All species who first officially fly outside their own solar system are soon met with several thousand more species not as far as they thought. Those out there past a sun’s orbit will quickly reach out to make contact with these new creatures.
When you, humanity, reach past your own star, you are met with traditional greeting. The rundown, the history, who’s in charge, the laws.
And to that you said… nah.
The entitlement. Yikes. But that wasn’t uncommon and set off no red flags for the older and clearly much wiser species. Sometimes new species think they don’t need to be governed. You were regarded like a young toddler saying no to everything.
But as time went on, you continued to grow. And you continued to not accept governance from anyone else.
You got in trouble a lot.
This resistance wasn’t later detered. You doubled down, you armed your vessels, and you continued by your own laws.
That’s not to say you were unreasonable. (Although you surely saw yourselves as so). Despite the fears - even among your own kind - you didn’t take over planets already inhabited. You didn’t create needless wars or enslave innocent alien souls.
Then what was the problem, if not your morals?
You simply had your own way of living.
They recommended new planets for you, but no, you wanted that one.
They’d ask you let their services protect you from pirates, but no your missles did just fine. They explain that owning your own weapons is illegal… No it’s not because you didn’t make it illegal.
They’d teach you how to set up currencies… mmm, maybe? No. Never mind. Your way has been has been the norm for the past thousand years, and you, humanity, don’t do well with change. Unless it was your own idea.
Let us teach you the ways of art. Sure! But the Greeks did it better, still.
Your spaceships move too fast. You considered that to be the whole point of spaceships, despite alien’s insistance that it was illegal. At least communicate your routes. Of course! You didn’t want to crash, that’d be unreasonable.
Truthfully, humanity, you weren’t always right. And some of your ways really did have to change… at least one day. The aliens wouldn’t be your pushovers. You didn’t get away with everything. Scratching the furniture and knocking over a vase was frowned upon, so to speak.
But, you were mostly harmless. And eventually the other aliens learned that some of your ways they needed to let you do your way.
What makes humans weird isn’t that they have traits that are unheard of. In fact, many of their traits are rare, but often one can name other species with similar oddities.
What makes humans weird is they have so MANY rare traits. It’s one thing to have one or two in your species. But practically all of them???
“So they’re mostly hairless.”
“So like a Grovin?”
“Yeah but they also walk and run bipedally for REALLY long distances.”
“Ok, strange combo so far.”
“And thats barely the start, they’re also capable of sweating like Drask and have natural immunity to natural poisons and irritants like caffeine and capsaicin, they actually love the stuff and eat/drink them regularly.”
I had this idea after someone reminded me of an old joke.
Two humans siblings and their crew are taking passage on a cargo ship. The human male comes across a pen filled with several pig-like creatures. Bored, he paints some 1, 2, and 4 (in galactic common language) then releases only those few onto the massive ship.
They laugh now, but they’re definitely getting kicked off the ship.
The alien opened his drawer. Inside, a little plastic blue lizard stared up at him. He picked it up, regarded it, and tossed it on top of the dresser.
Inside the bathroom, he picked up his toothbrush and brought it to his only two teeth.
Something red was sticking out behind the toothbrush holder. With his claw, he pushed the ceramic piece to the side.
Behind the toothbrush holder was a little plastic red lizard.
Odd.
Throughout the morning routine, he continued to find lizards around his unit. The pillows, the hammock, the ceiling fan, his shoe… nowhere was safe.
With every new lizard he found, he thought surely it would be the last. With every “last one” there was one more to follow.
Pretty soon, he had thirty-one lizards stacked on top of his dresser.
“Where the hell did all these come from???”
It was later at breakfast that the alien would learn the origins of the little toys. It came in the form of another little creature - a human - who cheerfully sat down beside him.
“Find anything odd this morning?” they said.
“Are you the asshole who left a bunch of lizards in my unit?”
“Haha, April Fools’! You like them?”
“April what?”
Humans were known for their playfulness and pranks, so the explanation that came after was of no surprise to the alien. It would make sense that these little orcs made a holiday around it.
Later, the alien led the smaller creature back to his unit and was greeted by a torn apart bedroom and a colorful pile of lizards.
The human - unprompted - went to work sorting the little toys so they lined up in their respective color.
Cargo space ship that is too long for the wormhole is pushed perpendicular, causing intergalactic trade to stop. Aliens are fairly stressed out about it as supplies to planets will be a lot slower until they can get it unstuck.
The goddamn humans are making memes about it.
It’s too late at night to post on Instagram, but thankfully Tumblr shouldn’t mind
A year since I made this post has passed!
A small handful of you were very concerned about the missing excavator. This year, to make up for it, I give you our hero:
A crew of astronauts spend their entire lives to embark on an interstellar journey that will take 100’s of years to arrive. En route, however, technology advances. When they arrive, they find others have already arrived decades ago thanks to new tech…
Those others had arrived to find others who already arrived. And those others had found others who already arrived.
As a weird side effect, the further you draw a line to trace the new planet’s history, the younger / newer the astronaut is in respective to Earth generations.
And so, while the Earth’s first sent had their glory taken from remaining the first, it was the Earth’s first sent who were the final pioneers to complete their new home.
“You know how they have to cover themselves up at all times?”
“Yes?”
“Why do they have to do that? It’s not like they are walking on inhospitable places all the time. They could just wear a karket to cover some of their parts up”.
“… Uh…”.
“What?”
“Have you ever seen a human before?”
“Ofcourse!”
“That would answer the question”.
“It doesn’t? They have fur. They are just covering their fur”.
“They don’t have fur- where did you get that idea from?!”
“I saw a picture of them! They havefur! I heard they complain about the weather being too hot all the time. If only they wore a karketlike we do…”.
“You mean, the fur on their heads? That’s hair”.
“They have a special name for that? But the fur on their bodies is the same…”.
“For the last time, they don’t have fur! Not thick fur, at least. They like to shave”.
“That’s… Not true. I can’t think of any intelligent species without fur or scales. It would be like… Seeing exposed flesh. They don’t have exposed flesh”.
“They don’t- you know what? Look”.
“I am looking”.
“Look at this. Thisis a human! Does thislook like fur to you?!”
“W…”.
“Hm?!”
“What the fuck is that?! The fuck- the fuck?! That’s exposed flesh, but not really exposed! What are the other Earth intelligent creatures?!”
“There aren’t any other. Only humans and the robots, but they are basically the same thing”.
“You must be fucking kidding me…”.
“Show me what you saw, then!”
“Fine! Fine! Just let me find it- there! Right there!”
I put barely any effort into this because it was just going to stay in my notes app, but I remembered that people on Tumblr like the aliens interacting with humans stuff so here it is.
[Aboard a Radden ship in the inner Oort Cloud, a commander is rehearsing their first-contact speech with the translator]
“Hello, uh… what do I call them? Humans?”
“They generally feel othered and objectified if you call them that.”
“Oh… okay… what do they want then? Earthlings?”
“No no, that’s even worse. Very old fashioned.”
“Right. Terrans? Gaians?”
“Painfully Eurocentric, not to mention it makes them feel subjugated under one nation.”
“Fine. Do I say People of The Earth? Use some person-first language?”
“Well… that’s better… but it has typically been used be groups to promote their viewpoints as global when they’re not, and that’s not really the kind of thing you want to-”
“Fine. How do I address them?”
“Just say everyone. You’re alien to them; they’ll understand you’re not addressing everyone in the universe.”
I’m REALLY tired of the dark “aliens are evil” stories.
“Aliens think we are food” this. “Aliens think we’re a plague” that. And the “aliens are so much smarter and think us as puny ants” this and that.
I especially hate the “aliens are ugly monsters” part. Like, propaganda much?
At least some of us -I mean them! Some of THEM aren’t evil. In fact! Very (and I mean VERY) few of them are truly bad creatures.
Where’s our “aliens are good” this? And our “aliens are actually really impressed by human understanding of space despite early stages of galactic travel” that? And maybe a little “haha, once you get used to it, aliens are kinda cute” this and that?
I heard of a project called “humanity lost” by some guy named Callum Diggle and became interested in the whole “humans invade other planets trope”.
I would really like to see other people’s take on that subject because us just invading other planets and showing our worst and most prevalent side to a species who has never even known about us is scary.
It would probably be worst for the aliens if they’re barely a tribal species and had no men’s of defence against technologically advanced species.
(please reblog I want this to spread)
“Take us to your leader.”
The cartoonish words left the mouth of a true freak of nature. A creature missing a set of arms and missing way too many eyes. Teeth were overly abundant, though. Those additions were as clear as day as it gleefully sounded out that phrase.
“Our what?”
There was a roar among the creatures. If our alien was familiar he would have identified the roar as laughter. Unfortunately, he was not familiar, and unfortunately, it was a terrifying sound.
The noise was enough to make the smaller creature pull back his own lips and bare his teeth. If the other aliens - humans - were familiar they’d know the smaller alien was not smiling.
They were familiar. At this point, they had the small species’ fear expressions well-documented.
Moments before, the hero had been out in the field, stargazing. Eyes on a star that had been especially bright tonight.
And brighter, and brighter.
A ship - the vague shape of a pitcher - landed only several yards ahead of him. And out came three monsters - aliens! Just like in the theaters.
And now said aliens had him tied with his four arms behind his back.
“…the president, you mean? I don’t think I can do that…” the alien said.
The creature only smiled, this time without baring teeth.
“It wasn’t a… nevermind it.” The human looked him up and down. There was a moment of pity - it was like dodo birds, how easy these aliens were to pick off - but the pity went unregistered to the confused little creature. “He’ll do. Bring him to the ship.”
The other two, on command, hoisted the alien into the air.
“Wait… now hold on!” The alien squirmed and kicked, but to no avail. “I can’t get the president, but I can get my dad! He’s basically, like… myleader.”
He was shoved inside the ship and slammed down to his knees.
“Does that not count? I can get my teachers?”
His eyes traced up the walls of the room. Miniscule but undoubtedly sharp objects lined the shelving units. In the far back, rows and rows of tiny vials were behind a glass case. Inside was blue liquid that looked a lot like blood.
Speaking as a human, I think aliens are the weird ones because they don’t randomly have the urge to get out of bed in the middle of the night and clean their room
Aliens are the weird ones because they don’t have “waiting mode.”
When they have plans later - in three hours, for example- they can still be productive. Maybe do some basic cleaning. Draw a simple picture, even. Or watch a movie! :D
Haha, aliens are so weird.
Aliens. Are. SO WEIRD. That when they read for classes. They can actually read the source material. And. Not. Zone. Out. :)
“This should do it.” It looked down at itself, pleased.
The two - rather long - legs jut out under it’s torso. It used it’s new - ew - five fingers to feel along it’s skin, feeling the bumps of a ribcage underneath. A heartbeat too.
In front of it was a mirror, and staring back at itself was a human. Well, an illusion of one.
Time and time again, the newly star bound aliens, humans, had infiltrated it’s species ranks through elaborate disguises. They got better at it every time.
Not only were humans great with what they call “make up” but they had a way of mimicking their behaviors. It’s species tried to replicate this. Failed to. In the end, they had something better.
A team of highly immoral scientists who were given boundless permission to try whatever the hell they wanted. And they went with genetic mutation.
It was a painful change, and slow. Agonizingly slow. But now, it was a super solider with one superpower. A shape-shifter.
And it was time to test it out.
It strolled out of the bathroom and into the eating area where various alien species were seated. Only one human - the unwitting test subject - was present.
If this could pass for normal conversation, this could pass for war.
It strolled right up to the other creature - a man who had not yet seen him - and sat down.
“I’m glad to see one other human on this station,” it said.
The human non-committedly looked up. Only to jump with a start after taking it in.
“What are you?” he said.
“A human?” it said. If it’s species could sweat, it would do so by now.
The man stared at it a moment. He turned to the alien on his right and pointed to his left.
“Forgive me if this question is batshit insane, but what do you see?”
“Two humans?” The alien had three eyes.
Her species’ third eye was famous for detecting the most miniscule details and then committing it to subconscious memory. The rise and fall of a chest. The careful rythem of a human heart. How often - or little - a human blinks. Even human’s make-up tricks couldn’t bypass her species’ extra form of security.
“So it is,” said the man. She turned away and it found itself blinking quickly in relief. It cut that out when the human turned to it. “Sorry, I guess you’re just real ugly.”
“Ugh, rude.” All humans are ugly.
He scooted in closer on the bench and leaned in towards it. It found itself leaning away, but couldn’t help but notice the bead of sweat on the human’s forehead and how the pupils were shrunken as far as they could.
“Wanna hear an old Earth tale?”
“I’m sure I know it.” Was this a test?
“I doubt you know this one. My grandfather experienced it himself.” He leaned away. It had stop itself from blinking too rapidly again. “This is about an Earth cryptid.”
“Bigfoot?” it said, but nodded as if it already knew.
“Everyone knows Bigfoot,” he laughed. “No, he was driving down a dark country road unlit by street lights. He didn’t have his brights on - that’s important to the story, you see - but heaven knows why.”
Brights??? What are brights???
“Down the road an animal was crossing. A simple male deer with antlers. He couldn’t see its body yet, but he was familiar with the eyes. They glowed as his car sped closer.”
“He slowed as the deer became more apparent, and eventually came to a stop when the creature wouldn’t move. By now, he could see the antlers, the four legs, the neck. Not in detail, mind you, but he could see it ”
Other aliens in the room- not hearing this conversation - were trickling out of the room. There was no dramatic reason for this, they simply finished their lunch. The human, not paying any attention to his own lunch, continued the story.
“It’s not uncommon for deer to freeze, especially when lights flood their eyes. So my grandfather gave it a moment to realize it should run. When seconds ticked by, he honked at it.”
“There was something… off… about the deer. It looked every way like a deer, but the longer he stared, the longer that just didn’t seem right.”
“Was it a deer?” it said.
“It was not.”
“What was it?”
“Not a deer.”
The alien found itself frown at this in a perfectly human way.
“Time went on, and my grandfather decided to turn on the brights to try and see the creature better. And it was still… a deer… but not…”
It found its frown deepening.
“What’s worse was it began to move. Similar to a deer, but all wrong. Like maybe its legs bent the wrong way. Or perhaps the legs were too long. It was every way like a deer, but it just was not.”
“He drove home as soon as that not deer was out of his path. And yes, he found himself alive the next morning. But that encounter disturbed him, so he recounted it to everyone. And many people - especially in that town - could tell him their own stories.”
“…okay?”
“Well, that story is funny. Probably a figment of his imagination, but it does reflect a very real human instinct.”
This was another test. “Would this be something I know of?”
“It’s called uncanny valley. It occurs to us when something looks human… but is not.”
“Why?”
“Well, rumor has it that it was a instinct formed from a predator. Something that looked human but was not. A not human.”
“A not human? Is this true?”
“No,” he said. He laughed. “No, we most likely developed it for something a lot more practical. Corpses, you see. They carry a lot of bacteria, so we have a fear of them.”
“…interesting.”
“I have that very same feeling of you,” he said. The room was empty besides the two. He reached for his bottle above his lunch tray.
“But I’m not a corpse?”
“You’re about to be.”
The human tossed down the bottle, effectively cracking off the bottom half and forming his weapon.
It shape-shifted as it scurried away to retreat from the very much human.
@timeandspacelord I know exactly what you’re talking about and you know what? You’re so right. Thank you for reminding me, I hate it. /j
So ya’ll know about how stealth is a big thing on our planet, right? Predators use it to catch prey, prey use it to avoid predators, etc. etc. What if that’s exclusively an earth thing?
Like, if death worlds were rare and the need for stealth was less needed or even non-existant it’d be pretty surprising to aliens to find out just how important stealth is and how good humans (and Earth animals in general) are at it.
Smaller humans can curl up into tight spaces to hide. Camouflage is something we’re very good at with things like ghillie suits and camo facepaint to make ourselves near invisible.
We’re pretty good at staying still and will even cover our mouths to make our breathing quieter. Sometimes we even sneak up on people without meaning to. We’ve gotten so good at hiding we can even hide in plain sight.
Hell, even a portion of our entertainment contains stealth, we have childrens games like hide and seek that make us better at it and there’s even an entire genre of video game dedicated to it. Suffice to say stealth is something we’re pretty ok at.
Now imagine a human is put onto an alien ship as a crewmate and as the aliens learn more about humanity they decide to play hide and seek to learn more about us.
They go around and find the other races pretty easily, but they can’t find the human.
After 30 minutes they get s bit annoyed
After 1 hour they’re a bit worried
After 3 hours they’re panicking that they just lost their human friend and begin running around the ship screaming that they give up and begging the human to come out.
The human stands up from behind a pipe or something and ask why the crew couldn’t find them. What proceeds is Aliens becoming utterly horrified at our ability to remain concealed so well for so long.
Long story short, they never play hide and seek again.
Alien: “Human Steve, I understand you hate bathroom duty, but this week it’s your turn to- Oh goddammit! Where is he!? Dammit Steve, you can’t do this every time-”
“This should do it.” It looked down at itself, pleased.
The two - rather long - legs jut out under it’s torso. It used it’s new - ew - five fingers to feel along it’s skin, feeling the bumps of a ribcage underneath. A heartbeat too.
In front of it was a mirror, and staring back at itself was a human. Well, an illusion of one.
Time and time again, the newly star bound aliens, humans, had infiltrated it’s species ranks through elaborate disguises. They got better at it every time.
Not only were humans great with what they call “make up” but they had a way of mimicking their behaviors. It’s species tried to replicate this. Failed to. In the end, they had something better.
A team of highly immoral scientists who were given boundless permission to try whatever the hell they wanted. And they went with genetic mutation.
It was a painful change, and slow. Agonizingly slow. But now, it was a super solider with one superpower. A shape-shifter.
And it was time to test it out.
It strolled out of the bathroom and into the eating area where various alien species were seated. Only one human - the unwitting test subject - was present.
If this could pass for normal conversation, this could pass for war.
It strolled right up to the other creature - a man who had not yet seen him - and sat down.
“I’m glad to see one other human on this station,” it said.
The human non-committedly looked up. Only to jump with a start after taking it in.
“What are you?” he said.
“A human?” it said. If it’s species could sweat, it would do so by now.
The man stared at it a moment. He turned to the alien on his right and pointed to his left.
“Forgive me if this question is batshit insane, but what do you see?”
“Two humans?” The alien had three eyes.
Her species’ third eye was famous for detecting the most miniscule details and then committing it to subconscious memory. The rise and fall of a chest. The careful rythem of a human heart. How often - or little - a human blinks. Even human’s make-up tricks couldn’t bypass her species’ extra form of security.
“So it is,” said the man. She turned away and it found itself blinking quickly in relief. It cut that out when the human turned to it. “Sorry, I guess you’re just real ugly.”
“Ugh, rude.” All humans are ugly.
He scooted in closer on the bench and leaned in towards it. It found itself leaning away, but couldn’t help but notice the bead of sweat on the human’s forehead and how the pupils were shrunken as far as they could.
“Wanna hear an old Earth tale?”
“I’m sure I know it.” Was this a test?
“I doubt you know this one. My grandfather experienced it himself.” He leaned away. It had stop itself from blinking too rapidly again. “This is about an Earth cryptid.”
“Bigfoot?” it said, but nodded as if it already knew.
“Everyone knows Bigfoot,” he laughed. “No, he was driving down a dark country road unlit by street lights. He didn’t have his brights on - that’s important to the story, you see - but heaven knows why.”
Brights??? What are brights???
“Down the road an animal was crossing. A simple male deer with antlers. He couldn’t see its body yet, but he was familiar with the eyes. They glowed as his car sped closer.”
“He slowed as the deer became more apparent, and eventually came to a stop when the creature wouldn’t move. By now, he could see the antlers, the four legs, the neck. Not in detail, mind you, but he could see it ”
Other aliens in the room- not hearing this conversation - were trickling out of the room. There was no dramatic reason for this, they simply finished their lunch. The human, not paying any attention to his own lunch, continued the story.
“It’s not uncommon for deer to freeze, especially when lights flood their eyes. So my grandfather gave it a moment to realize it should run. When seconds ticked by, he honked at it.”
“There was something… off… about the deer. It looked every way like a deer, but the longer he stared, the longer that just didn’t seem right.”
“Was it a deer?” it said.
“It was not.”
“What was it?”
“Not a deer.”
The alien found itself frown at this in a perfectly human way.
“Time went on, and my grandfather decided to turn on the brights to try and see the creature better. And it was still… a deer… but not…”
It found its frown deepening.
“What’s worse was it began to move. Similar to a deer, but all wrong. Like maybe its legs bent the wrong way. Or perhaps the legs were too long. It was every way like a deer, but it just was not.”
“He drove home as soon as that not deer was out of his path. And yes, he found himself alive the next morning. But that encounter disturbed him, so he recounted it to everyone. And many people - especially in that town - could tell him their own stories.”
“…okay?”
“Well, that story is funny. Probably a figment of his imagination, but it does reflect a very real human instinct.”
This was another test. “Would this be something I know of?”
“It’s called uncanny valley. It occurs to us when something looks human… but is not.”
“Why?”
“Well, rumor has it that it was a instinct formed from a predator. Something that looked human but was not. A not human.”
“A not human? Is this true?”
“No,” he said. He laughed. “No, we most likely developed it for something a lot more practical. Corpses, you see. They carry a lot of bacteria, so we have a fear of them.”
“…interesting.”
“I have that very same feeling of you,” he said. The room was empty besides the two. He reached for his bottle above his lunch tray.
“But I’m not a corpse?”
“You’re about to be.”
The human tossed down the bottle, effectively cracking off the bottom half and forming his weapon.
It shape-shifted as it scurried away to retreat from the very much human.
