CREATING ALIEN ALIENS Part 31 PART 2: “A Human, a dolphin, an elephant, an octopus, and a crow walk into a room. The octopus says…”

Five decades ago, I started my college career with the intent of becoming a marine biologist. I found out I had to get a BS in biology before I could even begin work on MARINE biology; especially because there WEREN'T any marine biology programs in Minnesota.

Along the way, the science fiction stories I'd been writing since I was 13 began to grow more believable. With my BS in biology and a fascination with genetics, I started to use more science in my fiction. After reading hard SF for the past 50 years, and writing hard SF successfully for the past 20, I've started to dig deeper into what it takes to create realistic alien life forms. In the following series, I'll be sharing some of what I've learned. I've had some of those stories published, some not...I teach a class to GT young people every summer called ALIEN WORLDS. I've learned a lot preparing for that class for the past 25 years...so...I have the opportunity to share with you what I've learned thus far. Take what you can use, leave the rest. Let me know what YOU'VE learned. Without further ado...FROM THIS ESSAY: https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2023/09/creating-alien-aliens-part-31-human.html

“While language will absolutely be a challenge for aliens and us to overcome, the real challenge will be in understanding how we process the world around us.

“We have trouble communicating across CULTURAL divides on Earth – as a middle class, white, American male; living in this country for 66 years, I have a certain way of viewing the world. Were I to be introduced to a room with other 66-year-old men in it: from China, Qatar, India, Bangladesh, South Africa, Nigeria, and say…Brazil – I wouldn’t be able to speak with all of them; perhaps the Nigerian and Indian. What would we say to each other? Perhaps we could talk about our grandchildren? Probably…maybe how we spend our days…

“But we’re also all Human. What would I speak to a dolphin about? An octopus? An elephant? A crow? It almost sounds like the beginning of a joke: “A Human, a dolphin, an elephant, an octopus, and a crow walk into a…hmmm…zoo? The octopus says…”

“Can you make up a conversation between them all? I’m not sure, but because my most recent writing adventure is to write humorous science fiction, I think I’ll give this a try! But I guarantee it will be easier than writing the same scene with realistic aliens in it…”

HERE’S MY ATTEMPT:

Human, Dolphin, Elephant, Octopus, and Crow found themselves in a room together. They had been informed that they were all Sapient and had some things to say to each other.

The Human assumed he would start, but as he opened his mouth, the Elephant lay her trunk on the man’s shoulder. In her tank, the Dolphin stuck her head above water and laughed her “air-laugh”. It’s what Humans expected to hear from her kind. That was fine. It saved trying to explain that the sound was more complex than what Humans could hear and it was less amusement than sarcastic comment, and was in a frequency the Human couldn’t detect.

Beneath her tank, the ground suddenly began to groan, almost as if the Earth was about to shake. She located its origin beneath Elephant’s feet. Across the room from the tank, Crow leaped into the air, fluttering their wings. They spoke, but only some of the words were in a frequency she could hear. It was like denser cold-water currents laced the warm water cut across Crow’s voice, muddying it. But the Crow was speaking in some language. That much was certain only because Dolphin heard patterns in the sounds that made it into her tank. For that matter, the deeper sounds coming up from the ground also carried patterns.

For an instant, the room plunged into darkness. Inside the tank with Octopus, its skin began to ripple with flashes of color. Dolphin only saw the deeper blues of the ocean, so missed as much of Octopus’ words as she’d missed of Elephant’s. But Human turned abruptly, squatting in front of Octopus’ tank. After a moment, he began to tap on the tank glass with hard blades on the tips of his fingers.

Octopus eased across the tank, bringing as many suckers as close as he/she could squeeze them to where the Human was tapping some sort of pattern that was clearly Sapient – but completely incomprehensible. He stood up, reached out to the Dolphin tank and tapped once. Then he tapped once on Octopus’ tank.

Octopus pulled seven tentacles back, touching near the Human finger with one of their tentacles. Dolphin lifted her head and made a single sound that should be audible for the Human, Elephant, and Crow. Crow fluttered to the Human and landed on his shoulder. He flinched but didn’t panic. Crow pecked him on the side of his head once. The man jerked back in surprise and Crow launched themselves into the air again, this time landing on Elephant’s back.

Elephant lifted her trunk from the Human’s shoulder, then tapped Dolphin’s tank once.

The Human sighed. He knew they all understood numbers, but for some reason, he felt a visceral thrill. Dolphin shot a high energy pulse at him, and though the glass reflected most of it, she got a fuzzy image back – the Human’s internal organs had twitched and he’d taken a sudden breath, expanding his lungs. From the bottom of the tank, came a faint vibration. Across the room, she saw that Octopus felt the same thing, and Crow swept his wings out and shuddered his feathers, then made a loud squawk.

For a moment, all of them stopped moving. A profound silence fell over the room – nothing had been said that might be inscribed in a History – memory for Elephant, song for Dolphin, a seething cloud of ink intricately designed and remembered by Octopus, a song entirely different for Crow, and frantically typed notes on the Human’s cellphone.

But History had occurred nevertheless. Not a long paragraph, song, ink cloud, memory, a squawk, but record of a profound moment nonetheless. Perhaps they would make more profound moments as they accumulated to hours; then days. 
Perhaps History had just changed.

Image: From a Powerpoint Presentation I created for my ALIEN WORLDS class...