Was just thinking about this while reading an SF anthology…
If alien lifeforms were describing us humans, they’d probably say, "They are bipedal mammals; they process visual information through organs called ‘eyes’ and aural information through ‘ears’. But some of us can’t walk, or see or hear. When I read SF, which isn’t often, compared to many of the regs, alien species are usually uniformly equipped. Has anyone ever read or seen anything which mentioned a member of a species who was unable to fly, or use telepathy, or other attributes his peers had?
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I remember reading a story (I think it was by David Brin but I could be wrong) about a group of aliens (one was human) who were supposed to be in training to become diplomatic representatives. In order for them to learn how to empathize with the races they would encounter they had temporary artificial handicaps placed on them to disable natural abilities that other races didn’t have. In fact, I believe that the two examples you used (telepathy and flight) were among the surpressed traits.
Both examples I can think of involve Star Wars-related stuff.
First, in one of Timothy Zahn’s Heir to the Empire trilogy (I think it was Dark Force Rising), a Wookiee ambassador named Ralrracheen had a speech impediment. This had the effect of making his vocalizations more understandable to humans.
Second, from the RPG based on the movies: there’s a particular species called the Gotal who have a pair of conical horns on their heads. These horns act rather like organic radios, broadcasting and receiving emotions from other Gotal, and just receiving from many other species. Some members of the species have poorly-developed or damaged cones (please leave the breast jokes for another thread ) and never gain the ability to properly gauge emotions. These Gotal are all essentially psychotic, prone to fits of violence.
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) and never gain the ability to properly gauge emotions. These Gotal are all essentially psychotic, prone to fits of violence.