Ground rules....no idea here is personal or sacred, if you post it here it's public...

The basic idea here is to keep asking questions. Why? What? How? Who would benefit from that? What could go wrong? (that's a big one) I've seen these start in 3 main ways: character, price of magic, or what makes an alien different? I suppose there are more ways to start than just those three, but why not? Last time we did one of these on this site we started with a character. (A fifty-year-old woman in a forest that I actually wrote a short story about and submitted.)

I think we should start with an alien today. (We do so much fantasy around here, time for a change.) So, when doing a science fiction concept involving aliens, the main thing you need to start with is....What makes this alien unique? Start answering that question and at first, we'll get cliches, but hopefully soon we'll come up with something good. (Don't be afraid to spout out cliches either....get them out and past them so we can move on, it's part of the process and is quite useful.) Keep in mind, when coming up with some alien characteristic, that our next questions will involve evolutionary plausibility.

Hmm...

Or aliens rooted to the spot (like trees)?

Or tiny aliens the size of microbes? Is there any possibility that they would be intelligent?

What about airborne aliens?

Or aliens that can't see?

Perhaps an alien that sings as its language?

Perhaps an alien that requires extremely hot or extremely cold temperatures? What would it look like?

What about an alien who has no mouth, it gains sustinence through some other means?

Or an alien that is actually a consciouss planet or moon?

Could a certain type of alien actually evolve/live in the vacuum of space?

What about a non carbon based life form? What else might it be made of? How would that work?

Are we still going with telepathic aliens or coming up with new ideas? I'll go with both:

Maybe the telepathic aliens are unable to read into the subtleties of other aliens' speech and facial expressions and the non-telepathic alien is the only one who knows their friends are about to attack them treacherously.

How about aliens that only exist as the thoughts of other aliens?

The aliens communicate by thumping parts of their own bodies rhythmically.

The aliens communicate by thumping parts of others' bodies rhythmically.

The aliens communicate by sneezing out chemicals that the receiver tastes to interpret meaning.

The aliens communicate by varying body temperature.

These aliens are blind (to a degree. They don't see like we do, but that's okay. They live in utter darkness every day of their lives), but their other senses are magnificent. They communicate by touch. They have a six-fingered hand (2 thumbs, on opposite sides of the palms...maybe. I haven't decided), and a long, dextrous tail, which keeps them balanced while they run. Running is a part of their culture. It is an ancient relic from a time when they were prey, but now, they're masters of their planets. Yet they have no technology. None. They don't write, so they can't plan. Or maybe they have genetic memories. Also, they live in the ground. They're nomadic, traveling wherever the large nests of locust-like insects travel, which they feed on, burrowing into the dirt to sleep for the...time they're sleeping. Because it's always night, remember?

Meh. I'm just rambling. Ignore me.

So this alien race senses remote objects by the sound they reflect. They communicate with each other by moving broad, flat appendages that change the pattern of sound reflected by their bodies.

"How about a race of aliens that is (here's the original part) dumber than we are. "

I had an idea about that very same thing not too long ago!

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I'll never buy a story in which humans have achieved peace...it's frankly counter-evolutionary and is my big qualm with Star Trek, well, one of them.

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Some ideas:

1. Someone releases a virus that alters the human genome to eliminate agressive behavior.

2. Relatively advanced aliens conquer Earth and sterilize any human who displays violent tendencies (as well as the parents, siblings, and offspring of such people) in order to produce a peaceful slave race.

3. Exposure to a certain nerve weapon causes unconsciousness at the thought of doing violence. Once soldiers are exposed, they are forever after incapable of fighting.

With regard to the more general question of whether a peaceful humanity is "counter-evolutionary," evolution is based on survival of genes. If circumstances arise such that genetic traits promoting peaceful coexistence are more likely to be passed on than genetic traits promoting warfare, then evolutionary pressures will move humanity toward peace.

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Now THAT'S a challenge.

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Or humans find peace in something ala Matrix, where fighting leads to an automatic brain wipe.

Or fantasy, and there's a sword of Damocles waiting for anyone who draws a blade on the innocent, and our hero is having trouble because the person who through prophecy will feed evil and destroy the world is still innocent and protected by the Magic of the Land (tm)...

"1. Someone releases a virus that alters the human genome to eliminate agressive behavior.

2. Relatively advanced aliens conquer Earth and sterilize any human who displays violent tendencies (as well as the parents, siblings, and offspring of such people) in order to produce a peaceful slave race."

This is going much better than any solo attempts at this that I have tried!

1+My thoughts- There could be conflict over the ethics involved in changing our genetics. Or, what if we do this, and an alien invader comes to Earth? Would we have relearn our aggresive tendancies?

I think if idea one was combines with idea two, we'd have a decent story idea in the works.

In the communication arena, I recently toyed with an idea involving a species possessing glands in its equivalence of a ‘mouth’ (though the concept is certainly not limited to such a region, specifically). This system would allow members of the species to manipulate the color and scent of saliva secretions, which would be spit onto the ground, a nearby surface, or, and this is where the concept took a patently 'gross' turn, on each other as a primary means of communication.

Basically, the aliens would ‘speak’ by spitting colors (some of which could be well beyond the human visual range) all over the place. Complexity could be added by including the aforementioned 'scent' factor. I've already written a few tentative (and amusing) scenes involving human vs. alien interaction, purely for the benefit of the concept. Fortunately, all has remained sufficiently generalized at this point to justify posting the idea here. Have at it!

If I can think of a few comments on the other issues (after I've digested them sufficiently, at least) I'll be sure to post again…though I’m not sure you’ll want me to after reading this one. Especially if you were eating….

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what if we do this, and an alien invader comes to Earth?

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"Your superior intellects are no match for _our_ puny weapons."

It's interesting that we are becoming the aliens. anyways,

I say they came from Pakistan, not the country but the planet, the country just seems to be named after it because that's where the ship landed. and the secret to the human race lies in Pakistan. (country not planet.)

Human humor is generally based on incongruity of some sort. (That's probably a subject for a whole new thread.)

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Speaking of light....I learned why all trees are green (as opposed to some other color) last week. I had never really thought of it before, but it will be quite useful in creating more realistic alien worlds

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Rux

You could posit a chlorophyl analog that absorbs a different wavelength, and it would be a different color. (There are other, minor chemicals that absorb different wavelengths in leaves--why do you think they change color in the fall?) You could also posit some evolutionary reason for there to be a different chemical that imparts a stronger color, covering the color of the chlorophyl, if you want your trees to be some other color. (There are a few species of trees on Earth that are like that. And notice that not all trees are the same shade of green, even though chlorophyl is chlorophyl, more or less.)

Likewise, there's a function-related reason hemoglobin is red. Hemoglobin is a protein, which in and of itself isn't terribly colorful, but it has four heme groups (an organic chemical), each holding an iron ion. Hemoglobin's oxygen carrying capacity is based on those iron ions at the center of the heme groups, and so is its color. That's also why oxygenated blood is a different color from deoxygenated blood--the color of the iron changes when it's complexed with the oxygen. (That's also why carbon monoxide changes the color of blood; the complex is, again, a different color.)

If it isn't red, it probably isn't hemoglobin; it's some other compound that carries out the same function.

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Actually, there is a good reason for chlorophyl to be green, one that's directly related to its function. Chlorophyl absorbs light during photosynthesis. It absorbs what we see as red, so the reflected light is perceived as green. The wavelengths are very specific.

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So it seems likely, if your scifi planet had a cooler sun, that the leaves would want to stray to the blues and beyond along the wavelength line, to try to capture as much of the dim light as they could. On the other hand, if the sun is very hot, the plants might end up being more yellow because even the green absorption is too much.

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The 'absorbing red' thing seemed fairly natural to me, until I thought about it, and worked out that something that absorbs red will appear cyan (i.e. it will reflect both green and blue light). Leaves must absorb magenta (i.e. a mixture a red of blue) in order to reflect only green

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Actually you're correct. Something that appears green absorbs all light except green. So green chlorophyl is absorbing all of the red and blue light.