Rise Up, Oh Heart, For There is Another Battle to Win

more “aliens being surprised by humans” stuff

jumpingjacktrash:

scifi-flyby:

our ability to belt out one entire three to five minute long song if we’re familiar with it like. suvi starts singing “hallelujah” to fill the quiet and is answered by liam all across the room in a p decent harmony. cora walks past and starts humming it enthusiastically even tho she can’t stay very long. gil joins in for the third refrain. ryder finishes it off with a passionate solo.

when they look around every alien is staring at them. vetra blinks and knocks her hands together. “that’s what you’re supposed to do when humans make those sounds right?” she asks kallo beside her, who mirrors her. everyone is a little stunned at the coordination and emotion in the performance and they all look equally moved. jaal might be crying. none of them know what a ‘hallelujah’ is, but they feel like they’ve come to understand it through this melody

they’re all extremely confused when all of the humans still continue on on their tasks without pause

edit; other songs include but are not limited to: bohemian rhapsody, mr. brightside, single ladies, no scrubs, and i will always love you

a good predictor of whether a species will end up being compatible with humans on long journeys is whether they are capable of understanding that ‘singing along’ is optional and humans do it because it’s fun. species that insist on assigning some biological or ceremonial importance to it will inevitably clash with their human crews sooner or later.

whereas species like the mertrans, who have their own infectious expressive behaviors, can integrate with humans indefinitely. on long-haul ships, a sort of hybrid culture evolves, where mertrans will thrum their throat sacs to provide percussion for human singalongs, and humans develop dance steps for mertran scratch/thumping episodes.

smart pirates avoid attacking ships where this has happened. despite being clownish, these species are also some of the most warlike, and offering violence to a closeknit mertran/human group provokes a reaction that is not only well-coordinated and heroic but prone to very bloody pranks.

there still are parts of the outer reaches where a mertran hand-signing “yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker” can clear a bar in seconds.

(via bonehandledknife)

pundragon:

writing-prompt-s:

Humans are the only intelligent species in the universe to have evolved from predators. Every other sentient species has evolved from a prey species… and so they are terrified of us. Now it’s up to you to persuade the Galactic Council that we won’t hunt them down and eat them all.

“We won’t eat you,” I shrugged. “Most of us would find the idea of eating a sapient being repulsive - it would be like eating another human.”

The gathering murmured. The herbivores were big, to be honest. A lot of them were easily elephant-sized, with a few even bigger. It had been jarring, at first, being one of the smallest known species. I guess we’d always expected ‘little green men’, small aliens with big eyes, looking a lot like us.

But no, they were big. Intimidatingly so. And we’d just told them not to be afraid of us. I looked over to some of my team, a few of whom wore expressions like they’d just realised it. Some of the aliens, too, were giving us a fresh appraisal. Instead of wide and fearful eyes, they were now narrowed in thought.

One of them leant against the wall, arms crossed. There was something buffalo-like about him, with a set of horns curving out of his head, and a rather bovine nose. A little like a minotaur, really. The Tellors had a problem with water shortages, we’d heard. Another, someone reptilian with nictating membranes and a nervous, flicking tongue whispered to her cohorts, her eyes darting between us all. The Fiarans were apparently running out of arable land.

I let my mouth pull up at the corners.

Now, there’s a funny thing about most beings, sapient or otherwise. Showing off your teeth is a general sign for ‘look what I have and might very well use’. Humans have always been weird about that, so it’s been normally something all of us in the diplomatic sector have to worry about when smiling.

Normally.

I cleared my throat, and the Council turned back to me.

“We want to be friends, really,” and the tone of my voice caused my team to spin around and stare at me. “And we have high hopes for what we could achieve together in an alliance.”

I paused, making eye contact with the Tellor and Fiaran especially.

“We won’t eat you,” I said. “But we didn’t eat our predators, either.”

The crowd began to mutter again. The Tellor snorted, making his way to the front.

“I have studied humans - you are the apex predators of your planet. Please explain.”

I looked up at him. “Oh yes, we are now.”

He tilted his head, and then took a step back as the meaning hit him. Or at least the meaning I meant to give - I wasn’t exactly about to spew lion attack statistics or explain the concept of zoos to him.

“We do want to be friends.” I said.

I grinned.

(via bonehandledknife)

Emphasis

shamansantics:

Imagine aliens coming to Earth and having translators that work perfectly. Except they don’t pick up on tone.

Tone has a HUGE impact on a message. Consider the following sentence:

“You look nice today.”

Now repeat it stressing each word one by one.

“YOU look nice today”, implying someone else that you are probably indicating with your body or to whom you’d previously referred does not.

“You LOOK nice today”, implying that you don’t smell/sound it.

“You look NICE today”, thus turning what would otherwise have been a casual remark into a compliment. You don’t just look nice. You look damn fine.

“You look nice, TODAY”, which is clearly an insult purpoiting that you usually look like crap. Damning by faint praise, as they say.

And all of these are possible - and wildly differing - meanings to a simple four word sentence.

In this scenario, super secret plans could be discussed in front of the aliens with them being none the wiser simply by saying it à la Mean Girls. Should war between the two factions emerge, humans would win by the power of passive-aggressive bitching

Earth oceans and what’s in them

firegirl108:

Going off how the Humans are Space Orcs and “Humans bond with anything despite obvious danger” that annoys the rest of the alien crew, think about them being introduced to earth oceans

After all it’s common to have to always remove their human from unknown likely dangerous life forms despite constant protests and that they were only “playing”
they start to notice that their human never really speaks of their earths sea creatures, which makes sense as the humans organs aren’t equipped to survive in that environment despite being able to “swim” (it is a common theory discussed that humans could survive if given no option to otherwise as that’s what they always seem to do) curious and nervous, a rookie of the crew, decides to ask (the veterans have learned not to ask about earth as it always ends in confusion and horror) Only to be told that “they aren’t really sure”, in human speak this can mean many things. One is that they never looked, another is that they were honestly telling the truth. Confused, they ask again as surely the species that does everything to fulfill their curiosity would surly know what fills 75% of their surface? Only to be told of creatures that are the length of their ship with a jaw just as wide. Of creatures that glow to attract and trap their pray. And that there was never a pod that was created could withstand the pressure of deepest depths. Or if it could, the visual feed would always disappear within rows of jagged teeth. And that are only the stories that have been proven. There are stories of the old ages, of creatures that could drown you with the sound of their voice, of things only seen in the shadows with a glimpse of sharp teeth. Humans don’t go in the ocean, they learn. Humans that are made of iron and steel, known to bond with anything, and a curiosity that defies all known logic don’t dare to explore the depths of their own planet. The crew learn that the only thing to terrify their human are the creatures that lurk in the oceans of their own earth. Everything must seem tame to them compared to the monster planet that they call home. And suddenly, things make sense.

flvffs:

archivistofnerddom:

ceemoy:

howlingguardian:

Been seeing a lot of these Humans Are Space Orcs posts around- which is good, because I love them- and I started thinking: in sci-fi stories, humans in the future often have a bit of genetic engineering- like disease immunity or faster healing or even just a lack of body hair.

And I had a thought- what if that’s just us? What if we’re the only species to engineer ourselves like that? Imagine how freaked out they’d be;

“You’re telling me that you alter your own genetic code?”

Or take it a little further- we’re the only species to use vaccines. Every other race just toughed it out and evolved past it, but humans injected ourselves with weakened diseases to make ourselves stronger. 

Or even further back, when people used to drink poison to gain an immunity- imagine that reaction:

“OH MY GROP THEY DRINK POISON TO GET STRONGER THAT’S IT FUCK THIS PLANET I’M OUTTA HERE”

Equally, what if we’re the only ones who don’t use genetic engineering on a mass scale? Like, we just make machines that’ll adapt for us, and everyone else does it by biology - much slower, but much less chance of it breaking down at the critical moment?

Imagine a species who’ve spent decades adapting a small group to colonise a planet with an inhospitable atmosphere, almost ready to start their mission, and along come the humans like “masks on, lads, here we go!”

And imagine the reactions that humans get when they come along in their environmental suits. Like, we have everything our bodies need to survive in our suits and then we go off and explore. We use our suits to set up shelter that we can live in without our suits.

And the aliens are uber-confused by the fact that we don’t wait to adapt to an environment. We go with what we’ve got and then change the planet to meet our needs. (“What do you mean your bodies aren’t suited for this environment? Why are you here then? Wait, you can deal with it because of that mask?”)

Can you imagine how frustrating it must be when they’ve spent years adapting a group to survive a planet they want to colonize and humans just show up and go, “Eh, we’ve got breathing masks. Let’s go!”?

@words-writ-in-starlight

katiewont:

galen066:

homeland-snooping:

thepraxianweasleygeek:

joasakura:

tkingfisher:

morebadbookcovers:

anightvaleintern:

timemachineyeah:

What if by alien standards we are really cute?

And I don’t mean like attractive cute, I mean like baby otter cute. What if the stumble upon us and go “ohhhhh my god!!! Oh my god!!!! I’m dying this is- look at it! Look at them!!! Oh my god!!!”

We usually imagine having to come up with some Devils trade or unholy arrangement to get tech and trade with aliens, but the instant they see us the aliens immediately set out into conservation efforts. They’re like “their habitat is becoming harsh and unlivable for them! We have to save them!” And everyone just puts a picture of us next to this information and they all agree “Look at them! We have to save them!!” We become like the panda mascots of intergalactic conservation efforts.

Simultaneously, our main export is just streams, videos, holograms, and photos of us. Aliens lose their composure completely over videos of us sneezing or yawning or eating pop tarts or playing video games or taking care of our kids.

There are lines of aliens who would LOVE to have a human in their home or on their ship. It’s a little condescending (we’re not sure if we’re guests or well treated exotic pets) but still a good opportunity, and any human who wants can go to space at any time basically for free or even for profit, and the aliens will go out of their way to give you anything you ask for.

There are obvious downsides. We struggle to be taken seriously. While it’s usually shut down pretty quickly, every once in a while some alien group sees the demand for us and tries to start an illegal trade. But at the same time, it’s neat that somewhere out there is an alien (or usually a LOT of aliens) that would love you unconditionally, find every flaw and idiosyncrasy endearing, be worried about you and do anything they could to make you safe and happy. They work hard to make our planet and our personal lives better and don’t ask for anything in return. They just do it because they decided we are important and worth saving just for existing. It’s an odd relationship, and we’re not always sure what to make of it, but honestly it goes a lot better than we worried alien contact would.

I’m down to be a spoiled pampered alien pet.

It would be a lot easier to get “fixed.”

We’re all a bit confused by the cute human memes, which are usually just pictures of some random human with a phrase in alien cuneiform next to it, but which many of the aliens think are hysterical. Photos of the Lincoln Memorial are particularly popular for this for some reason, and it’s a little unsettling to see the alien spaceships with pictures of Lincoln plastered across their forcefields, saying “g+gnor’gax!” and the humor just doesn’t translate at all.

I mean, it’s not bad, exactly. Just…odd. And fortunately alien music is mostly outside our hearing range, so the sad commercials with the interstellar equivalent of Sarah McLachlan broadcasting over them, explaining how the humans are suffering at this time of rotation just look like a rather puzzling montage of normal people. It’s just the aliens get so sad when they see it and their temporal glands leak and it’s…well, a little messy.

I love the idea that we are SIMULTANEOUSLY batshit-bonkers space orcs and the alien equivalent of Red Pandas or kittens.

Like,  “Oh they’re adorable!” “Yes, but for the love of zornax, don’t let one bite you! My pod-cousin lost a hand that way!” “Do you think they evolved this way to surivive the terrifying fauna on their world?” “I saw a holovid of one riding one of the so-called “moose” one time!”

#wait #we’re big cats #giant murder cuteness

Oh my god that’s exactly it! :D

But imagine that last bit as two different groups. Okay, so to one species of alien we’re adorable, right? And to another we’re orcs. Imagine the conflict of those two cultures. Team Orc is talking to Team Cuddles about how useful we are on dangerous field missions and Team Cuddles LOSES THEIR SHIT.

“You sent my cuddle-fwumpkin WHERE?!? to do WHAT!?!”

“They’re uniquely qualified to explore dangerous territories that are uninhabitable to most lifeforms … ”

“I don’t caaaaaare! Hfjfjfj HD bf!!!”

Like, foreign policy issued specifically for the proper utilization of human laborers. How would human cultures engage differently in these circumstances? Like, in the US would people look down on the humans that hang out with Team Cuddles as looking for alien handouts? Would they be blamed when Team Orc humans don’t get taken seriously on expeditions?

Like, there’s so muuuuuch more to explore here.

Cue unscrupulous or ironic human merchant selling “Save the humans! (Collect the entire set)” stickers in various alien scripts and fonts.

alien search engine autocorrect

does my human 

• know i did not mean to step on its foot
  
• know i love him
• understand where i go when i am at work

(via consultingreaders)

minamoonrock:

You know i haven’t seen any of those “ humans are weird/space orcs/space australians” posts where humans are actually the first species to get to space …

I mean honestly considering how risky and difficult it was to launch people in space it would make sense if the first specie to do so was also the most resistant 

and if we cross this with the post about humans randomly helping animals: 

what if humans are seen as this super dangerous species who will nevertheless immediately go out of their way to help you if you need some help ? sure humans are terrifying but as a whole they’re just seen as this strange protector/guardian species that has always been out there 

(via hailstormthehufflepuff)

another ‘Humans are Weird’ post

ancientnapdragon:

so, sorry if someone has mentioned this before, but i saw a post about how humans were apex predators a little while ago, and one of the points it mentioned was that it’s cause humans have such a wide diet you don’t find in a lot of other animals.  plus, we’re pretty poison resistant to things that would hurt/kill most other animals (we’re the only species that is lactose tolerant as the norm, chocolate isn’t poison to us, plus other things that surprised me and i wish i had kept the post :c)

what if most aliens have limited things they can eat?  the Susutians can only eat plant matter of a specific color, or Luttans can only eat certain meats from certain types of insects on their planet.  so, when they come to earth they’re all like ‘on so what do you eat?’ and they’re thrown through a loop at what choices we have!  and they find out that a LOT of the food we eat on the regular is super poisonous to a majority of the known universe!

like, “oh hey, human-steve, thank you for visiting my planet.  we’re about to eat the meal of the tirid sun, will you join us?”

“o yeah cool what’s the apple looking thing on that tree?”

“apple….. oh, you mean the highly poison and deadly Punnadix Fruit? those are a scourge of my peopl- WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!”

“uh….. eating it?  it’s delicious?”

cue an alien having a heart attack, or whatever the equivalent is.  on top of all the other weird shit they’re known for, this makes then rise higher in the list of ‘creatures we are REALLY glad are on our side’.

(via hailstormthehufflepuff)

dirkpaninistrider:

OKAYOKAYOKAY B U T Aliens that only have mates to reproduce. Once every couple of moons they find their partner, do the do, then find a completely different one the next cycle. Imagine these aliens being confused about the human concept of marriage - “you stay with them for life?“ - and not understanding that while yes, Intaquk, you are very attractive I am married so no I will not be your mate this season. Imagine Valentines Day rolling around and one of a crews humans is feeling sad and the aliens are like “yo r u okay should we feed u or something is this natrual” and the human “just kinda bummed i dont have a valentines” and after a bit of research of the holiday one of the aliens gets down on one knee and offers the human a small rock like “I heard these..proposals are common in human culture?” AND THE HUMAN JUST STARTS SMILING AND TAKES THE PEBBLE LIKE ‘thank you fruiyo’ AND THE OTHER HUMANS AROUND START GUSHING OVER HOW ADORABLE THE SCENE WAS. THE ALIENS PICK UP ON HOW THESE PROPOSALS MAKE THE HUMANS ELATED, THEREFORE SEVERAL OTHER PEOPLE ARE PROPOSED TO WITHIN THE MONTH A N D

(via hailstormthehufflepuff)

humans-are-space-orcs:

With pack-bonding and stuff … what if humans are the only species who developed body language as an instinctual means of communication?

Humans are known for being terrifying in battles … especially if there’s more than one of them. They can coordinate their attacks without talking to each other. They only need to glance at each other and they know when and where to go. When asked about this mystical near-telepathy, most just make one of their strange movements-with-meanings called a “shrug” [note: a “shrug” suggests confusion or uncertainty] and say it has something to do with “knowing” the other person.

Sensible species explain what they’re doing when they want to work together. Yet once when when we were attacked by pirates, the two human guards barely said a few words. One whispered “Watch the green one.” - barely even a proper order! - and that was all they needed to charge forward.

They didn’t even need to shout their plans to each other when the two Z'arzz started the pincer movement they’d discussed before boarding. One human just stopped, the other hadn’t even asked her to distract them, she just did it! Charging forward and causing chaos almost immediately was a massive advantage for us. With only the cargo crew of a food shipment, it got us the extra time we needed to plan.

After we came to an agreement and took over, seeing them “team up” against the massive Grulnar (also known as “the green one”) was incredible - a reminder of the power of pack predator species. They barely even spoke and yet it was like they were wearing comms and voice-silencers. They moved like a hive-mind species, but with the tenacity and grace of humans to boot. I would have excreted in fear had I seen such powers used against me.

The pirates never stood a chance.

Submitted by @poichild

(Source: poichild, via hailstormthehufflepuff)