That feels like a softer distinction than you think it is.
I don't see how.
And the droids in Star Wars, especially Threepio and Artoo, are frequently specifically there as audience stand-ins, sympathetic observers through which we can see the story. They are absolutely not the Other.
Well, they are certainly not human. And I don't see them as a stand-in for myself when I'm watching the movie.
There are presently no other sentient beings that we can relate to.
That was part of my point.
When we examine how we would relate to non-human sentience, we are examining our own attitudes and how we treat others.
That was part of my point as well.
And that is only of value if we are, in the process, examining how we treat other humans, because, again, there are no other sentients that we are aware of.
I don't think that follows. First, because examining what we would do in a hypothetical situation is a major portion of play. Science fiction is about a yearning for the future, where we make intellectual play of things that might be, like what it would be like to have AI or to meet aliens. And I think that is valuable play, because you can see how that play over time has made people more thoughtful and open minded, less likely to act by instinctive or emotional reflex, which will be valuable when and if these hypothetical events come about. More to the point though, the act of examining how we might relate to non-humans does not in itself preclude the other purpose, using that as a spring board for self-reflection about ourselves using comparison and contrast. If the justification for treating a non-human some way is the contrast with humans, then it can't be true that that is the justification for treating a human that way.
But when I'm examining how I ought to properly treat a Vulcan, an Andorran, a protocol droid, or a parasitical xenomorph I am most certainly not claiming that in doing so I'm making an analogy for how I treat other humans! Each should be treated differently. It would be better to not have any non-human thing or to imagine any non-human thing than to imagine a non-human thing and suggest that's how you should treat a human!
It is, because you can't make a species alien that is intended to be played by human beings. Ultimately, any playable character is an expression of ourselves.
That's not as strong of a statement as you think it is. This isn't a categorical truth. This is truth by degree. While I agree that we can never fully imagine the alien and as such every imagined alien is in someway not fully alien but an expression of our humanity, that doesn't mean that the human imagination is so paltry that we are unable to role-play something that isn't fully ourself. While any playable character is in some sense an expression of the player, that doesn't mean that player character is necessarily the player! It's quite possible that PC's have personality beliefs actions and logical/ethical/emotional frameworks quite at odds with the player.
Nothing that's currently been portrayed in science fiction or fantasy comes close to what those beings will actually be like. We really have frighteningly little context for knowing what a being with high intelligence but which lacks any of our atavistic evolved behaviours, weird brain chemistry or ingrained social programming will actually look like, or how we can or should interact with it.
This is an argument for engaging in this sort of imaginative play; not an argument against it. All the more reason to explore the concepts.
