By that I mean native to that planet. I just realized I never hear about multiple intelligent species developing on a single planet in any Scifi universe.
Why is there almost never more than one intelligent species on a planet in Scifi.
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I think Utapau in Star Wars had two?
But yes, this is something I have wondered too. In a folder somewhere I have random ideas for novels I've written down over the years. One was for an alternate history story where dolphins had human level intelligence, and how history was shaped by this, between the attempts to ignore each other completely, persecute each other, issues like who owns the rivers or if the humans have a right to sail over top the water without the Dolphin's permission, nations that included both, and lots of other stuff I can't remember right now.
[insert a Hitchhiker's pun here]
But yes, this is something I have wondered too. In a folder somewhere I have random ideas for novels I've written down over the years. One was for an alternate history story where dolphins had human level intelligence, and how history was shaped by this, between the attempts to ignore each other completely, persecute each other, issues like who owns the rivers or if the humans have a right to sail over top the water without the Dolphin's permission, nations that included both, and lots of other stuff I can't remember right now.
[insert a Hitchhiker's pun here]
Star Wars is really closer to fantasy in space than it is Sci-Fi tho.
The condition for intelligent life to appear in the first place on a given planet are pretty low to begin with, so having 2 of them on the same planet... and not have them destroy each other before they get out of the bronze age is extremely unlikely.
Both species would compete for the same ressource. It's from my understanding that Homo Sapion (us) and Cro-Magnon (Cave Man) existed during the same time period, but the Sapien basically wiped them out (direct conflict or simply ressource denial)... and those are both 'man'...
So in short, it doesn't happen because science doesn't support it... Sci-Fi tries to stick to scientific explanation (loosely).
The condition for intelligent life to appear in the first place on a given planet are pretty low to begin with, so having 2 of them on the same planet... and not have them destroy each other before they get out of the bronze age is extremely unlikely.
Both species would compete for the same ressource. It's from my understanding that Homo Sapion (us) and Cro-Magnon (Cave Man) existed during the same time period, but the Sapien basically wiped them out (direct conflict or simply ressource denial)... and those are both 'man'...
So in short, it doesn't happen because science doesn't support it... Sci-Fi tries to stick to scientific explanation (loosely).
Think of how poorly we humans get along amongst ourselves. Now imagine the "species-ial" hatred that would occur.
There's always the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.
Human's are not in fact the most intelligent species on the planet. They are in fact the 3rd most intelligent. The second most intelligent are of course Dolphins, who mysteriously dissapeared the day before Earth was destroyed, leaving the message "So Long, and thanks for all the fish", which appeared as a double backward somersault through a hoop while whistling the star spangled banner.
The most intelligent species on Earth were infact the little white mice in science labs, who were actually Hyper-Intelligent Pan-Dimensional Beings who had built the Earth, to find the Question to the Answer of Life, The Universe and Everything, which we know to be 42.
In Summary:
Most Intelligent: White Mice (Hyper-Intelligent Pan-Dimensional Beings}
2nd Most Intelligent: Dollphins
3rd Most Intelligent: Humans
And yes, I am a Douglas Adams fan-boy. Deal with it!
Human's are not in fact the most intelligent species on the planet. They are in fact the 3rd most intelligent. The second most intelligent are of course Dolphins, who mysteriously dissapeared the day before Earth was destroyed, leaving the message "So Long, and thanks for all the fish", which appeared as a double backward somersault through a hoop while whistling the star spangled banner.
The most intelligent species on Earth were infact the little white mice in science labs, who were actually Hyper-Intelligent Pan-Dimensional Beings who had built the Earth, to find the Question to the Answer of Life, The Universe and Everything, which we know to be 42.
In Summary:
Most Intelligent: White Mice (Hyper-Intelligent Pan-Dimensional Beings}
2nd Most Intelligent: Dollphins
3rd Most Intelligent: Humans
And yes, I am a Douglas Adams fan-boy. Deal with it!
No no, he said INTELLIGENT species.-Pod- said:
Anyway, the problem with that is always that when such things happen, they always seem to want to dominate the other.
As others have said, it's pretty much that one species will almost always strive for dominance. Or maybe they interbreed and end up with one mixed race.
Depends on the sci-fi, really. Enterprise had the Xindi who had five or six variations of the same species. It was weird - bugs AND apes AND fish?!
Depends on the sci-fi, really. Enterprise had the Xindi who had five or six variations of the same species. It was weird - bugs AND apes AND fish?!
Babylon 5 the Centauri had another species on their planet the wiped out. Two reasons for it probably. First being that most cases everything is based off what we know in some shape and form. The second is about how uncommon an intelligent life for is.
This. Humans went out of their way to kill off anything that could compete with their species. So we expect aliens to be the same way.The Unskilled78 said:
Moreover, in writing about aliens, you have to make it possible to relate to them in some way to make a story readable in general. So either they have to act like humans or have some aspect of human behavior. And this tends to be one of them.
Have you considered the two species being separated by the geography of the planet, like two continents on either side of the world seperated by water? Because, unless a large amount of either species travels to the other continent they should be able to develop in peace.Tarkand said:
Well. While biologically most species on earth treat all other species with disdain inherently that could be a reason. As far as the writing is concerned, interspecies relations are very hard to write, in part but not entirely due to that fact that no human alive today has any firsthand experience with that(barring the crazies who claim alien abduction). The most recent other "species" that humans really had to deal with on a day to day basis was the Neanderthal and even then is spite of the fact that they were very much like our ancestors we STILL frequently killed them.
I think it's because the only planet we have to work off of is Earth. We naturally base our created fictional planets after Earth as it is all we know. And on Earth there is one dominant species.
I think it's quite interesting though that in sci-fi's cousin, fantasy, there are quite often multiple dominant species (i.e. men, elves, dwarves, hobbits, orcs, and Maia/Vala in LotR.)
I think it's quite interesting though that in sci-fi's cousin, fantasy, there are quite often multiple dominant species (i.e. men, elves, dwarves, hobbits, orcs, and Maia/Vala in LotR.)
Think of it this way. Would humankind tolerate another sentient race on our "turf"? Eventually one race with extreme leadership would overtake the other.
