why are aliens in so many movies/shows naked. do they not have original sin. what’s going on here theologically. also why are they bald.
-C. S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (1938)
Tired: Humans are space orcs
Wired: Humans are the only species whose protective hide is so atrophied that they have to make artificial prosthetics to replace their non-existent fur/feathers/scales/whatever, and then forgot that this originally had anything to do with cold and wind and sand and fucking skin cancer, and decided it was instead about Public Decency
(honestly? Imagining an alien species independently going through that same bizarre series of events? seems to me like imagining an alien species independently developing the American flag and the Vietnam war.)
Since it’s probably difficult to create an advanced culture without being a social species, I think it’s safe to assume that most alien species also have some version of this.
If not clothes, then eye covers, or eating habits, or anything, really.
Good point actually.
In fact, thinking about it, they almost would have to have some variant of clothing in order to become a spacefaring species. How does a creature learn the skills and technologies it would need for exploring that most hostile of environments, if not by first exploring hostile environments on its own world? And what’s the first step toward exploring a part of your own planet where your own body can’t handle the climate? Usually clothing, right?
Now that doesn’t necessarily mean they’d have the same taboos about clothing and nudity that any human culture has. Or that they’d still be hanging on to ANY of that by the time they make contact with humans.
Maybe they’re “bald” because they used clothing for long enough to devolve their fur away, and then figured out climate control to the point they didn’t need it anymore.