will byers stan first human second
No title available
titsay
oozey mess
Janaina Medeiros
Love Begins
hello vonnie
Jules of Nature
One Nice Bug Per Day
Origami Around
dirt enthusiast
Three Goblin Art
sheepfilms
JVL
Lint Roller? I Barely Know Her
@theartofmadeline
No title available
No title available
he wasn't even looking at me and he found me
Aqua Utopia｜海の底で記憶を紡ぐ
seen from Iraq
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seen from United States
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seen from Switzerland
seen from Vietnam
seen from Jordan
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seen from Malaysia
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seen from Brazil
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@nekkid-druid
Me: humans are so different from species on our own planet, it stands to reason that we’d also be radically different from alien species. Heck, some of the things we take for granted may be stunning and astonishing to them
Also me: the idea that aliens would be shocked by our body modifications is bullshit. They crossed fucking space for fuck’s sake
can you just imagine introducing aliens to our history in space exploration and you get to talking about landing on the moon and theyre like
alien: you sent that piece of shit to the moon?
human: yeah? the astronauts made it …
alien: you put people on that?
humans are weird: enemies
idk if this has been done before but most humans are weird posts end in “thak god they’re on our side” and, what if we weren’t? what if we were enemies?
Report from Admiral Tarilar, Commander of 2nd War fleet to The Galactic Empire.
This report is following our conflict with the Terran Coalition at the edge of the Sol system.
Following the Terran refusal to surrender to the Empire we were tasked with destroying their mining colonies outside of their home system. We were met with minimal resistance and completed these missions without issue.
This was a good sign for us when we set for our final push into the Terran’s home system. I had the fleet spread out into a standard attack pattern. We found no sensor net or defense satellites on the edge of their solar system so we pushed forward. We sent a signal to their government informing them of the destruction of their colonies and asking them for their immediate surrender.
Their response was a sneak attack. They activated their FTL drives INSIDE their own solar system. They went to FTL for a split second from near their sun to right on top of us. Some of their ships dropped out directly into our line causing multiple collisions. This created immediate chaos. Our comm channels were flooded with music, whooping, screaming, yelling, and laughter from the humans. they swamped all comm channels with noise making it virtually impossible for the fleet to communicate. This also meant they were unable to communicate with each other but the Terrans didn’t seem to mind. With at least 7 ships destroyed right off the bat I gave the order to fire upon their vessels. We opened fire with our particle cannons. The rest of the fleet followed our example and began shooting as well.
To this the Terran started unleashing small, two crewman fighters. At first I thought it was laughable until they began firing antimatter torpedoes into our ships (antimatter weapons are outlawed due to the lasting, hazardous effects of the weapons). Even with our kinetic shielding the radiation pierced the exterior hull of the ships causing countless casualties. Then when the shields failed the weapons began cutting the fleet to ribbons. More screams flooded the comm signals. That was when the Terrans went quiet, almost simultaneously. The screams of our own people were filtered out and I began receiving casualty reports from the fleet. 22 ships had been destroyed and 12 more were without main power.
After this the Terran commander, Fleet Admiral Ross, broadcast for us to surrender. HE WANTED US TO SURRENDER! In response I ordered my fleet to attack without mercy. Immediately this the Terrans flooded the channels with noise again and launched their ragtag fleet into our lines. They no longer used antimatter weapons, instead they used fussion missiles and rail guns firing tungsten rods. To my surprise the primitive weapons seemed to do remarkably well against our defenses. That being said we began cutting their main assault ships to pieces.
The worst part was they didn’t seem to care. They pushed deeper into our position which made it very difficult to open fire. About this time they started boarding our ships. they would fire specially designed shuttles to punch into weakened portions of the fleets hulls and begin attacking from the inside. My own ship was boarded by a landing party of about 15. Our onboard security was no match for them. They had not been trained for this kind of assault. I have included the video security of how the humans systematically cleared every hall leading to the bridge. They had a perfect layout of the command ship which severely unsettled me.
My crew was unable to keep them from reaching the bridge even with sealing every security hatch on the way. It took them less then an hour to breach the bridge. They killed all who resisted and restrained all who didn’t. At this point I surrendered and so did the rest of the fleet. Once we surrendered they pulled back their ships and allowed us to salvage and repair as many vessels as we could to return to Empire space, except for my Flag ship, which they took as a “Spoil of war.” We attempted to sabotage the ship and make the reactor go critical but they had anticipated this and took the reactor completely offline.
Of our fleet of 130 Dreadnought class ships only 62 were capable of returning to our space with the loss of 350,876 crew
I recommend to leave Terran space unconquered indefinitely.
Humans are truly terrifying.
Humans are weird starvation
So I haven’t seen this mentioned anywhere, but our bodies will literally eat themselves if they don’t get enough nutrients to power themselves. Think about what will happen when an alien finds out about this and how they’ll react to it. (This is my first contribution to this tag, I hope you like it)
They said it was impossible for human Jesse to survive, but he still did. We were on a mission scouting CP12 when the cave mouth caved in and left human Jesse trapped. The other humans tried everything in their power do for days to try and get human Jesse out from the cave. When the 22nd day rolled around almost all hope was lost, but a large commotion was coming from the mouth of the cave. Curiosity took over Oskwauh’s 12 limbs and dragged him over there. To his astonishment human Jesse was found alive, but not in a good condition. Medics were everywhere, scrambling about seemingly dumbfounded by this situation except one. Oskwauh knew this medic by the name of human James and he was as calm as if somebody hadn’t just been found alive after perceived dead. Human James was barking orders at the others to transport human Jesse to the ship immediately and give him a hydroponic nutrient bag. Oskwauh turned yellow in worry. He knew if anyone could survive this, it would be a human and after working alongside human Jesse for such along time Oskwauh knew he could make it. Later that day Oskwauh approached human James about the incident with many questions in his 2 minds. “Human James I have a couple questions about what happened today” “Ask away Oskwauh, I am aware that this is a strange situation” “How is it even possible that this happened. Why did human Jesse look so ‘thin’?” Human James seemed to contemplate this for a second before answering. “Well when human don’t get enough nutrients the brain limits the production and energy use of our body. But if we are yet to get our nutrition levels back up our brain will make the decision for our body to eat ourselves, but once half our muscle mass has been ‘eaten’ we die” Oskwauh started at Human James. Was this another one of their practical jokes. Oskwauh turned purple in fear. There was no way humans ate themselves right? He had to be lying. This wasn’t real. Humans really are weird.
Uninhabitable
What if humans are the only sentients to voluntarily leave their original planet? Like all the other aliens sent out messages like their own versions of SETI, and they all joyfully set up lines of communication to talk to each other, but they had no desire to go visit?
Aliens: AHHHH! What are you doing here?!
Humans: We came to visit! Wow, your planet is beautiful.
Aliens: Uh, thank you… we terraformed it to our exact desires… WHY ARE YOU HERE?!
Humans: We’re explorers! We love going places. Don’t you?
Aliens: What? No! We’re perfectly evolved to suit this planet; other planets would not be as pleasing, and might be harmful to us! Did something happen to your planet? Are you searching for new places to reside, because your planet has become uninhabitable? We’re… full, here. Yes, full. No room for any more people, sorry.
Humans: Oh, no, it’s not like that at all. We just like exploring!
Aliens: …Huh?
Tossing in my 2cents for humans are space orcs
For time immemorial, sector df-17 of the galaxy had been used as an industrial waste dump, for want of a better term. Gravity distortions had filled it with an exorbitant amount of random debris, choking clouds of toxic dust and the whole area was bathed in lethal radiation that rendered all forms of long distance communications uselessly scrambled . The common name of the area translated as dead zone, wasteland, or the boonies. A hundred different worlds would bring their derelict ships here, ships too worthless to bother with, or considered too dangerous to strip down and salvage. They brought them here and cast them into the wastes.
It should be noted, that “worthless” and “Too dangerous” are terms relative to the scale of an operation, as well as one’s rationality and desperation. What makes for a poor or pointless company’s bottom line, is more than enough to keep a small salvage ship running, with a crew that’s well fed. Salvaging ships from the wastes was not illegal per se, but was seen as distasteful, dirty, and a living for those with few to no other options.
Kurthar’s ship was weeks deeper into the wastes than they had ever been. Pickings had been slim this run, and xe was worried if they’d gather enough trade goods to even refuel. Ran-gee, the communications and sensor operator had shut down most of the ship in an attempt to reduce interference and extend their scanner range. Xis personal communicator crackled as Ran-gee called out.
“Hey, Kurthar. I think I’m picking something up. Come have a look.” Kurthar ran a clawed hand over his skull frill in a subconscious gesture of hiding his concerns. It was a short walk to the bridge where Ran-gee squinted into the glowing monitor. “It’s so distorted that I thought it was glitch, or interference of some kind… but its a hot reactor, that’s for sure. Really, insanely hot. I’d argue that someone peeled the shielding away and left it just on the edge of critical. Why anyone would do that is beyond me.” “Someone laying a trap ship out here seems like a stretch, but it’s possible. Or it had some biological contamination that they left the core exposed with the hope of killing it off.” “The radiation levels should do that nicely.” Ran-gee leaned forward, quickly making adjustments. “It’s moving.” “Moving?” “Moving moving. Like it’s under power moving.” Kurthar paled, “Someone is flying it? Is there a distress beacon? Maybe they had a failure and are trying to limp to port.” “This far out? It would be a damn desperate move.” “I’d do it if I had no other choice. Hope they can treat the poisoning later.” “I guess. But there’s no beacon. And…” Xe tried to resolve the scanner results. “The reactor signature looks like its Trath, but the drive reads N’gthy.” “It must be interference. The N’gthy have no business with the Trath. Not in a million eons.” “I’ve rechecked it twice. Also… there seems to be some dust haze around it that looks like its reflecting Gamma radiation.” “Is it a weapon of some kind?” “They’d be firing a Gamma beam of like 130 petawatts at nothing. And not just a burst, this is a continuous beam.” “What in the great egg would do that?” “ If we stay here to much longer, we’ll find out. It’s 4 causal seconds out, and approaching fast. I for one don’t think we should be anywhere near it’s back-end after it passes.” “Spin up the engines, and move us to a safe distance.” “I don’t think there’s a safe place in this sector.” Ran-gee said, swiftly moving to activate the drive systems. The scanner unit chimed an alert.
They both turned in dawning horror to see that some kind of radio signal was suddenly focused on them. A quick repeating ping. The strange ship was altering course toward them. Their heads swung in unison as the Communications console on the other side of the bridge also chimed its own alert. “it’s trying to contact us.” Ran-gee moved to the com panel. “The Identifier says its Iderant.” “All of the Iderant died in the old wars ages ago.” “Maybe there were some hiding out here?” “I guess we are about to find out.” Kurthar said, as Xe opened the channel. The face that appeared on the screen was… disquieting. Snoutless, flat. Some raised, bulbus structure in the center of what must have been its face. It was scaleless, and a greyish pink color, as if it had been burned and had its skin removed. It sprouted some kind of growth from the crown of its skull, like a brown moss. It opened what must have been its thin, round, tiny mouth and bared its teeth in a show of aggression. The screen froze, and alarm klaxons began sounding from nearly every ship system. The drive system went into emergency shutdown, forcing the reactor into standby mode. Ran-gee was trying to make sense of it. “The ship is outputting some kind of defense screen around it. It generating some kind of pulsing wave of gravity distortions, and a magnetic field that forcing our systems into triggering their safety protocols. Its scrambling the main processor, and radiation levels are high enough that the core thinks there has been a breach.” A ship so wrong in so many ways, that even nearby vessels would lock up in panic. A ship that seemed to have been stitched together from trash, insanity, and nightmares. A ship filled with snarling, scaleless monsters. Kurthar could only look on helplessly as it moved into position to dock with him, the door responding to a hail from what it believed to be one of its own kind.
This was how the Nuklan met what called its self the Human race. A race that after throwing itself into space atop giant explosions, had found the void riddled with relics and artifacts. They had taken everything they had found apart, and learned from it, or used it. Often repurposing simple devices with complex and insane new uses. One of these was how the E.S.S Clark, The ship which so confused, and frightened Kurthar, had repurposed simple gravity units into containment for its drive core. A small, artificially constructed quantum singularity.
The worlds had to be cautious. If a human even saw an image of some technology unknown to them, or worse yet got to touch it, the humans would have their own version of it in less than a cycle.
They had a nickname for the humans. These reckless, naïve beasts from the junkyard. Creatures that would build a black hole out of spare parts, strap it to a pile of trash, and take it out for a spin. They were named for a small pest animal that would frequently cause headaches by evading traps, and cleverly thwarting attempts to keep them away from refuse.
Roughly translated, Humans are the Trash Pandas of the galaxy.
Humans are Weird
(I’ve been reading enough of these that I have to try some of my of own.)
Humans have been practicing for in some cases thousands of years martial arts and hand-to-hand combat, perfecting the most efficient ways to control and stop an opponent. Push a joint just so and you can have a seasoned warrior beg for mercy. Apply a few pounds of pressure in the right spot and you create crippling injuries. Get knocked to the ground? Here’s how to wrestle some down with you. Here’s how to throw someone to the ground and make sure they don’t get back up. Joint locks, pressure points, fragile bones, we have found them all.
And we practice them on each other all the time.
And we’d probably teach them to aliens, once we got to know them. Because it goes both ways.
Alien: “You would teach me ways to cripple your species? But why? What if this could be used against you?”
Human: “Anything I teach you, I know a counter-measure for. Besides, I’d like to see what techniques apply to your species.”
Alien: “…but we are a radially symmetric species lacking one central nervous system, how could you possibly…”
Human: “Like this?” *attempts a modified leg-sweep on a species with no legs*
Alien: “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!”
Human: “Once we find your weaknesses, I’ll help you guard against them! And we can practice exploiting them!”
Alien: “Why would we do that?! WE’RE SCIENCE ADVISERS, NON-COMBATANTS!”
Human: “It’s good exercise! Now throw some tentacle punches at me, I need to practice my blocks!”
We’ve touched on determination, grit, loyalty, the tendency to put literally everything in our mouth, but I’d like to present a more morbid note to the humans are space orcs discussion. Suicide.
Just think.
Every race in the galactic alliance had heard of the humans talent for surviving. They came from a world that was classified as a type 3 death world, 70% chance of death to any who dare to visit without native assistance. Most humans were accepting and kind, others were more hostile, but the universal agreement was having a few humans on your crew was extremely advantageous.
One day aboard a mass transportation vessel headed to the planet vesta 3, liriza, a “maid” as the humans called them, was strolling through deck sevens hallways. Xhe soon came to the lounge area and was startled to see a large group of humans sitting closely together, “crying”. Several different species were there as well, but the main mass of horrible noises was of the human variety. Xhe approached carefully. In the corner a borderline wasteful amount of earth floral arrangements were set up around a small picture of a human with yellow hair. Xhe approached a chibmini who’s spikes were curled in sadness. “Forgiveness, but why are the humans crying?” “One of the humans kin died.”
Liriza knew humans were extremely reluctant to part with their friends and families, and even in death they held on to anything that reminded them of the dead human.
“What happened?” Xhe asked. “He overdosed on sedatives.” Said a woman with bright green hair. She seemed to have the reddest face, but she wasn’t sobbing quite as much as the others. “Oh. I’m so sorry. But accidents-” xhe started when the green human interrupted. “On purpose. It was suicide.” “I- I am unfamiliar with that word.” Xhe said softly. “He killed himself. He took more drugs than his body could handle so he died.” “But why? Isn’t it in human nature to want to live?” “That’s usually the case. But Bill was very upset about his mother dying. He got depressed. Really depressed.” Depressed was a word that liriza was familiar with. Deep, unrelenting sadness that never leaves. “He desired to die because he was sad?” Xhe muttered. “We were just married. That’s why we were heading to vesta 3. To honeymoon.” The green human said quietly.
‘For all their talent for survival, humans have weaknesses too. Mainly themselves.’ Liriza thought.
SERIOUSLY
I JUST WITNESSED THE COMMERCIAL OF A NEW SCIENTIFIC TV PROGRAM GOING LIKE
“what is the most dangerous place for us humans? that’s right- we’re on it. disasters come from fire, water, from the sky and from the earth itself. we’ve come close to extinction many times in the past, and who knows how many times it will happen in the future…”
I bet the aliens would be like “THE HUMANS ARE RAVING MAD THEY KNOW THEY COME FROM A DEATH PLANET AND THEY LOVE IT AND THEY BOAST ABOUT IT AND THEY THINK THERE’S NO BETTER PLACE IN THE UNIVERSE”
we ARE space australia
we KNOW we are space australia
we frigging LOVE our space australia
Humans are Space Orcs: Blast Injuries
I have seen quite a few posts about the human bodies ability to withstand damage. I was going over some of my old medic notes and I came across something worth adding. Blast injuries. I am not going into secondary and tertiary injuries (shrapnel and being thrown into objects) I want to address injuries caused purely by the blast wave itself. (Note: I will address all of the pressures in psi [pound-force to square inch] instead of breaking it into any other measurements because I am lazy) The human body is under an atmosphere of 15psi and can withstand a blast wave between 20-40 psi with a following vacuum of around 5 psi. The majority of damage is done internally to hollow organs (ears, lungs, GI track, etc) due to the massive pressure shift.
Imagine aliens finding this out first hand.
_____
First Officer Glinth rushed to the ship’s infirmary as fast as his legs could carry him. There had been an explosion in the engine room of the ship that had peaked the environmental pressure sensors at 25 psi. “25 psi!” Glinth thought, “Divine Lights this is bad!”
He reached the infirmary and it was controlled chaos. Engineering crew were laid out on every bed in the room and some were even on litters on the floor. The two doctors and three nurses worked frantically on one patient. The rest of the nursing and aid staff were spread out through the room triaging and treating the injured as best as possible. Off to one side of the room was a body bag and the commander’s heart sank.
He did not see Engineer Hill among the injured as he came in the room. He had grown quite fond of Engineer Hill in the last few months and their conversations about music.
At that moment Glinth heard a familiar voice behind him, “Oh shit, hey sir.” Glinth turned around to see Hill sitting on the floor next to the door. She had burn marks on her uniform and seemed to have a few minor burns and lacerations. Her eyes were barely open and she had fresh blood in her left ear.
Glinth folded down between his front and back legs to get closer to eye level with Hill. “Hill! Are you alright? What happened? How bad are you hurt?” He fired off in rapid succession.
Hill put up her hand and tilted the right side of
her head toward the commander. “Wow, wow, wow sir. Slow down and speak up. I ruptured my left ear drum, and have some other minor injuries. I may have internal trauma too but I am in no immediate danger.
“I was working on purging a hydrogen compressor to fix a leak when a static charge ignited some of the hydrogen. Balket and I were both right in front of the explosion. Luckily for me the pressure wave shoved me over before the flames and shrapnel could cut me to ribbons.” At this Hill gestures to the body bag. “Balket wasn’t so lucky.”
The commander was quiet while he processed at he had just heard. Then he finally spoke, “Make sure you get all possible injuries checked out. I will have counselor Tyler come see you. Focus on getting better.” Hill nodded to this and the commander circled the room to check on the rest of the injured.
That evening he received the casualty report: one human dead, one Flomial ruptured both lungs and is in critical condition(under 24 hour observation), 2 humans with moderate injuries (removed from active duty until further notice), 2 Blantar with moderate injuries (removed from active duty until further notice), 3 humans with mild injuries (Returned to duty), 1 Flomial with minor injuries (placed on light duty until further notice).
Commander Glinth knew this casualty list could have been far worse if it had been any of the other species near the explosion.
Why is it always humans…
Humans are weird/space orcs idea
Twins.
Like. What the fuck would aliens think when they see two people who look identical, but act TOTALLY different from each other. Example.
Srotar: Ah! Human Max, I was looking for you. What did you say earlier about eggs?
Greg (twin 2): What? No, I’m Greg. You’re looking for my brother. He’s on level 4 watching Earth tv.
Srotar: What?? You’re exactly like Human Max! You have the Human brown hair follicles, the green binocular eyes. You even emit the same sound waves!
Max (from afar): Did I hear my name? Oh, hey Greg. Hey, Srotar.
Srotar (completely shocked): Wha…
Max: Yeah, I forgot to mention. This is my twin brother, Greg.
Srotar: Do all humans have identical copies?
Greg: Oh, don’t be ridiculous. The only thing identical about us is how we look and sound. We’re completely different!
Srotar: I do not comprehend?
Max: He likes the colour blue..
Greg: And he likes the colour red.
Srotar: Why was there no information in the Human Care Pamphlet??
And eventually the aliens learn to find subtle details that allows them to tell the twins apart, and with the introduction of new alien crew members, the Humans prank them by “teleporting” around the ship (twin 1 goes through the door on the left, then twin 2 comes out the door on the right, etc.) and fucking BLOWING the alien’s mind.
Humans: Space Mythbusters
I was watching the last episode ever of Mythbusters today, and I randomly remembered all those “humans are weird” posts I’ve been near-obsessively reading.
So imagine aliens being exposed to the very show itself? I mean humans technically count as “space mythbusters” already (thing doesn’t work? Duct tape. Also we’re always asking ourselves “what if I do this, will that happen?” And trying flat out foolish ideas just because. Things usuallymight blow up when we’re around.) So imagine if aliens, slowly familiarizing themselves with human culture and entertainment came across Mythbusters- a crew of humans literally attaching rockets to a car just to see if it will fly and how fast, blowing cement trucks (and anything else they can get their hands on) up, fooling around with guns, wakeboarding behind a cruiser, messing with gravity by dropping things like human replicas (they call it “Buster”, and someone explained it is a crash test dummy) and elevators down from huge heights, and making ordinary everyday items lethal (usually by the means of Jamie Hyneman building a gun to shoot them as bullets), splitting boats in half, building an actual bridge out of duct tape, etc. All for the sake of science and entertainment.
I imagine they would be so terrified to find out that THIS is essentially what the “for science” exclamation when doing something dangerous, foolish, or lethal (or all of the above,) means to humans.
Feel free to add more.
Data entry #267C
Useless Information
Humans will store seemingly useless information about anything and everything, but do not be fooled. They can use this unrelated knowledge to solve problems even if the situations are completely different. We do not know how they do this but if a human decides to share a ‘fun fact’ with you remember it. It just might save your life.
Gunx'or head of the humanology department
Humans are crazy: research and common industrial use of ridiculously dangerous chemicals
Recently read up on some of the most dangerous chemicals mankind has ever developed and some of the stuff scientists have been able to discover is terrifyingly awesome.
Take Chlorine trifluoride for example. It can basically be summed up as the chemical that can make just about anything ignite. It is a better oxidation agent than oxygen and can set fire to things most sane people would consider fire proof.
Things chlorine trifluoride can ignite: glass, asbestos, concrete, sand and things that are already burnt.
Imagine an alien coming across information about this chemical.
“Excuse me, I’ve found this entry about a highly combustible compound that has been developed. Would you care to explain its uses? According to these reports it’s far too dangerous for any practical purpose.”
“Ah yes. That’s a very interesting case. The main modern use for the chemical is to clean certain lab and industrial equipment”
“That seems spectacularly over zealous for a simple sterilization agent.”
“Well that’s not what it was originally developed for.”
“Dare I ask what it was supposed to be used for?”
“War. It was developed during our Second World War as a weapon. Thankfully it never saw use due to it being too volatile.”
“Your species development a chemical that can set fire to stone specifically to fight using it. And now you just use it to sterilize equipment. Remind me to call for a human chemist when there is an order regarding explosives.”
“Crewman Melanie-Pauls, excuse me, but I’ve been noticing your appearance has changed, and I’m wondering if there is some biological reason. Are you in heat?”
“Hey, Jukari-Nas. No, I just had some botox at the station we visited yesterday. It makes humans look more attractive. I, um… I’ve kinda had my eye on Leonie Daniels, down in engineering. I’m hoping she might notice me.”
Jukari-Nas nods and leaves, thinking ze has understood, but curiosity gets the better of zim and ze researches this strange ‘botox’ stuff – and what ze reads turns zir blue skin a sickly shade of grey.
A few hours later ze is in engineering. “Leonie-Daniels, could I speak to you?”
“Jukari, isn’t it?”
“Jukari-Nas, yes. I spoke to crewman Melanie-Pauls earlier, and I am a little worried, and I’m hoping to avert a disaster, but I’m also breaking a confidence, but you and Melanie-Pauls are the only humans on board and I’m not sure I can talk to her about this, and…”
Leonie places a hand on Jukari-Nas’s second right arm, a gesture ze knows is meant to calm zir nerves.
“Perhaps you’d better just explain,” Leonie says.
“Melanie-Pauls has taken poison. A very dangerous poison. Something called botulinum toxin. According to what I read, it is the most toxic poison your species has ever discovered. And she said she did it to make herself look more attractive.”
“You’re saying she had botox injections.”
“Botox injections?” Zir skin, still grey from earlier, darkens yet further. You inject that stuff into your bodies?” Jukari-Nas has heard of injections, a practice where humans insert a thin tube into their bodies and force a liquid through the tube into their flesh, in many cases directly into their blood or a specific target organ. Ze had always assumed injections were mythical, the kind of horror story created to scare younglings.
“It’s a cosmetic procedure done to get rid of wrinkles.”
Jukari-Nas sits down suddenly. “So you’re telling me that humans inject,” ze shudders, “themselves with the most toxic poison your species has ever discovered – and your species has access to some terrifyingly toxic poisons – just to look pretty?”
“Pretty much,” says Leonie.
Jukari-Nas shakes zir head. “Humans are insane.”
Explaining Vikings And Other Barbaric Badasses
Now I’m a huge fan of the show Vikings, and my heritage comes from all over the world including that particular line. But my mother repeatedly expressed her pride on 3 of her ancestors, Native American’s, Germans, and the fuck mothering Vikings. It got me thinking… How the hell would we politely inform an alien that our past ancestors not only excelled at torture and bloodshed, but some cultures like Vikings took it to an unbelievable level. I imagine it would go something like so: ————————————————————————— “Human-Erica, I have a question regarding something we had discussed in our,” Grek’laz cleared his throat and moved one of his elongated arms to cover his mouth, a human like movement he had adopted while attempted to gather his thoughts upon speaking to one of the six humans aboard their ship. “Our um,” he tried to find the right words to discuss what he had learned, “Our Human Cultural Class. It was a brief history detailing the predatory and hearty nature of humans.” Erica brushed her hair behind her ear, raising a brow curiously. Grek’laz among many other species had often come to her and the other humans with questions regarding their Death World up bringing, it was rather fun seeing them learn something new about their species. “Grek you can ask anything, I told you all before. What’d you learn today?” Grek’laz pointed to above Erica’s bed with two of his tendril like fingers. The tall alien creature easily dwarfed the human before him, but the stories they had heard made him instinctively hunch forward, a method his species used to appear non-hostile. It didn’t help the humans had told him the smaller of their species could be the more violently inclined, a claim he hadn’t yet learned was a joke or serious. Where he pointed at, there lay a blade behind some ancient and primitive symbol. The blade had strange yet simply carvings, and was rusted by the thousands of years it had been handled by the family. “That weapon, the… You claimed it was a sword, if my words are correct. We learned those symbols belonged to a tribe of warrior humans from you pre-technological era. Called ‘Vi-kin-gs’,” he slowly pulled the words out as he expressed it with the upmost respect. Erica kept her brow raised and nodded slowly, “Yes, and?” she encouraged him to continue.
“We heard that these… Vikings… Were some of the most concerning warriors of their time? But that they… Revealed in battle? Craved it even?” He asked with hope that it was not true. He knew humans were seen as a military force not to be trifled with, but the ones he had known were peaceful, to think there use to be a clan that craved nothing more than battle was, to him, terrifying.
Erica merely nodded, “Yep, my ancestors were Norse, or viking as they were called as well. They were some crazy bastards, the old beliefs they held said that to enter the highest of the heavens with honor meant you had to die bravely in battle. Only true warriors did. This lead them to be pretty creative, to say the least, in areas of hurting.” Grek’laz gulped, rubbing the back of its neck nervously, “I… I do not understand?” He questioned. He was morbidly curious. Though part of him did not wish to know.
“The Blood Eagle, was something one of my ancestors went through if you want to believe the old tale.”
“B-Blood Eagle?” He gulped again, “That sounds terrifying alone, dare I ask what it was?”
“Do you dare?” She smirked, showing off the dense and wicked teeth all humans possessed. He nodded, much to his own dismay. “It was a fascinating process, though admittedly brutal beyond all standards. One of my ancestors had made a grave offense and attempted to steal the land of a Jarl, a ruler of such, and this Jarl was brothers to the King of all the land. My ancestor was punished with the Blood Eagle. It was said if you could take the pain without wincing, you would enter the heavens called Valhalla. But if you winced or cried out, you be damned.” She cleared her throat, hoping to spare Grek some of the details. The Elorians were more pacifist than most species. “They started by cutting your back open with a knife,” she could already see him flinch and look more and more nervous. “They then break open the back of the ribs, sometimes hammering them open. Then finally they pull the lungs out and rest them on your shoulders to look like the folded wings of an eagle.” Grek’laz looked as though he was about to vomit, just imaging the process made him sick. “Your ancestor … I weep for the torture, he must’ve been in such pain.”
“Who knows? Stories say he never even made a sound, other then to scream to the Gods they believed in that he was coming very soon.” She chuckled softly. This was funny to her? Grek was truly terrified.
“Your world truly faced a monster, no offense, Human-Erica.” Grek gulped again in a panic.
“Oh those were just the Vikings, humans all over the world were doing stuff on that level.”
“THEY WHAT?!? YOU’RE KIND ACTIVELY TRIED TO FIND MORE CREATIVE METHODS OF INJURING AND HURTING EACH OTHER?”
“Oh Grek … I really hope they tell you about the Spanish Inquisition,” Erica laughed before patting his side, for his shoulder was at least 2 feet higher than her. “I’m heading to the mess hall, join me if you want,” she nodded before making her way out.
“I believe… I have lost my appetite,” he grumbled quietly. Humans… They were terrifying because they remembered these practices, whose to say they didn’t plan to use them if their enemies deserved it?
Humans are weird - taking care of babies
I’ve been hanging out with two little girls, both under the age of two (distant cousins) latelly and, even tho I’m not the type of person that dreams of getting married and having kids and being around them 24/7 for the rest of their life, I found myself being super attached to them and going to extremes to make sure they are happy and healthy at all times. At the smallest sign they might give me of being uncomfortable or sad or upset, I will stop whatever I’m doing and go help them and, if someone upsets them, I’ll go “momma bear” on them, even tho the kids aren’t mine and i’m only a teenager. Even my mom and sister have noticed how differently I’m acting when I’m around them.
This made me think about how Aliens would react to my odd behaviour around these tiny human creatures and how they would react to the all the hard work that is taking care of young kids.
@what-are-even-humans @humans-are-seriously-weird @space-australia-stories @humans-are-questionable @radioactivepeasant any ideas?
@arcticfoxbear I feel this is relevant to your interests.
Also, my own experiences in taking care of kids is influencing my answer because the first two things I thought of were
A) preschoolers arbitrarily change the rules of their games quite frequently. The grownups almost never win. Therefore, if a grown-up human is able to outsmart a crafty toddler who does not want a bath at least once, then that grown-up is probably capable of negotiating with stubborn alien allies.
B) if the child is quiet for more than three minutes, be suspicious. If the child is quiet for more than three minutes and then you hear them giggling “ew”, “sticky” or any variation of those, be afraid. Be very afraid. Never underestimate how quickly a toddler can destroy the ambassador’s stateroom with nothing but her bare hands and one of those squishy pouches of applesauce.
C) bonus round: the aliens start hearing that parents or caretakers “have eyes on the backs of their heads”. They go around thinking this is literal, and a logical form of adaptation for a species with chaotic young. They are very very confused to discover that it is only a figure of speech.
“You’re asking me to what?” Corporal Alfred “Slugger” MacKenzie wasn’t entirely sure his ears were working correctly.
Captain Garzthaupta gave that strange expression that the corporal knew was the alien’s equivalent of a placatory smile. “As I said: care for the young aboard my ship, the Calounta, while their parents are on duty.”
Slugger’s ears had not failed him. “You want a jarhead as a nanny?”
“Humans have extensive experience and skill in successfully raising the young of other species in the absence of their own parents.”
“Since when?”
“On your home world, creatures called dogs.”
“That’s not quite the same thing as raising aliens.”
“Nevertheless, you do have a head-start of more than ten thousand of your years over the rest of us. No species has even proven capable of caring for the young of another, but I believe humans might be capable.”
“So why me? Why not a human with actual experience as a nanny?”
“The young of my species are almost as easy to care for as your own. You keep them fed, cleaned, their minds occupied, and their tentacles away from power sockets. Pa'atoth young are easier still since they are essentially immobile and absorb information from those around them. The tricky thing is to make sure they don’t get bored, as that can be terminal, which is why my species find them so terrifyingly tricky to care for that we have never made the attempt. However it is Touialeiuarauielaiuot younglings that are the real challenge. The Touialeiuarauielaiuots themselves are a peaceful species, but their young can turn aggressive with little warning and for no obvious reason. Even the The Touialeiuarauielaiuots themselves have not yet figured out why. Only a human of your physical stature would be capable of wrangling them if it was necessary.”
“In other words, I’m big and strong and ugly enough to go toe-to-toe with an alien infant and survive, is that it?”
Garzthaupta tilted his head to one said and thought a moment before responding. “I believe the Human phrase would be ‘that’s about the size of it’?”
Slugger looked down at the drink between his hands. It was the Pa'atoth equivalent of beer, a dark red liquid with a smokey, sweet-savoury flavour he much preferred to the bitter stuff made back home. He’d heard other Humans call it liquid bacon, although Slugger thought liquid biltong would’ve been a better description. Not that he’d have admitted that publicly – his mates would’ve ribbed him for days for becoming an connoisseur of alien cuisine. “Have you done this before?” he asked.
The little Mevrauniy gave their equivalent of a short nod. “It was a great success. So much so that our previous nanny, as you call it, has returned to Earth to train up a generation of Humans to serve this function on starships across the known galaxy. He suggested that you might have heard of him, in fact. Leopold ‘Schmerzgeber’ Tolberg, formerly of the European Marine Corps.”
That caught Slugger’s attention – Schmerzgeber was a name that was treated with awe during his training. Twenty-two years earlier, when a Pa'aguck raiding party targeted the Mevrauniy colony on Leptika IV, Schmerzgeber’s unit had been passing through the system. Almost the entire unit had sacrificed their lives to allow the Mevrauniy colonists to escape; the survivors had been Schmerzgeber, Matança, and Kövérfiú.
Their actions had done more than just save the colonists; it had averted a potentially destructive war. The Mevrauniy government, which viewed Humans as violent and dangerous, had been pushing for a thousand-year quarantine and cultural re-education program for Earth – in effect, cultural genocide. But while the Mevrauniy were centuries more advanced in most areas of science and technology, Humans had insurmountable advantages in biology, strategy, and military hardware, even compared to the Pa'aguck. And with Beijing, Brussels, Brazilia and New Delhi united in their response, the very program the Mevrauniy sought to use to contain and limit the “Human threat” had come close to becoming a cassus belli for a war they could never win.
And then Schmerzgeber and his crew had saved those four hundred Mevrauniy and the political tension disappeared almost overnight. Within months the Mevrauniy and Pa'atoth had begun eagerly hiring Humans as ship-board security, a decade more and the Pa'aguck had been driven back to their homeworld. A few months after leaving the Euromarines, Slugger had got a job working security at the headquarters of the Guck Reformation Project – basically a greatly toned down version of what the Mevrauniy had wanted to do to Earth – on Guck’s sister-world of Toth.
Or he had been working security. This proposal by Gaptain Garzthaupta was intriguing. Interstellar trade was booming in the absence of the Pa'aguck, but multi-species crews were still uncommon despite the advantages. Garzthaupta and Schmerzgeber seemed to have found a way to make it work, and Slugger liked the idea.
“I am going to be a nanny. To aliens.” He looked down at the captain and stuck his hand out, a massive grin plastered across his face. “They told me to expect the unexpected out here, and this is about as out of the left field as you can get, but I’m all for trying new stuff, so you’ve got yourself a hire.”
Just wait until his mates heard about this. They’d be ribbing him for the rest of his life. But hell, it’d totally be worth it. Nanny to alien babies - how cool was that?!
Complications of inter-species relations: Allergies.
What if some humans are allergic to the other species?
Consider the number of humans allergic to cats and/or dogs against the number of feline or canine alien sophonts in science fiction.
Racism is something that’s been on my mind a lot lately. How does this intersect with the possibility of actual health complications from close interaction with someone? (e.g. “I have nothing against your species except for the fact that when I breathe near you I get migraines.”)
How does the problem of allergies intersect with the idea of xenophilia – some humans finding members of the other species sexually attractive? (e.g. “Okay, let me pop a claritin so I can get close enough to you to give you a hand job.”)
How is all this changed if the allergies are fatal? (i.e. “I literally cannot serve on the same spaceship as a Hrruban; I will die.”)
You know you’re from a deathworld when your planet has so many infectious diseases that, to be strong enough to combat them, your immune system also has to be strong enough to be capable of killing you.
