[media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_elajKdNfhM[/media]
Ignore the outdated meme face, he does bring up some pretty good points.
His whole channel is pretty good. Only wish he'd upload more frequently
[QUOTE=EuSKalduna;52584835]His whole channel is pretty good. Only wish he'd upload more frequently[/QUOTE]
I really liked his Dystopia one, and wish it went into more detail about how most dystopian autocrats in fiction are always sitting on a knife edge stability wise, and can somehow be brought down by plucky, malnourished children.
He forgot making all the intelligent aliens speak the exact same language, have the exact same skin tones, same culture and the exact same personalities because every human being on this planet is totally the same so that must be true for alien civilizations too.
[editline]17th August 2017[/editline]
Like I want to see a sci fi story where you run across an alien speaking some language and a dude turns to a team member who's of the same species and asks what the thing said, but the alien on your team goes "I don't fucking know I don't speak uiafduijasgfhuji."
[IMG]https://vfxblogsite.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/drd_074_0175.jpg?w=660[/IMG]
What the fuck are these, should I poke them?
Entire planets being a single biome always bugged me. Although for uninhabitable planets that's actually pretty much the case. (besides polar poles)
I don't think it's unreasonable for most aliens to be like humans. Humans are actually nearly the perfect size to interact and sustain ourselves within our environment.
Also a lot of human behavior is the same no matter where they are from, so it's very plausible aliens are a bit like us.
May be a bad example, but the Tau Empire from Warhammer 40k have a pretty cool caste system going on.
[QUOTE=Stiffy360;52586159]Entire planets being a single biome always bugged me. Although for uninhabitable planets that's actually pretty much the case. (besides polar poles)
I don't think it's unreasonable for most aliens to be like humans. Humans are actually nearly the perfect size to interact and sustain ourselves within our environment.
Also a lot of human behavior is the same no matter where they are from, so it's very plausible aliens are a bit like us.[/QUOTE]
Earth has such wildly different biomes, and such wildly different animals that have specialized to live there, that, yeah, it's [I]incredibly[/I] lazy to paint a planet as all one biome unless it's dying/dead.
I think it is unrealistic for all aliens to be humanish, if only because reasonably intelligent life on Earth take on such wildly different forms. We have elephants, whales, sharks, dolphins, dogs, cats, monkeys and apes, corvids, parrots, and I want to put bearded dragons there as an honorary thing but you get my point.
Regardless, fantastic video and thanks for posting! I have a new playlist to watch!
I liked the [url=http://media.moddb.com/images/mods/1/23/22192/Character_Concept_-_Pipe_Hybrid.jpg]System Shock[/url] reference at 3:27.
I can sorta understand why most writers are lazy about designing alien ecology. Not everyone is able or willing to plan out a spiritual successor to All Tomorrows for their Summer schlockfest or board-approved future action game, and writing is very often a team process that can be difficult to get aligned.
What if one writer thinks their highly-oxygenated planet ought to be populated with swarms of arthropods with very few plants due to the increased likelihood of combustion, but another writer thinks that the planet should be FILLED with plants with very little animate life due to the plants' incredible rates of respiration? What happens when the designers misinterpret the writers saying "this high-gravity planet has large populations of strong-boned animals" and makes a planet full of spindly giraffelike animals made of steel? Sticking to basic, common concepts makes sure that everyone is on roughly the same page, which can make settings seem less schizophrenic.
It's lazy writing, but it's not [I]inherently[/I] bad.
[QUOTE=Viper_;52585909][IMG]https://vfxblogsite.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/drd_074_0175.jpg?w=660[/IMG]
What the fuck are these, should I poke them?[/QUOTE]
People claim these movies are smart, and yet they wouldn't exist if it wasn't for the characters stupidity.
[QUOTE=Vodkavia;52585938]The ripping off a human culture one has got to be by far one of the most annoying ones because a lot of writers like those in Halo as of recent have dropped all pretense of suspension of disbelief by making it so alien straight up use latin words to describe themselves.[/QUOTE]
Maybe its because I had kid brain but I loved that about halo. It didn't hide it all.
Like star wars but less WWII and more theological conflict.
I know it's the gimmick, but I wish he had a version of the videos that was "Good Writing Advice."
He gives really good advice, but it's grating to listen to when the entirety of the video is sarcasm.
Books have it generally better than movies, I think. Or maybe I didn't read as much pulp as I watched. One book had aliens that thought we were at war with them simply because they intercepted our broadcasts and thought that we were spamming everyone around us with useless information since they didn't have consciousness and had no concept of entertainment. It's a lot more complicated than that but still, pretty cool.
Aliens are often humanlike not strictly due to laziness, but because in a storytelling context, having inhuman aliens is extraordinarily difficult, since it makes expressing their emotions and relating to them a struggle if they don't act in a similar way to humans - we're the only things we really understand how to interact with, after all.
[QUOTE=Gen. Crumpets;52586680]but because in a storytelling context, having inhuman aliens is extraordinarily difficult, since it makes expressing their emotions and relating to them a struggle if they don't act in a similar way to humans [/QUOTE]i suppose this is why Warhammer gets away with having some really horrifyingly inhuman aliens, the sort of creepers that avoid the "rubber forehead" types of Mass Effect and Star Trek altogether and go straight into cosmic horror territory. no need to even try to relate to them when the status quo is "Kill them all"
[QUOTE=Joazzz;52586757]i suppose this is why Warhammer gets away with having some really horrifyingly inhuman aliens, the sort of creepers that avoid the "rubber forehead" types of Mass Effect and Star Trek altogether and go straight into cosmic horror territory. no need to even try to relate them when the status quo is "Kill them all"[/QUOTE]
Whu? The alien races of 40k are all humanoid, with the exception of the tyranid, and maybe some very minor races.
[QUOTE=Funktastic Dog;52586782]Whu? The alien races of 40k are all humanoid[/QUOTE]there are aliens other than the Tau (+major allies), Necrons, greenskins and Eldar, even if they have no presence on the tabletop (the demiurg at least had ships in Battlefleet Gothic!), and they make frequent appearances in novels, RPG spin-offs and the Horus Heresy series
the slaught are walking piles of brain-eating maggots and only move in humanoid form to blend into imperial society
the hrud are slimy bipedal... things with spines for limbs, they live in large colonies, bend time with their presence and build crazy weapons tech. being close to them ages you to death
the rak'gol are insect-reptile-centaur things with extensive cyber implants and an unending sadistic streak, they really like raiding spaceships and torturing prisoners
the laer were warrior-snakes with four arms and too strong libido
the sslyth are similar to above, with the difference of not being extinct and being mercenaries instead of sense freaks
the jorgall were psychic cyborg-bugs traveling on giant O'Neill cylinders
the megarachnids from the planet "Murder" were basically expies of the Starship Troopers bugs. "civilized" and capable of starship tech but extremely hostile
the q'orl are basically gigantic spacefaring ants with a very large monarchic empire, easily bigger than the Tau. they really need to get some lore spotlight
the thyrrus have four eyes and arms attached to a large body supported by hundreds of tentacles. they communicate by changing the color patterns of their "skin" and to them war is a flashy performance
and there's apparently one race that looks like floating polar bears
and many more, you can basically bet that if a 40k race isn't vaguely humanoid (which usually means that it's a biped with two arms and a head equivalent and the rest is up in the air), it's either insectoid, tentacled or somehow completely horrifying to even look at. sadly they all play second fiddle to the tabletop armies.
His use of Star Trek as visual examples of too human-like aliens is pretty weak considering the entire Milky Way galaxy in-canon was seeded by an ancient species, steering the evolution of a vast number of worlds towards a similar biology. The species that we see in Star Trek that are extremely dissimilar from humans are simply ones that evolved on their own and their cultures [I]are[/I] more different.
[QUOTE=Stiffy360;52586159]I don't think it's unreasonable for most aliens to be like humans. Humans are actually nearly the perfect size to interact and sustain ourselves within our environment.
Also a lot of human behavior is the same no matter where they are from, so it's very plausible aliens are a bit like us.[/QUOTE]
I really love-hate the explanation TNG provided in episode 6x20.
[url]http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/The_Chase_(episode)[/url]
[editline]18th August 2017[/editline]
[QUOTE=DOG-GY;52587111]His use of Star Trek as visual examples of too human-like aliens is pretty weak considering the entire Milky Way galaxy in-canon was seeded by an ancient species, steering the evolution of a vast number of worlds towards a similar biology. The species that we see in Star Trek that are extremely dissimilar from humans are simply ones that evolved on their own and their cultures [I]are[/I] more different.[/QUOTE]
Ninja:d
I've always wondered how humans would really be stereotyped by aliens. They always say all humans are violent or selfish but I think aliens would be ripping on us for our relationship with food. Maybe the aliens would just see food as an energy source so they don't care about taste(evolutionarily speaking, it wouldn't make too much sense since taste tells us if food is good to eat) so seeing us spend so much time and energy on our food would be weird to them.
[QUOTE=Dr.C;52587364]I've always wondered how humans would really be stereotyped by aliens. They always say all humans are violent or selfish but I think aliens would be ripping on us for our relationship with food. Maybe the aliens would just see food as an energy source so they don't care about taste(evolutionarily speaking, it wouldn't make too much sense since taste tells us if food is good to eat) so seeing us spend so much time and energy on our food would be weird to them.[/QUOTE]
a lot of the obsession with food is to do with social ritual and bonding (meals where everyone eats together is a basic human social trait).
aliens would probably have their own similar ways of bonding (if they were a social species like us)
As far as reality goes, I think intelligent, technological species are very likely to follow close evolutionary paths to our own and live on earth-like planets. For example, how do you get to any acceptable level of technology without having abundant building resources similar to wood? How about without ingrained curiosity? How about without something like hands?
Their outlooks may differ in the details but they will likely be largely similar to us both physically and mentally.
[QUOTE=Im Crimson;52587124]I really love-hate the explanation TNG provided in episode 6x20.
[url]http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/The_Chase_(episode)[/url][/QUOTE]
Can we humans please do that just to fuck with future space civilizations
[QUOTE=DOG-GY;52587569]As far as reality goes, I think intelligent, technological species are very likely to follow close evolutionary paths to our own and live on earth-like planets. For example, how do you get to any acceptable level of technology without having abundant building resources similar to wood? How about without ingrained curiosity? How about without something like hands?
Their outlooks may differ in the details but they will likely be largely similar to us both physically and mentally.[/QUOTE]
I think it's more likely that the majority of intelligent, technological species will fall into one of several major templates as opposed to merely all intelligent life in the universe being humanoid. The idea that we are the only solution to the problem of growing into a technologically able species seems somewhat arrogant and baseless to me.
Because it is. The idea that cephalic creature would be dominant has some slight merit ->IF<- a planet had very similar conditions to earth in many MANY ways, but the idea of everything being upright dual-motivated and tailless-bipedal and symmetric everywhere else is laughable at best.
[QUOTE=Rufia;52588209]I think it's more likely that the majority of intelligent, technological species will fall into one of several major templates as opposed to merely all intelligent life in the universe being humanoid. The idea that we are the only solution to the problem of growing into a technologically able species seems somewhat arrogant and baseless to me.[/QUOTE]
Right, I don't mean that we're the sole style of intelligent life. Just that the fact that we work and have abundant resources and developed on the timescale that we did means that Earth-like is an optimal evolutionary path.
[editline]18th August 2017[/editline]
[QUOTE=27X;52588230]Because it is. The idea that cephalic creature would be dominant has some slight merit ->IF<- a planet had very similar conditions to earth in many MANY ways, but the idea of everything being upright dual-motivated and tailless-bipedal and symmetric everywhere else is laughable at best.[/QUOTE]
Thanks for taking my "very likely" as a 100% prediction :/
[QUOTE=DOG-GY;52588251]Right, I don't mean that we're the sole style of intelligent life. Just that the fact that we work and have abundant resources and developed on the timescale that we did means that Earth-like is an optimal evolutionary path. [/QUOTE]
We're not optimal though? We just work, if we were optimized for our environment we wouldn't be building houses, clothes or anything else really. There is nothing in natural selection that is really perfect, only what helps it survive pressures, everything else is an addition/useless.
It's not even in the same ballpark very likely, given that earth-like planets are an extreme rarity and 92% of the planets capable of supporting life (which currently dials in at 1%) won't be created in the Earth's lifespan.
So not only arrogance, but arrogance unsupported by current cosmological numbers nor current exo-evolutionary theory.
[QUOTE=Jake Nukem;52589203]We're not optimal though? We just work, if we were optimized for our environment we wouldn't be building houses, clothes or anything else really. There is nothing in natural selection that is really perfect, only what helps it survive pressures, everything else is an addition/useless.[/QUOTE]
we were absolutely optimized for our initial environment. having evolved beyond that and needing to collectively pool our resources and build our own structures is living proof of our success.
These kinda gripes kinda piss me off.
If you actually want media that doesn't use these tropes, go read a hard scifi novel, you know, the medium that is entirely focussed around these ideas.
This guy is failing to account for the fact that most of these tropes happen in movies and video games which are formats that don't have as much time for story and setting exposition as other mediums, so their creators use common tropes to get to the point of the story rather than focus on nitty gritty realistic details.
The reason most media doesn't portray this stuff realistically is because frankly, it's boring.
I watched Arrival recently and I thought it was fucking amazing, my roommate watched it and thought it was boring as fuck.
So while yes he raises a bunch of interesting questions about alien physiology that I'd like to see explored more deeply in fiction, his snarky knowitall attitude goes to show that while he may understand biology and science he clearly lacks understanding of actual writing or the industries that generate big blockbuster titles for the masses.
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.
