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And we're a lot closer to spiders than we'd be to something that evolved on another planet (or, most likely, in another dimension). There may be some similarities, but they would be limited to fairly basic things connected to survival; once you get into the complex emotional stuff they're likely to be vastly different.
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Now as we've yet to encounter life from or on another planet, this is a huge assumption to make. It could be just as likely that they'd resemble us as not. And why would they be vastly different emotionally? Although some would like us to believe that our emotions separate us from animals, more recent research shows that animals can and do feel many emotions as we do. Why would that be a quirk unique to this planet?
Why would they be limited to fairly basic things connected to survival? You could argue that that is also true of us!
Having no humans in a setting would allow you to explore motivations, emotions and themes in a way that you couldn't necessarily do if humans were there. But, they could still be close to humans. As Lenny noted above:
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The body of the main character is but a shell. With writing, it doesn't matter what shape, species, race the main character is - if it's developed in a way that we can understand (ie we read their thoughts, their emotions, see them change through the book as they go into situations, leaving them as a different 'person'), then the main character can be a Cthulu, and no-one should care in the slightest.
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