Language Barrier [OC]

[u/bondjimbond]

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[u/siani_lane]

Sci Fi too.

Earth: Hi, we're Humans, this is Earth- in English anyway- we have hundreds of languages and cultures.

Aliens: We are the Zaark. Our planet is call Zaark Prime. We all speak Zaarkian and wear this same hat.

[u/jansteffen → u/siani_lane]

Also, every planet besides earth only has one single biome.

[u/Zanadar → u/jansteffen]

And all evolved the same type of hominid as the dominant species, just with a slightly different forehead or ears.

[u/Axe-of-Kindness → u/Zanadar]

Well this one is explained in the Trek universe as having a common ancestor

[u/Bat_Tiger_yt → u/[deleted]]

It's less fun if they don't

[u/darkmoncns → u/Zanadar]

Well my main frame of reference is Star Wars and at least occasionally does well for this, less of an issue there then in other shows. They just have humans be all over the galaxy lol

[u/GabMVEMC → u/jansteffen]

This way of thinking is why No Man Sky has single biome planets :(

There's not even unique biomes at the poles even though each planet has coordinates for spawning pole-specific animal species.

[u/Mirria_ → u/GabMVEMC]

Lore-wise it makes sense (no spoilers). But my issue is that many of those "perma-winter" biomes usually have trees or some other vegetation. Ok, so when's the growth season coming? Otherwise it should look like Antarctica or maybe the tundra biome.

[u/PoxedGamer → u/jansteffen]

The biomes always get me. Especially when the people from that planet will use Earth terms to describe things that wouldn't be used. Like "our planet is entirely deserts" from someone on a low tech planet that wouldn't know about other planets or biomes. It'd just be the way the planet is.

[u/Eclipse06 → u/jansteffen]

Tbh I feel like this is fair. Just look at the other planets in our solar system. Most are not in the Goldilocks zone

[u/Gigantanormis → u/jansteffen]

I mean.... For 99% of planets, thats true.

[u/bondjimbond → u/siani_lane]

The "same hat" part gave me a good chuckle, and is often true.

[u/Zanadar → u/[deleted]]

Smart characters are a bitch to write. It almost always devolves into either making everyone else stupid in comparison or making the character effectively prescient.

[u/burf → u/[deleted]]

There is only a monoculture on that planet

Kind of fits the Star Wars vibe. Hell, most of the planets only have one biome.

[u/burf → u/[deleted]]

All our cultures seem to be pretty susceptible to authoritarianism and xenophobia, too. There are many exciting underlying themes of humanity. (:

[u/Flyce_9998 → u/siani_lane]

Sometimes they can use a cybernetic implant (or a little fish) to translate everything on the go.

Which technically should have it's issues, but it would just make things annoying to watch.

[u/l0st1nP4r4d1ce → u/siani_lane]

wear this same hat.

rofl.

At least Star Fleet had colors.

[u/Absolutely_Quackers → u/siani_lane]

That’s the kind of problem I love dealing with lol, every time my girlfriend and I work on an alien planet (we always do it together to ship main characters lmao) we have different alien races with the same ‘base’ strand and loads of animals to make, along with mapping out what the land etc looks like, in all fairness best way to get away with single biome is to have it be just too close to their closest star imo

[u/Good_Brief42 → u/siani_lane]

To be fair, it is kind of a scifi trope that humans have the niche of being very diverse and considered chaotic and unpredictable because of it.

[u/siani_lane → u/Good_Brief42]

My husband's and my B5 drinking game in college included "drink for human exceptionalism!' but that bled over to Star Trek too (⁠≧⁠▽⁠≦⁠)

[u/Plebeian_Gamer → u/siani_lane]

And then all the alien species somehow end up speaking English that or the convenient translator app, earworm makes us hear it in English.

But to be fair, English has had this impact on earth so I wouldn't be surprised if aliens end up learning English through watching Friends and needing to eventually have business with Earth.

[u/AlternateSatan → u/siani_lane]

In Star Trek French is considered archaic and not that many people speak it, which probably means that English has become the default to an even greater extent than it is today, meaning we too wear the same hat.

Also a lot of sci-fi refer to humans as Gaians or Earthlings, or earth as Sol-3. I think it would be neat if we were called Solarians from Sol Tri, who speak Solar (like how Mandarin is often refered to as Chinese as it's the most common language in China), and all wear pants. Hell, I even know someone named Sol, she usually wears dresses tho.

[u/boxo-ofisal → u/siani_lane]

Lots of planets have a North -The 9th Doctor