I need a “humans are space orcs” thing where all sentient species are weird like that, but in their own unique ways
And a lot of them are aware of this (like we are when we make these “humans are space orcs” stories)
Maybe one species enjoys getting bit by something equivalent to mosquitoes. Maybe one actively avoids the hospitable places on their planet because it’s boring without a challenge. You get the gist.
I want to see a bunch of aliens (+humans) sitting around a table talking about how their own species is a bunch of freaks
Everyone is space orcs
Best possible addition. This is a top-tier insight
@hotcheetohatred
The thing about "humans are space orcs" is it was originally conceived of as a response to science fiction tropes in which every alien species had its own special thing except humans, whose special thing was either Most Generic, Most Adaptable, or Most Je Ne Sais Quoi. Like, in a lot of science fiction, Klingons are Honorable Warriors, Vulcans are Logical Scientists, Romulans are Cunning Strategists, and humans are all of the above in a way that leaves us slightly less good than any of them at their shtick but better overall and able to triumph because of our lack of specialization and the assumption that we are, somehow, just destined to be the best. See this scene from Enterprise for what I'm talking about. There's a similar scene in Mass Effect where Mordin talks about how humans are more variable and adaptable and less predictable than all the other races in that setting, which is super annoying if you know anything about how much our species is defined by the genetic bottleneck we suffered during the Ice Age -- the generic bottleneck that has left us all so genetically similar to each other that we can do crazy things like donate blood and organs to each other, things other species can't tolerate.
@prokopetz proposed that humans ought to get something special of our own that isn't just "We are the bestest and specialist in some generic way that feels like a vague and unsettling metaphor for American superiority and manifest destiny amidst all the other cultures of the world," and settled on space orcs because "Pursuit predators with freakish endurance" was the ecological niche we occupied during our own evolutionary history up until we started doing the civilization thing. The assumption from the start was that every other sci-fi or fantasy species would each be freaks in their own way, and the point of humans are space orcs was to let us be our own sort of freak, too.
People who expanded on the humans are space orcs stories immediately turned it into a reason to write little stories where humans are the biggest freaks or the only freaks and we are, in fact, the specialest most manifest destinyest je ne sais quoi-laden metaphors for the superiority of American culture over all the other cultures of the world. I hate it I hate it I hate it.
Which is to say you've reinvented the point of humans are space orcs from first principles. That's pretty cool.
I think my mistake was failing to appreciate just how readily "humans have exceptionally high cardiovascular endurance due to our real-world evolutionary history as specialised persistence predators" could be twisted around into "humans have superior Will to Power", which is the other problematic special niche humans have historically been assigned in popular science fiction.
I really have to say, genuinely, and I hope people catch on to this:
Respectfully;
No. Humans are not persistence hunters. That is entirely a myth of assumed anatomy invented by Adidas to sell shoes. The paleontological and archeological evidence of hominid evolution leading to homo sapien is actually pretty clear. Pre-humans were gatherers and scavengers that used pyrotechology to digest scavenged meat we otherwise could not have processed due to evolving from short-gutted frugivores. As our reliance on fire increased, our mouths became smaller, our guts became shorter, and we increased our stride-lengths to walk further (by being taller). We developed increased diameter of sudoriferous glands in conjunction with decreased body hair, in my researched opinion, as a result of investing further into gathering as a means of being active when our natural predators would have to resign to the shade to cool down.
We don't see direct evidence of hunting among hominids until sapien and neanderthalensis. The archeological evidence we have paints a very clear picture: neanderthals hunted in a way not dissimilar to wolves (chasing and cornering, but with stone spears), but humans hunted almost exclusively with atlatls. What's great about atlatls is that they fit the model of a scavenger quite well. You just throw some spears at a herd of 10,000 medium-game animals, and badaboom badabing you've got dinner for weeks. It can best be described as proactive scavenging as opposed to hunting.
The myth of persistence hunting comes from research that indicates that, by sweating, humans COULD perform this. People have gone about and done this. A couple of problems with their primary sources:
1) The Khoisan people: much of the evidence for persistence hunting comes from "studying" the Khoisan people of South Africa. They do "persistence hunting" to this very day! How convenient! Except 1) they use poison arrows to cause the animals to overheat waaaaaay faster, 2) the environments between pleistocene and holocene southern Africa are not particularly comparable, 3) even if they were, hunting this way yields about 35% of their diet coming from meat, whereas pleistocene homo sapiens had at least 50%+ (which we know by comparing the carbon 3/4 isotopes to nitrogen isotopes in their teeth compared to other animals with primarily plant, meat, and mixed diets). So no. Not comparable.
2) "We can do it:" well, fuck me. We can do a lot of things. But "can" and "largely did for a success rate yielding an excess of 50% of total food resources" are not the same measure. And the way you can easily prove that is by comparing the fossil evidence of pleistocene humans to modern long-distance runners. A comparative study will result in 0 shin splints in ancient humans. Now, either Adidas is wrong and the optimal shoe is no shoe, or, more likely, our sweat glands evolved in conjunction with our bipedalism for a different reason altogether. However, the rate at which long distance runners get shin splints is close to 100%, and at a caloric-need rate of excess of 50%, you would expect any number of pleistocene humans to develop shin splints. And yet, they're not there. The best way to think about the "can do" argument is to consider an average, in-shape but not specialized to running person. Have them race against A dog. Like, basically any dog that is not very young or very old. That dog is going to kick their ass. Because that dog IS made to run. Now, give a dog the brain of a human and let it develop the idea of "I'm going to be in peak physical condition to run as far and fast as possible," and we'll see how good humans ACTUALLY are at running. We're not good at running. We ARE good at practicing/training/learning, something most animals are not good at. My point here is that you should look to the average of an organism, not the peak, to determine what they are or are not adapted to do. That's like taking Air Bud and making the argument that "dogs are evolved to play basketball." Air Bud is clearly an outlier and should not be counted. But also, kind of what I'm talking about.
Additional counter-evidence is simply the required consumption of water necessary to do this kind of hunting. The ice age was more so dry than it was cold, at least around the equator, and running requires a huge amount of water to avoid (checks notes) heat stroke. Are we saying that, in a semi-desert, humans got above 50% of our caloric demands while permanently, massively, dehydrating ourselves? Me thinks not. Not when we LITERALLY KNOW WHAT WE DID INSTEAD. Atlatls. Atlatls. We used atlatls. This was an established fact before research on persistence hunting came out, and the persistence hunting theory does not account for the abundance of archeological evidence that nullifies their theory.
Also, have you tried running long distances after a full meal of red meat. It sucks. That would be us, all the time. Like, literally think about persistence hunting for a minute, it's obviously bullshit.
Back to the original point at hand, then what makes humans special? The answer is our pattern-seeking brain. The peak of human experience isn't to run a marathon for a burger. It is to make art and have gay sex. Make music and stories. It's also the root of all of our evils. We destroy environments for geometric farms. We kill animals for decorative fur. We enslave millions of people to grow sugar cane so number go up. We love number, because number is a pattern, and up is the best pattern. The pattern seeking brain is why humans are amazing and terrible.
That is ACTUALLY the plot of my fantasy book, Iron Boots. Humans are the monsters, and the Orcs are "people."
