Great insights on the need for more diversity in regard to planetary worldbuilding! I'll keep your remarks in mind when I try to take on the massive challenge of creating a whole planet from scratch *gulp*. Just curious--do you read history or sociology books or articles when doing research for your worldbuilding?
The first book in C.S. Lewis' Space Trilogy, "Out of the Silent Planet", defied the trope a bit, I think: you had three primary races with different languages, varied climate, the whole shebang.
Aliens living in their caves on Mars are right now making films about the fact that the entire earth speaks American English, is arid and mostly dry, and there are in fact no cities or large towns at all upon earth. That is because aliens only appear to visit the back end of the western half of the United States.
Most people live in a "one" world of their own culture and ideals. We are still seeing the result of this in the attempts to force religions and ideologies upon one another peoples. We see this in the constant demonization of other cultures which we are told to perceive as a threat, despite them showing no actual threat (Hello China, previously it was Iraq/Syria.) People travel, but they do not view these new places as real places, nor their inhabitants as real people. They are "exotic" toys for tourist's amusement.
It is to me understandable that writers craft "one" worlds, in sci-fi or any other genre, because that is how we are programmed from birth.
I've often thought the same. Even the legendary Dune series is guilty of this. I think it is largely because many sci-fi writers use "other worlds" as an allegorical means to reference real-life nations, or geographical regions found on Earth. That and the fact that most planets we mere humans of the 21st century are familiar with, often lack the sort of biological and geological diversity required to host what we consider life.
However, the racial 'oneness sin' in sci-fi doesn't bother me nearly as much, so long as there is provided a much needed backstory as to the dominant species of the planet in question. One great example of this was Olaf Stapleton's Last and First Men, wherein Martians (from Mars, obviously) were actually gaseous clouds that made up some sort of collective and sentient organism that communicated exclusively specific frequencies of radiation. Whom by extension, did not consider carbon-based life as sentient, because of their inherent inability to communicate outside of radiation (when they invade Earth, they mistake radio towers as the dominant species, and humans as little more than cattle). He provided a deep explanation of the species' evolutionary backstory, as well as the social implications of how that evolutionary history effected their ability to perceive, and be perceived (humans in the story initially thought the Martians were some kind of weather anomaly).
As for the geographical 'oneness sin', again for me it depends. I love Dune, but obviously there's a bit of the aforementioned allegory to real-life based countries at play there. However another great example of the 'oneness' done right, are the Krogan from the Mass Effect series. Their planet was a desert wasteland, but only because of the centuries of persistent nuclear war that eventually rendered their home-world nearly inhabitable.
Nonetheless, I really appreciate your insight because it harkens a sense of wariness for authors like myself to not filled our worlds with proverbial silhouettes of what could be so much more.
Remember the balloon-like creatures Sagan hypothesized could live on Jupiter? I love stuff like that!
Great insights on the need for more diversity in regard to planetary worldbuilding! I'll keep your remarks in mind when I try to take on the massive challenge of creating a whole planet from scratch *gulp*. Just curious--do you read history or sociology books or articles when doing research for your worldbuilding?
The first book in C.S. Lewis' Space Trilogy, "Out of the Silent Planet", defied the trope a bit, I think: you had three primary races with different languages, varied climate, the whole shebang.
Yes! Not only do we have that one type of planet...people also don’t add in the time differences between planets. Not every planet runs on Earth time.
Aliens living in their caves on Mars are right now making films about the fact that the entire earth speaks American English, is arid and mostly dry, and there are in fact no cities or large towns at all upon earth. That is because aliens only appear to visit the back end of the western half of the United States.
Most people live in a "one" world of their own culture and ideals. We are still seeing the result of this in the attempts to force religions and ideologies upon one another peoples. We see this in the constant demonization of other cultures which we are told to perceive as a threat, despite them showing no actual threat (Hello China, previously it was Iraq/Syria.) People travel, but they do not view these new places as real places, nor their inhabitants as real people. They are "exotic" toys for tourist's amusement.
It is to me understandable that writers craft "one" worlds, in sci-fi or any other genre, because that is how we are programmed from birth.
I've often thought the same. Even the legendary Dune series is guilty of this. I think it is largely because many sci-fi writers use "other worlds" as an allegorical means to reference real-life nations, or geographical regions found on Earth. That and the fact that most planets we mere humans of the 21st century are familiar with, often lack the sort of biological and geological diversity required to host what we consider life.
However, the racial 'oneness sin' in sci-fi doesn't bother me nearly as much, so long as there is provided a much needed backstory as to the dominant species of the planet in question. One great example of this was Olaf Stapleton's Last and First Men, wherein Martians (from Mars, obviously) were actually gaseous clouds that made up some sort of collective and sentient organism that communicated exclusively specific frequencies of radiation. Whom by extension, did not consider carbon-based life as sentient, because of their inherent inability to communicate outside of radiation (when they invade Earth, they mistake radio towers as the dominant species, and humans as little more than cattle). He provided a deep explanation of the species' evolutionary backstory, as well as the social implications of how that evolutionary history effected their ability to perceive, and be perceived (humans in the story initially thought the Martians were some kind of weather anomaly).
As for the geographical 'oneness sin', again for me it depends. I love Dune, but obviously there's a bit of the aforementioned allegory to real-life based countries at play there. However another great example of the 'oneness' done right, are the Krogan from the Mass Effect series. Their planet was a desert wasteland, but only because of the centuries of persistent nuclear war that eventually rendered their home-world nearly inhabitable.
Nonetheless, I really appreciate your insight because it harkens a sense of wariness for authors like myself to not filled our worlds with proverbial silhouettes of what could be so much more.