#Humans are space orcs

[jelliclebellsthatjelliclesring]

Put anything on a plate and humans will chomp on it… including literal poison btw

We've all heard the "Humans will pet anything" and "Humans will fuck anything" but don't forget the "Humans will eat anything"

[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.

[eggsaredelicous]

Im studying ESS rn and ever since I popped into the "humans are space orcs" tag I've just been thinking.

Arent humans just....a R-strategist species?

As in, imagine aliens are K-strategists, those with specific niche habitats and breed small amount of offsprings in a long period of time, while living very long lives. While humans are like cockroaches of space, we breed quickly, adapt to unthinkable environments not known to alien-kind, but die pretty quickly.

Just a thought.

[captain-ultimat-doggo]

Humans entering space and realizing we are so small. We are mice compared to these giant races with their advanced machinery and technologies and experiences beyond us- except that we're humans. And our engineers dive into the new tech and once we learn the principles we also soon realize how Inefficient everything is. Their "microchips" are the size of cars, their storage drives are basically buildings, and they somehow store less data than ours. So, human companies take advantage, and tech starts rolling out. Massive and there's a lot of wasted space so that it can be managed with larger hands/pincers/claws/tentacles, but also so much more efficient than anything the galaxy has seen before.

Human technicians start hopping ships and upkeeping the general maintenance, the stuff that most aliens put off or don't notice because they never access the crevices of their ships. As human companies become more popular and lead the tech world in everything from warp cores to game stations ("it's so compact! How are the graphics so good?" Says a 60' tall grimbleback, holding a new VR headset that has all of its components included because it's so BIG by our tech standards), soon many things have accessibility ports for humans to be able to use as well. This means that these shiprats hoping ship to ship cause such a huge improvement in everything running smoothly, and there's a huge downtick in pests on ships because those "pests" are not only big enough and aggressive enough to bite a pitbull or a person in half, they're invasive to so many planets and humans hate nothing more than dog killing planet overrunning monsters.

All the while, from the Aliens perspective, humans are an elusive race that don't fraternize much with them. You almost never see a human as most places aren't exactly safe for the little things to run around in. They do export so much stuff though, and the custodial staff at the Central Galactic Outpost insists that there's more humans around than any other race if you just know where to look.

And sure it's somewhat known that some of the little daredevils hop ships and help out in exchange for room and board, usually without permission, but that can't be that common, can it?

Maybe your ship is running better this cycle ever since you stopped at the last station, that just means that tuneup was better than you thought. And maybe for some reason that program you were working on last night is finished when you wake up, but you're so tired maybe you finished it before you passed out. Somehow that faulty light in the galley has fixed itself as well, which is odd, but maybe the Engineer finally got to it. You'd know if there was someone else on your ship.

Right?

... You leave a little bowl of berries out as a thank you, just in case. You're not sure what humans like but you've heard they have a sweet tooth.

[rose-tries-to-write]

This, but I love to imagine aliens being confronted with the horror story of Periods. There’s smth so funny about these poor oblivious souls being told female humans Bleed Out for days to weeks on end and it’s just a natural process we have to live with.

Female Human: For the last time, I’m fine! Let me do my work!

Alien: But I smell blood! How can you not be injured when you reek of a thousand dead Cottilmins?

Female Human: Oh. OH! Oh, holy shit, you can smell that? I’m so sorry, dude. I’m not bleeding out, big guy, I’m just on my period right now.

Alien: What does the human punctuation mark for the ending of a regular, non-excited or non-questioning sentence have anything to do with you smelling like a brakkin walking morgue?????

Female Human: God, this is not gonna be a fun conversation for either of us, big guy. Let’s… let’s go sit down. I’ll get you an info packet or smth but you should be sitting for this, I think. I need a quick reprieve from these awful cramps, anyway.

Alien: Cramps? Is that a disease? You are suffering a chronic disease and working like it’s nothing?! I knew it, you are dying!! Come, come, you must rest!

I’ve fallen down the Humans Are Space Orcs rabbit hole and I just can’t get over the idea of aliens freaking out over a fever

Alien: what do you mean your body is raising its temperature to a lethal degree to kill the virus attacking you? and it doesn’t kill you too?

Human: well no, we can sustain higher temperatures than bacteria, it’s more of an inconvenience to us you know? well unless, um

Alien: Unless what??

Human: well sometimes our body continues to keep raising the temperature for too long and it makes our vital organs fail… if you think about it it’s still killing the virus by the end so it is efficient!

[quantum-uncertain-particle]

Humans are Everywhere

We often don't think about it much, but humans are everywhere. In every crevice of the Earth, in every climate, in every region, EVERYWHERE.

If there is a location on Earth, then there is probably at least 1 human living there. Or at the very least a human who has lived there in the past. Have we ever thought just how batshit insane that is?

Think about how difficult that is to do, for a species to be on every continent, on every biome, on islands, in deserts, in jungles, on freaking ANTARCTICA. We're the only species on Earth that does that.

I genuinely wonder if aliens are like this too, or maybe they would be weirded out by this.

Alien: "Oh my! By the great zorp you things are everywhere!"

Human: "Yeah...we kinda tend to do that."

Alien: "Oh! But you're not in the frozen wasteland at the south pole of your world!"

Human: "No, we are."

Alien: "Oh! But you're not in those super dangerous mountains!"

H: "There, too."

A: *visibly frustrated*

A: "But you're not in the middle of the ocean?"

H: "You're not going to believe this."

A: "How?! They are so far away from any major landmass! How did you even get there?!"

H: "Floaty wood."

A: "what."

H: "We used a little floating piece of wood."

A: "..."

[cipheramnesia]

I can't find the original post, but one of the Humans Are Space Orcs posts was about how maybe it would be absolutely unhinged that the average human can just approximately judge mass and velocity and distance with eyes and muscles, and throw objects with moderate to high accuracy. Like, no planning, binocular vision only, no triangulation, just toss stuff. They go apeshit over human sports, because that's like if a worm wrote a novel or something, practically a bloodsport.

On the flip side, the fact that most humans can't in any way explain explain mathematically what's happening in a game of catch is infuriating. "What do you mean you just kinda figure it? But it's not a guess?"

The practical result is that it turns out that humans can do the same thing with interstellar travel and skip a starship across the universe without any math, although you want to make sure you don't build anything to close to the approximate landing site.

[eyeofnewtblog]

Things that happen at work:

Spanish speaking customer: *comes up to the counter asking for front brake pads and sparks plugs*

Me, in English: Yeah, no problem! Ano? Marca? *get his car year, make and model plugged in, go find his parts, bring them to him*

Spanish speaking customer: *as he inspects the parts, starts in on some story about his mechanic and the brakes that involves a bit more cussing than most guys usually use*

Me, having to waive him off: Sir, um, no comprende? Un momentito por favor. *pulls up google translate, types out “the only Spanish I speak is car parts and the bad words”*

Spanish speaking customer:*straight up cackles, pats me on the back, pays, and leaves*

Bilingual customer: *steps up to the counter, sees my google translate still up on the screen, also cackles* Oh, nice! That’s adorable!

[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.

[jimvasta]

Humans do not go gentle into that good night

Huddled in a corner of the broken shuttle with a crewmate, Yet'zaks was confused.

"What are the humans doing?" Xe asked quietly.

"They are seeking supplies." D'A!!k responded, their whistles muted as they struggled to vocalise in the frigid air.

"Why? There is no way to repair the shuttle and no recovery planned."

The honourable and dignified way to die in these situations was quiet and still. It was to sleep.

The humans did not understand that. They were searching for ways to generate warmth, for water and food.

"There are no rescue ships coming. They know we will be dead before they can arrive." D'A!!k tried to explain to the humans.

"Bollocks to that."

"That- apologies, I believe I have had a malfunction in my translator."

"I doubt it. I said bollocks and I meant it." The human snapped back. "The atmosphere is breathable, the temperature's low but there's fuel for a fire, there's snow so there's water, and there's vegetation so there'll be something to eat."

"It is futile if we are never rescued."

"Twenty percent of our colony worlds started with a crash." The human laughed. "You spineless bastards can lay down and die-"

"We have spines." D'A!!k corrected, confused as to why his anatomy was being referenced.

"We do not go gentle into that goodnight, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage, against the dying of the light." The human picked up, to D'A!!k's rapidly growing horror, an actual stone tipped spear. "You can curl up and die while we build ourselves a new home." The human turned away. "Hey guys, I've got a name for the planet! Thomas! We can be the Dylan colony on planet Thomas!"

[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

[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”.

[injuries-in-dust]

I don't know why, but I like the idea of humans being to aliens, what cats are to humans...

Alien1: hey, when did you hire a human?

Alien 2: we didn't. They just wandered aboard one day, saying they wanted to "hitch a ride." Then they never left. I think they like it here.

Alien 1: the human distribution system has chosen.

***

Alien stares at the human, who has climbed up a very high shelving unit.

Alien: Human, get down before you hurt yourself.

The humans response is to climb higher.

***

Alien is secretly filming their human, who is spaced out and just staring at nothing.

Alien (whispering): I think the human is about to intercept the brain cell. (Laughter) don't worry human, if it tingles that means it's working.

[nekokotatsu]

Human: I don't get this whole "Earth is a death world" thing. Like, obviously it wouldn't seem like one to us, but why is it one to you guys? Are your home planets *that* much more free of disease and predators and stuff?

Alien: Oh, yes. Earth is far more hostile than our home worlds.

Human: Huh. Wonder why.

Alien: I suspect it's due to Earth's high iron content blocking the fae from disposing of such minor threats.

Human: Yeah, I guess that

Human:

Human: what

Tiny fairy in alien's translator headpiece: Shut up, they think we're mythical, it's *hilarious*.

Alien: I mean... Sure is a mystery, huh?

[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."