Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

Post History

60%
+1 −0
Q&A Can we enable readers to connect to far future humanity, without pretending they wouldn’t be different?

No matter how different science fiction characters are from humans – whether they be extraterrestrials, artificial intelligences, or a far future species evolved from Homo sapiens – they must be re...

posted 11y ago by Rob Bignell Editor‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Answer
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T03:12:33Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/9484
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar Rob Bignell Editor‭ · 2019-12-08T03:12:33Z (almost 5 years ago)
No matter how different science fiction characters are from humans – whether they be extraterrestrials, artificial intelligences, or a far future species evolved from Homo sapiens – they must be relevant to readers. That doesn’t necessarily mean that readers identify with those characters, only that those characters “say” something about humanity that the reader then finds relevant.

To achieve that, ask if these non-human “others” in story serve any of these purposes:

- Metaphors or stand-ins for human characteristics – For example, Mr. Spock with his logic stands for the human philosophy of rationality and logic. HAL 9000 represents how the inability to distinguish between two contradictions can lead to paranoia. The metaphor/stand-on approach is especially useful for writers wishing to criticize a specific human characteristic.
- Mirrors/counterpoints for humans – In “Star Trek,” the Vulcans’ suppression of emotions is a counterpoint to humans’ expression of them. An alien species that develops space travel might consider those races lacking it (such as humans) to be less evolved, just as we might consider technology-vacant Homo erectus to be less evolved than us.
- Shed light on the human condition through their interactions – Data of “Star Trek: The Next Generation” does this by questioning his crewmates about what being human means. Such interactions need not be between the non-human and a human but can be between two of the non-humans; as we learn about them, readers then learn something about themselves.

Arguably, as a human writer, all of your non-human characters can’t help but possess some characteristics of humanity because that’s your only frame of reference to work from. Whether or not that be the case, what matters most to a reader is how relevant you make such characters (Whether or not the nonhuman character has a scientifically plausible basis for existing is important, too, but a topic for a different discussion!).

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2013-11-20T18:02:48Z (about 11 years ago)
Original score: 4