Because Humans In Space still has a death-grip on my imagination…
Like, with the idea of a collective memory, of species being wary of each other, especially if they’ve been fighting, humans are an interesting one because they consistently look at historically dangerous creatures that have killed, mauled, eaten, and hunted humans and go, “You know, I bet I could get one to be nice to me if I’m nice first.”
Humans especially do it with each other! All of human history is plumb-full of humans fighting and doing horrible things to each other for the lamest reasons. We fight, go down nasty, and then get up and go about life again and be civil.
Like, yeah we’d get in fights in space too, but we also know how to end fights and get over it. And do so remarkably quickly too. Within a single human lifetime, even.
Alien: “Human George, were your species not warring with the Romulan species not two solar cycles ago?”
Human: “Yeah, we were, but that’s over now. I’m teachin’ him our warp configuration, just like anybody else cycling into my department.”
Alien: “Your species were at war for many hundreds of your life-cycles…”
Human: “We made peace an’ all, so I guess we just gotta’ learn to live in the same galaxy. It’s not a huge deal. We’re cool now. And if it helps ya’, Faroosh never did anything against me, so I don’t have anything to hold personally against him. See? Can’t stay mad forever, especially if you’ve both agreed to give peace a decent shot.”
Alien: “Is that not difficult to forget that your species have killed each other almost from the moment they first met?”
Human: “Some folks probably have a harder time with it, the ones who personally took losses and haven’t recovered from that. Which is okay! I don’t mind, it’s understandable. But all of us can’t just be enemies forever. It’s not worth it. Besides, humans fight with each other all the time, all over our history, but we get along pretty okay now. I guess it’s like that. We just gotta’ give everybody a chance.”
Alien: “Most interesting.”
Alien: “WAIT!!! You are teaching him your Warp configuration????? Why?! This cannot be wise!”
Human: “…” (uber-chill human, totally not comprehending)
Human: “…because he’s in my department?”