{"id":12223,"date":"2022-02-16T08:08:38","date_gmt":"2022-02-16T08:08:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rhesusnegative.net\/staynegative\/?p=12223"},"modified":"2022-02-16T08:08:45","modified_gmt":"2022-02-16T08:08:45","slug":"why-are-alien-characters-usually-presented-as-superior-to-humans-in-science-fiction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rhesusnegative.net\/staynegative\/why-are-alien-characters-usually-presented-as-superior-to-humans-in-science-fiction\/","title":{"rendered":"Why are alien characters usually presented as superior to humans in science fiction?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png?w=640&#038;ssl=1\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top:5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_twitter_via = \"datebytype\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_twitter_via=\"datebytype\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"Why are alien characters usually presented as superior to humans in science fiction?\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div>\n<p>Isaac Asimov once explained that his reluctance to write about aliens came from an incident early in his career when\u00a0<em>Astounding<\/em>&#8216;s editor John Campbell rejected one of his science fiction stories because the alien characters were portrayed as superior to the humans. The nature of the rejection led him to believe that Campbell may have based his bias towards humans in stories on a real-world racial bias. Unwilling to write only weak alien races, and concerned that a confrontation would jeopardize his and Campbell&#8217;s friendship, he decided he would not write about aliens at all.\u00a0Nevertheless, in response to these criticisms, he wrote\u00a0<em>The Gods Themselves<\/em>, which contains aliens and alien sex. The book won the\u00a0Nebula Award for Best Novel\u00a0in 1972,\u00a0and the\u00a0Hugo Award for Best Novel\u00a0in 1973.\u00a0Asimov said that of all his writings, he was most proud of the middle section of\u00a0<em>The Gods Themselves<\/em>, the part that deals with those themes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Flying Saucers, Aliens, UFOs and Carl Gustav Jung\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/oxpPuK9jymc?start=2&#038;feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>In the\u00a0Hugo Award-winning novelette &#8220;Gold&#8221;, Asimov describes an author, clearly based on himself, who has one of his books (<em>The Gods Themselves<\/em>) adapted into a &#8220;compu-drama&#8221;, essentially\u00a0photo-realistic\u00a0computer animation. The director criticizes the fictionalized Asimov (&#8220;Gregory Laborian&#8221;) for having an extremely nonvisual style, making it difficult to adapt his work, and the author explains that he relies on ideas and dialogue rather than description to get his points across.<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png?w=640&#038;ssl=1\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top:5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_twitter_via = \"datebytype\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_twitter_via=\"datebytype\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"Why are alien characters usually presented as superior to humans in science fiction?\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top:5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_twitter_via = \"datebytype\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_twitter_via=\"datebytype\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"Why are alien characters usually presented as superior to humans in science fiction?\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div>Isaac Asimov once explained that his reluctance to write about aliens came from an incident early in his career when\u00a0Astounding&#8216;s editor John Campbell rejected one of his science fiction stories because the alien characters were portrayed as superior to the humans. The nature of the rejection led him to believe that Campbell may have based his bias towards humans in stories on a real-world racial bias. Unwilling to write only weak alien races, and concerned that a confrontation would jeopardize his and Campbell&#8217;s friendship, he decided he would not write about aliens at all.\u00a0Nevertheless, in response to these criticisms, he wrote\u00a0The Gods Themselves, which contains aliens and alien sex. The book won the\u00a0Nebula Award for Best Novel\u00a0in 1972,\u00a0and the\u00a0Hugo Award <div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top:5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_twitter_via = \"datebytype\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_twitter_via=\"datebytype\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"Why are alien characters usually presented as superior to humans in science fiction?\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"amp_status":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-facts"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5DV68-3b9","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rhesusnegative.net\/staynegative\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rhesusnegative.net\/staynegative\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rhesusnegative.net\/staynegative\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rhesusnegative.net\/staynegative\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rhesusnegative.net\/staynegative\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12223"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.rhesusnegative.net\/staynegative\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12223\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12225,"href":"https:\/\/www.rhesusnegative.net\/staynegative\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12223\/revisions\/12225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rhesusnegative.net\/staynegative\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rhesusnegative.net\/staynegative\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rhesusnegative.net\/staynegative\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}