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| Yeah, what he said. |
I think we really didn't want to include aliens because they simply wouldn't add anything. At the end of the day essence of glory is about politics and the people they affect particularly those on the front lines. In this case aliens can add some interesting things to a sci fi story, especially for characters. The point here is for aliens to present different perspectives to the human characters. Prominently in the Mass Effect series, alien races have vastly different goals and systems of morality to the protagonist and humanity. An effective narrative tool but in the end that's just it, a narrative tool to present the player with different perspectives on their actions.
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| Don't you want to see the version with Germans? |
At the end of the day I'm aiming to achieve a similar goal but simply with other human nation states. In fact to me, using humans rather than alien analogues is much more effective because it's not as hard to sympathize or be horrified by their actions(Although there is some great sci fi about people trying to sympathize). In classic Sci fi, extraterrestrials were sometimes used as manifestations of real political fears and crises. For example
The War of the Worlds by H.G Wells is an example of British "invasion literature" in which Britain fears invasion from some outside force.
The Battle of Dorking by Sir George Tomkyns is a novel with a similar plot and structure with the difference being the martians in war of the worlds are replaced with Germans (minus the armoured war tripods and heat rays).
Tangent aside, my point is similar narrative goals can be acheived by both human and alien actors in a story. The question is really one of tone, aliens have a tendency to sterilize a plot point whereas with humans it feels that much more visceral.
