There are worlds out there with strange alien races.
Will we find connection in their eyes, in their faces?
These are the words from my home page. My theme. I don’t assume that alien races are out to get us, due to their insatiable lust for power and conquest. Why not?
Even though hostile, implacable aliens are always good Hollywood fodder, my premise is that what advanced aliens want most is diversity—to avoid boredom.
Here are some of the themes I explore in my stories:
Why Aren’t Aliens Out to Conquer Us?
Absolute power, it is said, leads to absolute corruption. But absolute power, if survived, can lead to absolute compassion. Why? Not from altruism, but from selfishness. After a time, power is boring. Those who have everything, if they survive the boredom, learn to crave variety and uniqueness—things they cannot dominate.
How to Jump Between Stars
If we’re going to have a galactic civilization, we must have a way to get around the cosmic speed limit—the speed of light. In my galaxy, vessels don’t use faster-than-light travel, they jump from one spot to another without passing through the intervening space. One of my aliens explains how this works. I want my impossible physics to be plausible. And I want it to be consistent with the Drake equation.
What Do Aliens Look Like?
Life can probably have infinite diversity. But so what? We’re mostly interested in engaging with certain life forms. It’s not that all these races look like humans with funny masks. But there are good reasons why they have similarities to us. For example, similar worlds tend to evolve similar lifeforms.
How Smart Are the Aliens?
Can intelligence just keep increasing as races evolve and guide their own evolution? I think races can get too smart for their own good, whether biological, or AI, or some combo. Several perils await them.
What Is Alien Civilization Like?
I describe my Galactic Confederation—how it came together, and what keeps it together. And what threatens it.
What If Aliens Invaded Earth?
They needn’t be hostile conquerors. What if they come as tourists, traders, scientists? This could still cause a lot of problems for us.
Would Alien Diseases Kill Us All—or Vice Versa?
If there’s an alien civilization that has numerous world races, then they must have tackled this issue long ago. Could they have a “theory of pathogens” that allows them to identify and counteract any such threat—biological or chemical?
I want discussion and argument on these points. I will be glad to respond to your (polite) comments.
I’d be intrigued to see alien pathogens effecting Earthly life in ways we can’t imagine. Earthly viruses and bacteria are made of the same proteins, lipids and genetic material as all other life, so they are compatible with the biology of their hosts. But what might happen if Earth life forms were invaded by organisms with completely different biology? Maybe the alien diseases would alter Earthly molecules to make them more useable, in essence transforming the host into a hybrid of alien and Earthly biology.
I believe Hollywood implicitly. They have the bucks and they ARE aliens.