Lepus Rex, I remember that episode. Perhaps a bit far-fetched, but an interesting theory -- maybe even true, how do we know? But Aaargh? Yuck? Awful?

Some years back I was a regular attendee at the Norwescons (Northwest science-fiction conventions), and at one of them, Orson Scott Card conducted a workshop on "constructing an intelligent alien species." Most interesting. He had the audience call out species that, for convenience sake (we had only an hour), might be analogous to those here on earth. After a few minutes of brain-storming, we settled on "amphibians."

"Okay," said Card, "what is the life-cycle of amphibians?" Eggs laid in a pool of water, tadpole stage, metamorphosis into an adult, etc. Now we have to decide what kind of an amphibian it is: with tail (salamanders) or without tail (toads and frogs). Of course, our critter is fairly large compared to terrestrial amphibians. Why? Because it needs a brain large enough to accommodate a sufficient number of neurons (or a similar neurological-type mechanism) to allow intelligence to be possible. Let us assume for convenience (the workshop is only one hour) that our critter is endowed with bilateral symmetry. Being fairly sizable, this renders locomotion by hopping very energy-inefficient, unless we decide that they move about something like kangaroos. If this were the case (or even if not), eyes mounted fairly high and on the front of the body (i.e. in the head) and positioned to facilitate binocular vision would be a survival factor. Less chance of them making a forward bound only to bat their little snoots against a tree trunk, rock, or another of their species also in mid-bound. The forepaws of frogs and salamanders could easily evolve opposing digits, making grasping, hence tool-using, possible.

This species requires water. This tells us something about the planet they evolved on. The orbit of the planet must be at the right distance from its star to be in the "temperate zone," allowing water to remain in its liquid state (which, of course, presupposes that water exists there in the first place). Hmm. Looks like our planet is going to be pretty earth-like. Well, can't be helped.

Now, what kind of religion does our amphibians species have? Since water is so absolutely essential to their existence— indeed, each adult individual emerges from water— it's probably going to loom large in their belief system. Does their belief system include some kind of deity? If so, what do they believe it's attributes to be? What are the taboos of their religion (this could be very important in determining the nature of their social structure)?

What is the nature of their social structure. How complex? Are they tribal, or do they live in cities? What is the nature of their cities? Proximity to body's water would seem to be a requirement. What would their cities look like? What is their system government? Their economic system? Do they have space travel, or are they technologically unsophisticated?

And on and on we go. There are lots of assumptions here, with many other possibilities, but this is just one example. This kind of thing is interactive. The demands of our story requires certain characteristics of the species we're inventing, and the characteristics of the species in turn affects the course of our story. But working it out this way is well worth the trouble because it makes for much more interesting and plausible stories.

Considering the restraints of time and budget that most television and motion picture studios work under, it's a heck of a lot easier to requisition a bunch of actors from Central Casting and glue gobs of sponge rubber to their noses and foreheads then it is to cook up an alien species from scratch. I do wish they would be a bit more creative, but then, what are you going to do?

Any aspiring science-fiction writer interested in pursuing this kind of thing might look at Aliens and Alien Societies: a Writer's Guide to Creating Extraterrestrial Life-forms by Stanley Schmidt (editor of "Analog"); Writers Digest Books; Cincinnati, Ohio, 1995.

Don Firth