View source for More on the Great Commandment

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[[./memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=5036|HolyHandGrenade!]] wrote: [[./viewtopic.php?p=337128#p337128|'''']]<span class="responsive-hide">2024-10-24T13:34:09+00:00</span>
What was the stereotypical alien like in yinrih culture before First Contact?
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The Great Commandment refers to aliens as &quot;bone not of our bone, flesh not of our flesh, but with souls like unto our own.&quot; The Bright Way took that to mean that aliens could look like anything, but there were some unspoken assumptions that undergirded their actions and beliefs on the topic. In particular:

- That all aliens would be recognizable as living things, no sapient boulders that eat silicon and whose metabolism operates over geologic time, for example.

- That they would be easily recognizable as sapient, which for the Bright Way's purposes meant they possessed language and some form of ritual behavior, especially reverence for their dead or other activities with a spiritual component.

- That their biology would be compatible, if only broadly, with the yinrih, meaning they could survive in similar environments, albeit perhaps with the aid of protective suits.

- Most importantly, that their psychology would be compatible such that the two species could communicate and form meaningful social connections with one another.

Secular commentators often asserted that extraterrestrial sophonts could violate one or more of these assumptions, leaving the Bright Way in the precarious position of having found aliens but being unable to actually bridge their noospheres by forming friendships and exchanging knowledge.

As far as broader culture was concerned, there is a type of Claravian liturgical drama enacting potential First Contact scenarios. These dramas always end well, with the yinrih accepting their new galactic neighbors as friends. As society secularized, more subversive takes on these First Contact stories emerged, often with the yinrih or the aliens as aggressors. These new stories much more resemble what humans associate with alien encounters. In any case, the alienness of these creatures is directly proportional to the SFX budget of whoever is producing the media.

Much like humanity's many conceptions of potential aliens, <s>space doggos</s> yinrih often draw on animals or creatures from folklore when speculating about how extraterrestrial sophonts would look and act. A particularly popular depiction is inspired by the &lt;qghfdg&gt;, diminutive creatures from cynoid folklore whose only consistent trait is their small size.


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