Created By: 1810072342 on July 3, 2013
Last Edited By: Guilen on October 9, 2013
Like Humanity Unless Noted
Except for the noted differences, the society of other creatures is surprisingly like our own
When an author uses a cast or part of a cast that is of a species other than Homo Sapiens, apart from the differences that are directly stated a lot of the aspects of their civilisations resemble that of humanity. There would be no real reason for these societies to have developed this way (in fact you would think that, say, wild animals would definitely avoid some of the concepts we have), but due to the existence of Acceptable Breaks from Reality this isn't noted by many audiences. This also makes creating societies of other species easier, because the audience can then use their knowledge of human lifestyles to fill in the details not given in the narrative.
Examples of this trope include: killing other beings is perceived as wrong, people buy things in shops (with money) and when people refer to a species that you have to respectful to (such as hippogrifs), that means you have to bow to them. As said, there is no reason in the real world why this sort of behaviour would exist in many cases, but fiction doesn't have to be realistic.
Many of the daily systems of other species are familiar too. The most common examples of this are things like jobs and governments. Even in Real Life animals can recognise a leader and different individuals tend towards different tasks, but the method in which this is displayed is strangely human-like in many cases. Legal processes of law courts on other planets are a sucker for this, as are aliens on the whole.
The Earth All Along trope uses this quite often - this general acceptance that other worlds are mostly like ours allows for details to be glossed over until it is revealed that the world in question is like the Earth because it is the Earth. In a similar way stories where the characters are revealed to not be humans rely on this - because as we know all civilisations operate like our own, there is no reason to assume that any work using a human-like society actually uses humans or the Earth unless explicitly stated.
This trope happens because Most Writers Are Human, and, well, you Write What You Know.
Not to be confused with Humans by Any Other Name, which has more to do with the way humans are referred to (although they aren't mutually exclusive). The Grand List of Overused Science Fiction Clichés refers to this a number of times.
Subtrope of Not So Different. Supertrope to a number of tropes (does anyone know which these are?).
Given that this trope is a Universal Trope and potentially one of the Omnipresent Tropes, notable examples and inversions only please. Otherwise we could be here for a while.
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Inversions:
- Either subverted or averted, depending on your point of view, in the classic TV series Captain Scarlet with the Mysterons who are never bodily depicted and whose societal structure is left totally unexplained.
Hello, Unknown Troper. You'll need to get known to lend a hand here.
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Replies: 13
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Humans By Any Other Name?
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Can sometimes involve Humans By Any Other Name, but the interaction is only significant when also used in conjunction with Earth All Along, to hide the race.
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Subtrope of Not So Different?
- Star Trek has too many examples to list here. Apparently, aliens that wouldn't be found in the Not Quite Human index are considerably rarer than those that are. In fact, the similarity between humans and extraterrestrials is Lampshaded in several episodes, including one Star Trek The Next Generation episode where it turns out that a Precursor race seeded planets so they would evolve into humanoid forms.
- In Mass Effect, pretty much every alien race has a Fantasy Counterpart Culture. Despite the fact that it's hundreds of years in the future and humans are a minority on the Citadel, most of the shopping malls and entertainment facilities wouldn't look out of place in modern - day Dubai or Las Vegas.
- In Drowtales, most of the fantasy races are remarkably humanlike. While each of the clans has a Fantasy Counterpart Culture, the similarity is taken to the point that drow have apparently developed a Dungeon Punk version of rock-n-roll.
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I'm looking at the Humans By Any Other Name page and it doesn't look the same as this at all. At least, if it is then I plainly can't see it.
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The Human Aliens of the Noon Universe. Arkanarians are medieval humans, except their culture is broken to ensure Medieval Stasis. Sarakshans are Diesel Punk post-nuclear humans in a universe where Earth humanity never underwent such a cataclysm. Etc.
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The Human Aliens of the Noon Universe. Arkanarians (or Tsurinakans; there isn't any unambiguous canon name of that planet) are medieval humans, except their culture is broken to ensure Medieval Stasis. Sarakshans are Diesel Punk post-nuclear humans in a universe where Earth humanity never underwent such a cataclysm. Etc.
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Supertrope of a bunch of other tropes. I think The Grand List Of Science Fiction Cliches (or whatever it's called) refers to this multiple times.
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^ It's The Grand List Of Overused Science Fiction Cliches.
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Removed. (Edited my post and it doubled for some reason.)
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- Either subverted or averted, depending on your point of view, in the classic TV series Captain Scarlet with the Mysterons who are never bodily depicted and whose societal structure is left totally unexplained.
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Aslan and Vargr in Traveller, especially Aslan. A few of the more obscure races too perhaps.
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^ Zero Context Example, please clarify.
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So this is a Trope In Aggregate?