: Re: What Is The Key To An "Alien" Culture? Today I am asking for something I've been stumped on: what is the "key" to an alien culture? Allow me to explain: I am currently writing a

@Smith147

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Look to Biology:
Okay, so I'm a biologist. I think that way. Something doesn't need to be from an alien planet to have alien motives.
Think of humans and how they looked as primitive hunter-gatherers. They abused each other for gain (food/mating, etc). They hunted what they wanted, relied on others in a tight-knit community for support. If you try to look at them, they're our own species, and it's still tricky to think like them.
Now pick any other species on Earth. Look at what they do. What motivates them? How do they relate to other species and other members of their own species? How do they seek food, and mates, and do they even need shelter? If they had no problems as a species evolving, they would probably never become intelligent.
Then take those motives and add intelligence. What would intelligent cattle look like? Intelligent owls? intelligent mice? Try to ascribe a set of motives and needs to your species, then figure out how they intelligently would pursue those goals, modified somewhat for the evolution of intelligence.
Intelligent cattle might be anxious without many members of their own species present - your alien might glom on to this girl out of a desperate need of company. Intelligent owls might be predators, eat only live food, or be nocturnal. Perhaps they DISLIKE their own species except during mating season. Or intelligent mice might be nervous in open spaces, constantly seeking food, and have no sense of ownership about food. They might be defensively aggressive and always think you're trying to hurt them. The possibilities are endless.
So pick a species and try to imagine the motives they might have if they became the intelligence on a planet. The moon isn't a good candidate for an alien home since it doesn't support life. What did the home world look like for your alien? What drove it to live on the moon? Think about how the alien world shapes the behavior of the species. Michael McCollum in his Antares series had aliens that were deeply Xenophobic, but it was because their home world had an additional hostile sentient species on it, and they learned to hate aliens. Invent motives if you like, but back them up with good logic.
Beware of the trap of ascribing "perfect" motives for your species. If your aliens have evolved beyond all pettiness, they are 1. boring, 2. preachy, and 3. unlikely to interact with humans even for survival. Let your alien be arrogant (to contrast and exemplify the traits your MC needs to overcome) or a predator (who has a hard time not killing and eating humans, which look like a prey species) or even constantly afraid and neurotic (so your MC must be constantly super-nice just to keep the alien from freaking out). decide on a flaw that fits with the biology and evolution of the species.

I'm a big fan of the worldbuilding stackexchange, so once you've imagined what motives you want for your species, it's a good place to go for creative ideas about the 'whats' of your species if you can't think of why an alien species would be (fill in the blank - obsessed with grass, or prone to random violent outbursts, or why they aren't eating people).

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