Daily writing prompt

List 10 things you know to be absolutely certain.

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Hark, folk of the web, and lend me your ears! (Yes, pass them here)

Today’s prompt has demanded that I speak ten absolute truths – no more, no less. I’m reckoning they better be interesting certainties or else there’s no point wasting data on them. So…whatabout I write about aliens then? Since that’s what I intend to make my Novel about, I ought to have my say on them!

1. I’m sorry to offend all you conspiracy theorists at home, but I highly doubt there are little greens, greys or lizard overlords. Not only is there presence about our solar system unlikely (as I’m about to get onto), but also universal nature is a hell of a lot more creative than we give it credit for. We are probably not going to get such a cliche.
2. I’m also certain there’s not really any explicit galactic empires at the moment, even if life evolved many million years before us. You have to consider, I’m afraid, how inefficient something like that would be – the resource cost of efficient communication systems and light speed, the ethics of who would have the biggest say, the astronomic low density of life about such massive tracts of vacuum and, of course, the sheer time it would take to become sufficiently advanced to meet all this criteria. Heck, it’s not impossible for there to be interstellar travel about the galaxy and certainly not impossible for alien colonies about their respective solar system, but the universe is still too young for civilisations to get far enough to establish such. Most civilisations, including us, may well die off long before that point. Still, it’s a fun idea!
3. Now to be less controversial/wordy, I can say that there is probably life on at least one gas giant in our solar system or possibly will have in future. I think our understanding of the right “conditions” for life is not quite advanced enough yet to understand how they might be circumvented – especially since we haven’t been able to examine many exoplanets up close yet. While chemistry can tell us that carbon is the most likely candidate for the makeup of these sneaky buggers, we’re still a way off when it comes to actually understanding what constitutes as life and how it begins.
4. I’m also going to bet that there’s siliconate life out there somewhere, likely in an older galaxy. After all, it’s the second most suitable element for biological compounds!
5. Stars are, technically speaking, the most basic yet massive of living creatures, even if they don’t function as we know it. I mean, they sustain themselves chemically, have certain bodily processes (e.g. solar storms) and sustain parasites (at least life on other planets orbiting them). We’re just not imaginitive enough to classify them as life.
6. Again, I’m sorry, but the Na’vi in avatar are a bit flat for aliens. I understand David Cameron’s intention to make them more relatable through their humanised design to communicate his earnest eco message (and make it easier to rig CGI), but to me it’s a little blatant. They don’t really look like life from their planet (though this does open up interesting theories) and their way of society is all too good to be true, even from a sustainable perspective – they are very much of the Gary Stu/Sue variety. I wish Cameron made each avatar film about a drastically different alien civilisation too for varieties sake, instead of just focusing on cheeky little quatritch’s vendetta against sexy space smurfs – that’s going to get old after four films.
7. Most civilisations out there are going to be very, very different anatomically and morally from our own. We do like to humanise aliens too much and I know I’m guilty of it. As a result, most aliens are going to see us as complete idiots/monsters, but probably understand enough not to annihilate us unless threatened.
8. If we were to send aliens a signal containing Tommy Wiseau’s “the Room”, they would take it completely seriously and try and dissect what facets of human life it represented. They may well have sent us their own crappy media to mess with us in the same way! (See, this is me humanising aliens again. I’m sorry)
9. We might actually be one of the most advanced alien species in our own galaxy – it is still pretty young, in the scheme of things. However, that means we can spy on them without risking retaliation! Ha ha ha!
10. The general consensus for the most beautiful alien race in the universe would not look like us, because we might as well be in minority. We might actually be pretty low on the chart!

Well, I hope I’m right about all this, though I’m only as reliable as those hicks who claim to have been abducted by the buggers. What do you think? How wrong are my statements above? Don’t let a good debate go to waste!

Anyway, you’d better get on with having a good day. *Insert alien pun here*