Have setting, need plot

I have IMO, a fairly good premise for my story: Humans discover a group of Lot R-tech level aliens on another planet, and use remote-control alien bodies to communicate and mingle with them. (while hiding their 22nd century super-technology)

However, I have no decent ideas for what happens next. One idea I had was for a stereotypical Evil Empire (of the same species) to show up and threaten the stone-age aliens. I don't really like this since it looks like colonialism so much, and also means that the low-tech group are overshadowed by the Empire and the humans. The plot basically reduces to "When do the humans break the Masquerade?" Every other idea I've had so far reduces to the same question. All the plots are broken by the technology humans have in the setting. (Stuff like 3D printers, lightning weapons and the aforementioned artificial bodies)

Does anyone have any ideas for what kind of things could happen to this group of aliens? I'm not looking for full plot outlines, just starting off points.

edited 12th Dec '10 3:35:37 PM by Yej

Da Rules excuse all the inaccuracy in the world. Listen to them, not me.

Hmm. Maybe there's much more than meets the eye for these aliens; in spite of their seeming primitiveness, they make up for it in their mysticism. This mysticism might interest the humans — with it, an observer in alien body witnesses a 'miracle' where their dead are brought alive again. There's some potential there.

And maybe, the only problem lies in this viral/bacterial infection that comes amongst the aliens. Maybe this infection isn't indigenous to the planet itself, and it's killing off the n-based lifeforms (n being what your aliens are made of; silicon, nitrogen, arsenic, etc.).

Sure, the aliens are capable of resurrecting again and again and again (Or as one quote from World Of Warcraft put it eloquently: "REZ ME NAOW MUTHAFUCKA b4 I KEEL YOU RL") — but what's the point of that if the infection's going to off them anyway?

Therein, as the bard says, lies the rub.

edited 12th Dec '10 4:04:51 PM by QQQQQ

Any good setting has conflict. Any good story has conflict. These are connected. Possible conflicts:

Humans cannot agree what to do with planet. Factions goals could include industrial domination, cessation of all interference, uplifting the natives, turning the world into a tourist park, or using the natives for experimentation.

A group of natives could discover the truth, and seek to drive out mankind, either fully aware of our nature, or believing us to be some form of malevolent deity. This group could even be the aforementioned Empire, led by Well-Intentioned Extremist who wants to unite his world against the alien threat.

Human foolishness could introduce a virus into the local population; humanity would be torn between revealing themselves, trying to help while remaining hidden, or leaving before doing any more damage.

Or we could have a War Of The Worlds scenario, where humanity discovers there's a disease that can be transferred to ordinary humans, and poor decontamination procedures allowed just that. Curing it would be much quicker if they studied the locals — should they go full Playing with Syringes to save as many humans as possible, try and extract data without doing any lasting harm, or just leave before picking up any further dangerous contaminants?

edited 12th Dec '10 4:06:34 PM by KillerClowns

A horribly oppressive society could arise among the natives. Cue debate among humans over whether to interfere or not. You'll have to choose which you believe is the more ethical choice, and:

1.) An extremist faction uses human technology to declare war on the oppressive faction; your protagonists have to stop them.

2.) Despite the death count rising every hour as the oppressive society conquers the world, humanity refuses to allow interference. With only a slight technological advantage, your heroes will have to halt the rise of that oppressive society.

edited 12th Dec '10 4:35:41 PM by Ultrayellow

Except for 4/1/2011. That day lingers in my memory like...metaphor here...I should go.

One question: Why do the humans feel the need to hide their super-technology? If you have the answer to that, maybe it'll be clearer when and why they would break the Masquerade.

"War doesn't prove who's right, only who's left." "Every saint has a past, every sinner has a future."

In no particular order:

Notice how many suggested plots involve the aliens finding out and not liking us? Everyone in my story, especially the human group, is incredibly Genre Savvy, so they'd be trying to minimize the possibility that the aliens hate us right off the bat because of our strange machines. Also, nobody's really sure how "adaptable" the aliens are, and they don't want to invoke Go Mad from the Revelation accidentally. The concept of aliens from another world doesn't fit nicely into a worldview from the medieval period. (Mostly because the concept of "other worlds" doesn't exist at that point.)

I like that idea, since there's a limited amount of Magical Native American-style mysticism going on already, involving a local Genius Loci. I think I'll use the resurrection idea, since it works as a plot starter (when we try to investigate "How the hell do they do that?") and it also relates to the humans' artificial bodies: Your Mind doesn't make it real, so if a surrogate body gets killed, the driver is fine and just needs to wait for a new one to be built/grown.

I had an idea similar to that, but ran into a Fridge Logic problem. The opposite of Casual Interstellar Travel is in full force, and the story takes place on the planet itself, so I couldn't work out why the people who managed to get there would be divided over what to do about interfering.

This would nominally be a really good idea, but my worldbuilding has caught me out: In order to build artificial bodies in the first place, humanity has to have really powerful biotechnology, and this kinda takes the moral conflict out, since they can grow what they need and play with syringes on that.

edited 13th Dec '10 2:42:01 PM by Yej

Da Rules excuse all the inaccuracy in the world. Listen to them, not me.

Just so you know, that's a fairly common idea. Avatar is the Most Triumphant Example, but there's a lot more out there.

Except for 4/1/2011. That day lingers in my memory like...metaphor here...I should go.

It's a fairly common idea, yeah, but do many of them actually do the actual miracles as well as the hocus pocus?

Da Rules excuse all the inaccuracy in the world. Listen to them, not me.

Your setting sounds a lot like JC's Avatar.

Yes, many of them do actual miracles. There's usually some kind of scientific Hand Wave, but yes.

Except for 4/1/2011. That day lingers in my memory like...metaphor here...I should go.

You know, unless they kidnapped one of the locals and mined them dry of information, I'm not so sure how they can pull off this masquerade without making a lot of foolish mistakes in conduct, which could be a huge red flag for something, even if the locals would never think of aliens from outer space.

I'm also a bit confused on why they'd hide, because it seems like they're putting in a huge effort to fit in while they could instead just try playing politics with some random local lord or something. What is their in-story justification? What made them so Genre Savvy?

Nemo enim fere saltat sobrius, nisi forte insanit Deviantart.

The Genre Savvyness appears because of exactly what spambot said: Avatar exists as a film, as does 130 years or so of past media. (And that's explained by being one part Xanatos Gambit, one part Timey-Wimey Ball and one part Alien Spy.) I think that Genre Savvy-ness would advise against playing politics undisguised, the reasoning being that they'd be treated as either gods, devils, or incomprehensible. None of which are helpful if they're trying to study the aliens, rather than trade for materials.

They get information to do the Masquerade by dropping smartdust over the aliens and studying the recordings, and that gives them enough info not to immediatly set off red flags.

Blarg. Any ideas on interesting ways to mess with that? Although all of the "miracles" that get pulled off fit into the world, (and are relatively scientific to boot) I don't really want to use steorotypical Religion is Magic if there's something more interesting that works just as well.

edited 18th Dec '10 1:30:33 PM by Yej

Da Rules excuse all the inaccuracy in the world. Listen to them, not me.

What if, and this may be out of nowhere but, what if you were to keep the existence of humans away from the reader entirely until a certain point in the novel? Something along the lines of, the alien race finds someone who looks like one of their kind wandering out in the forest alone, lost, and confused as to how he got there. Not being recognizable, the aliens take him to their leader to get things straightened out. This new guy demonstrates some form of technology which by that time would be primitive to humans, but still pretty advanced to the aliens. They decide to keep him around to help them advance in technology.

And then... It turns out he's a human. The alien race doesn't know what to think of this strange creature. He came to their world, LIED to them, and then attempted to get in good with their society. What else could they expect? He's obviously leading a full scale attack on their planet!

And then the fun begins...

My Brother, and only member of my Trope Nakama

Ooh, I like the idea of hiding the humans from the reader. But I was slightly confused by your post. Do you mean the stranger is not associated with the space-farers and so they have to deal with him as well as the natives, or is he just humanity's representative?

Da Rules excuse all the inaccuracy in the world. Listen to them, not me.

He's the human representative, but he hides the fact that he's human from the aliens, as well as the reader.

My Brother, and only member of my Trope Nakama

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from an arbitrary plot device created by the writer.

Whether you think you can, or you think you can't, you are probably right.

Sounds good, but I don't know how to expand it enough for a full-length novel. It might work as a short story, so I'll try that.

That's why I'm trying to come up with a plot that doesn't have a purely technological solution.

edited 20th Dec '10 2:22:08 PM by Yej

Da Rules excuse all the inaccuracy in the world. Listen to them, not me.