Exploring Alien Culture (part 1)

It is sometimes difficult to imagine cultures much different than our own, but for anyone who has lived in a different country, it quickly becomes apparent that the mindsets of people across the world are quite varied. When designing the culture of the amorphous, amoeba-like Omuls, we imagined that the formlessness of the Omul itself might cause them to tend toward a more unstructured, relativistic outlook. An aversion to symmetry seemed another likely outlook for this odd alien race, and I found myself thinking of a culture where, in a way, the opposite is the case. In Japanese culture, for instance, there is an old saying: “The nail that sticks out gets hammered down.” In this culture, individualism is largely discouraged and conformity is praised, so I tried turning that a little on its side when considering Omul culture. The Omuls do not respect other Omuls that hold fast to a single ideological position, and they have great disdain for those that are not in the practice of changing their opinions fairly often or viewing all opinions as equally true. For a people that believe there is no single truth, holding to one would be viewed with great contempt. In some ways, hasn't our own culture begun to reflect this as well?