Was looking at some sci-fi art over at CGTalk.
It's funny that whenever an artist has to design an alien city for an intelligent species, they usually make large industrial sprawl of forms of unified design - the rest of the time it's a religious centre or a centre of dwelling.
Nobody would ever put shops at the centre of an alien cities. Imagine those little leathery-skinned aliens with knobbly backward-bending knees, queuing up to buy some glossy little shoes with their hard-earned alien money.
Having shops and consumerism at the centre of our cities is seriously bizarre, too. It's a pastime which involves lots of abstract things which do not contribute any obvious value to the life of the species and its relationship with its surroundings.
Industry? Sure. Plough the land get food, refine raw materials, survive better. Religion: An attempt to understand and relate oneself to ones surroundings. Science too. Most people would put those at the centre of the city, the altar of life.
To imagine an alien species who invent trade-credit, and then invent abstract beings to amass trade-credit - beings that aren't part of objective reality, yet are the most important citizens in the alien society.
The aliens are forced to lease themselves to the imaginary beings in order to survive. Then the imaginary beings do their best to brainwash the aliens into giving back as many of their hard-earned trade-credits as possible, which they do by selling things to the aliens at falsely inflated value.
Aliens that oppress themselves - that would be daft.
In the developed parts of our world, wherever there's lots of people living, go to the centre. CheezeStrings, TV, iPod, and pre-frayed jeans - 10 pence of fabric for 100 pounds, right at centre of town where there should be… a swirl of democratic processes taking place, and research projects, extended communities, culture and so forth.
Contemplating everyone that gets in their car to go hand over some money to ASDA and TESCO and TOPSHOP at the nearest shopping mal makes you wonder - what else could this be apart from a consumer cathedral? What else could these people be doing here?
