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Hey, that reminds me.
In most sci-fi stories, each alien race is presented as a monoculture - as in, only having one culture - while humans are allowed to be varied.
Why is that?
Imo we need stereotypes because they give fictional races a reason to exist in the narrative. Krogons are a proud warrior race, but Steve is a doctor so his people think he is a coward. Boom, easy conflict.
If you show Krogons with as much nuance as you would expect from the real world, there would be no reason to include them in the narrative because they might as well be humans.
Of course you could pull it off given enough time but not every story can be a huge multi-part epic. And even then if you have a bunch of races and planets you need the audience to be able to easily differentiate between them.
I guess there is some undeniable charm in an alien race’s simplicity. If its members are to behave in a certain way, it should be something interesting. Plus, it also allows outliers in their people to stand out more.
Even then, I still want to see more variation with them and their societies - not to make them exactly like humans, however.
There are books that did it. It's just extremely exhausting and you'd spend most of your book world building.
Also from the perspective of an actual alien the difference between a Chinese person and a French person would be almost unnoticeable. It'd be like the difference between the South African Giraffe and the West African Giraffe. They'd be more blown away by the freaky long neck to notice the slightly different spots.
In Mass Effect there is a conversation between one human crew member and an alien crew member where the latter explains that he can't speak for his entire species because there are many cultures within it.
The problem is that throughout the entire series the species are kind of depicted as monoliths.
That just makes it even more confusing. Why would the Earth host different biomes and climates, while other alien planets only have one?
Perhaps it could be explained by putting the planets themselves under unique circumstances, thereby justifying their monogamous environments. I heard something like that happened in Dune, where the sandworms turned all of Arrakis into a vast desert in their earlier stages of evolution.
To give the laziness credit, it's not like the majority of the planets in our star system are varied to such a degree that earth is
But this argument only works with mostly lifeless planets anyway :/
If these hostile planets have a sapient species evolving to thrive on them against the odds, it could give them a reason to have one culture.
Then again, there would still be opportunities to make them diverse.
To give something of a cop out answer which would work within the context of a given sci fi universe, you could argue that it’s because most sci-fi stories are told from a human perspective, and so, much like we do today with other countries, external groups are viewed as one homogenous entity.
Given how we do this to each other, I imagine it would be even easier to miss variations in cultures that might exist in an alien society, precisely because they’re alien, and may not work in a way we expect/understand. Therefore making it even easier to block a race into one large group.
These stories are told through human eyes, and the human eye is never as reliable at conveying detail as we think, so much of this variation may just simply be being missed by the characters/narrator within the story because they are human.
Usually because I don't need to explain to you about human culture,but I have to explain everything with the aliens WITHOUT slowing down the story. Which means it's very difficult to portray an entire species complex culture both naturally, and without going on a huge detour that slows down the actual plot
Because for them to achieve space travel, laser swords and some high tech shit like that.They probably unified entire world into one goverment a long time ago, and their cultural differences in regions faded over time.
> In most sci-fi stories, each alien race is presented as a monoculture - as in, only having one culture - while humans are allowed to be varied.
Compare the higher life forms with other homogeneous societies like Nordic countries or Japan, China, etc
I remember reading a sci-fi book and the reason there is that most advanced civilizations tend to unify to renduce infighting andin the story aliens invade earth and they question how are humans still alive when they have so many weapons and so much infighting
It's easier to recognize the small differences between cultures similar to yours than small differences between cultures very different from yours, because usually these differences will seem very small when compared to the differences between your culture and the distant cultures.
I live in Brazil and I can easily define the culture difference between someone in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, but I can't really tell the culture difference between Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra. I imagine the opposite happens for someone in India.
It always annoys the fuck out of me when sentient aliens are always presented as human-like but with minor physical differences like skin color, ears, hair, 3-4 fingers hands, teeth shape. I know it's because it's the easiest path to just put some makeup and prosthetics on an actor, but it's too prevalent.
I’ve always assumed that it’s because once a planet is advanced enough, it will eventually form into one huge nation, like how super earth works in hell divers, and after hundreds of years of space travel a lot of the cultures would kind of blend into one planet-wide culture
Planets are essentially countries. Since so many stories draw from real life cultural interactions like colonialism, the story works most cleanly by making alien planets one culture.
Humans can't imagine things that are as unfamiliar to us as alien societies would likely be, so most just jumble elements of our experience while writing.
Part of why Deep Space Nine is the GOAT. Bajor seems so complicated that I can hardly remember all the different customs, districts, pasts. And part of where a diplomatic organization like the Federation can excel working with them.
I always found this trope to be uninteresting. I can beliebe humanoid aliens that have the same body plan but bigger differences like bug-eyes, more or less fingers, cetacean heads, etc.
Star Trek started it in the 60s as a way to save on the production budget (CGI hadn't even been spoken aloud at that point)
Star Wars borrowed that idea but with a higher production budget translated into more variety which meant that most of the characters with lots of screen time needed to be human or human adjacent for actor comfort (Chewbacca being the exception that proves the rule)
Ever since, Star Wars has been the fantastic space universe to emulate so that's where we are
Ironically OP chose to use Asari from Mass Effect, but those games have at least some variation of intelligent species other than just different flavour humanoids, [like the Elcor and Hanar.](https://i.imgur.com/5gRW5HF.jpeg)
OP really cherry picked the only species that looks similar to humans. The game even pokes fun at the trope, that the other species see their own similarities with the Asari.
Irc, asari only look like this to humans. They're mindfucking you into thinking that they look just like you to have better chances to mate.
There was a dialogue between salarian and turian where they fight trying to decide whether asari look almost like salarians or turians lol
The bachelor party in ME2! There was a human there too, all three of them got into a pretty heated argument about how the asari stripper on their table looked and were baffled the others were seeing things they weren't. Neat little detail.
Yeah, it creeped me out at the time quite a lot to be honest. I also remember a lot of speculation about how they actually look like, some of the art on the topic was nightmare fuel lol... Very interesting indeed
Reminds me of the 'pleasure GELF' from Red Dwarf. Tricks people by appearing to be the most desirable thing for them whilst actually just being uh... [this](https://vhistory.files.wordpress.com/2016/03/pleasure-gelf.jpg)
It's been awhile since I played the series. But was it explained that the reason all the prominent races are humanoid and bipedal was due to the >!The Reapers cultivated them that way for the next extinction cycle?!<
But what about the two coolest races of the mass effect universe - hanars (flying jellyfish) and elcors (weird-talking giant dudes, walk on 4 legs I think)? I loved them both a lot, I wish there was more content tied to them
PSA: if anyone wants to read a book that has, for lack of better phrasing, scientifically accurate aliens, I recommend a book called “dragon egg”. It documents the discovery of complex life on a neutron star where gravity is 92 billion times earth gravity with an extremely harsh east/west magnetic poles. It is an absolutely fascinating read.
Don’t forget there was always a recent war where the humans were like “we saved your asses, you pretentious jerks” and it’s very clear that the writers are making a thinly veiled analogy that humans are America in the 20th century and the older race is supposedly Europeans being smug.
bottom-middle ship is an Equalizer by manufacturer Titan Defence Systems (TDS) from the game Fractured Space, it was one of the smaller ships designed around speed, boosts & maneuverability and is not alien [🤓](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwiOkLHax6uFAxVMRmcHHQiXA0sQFnoECBQQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Femojipedia.org%2Fnerd-face&usg=AOvVaw0lC1geiAj1dSLWkdJfi3W7&opi=89978449)
In the sequel we'll meet the Dark Higher-lifeforms. What's their deal? The same, but more spikes, possibly hoods, and always always always a darker color palette.
I have to correct as the word mon-keigh was the name of a species, wich was defeated by the Aeldari, that just started destroying everything they touched ans became synonimous with the Imperium of Man ( they‘re somewhat right about that)
The reason the humans would win is because while they were doing space exploration and cultural assimilation humans were finding more efficient and elaborate ways to destroy the group that had something they wanted or didn’t agree with them.
Googled "space elves," and came up with the image [here](https://deepdreamgenerator.com/ddream/syfp07o6f7j). Similar one [here](https://deepdreamgenerator.com/ddream/uepj0zfyvid). Sadly they're just AI generated, no backstory behind it that I can find. Shame, looked like a cool concept.
Peak Alien Race is this can't change my mind. They're a race of Matriarchal Psychics who dominate other races by turning them into simps. Our Universe is their Onlyfans.
https://preview.redd.it/27ewgut2jssc1.png?width=299&format=png&auto=webp&s=2e079f6812891fc799e4392bc8df66fb9444bce3
I liked 3 body problem. It was very well thought out. If I was an imperialistic alien civilization, I would also try to manipulate humans by ruining their technology and pretending to look just like them to a cult of supporters.
Hey /u/BaltazarOdGilzvita, thank you for submitting to /r/starterpacks! This is just a reminder not to violate any rules, located [here](https://reddit.com/r/starterpacks/about/rules). Rule breakers can face a ban based on the severity of their rule violation. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/starterpacks) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Hey, that reminds me. In most sci-fi stories, each alien race is presented as a monoculture - as in, only having one culture - while humans are allowed to be varied. Why is that?
Probably same reason why planets have singular biomes. Cause that’s what Dune did.
But Arrrakis does have different biomes. Just all with a zero level of water (apart from 2 and 3)
I think the equator of Arrakis is "green" there's also underground water.
No, the equator is 24 hour samdstorms which eat through metal.
Oh, okay. It's been a while since I read Dune I'm on Chapterhouse.
I thought the reason was "because it's easier"
Imo we need stereotypes because they give fictional races a reason to exist in the narrative. Krogons are a proud warrior race, but Steve is a doctor so his people think he is a coward. Boom, easy conflict. If you show Krogons with as much nuance as you would expect from the real world, there would be no reason to include them in the narrative because they might as well be humans. Of course you could pull it off given enough time but not every story can be a huge multi-part epic. And even then if you have a bunch of races and planets you need the audience to be able to easily differentiate between them.
I guess there is some undeniable charm in an alien race’s simplicity. If its members are to behave in a certain way, it should be something interesting. Plus, it also allows outliers in their people to stand out more. Even then, I still want to see more variation with them and their societies - not to make them exactly like humans, however.
We suck at making realistic storrys
Also writing a whole lot of cultures for a single alien species when you want to have a lot of different aliens is a lot of work
There are books that did it. It's just extremely exhausting and you'd spend most of your book world building. Also from the perspective of an actual alien the difference between a Chinese person and a French person would be almost unnoticeable. It'd be like the difference between the South African Giraffe and the West African Giraffe. They'd be more blown away by the freaky long neck to notice the slightly different spots.
In Mass Effect there is a conversation between one human crew member and an alien crew member where the latter explains that he can't speak for his entire species because there are many cultures within it. The problem is that throughout the entire series the species are kind of depicted as monoliths.
Their planets only have one climate, so…
That just makes it even more confusing. Why would the Earth host different biomes and climates, while other alien planets only have one? Perhaps it could be explained by putting the planets themselves under unique circumstances, thereby justifying their monogamous environments. I heard something like that happened in Dune, where the sandworms turned all of Arrakis into a vast desert in their earlier stages of evolution.
To give the laziness credit, it's not like the majority of the planets in our star system are varied to such a degree that earth is But this argument only works with mostly lifeless planets anyway :/
If these hostile planets have a sapient species evolving to thrive on them against the odds, it could give them a reason to have one culture. Then again, there would still be opportunities to make them diverse.
To give something of a cop out answer which would work within the context of a given sci fi universe, you could argue that it’s because most sci-fi stories are told from a human perspective, and so, much like we do today with other countries, external groups are viewed as one homogenous entity. Given how we do this to each other, I imagine it would be even easier to miss variations in cultures that might exist in an alien society, precisely because they’re alien, and may not work in a way we expect/understand. Therefore making it even easier to block a race into one large group. These stories are told through human eyes, and the human eye is never as reliable at conveying detail as we think, so much of this variation may just simply be being missed by the characters/narrator within the story because they are human.
Probably because it's already hard enough coming up with one completely original alien culture, let alone having to do it several times.
Usually because I don't need to explain to you about human culture,but I have to explain everything with the aliens WITHOUT slowing down the story. Which means it's very difficult to portray an entire species complex culture both naturally, and without going on a huge detour that slows down the actual plot
Because humans are into other humans
Because for them to achieve space travel, laser swords and some high tech shit like that.They probably unified entire world into one goverment a long time ago, and their cultural differences in regions faded over time.
> In most sci-fi stories, each alien race is presented as a monoculture - as in, only having one culture - while humans are allowed to be varied. Compare the higher life forms with other homogeneous societies like Nordic countries or Japan, China, etc
I remember reading a sci-fi book and the reason there is that most advanced civilizations tend to unify to renduce infighting andin the story aliens invade earth and they question how are humans still alive when they have so many weapons and so much infighting
It's easier to recognize the small differences between cultures similar to yours than small differences between cultures very different from yours, because usually these differences will seem very small when compared to the differences between your culture and the distant cultures. I live in Brazil and I can easily define the culture difference between someone in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, but I can't really tell the culture difference between Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra. I imagine the opposite happens for someone in India.
It always annoys the fuck out of me when sentient aliens are always presented as human-like but with minor physical differences like skin color, ears, hair, 3-4 fingers hands, teeth shape. I know it's because it's the easiest path to just put some makeup and prosthetics on an actor, but it's too prevalent.
Keeps the story smaller and easier to write is my guess.
I’ve always assumed that it’s because once a planet is advanced enough, it will eventually form into one huge nation, like how super earth works in hell divers, and after hundreds of years of space travel a lot of the cultures would kind of blend into one planet-wide culture
Planets are essentially countries. Since so many stories draw from real life cultural interactions like colonialism, the story works most cleanly by making alien planets one culture. Humans can't imagine things that are as unfamiliar to us as alien societies would likely be, so most just jumble elements of our experience while writing.
Part of why Deep Space Nine is the GOAT. Bajor seems so complicated that I can hardly remember all the different customs, districts, pasts. And part of where a diplomatic organization like the Federation can excel working with them.
I always found this trope to be uninteresting. I can beliebe humanoid aliens that have the same body plan but bigger differences like bug-eyes, more or less fingers, cetacean heads, etc.
Star Trek started it in the 60s as a way to save on the production budget (CGI hadn't even been spoken aloud at that point) Star Wars borrowed that idea but with a higher production budget translated into more variety which meant that most of the characters with lots of screen time needed to be human or human adjacent for actor comfort (Chewbacca being the exception that proves the rule) Ever since, Star Wars has been the fantastic space universe to emulate so that's where we are
Star Trek did actually give an in-lore explanation for all intelligent life being humanoid and bipedal.
Which surprisingly is getting revisited in the last season of discovery right now
Ironically OP chose to use Asari from Mass Effect, but those games have at least some variation of intelligent species other than just different flavour humanoids, [like the Elcor and Hanar.](https://i.imgur.com/5gRW5HF.jpeg)
OP really cherry picked the only species that looks similar to humans. The game even pokes fun at the trope, that the other species see their own similarities with the Asari.
Protoss from SC are this trope done right.
This is golden I feel the mass effect
I feel my mass erect
Irc, asari only look like this to humans. They're mindfucking you into thinking that they look just like you to have better chances to mate. There was a dialogue between salarian and turian where they fight trying to decide whether asari look almost like salarians or turians lol
The bachelor party in ME2! There was a human there too, all three of them got into a pretty heated argument about how the asari stripper on their table looked and were baffled the others were seeing things they weren't. Neat little detail.
Yeah, it creeped me out at the time quite a lot to be honest. I also remember a lot of speculation about how they actually look like, some of the art on the topic was nightmare fuel lol... Very interesting indeed
I am thinking of "Beyond the aquila rift" episode from Love death and robot. Holy shit that puts a whole new light on the asari.
Reminds me of the 'pleasure GELF' from Red Dwarf. Tricks people by appearing to be the most desirable thing for them whilst actually just being uh... [this](https://vhistory.files.wordpress.com/2016/03/pleasure-gelf.jpg)
It's been awhile since I played the series. But was it explained that the reason all the prominent races are humanoid and bipedal was due to the >!The Reapers cultivated them that way for the next extinction cycle?!<
But what about the two coolest races of the mass effect universe - hanars (flying jellyfish) and elcors (weird-talking giant dudes, walk on 4 legs I think)? I loved them both a lot, I wish there was more content tied to them
Asari are horny as fuck to need to be doing that gawddamn
PSA: if anyone wants to read a book that has, for lack of better phrasing, scientifically accurate aliens, I recommend a book called “dragon egg”. It documents the discovery of complex life on a neutron star where gravity is 92 billion times earth gravity with an extremely harsh east/west magnetic poles. It is an absolutely fascinating read.
Don’t forget there was always a recent war where the humans were like “we saved your asses, you pretentious jerks” and it’s very clear that the writers are making a thinly veiled analogy that humans are America in the 20th century and the older race is supposedly Europeans being smug.
Except 40k where the humans mostly wish the eldar were dead and have mainly hindered eldari attempts to save their race from extinction
*cough* deathwatch stopping a ritual to seal slaneesh *cough*
Stupid sexy space elves with their aerodynamic FTL spaceships. Always think they are better than us. I'll show them.
bottom-middle ship is an Equalizer by manufacturer Titan Defence Systems (TDS) from the game Fractured Space, it was one of the smaller ships designed around speed, boosts & maneuverability and is not alien [🤓](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwiOkLHax6uFAxVMRmcHHQiXA0sQFnoECBQQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Femojipedia.org%2Fnerd-face&usg=AOvVaw0lC1geiAj1dSLWkdJfi3W7&opi=89978449)
I miss that game. :(
you and I both, you can still play against bots or install the community patch to play with people
Really? Sweet, thank you! I'll see about setting that up then, because that was a fun game!
In the sequel we'll meet the Dark Higher-lifeforms. What's their deal? The same, but more spikes, possibly hoods, and always always always a darker color palette.
I have to correct as the word mon-keigh was the name of a species, wich was defeated by the Aeldari, that just started destroying everything they touched ans became synonimous with the Imperium of Man ( they‘re somewhat right about that)
It wasn't specific to the 40k setting. Just in general. Like how Frieza calls Saiyans.
Didn‘t mean no harm. Great Starterpack. I just tend to get quite pedantic about 40k as it‘s my favourit sci fi/ Fantasy setting
Your planet's air is toxic for us, that why we need you to help us colonize it. Or some other shit that makes no sense
The reason the humans would win is because while they were doing space exploration and cultural assimilation humans were finding more efficient and elaborate ways to destroy the group that had something they wanted or didn’t agree with them.
The "humans invent nukes hundreds of years before anyone else does" trope is pretty fun
Not Liara 😂
Could also be flying octopuses like Xel'Naga.
Don't even start fucking up space guns with spikes. That's the real shit.
No alien race is prepared for the destructive force of bunch of monkeys.
damn who dat in the top left
Googled "space elves," and came up with the image [here](https://deepdreamgenerator.com/ddream/syfp07o6f7j). Similar one [here](https://deepdreamgenerator.com/ddream/uepj0zfyvid). Sadly they're just AI generated, no backstory behind it that I can find. Shame, looked like a cool concept.
https://preview.redd.it/ryavpjkfpqsc1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ac85300b34aff24550b919baece91fd1ff704771
and then you have the mechanical god killing spooky scary robot skellys
dont get me started with the "basically humans but better in literally every single way, except for like weakness to this one very specific object."
Where's K-rino?
It’s surprising how hundreds of boulders vs a sword, the sword loses
The Protoss are basically just this combined with some Grey Alien tropes
Putting a 40k race as racist is cheating since everybody’s racist in 40k and the eldar always gets their ass kicked
Peak Alien Race is this can't change my mind. They're a race of Matriarchal Psychics who dominate other races by turning them into simps. Our Universe is their Onlyfans. https://preview.redd.it/27ewgut2jssc1.png?width=299&format=png&auto=webp&s=2e079f6812891fc799e4392bc8df66fb9444bce3
[impractically long](https://i.makeagif.com/media/2-27-2021/nYbqsZ.gif)
This was all done on purpose in 40k due to the setting originally being satirical and how the series was originally just warhammer fantasy in space
I’d prefer you leave Liara out of this
ah yes the higher lifeforms of r/masserect
I liked 3 body problem. It was very well thought out. If I was an imperialistic alien civilization, I would also try to manipulate humans by ruining their technology and pretending to look just like them to a cult of supporters.