So You Like Stories about Aliens?
The champion of the universe in creating truly alien aliens
is Robert Forward. The aliens in science fiction have come a long way from
the "little green men" of the yesteryear. But few writers have risen above
carbon/water chauvinism to envision civilizations based on entirely different
physical as well as social principles.
None that I know have even come close to Robert Forward
in portraying truly new worlds. His masterwork is Dragon's Egg (and
its not quite as ingenious but still mind stretching sequel Starquake)
which features the cheela, a race of beings who live in the world of nucleaic
rather than electromagnetic forces.
Dragon's Egg alone would have established
Forward as the most innovative creator of original aliens, but the cheela
are only one of the species to spring from Forward's fertile imagination.
His Rocheworld series presents ocean based life forms called flouwen
and deftly overcomes the objection that ocean based life could not have
science and technology because they could nnever discover fire. Forward's
imagination continued to pump out new civilizational possibilities with
his insect-like kerack found in Cameolot 30K. This
story relies a little too much on an analogy between kerack civilization
and European medieval society, but it does present the interesting possibility
of life arising on comets and a clever solution to the problems of reproduction
and territorial dispersion of an intelligent species living in the cometary
belt. Still not finished, in Timemaster Forward came up with
"silverhairs" a semi-intelligent life form that has evolved the
ability to travel through time and which when discovered by human beings
are used to develop space and time travel technology.
In his materwork Dragon's Egg, Forward skillfully
utilizes the dramatic possibilities in the juxtaposition of beings living
in the world of nucleaic forces with humans who accidentally discover them
on a scientific exploration mission. Such beings would live on a timescale
several orders of magnitude faster than humans. For example, communication
emerges as a problem since a normal human response to a communication from
nucleaic beings takes several of their "years" to be articulated. Forward
exploits the humorous possibilities as the originally less technologically
advanced cheela sit around their communicators with months to speculate
about how humans will finish a sentence, all the time grumbling about their
slow-witted human counterparts and wondering how such slow thinking beings
could have evolved any civilization at all.
The speed of cheela life means that in the short human
time between the discovery of the cheela by a human spaceship and the conclusion
of the spaceship's mission, the cheela have evolved from a primitive civilization
to a technological level advanced beyond human comprehension. In a few
short human weeks the cheela go from students overawed by their benefactors'
wisdom to a civilization advanced so far beyond humanity that they have
to be extraordinarily careful not to harm human development by careless
intervention, a delicious irony that Forward depicts masterfully.
Forward's inspiration extends not only to new beings on
new worlds. Even more impressively, he creates new civilizations. In Dragon's
Egg Forward to present a breathtaking vista of the evolution of
a species from the dawn of consciousness to a civilization beyond mere
human comprehension. We are present at the moments of emergence of cheela
language, social organization, mathematics, religion, science, technology--all
the historical turning points in the development of a civilization.
By the time the humans arrive and the cheela leap beyond
their bemused teachers we have seen a clearer picture of the evolution
of cheela civilization than many of us have about the emergence of our
own species. Forward has never received recognition commensurate
with his work. It is certainly easy to understand why Forward's
cheela have never generated interest in Hollywood. Dragon's Egg's
story is an epic in many ways more powerful than 2001. But
this tale is just too brilliantly cerebral as well as too humbling to human
arrogance to appeal to an industry and an audience whose imagination regarding
aliens extends about as far as Independence Day or Starship
Troopers. Maybe in coming generations innovative web animators
will bring images of Forward's cheela to the masses.
Other Pages
My Essays on Contact with Aliens
Why has there been no contact with Aliens?
Would Aliens be Friendly
or Hostile?
Great Novels (and sometimes videos) on Contact with Aliens
The Genius of Arthur C. Clarke