#Humans are Space Oddities

[incorrect-green-lantern-quotes]

Guy: If you think about it, spicy food is just BDSM for the mouth. Pleasure derived from pain, y'know? Greet: ...I understand all those words individually

It's such a minor thing, but my favorite reoccurring joke from various Green Lantern media is that Earth food is Weird

Green Lantern/Sinestro Corps Secret Files

Like Greet is canonically one of the best chefs in the entire universe?? This dude is the Gordon Ramsay of space and apparently he can't even get bread or beer right?? The stuff humanity has been making since before we even developed written language???

High key it's probably because humans are freaks who can and will put anything in our mouths

[jpitha]

Concurrency Point 1

Next

N'ren

It was the knowledge that was the worst, N’ren decided.

She - and the rest of the crew of the K’laxi Frigate Menium - knew that the missiles were coming. Worse, she knew that there was nothing to be done about them. Their little frigate had no way to dodge the incoming weapons of war. The Xenni always seemed to attack this way; exit the Gate, launch missiles, then follow up with energy weapons if cleanup was necessary. Sitting in the back of the command room at her station she could see the Captain’s fur puff out and then lower as she consciously tried to calm herself. K’laxi were originally a small mammalian species in the tall boreal forests of home, and it was evolutionary beneficial to puff your fur to make yourself look larger to the few predators that existed. Now, it, plus her tail that she couldn’t stop swishing just let everyone know she was anxious.

“Sensors! How long do we have?” Captain Ko-tas Weniar barked at the officer sitting in front of the sensor suite. N’ren saw him flinch. It was subtle, mostly in his large, pointed ears, but as a member of the Mel’itim - the secret police - she had extra training on body language. “No more than five minutes, Captain.” He said and his ears flattened unconsciously as he delivered the bad news.

Captain Weniar clicked the comm. “Weapons, can we defend against the incoming missiles?”

“We have three anti-missiles ready and waiting, with two more currently printing. Point defense slug throwers are at 50% capacity.” That would take care of three quarters of the missiles, but means that one or two missiles will still hit, if the point defense slugs can’t clean up what’s left. N’ren had observed their training when she first came aboard. Her hopes for a successful strike were low.

“We can’t outrun the missiles, even if we thrust away at emergency, we’d never gain enough speed,” Captain Weniar was talking to herself in her birth language, Kinmar, quietly. N’ren and Heli’n, the Captain’s XO were the only ones close enough to hear, and N’ren was probably the only person aboard who understood her. Not a lot of people spoke Kinmar, but N’ren had a knack for languages. She had already made a note in her report about the habit, but also mentioned that she didn’t consider it a security risk as she only did it during periods of high stress.

“What about-” Captain Weniar said and stopped, her ears straight up. “Menium! What is the thickest area of the ship?”

“One moment, Captain.” Menium, the ship’s AI said. After a moment they spoke up. “The ventral rear quadrant has thicker hull plating to account for drive emissions.”

“That’s it! Helm, rotate us such that that section of the hull is facing the missiles.” She clicked the comm again. “All Hands. Strike Protocol.” As the words left her mouth, a new alarm sounded, shrill and insistent. She continued, “Everyone except for point defense suit up and move to the rear activity room, now.”

Strike Protocol was developed nearly a year into the war. When missiles were incoming and it was confirmed to not be possible to destroy them all, everyone was to enter their spacesuits so that a hull breach didn’t kill everyone. N’ren grabbed her suit from the locker outside of Command and stepped into it with the confident motions of someone who practiced it until she could don her suit while nearly asleep. After completing her diagnostics and her suit told her it was secure, she went over to some of the younger officers, and helped them get their suits ready. They are younger and younger, every season, She thought to herself. Soon, we will run out of recruits to throw against the Xenni.

The crew walked quickly towards the rear activity room. It was still configured for their kem-ball tournament. N’ren sighed internally. She was at the top of the leaderboard, but now the whole thing was going to have to be taken down. If they survived enough to have another tournament, she’d start back at the bottom like everyone else.

The room was able to hold everyone, though towards the end it was slightly claustrophobic. The fact that everyone was suited and that gave a few centimeters of additional personal space helped N’ren. She hated crowds, especially ones that weren’t moving. Her large triangular ears on the top of her head felt Menium roll to present her belly to the missiles. She chuckled internally at the thought. Presenting one’s belly to an adversary to save one’s self was a very old instinct.

Before she could worry herself further, N’ren felt, rather than heard the missiles launch. The heavy thumps of the launcher vibrated the hull beneath her feet, and she counted four launches. They were able to finish one of the missiles after all. She thought. A good note for her report - should they survive.

A few minutes after the missiles launched, the braying roar of the slug thrower filled the ship with noise. Shooting in short bursts to conserve ammunition, they fired off and on for half a minute, and then ceased, having run out of ammunition. All she could do was wait.

N’ren opened the secure Mel’itim channel she had, and selected the Captain’s radio. She could do this to any suit aboard, but she didn’t like to do it unless she had to. “Ko-tas.”

Captain Weniar squeaked in surprise at the interruption. “Oh, Discoverer N’ren, I apologize. You startled me.”

“You may call me just N’ren, it’s all right, Ko-tas. Were the missiles destroyed?”

“All except one, Disc-er, N’ren. We shall have to endure the strike.” “What of our attackers?”

“After firing missiles, most of the Xenni retreated back through the Gate. Only one remains to follow up on the attack. If the ancestors are pleased, we shall live this day.”

Only one Xenni ship. It probably wasn’t a Warfinder, their largest ships, probably just a light skirmisher. Ko-tas was right; they could either defeat or escape from a single Xenni skirmisher. Not only that, but she had underestimated the point defense crew. She felt a twinge of guilt over thinking them unskilled. “Your missileers and point defense crew are to be commended. I shall mention their skill in my report.”

“T-thank you N’ren, that is very generous.” Ko-tas sounded genuinely surprised. N’ren wondered if she thought that her report was going to be negative.

“Captain, it is never my intention to come to a ship just to deliver a negative report. My edict is to report the successes of the K’laxi as well as our challenges.”

Before the Captain could reply, the missile struck. The hull plating beneath N’ren jumped up, nearly pushing her knees into her face. As it was, the knee protectors clacked against the front of her helmet. Everyone went down in a heap of bodies and for a few moments, chaos reigned. Eventually people realized that the breach alarms had not sounded and that there was still air in the ship. N’ren shook her head, once again annoyed at her whiskers brushing against the inner wall of the helmet. “Menium, this is N’ren. Damage report.”

“Er, yes Discoverer. I am concurrently giving a report to the Captain.”

“I understand, but you will give me the same report.”

“We have sustained minor damage, much less than expected. Sensors is reviewing footage of the missiles for confirmation, but either they were smaller than anticipated, or the one that struck us was faulty. Regardless, other than some buckled hull plating and scorching, we are fine.”

N’ren heard Captain Weniar’s voice in everyone’s comm. “We have survived the attack with minimal damage and no injuries. However, there isn’t time to celebrate, we must return to our stations - while still suited - and break for the Gate.”

Back in her seat in Command, N’ren shifted, trying to get more comfortable. She cursed the designers who never really thought about having to sit in a regular chair while suited. Her faceplate was open, to let in fresh air, her rebellion to the suit order. Looking around she saw that she was in fact, the only person with her faceplate open. The Captain was standing over the helm station, working out something with the officer.

Satisfied, she returned to her seat, and signaled the crew. “We are going to attempt to run past the Xenni guarding the gate. All available power will be shunted to the main drive - including environmental. Remain in your suits until I give the order.” She said, and N’ren saw her eyes glance over to her. She sheepishly closed her faceplate, and the Captain continued. “You have done well, but we are not finished yet. Keep this up and we will return home victorious.”

The lights dimmed, and N’ren could feel the normal background noises and vibration of the ship still. It was very quiet. Other than the creaks of people shifting in their seats trying to get comfortable, there was no noise. Then, the drive fired.

It was a wall of sound, higher pitched and much more ragged than usual. Even with the compensators set to maximum, she was pressed into her seat from the acceleration. They must have shunted power from them as well. This was it. They would either make the Gate, or the Xenni would get them.

“Missile incoming!” The sensor officer shouted. His voice crackled over the suit radios.

“Will it hit?” Captain Weinar’s voice was calm, though N’ren could hear the edge in it.

“One moment… No, our speed is too great, it will not be able to catch us.” He said, and N’ren’s shoulders relaxed, and she opened her hand which had been balled tightly.

“Gate control, please begin transmitting the addressing codes to the Gate. Send us to Celiton.”

Celiton was a small, uninhabited system, one of many such empty systems that nonetheless had a Gate. K’laxi scientists long wondered why there were so many empty systems with a Gate. Arguments about former empires, or some kind of Great War abounded.

Normally, one could not trace a Gate traversal, so it was standard protocol to not Gate back to K’lax when under attack. The Captain was to continue to Gate jump until they had successfully shaken off the attackers, and only then Gate to K’lax.

Their small ship streaked past the Xenni skirmisher, and as they did, N’ren’s small subroutine briefly commanded all sensors to make a very high resolution scan to the ship. She made sure that she did not unduly steal power from the engines, but she heard the surprised chirp of the officer when he realized he lost control of his sensor suite. It only lasted a moment and control returned quickly enough that N’ren hoped he thought it was just a glitch. She checked her repository and sure enough, it had been filled with high resolution scans of the ship.

The Gate ahead glowed the painful, blurry blue of activation, and as they dashed ahead, a noise like rain on a metal roof reverberated through the ship.

“We have been struck by multiple slugs from the Xenni ship,” Menium said. “Multiple small hull breaches, and reports of injuries.” “What? How?” Captain Weniar looked over at Sensors. “You didn’t see it?”

“I apologize, Captain, my station- the suite, there was some kind of glitch, I had no control over the sensors for just a few moments. I was regaining control and running diagnostics when we were struck.” N’ren was glad for once of the suits as her own fur puffed out and her eyes widened, realizing what happened. Her own scan of the Xenni ship must have caused them to retaliate, and with the sensors down because of ‘a glitch’ they didn’t see the attack.

“Captain, it appears that the Xenni attack struck the Gate as well, look.” Menium said and put a view from the forward telescopes on the large screen.

The Gate was a perfect circle dozens of kilometers across with a small rectangular thing on one side. That was the building where the addressing stone was kept. Currently, there was some kind of white vapor pouring out at a high velocity, and the active gate looked… wrong. Instead of a pure blue flat plane, it undulated and wobbled. “Full Stop, Full Stop!” Captin Weniar screamed, her voice so shrill that the radio peaked as she yelled.

“We cannot stop in time.” Menium said cooly. “We are going to trav-”

Moments after the K’laxi traversed the damaged Gate, the Xenni skirmisher approached slowly. Instead of shutting down, as it normally does after a ship traverses, the Gate field started to grow in large blobby waves, larger and larger. The Xenni immediately flipped 180 degrees, their drive flame huge and ragged from being overdriven. It was all for nothing though, because at that moment, the Gate’s field enveloped the skirmisher and it too, traversed.

[hisuianserperior]

Human saliva being numbing anesthesia for Aliens

Human: Injures their hand and starts licking their finger

Alien: What are you doing?

H: Oh this? Our saliva helps numb the pain.

A: How? Why?

H: I don't know man it's instinctive.

A: May I try?

H, a little weirded out but willing to do whatever: Sure dude, knock yourself out. *Spits on hand or whatever appendage aliens have*

A: Hand immediately becomes completely numb and unmovable.

H: Well that was effective

[injuries-in-dust]

And here we find a rare instance of a Humans Are Space Orcs post from Tiktok that isn't an AI voice reading a reddit post over a minecraft video.

[gehenna-checklist]

I like to imagine a scenario where humanity just never developed energy guns and has stuck to kinetic weaponry forever and at some point some alien species thinks about messing with the wrong apex predator species.

Alien 1: "Captain, I assure you, our ships can't be breached by anything weaker than a concentrated proton beam. They barely have lasers. We'll be fine."

Alien 2: "Sub relativistic projectile incom-" gets hit by a railgun shell at mach fuck

[doctormead]

Alien: Human Steve! Come over here, quickly!

Steve: What?! What's wrong?

A: A temporal vortex has opened in the area! From the clothing of those humans, it seems to be connected to roughly 500 solar years ago!

S: Wha...Oh, those are medieval re-enactors.

A: They're what?

S: Re-enactors. People who like to dress up and do things like they were done in a past time. Armored combat, crafts, they even have full feasts and royal courts.

A: And humans do this for fun.

S: Yep. And it's also an interesting way to learn history.

A: But isn't that dangerous?

S: Well, any simulated combat has some risks, but they do take precautions.

A: No, Human Steve! I mean, if you have humans running around like that, how can you tell if a real temporal vortex opens up?!

S: .....That....happens?

[loonarmuunar]

Humans being the first. Not the strongest or the smartest or the weirdest or the most violent. Just the first.

We called out into the dark over and over. We sent out messages in hopes. We searched every planet we could reach, in hopes of any sign of life. Any at all.

We thought, hoped we were the last, because we couldn’t bear the idea of being the one ones this awake and alive in a world as vast as this.

And we died alone.

When the others are born, many many years later, they find us, everything we left for them.

They recover The Golden Record and look at it a million times over, they dig up our fossils and put us in museums, they study us for years and years, loving us as we love our ancestors’ painted hands on cave walls.

In a lot of their languages, the word they use for us has the same root for “mother”.

[skritzzy]

I feel like any aliens that were prey at some point in evolution would have an odd fear of humans. Mostly cause they look like predators, act a bit like predators, and ARE predators. One perfect example is when we're focused on something like a mosquito that's been bugging us for a long time and we are just done.

Alien: "What. What..?"

Human: *HUNTING down a mosquito it saw*

Alien: ".... yeah I am really uncomfortable...."

Human: *quiet footsteps, pupils dialated, intense focus,*

Alien: *WAR FLASHBACKS*

Human: "Found you." *absolutely desimates the mosquito, squashing it into a million pieces as it's guts and various body parts liquidize into blood of the bloodthirsty, now stained on the palm of the human. A living being now reduced to a useless corpse as the human wipes the remains on their pants*

Alien: "I feel like I've just gained trauma."

[candz13z]

Another humans and aliens post because im hooked on it still.

Humans are friendly. Really friendly. Theyll make friends with anything that can move. They pack bond like crazy and they seem to understand their emotions better than any other species and tend to be the therapist of the ship.

So, why is it that, on the ships, with more than a couple humans on it, are the ones that have the most fights.

Humans are so friendly, you could probably do just about anything to them and they wouldnt even so much as blink. But one human woke up another human too early one day and they both ended up in the medbay. The worst part is- they were back to being friends again not even a full day cycle later.

There had been another fight between a couple of other humans too, but this fight wasnt physical. It was a screaming match, or atleast thats what the humans called it. This fight wasnt even physical but the humans involved in this one had cried in this one. They did not go back to being friends afterwards. It made no sense- but what made even less sense happened a week later.

A team of humans showed up for a 'debate'. To the aliens understanding- it was a series of arguements over a couple of prepared questions. Every alien on the ship expected there to be more tears and more sadness- but instead the humans cheered on the debate and the people screaming at eachother laughed about it afterwards.

Any alien with enough sentience on the ship that day remembered the fact that despite being as friendly as they were, humans are still very, very unexplored territory.

[shailion]

Do you think aliens would get freaked out when we crack our joints?

*human stands up after too long spent hunched over the computer, all joints cracking*

*alien coworker whose only experience with human anatomy comes from movies where crack = broken bone*

[archrries]

Humans cracking their knuckles as an intimidation tactic against aliens

Can you imagine being an alien and this thing just broke its bones at you?????

I'd be scared tbh

Why did it make that noise

That's a bone breaking noise

It's like those ppl who bite off their acrylics before a fight

[drewthelocalnerd]

Haven’t really seen it yet so here we go, *Humans* have THREAT DISPLAYS! Sure, we seems small in comparison to other creatures both on or off our planet, but when we’re actively trying to make friends with everything we see that’s a good thing. But what if we don’t wanna seem small and friendly, say the vibes are real bad and getting worse, so instincts kick in and we gotta be *dangerous*

Take bears for example, those famous Terran predators. Big furry tanks capable of tearing into cars. We’re supposed to make ourselves look BIGGER to scare them off! Insane, but it works!

Other humans! We’re not *all* super nice, so what do we do when another deathworlder seems sketchy? Crack our knuckles, our necks, even flash our teeth a little for some flare, the literal post up or get done up pose where you invade their space and just in general look threatening. Our second natural language being body language, saying “back off or I’ll mess you up”, of course we have threat displays, and I’ll be the first to say I don’t always consciously know I’m doing them.

So when we finally have outer space friends, they’re gonna lose their shit seeing stuff like this.

[injuries-in-dust]

Galactic Forum, human guide section.

I think we found the perfect enrichment for human crew members.

Our humans really enjoyed this area we provided for them.

They can run, fall, climb and more, to their hearts content.

They really enjoy being lifted and thrown into a large pit of foam blocks, or plastic spheres.

Note: our crew is mostly Xarnian, so we possess the necessary strength to lift the average adult human despite the density they have evolved on their deathworld.

Human larvae enjoy it the most, but even the mature humans are also thrilled by these activities.

Incidents involving "acts of human" are down 18% in the first cycle alone since we installed the enrichment chamber.

[kurara-black-blog]

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:...

[sugarcoatednightshade]

Humans are Space Orcs story where humans are known for our storytelling and acting abilities. While these talents are somewhat respected, there’s a major stigma against humans because we’re also the best liars.

“Humans don’t actually feel anything at all, they just mimic emotions to trick others into believing them”

“Never trust a human. They lie like the rest of us breath”

“Humans spend so much of their lives acting, it’s impossible to tell when they’re being truthful”

“In human culture, great respect is awarded to ‘actors’ who are able to mimic other persons and emotions with startling accuracy”

“Some ‘actors’ are able to ‘perform’ hundreds of unique characters”

“Acting is so ubiquitous in the human culture that many consider it polite to lie”

“Sarcasm is a common, casual game played between humans, where one human says something untrue and the other human must guess what truth they are thinking. Humans unable to perform this ritual are often ostracized by their peers”

“If you see a human crying, do not immediately assume they are hurt. Humans have been known to use their ‘acting’ abilities to trick unsuspecting travelers into giving up an unreasonable number of belongings”

“All interstellar travelers are required to read up on popular ‘scams’ or ‘cons’ performed by humans in the region they are traveling to”

[brainrotwriter]

I don't know if anyone said this before, but, I think the one thing that would put the fear of an alien god into an alien would be just how territorial humans are.

Humans generally have small territories tightly packed against others, sometimes even on top of each other. They are social creatures, after all, and seem to enjoy inviting each other to their territories that might even contain other species!

So, you would think they would welcome other visitors, right?

Wrong. Humans are wildly territorial to the point even something as harmless as a fruit fly is murdered on sight. Then, surely they must allow other predators that repel such creatures, right? Wrong again, even 'useful' ones likes spiders are shown no mercy.

Alien: I apologize but I'm struggling to grasp this concept. You said you killed that arachnid as there was a possibility it could come in contact with your sleeping quarters. Doesn't your feline companion frequent there? I'm sure it couldn't do more damage than an apex predator?

Human: Uhh, okay let me rephrase that; it isn't about coming in contact with my stuff. It's about me allowing it. Mr. Pickle Jar is allowed to be here and touch my things, that spider isn't. So, it needs to die.

Alien, writing DO NOT TOUCH ANYTHING UNLESS SAID OTHERWISE in big bold letters in the notepad: Ah, I see. Thanks for sharing.