Communication with a big insect
Plausibility check of the whole "insect race". As background, I want some poor astronauts to "crash" (safely land, but because they had no other option, possibly some engine malfunction) and meet with my insectoid race.
But...
How would they communicate?
I will put you in the situation. Imagine that you are magically "warped" to different planet with bit thicker atmosphere and bit lower gravity. You are still able to breathe, it just feels like being on top of mountain. You are able to move, just feel bit lighter.
And then you meet something huge, looking close to Earth ant, but 1 meter (cca 3 feet) in size.
- How would you tell such animal is actually not an animal, but intelligent creature?
- How would you try to tell them, that you "come in peace"?
You can assume:
- You know you are on planet which has technology level of our current space exploration (you know about satellites on the orbit)
- Your counterpart has same way of thinking as you, and you look the same ugly and scary to them as they to you
- This creature is active member of Outdoors alien counterpart of Stackexchange on given planet (and is on a hike to the woods right now)
- This creature is also a member of an alien Worldbuilding site, thinking of how two-legged aliens could look like
This post was sourced from https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/6407. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
1 answer
The first question is: What would be the first reaction of the ants on seeing the humans?
Run away. Well, that's completely natural behaviour, and there's nothing you can tell from that; also, they are now gone, and so any communication attempt is moot anyway. However if they are intelligent, they'll likely come back (not necessary the same individuals) in order to learn more about those strange ugly creatures (if only to determine whether they are dangerous), or if the astronauts are unlucky, to kill them (in which case the second option now applies).
Attack. Trying to communicate in that case is probably moot because you try to keep alive. However the attack behaviour would likely give away the intelligence; if not immediately, then after later analysis (which would have to be done because, after all, they could attack again, and you want to be prepared).
Ignore you. Well, in that case, you could observe them in order to determine whether they are intelligent. You could also try to get their attention, but then you risk that they would attack you. Of course, it could also lead to the next option. Of course you could also use being ignored to study them to learn more on how to finally get to the last option (but careful to not do anything they might see as attack, leading to the previous option). A long time being around without any conflict would also make them more likely to believe that you're not going to attack them.
Show interest in you. That's the best case: The way they show interest almost certainly will give away their intelligence, and moreover you have their attention without having to defend yourself. So now you are in a situation where you can try to communicate.
As ckersch already wrote, the best way to signal that you are intelligent is to use mathematics and build on that. And the only way to signal that you are peaceful is to avoid anything that could be misunderstood as attack, to the point you can do that (you don't know anything about them; maybe what we would consider normal speaking to them would be so loud that it hurts; carefully listening to them and their world could give hints about that).
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