An Alien Among Us

In Richard Powers’ An Alien Among Us, it’s your job to lead an intergalactic space mission. Will you accept the challenge?

From a list of twelve candidates, players must select six to join the mission based on attributes that fall into categories such as gender, age, religion, nationality, positive attributes and negative attributes. In the process they discover that their judgments are frequently biased and influenced by stereotypes. As the game is played, participants come to understand that differences don’t have to cause problems, but rather that they can enrich human experience.

An Alien Among Us is designed to be flexible so that facilitators can substitute real-life situations for the interplanetary mission. For example, participants could select six junior executives for a company’s overseas training program, or six police officers to work in multiethnic teams. Whichever way you choose to play the game, An Alien Among Us is designed to celebrate the differences that make diverse cultures so unique.