Aliens are so used to humans wanting to pet the most deadliest creatures they find because PUPPER that they have prepared on every ship with a human crewmate. They have human sitting duties and at least 2 chaperones when going planet-side, just in case they get any ideas.
Then a crew gets a human for the first time and it’s everything like what the Human Care Manual says. The human is loud, but pleasant, always joke around with the crew and was tremendous during that Flokkut Raid on Sector 6. The human even brought a camera with it to take pictures on the ship (it’s bigger than most, downright obnoxious in shape to some of the crew, but the human is happy with it, and a happy human is a bonded human)
So then they go down to a planet, letting the human explore with his chaperones. After walking for a while the group stumbles on a herd of Dwetts, elks with fish eyes and flippers. The aliens sigh cause it was bound to see creatures sooner or later, and turn to give Acceptable Reason #6 from the manual, when the human disappeared! They freak out because how did the human leave??? Does it have invisibility??? That wasn’t part of the manual!! But they hear their human saying “guys, stop moving! You’re going to upset them!”
They look down to see the human lying on his stomach looking through his camera, taking pictures. They were shocked, but did as they were told and sat down. For hours they watched the human taking photos, being as quiet as still as possible. This couldn’t be the same human??
When the human was done, it got up, stretched, and headed back for the ship. The chaperones followed suit. When they got back the captain was surprised that they returned without a creature (even with 2 chaperones, he suspected that the human would win anyway) but was astonished to hear what had happened.
“You didn’t want to take one as these ‘pets’ for the ship??”
“No???? Why would I? They aren’t domesticated, they need space to live which the ship wouldn’t supply.”
“But aren’t they cute in human terms?”
“I mean, I would say more interesting than cute. But seriously, how would we take care of it? How to feed it, groom it, keep away from all the sensitive equipment? It would be dangerous for us and it if we take one from the wild. You really want one that badly?”
“Wha- No! It’s just…you seemed to like them?”
“I mean yeah, it’s a new animal species, and I did take pictures, but not as long as I hoped for. Honestly you have to look at the ecosystem here before getting any animals on board.”
The captain immediately notified the Human Care Committee that their section on animal bonding does not apply to human subclass professional wildlife photographer
Tag: humans are weird
Humans are adorable.
Supporting evidence:
1. Humans say ‘ow’, even if they haven’t actually been hurt. It’s just a thing they say when they think they might have been hurt, but aren’t sure yet.
2. Humans collect shiny things and decorate their bodies and nests with them. The shinier the better, although each individual has a unique taste for style and colouring
3. Humans are not an aquatic or even amphibious species, but they flock to bodies of water simply to play in it. They can’t even hold their breath all that long; they just love to splash!
4. When night falls and the sky goes dark, humans become drowsy and begin to cocoon themselves in soft, fluffy bedding.
5. Some humans spend time in each other’s nests! Just for fun! It’s not their nest; they’re just visiting each other.
6. Some humans use pigments and dyes to make their bodies flashy and colourful! They even attach shiny dangly bits to their cartalidgous membranes!
7. Humans are very clever, and sometimes adopt creatures from other species into their family units. They don’t seem to notice the obvious differences, and often raise them alongside their own young!
8. If a human sees another creature in distress, they can commonly be observed trying to help! Even at their own risk, most humans are deeply compassionate creatures!
9. If a human hears a particularity catchy sound or tune, it will often mimic it, even to the point of annoying themselves!
10. Sneezes are entirely involuntary, and completely adorable. Especially when the human in question becomes frustrated
11. Humans love treats!!! Some more than others. Many humans will save these treats specifically for a later date when they are in need of comfort or reassurance. IE, pickles, pop tarts, Popsicles, etc
12. They’re learning to travel in space!!! They can’t get very far, but they’re trying!!! So far, they’ve made it to the end of their yard, and have found rocks
this sounds like it was written by a really enthusiastic alien humanologist
Humans Are Weird
So there has been a bit of “what if humans were the weird ones?” going around tumblr at the moment and Earth Day got me thinking. Earth is a wonky place, the axis tilts, the orbit wobbles, and the ground spews molten rock for goodness sakes. What if what makes humans weird is just our capacity to survive? What if all the other life bearing planets are these mild, Mediterranean climates with no seasons, no tectonic plates, and no intense weather?
What if several species (including humans) land on a world and the humans are all “SCORE! Earth like world! Let’s get exploring before we get out competed!” And the planet starts offing the other aliens right and left, electric storms, hypothermia, tornadoes and the humans are just … there… counting seconds between flashes, having snowball fights, and just surviving.
To paraphrase one of my favorite bits of a ‘humans are awesome’ fiction megapost: “you don’t know you’re from a Death World until you leave it.” For a ton of reasons, I really like the idea of Earth being Space Australia.
Earth being Space Australia
Words cannot express how much I love these posts
Alien: “I’m sorry, what did you just say your comfortable temperature range is?”
Human: “Honestly we can tolerate anywhere from -40 to 50 Celcius, but we prefer the 0 to 30 range.”
Alien: “……. I’m sorry, did you just list temperatures below freezing?”
Human: “Yeah, but most of us prefer to throw on scarves or jackets at those temperatures it can be a bit nippy.”
Other human: “Nah mate, I knew this guy in college who refused to wear anything past his knees and elbows until it was -20 at least.”
Human: “Heh. Yeah everybody knows someone like that.”
Alien: “……. And did you also say 50 Celcius? As in, half way to boiling?”
Human: “Eugh. Yes. It sucks, we sweat everywhere, and god help you if you touch a seatbelt buckle, but yes.”
Alien: “……. We’ve got like 50 uninhabitable planets we think you might enjoy.”
“You’re telling me that you have… settlements. On islands with active volcanism?”
“Well, yeah. I’m not about to tell Iceland and Hawaii how to live their lives. Actually, it’s kind of a tourist attraction.”
“What, the molten rock?”
“Well, yeah! It’s not every day you see a mountain spew out liquid rocks! The best one is Yellowstone, though. All these hot springs and geysers from the supervolcano–”
“You ACTIVELY SEEK OUT ACTIVE SUPERVOLCANOES?”
“Shit, man, we swim in the groundwater near them.”
Sounds like the “Damned” trilogy by Alan Dean Foster.
“And you say the poles of your world would get as low as negative one hundred with wind chill?”
“Yup, with blizzards you cant see through every other day just about.”
“Amazing! when did you manage to send drones that could survive such temperatures?”
“… well, actually…”
“… what?”
“…we kinda……. sent……….. people…..”
“…”
“…”
“…what?”
“we sent-”
“no yeah I heard you I just- what? You sent… HUMANS… to a place one hundred degrees below freezing?”
“y-yeah”
“and they didn’t… die?”
“Well the first few did”
“PEOPLE DIED OF THE COLD AND YOUR SOLUTION WAS TO SEND MORE PEOPLE???!?!?!?”
My new favorite Humans are Weird quote
“PEOPLE DIED OF THE COLD AND YOUR SOLUTION WAS TO SEND MORE PEOPLE?”
aka The History of Russia
aka Arctic Exploration
aka The History of Alaska
Being from Alaska, this was sort of how I felt going to college in the lower 48′s and learned that no one else had been put through a literal survival camp as a regular part of their school curriculum, including but not limited to:
1. Learning to recognize all forms of animal tracks in the wild so you can avoid bears and moose and search out rabbits and other small animals to eat.
2. Extensive swimming and climbing on glacial pieces with competitions to see who could last the longest, followed by a group sit in the sauna so we wouldn’t get hypothermia (no, not kidding, I really did this many times as a kid!)
3. How to navigate using the stars to get back to civilization.
4. How to select the right type of moss from the trees to start a fire with damp wood (because, y’know, you’re in a field of snow. Nothing is dry.)
5. How to carve out a small igloo-like space to sleep in the snow to preserve body heat and reduce the windchill so you won’t freeze to death in the arctic.
“I’m telling you, I don’t think we need to worry about territory conflicts with the humans. You know all those deathtrap hell-worlds in the Argoth Cluster?”
“Those worthless rocks? Yeah.”
“80% of them are considered ‘resort destinations’ by those freaky little primates.”“I’m telling you, they terraform for fun!”
“Don’t be ridiculous”
“No, seriously. Some of their most celebrated cultural loci are built on swamps. They have an entire city that is literally in a body of water. Not, like, an artificial pontoon city, they literally sunk the foundations into water. For Grilp’s sake, they build elaborate structures out of frozen water AND THEN SLEEP IN THEM.”
“Dear Thilak. Think we could get them to terraform our moons?”
“Psh, they’d probably pay for the privilege.”Eventually, it occurs to someone that humans are the perfect terraforming shock troops, as it were. They think it’s fun to be sent to horrible planets! They’re really good at surviving and then taming them! All you have to do is sit back and wait until the planet is habitable, and then move there yourself! It’s genius.
It only takes one try before the reality of the situation sets in: human definitions of ‘taming’ and ‘habitable’ are woefully incomplete.
“Why did you not eliminate the venomous plant life?” Grahssk’ti moans, clutching one limb.
“Those?” The human laughs. “Why bother? They’re not that bad. And they eat the mosquitoes.”
Grahssk’ti shudders. The ‘mosquitoes’ are… not to be mentioned. Just one swarm of them caused a landing shuttle to crash three planetary daylights ago.
“And the acid storms? Why did you not warn us of them?”
“I mean, they’re annoying,” the human says, shrugging, “but we figured the cool sunsets made up for it.”
Grahssk’ti flails helplessly. “What about the ten-meter tall Fanged Death Bringers? They can eliminate an entire settlement in under an hour!”
“They’re so cute!” the human says, brightening. “Have you met mine? Her name is Spot!”
Humans are told of some planet or region of space that is considered “completely and utterly inhospitable – it would be folly to try and settle there.”
Without fail, a decent number make it a point to settle there because “Fuck You That’s Why.” It doesn’t matter how uneconomical it is, how difficult the conditions are, how utterly ridiculous it may seem, there will be at least one human who will attempt to do it only because someone else regardless of species says it is improbable or WORSE impossible.
“This moon is still forming as such it is primarily soft – by that I mean most of the magma is close to the surface and-”
‘OH BADASS you mean its like Mustafar right!?!?!?! I’m totally going to build a castle there.’
“What. I mean. There is NO fertile ground there whatsoever. No ecosystem. It is molten rock and minerals only.”
‘Which will make my castle there look METAL AS FUCK am I RIGHT!?!??! Come on. COME ON. I TAUGHT YOU HOW TO FISTBUMP COME ON.’
“….you….you are going to die, you know this right?”
‘I’m getting the feeling you don’t want to come to Lava Castle for some reason?’
This is the quality scifi I sign up for.
Inspired by various tumblr posts.
Humans quickly get a reputation among the interplanetry alliance and the reputation is this: when going somewhere dangerous, take a human.
Humans are tough. Humans can last days without food. Humans heal so fast they pierce holes in themselves or inject ink for fun. Humans will walk for days on broken bones in order to make it to safety. Humans will literally cut off bits of themselves if trapped by a disaster.
You would be amazed what humans will do to survive. Or to ensure the survival of others they feel responsible for.
That’s the other thing. Humans pack-bond, and they spill their pack-bonding instincts everywhere. Sure it’s weird when they talk sympathetically to broken spaceships or try to pet every lifeform that scans as non-toxic. It’s even a little weird that just existing in the same place as them for long enough seems to make them care about you. But if you’re hurt, if you’re trapped, if you need someone to fetch help?
You really want a human.
you know fantasy dragon soulbonding fic i want more of that where the humans are the dragons, like, we’re huge, we’re old, we’re scrappy as hell, and if you are small and cute enough we would be delighted to carry you around on our back
Oh god, now I’m imagining sapient species with lifetimes of, like, a year, and there’s one family that’s been attached to, like, a pirate since she rescued the doll-sized matriarch. She was 23 and just getting command of her first space cruiser, and because she rescued the matriach, the entire family regards her as their protector, they literally live in her bedroom until they reproduce too much (They have a litter every month), then they start traveling around her ship, and there’s entire societies all throughout the ship after, like, 5 years.
She goes down to the engine room for the first time in a decade because she has to find the head engineer for reasons, and there are literal little beasties down there who hail her as the “First guardian” and are so astonished to see her, and they want to come with her to the promised land, and she’s just like “Where?” They describe a luxurious land of softness, and she realizes they mean her bedroom.
So she starts making a habit of visiting every place on her ship multiple times a year, bringing the little buggers to see her room and bringing them home, and her legit crew thinks these guys are hilarious and adorable, and anyone with one of them in attendance has permission to visit her room, and long story short, after 20 years, she’s like a crazy cat lady, but with hundreds and hundreds of doll-sized little aliens who literally worship her.
Alternatively, what about the story where we’re the equivalent of the sentient cats? Like we’re small and kinda funny-looking and our lifespan isn’t that great, but we bond with other species like whoa, so most starships have a human as a mascot (the long haul freighters have an entire family, maybe even a village)
And mostly we’re just seen as the cute mascot. But then every now and then the shit hits the impeller. And that’s when you get stories like “he jammed our sonar, and he had a gun on us and we thought we were done for! But, I guess he’d forgotten how flexible humans are. Our ship’s human had crawled out of her nest and behind the console, you know, in that wiring gap? She jumped on his back and ripped his antennae out! With her bare hands! He threw her into the console and she just got right back up and kept fighting, smashed her upper joints into his flaps over and over again, and she didn’t stop until he quit moving, even though she was leaking everywhere and we could see a piece of her inner skeleton! We rushed her to the med techs but we were sure she was done for. But, did you know, humans can reattach their skeleton parts?? She gets around just fine now, says it doesn’t bother her. She saved all of us. She could have just stayed in her nest and been fine, but she defended us and saved the ship. I’m never serving on a crew without a human ever again.”
“Yeah, did you hear about the crew from over Ktl’ree way? They had a gas leak in the middle of that awful nebula they’ve got, took out everyone but their humans. Turns out, their humans rewired their wormhole drive so they could get the ship home in time to get everyone medical attention. Said they figured they’d either all survive or they’d all go together. Now that’s loyalty. Can you imagine?”
“I’ve heard they’re even more fierce about defending the ship if you have a bonded pair. We’ve just had the one, since we’re short haul, but we’re looking for another one after that incident. It’s hard to find one the right age who doesn’t have a ship, though, never mind one she likes. There was one attached to another ship, they actually did bond for a bit, and the other ship offered to pay for our search for a new pair if she’d come with them. We talked to her about it—but she refused to leave us. She said ‘girlfriends come and go but we’re family.’ Can you believe that?”
“They’re amazing. I don’t understand ships who don’t have at least one. I served on a luxury cruiser that had a whole bunch, five or six families. Have you seen their young? They’re so adorable!”
“I know, right? Ours has offspring-from-the-same-parents she talks to whenever we’re in port, and she shows us pictures of their young. We’d find the room if she wanted some, but she says no, she’s not ready—but maybe if we find another one she can bond with. We’re kind of hoping.”
Question of Smoke 