The physical, or “body” half, are things that mark us as a part of nature and make us the same as other life around us: our ability to breed, to be social, to cooperate, to specialize, to grow, to consume, and to self-repair. When deconstructing the human as a character, one comes up with two main descriptions to draw from. Once again, Zoroastrianism comes into play. How can one design something that can believably fight, live, and have a society as complex as humanity does, while being far away as possible from humanity itself? An easy choice is to design something with a more-or-less human shape, maybe with some altered proportions, fur, scales, or a color swap, like in the movie Avatar, but that, in my opinion, limits the potential use of one’s full creativity. When one designs a type of creature in scifi, there is an entire universe (literally) of possibilities to draw from. In the genre of scifi, I think the key reoccurring factions are reflection of the things that make us human. In the fantasy post, I note how the factions are reflections of specific existential threats that face us as humans. A while ago I wrote about what I called The Neapolitan Flavors of Fantasy Villain Factions, (a great read if you haven’t read it yet), and there’s a mirrored set of three flavors in scifi that I couldn’t help but notice while growing up.
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