great examples of radial symmetry.  Also, note that they are slower moving than those with bilateral symmetry.  However, despite this slower pace, they have other interesting evolutionary features that allow them advantages in other areas, due to how they evolved in their particular niche of ocean.  Symmetries is useful, but remember, it doesn’t necessarily give you clues as to how the anatomical insides of an alien could be.  For example, just because an alien may have radial symmetry similar to a starfish, doesn’t mean their anatomical insides are exactly the same. Depending on the environment and the problems encountered therein, evolution may have evolved a slightly different take on the insides to create a more efficient way for that alien to survive.  This i n turn allows for a more varied set of possibilities, for aliens.  You can decide on a basic symmetrical form, but how the anatomy is constructed will differ based on various external and internal factors.

Symmetry is most useful in constructing the external form of an alien, but it doesn’t necessarily help with the internal form.  For example, in humans, our external form is bilateral symmetry, but our anatomical insides do not necessarily follow this same symmetry: our hearts are on the left side only, the liver on the right side, and often the right lung has more lobes then the left. Sometimes a human is born with these reversed – inverted along the right/left axis. Scientists have discovered that there are certain types of genes that tend to favor one side of a developing embryo, which correlates fairly highly with the asymmetries noted within our anatomy. So here we’ve noted that although humans have an external symmetry, we do not necessarily have symmetry within our bodies.  This asymmetry is what allows a wide range of animals, who may fall into the same type of symmetry, to have such a wide variety of anatomical insides.  The diversity here is astounding, and something to keep in mind when creating your alien species.

Is it necessary to really understand the anatomy of your alien species?  It can be helpful. For example, in Doctor Who, the Doctor has two hearts. This influences a few of the situations the Doctor finds himself within – and especially when he is regenerating.  This article sums it up nicely: Gallifreyan Physiology.  If both hearts are burnt out, regeneration was impossible; the series itself hints that the two hearts is one of the reasons why the Doctor is stronger and more resilient than humans, and that if one of the hearts is lost, the Doctor becomes significantly weaker.  This is a small difference between the Doctor’s species and humanity, but this difference was utilized off and on through the series.

Although you could get away with using a similar technique like BBC did with the Doctor Who franchise, why cheat and copy humanity?  There’s a lot more possible combinations and forms an alien can be, and with all due respect, it is fairly unlikely that there would be an alien race that looked exactly like us.  Mr. Pickover does a great job explaining why this is so:

In our real universe, there are many reasons why it is unlikely that aliens would take human form. For one thing, the diverse rates and directions of evolution on Earth and the fact that many types of creatures have become extinct show that there is no goal-directed route from single-cell organisms to an intelligent human.  Given only slightly different starting conditions on Earth, humans would not have evolved. In other words, evolution is so sensitive to small changes that if we were to rewind and play back the “tape” of evolution, and raise Earth’s initial overall temperature by just a degree, humankind would not exist.  The enormous diversity of life today represents only a small fraction of what is possible. Moreover, if humans were wiped out today, humans would not arise again.

Thus, finding another planet with species that resemble our own planet, is highly, highly unlikely. So instead of falling into this trap with your alien species, be creative.  Explore some other ideas. It can be easier to just re-use Earth species in your tales, but sometimes it can create new stories and new problems for your characters to solve if you create new species that fits into the environment of your newly created world a bit better. For example, if your world has a much heavier gravity, it is unlikely for very large animals to evolve, so it’s doubtful you’d find any dinosaurs or even large elephants; this is because bones and muscles will be stronger and more compact, and the brain possibly more compact, to stay alive under the higher pressure of gravity. Large animals would have a terrible time trying to breath and regulating parts of their bodies, especially the parts high above the ground, for gravity would be pushing the nutrients downward and away from the taller parts of the body.  It’s much easier for larger (and possibly more delicate) animals to develop on a world with less gravity, for then gravity isn’t such a heavy force upon the structures of the creature.  Also, note that if a creature lives in the sea, it is easier to grow larger, especially larger areas for one’s brain, because the force of the water all around the body provides enough support to help counteract the gravity.  This is why huge whales like the blue whale can develop in our Earth’s oceans, and why you don’t see equivalent land-based animals anymore.  The effects of the environment on your created worlds will heavily influence what types of flora and fauna you will find on that planet, so this is another factor to keep in mind.

It’s interesting to note that in Earth’s creatures, a tube structure for the digestive system seems to be the most favored for evolution. Most Earth organisms above the level of cnidarians and flatworms have a tube structure for a digestive system, and often have two openings such as a mouth and an anus.  The advantages of such a system is that the food can easily move in one direction, and the system can then be divided up into specialized sections to properly breakdown, store, digest, absorb, and store/excrete wastes from the food.  It is quite possible since this seems to be a fairly efficient system, your alien species may have a digestion system similar to it.  Another possibility for a digestion system is a gastrovascular cavity, which is a pouch-like structure with one opening.  An example of this on Earth is flatworms.

When it comes to nervous systems, there are two generalized types: diffuse and centralized.  Mr. Pickover gives a nice definition of both:

A noncentralized nervous system, known as a diffuse nervous system, is found only in lower invertebrates (animals without backbones), particularly among coelenterates like jellyfishes and hydras, which are radially symmetrical. In a diffuse-type system, there is no brain, and the nerve cells are distributed throughout the organism in a net-like pattern.

Even organisms with a diffuse nervous system show some degree of centralization, where there is some part that coordinates information and directs responses.  However, despite this tendency, they often have no brain.  Echinoderms, such as starfish, have a dominant central nerve ring; radial nerves extend outward from this ring, but despite this, it doesn’t have an actual brain.

Brains tend to form in organisms with a centralized nervous system.  These seem to be more common in bilateral symmetrical organisms, which most higher invertebrates and all vertebrates on Earth have.   Once again the environment in which the organism lives plays a key role.  If the organism must be mobile and fairly active, then it tends to develop appendages for manipulating the environment, and its central nervous system develops brains that are fairly close to the primary sense organs, thus reducing the time between sensing the stimuli and responding to it.  If the alien organism tends toward chemically sensing its food, then it’s nose must be near its mouth. This pairing of senses can influence where the sensory orifices may appear in an alien.  If an alien has binocular vision or sound localization, then paired senses will have evolved in order to support those characteristics.  Now, how this brain is housed, may differ greatly from what our own human bodies have evolved.  For example, since it’s the central control system for the alien body, a well protected area to house it may not necessarily be in the head.  It could exist within the alien’s trunk, and still be relatively close to its sensory organs.  The closer it is to the sensory organs, the less a lag time between sensing stimuli and reacting to it.  That time lag could mean life or death for a creature depending on the type of environment in which the creature lives.

Also consider that brains do not necessarily need to evolve higher intelligence to be efficient. Take a look at reptiles. They are highly efficient within their environmental niches, but they are not particularly intelligent as compared to say birds, which tend to be more communicative than reptiles and have more complex social relations.  The types of specialization within the brain can also influence behavior in a species as well.  Birds have a  neocortex, which is an advanced part of the brain that enables humans to plan, learn, and remember.  There is evidence that the emotion of love is made possible through the neocortex.  Reptiles do not have a neocortex, and it may explain why their babies tend to hide to avoid being eaten by their parents; there is no maternal love experienced in those particular species.  When a species evolves more connections between the limbic system – the primitive part that houses delight, disgust, fear, and anger – with the neocortex, more emotional responses develop.  I just used the neocortex as an example of how specialization within the brain may influence the behavior of a species.

I mentioned that brains for mobile and active creatures tend to be nearer to sensory organs; well, the type of sensory organs is also dependent upon the surrounding environment. All creatures need sensory organs, because it allows the organism to respond to the various input signals from their surrounding environment;  often additional senses may be necessary to confirm and refine the organisms perceptions of their environment, which is even more necessary if the organism is fairly intelligent.  Tactile sense is the most basic sense necessary, for it allows the creature to respond to the physical world through touch, helping them to avoid sharp objects, move around objects, and so forth.  Smell is often useful for determining the difference between various chemicals – such as food – in one’s environment, so it’s another possible sense. Our universe is overloaded with sound and light, and so sight and hearing may also be fairly common.  This doesn’t mean the alien species necessarily has to have sight and hearing senses, but that it tends to be more common for most types of environments. There are exceptions to this, for example, creatures that live in caves, where light is scarce, often will have highly developed hearing, tactile, and taste organs and have nearly non-existent sight organs.  Once again, the environment plays a role in the evolution of an organism.   For each of these senses, there is often an external appendages to aid the organism in maximizing detection of the inputs for that particular sensory organ.

In regards to external appendages, the development of specialized appendages for locomotion is often fairly common in various Earth species, so it’s undoubtedly will be for aliens as well. Due to the length of this current discussion, I’ll pause here and in my next installment, I’ll discuss locomotion of aliens and and the possible variety within the locomotion and sensory organs of aliens.  This will finish off Chapter one of Science of Aliens and start us on Chapter two.  Once again, let me know in the comments if you have any questions or insightful thoughts to share on this topic!

Effects of Environment

Posted by Aibird on February 5, 2012
Posted in: Physics, World Building, Writing. Tagged: , , , , , , , . 6 Comments

When world-building, the effects an environment has on a culture is fairly profound. For example, if the world has a fairly small star, the planet has to be fairly close to this sun in order to even be habitable. However, if the star is not particularly massive (a small star generally wouldn’t be), then the habitable range in that solar system could mean your planet is tidal locked. What happens then? Any species on the planet would exist in the shadows of this sun, for the parts of the planet that face it directly would be far too hot to allow for much life. Vice versa, the dark side would be too cold, since if it’s tidal locked, that side wouldn’t see the sun ever. So you have these twilight regions which could support life, but sentient life? That’s debatable.

So too small of a star won’t work. Too hot of a star will cause different problems; however, the habitable zone would be much further out, allowing for the planet to orbit and rotate on its axis freely. A strong magnetic field and a thick atmosphere would be needed in order to combat the solar wind and energy from the star itself. Water is also necessary for a planet, as well as plate tectonics, which allows for the movement of continents and magma. If a world is too seismically active, then volcanoes and earthquakes would be causing extinctions far too often, and life wouldn’t progress far beyond bacteria or simple multi-cell organisms.

As you can see, there’s a lot to consider if you’re going to build the planet and solar system itself. Once you have a star and a planet, you need to consider the effects moons, nearby planets, and asteroids may have on this planet. If it has more than one moon – especially if they’re fairly large moons – this means the planet will experience very high tidal effects. Tides in the ocean will be several orders of magnitude stronger than our planet’s, and this will also cause stress on the planet’s crust as well as its oceans. This will effect the landscape of the continents as well as the weather of your planet. If there is a large gas giant nearby, this also could provide stress on the planet and it’s moons, which could effect the weather, landscape, and so forth. If you want to go in depth, then I highly suggest World building: Science Fiction Writing by Stephen Gillett. This book is great at discussing how these various factors can influence your planet.

What about the effects of all of this on the cultures of the planet?

Take a look at someone who lives in a colder region as compared to a hotter region of the planet. The cold region focuses more on staying warm, conserving energy, building to keep out the often severe weather, and so their technology will differ from a society that is at the equator. A society at the equator may experience heavy rains or maybe droughts, but they don’t have the extreme temperatures the north has, so their technology would focus more on staying cool, building to maximize on breezes, and so forth.

A society deep inland will focus more on transportation over land, on how to navigate mountain ranges or desserts, and how to find water supplies. Inland societies will probably exist by rivers and/or lakes, to maximize on the fresh water supply and ability to transport goods on that river and/or lake. It’s generally not a good idea to build a town or city far from a source of water, for that’ll be one of the most important commodities of a civilization.

For a society by the ocean, they may also build their city at the mouth of a river or at a place that provides access to the ocean and has a fresh water lake nearby. If the society is human, the human body cannot metabolize sea water all that well, and so fresh water is necessary for survival. However, a society on the ocean will focus on navies, maritime transportation, and buildings that can weather hurricanes and other storms from the sea.

A society in a rainforest could capitalize on buildings within the trees themselves, on creating pathways through the trees, and so forth. Each different geographical area of the planet could affect a society in different ways depending on the geography and flora and fauna of the area.

Also, the myths of a society often derives from its location and from what the society sees in the sky. Take a look at the mythology of Earth and examine how it relates to the land and the sky seen by the people who created those myths. It’s these sorts of things you should consider as you build your societies.

If weather is harsh enough, it might drive the society to live more underground to avoid the worst of the storms; in this case, the society would focus more on cave systems, underground lakes and rivers, and building ways to secure their cities and towns in the case of earthquakes. They’d have to account for the lack of light since an underground place wouldn’t have sunlight filtering through to illuminate the area during the day. Also, there would have to be ways to allow fresh air (especially oxygen necessary for breathing) to circulate.

Plant and animal life could affect the society as well. Perhaps the planet has a lighter gravity than Earth; if so, then plants could grow larger if they had the right set of nutrients in the ground and atmosphere. This could allow for taller people; however, if these people were to fly to a planet with heavier gravity, they’d find it hard to walk and their body would struggle to keep itself going under the unusually heavy pressure of the foreign planet. For a person that was born on the planet with the heavier gravity, they’d be able to jump higher on the planet with the lighter gravity, and they’re weight would be much less; however, their body would still suffer as their bones and muscles atrophy a bit to account for the new environment. Upon their return to their heavier gravity world, they’d be fairly sick, forced into months of recovery. This concept is actually seen on Earth for astronauts that spend a significant time in space; no matter how much they may exercise in space or eat healthy foods, the super low gravity doesn’t exert the pressure their bodies are used to, and thus their bones and muscles atrophy due to this. Nearly all the astronauts that have been up in space for several months at a time, have to have a period of recovery once they return to Earth.

Speaking of months, how time is divided will also differ for societies. Some may base it off the lunar cycle, and some may use the solar cycle. However, how long a year is depends on the orbit of the planet. The length of day depends on the rotation of the planet, and if it has seasons depends on the tilt of the planet’s axis. These can all affect a society also.

There’s lots more to consider, but I just wanted to highlight some ideas on how the environment can affect a civilization.