If we lived in dark conditions, it's possible that eyes would eventually evolve to be able to see more into the infrared region of the spectrum. In order to do this effectively, our eyes would need to be much larger. To see into the ultra violet region, eyes would then be smaller. The size rule is only a rough guide—it's the ratio between lens aperture (width) and focal length (distance to focus on retina) which is important. Technically you could have a small lens with a long focal length which could see into infrared but it wouldn't be able to gather enough of the infrared wavelengths to be useful.
The size of eyes is therefore determined by the type of electromagnetic information employed. Now, if there was a being of similar dimensions to ourselves on another planet with similar illumination to our sun, it's likely that the eyes would be approximately the same size as ours. Of course, the being could have composite eyes like insects, made up of lots of lenses, but the same aperture to focal length ratio would have to exist. An insect has a small eye but it is physically small itself and the ratio remains the same. An elephant or whale possesses eyes larger than humans: the same principle applies.
Our weight is determined by the strength of gravity on the surface of the planet. On the moon, we would weigh only one sixth our current earth weight while on Mars it would be about one third. It's likely the case that a world supportive of life in a habitable zone around a star will have a surface gravity not greatly removed from ours. If the surface gravity is too small, the atmosphere will escape into space, much like the airless moon, and life would then be impossible.
On a more massive planet, life as we know it would be difficult and beings would have to be quite strong and stocky to support their weight. On earth, large animals such as the elephant and rhinoceros have a sufficiently thickset build to support their weight. Imagine what their build would look like if earth's gravity were double its current value? Huge dinosaurs like the diplodocus that weighed in at upwards of seventy tons weren't sylph—like. With a higher surface gravity, large animals would find it more difficult to effectively manage mobility and evolution would favour smaller animals.
Another reason why high gravity is a detriment to a race of extraterrestrials is that it makes travelling into space that much more difficult. Escape velocity on earth is about seven miles per second. Escape from Jupiter requires a big increase in speed and consequently a bigger rocket. Spaceflight from the moon, on the other hand, can be accomplished with a much smaller rocket. Should an alien civilisation living on a massive world wish to travel into space, compared to our own efforts the task would be exceedingly difficult.
Other senses such as hearing, taste, smell and touch will probably be used by beings elsewhere. These senses all make use of environment features—shock waves propagated through air being detected by ear mechanisms or even something as simple as skin, which in turn gives the sense of touch, make useful survival attributes. Although not so useful for humans compared to some animals, the sense of smell is exceptionally important, governing all sorts of behaviour patterns, and, taste is not only an aesthetically pleasing experience, it is a good survival tool enabling us to distinguish between different qualities of food.
In order to be successful in terms technology and spaceflight, not only will a species have to be intelligent, it must have manual engineering skills too. The ability to make items, to construct, to do all the things we do on earth is an absolute necessity. Perhaps at a later date, machine technology may take over the construction process but before all that happens, the ability to make the machines that make the machines must be there. Whether or not this is accomplished by hands, fingers and thumbs or something completely different is largely irrelevant. The fact remains that in order to construct a technological civilisation, extraterrestrials must have personal construction skills.
A person alone on earth would not have the skill or ability to construct a spaceship to fly to the moon—the task is just to big for one person. Think of the number of people employed in the Apollo programme? Even if extraterrestrials can make things individually, it is a necessity for them to actively work in groups, organisations or governments if they wish to embark upon large-scale projects. A degree of social organisation inherent in the beings must be there too. Who knows, worlds may exist where beings have achieved a great deal individually but cannot work together in large groups. This society, while it may be very pleasant for some, would hardly take them to the stars.
We are now getting closer to the type of extraterrestrial that concerns the subject of this book. While there may be many other types of extraterrestrials, probably all planet—bound, they are not of interest to us here because they will not be visiting earth. This doesn't mean that they are not interesting in their own right, of course, but to analyse the type of being who will come to earth from the stars, they must be ignored because they do not enter our calculations.
So, we're looking for an extraterrestrial from an earth type planet somewhere out there in the galaxy. I don't think this alien will come from beyond the galaxy because the distances are just too vast. The Andromeda galaxy, the nearest large galaxy to our own Milky Way, lies two million light years away while some of the nearest galactic clusters are about forty million light years. Practical distances for our purposes would be no more than a few hundred light years, well within our own galaxy.
Let's go on an imaginary journey through space and time, outwards to a small star of spectral type bordering between F and G, and, back in time a few million years. This imaginary star, which has many real counterparts in the galaxy, has a system with twelve planets. The surface temperature of this star is slightly hotter than the sun, there are no major variations in its brightness and there are no other stars in the vicinity, except for a dwarf red star some two light years distant.
There are four inner planets. The inner two planets are seething balls of hot rock very inhospitable to life of any type. In fact, the innermost planet has a captured rotation and the hemisphere that faces the star is actually molten in places whereas the other side is permanently frozen. The third planet just borders on to the zone of habitation but it is a greenhouse desert world with little water and no extant life. Four billion years ago, shortly after the star and the system were formed, the third planet evolved into a world most likely to harbour life but thereafter, as the star's temperature gradually increased, the early traces of this life were stifled.
The fourth planet, though, was a different proposition. For the purposes of this book, we'll give it a name—EXORDIUM. Slightly larger than earth, it developed oceans and the beginnings of life but quickly became enveloped in ice except for the equatorial regions which were kept ice free by the tidal force of a nearby natural satellite. This satellite was about half the size of our moon. Further out in the system, a few cold giant gaseous planets existed. The sixth was the largest, almost twice the size of Jupiter, and it possessed a ring system more glorious than Saturn's, impossible as that may seem. The remaining outer planets were smaller gaseous affairs with other icy worlds beyond.
Exordium had a day equal to thirty-six of our hours and the year was about nineteen months long. Since the axial tilt of the planet was only fifteen degrees, seasons did not vary much from each other, which was just as well because with a longer year, a big seasonal difference would have meant a long, long winter. The only problem was at the poles where cold temperatures dominated but, with no land masses in these regions, it didn't matter so much. Most of the continental land masses were connected and lay around the equatorial, sub—tropical and temperate regions. The climate on Exordium was generally pleasant.
Over the first billion years of its existence, the fourth planet Exordium evolved to become a more hospitable place. The ice gradually receded and the small cellular organisms that had clung to life in little pockets for so long, eventually flourished in the warm equatorial and sub—tropical seas. Continents moved, volcanoes erupted and the occasional meteor hit the surface but the life continued to exist.
After another billion years, the action of the primitive life with light from the star caused oxygen to gradually build up in the atmosphere while, at the same time, the percentage of carbon dioxide decreased.
Another billion and a half years witnessed an explosion of life in the seas which now covered over half of the surface. Most of the ice in the polar caps had melted. Four point three billion years into the history of Exordium and we arrive at a stage where bipedal beings roamed the planet in small numbers but with countless other species existing in the seas and on the land, there were bounteous resources at their disposal. It was a Garden of Eden existence but many light years away on earth, there was no Garden of Eden and no humans; there was a hot, humid greenhouse where dinosaurs and reptiles roamed at will.
These bipeds became quite resourceful. Some thought that it was better to cut down the forests to grow the vegetation that served as food. They could also rear animals for food. Farming took hold in several regions and in these places, after thousands of years, the population began to grow and grow until new land was required. It was a harsh, unrelenting existence compared to the life of the hunter gatherers that still covered most of Exordium, living in small numbers in their comparative paradise, but the farmers had bitten the apple of knowledge and couldn't return to their former ways. Inexorably, they moved outward, evolutionary success coming in the form of greater fecundity, and they swept away the hunter-gatherers. Sometimes there were fights, with both sides winning battles, but the balance of power remained with the farmers and they spread further round the planet Exordium.
To look at one of the bipeds from a distance, you would think they were humans from a later period in earth's history. Coming closer, it was easy to see that they were quite different. The average height of the average Exordican was approximately four feet but the body was thick set, the same width as an average six-foot high person from earth. They were coloured dark brown, had no hair whatsoever and the eyes were small and black. Most wore a type of clothing made from the polished hides of an antelope creature, domesticated and reared in great numbers to provide virtually all their needs. The Exordicans had two arms and two legs, much like humans, but proportionally, the arms seemed to be quite long.
In common with many galactic creatures, there were two sexes but for a human, telling them apart would be extremely difficult. They possessed a highly developed sense of smell controlled by a relatively large area of their brains, enabling them to visually see smells and odours. Evolution had given them protected sexual organs, in the same places as humans but physically protected until required. The female breasts were also protected within their skeletal structure, the only difference between them and the males being a more barrel-like chest. Although smaller than humans, they possessed more strength in their bodies, this a result of the higher gravity, but, unlike humans, they could not run long distances. You would never see an Exordican in a marathon. They possessed lungs for breathing and could make sounds, which developed, into complex languages, in the same way that would happen to earth later in history.
Years passed to see them move over the entire planet, forming towns and cities. They became masters of the seas but because most of the continental masses were in close proximity to each other, there were no big surprises as far as undiscovered ethnic groups were concerned. Religion existed but, excepting minor differences here and there, it was the same doctrine all over the planet. It was also the case that racial differences were minimal. This didn't prevent their invention, of course, and though a trained human eye could discern variety, they would be disregarded as of a trivial nature; a slight colour difference, a disparity in the size of their hands, and a diversity of ear and nose shapes. These differences led to a long series of protracted wars which caused a Dark Age lasting thousands of years and costing millions of lives.
The wars had one benefit only, and that was the increase in the technology of weapons and warfare. This had an overspill effect on ordinary life and gradually they began to become more sophisticated in living habits; water, fuel, transport, materials and leisure all became important. The surface of their continents and the depths of their seas were exploited to meet the demands of the expanding society, and in this expansion many other creatures on the planet became extinct. There came a time when Exordicans numbered some eighteen billion.
Nuclear weapons had been invented but never used. However, one day a small meteor stuck the planet with the force of twenty of their most powerful bombs, killing a billion. This triggered a small nuclear exchange by mistake which killed another three billion until the madness was stopped. Treaties were signed and after fifty of their years, the entire planet was economically bound together as one unit. Whereas governments of individual countries had once existed, these disappeared into a single planetary government. Unfortunately, this government, although apparently in control of religious, financial and social regulations, was of little power compared to the new capitalist corporations. The latter held the real power of Exordium and a wealth stratification developed amongst the society.
This society stratification matured over years to become even more rigid. An earth observer, if there had been one, would have pointed to the situation and said, “Look, there's Aldous Huxley's Brave New World". There was the equivalent of the alphas, the intelligentsia who controlled everything. Relatively small in number compared to the entire population, they had a significant portion of the planet's wealth. They also constituted most of the top government positions. A few higher alphas were in control of them: these were almost godlike. Further down the society ladder came the betas, gammas, deltas and finally the epsilons. Total numbers increased through this sequence.
The epsilons made up about sixty percent of the population of Exordium. Opportunity to move between the layers of society was not impossible but almost so. Every Exordium week, it happened to a few individuals but the odds of each event exceeded thirty million to one against. While totally insignificant, it still presented the fact of the possibility to everyone at large and gave a disproportionate amount of hope to those for whom such aspirations were important. Very few epsilons moved to become even deltas.
The trick that the alpha conglomerates perpetrated on their society was that each group was generally happy with their lot and their place in society. They were, on the whole, stable and content—any move or policy that would make big disruptions to the system was regarded with sheer shock and terror. Individuals advocating changes far removed from even a small disruption quickly disappeared and were never seen again.
The epsilons, deltas and gammas were continually fed a fixed diet of mundane food, entertainment and recreational pastimes including drugs, sex and an acceptable healthcare programme. This was their world which they accepted for the pains of their labours: few had the energy or initiative to look beyond this world. And so the society of Exordium existed, stable and in equilibrium for five thousand of their years but over this period, changes began to happen.
Although the society at large was economically and environmentally friendly and controlled pollution, population numbers and even the weather, there came a time when resources began to be stretched. The large corporations and the government, although they began as dynamic capitalist concerns evolved to become the very opposite. Efficiency often took a back seat to the need to maintain society's structure. Many of the alpha stratum began to realise that a problem existed and that it could only be solved by expansion. This propagated a drive into space where the Exordium satellite was first colonised and exploited for mineral wealth.
Exordium's satellite appeared about the same size as the earth's moon but it was closer and revolved around the planet much faster than the moon. It reflected a similar amount of light but the phases went through their motions—from first quarter, full, last quarter and new—in only a few days rather than a month. Eclipses were frequent though on Exordium there was no such thing as a total eclipse of the star. This appeared larger in the sky than the satellite and
on full eclipse, a ring shape appeared, rather like the annular eclipse seen from earth when our moon is at its furthest distance and is unable to completely block out the sun. Tides on Exordium were complicated affairs.
The satellite was a barren airless world but it was an excellent platform for going into space. The Exordicans didn't need to build their own space station orbiting the planet; the satellite provided the base on which they built a complex station with ample room for expansion. Within fifty of their years, they had constructed a colony with mining and processing facilities, large enough for thousands and entirely self-sufficient.
From this satellite, a further expansion proceeded to encompass most of the habitable regions of their planetary system. The third planet began to change when steps were taken to alter the climate from greenhouse to tropical paradise. It was a slow process but one which gradually took hold, accomplished by the positioning of billions of reflective particles in orbit around the planet to cut down heat and light from the star.
People did not leave Exordium in large numbers; there wasn't a mass emigration. Many of the new inhabitants of the system were born in space environments—lower gravity, eating processed food. Like our solar system, the Exordium environment contained many asteroids which were mined for their resources and these resources included water in abundance. The people became adept at exploitation of resources, transforming them, with the application of complex machinery, to useful materials for habitation. It was also a dangerous life from radiation, micrometeorites and the vacuum of space. Many died but there were many to take their place, especially from the lower levels of society.
Alien Psychology Page 4