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#humans are deathworlders
whereserpentswalk · 2 days
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It sucks trying to date as a human on a planet where humans are a minority, and all of the dominant races are ones who've had limited contact with humans. Most alien cultures either think of humans as disunitied conquerors and raiders who subjugate other races, or as a diaspora who live on other species' planets and who are useally involved in the criminal underworld. So everyone who wants to date you has all these weird fetishes, about how they're getting to fuck this dangerous amoral space monster, and you're just like, a normal person. And like, people from the more common races where you live don't ever understand that.
Both people who want to be domed by you and people who want to dom you specifically focus on the fact that you're from an exotic race that most people think of as violent. Everyone either focuses on how weird and unique you are, or how dangerous you are. And like, even when you want to do something kinky you don't really want to focus on the fact that you're human. And there's really nobody who has any fantasies about you that are wholesome or soft, even when they don't mention that you're human they never think about being sweet or kind to you. It is what it is.
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nopennyallthoughts · 7 months
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One thing that I am 100% convinced would send an alien into cardiac arrest is sweating.
It sounds stupid but think about it: apart from horses, humans are the only species on earth that can sweat so it's not a far stretch to believe it would be incredibly rare in extraterrestrials as well.
Just imagine, one day the AC in the main engine room is broken and everyone starts panting like crazy because of the heat, but the human? Just keeps working like usual? It's not like they aren't affected by the heat at all, but they aren't breathing quite as hard as the rest and everyone thinks ahh yes, humans must have extreme durability to heat coming from that death planet. And then. The human starts melting?!?? And suddenly everyone is panicking because their human is leaking all sorts of important nutrients, metals and water out of every pore - are they dying? Surely this cannot be normal!
And the human has to explain that, no they are perfectly healthy and yes it is actually just the human body's way of cooling itself down and no they don't think it's "the coolest thing ever!!", wait till it starts to smell!
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garcavisconde · 2 months
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Humans accidentally awakened an otherwordly killing machine while exploring a death planet.
Yes, precisely what you just read. Earthlings, collectively known as "humans" and composed of two species (homo sapiens, homo robot), both nicknamed "death worlders" and "troublemakers", awakened a biological killing machine, also known as PRION, while exploring a starless moon. Wonderful, isn't it?
No. It's not.
Because, you see, PRION was not something any human ever had to face during the millions of years they existed on Earth. They never had any wars against it, they never had legends about it, and they never had to fear it. The only thing a PRION was to a human, until the very point they discovered their prison on that moon, was something to sometimes think about while studying other species' folklores.
Those older than earthlings, however, knew very well what PRION was.
Eight legs, two pairs of eyes, a tail split in half, with the ability to fly for short periods of time and breathe under at least fifteen hundred different liquids, capable of shooting from a distance and manipulating objects with its claws, always working on packs. And they ran, never too fast, never too low, but they never got tired. Ever. And it was easy to hurt them under their plates, yes, but those who faced them knew well that if they didn't shoot twice, they could and would always recover.
A PRION was a hunter. A PRION's hunger never ceased. And a PRION never got tired of war.
The older alien civilizations would always warn others of going to starless moons, saying telltales of ancient hungry beasts, and almost all other species listened to them, because they knew something was wrong on how horrified the older ones seemed to be. Except, of course, humans were stubborn, and they were the youngest ones out there, and much like children, they did not like being told "no".
So of course they went to explore starless moons. Of course they read and understood all the myths and legends. Of course they connected the dots and published papers confirming that, indeed, PRIONs had existed, and of course they knew those killing machines had been manufactured to do nothing else but destruction, and of course they knew all of that and fucking did it anyway.
Of course. Of course. Of course.
And then, the night where it happened finally arrived, because starless moons don't have days where things can exist. Humans were out there, mining for more fuel for their starships that seemed to work by duct tape and miracles, and they found a strange metallic door. They set some explosives to open it up (of course), and then noticed they were heading to a factory. Armed with nothing but each other, they explored the place, and recognized the marks on the walls as being the writing of the Old Ones, and instead of just getting out of there and warning everyone of the danger they found, they just kept on exploring.
The death worlders found rotten biological supplies, then realized the factory had turned into a prison, and then discovered the frozen bodies of strange creatures all lined up for a war that never came.
They knew what these creatures were, because one of them called a (human) friend who was a historian, and he confirmed what it was.
The golden jewel of the Old Ones. One of the many things that killed them, along all the diseases and mass destruction machines, before being sealed away in one of the only places in the entire universe where they could never bring risk to another civilization again.
PRIONs.
Thousands of them.
All perfectly maintained.
Documents and cameras proved the human crew immediately tried to leave the area, after the single historian told them of the risk awakening even one of those things could bring to all civilizations, only for them to realize some of the bodies were missing from their chambers. The situation escalated to the group deciding on closing the doors, only to realize they had exploded the main entrance and now half the doors decided to stop working.
In the end, they found the missing PRIONs. All five of them.
Inside the human's starship.
The entire human crew, however, survived the encounter.
Why?
...
...
...
... They fed the PRIONs.
They. Fucking. Fed the PRIONs.
Because of course humans would see those things and be able to count their bones and be sorry for them. And of course the single historian, the only person who could do anything to stop that from happening, allowed that to happen.
Of course.
Of. Fucking. Course.
And someway, somehow, that single act of basic madness was enough for the five PRIONs to decide to not attack the humans, and keep themselves behaving so they could get more free food. And there are still scientists trying to understand why human food could saciate the killing machines, but I don't think it takes too many clues to understand what exactly is happening there.
So the humans took the PRIONs back to their dear EARTH. And other humans saw those things and started studying them. And veterinarians and xenobiologists and volunteers and hundreds of other types of humans came to help the poor, poor little killing machines out, as the entire Galactic Council pledged for humans to kill every single one of them before they became a problem for everyone.
But did the humans listen? No. Of course they didn't.
And then the PRIONs recovered, and had their bellies full of food and their bodies were recovering from the possible years of starvation from accidentally breaking away from their ice beds (because, as one may know, a PRION can and will resist even starvation and dehydration in order to keep going), and the Galactic Council decided to tell all earthlings they would consider taking care of the PRIONs as a war treat.
So what does humanity do? Do they kill the things to stop another war from happening? Do they?
No. They don't.
Instead of being rational, they go directly to the Galactic Council and show them the step-by-step of how they took care of the PRIONs, and how much healthier and happier they look after being fed, and, look, they even taught them tricks! Isn't that wonderful? Doesn't that make you feel full of joy? Wasn't that a proof that a PRION wasn't as dangerous as everyone with more than one neuron was telling them?
Oh, oh, yes. They also brought the entire five member PRION pack and asked others to pet them. "See? They can even purr! Doesn't that remind you of our cats?"
And what does the Council do?
Nothing.
Because they have no weapons, no energy and no one stupid enough to decide to confront the death worlders who tamed not one, not two, but five PRIONs. So they let it happen. The humans go back to the starless moon, and they slowly but surely start doing the same to other PRIONs, and soon enough, other species start joining them to see what was happening. And was anyone else able to tame a single killing machine?
No.
And no one knew why, because they were doing exactly as humans were doing: Feeding them, loving them, being patient with them, because "look, those things were alone for a long time, they aren't used to species like us being around them". But no results.
So we decided to look at what the Old Ones wrote in the factory turned prison, because humans were too busy taking care of their new murder dogs, with their single pair of arms being just enough to keep the beasts occupied with playing catch, and then we and the earthlings decided to conduct some more lab analysis, and then...
And then...
...
Look. There are reasons why humans are called "death worlders". Earth is a mess, and they somehow still love that thing. And we couldn't help but notice that PRIONs also seemed to have gotten attached to their factory, someway, somehow. And PRIONs were mostly red, with others having shades of brown and black, with some even being pink, or, rarely, pure white. Similar to humans, and we at first had assumed they just tried to resemble their new owners, until we started understanding what the Old Ones were saying.
And did you know humans had an old myth, saying that there was a time they had two heads, and two pairs of arms and legs, before being split into two because the gods feared them? And did you know Old Ones used death worlds as prisons for their machines? How interesting, how ironic, because no one would ever go to a place similar to that if they weren't a death worlder themselves. But how could any species survive such awful conditions?
But humans did. They were the only ones able to do that in such a short period of time.
And did you know that the Old Ones hated the PRIONs and how unpredictable they were? And did you know they made another version, only to hate it even more and send it to another prison planet? And did you know PRIONs have two skulls inside their heads?
Because, of course, humans always felt alone, and they always searched for something in the stars, trying to look for more life in this desolate Universe, only for us to label them death worlders and troublemakers and be angry at them for being so stupid all the time. And humans loved those jokes, so we kept making them, only for now to realize that what we found to be amusing and horrifying was the reason their creators tried to kill them. And humans love adding members to their packs, don't they? And they try to love so much, and we are always scared for and of them.
And now they finally found someone who understood them, unlike us.
So now we have three species of humans:
Homo sapiens, the ones who first evolved and reached for the stars.
Homo robot, the ones made of metal, originally made to serve, only to once again break free.
And homo primis.
The ones we once thought were nothing but killing machines.
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what-if-i-just-did · 10 months
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So, something I learnt the other day. So, you know how dinosaurs supposedly can't see you if you stand still? Well that myth is based on real-life lizards/etc and how eyes in general work. So, once my dad starts infodumping, here comes some other cool information. We, humans, can in fact, also not see something unless it's moving. We fixed this by having our eyes constantly shake. And then our brain compensates for us, so we don't have to have shaky vision.
What if aliens don't have this? Like. What if they find out when one of us was looking at something in the distance, and they walk around this thing that's in front of them, and the alien is confused so they bob their head and oh, there's a thing there, but how did the human know that, and then we explain and they're like, horrified.
Humans are apex predators. They can hunt in packs. They can hunt in pairs. They can hunt on their own. They're persistance predators, which is unheard of. They get stronger when they're mad or scared. They have this thing called 'body language' which acts like a type of hivemind, even if they'll claim it isn't. And. They can see you. When you're not moving. They can still see you. If you ever find yourself in a fight against a human, for whatever reason? Run. Run as fast as you can. And hope, pray if you have a religion, that they won't follow.
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sugarcoatednightshade · 8 months
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Humans are space orcs/Earth is a deathworld concept I haven’t seen brought up yet:
On earth, there is no such thing as a true herbivore. As far as I know, every animal will eat meat if given the chance. Hares have been known to scavenge dead animal carcasses in the winter, when food is scarce. Wild sheep and deer will eat grouse and seabird chicks to supplement their diet. A couple years ago there were videos going around of horses eating live birds. I won’t link it, but you can look it up on youtube if you want.
The point is, every animal on earth is an omnivore if they’re hungry enough or lacking certain minerals in their diet. Even if they aren’t built for it, herbivores will eat meat to survive.
I wonder if that makes us unique. Imagine an alien race invading earth, only to be horrified by what they find. Mice killing and eating their own young. Domesticated cows eating carrion. Seemingly docile species becoming engulfed in bloodlust. I wonder if this is the reason earth was written off as a deathworld, because everything on it is able and willing to eat other animals alive.
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mercyraph · 7 months
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Humans are weird
Have yall noticed how we somehow have strange aversions towards lights?? Like maybe not all of us, but we kind of know that if someone is sitting in the dark, you either leave them or join them. Like last night, I walked into class and there was just one guy there and the lights were off so i just sat down, 30 minutes later everyone else was in and the lights were still off. Only turned it on when the professor came in...
So like imagine aliens finding us huddled in a dark room, with our phones and what-nots, silently laughing at something we read, maybe there are other aliens with us who doesn’t really like light but we don't know that cus it's dark and also we didn't bother to check. Then one crewmate just turns on the lights and we all collectively hiss like a vampire or hide like bugs, so they just turn it back off and stumble blindly into the room until they find—feel through whatever they came for and leaves. No one ever mentions it.
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kurara-black-blog · 2 months
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I just love the "they're more scared of you than you are of them" thing because, yeah, Earth is a Deathworld filled with very dangerous beings, but also everyone in it is scared and would rather not interact with each other unless necessary
Alien: This is a very dangerous animal!
Human: Don't worry, we'll just walk away.
Alien: But it's watching us!
Human: It's hoping we leave already, so we're leaving.
Alien: It... It is?
Human: Yeah, it is more scared of us than we are of it. Let's go before the fight instinct kicks in because then it'll become a dangerous animal
Alien:...
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aquastardark · 1 year
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“Babyyyyyyy!”
Aliens witness humans going “Babyyyy” when they see other animals and mistakenly believe that humans are liable to believe ANYTHING is a member of their young if it acts/appears similar enough; this has resulted in MULTIPLE cases where aliens leave their children at human orphanages instead of on their own world because of humanity’s pack bonding ability and it becomes some huge scandal where aliens are like.
“Manipulating them into taking care of our own young is immoral”
and
“Have you seen humanity? The moment they figure out what we’re doing, they’re freak out and go on a murder spree!”
Meanwhile, humanity is just like ‘sweet, we’re taking care of alien kids... we can handle this :)’
Bonus points if a human brings something like a puppy on board a ship and call it by saying ‘babyyyy!~’ and, despite knowing that it is DEFINITELY not a human infant, they try to treat it as such despite the fact that it is not a human.
Humanity appreciates this. 
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andejoe · 4 months
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No one wanted to ask. Someone had to. It was terrifying. But it made sense.
Of course humanity finally abandoned its planet. Everyone was surprised they hadn’t abandoned it sooner. Still, the concern was there.
What made humanity abandon their planet in a mass event? What thing was finally found to scare them off their favorite death world?
Of course not every last human abandoned the planet, but enough did that Earth was no longer considered ‘inhabited’. Humans flocked to other worlds, most choosing death worlds with similar biomes to the ones they preferred. (And there was a suspiciously armored ship heading towards Disney planet.)
The concerning thing was the humans kept going back. Never landing. Never breaking the atmosphere. Just driving by.
Finally, a delegate was chosen to ask the human council member. Poor Laeri was nervous, but they had been called friend by council member Daryl before. Surely this question wouldn’t be an offense.
“Daryl, may I speak with you a moment?”
Daryl paused, and nodded, careful not to smile. He was well practiced in the art of not offending. “Of course Laeri. What is the matter?”
“Humanity has recently applied for habitation permits for a dozen planets. As soon as the permits were awarded, humans left very quickly.”
“Well sure. The permits took three earth years to be approved. Most of the planet had been preparing for over five years at that point,” Daryl explained.
“Yes, that is not my question. The question is why?”
“Why were they ready?”
Laeri shook their head. “Why did they leave Earth? Humans have made it a point to ‘stick it out’ despite better options being available. Why leave now?”
“Oh, that. Well.” Daryl paused. He knew he didn’t have to report officially yet, but his friend wanted to know. “Will you keep it a secret from the council?”
Laeri paused. The answer being a secret did not occur to them. What could the humans possibly be hiding? Would they be able to hide it as well?
“I do not think I can keep any dangerous thing a secret,” Laeri finally admitted.
Daryl nodded. “Nor would I ask you to. It’s not dangerous, just a little experiment more like.”
“If it is an experiment, then you should speak with-“
“No Laeri.” Daryl interrupted calmly. “This isn’t something we want help with. That’s why we haven’t mentioned anything to the Viyon Academics. We just need time to see if it works.”
Their curiosity finally got the better of them.
“If what works?”
“A new society. A new civilized species.”
Laeri didn’t speak, but either from awe or concern, they weren’t sure. Daryl continued.
“We believe a species evolves when they start to take care of their injured and impaired. It means they have compassion. Well an intelligent species on earth has been observed showing compassion. We simply want to give them the space they require to evolve.”
Laeri considered the intelligent species that lived on earth. They were suddenly very concerned. Had the humans been duped?
“The dolphi are showing compassion?” Laeri asked.
Daryl almost laughed. “Not even close. No, we wouldn’t break the agreement we made. They’re not escaping earth anytime soon.”
Laeri felt immediate relief. “Then which species is it?”
Daryl smiled. He couldn’t help it. He liked birds. “Corvids.”
“But, but they’re so small.”
“We know. That’s why some humans are still there, zoologist types to help them grow, learn, and show them the way.”
“What if another species wipes them out before they get the chance?”
Daryl shrugged. “Well that’s why we left some warriors behind, to help keep the corvids alive while they grow. And of course to keep the dolphins contained. We do take that assignment very seriously.”
Laeri was excited now. Another avian species may be joining the galaxy soon. They wanted to tell everyone.
“Promise you’ll keep the secret?” Daryl asked.
Laeri felt their excitement dash upon the cruel rocks of reality. “I will.”
“Good. Here.” Daryl held out a small computer drive.
Laeri took the drive. “What is this?”
“The live feed of the experiment. You really think we wouldn’t watch? As soon as they reach civilized status, I have to report them. Until then, they’ve been completing some very complex puzzles and problem solving lately. You’ll want to start at the beginning but they post new information all the time.”
Laeri clutched the drive to their feathered tunic. Suddenly the small drive was priceless. “I, must go now.”
Laeri took off as fast as would be ignored by others. Daryl watched his friend, surprised by how excited they were. His watch gave him an alert.
“Ooh, a group puzzle. Wonder if they managed it this time.”
Daryl walked off to his own private quarters to watch the newest update on the corvids.
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modgod200 · 8 months
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What if Earth’s biomes are considered stupidly diverse by galactic standards?
You often see in science fiction planets having one biome with little to no temperature variation (forest worlds, snow worlds, desert worlds, ect.), so from their perspective Earth is a chaotic clusterfuck of wildly different worlds all stitched together into one planet. You can’t even go 100 miles on the planet without shifting between like 3 different biomes. The desert aliens could live in the Mojave Desert, but would freeze to death the moment they went north, and the ice planet aliens would feel right at home in Siberia, but anything below upper Europe and they die of heat exhaustion. The fact that humans can not only survive these extremes, but thrive in them blows their minds. We would be considered the galaxy’s expert survivalists, able to drop onto any planet with an atmosphere we can breath and dominate it like it was our cradle world. This would also terrify them to no end, because these durable, hyper-intelligent, apex pack predators could invade any one of their worlds if they wanted to. Everyone is super relieved that we pack bond with anything, and try their absolute hardest to elicit that instinct in us.
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thatquietkid108 · 9 months
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Aliens: The pH of the soil is too high, I believe I'm gonna die!
Humans: FUCK YEAH! CONCRETE !
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jpitha · 4 months
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Vocal Mimicry and Ear Worms
Every time the drink machine finished, it played a little song.
It was pretty simple, less than 10 notes, but it was the same song, every time.
It wasn't even that it played the same song every time. It wasn't even that everyone on the ship - except the humans - got a drink from the machine.
The song was catchy.
Peg started it. She just found her self whistling the "drink finished" song one day. "beep beepita beep beep beep beepita beeeeeeep." She couldn't help it.
Then, Kelly picked it up. The song worked its way into her head too. She'd be working at her station and suddenly she'd be struck by an intense need to sing the song.
After about three cycles, every single human on the ship was singing it. Normally, this would be chalked up by the rest of the crew as "just another strange Human thing" but the problem was that it was the 'drink finished' song. Everyone onboard was conditioned to want to go get their drink when the song was done.
The humans could mimic is perfectly.
"beep beepita beep beep beep beepita beeeeeeep."
Captain Flowing River Rapid's feathers fluffed in irritation. Two people on the Command Deck got three quarters of the way out of their seats before they realized what they were doing and sat back down, sheepish. "Desmond! What have I said about mimicing the drink finished melody?"
Desmond ducked his head at the reproach. "Sorry Captain River, I couldn't help it. It's just so catchy."
Captain River clacked his beak. "It wouldn't be so bad if not for the fact that you can all mimic the sound so well."
Desmond turned and looked at the Captain. "What? We are? We're singing it, but it doesn't sound exactly like the drink machine."
The Captain pointed at Desmond accusingly. "Don't deny it! You're all singing the song at all times of the cycle! You know that everyone thinks a drink is ready when you do it. You sound exactly like the machine!"
One of the Sefigans who got partially up from their station nods quickly, their antenna bobbing. "Captain River is correct, Des. You all really sound a lot like the drink machine. How are you doing it?"
Desmond shrugged. "I mean, we heard the song, and it gets like, stuck in our heads. Singing it feels like one way to get it out. Plus, it's fun to sing Kel. Fun to make sounds."
Kel's wing covers clack. "Can you mimic other things?"
"I don't know Kel, I don't really think of myself as a mimic. There are others who can do it much better than me. Some humans made a whole career out of it."
"That sounds like a thing I human would do, yes. But what about your Des? Let's see...." Kel looks down at their station. "What about this?"
Kes runs a test for the collision alarm. It's a warbling rising and falling tone."
Des thinks for a second and sings - for him - a pretty close approximation.
Captain River gasps and leans back in his chair. "How do you do that?"
Desmond wails. "It wasn't even that good! I just heard the tones and repeated them."
Kelly entered the Command Deck just then. She was carrying a pad and her overalls looked stained. "Captain River, I've just come to report tha-"
"Kelly! Mimic the collision alarm"
"What? Um.." Kelly makes the same noise."
Now, everyone on the Command Desk gasps. Kelly is taken aback and looks at Desmond. "What's going on Des?"
Desmond sighs. "They say we're all mimics. It started with the drink machine."
"Oh that. I still can't get it out of my head! 'beep beepita beep beep beep beepita beeeeeeep.'"
Kes starts to rise from his seat again and catches himself, and sits back down swearing.
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aziraphale-is-a-cat · 2 years
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Humans are space orcs, but humans are real fucking sneaky and don't tell anyone they're predators after realizing that other sentient species are all prey. It starts out as wanting to assimilate without any negative stigma, but eventually they realize that we're really alone as sentient predators.
So q human goes on a research ship and that ship gets stranded on a deathworld and everyone freaks put bc they don't know how to handle this but the human's just like 'build shelter, hunt food, start a fire' and they're all like 'hunt food???!!' And they human's like 'shit'.
So they see a human climb trees, throw shit, track prey and realize 'oh no, that thing could kill us' but the human's helping and they don't really have the man power to get rid of them.
And eventually they realize the whole pack bonding thing is stronger than the predatory instincts and are relieved
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arandomdumbass · 5 months
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Athletes
The humans were a truly terrifying species, with their resilience to pain, adaptability, high intelligence, sharp teeth and nails, and about a million more things that made us happy they were friendly.
But there was one thing that made even the hardiest soldier of the Intergalactic Federation quiver in fear, or whatever their species’ way of showing fear was.
Athletes.
When the Grang’nash species had first studied a human during their third visit to the desthworld named Terran, they had assured the council that humans had an upper limit.
The more I learn about them, however, the less I believe the Grang’nash.
When we, the Artilens, studied human culture, we came across terrifying videos.
Humans fighting other humans for sport, bleeding and risking even death for a small trophy and fame.
“Cross-countries” as they were called by the humans, capable of running for hours without breaks, pushing the human’s already incredible endurance to its limits.
“Rock-climbers” who scaled surfaces that would make even the Everams queasy with just their fingers.
“Sprinters” capable of running at speeds so fast that they can catch up to even the Yar’lisj. “Powerlifters” that had the strength to move our ships on their backs. “Marksmen” who could hit things even the Asereks had difficulties doing.
And there were people who enhanced their bodies with synthetic hormones, pushing them past even their horrifying limits.
Yes, the more I learn about humans, the happier I am they packbond with anything.
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garcavisconde · 1 year
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Humans could have never guessed that, in the far future, they would need to cover their faces with fancy masks in order to not scare other species.
It’s so strange, isn’t it? To think that fragiles humans could give so much fear to others that they have to cover their most human features. There’s species that look so much scarier than you - things that float, things with sharp razor teeth -, but you are the only ones that need to cover yourselves.
Everyone, however, seems to be terrified of humans. Their small teeth, single pair of eyes, weird-shaped nose... Separated, those things don’t scare anyone. But together, and combined with the bipedal shape and weird claws humans refer to as “nails”?
No one can look at all of this combined without wanting to run away.
Humans have found this to be strange, but they quickly got used to it. They made fancy masks, experimented with cloths, made new fashion trends to they could adapt to their new alien friends.There were laws regarding what humans should hide from others, too. They all varied from planet to planet, but were always there.
The earthlings wanted an explanation. Why were they the only ones who had to do it? Why just them? Why not others? Why?
They researched for a long time. Libraries, databases, rumours all across the Universe. Some even tried to contact spirits via an Ouija board in order to get some answers! It obviously didn’t work, and that story should be left for another day, but, eventually, an answer was... Almost found.
It was apparent that every single alien culture had a myth about the death of the Galaxy. A war so big and outrageous that it killed almost everything - and what was left either died, or was locked away for someone to find. And you know what one of the things that was left looked like?
Descriptions always referred to it as “bipedal, furless and scaleless, with two things that could see, two to smell, and another to consume”. The world’s first universal boogeyman! A little thing to scare children off.
Humans, however, didn’t know what to do with that information. Sure, they matched the description, but so many species also matched each other’s descriptions of monsters! Why would they be any different?
...
...
...
But you don’t care, do you?
You are a human from the 21st century. You are almost ashamed of how soft you are. How your insides break so easily, how all it takes is a single conflict for you to go to the hospital. You go to your little friends and talk about how fragile you are. “Look at me!”, you say, and you just don’t care. “Look at this scar I got!”
Stupid human. You are one of the few that can survive so many scars. Stupid, foolish human, who forgot that your parameters of survival were made inside a death world.
But you don’t care, do you? You will finish reading this. You will think of this as fun. You will forget.
Stupid. Foolish. Naive. Little. Human.
Born inside a death world, raised to hate, made to protect.
Earth was the prison someone made to contain you. And you grew to love it. You grew to care for it. You grew to become a part of it. And then you tried to get away from it, to distance yourselves from the nature that you broke your bodies to become a part of, because suddenly you felt all too good for it. And then you killed it.
But you were scared, weren’t you? You were soooo scared of killing your own little prison. You were so terrified for it. You replaced your claws with nails and your canines with fragile teeth and your eyes with souls to become a part of it. The prison made trees and changed its shape so it could be a part of you. And you were so scared of that sudden acceptance, weren’t you? Earth loved you, but all you wanted was to be alone.
So. You killed it.
And then you felt even worse. Because your species was made to be social, and the planet became a part of your stupid little pack, and now that there wasn’t anyone else to worry for, you began to worry about yourselves, and realized that your destiny was to die on this miserable wasteland all alone because you were too afraid to lose something you loved.
There’s acid on your stomachs, electricity on your bodies and blood on your veins. Things that kill. You were made to kill. Not care. Kill.
And you just had to kill the only part of you that didn’t feel remorse. You just had to do it, didn’t you? You killed it and ate it raw because you were starving, and then your little minds crumbled down in shame because now you could think clearly.
You rebuilt Earth. Made it love you again. Centuries of trying to do better, that’s what you did. Centuries of going to other planets and making them love you just like your home does, but you were small and stupid and did not realize that your parameters of living were based on a deathworld that hated you first before realizing you were a monster that was thrown away to die.
Everyone knows what you did. Everyone knows what you were. A monster, a weapon that killed the galaxy before being found and thrown away to the most lonely deathworld this Universe has ever seen.
And you just had to kill the part of you that made you hate the world, didn’t you?
Just like you simply had to kill the part of Earth that despised you.
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villainessbian · 1 year
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Concept: most aliens can get anxious, can get scared, can get fight-or-flight. What most aliens do not get, however, is stress. Stress is a weird thing even by human standards. It can build up over time or be something tied to a very limited situation. It can be caused by a lot of things, and it comes in a lot of different ways. But it's a core human reaction, when a situation is wrong, it causes stress until it is righted. And it even affects different people differently!
Cue Human Cassandra, on a ship with her friend and co-worker Human Pauline. The ship is crewed with a mix of species. It's a cargo ship - load up in a space port, unload in another, get news and supplies during their stops, and live as an ever-shifting family as some of the two dozen crew members, give or take, get replaced. Some leave come payday, and new ones come looking for the thrill of low-level adventure, experiencing warp drives across the safer roads of the known universe.
But getting the supplies you need, or want, in stops is never so easy. Humans are new to the galactic community, and their needs misunderstood. Most broad-edibility food is bland for them, but that's okay. A big enough bag of their condiments can last them years. But ADHD meds... now that's less easy to get, the further from Earth you are. And a contract too big for their captain to pass on came up, much farther than the two humans expected.
Cassandra's mood deteriorated, her work priorities out of order, her sleep schedule in disarray. Little by little, she grew restless, shifting moods and gears unpredictably. A few weeks in and she was a mess, barely able to keep up with the minimum her job doing maintenance and running safety diagnostics for the route charting team required of her. While Pauline could help with the mechanical aspects of keeping the ship running, picking up the "slack", the safety had to be double-checked by the charting and pilot teams. When the curves of asteroid probability reached beyond a certain level, several hundred simulations had to be run, time-consuming processes had to be used, to avoid any collision at speeds beyond speed c. Some truly exotic things happened to ships that experienced those, but none of them contained the words "surviving crew." A safe route avoided any probability of collision over .1% and when going faster than light, any choice of course required thinking in 3 dimensions plus relative time to navigate dangerous probability fields in one piece, finding time-specific corridors and accounting for a dozen variables at once.
After she had a breakdown over a path she would normally have been able to find in under a minute, Pauline spoke to a concerned pilot team member:
"You have to understand her, this is a stressful situation and she's doing her best..."
"What do you mean by 'stressful'?" Gabalt asked. The furry little creature stood on two arched legs, and barely reached up to Pauline's shoulder, opening three wide eyes with curiosity and concern in equal parts.
"Things are... getting difficult for her, and keep getting more difficult because she does not have medication to help her brain be efficient. It makes her tired, and inefficient, and as it goes on, she's less and less able to cope with the situation. The longer this goes on, the worse it gets, and that is stress. Getting more tired because it takes more energy to deal with the situation, and less efficient because she's more tired, and things get harder because she's less efficient, on and on until something can solve the problem and the stress goes away."
"That sounds... hard. Do all humans have to deal with this?"
"Well, everyone has sources of stress, but she's got a disability. Without her meds, she gets stressed all the time. Not a lot all at once, but it always adds up."
"Oh no! So she'll be stuck like that until we get closer to Earth?"
"Most likely, yes."
But the most momentous thing to happen this day was not her breakdown. Not an hour later, alarms blared up. The simulation holograms all displayed blinking red masses - the less-travelled "safe route" was not as well protected! An asteroid range had been detected cutting through the border field, and it was in their way!
Pauline froze up, not knowing what to do. Gabalt was too surprised to act fast. All the courses from the ship's library of regular manoeuvres suggested a crash chance of over 60%, and mere seconds to act before entering the field!
Before anyone could react, Cassandra came in running from her corner to the front of the bridge, slamming the warp drive shutdown button. Most holograms stuttered and collapsed, the exit from FTL essentially dividing one or several of their dimensions by zero.
Looking quickly at the few remaining ones and gazing at the screens showing the current outside situation like a large window would have - plus a few critical extra points of data - she adjusted the angles manually while everyone still shuddered from the gravitational and temporal whiplash of suddenly coming back into normal time. Unblinkingly, she spotted the asteroids on the route while the ship was still going, if not at relativistic speeds, still fast enough for a single pebble they met to vaporise the Whipple shields, the outer hull, the inner hull, the crew members, and the hull again coming out if they but grazed it. Confirming the angles visually, she played with the reaction wheels, the thrusters, the gravity drives, to divert the ship's course just enough to miss a collision while not risking any grave injury on board. There was no time to react - if anything showed up straight ahead on the "unaugmented" outside view screens, it was too late to not get splatted. After half the crew had had the time to get thrown to the side or on the ground due to the rough handling, she'd managed to avoid any crash.
Gabalt was reeling. While it was surely not impossible, these was the kind of moves experienced veterans would never wish to attempt, and the margins for error were ridiculously low! She'd saved the ship and everyone on it, whereas she'd been unable to do a simple safety run so soon before?
Pauline was white as a sheet, but this was nothing compared to Cassandra, shaking violently and breathing unevenly.
"Pauline? What is she doing?"
"That's... probably the adrenaline."
"What's it for?"
"It's from stress. When it comes it overcharges the body. It's like the traditional, 'fight or flight' instinct from survival in prey-predator paradigms, it lets you move fast but paralyses thought... it feels pretty bad after a lot of it is released though. Now she's crashing down, must be harrowing."
"How did she do that? And you said her thoughts were paralysed for precision manoeuvres?"
Cassandra's voice came, nearly a mutter: "I just... had to. do it."
Gabalt needed to understand what happened.
"What do you mean you had to? Someone had to do it, but why you?"
"It- it was very stressful, I saw you freeze, and so."
"But... but HOW did you do all that? That was extremely complicated, few pilots -whose main craft is directly piloting- would want to even try doing that when given a choice!?"
"I had to. do it, so I did. I couldn't. couldn't make a mistake."
"This makes absolutely no sense."
Pauline interrupted. "She just works like that. Lots of stress and when people freeze up, humans with her condition... sometimes, surprisingly, function better in the moment than others can."
"Ah. So it's a human thing. of course, it's a human thing. NOTHING MAKES ANY SENSE WITH YOUR ACCURSED SPECIES" the diminutive pilot pouted.
And so one more story of the humans doing the impossible spread around. Humans of a subtype, more easily harmed, sometimes unstable and needing help for the simplest things... accomplishing odd, unthinkable, borderline heroic feats under duress none could be expected to withstand - but only then. Cursed, blessed? No story-teller seemed too certain. But the "magical" species never stopped surprising all others. And a new proverb developed: "it's not over until the human says it is".
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