User blog:Mr.Robbo/Human Chauvinism 5

Human Chauvinism

Human Chauvinism 2

Human Chauvinism 3

Human Chauvinism 4

Okay, what other alien attributes might be considered a cliche of science fiction, if we were being really critical...

Land Sapience
Undoubtedly, most sapient extraterrestrials in science fiction are land-based, but why? Is it really just because that's what humans are like? Probably. On Earth, it's said that about 94% of life is aquatic, so if our planet is anything to go by, numbers are already on the side of aquatic extraterrestrials; as a matter of fact, life probably started in the oceans before spreading onto land, thanks to the fact that the seas are literally like mineral mixing pots. In fact, most land life still requires a liquid medium to grow at first, whether that be in an egg or a womb.

There's little doubt that intelligent life could evolve in the sea. Take the cetaceans (dolphins, whales, porpoises); it's thought that, shortly after returning to the sea (yes, they evolved from land animals), their intelligence increased dramatically over a few million years of evolution, at one point even reaching the level that human ancestors were at 10 million years ago!

What about actually building a civilization? You can't exactly light a fire somewhere like an ocean, but just because that's how humans did it doesn't mean that's how extraterrestrials would do it; perhaps electricity will be developed before fire? A lot of aquatic creatures on Earth use ultrasound for echolocation and communication and such; this could perhaps be used to stimulate piezoelectric crystals to create sufficient heat and current to smelt metals. A more controlled source of current could come from bioelectricity (from the sapients themselves, from domesticated animals, from plants, or from batteries), which could then be used to crack water into hydrogen and oxygen; oxygen could even be imported from above if 'proper' fires were needed.

As for resources, the sea floor should posess plenty of materials for mining. Even without a seafloor, there are plenty of minerals dissolved in water itself; magnets could be used to extract metals such as iron from huge amounts of seawater, and an aquatic version of phytomining might even be used for other minerals.

Of course, I've been assuming water-oceans with an oxygenated atmosphere, which could be seen as Earth-centric. There are also other platforms that sapient life could take other than land and water, but I'll come to those later. While advenced civilization can probably rise much more easily on land than in oceans, the above should still go to show that there should be a much higher proportion of aquatic civilizations in hard science fiction.

Animal Sapience
Right; now we're going into really far-out territory, but this is something I've thought about ever since the Zambarau. Could plants evolve sapience? Further, could they start a civilization? Well, it's not as far-fetched as you might imagine; plants such as venus fly traps posess a rudimentary nervous system, and even an extremely simple memory. It's not surprising if you think about it, as predatory animals usually have higher intelligence, so it makes sense that carnivorous or predatory plants should be the same. It would definitely take a huge amount of evolutionary pressure for sapience to be achieved, though.

What about manipulating the environment to build a civilization? You might imagine that a plant would develop triffid-like manipulative limbs, but that would be very energy-intensive. The plant would either have to live close to a very high-energy sun, or have a rich carnivorous diet; of course, the next natural stage would be to do away with a rooted life and move around on legs, which makes the creature more like an animal (taking this further, perhaps animals can evolve into plants, like the Stinger Fans of Aurelia, slowly moving across the planet in forests at slower-than-snail's-pace on their leg-roots).

An idea more to my taste stems from myrmecophytes; plants that have a symbiotic relationship with ants. A myrmecophyte (or extraterrestrial equivalent) with a complex nervous system could exert more and more precise control over their symbiotic friends, to the point at which the plant effectively has a large number of independant limbs. Such a development would also require a dramatic increase in the plant's own intelligence, so that it can gain the capacity to control so many independant bodies at once, so things work out quite well.

Locomotion might be thought of as a barrier to development, though this could be human chauvinism; they wouldn't create a society and infrastructure the same as with human societies. It's likely that they would simply develop their civilization to suit their different needs of a less mobile existance. Nevertheless, I would expect to see even fewer plant civilizations in galactic society than aquatic ones.