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

bisected8:

jumpingjacktrash:

dearthoughthenightisgone:

petralemaitre:

somethingninga:

aethersea:

sepulchritude:

on the topic of humans being the intergalactic “hold my beer” species: imagine an alien stepping onto a human starship and seeing a space roomba™ with a knife duct taped onto it, just wandering around the ship

it doesn’t have any special intelligence. it’s just a normal space roomba. there are other space roombas on the ship and they don’t have knives. it’s just this one. knife space roomba has full clearance to every room in the ship. occasionally crew members will be talking and then suddenly swear and clutch their ankle. knife space roomba putters off, leaving them to their mild stab wounds.

“what is the point?” asks the alien as another crew member casually steps over the knife-wielding robot. “is it to test your speed and agility?”

“no it doesn’t really go that fast,” replies the captain.

“does it teach you to stay ever-vigilant?”

“I mean I guess so but that’s more of a side effect.”

“does it weed out the weak? does it protect you from invaders? do repeated stabbings let your species heal more quickly in the future?”

“it doesn’t stab very hard, it gets us more than it gets our enemies, and no, but that sounds cool — someone write that down.”

“but then what is its purpose?”

“I don’t know,” the captain says, leaning down to give the space roomba an affectionate pat. “it just seemed cool”

this is the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard but I thought about it for five seconds and realized that if I were, say, a random communications officer onboard this ship and someone taped a knife to a roomba it would take maybe three weeks before even I was inordinately fond of Stabby. I would be proud of Stabby when I met up with my other spacefleet friends for space coffee, I would tell them about the time Stabby got the second mate in the ankle five seconds before the fleet admiral beamed on board and she swore in seven different languages in front of high command. 

also by the fourth day Stabby would be in the ship’s log, he’d have little painted-on insignia, people would salute him as he went by, and someone would hook up a twitter account to tweet maniacal laughter and/or a truly terrible knock-knock joke every time he managed to nick someone.

Omg so the ting I typed up might actually happen this is gold

I am suddenly astonished that Stabby isn’t Farscape canon. 1812 was weird enough.

Stabby’s little charging dock would start accruing cuddly toys and commemorative holo-vids of Stabby’s greatest stabs. Its insignia would start off at a fairly low rank, but soon, without anyone every discussing it, everyone would know that Stabby got to take the rank of the highest ranking crew member it stabbed. The ceremony for Flag Admiral Stabby was beautiful. The captain gave a speech. 

why am i proud of stabby this is irrational

INCIDENT LOG: 46-7-2 Action #45437: Desc: Covert enemy boarding attempt

Details: Six (6) members of a Mercenary/Pirate crew of little renown attempted to infiltrate ship in order to steal equipment and/or personnel.

Prior to being detained they had remained undetected for eight (8) hours and accumulated several high value materials (see attached log), and incapacitated and restrained several crewmen (see attached log) in dock #3, with the intention of using a life boat to exfiltrate.

Just prior to their would-be escape, the boarding party encountered the ship’s mascot. A cleaning unit which had been modified by crew members to mount a traditional Terran melee weapon, as well as an officer’s insignia (having been jokingly given a commission by the Captain the night before). Curious, one picked it up, before realising the mounted weapon had a nickel finish (highly toxic to their species) on the handle, and dropped it in a panic.

As the unit’s anti-impact sensors had been disabled, it immediately tried to right itself on landing. This caused it to flip over and slash the third knee of the boarder who dropped it, prompting the rest of the boarders to flee. In doing so, they tripped over a waste container, causing the unit to “chase” them, as it collected the trail of dust they left.

The security crew were alerted to the boarding party’s presence by an entry on “Sargent Stabby’s Hit List” - an account on an intership microblogging site which automatically logs any injuries caused by the cleaning unit in question - and quickly intercepted them.

Casualties: Four (4) crewmen treated for minor lacerations sustained after detaining boarding party, one (1) captured crewman treated for negative reaction to sedatives used by captors.

Belligerent status: Two (2) members of the enemy boarding party remain in stable condition in sickbay. Three (3) remaining surrendered peacefully and remain in the brig. One (1) refuses to leave the safety of a storage cupboard he went to ground in.

Recommendations/Actions:

• All captured guards to undergo debriefing and possible disciplinary action for breaches of security protocol.
  
• Remind all crew members to report missing colleagues immediately.
• Retain a guard outside cleaning storage room 87 until the final boarder can be coaxed out and properly detained.
  
• Cleaning unit D4.87 AKA “Sargent Stabby” has been promoted to Quartermaster, and is now considered the superior officer of all autonomous drones on the ship. All Class #1 drones have been programmed to salute their superior with their effector, should it enter the room while they’re active.
  

(via cthulhu-with-a-fez)

Humans Are Weird

galaxystew:

down-sizing:

otherwise-called-squidpope:

unicornempire:

arcticfoxbear:

the-grand-author:

wuestenratte:

val-tashoth:

crazy-pages:

radioactivepeasant:

arafaelkestra:

arcticfoxbear:

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!”

(via lathori)

slyrider:

jewishdragon:

a-cute-lil-octopus:

iwillnotshutup:

pikachu88898:

ritavonbees:

asgardreid:

cardozzza:

dannydanuselessstuff:

artaline:

human: *is heating up food*

alien: why are you doing that?

human: you see i want the particles in my food to vibrate at just the right frequency

Human: *is eating ice cream*

alien: wait you forgot to make that one vibrate!

human: well, you see, not with this food

This one is already vibrating at he desired frequency, but if it starts to vibrate at a higher frequency I lock it back in the cold box.

Human: *just reheated pizza in the oven*

Other human: *is eating a slice of the same pizza, but cold*

Alien: *exasperated sputtering*

Human: shots! shots! shots!

Alien: this liquid has negligible nutritional value and, furthermore, contains some molecules that I believe are poisonous to your species.

Human: …look, sometimes we just like to gather in social groups and disorient ourselves

Human: *grabs a packet of ramen*

Alien: Based on my research of your species, you shouldn’t be able to consume that without suffering heavy detriment to your human body.

Human: …look man, I’m in college. I can barely afford this house with roommates. Let me appreciate this 50 cent block of sodium ridden noodles.

Alien 1: The human consumed this harmful “ramen” because it is affordable. I saw many others consuming unhealthy but affordable foodstuffs from a place called McDonalds. Based on this, I think we can reasonably assume that all foodstuffs that are unhealthy are also affordable, and that humans will slowly die off because of their economic system.

Alien 2: I visited a different land mass. There were several humans called “sushi chefs” preparing raw fish foodstuffs. The most expensive was made from the carcass of a poisonous blowfish. It was very popular among the wealthy humans.

Alien 3: The land I visited had no nearby places to engage in commerce to trade precooked food. I interviewed a family that trapped and killed animals for dinner. They ate venomous rattlesnakes.

Alien 1: *throws clipboard in the air and storms off*

[Human casually munches peppers]

Alien: According to my scans, that organic matter contains highly corrosive chemicals. Are you sure you should be consuming it?

[Human chokes]

Alien: Human! Are you injured? Do you require assistance??

Human: Ahahaha no no I’m fine, it’s just *snicker* these are just jalapenos!

Alien: ……….request clarification?

Human: I usually go for habaneros, man. Hell, I have a buddy who took two bites of a ghost pepper on a dare.

[Alien consults space Google]

Human: ………Hey man, you okay?

I’m dying the alcohol one happened in Star Trek the original series

@words-writ-in-starlight

slyrider:

dannydanuselessstuff:

artaline:

human: *is heating up food*

alien: why are you doing that?

human: you see i want the particles in my food to vibrate at just the right frequency

Human: *is eating ice cream*

alien: wait you forgot to make that one vibrate!

human: well, you see, not with this food

@words-writ-in-starlight

meeting an alien

chefpyro:

Humans: hello, we come in peace. we are from a planet we call Earth.

Alien: oh yes! the bagel planet!

Humans: … what?

Alien: you are the only planet in the known galaxy that has invented bagels. we would like to make trade agreements right away.

Humans: i… okay then.

(via littlestartopaz)

meredithmcclaren:

Someone else on tumblr pointed out that PASSENGERS might have been a more meaningful movie if it was about just THE ONE person dealing with being alone on the ship for the rest of their life.  And if, to cope, they go through and make it a point to learn everything they can about all of the other people on the ship.

And I just keep thinking about this idea.

There are 4999 other people on that ship and what if the protagonist spent the remainder of their life (and they do live their full life) learning about each of them.

They took an interest in their hobbies so that they could have some sort of connection to them.

As their sanity flexed in an effort to cope, they could have had these really involved imaginary conversations with the crew about their interests. And by the end of their natural life they will have known everything they could have ever known about these other 4999 people.

…

AND THEN THE REST OF THEM WAKE UP. And they have some 90 odd years of security footage of this one crew member talking to each of them in turn. And it goes far beyond ‘I have figured out how to cook that one dish you were struggling with’ or ‘I have read THE SILMARILLION at your suggestion and Jesus Christ I have thoughts about it.’

They actually start making connections between all of the crew.

Like ‘You like bugs! You should totally talk to Cindy! She’s an entomologist!’

Or ‘Did you know that you and Said’s grandfathers were both in the same infantry?’

Or ‘You and Jamie are both avid bee keepers and I think you need to meet.’

Or ‘I know you’re really struggling with this, but Aneesha said she went the exact same thing and I think talking to her can help.’

And because all of these crew members are watching the videos that have been individually addressed to them (Because why not? They’re colonizing.  There’s not a lot yet available by way of entertainment) they sort of start talking to each other at the Protagonist’s suggestion.  And within a year they are THE MOST unified interconnected colony of any of the colonies because this one crew member broke the ice for them a lifetime ago.

Several of them are engaged.

Two are about to have children named after the Protagonist.

…

AND BECAUSE EVERYONE KNOWS EVERYONE NOW they notice when one week a crew member isn’t out and about and no one can get in touch with them.  So finally somebody goes to check and they find them huddled in a ball and mourning.

Because Protagonist is dead.

And the other people are like: ‘Yes. We know.  This is literally the first thing we knew about them.’

But Mourner is like: ‘You don’t understand. I got to the end.’

And then everyone realizes that the mourner has basically been BURNING through all of the videos Protagonist has addressed to them and got to the last one they made to them before they died. And Protagonist left a final message for each of them.

Suddenly everyone’s having a real frank conversation with themselves about how fast they’re going through their videos and if they’re prepared to keep going at that rate and get to the end, or if they should put it off indefinitely.

And one by one, in time, each of them realizes they can’t put it off.  Not only are they invested in the end, but they care enough about Protagonist to really acknowledge their death.

Each crew member does this at their own pace.  It becomes a rite of passage of sorts. And Protagonist is given some sort of proper memorial so the colonists all have a place to go when their time comes to grieve.

…

BUT BEFORE EVERYONE GETS TO THE END, someone has started noticing how Protagonist treated the robots on the ship over the years. And surprise, surprise, Protagonist named all the robots too and treated them like individuals depending on their quirks.  So now someone has finally solved the mystery of why droid 808 insists on being called ‘Bob,’ and why 239 knows ASL, and why the auxiliary robots are so salty about nobody ever being able to tell them apart.

Not only that, but security logs shows that the robots were about 19% more efficient when Protagonist was alive than they are now.  And THE VERY SECOND the rest of the crew starts observing the same habits Protagonist used in treating these robots ALL OF THAT EFFICIENCY COMES RIGHT BACK.

Because they missed Protagonist too.

…

And things settle.  Everyone thinks they’ve reached the end of Protagonist’s surprises.

…

THEN THEY ARE FINALLY ABLE TO START TRANSPORTATION BETWEEN THEMSELVES AND THE OTHER COLONIES.

And a visiting party shows up.

The visitors are surprised to see HOW WELL everyone on this colony is getting along, because, wow, people are civil where they come from but GODDAMN.

And one of these visiting members is really excited to see their sibling. 

And ‘Oh, that’s so nice!  Who is it?’

And then the visiting member says a name every single person on this colony knows.

The colonists have to tell them what happened to their sibling, Protagonist.

But they also HAVE to tell the sibling what knowing Protagonist MEANT to them. And what Protagonist knowing THEM, meant to them.

And it’s sad.

The colony pretty much wholesale adopts Protagonist’s sibling as a part of their family because they don’t know what else they can do to fill that void.  But just in case, they give the Protagonist’s sibling THE ENTIRETY of Protagonist’s security footage.  Because there is 90 years of it and that way they can carry their sibling with them for the rest of their life even if only in video.

And then the colonists think:

‘This. This was the end of Protagonist’s story. And this was a good a proper way to observe it.’

…

AND THEN ONE DAY A SHIP SHOWS UP THAT IS NOT LIKE ANY SHIP THE COLONISTS HAVE EVER SEEN.

And the people driving it aren’t human.

They speak English and passable French.  They can chicken scratch Urdu, Mandarin, and Swahili.

Everyone is stunned and wants to know ‘why…?’ and ‘how…?’

And the aliens are just, like, ‘Oh. Protagonist.  We ran into them while you were in space. They told us you’d be settling here and asked that we check up on you whenever we were rolling by this quadrant next.’

‘They were really nice. Taught us English. Gave us the files on a couple of your other popular languages as well just to be safe. How’s the colonizing going anyway?’

And everyone thinks back to THAT ONE MONTH of security footage where Protagonist was NIGH IMPOSSIBLE to find.  And when they finally did come back to their normal routine they were really quiet and thoughtful for about a week before really getting back to themselves.

The linguists all suddenly remember that IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING THAT REALLY WEIRD MONTH, Protagonist had a new coded language saved to their personal affects and was very insistent that they LEARN IT.  ‘FOR REASONS.’

And very quietly, the entire colony makes peace with the fact that Protagonist established a very successful first contact while they were all asleep.

Because of course they did.

(via ifeelbetterer)

bfleuter:

callmebliss:

8thgradeforever:

noxiousb:

semudara:

audiencecat:

songofsunset:

fireandwonder:

songofsunset:

Alien: So you’re saying that human brains sometimes just… malfunction? And see threats that aren’t really there?

Human: Yeah basically?

Alien: And then the human keeps living and doing things anyways???

Human: Yup

Alien: Woahhhhhh. Woahhhhh. Humans are badass.

Aliens would probably have fundamentally different responses to trauma than humans would,like- their brains. would be so fundamentally different. at a basic chemical and structural level we’d have to relearn everything, in this scenario the alien species is REALLY BAD at continuing to function with even a slightly impaired brain, and deals with it with LOTS OF BABIES, Oh yeah great grandpa died three years back when he got really surprised and WHAT DO YOU MEAN,THAT A HUMAN GOT STABBED THROUGH THE HEAD AND CONTINUED TO LIVE I DON’T BELIEVE YOU THAT’S IMPOSSIBLE, I bet they are all pregnant all the time and when they randomly die the baby eats their way out of the corpse, they are insectoid and look a lot like praying manti and they REALLY FREAK OUT THEIR HUMAN FRIENDS THE FIRST TIME IT HAPPENS, there is a sort of generational memory that happens which is how they managed to develop tech at all being so fragile, so when the creatures get depressed or homesick or manic and die it’s not like their human friends have lost them forever, except for how it sort of is, (via @songofsunset)

PLEASE IMAGINE THE FIRST TIME AN ALIEN HAS ONE OF THEIR HUMAN FRIENDS DIE

‘so hey, that was a great funeral, cool outfits, always glad to learn more about your culture and stuff. So, when is she coming back?’

‘She- she’s not coming back’

‘Yeah, not as Megan, but when is her replacement coming back?’

‘We’re- not hiring anyone new for a couple weeks???’

‘no no no, you’re not getting what I’m saying- I want to ask her about that book she lent me- can I keep it for another week or two, or does her new version want it back?’

The humans stare at the alien and just. slowly start to figure out what the alien is saying. The alien shuffles nervously, their six spindly legs making a skritching noise that echoes in the cold chapel. Finally, the kindest of the humans takes the alien aside and-

‘hey. so. Us humans don’t come back when we die. Not like you do.’

‘what? No, but you clearly talk about reincarnation, and-’

‘Those are just stories, Six. When humans die, we’re gone. We don’t come back.’

The alien laughs ‘No, see, cuz that would mean that- that would mean. That Megan- Megan is-’ The alien cuts off the hissing noise that is their equivalent of a sob. ‘I have to go.’

The alien spends a week in their spaceship, the only place they can send communication to their Mother. When they come back, their carapace is a glistening new shade of red, and they’ve ended up as a different gender. When the lab adviser asks them how they are feeling about Megan-

‘Megan? Oh, yes, my previous version was very fond of Megan.’ The alien cocks their head, like a particularly thoughtful bird. ‘I suppose that I regret her loss. She was a valuable member of the team.’

The lab adviser lets this be- they are aliens after all. But later, when lab hours are done, the adviser notices Six double and triple-checking all the lab equipment, especially- well. The accident that took Megan will never happen again.  

The book is never returned.

Now imagine the flip side: Sevan finds out his human friend is due to have a baby in six months. Six months! He asks, and finds that no, there’s no way to delay a human birth. In six months, a new version of his friend will emerge. Will they still like space operas? What about visiting that smoothie place in quadrant 6? Will they even still want to be friends?

His friend asks him to be visit the baby, after it’s born. Of course, of course he will. It’s the least he can do. There’s always that vulnerable phase after birth when you haven’t got the hang of the new motor controls, and everyone needs a helping palp for the first few months. 

The night he hears that the new baby has been born, he wails quietly and recites the qualities of his friend that he will miss the most.

Three days later, he gathers his resolve and knocks on the hatch of his friend’s place. Strangely, the access panel hasn’t been lowered - rude. He’ll make sure that’s one of the first things changed. His friends partner opens the door and lets him in and there - there is his friend,looking tired but well, a miniature copy of herself held in her arms. Imagine his joy when he finds out that not only will he get to spend longer with his current friend, but there will be another friend to get to know!

woa

good bug stories tbh 

Excellent bug stories

I am crying over space bugs don’t touch me

good good bugs ;n;

(via clockwork-mockingbird)

Humans Are Weird

caffeinewitchcraft:

logo-comics:

my-insanity-is-an-artform:

mikkeneko:

arcticfoxbear:

the-grand-author:

wuestenratte:

val-tashoth:

crazy-pages:

radioactivepeasant:

arafaelkestra:

arcticfoxbear:

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

“How did you select these poor unlucky victims? Were they perhaps prisoners, or religionists atoning for some mortal sin?”

“No, actually, they mostly… volunteered.”

“Oh mate, Wait ‘til you find out about the people who live there.”

“WHAT?!?!”

“You breathe what?!”

“Oxygen. I thought y’all did, too.”

“We breathe nitrogen! That’s what the filters we wear are for!”

“Y’know, I was wondering about those things.”

“You honestly breathe oxygen? But that stuff’s so corrosive that we use it to etch glass!”

“Oh, yeah… We do that too. Versatile stuff, oxygen. We also use it to start rockets, since we need something that burns well…”

“You–you understand that the ground is unstable, right? You won’t be able to build on that planet.”

“Earthquakes? How big?”

“We have measured them to be 4.0 on your Richter scale.”

“Nah, that’s nothin’, we’ll take it.”

“You’ll what? The planet experiences weekly tectonic shifts! We’ve recorded spikes equivalent to a 6.0 on your scale!”

“Dude, we get like 500 of those a year.”

“Five hundred?!”

“We don’t even feel anything under like a 4.5, my guy. So let’s do this, where do I sign?”

(via lathori)

Humans Are Weird

firemama:

arcticfoxbear:

the-grand-author:

wuestenratte:

val-tashoth:

crazy-pages:

radioactivepeasant:

arafaelkestra:

arcticfoxbear:

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

This would be cool cause it would explain why other aliens are always more advanced than humans technologically. They have it easy and don’t need to focus on developing tech for Earth quake proof housing or need extra powerful and strong heat or cooling devices to live in their homes, so their technology went to improving space travel and sorts.

And then in the future humans essentially become the China of the universe and we’re known for our advanced survival technology that we could sell to other beings trying to colonize, since they don’t have the tech to survive hostile planets and then the money just goes back into us being able to survive better and better, and knowing daredevil humans, they’d make space-galaxy-history trying to survive the most deadly planets and spawning entire fuckin colonies in these deadly places and other aliens would never fight us for the territory cause they can’t live there on their own so we essentially just everywhere freaking out our alien neighbors with our fascination of just putting up with Bullshit to expand and live.

(via plasticcyborg)