: The people who are writing about them are human, so I think it's normal that
: things have wound up on this course. How does one write about something
: they don't know? Eventually "we" seep into the characters.

: Seems like every Alien species (regardless of franchise) ends up adopting one
: human-like archetype that ends up representing their entire culture and
: that ends up being the best we can do.

I think it's simply because "we" have this idea of what life is, and how it best operates - regardless of the human species. We can attempt to write an alien life without any resemblance to human culture, and yet there's a fundamental strand that 'seeps' into all alien life, which is based on what we believe life must do in order to survive. Then on top of that, we have concepts of what a culture that survives must have endured in order to get that far... the problem is that no matter how much we strip away based on human experience, our entire concept of a self-sustaining, surviving culture is completely based on our own; though the fundamentals are essentially completely objective.

It's sort of like in RPG how every other species you can play (or fight) is based on extended some aspect of humanity to its extreme - 'human' is always the centroid, the 'average' character. The jack-of-all-trades, as it were, that somehow remains the best choice in general. Not because of some self-centric pride, but because every off-shoot is some aspect to humanity that's been tried and tested before, and while more optimal in certain contexts, fails harder in others. So we come back to human.

It's like every antagonist or ally that isn't human has a 'specialty' property of their race that can be of use (or weakness). That gives us bosses, and teammates.

As for Sangheilli, yeah I think the point in making an alien life/culture is to retain, perhaps even forcefully, that unique variance away from humanity that really is what makes them alien. Not just the physics of their biology. Other we get Babylon-5. Humans upholding the central beacon of peace and hope while every other alien race swims around and balances each other out strengthening the 'human ideal'.

I haven't read Escalation yet, but I think I agree with Loftus on this one. I wouldn't want to see/read about elites being effectively drunk humans (with sangheilli skin & bones). Not after the solid development of their culture and religion and ethics and all else that make them stand out as completely distinct.

Now, if they had reason to be like that, like their extended interaction with humanity was somehow making them be/act more like us, that would be interesting... sort of like how we as humans have adopted much of the technology we've discovered, altered our military and ethical tactics, and learned a lot from alien races.

Humanity as a culture is definitely moldable. Alien cultures should also be. Evolution of a race through the narrative is essential, imo, but there is a core element that should never change- that which is what makes them human/insert-alien-race-here.