Latest Posts by notanalienscout - Page 3

What if humans are the only species that gets "mystery" bruises? How weird would it be to aliens that we can sustain an injury that leaves a mark lasting days or sometimes weeks but don't remember how we got it?

I love it!

Humans are already terrifying enough, but then it gets injuries like contusions (which is deadly to several species mind you!) and it doESN’T EVEN KNOW WHY?!?!?!?

At first the interspecies council thinks it’s a joke. Yes, it has already been established that a human just plain won’t die (with very few exceptions, like decapitation) and contusions aren’t that dangerous for most species. That it’d be unsuccessful at killing a human wasn’t surprising, but that they some times don’t even know how they’ve gotten the contusion? No that has to be a joke.

It’s ruled as another myth until a member of the council travels with a ship with a few human crew-members. Trofaxiq the Elder had taken a stroll around the ship a few days into the voyage when he heard two humans talking.

“Maybe you walked into something?” The tall, highly pigmented one said, inspecting something on the slightly shorter, less pigmented one.

“Yeah, you know I’m clumsy, but the position’s weird, isn’t it?” The shorter one said, looking down at their own appendage.

“So maybe you got it in your sleep?” The tall one suggested as the short one spotted Trofaxiq the Elder and jabbed its appendage into their fellow human’s sternum. A less experienced Froentir would have mistaken it for an attack, but Trofaxiq the Elder knew enough about human behaviour to know it was called a ‘nudge’ and was socially acceptable. 

After the normal exchange of greetings and pleasantries, Trofaxiq the Elder eventually asked the humans what they had been discussing. The tall one, Fatima, said the short one, Lucíahad gotten a bruise, but couldn’t remember how. Unsure what a bruise was, Trofaxiq the Elder asked, but quickly came to wish they hadn’t as they saw the large contusion on the humans appendage.

Less than one rotation later, the human guide had been updated, and a suggestion had been made to add a classification so they could mark humans down as more dangerous than the previous  “extremely dangerous, do not approach in the wild”

The only problem was how useful humans could be to expeditions. In the end, the suggestion wasn’t passed, to the worry of many council members.

Do you think that, to aliens, we humans are like the supreme omnivores of the universe?

I mean, honestly, one of the greatest advantages we have as a species is our willingness to eat, or at least try to eat, just about anything.

Allergies, cultural differences, preferred diets, and intolerances, and general tastes for flavors aside, the average human is capable of finding a way to consume most anything we can get in our mouth.

Meat? Boom. Vegetables? Pretty good. Fruits? Love it. Bugs? Hey if we had to. Fish? Hell yeah. Eggs? Yeah man. Organs? Sure thing. Milk, honey, and food products made in other creatures? Classic.

Hell, if something isn’t immediately poisonous or just disgusting tasting, or even just flat undigestable, chances are a human can and will eat it.

Honestly, even if something is known to be poisonous (i.e. pufferfish), we’re not gonna rest until we find some part of it that’s not poisonous so we can eat that.

Some humans even will eat disgusting things, either to prove they can, or because they’ve found a way to make it palatable just so that they can actually eat it.

Especially consider that if other alien species we encounter are either flat herbivores or obligate carnivores. It might be to the concern of some newer crew members just how much the humans on board eat and what variety they will consume if given the chance; especially if they’re concerned about food rations being low. Or if they get to an unexplored world and the human is commenting about strange flora and fauna they find and comment how much it resembles foodstuffs on their home planet. Until they realize the humans are saying it about a LOT of the stuff on this unexplored world. To the point they’re worried that either the humans will eat something that would get them sick/poisoned, or they’ll end up just completely devouring anything and everything they see on the planet like a swarm of starved locusts.

okay, so like there’s all this stuff about humans and the way we befriend all sorts of animals. but like, think about the way we interact with our pets. what if it’s not just the fact that we made friends with predators but that theses predators made friends with us back. the fact that there is a really clear bond between a dog or a cat and their owners and it’s reciprocal. the absolute love and devotion these companion animals show for us and us for them. think about the way you play with your pet and how an alien species might view it. or the fact that there’s a kind of rudimentary communication between species. the fact that I can tell the difference between my cat’s distressed meows vs. his i’m hungry meows. the fact that he prods me with a paw to get my attention, because he knows it works. that I can tell at a glance that my cat wants me to lay down a certain way so he can sleep on me. or the little greeting ritual me and my cat do when I come home for work – he meows really loud to be picked up… I sweep him into my arms and pet him, cooing goofy nonsense while he makes weird contented cat noises. think how absolutely flabbergasted an alien might be by the relationship between a human and their pet.

Humans are odd

To jump into the whole humans are space oddities, imagine an aliens reaction to contacts.

Human Kayla had recently joined the ships crew, who all felt rather prepared. They got her a hamster and everything. And so, they go on for a good two weeks until Human Kayla says her contacts were irritating her.

So, of course, everyone is super freaked out because, “Human Kayla! What are these contacts you speak of? Are they part of your body?” and etc.

But then they watch her reach to her face and shove her finger onto her eye. And peel a bit of it off.

And now, of course, the aliens are terrified, because humans can casually peel the top part of their eye off if it hurt them, and it was once again time to update the intergalactic human manual.

I've seen it vaguely touched upon, but has anyone ever gotten really indepth about how we advance, not as a need, but as a competitive factor? Like with even NASA and whatever we were like "hey we're gonna make it to space before you losers" and the others were like "heck no we're gonna get there before you losers" and it just permeates every factor of our lives ask any child who plays a game and even they'll be pumped to win

Necessity is the parent of progress, the pamphlet had said. It was supposed to be a human saying, but as Vossavangen looked upon the mess the ships humans had made, xe realised how wrong this statement was. As per usual, humans made very little sense. Apparently, it had all started with one of the humans saying they could fix the fuel intakes of the small utility ships (which were working fine, mind you) before and better than another human.

Apparently this was a ‘bet’ - a word that didn’t really translate to Vossavangen’s native language. A lot of the words spoken in the following argument didn’t translate, and those who did seemed strangely fixated around referring to the other human as genitalia. At the time it hadn’t seemed like it would bring much trouble. Like most normal human behaviour it was best to let it play out on its own and let the humans deal with it.

Well, that was what xe had thought then, but less than one rotation later the floor of the room the humans called the garage was filled with tools and pieces of engines. It was a disaster, and Vossavangen had no idea how to explain it to xir superiors.

Talking to the humans had proven futile, but by some miracle both the utility ships they’d been ‘tinkering’ on were fully operational eleven rotations later - less than half a rotation before High Command was supposed to inspect the area. The work space was far from tidy, but the humans had decided that one party would clean for all of them. Which it would be depended on who had brought the biggest improvements to the ships.

Vossavangen was less than optimistic, but xe tested the utility ships none the less. Shockingly, it seemed the human engineers and mechanics had managed to on one of the ships cut fuel use with almost forty percent, while on the other they had substituted the need for traditional fuel altogether for food waste.

After the incident, it became common knowledge that the best ways to get a human to work efficiently was to say they either wouldn’t be able to do it, or that someone else could do it better than them.

I have fallen down the "humans are space orcs/earth is space Australia" hole

I see a lot about humans being scary durable and cute and they bond readily to other creatures type of posts. But like what if the aliens don’t understand that we can bond with other creatures sometimes MORE than other humans….

——————————

Zůrłtg is “best friends” with human-trixie, their crew first got their human 7 cycles ago and it has been a fast friendship, humans are infamous for their bonding ability, but Zůrłtg didn’t know that they sometime bond more with one person then others. Zůrłtg was honored when human-trixie bestowed upon zem the title “best-friend”. Human-trixie joined the crew as there botanist, which might be part of there friendship as Zůrłtg is made mostly out of cellulose. She has been a true asset to the crew, as she has saved many a fellow crew member from harm with her bravery and courage. Zůrłtg remembers unwillingly the time she pushed Captain Cul out the way of a carnivorous plant only to be devoured herself, and when all thought she had perished bust out of the bloom with the plants brain stem in hand. Human-trixie is also adorable, she is small and kind and smart. So if this is what humans are like it no wonder everyone was so excited to be meeting with Space Crew Valen as they also has a human aboard. Maybe they will be lucky and their humans will mate and they can have baby humans! Unfortunately for Zůrłtg the Valen crew human was not like human-trixie. He was not as small as human-trixie or having pleasing brown “hair” from his head, in fact he seemed to always be making the face human-trixie makes when she is displeased, though not nearly as adorable. But ze tried not to judge a book by its cover as human-trixie would say and was extatic to meet him. Even more unfortunate, the human did not choose to bond with zem as human-trixie did, in fact quite the opposite, this human, human-dave, did not like zem at all, calling zem a (swear word) jolly green giant and that he should (swear word) off. OH NO this is terrible!!! Human-Dave will tell human-trixie not to like zem anymore and he will lose his “best-friend”. If ze had tearducts he would be crying like human-trixie when her pet-hamster-walnut died. Human-trixie must never know this or she will surely not like zem anymore! To zes dismay human-trixie knew something was wrong the second that she saw his drooping mumds. Zůrłtg ended up telling her everything as ze is not as adept at the act of deception as her. Zůrłtg watched with horor as human-trixie got really really still, “he said what?” she spoke with a stone voice so unlike her normal happy squeaky tones. She got up. This is it. She is abandoning zem. She told zem to follow him as she walked calmly to the common room where the visiting crew was. There must be a ceremony to leave a “best-friend” that another human must witness Zůrłtg thought. Or maybe she wanted say hurtful things with human-dave at him. Zůrłtgs mumds were dragging on the floor at this point. Much to Zůrłtgs surprised as he watched human-trixie mall human-dave screaming swears words with a violence that none of either crews thought possible for such a small adorable being. Zůrłtg was still disappointed about not getting any human babies but ze was releaved that ze was the “best-friend” of such a fierce creature.

Gravity

Something I haven’t seen yet with the “humans are weird/space orcs” thing is differences in gravity

Like imagine humans going to planets or moons and having to have an alien escort to hold them down. Humans stuck to their alien friends with those little backpacks with leashes that parents put on their kids or pets!!

Or humans going to a planet with such high gravity that the aliens feel like they’re being crushed to death and ppl are just “ah yes, the comfortable pressure of home world”

Humans are Space Orcs

So I’ve been loving the “humans are weird” tag lately and I came up with one myself. Here goes…

Breathe in… Breathe out… The yoga soundtrack on Kenzie’s phone was interrupted by the nervous clicking of a member of the Ghrivak clan. Thnybux, a third-tier member of the clan, approached her on a swirling cloud, as was standard of the Ghrivaks.

“Human Kenzie,” said Thnybux, through the translator in her ear. “Human Kenzie, what are you doing? You will rip your flesh with those movements!”

Kenzie straightened from her yoga position and greeted Thnybux with the series of clicks common in the Ghrivak dialect. “This is called yoga. Humans actually need to move and stretch their bodies. It’s good for us.”

Thnybux regarded her with some confusion. “Do you know why the Ghrivak move only on clouds, Human Kenzie? It is because if we move our bodies too much, our bones will disintegrate from the forces of gravity on this planet. I do not understand this theory of movement. How exactly is it beneficial to your species?”

“Human muscles are connected to hard, quasi-living rods in our bodies called bones. These bones are created by specialized cells, and are both very lightweight and very strong. Our muscles are made of specialized cells, and when they are very minimally damaged, repair themselves so that they are stronger. If a human does not exercise, the muscles will die off, and the human will no longer be able to move.”

“Surely the force of these…muscles…on these living rods will shatter the rods?”

“No, our muscles are not that strong,” Kenzie laughed. “Our bones are much stronger than that. And humans break bones fairly frequently. It hurts but the bone just heals stronger. That’s kind of a theme in humans actually, when we get hurt we just heal stronger.” She returned to her yoga.

Thnybux hid xie’s fear from the human Kenzie, and took note of this new information. What kind of creature becomes stronger when it is hurt? Lesson number one: Do not anger the humans.

Human: *juggles* Alien: !? Human: Oh, yeah, it’s just a trick I picked up. Just for fun. I’m not, like, a real juggler Alien: ‘Real’ In these contexts indicates a profession? There are people who do this for money? Human: Oh yeah! I got a friend who’s a professional juggler *finds YouTube video* Alien: !! Human: Yeah, and also there’s combat juggling Alien: This is a metaphorical combat, yes? For social dominance? You do not injure each other? Human: Well, I mean, some injuries are gonna happen. That’s why my friend – the guy in that video – he can’t do combat juggling very much. He can’t risk injury, cuz he has to perform. it’s super fun, though.  Alien: WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS??

well now i’m on an aliens kick. also, i just went in my kitchen to get some ice water and walked in on a fucking roach orgy because no matter how much i clean this apartment is fucking ghetto so let’s talk about how aliens would react to human pest control methods.

“Why is Stacy cleaning the dishware? We have cleaning robots to do that for her,” asked Qwerty (his full name was much, much longer, but because it was written with every letter of one of the more commonly used human alphabets, and something about early digital communications, the humans on the I.S. Dastallria had given him the nickname). 

Xorzit’ket shrugged as best as her anatomy could manage the borrowed gesture. “Why don’t you go ask her?” 

Keep reading

here’s another one i thought of

what if humans are the only ones capable of being offended?

like, an alien says, casually “i don’t like you” and the human… reacts? the alien is all “am… i not using that word correctly? like is to indicate a preference for? and I have no particular preference for you human we just met?”

and the human is like “first of all, how dare you“

and the alien doesn’t understand why the human is angry? there was nothing about the value of human in the statement, so why did the alien’s statement distress them so?? the feeling of liking (or absence thereof) was completely dependent upon the [internal thinking mechanism process] of the alien???

and like 30 minutes of language analysis later, they come to the conclusion that, because the human is new, there is no reason for their presence to cause a pleasant feeling (which is liking? the alien guesses), that the alien wasn’t trying to cause offense (OF COURSE NOT, THEY DON’T HAVE A DEATH WISH), so the human is just like “oh, ok, i guess i’ll just have to grow on ya!” *failwink* and then there’s the lightbulb moment for the alien, like

OH. This is why humans are aggressively social. pets/hugs/touches everything. forms pack bonds so quickly and fiercely. They like things. and they want to be liked in return.

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

Aliens reacting to someone with braces? Thanks!

The human problem was growing bigger at an alarming pace.Back when they first started travelling through space, most had viewed theirefforts as cute. Some had even cheered them on from afar. Of course, that wasbefore they realised what kind of creatures humans really are and what kind ofplanet they originate on. Before they knew what humans did for fun.

The humans as a whole hadn’t attacked yet, but it was only amatter of time before they gathered their forces. The Ktynarian species had tobe prepared.

As a result, they had commandeered a human craft, and with eight Ktynarians to every human, they’d managed to gain control of the vesseland the horrible creatures within.

Unfortunately it was common knowledge that getting a fullygrown human to talk was a near impossible feat. Fortunately, there were severalyounglings on the ship. The majority were younglings actually, which was asurprise. Upon further investigation it was revealed the ship was operated by atraining facility of the category ‘school’.

After separating the humans into smaller groups to minimisethe risks of organised resistance, Commander Yldrik picked one of the mediumsized younglings to interrogate – having heard that the bigger posed a threatin size, but that the smallest were often quick and nimble

Yes, the medium sized one were surely the easiest to make afirst attempt on. And if that failed, they still had a plethora of other humansto interrogate. One of them would surely give them some useful information.

Some of the humans were secreting some sort of fluid fromtheir optical organs, some making noises the Ktynarians couldn’t identify, butinstructing them to be quiet seemed to just make them more intent on making thenoises. Deciding it would be best to leave xir soldiers to deal with it,Commander Yldrik turned xir focus to the youngling xe had selected.

“What is your objective,” xe asked. Getting straight to thepoint had seemed like the best method, but the human didn’t seem to comprehend.

“What?”

“What is your objective? What are you here to accomplish?” xe repeated, seemingly surprising the human. Perhaps they hadn’t expected to beconfronted, or for the Ktynarians to be suspicious of them. Clearly the humanshad underestimated them.

“Well, I mean, a B would be great, but I’d settle for a Ctoo,” the human responded, something in their mouth gleaming slightly. Underdifferent circumstances Yldrik would have paid it more attention, but xe waspreoccupied deciphering what the human had said.

A bee was a creature from the humans’ home planet, andapparently vital to their ecosystem. A sea however, was a large body of aparticular kind of water, and their planet seemed to be largely consisting ofit. Why would they possibly want more of it?

“Why?”

“It’s not my best subject,” they said, elevating an upperpart of their anatomy. Yldrik knew xe had been informed of the meaning behindthe movement, but xe had finally noticed something different about the human’steeth. Something worrying.

“Bare your teeth.” The human seemed surprised by the order,but complied after a brief hesitation.

The sight that met xem was terrifying, even for someone withas much experience as Yldrik.

“W-what are those?”

The human looked perplexed at first, but seemed tounderstand what xe was referring to fairly quickly.

“You mean my braces?” the human asked before baring theirteeth further. A grin. At least that was what xe thought the action was namedby the humans. “It’s just metal. You see, my mouth had too many teeth in it, sothey got a bit out of order. Crooked and all, you know? So when I was aboutthirteen my parents took me to a dentist who basically attached metal to themto force them to stay in place. Cool, huh?”

The tone in which the human spoke did no justice to thehorrors that laid in their words. They spoke as if they didn’t realise how terrifyingthis information was – no, come to think about it, they spoke as if they enjoyed the horrors they’d clearly beenput through.

“And this was necessary for your survival?” xe asked, seeingno other reasonable explanation.

“No, no it’s just because it looks better,” the human said,repeating the elevation of an upper part of their anatomy. They did somethingelse too, with an appendage of theirs, but Yldrik was done paying attention.

In record time, every single Ktynarian had vacated the ship,control of which had been returned to the humans. Fortunately their ship had afar higher maximum speed than the humans.

Their only chance at survival would clearly be to stay asfar away from the humans as possible. If they attacked, the Ktynarians wouldhave no other option than to flee. A species willing to do things like that totheir own young – for aesthetic reasons no less – was not a species one wantedto go to war against.

Humanity is so beautiful

So I learned two cool things about humans:  Humans have stripes! Human skin is overlaid with what dermatologists call Blaschko’s Lines, a pattern of stripes covering the body from head to toe. The stripes run up and down your arms and legs and hug your torso. You cannot see them without special equipment as the difference between the stripe cells and the non-stripes are too subtle for human eyes to pick up. You will also notice them at if something irritates the skin, as rashes and moles can form along these invisible lines.

Humans are bio-luminescent! We glow in the dark. Natural chemical reactions in our cells let out some energy in the form of visible light. Unfortunately this light is very weak, about 1000 times weaker than the eye can see. Scientists still don’t know if there are animals capable of seeing this light in humans. 

So, it gave me an idea, and I will be writing something on it, but I’m also eager to see where others would go with the idea: what if humans met a race that could see our stripes, or our glow, or both!  My take on the idea will involve the aliens adoring these glowing stripy creatures. Humans, meanwhile, are really confused about why these aliens find us so much more attractive than the more colourful creatures out there. Their compliments would confuse us. We literally cannot see what makes us beautiful to them. 

Anyone who wants to write this, feel free to go other places; love, hate, disgust, confusion. Any reaction from the humans, or aliens, can make a good story. 

Okay,,, but think about aliens finding put about how babies are made. Like us humans feed them the stereotypical ‘stork delivers it’ as jokes but they actually belive us. Then a mated human on one of the ships belly starts growing and the aliens are super confused because their technology isn’t built to detect life inside of other life forms and the aliens start stressing. Like 'Human Frankie! You vomited this morning you clearly need rest’ and the human is just like 'Nah it’s morning sickness I can still work hand me a tool’. And it keeps going on like this until the girl has a big belly and the aliens are just like 'omg omg omg our human is dYING’. Until 9 months in and the girl starts actually having contractions. One human calmly start telling the girl to take deep breath while others start prepping the medical room. Hours later a baby is on board and the aliens freak out like 'THE HATCHLING WAS ALIVE WHEN IT CAME’ and 'IT CAME OUT OF WHAT?! And just,,,

Filthy Habit

To add my voice to the humans are space orcs headcanon…

Nail-biting.

Considered a “filthy habit” by humans, it *horrifies* aliens who are all like OH MY GOD the human is EATING ITSELF ALIVE OMG OMG RUUUUUUN BEFORE IT EATS US NEXT!!!!

And when the crewmembers report this no one believes it at first but after a while the ship captain and CMO fearfully approach their human crewmember and catch her in the act.

CMO: Human Theresa… are the rations you are allocated insufficient for your needs?

Theresa: Um… no? I mean yes. I mean er… I eat enough yeah. Why? *chews cuticles absentmindedly*

CMO: *cringes in horror*

Captain: THEN WHY ARE YOU EATING YOURSELF!??!

Theresa: *blushes and takes hands out of mouth* I know, I know, it’s a filthy habit. I can’t stop though, I never even notice I’m doing it till someone points it out.

Captain: *horrified* You… you don’t NOTICE that you are self-cannibalizing. O.O

CMO: We have to put you on suicide watch. This attempt at self-destruction must be halted. Don’t worry, Human Theresa. We will help you. Thank the stars we caught this problem before you gnawed off a limb!

Theresa: Umm… O.o *absentmindedly chewing on pinky nail*

Humans are ridiculous

I just want to throw my hat into the ring about the Humans Are Space Orcs trope that has been going around and I’ve been enjoying immensely.

You know how a large percentage of us have a fear of spiders? Even cripplingly so, like “kill it now I’m crying and breathing into a bag” kind of fear. So what if the aliens are monitoring our transmissions before making first contact, and see, for example, a bunch of Tumblr users discussing how scary spiders are? Put that with how badass humans generally are (seriously, we invented surgery before we invented anesthetic and consume literal poison because we like the taste), how freaked out would the aliens be to learn that there’s something we truly fear? I can see it going down like this: Human Steve: Tell us about FTL travel and your culture, we have much to learn from each other Alien: Yeah yeah in a minute tell me about the spider threat are we safe right now or

Even better would be if Human Steve is not one of those people who is afraid of spiders at all. Like, he has a pet tarantula and puts wild spiders outside safely when they come into his bathroom, if he bothers with them at all. And the aliens are VERY CONCERNED about the little guys and he’s like ???? They aren’t??? A threat???? But then they consult with Human Bill, and Human Bill is basically Professional Spider Hater and goes on for a weirdly long time about how spiders are the actual devil and how black widows are really dangerous and let’s not even MENTION Australia. He gets the heebee jeebies and starts twitching and itching as he begins to feel phantom bugs on his skin. Both Human Steve and Human Bill insist that the other is the weird one. The aliens are more concerned than ever.

Humans are Weird - Culture

Okay so I absolutely LOOOVE the Humans are weird/space orcs conversation going around (I just reblogged a bunch of them). Anyway, it got me thinking. In MOST science fiction, every alien encountered that is intelligent enough to have a culture, has one culture throughout the entire species. What if it wasn’t just lazy writing, but that Humans are totally unique in that. Not only do we have many different cultures, but the complexity increases every time you get mixtures of them because of people living in different places or being born into mixed families etc. It would confuse the FUCK out of aliens the moment they encounter more and more Humans and NONE of them have ANY consistency. 

Alien: *makes the two-finger peace sign*

Human: Woah, hey can you not do that, please?

Alien: Do what?

Human: That hand sign. It’s very rude.

Alien: But… that other Human said it meant peace. 

Human: Oh, for them it might be, but not for us.

Alien: I don’t understand. 

Human: Where I come from, that sign is rude. It might be fine for where that other Human came from so they probably thought nothing of it. 

Alien: But… you come from the same place?

Human: Yes and no. We both come from Earth, but from two very different parts of Earth. We do things differently. Sometimes it feels like we’re just as alien to each other as you are to me.

Alien: Wait, there are two groups of Humans who just do things completely different ways for no reason at all.

Human: Ah, no mate. We’ve got HUNDREDS of different groups. 

Alien: ???

Okay, so like how when sheep/kids baaa at you and you baaa back and they all baaa again?? How would aliens react is if a human on their mission started making the creatures noise back at them until they all doing it.

Well…

The mission was fairly simple in Grutona’s mind: follow the tracks of certain creatures and use environmental clues to discern aspects of the creature’s lifestyle and needs. The group had been following the large, octagonal shaped prints of a swutonaton for the past several standard hours, and up to this point, they still hadn’t actually encountered the beast.

Good. Grutona was not keen on being eaten alive today, which would surely be the result of disturbing the beast. Protocol on the mission was to leave should contact be breached with any species that was not fully documented.

However, there was one member of the team that made Grutona worry. Maria seemed to take things like Protocol as more of a… guideline. Already today Maria had disregarded rules about eating wild tree fruit claiming “they have these on my planet, don’t worry!” Grutona did worry. Especially when Maria added: “Besides, they’re delicious.” Grutona knew what type of treefruit Maria was eating, and xhe was skeptical of the claim. These deadly fruits humans called “lemons” were HIGHLY acidic and sour. On xer home world, a fruit like that would be used by deadly criminals as a poison.

Needless to say, having a human on the crew had been an eye-opening, mind-boggling experience. Grutona was learning more about universal cultures on this mission than ever before, that was for certain.

It was a few more minutes of walking along the path, Grutona taking note of the way the plant life was smashed down to the side of the path of the tracks as if the swutonaton had stopped for a time and rested.

“Ah, so it appears swutonaton are a restful breed, and likely a predator species as evident by their choice location being one leaving them so vulnerable.” Kerip, another member of the team, said this clinically, xis eyes dilating further as his species was wont to do in order to get a magnified look at things. As he was examining he spoke to his partner, Bepin who recorded xis observations on a datapad.

There was a noise further down the trail, strangely like a yawn. Grutona looked over cautiously. Maria was gone. Grutona frowned and made toward the sound hoping it was just Maria doing some sort of human thing xhe was unfamiliar with and not the beast hiding in the plant life beyond planning an attack on the mission crew.

But when had luck ever been on Grutona’s side?

As xhe rounded the bend in the trail xhe was met with the horrifying sight. Xhe would have screamed if it were a characteristic of xer race. Instead, xhe stood there in shock.

Maria stood in front of the creature they were tracking all right. The only thing was, the team was entirely wrong about what they thought they were following here. They had assumed the animal was very large, at least nine or ten times the actual size of the creatures in front of them now. And creatures they were. There were at least fifteen of these creatures and they were all piled atop one another, drooling heavily, spiked tails and trunks laying anywhere. 

“I’d definitely call this a dog-pile.” Maria chuckled, completely unconcerned at the reality that basically everything they had assumed about these creatures was wrong. Maria turned to look at Grutona, eyes gleaming in mischief. “Guess we were wrong about the elephant-sized animal with forty pig-sized feet, huh?” Grutona said nothing, still reeling. They needed to leave, Protocol demanded it, and they needed to go soon before more of the creatures woke up as one was doing now.

“Hey, look! They’re starting to wake up! They’re so cute!” Maria took another step closer to them, making cooing noises as Grutona watched in horror as more of the swutonatons started to rouse. Footsteps behind xer alerted xer to the rest of the team arriving to the scene finally. 

There was a moment of stunned silence before an exasperated sound came from Bepin and Kerip started mumbling in astonishments about all the things they had wrongly ascertained. 

“We should leave,” a voice of reason finally called from the back of the group: Teriwald, the ranked officer from the ship who had been tasked with “protecting the scientists” on the expedition.

Grutona found xer voice again, finally. “You’re–”

There was a sudden, loud sound from the pile of creatures “Meeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrm.”

“Okay, that was the greatest thing I’ve ever heard,” Maria was watching the herd of swutonaton with complete adoration in her gaze. Grutona had been warned to be wary of humans when they assumed a look like this one. There was no telling what kind of things they might do next. 

Whatever Grutona had expected, it was not what Maria did next. Maybe xhe thought she would have started running in circles around the group or walk over and touch one, but xhe certainly did not predict that  Maria would raise her arms in imitation of a swutonaton trunk and repeat the noise back at them in perfect imitation. “Meeeeeeeerrrrrm!”

“What are you doing, we need to go!” Teriwald reminded in an increasingly demanding tone. 

“Calm down, Waldo, we’re fi–” Maria was cut off by several cries of the swutonaton calling back at her.

“Meeeeeerrrm!” 

“Oh, this is too good!” More of the swutonaton had stirred now, and they were climbing off of each other and standing in a herd before Maria who laughed and made the noise again. 

“Meeeerrrm!”

“MEEEEEEEEERRRRRM!!!” The entire herd of seventeen (Grutona had counted in xer moments of horror earlier) swutonaton were now calling back at Maria’s prompting. 

Nobody on the team said anything as they all watched in rapt attention Maria and the herd of swutonaton yell at each other for the next ten standard minutes. 

Humans, Grutona concluded, still half horrified, are weird.

HUMANS IN SPACE

so the humans are space orcs posts where we can just hide emotions from our customer service skill set, why don’t we take that a step further.

What about actors, who literally train for years to act different behaviors for different roles, from good guys to bad guys. One minute the human is kind and gentle, the next he is arrogantly addressing the pirates who invaded, all from his acting days.

Their strict memorization can help them recall lines for any situation. They can cry on cue, motivate their crewmates with a well place monologues, become the life of the party with one liners and comedic sketches.

Hell this can apply to dedicated fans. The ones who try to get in character at cosplays, or memorize entire dialogues from their favorite scenes.

Really I just want someone to write alien fic where a human quotes the wallet scene from pulp fiction and just fucking terrifies them

Go for the Head

so, I was thinking about how human bodies can survive a great deal of damage, right? 

probably all the guides on humans say things like “if you really need to kill one, go for the head. that’s the surest way to kill a human.” 

but do you realize that even that might just not be enough?

please, allow me to introduce Mr. Phineas Gage. 

Mr. Gage was a foreman working in the construction of railroads. He is most famous because he survived an hideous accident where a 3.2 cm thick, 1 meter long iron rod was driven into his brain by an explosion. 

Let me repeat: an iron pole rocketing through the organ that controls the whole body was not enough to kill him. 

Just in case you need another picture to get the idea of just how serious was the injury. 

of course such a severe injury could not leave him unscarred: his personality changed completely, and he had moments of delirium. 

but he survived. not only that, but he went on having a relatively normal life. his speech, movement and intelligence WERE NOT IMPAIRED BY THE INJURY. 

aliens have all the more reason to be scared shitless of us. 

In the spirit of Space Australia posts...

I like the idea of humans not being the only species with a need to unecessarily bond and form ‘packs’ and whatnot, or the only species to enjoy putting themselves in danger for the adrenaline rush, or the only species to recreationally poison themselves, or even the only species to have parties.

You know what I love, though?

Crowd psychology and the concept of group flow.

I love the idea that humans are the species that is in love with group flow. Sure, any alien can listen to music and enjoy it, maybe even go to concerts in large groups. But humans are the only non-telepathic species where going in a large group enhances the experience simply because you know that dozens or hundreds or even thousands of other people are all getting in the zone with you at the same time for the same reason. Any alien can go to a concert, but they marvel at the sight of hundreds of humans singing along to their favorite artist not because it makes the song objectively better, but because it enhances the experience.

I love the idea of aliens trying to figure out mob psychology, looking at sports fandoms and the riots that happen if a team fails to win a game, and asking themselves and other humans how it gets to that point. Because they can put the same human in front of the same game and get two entirely different results based on whether the human is alone or not. A lone human may break a bottle or curse, but they will likely not do more than that, unless they go online to rant. A human in a group that feels the same way can do much more damage.

I love the idea of aliens trying to figure out the aspect of performative grief for dead celebrities, not understanding that it is not only practice for when a death comes closer to home, but that it is a form of bonding, a call and an echo of “I feel this way too. This person mattered to me too,” across thousands or millions of people’s screens and faces and pens.

I love the idea of aliens taking a look at frat parties and nightclubs and karaoke and being so confused, because they can understand that intoxication might be fun, sometimes, or that singing or dancing with strangers can be fun, but the sheer chaos of an out-of-control college party is terrifying to them. There is nothing here that people will enjoy come the morning, but somehow that doesn’t matter, because in that moment, with those people, the humans are connecting as they sing their drunken songs or eat their terrible food or dance the night away. There is a sense of belonging even in this awful mess, for those who know how to find it.

I love the idea of aliens looking at conventions and wondering how it is that there is such a difference in a person wearing a costume in the privacy of their home and wearing it to a large con, how the endorphin levels soar even when the human is not receiving compliments, just because the convention is an echo chamber of “I love this show, this character, this franchise, this life.”

I love the idea of aliens coming to earth and understanding the meaning of bonds and enjoying music and knowing fiction and surviving our weather and planets and everything and still not being able to understand how a room full of strangers with no telepathy can feel so connected and in-tune simply by sharing an experience. The feelings aren’t always positive ones, but they are there, and there is a comfort in sharing them with endless people you’ve never met.

Anyway, that’s my contribution for Space Australia.

Humans are Space Orcs

Yet another addition…Teething. Babies, specifically.

“Human Veronica, your offspring is attempting to eat his toys.”

“Hm, oh, nah. He’s fine. He’s just teething. It’s normal.”

“Tee-thing? I do not understand.”

“Oh, well,” show baby’s mouth, “we aren’t born with teeth. They grow in when we’re babies. Babies like to chew on things when they teeth.”

“To sharpen them?”

“Uh, no. Not exactly. It’s just…something they do? The teeth have to cut through the mouth tissue after all.”

“Your bodies cut through themselves?” Horrified alien.

“Pfft, you think that’s bad? Our skulls aren’t fully formed when we’re babies. They fuse together .”

alright alright alright, @space-australians asked for some humans are space orcs re: adrenaline and tonight you shall receive because it’s 1:15 in the morning and my brain clearly does not believe in sleep!!!

After some time of observation, the Intergalactic Fleet happily welcomed the Terrans. While their uncontrollable pack-bonding instincts had caused some… incidents… they were mostly a boon. In dire straits, the flimsy little two-legged things proved themselves capable of surviving in any inhospitable climate and either pulling their comrades out of danger or summoning help for the danger even while suffering from their own grievous injuries. 

So when Medical Chief Sylatn-Dra’xxort got to share an important dinner with a human called Commander Geralt O’Brien - a rarity, because the Fleet was generally segregated by breathing requirements and her people favored chlorine - she was very excited to pick his brain on how his species could go from “let’s put a knife on this cleaning bot and name it and promote it” to a facsimile of the Terran folk hero “Terminator” in a manner of seconds.

Thanks to the airflow manipulation technologies of the bird-like Aarkorysh people, Commander O’Brien’s voice was only slightly warped as he responded to her questions. “Well, obviously you know humans are full of hormones. When things get dire, say because of a tunnel collapse for example, there’s a hormone called adrenaline that gets released.”

Sylatn-Draxxort listened intently to O’Brien’s explanation of how this ‘adrenaline’ was in many ways a biological equivalent of a starship’s emergency lockdown mode. Terran psychologists called this state “Fight or Flight Mode” and while in such a state, a human might even be able to shrug off pain that would kill other organisms as their body was flooded with a veritable cocktail of substances that blocked pain while providing additional blood sugar to perform feats of strength that impressed even Golretzi soldiers. 

“Now the problem with adrenaline is that it’s really only good for you in short bursts,” O’Brien continued, and took a sip from his glass of red liquid - another human curiosity, their fondness for substances toxic to other species with similar biology. “If a human is under that kind of stress for too long they start producing adrenaline and other stress hormones even when they’re out of danger. At that point, the constant elevated heartrate and stuff ends up becoming a medical issue.” 

He smiled to himself while Sylatn-Draxxort took a few bites of her own meal. “Although on the other end of the spectrum you get adrenaline junkies who seek out that kind of reaction.”

The Medical Chief turned a few of her eyes back to look at the dark-skinned commander, who sounded fond. “Excuse me?”

“Yeah, we call them adrenaline junkies. These are the people who do a lot of base jumping and crazy ski jumps and stuff.”

“Yes, I recently read about a Sergeant injuring herself ‘skiing’ on Pyrhatsdis…”

O’Brien made a face of discomfort before laughing. “Yeah, I read that too. If I remember correctly, she got out with just a little concussion and some scrapes. I’ve had worse skiing injuries than that, though it was partly just because I didn’t do the straps right.”

“And people seek out the sorts of situations that cause this physiological reaction, even though too much of said reaction causes damage to your circulatory system?”

“I know, right?”

Sylatn-Draxxort reached out one of her many arms to take a sip of the cool mercury brew she was fond of while she considered how to respond to this politely. “How strange,” she said softly.

Humans are weird, apparently

Ok, I decided I wanted to try my hand at adding to this “Humans are Space Orcs” thing.  Apologies if it’s been done before, but I haven’t seen this particular thing.

Imagine the aliens coming to Earth and looking at our media, at the products in our stores, and all over the place they see the most obvious warnings and disclaimers.  “Caution, food will be hot,” “Professional driver on closed course,” “Do not attempt.”  And they just think that humans must be absolute idiots because who the heck needs to be told that, right?

But they don’t know about human litigation.

Sure, the aliens have laws and treaties and whatnot, but what with an intersteller community and all these different races and languages, they just naturally abide by the spirit of the law, because who would want all that precise translation and finicky language and loophole abuse and obvious rule patches?  Way too much work for the aliens.

So humans join the galactic community, start developing relationships and trade deals and agreeing to abide by whatever the aliens call their Geneva Convention.  Everyone’s happy.  Until the aliens start looking a little closer at actual human behaviour.

“Umm, Ambassador Joseph, we can’t help but notice that your people have been making more dreadnoughts than the Isni Treaty allows.  This is making us very nervous.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean, President Gangril.  We only have four dreadnoughts.”

“You registered four, but when reviewing your fleet, we found there were at least twenty?”

“The other sixteen are heavy crusiers.”

“They’re clearly dreadnoughts.”

Joe brings out a large stack of papers.  “Actually, according to the treaty, dreadnoughts are over 906 metres, and these cruisers are 890 metres long.  The guns also…”

Until the aliens are collectively tearing out their hair analogues and somehow human lawyers get even richer as the galactic community desperately hires them in an effort to prevent this behaviour.

Humans and Fire

So I’ve read a few humans are weird posts and it got me thinking, what if humans are the only species to evolve to use fire. Like, most intelligent species will instinctively flee in panic the moment they catch sight of an open flame, yet show a human infant a fire and if they don’t know better, they will try to grab it.

Humans will burn everything. Most of us won’t eat anything unless it has been “Cooked” first. (A human word meaning to heat food until it has begun to denature but not yet started to carbonize.)

Start a small fire and instead of fleeing, humans will gather around it and start socializing.

We get intoxicated by setting specific plants on fire and inhaling the smoke, often with the burning embers mere inches from our sensitive face.

We use it to clear land for agriculture and hunting. We use it to punish criminals. We even use it for purely aesthetic purposes. (Think fireworks.)

Heck, we we discovered hydrocarbons, the first thing we did was burn them. In fact, humans were burning so much hydrocarbons they were literally altering the atmosphere of their planet.

Heck, humans have died because they literally did not have enough materials to burn.

Now imagine hostile aliens want to invade earth. They don’t use fire except for carefully controlled and heavily guarded industrial purposes. They also don’t know much about earth other than it is definitely inhabited and the people haven’t developed intergalactic travel.

They’re expecting to face primitive forces armed with the local equivalent of clubs and bows. What they get is, to them, a strange anachronistic jumble of expected primative technologies and highly advanced technologies that they definitely shouldn’t have.

They’re not expecting guns. (Projectile weapons that consist of a narrow tube with projectile and a chemical propellent stuffed into one end. Instead of an electromagnetic pulse, the propellant is ignited and the expanding gases shoot the projectile out of the tube.)

They’re not expecting powered vehicles. Instead of electric motors, humans have what they call the internal combustion engine. (A motor that works by sucking flammable gas into an enclosed chamber, igniting the gas under pressure, and using the resulting force from the detonation to move a piston. Because of that, humans have heavy machinery, self-propelled vehicles, and powered air-craft before they even really understood bio electricity.

They’re not expecting bombs, or incendiary weapons. (It was also how it was discovered that their bio-polymer armor, while excellent against projectiles, can actually burn at surprisingly low temperatures.

They’re not even expecting smelted metal. Steel to them is a high tech material that can only be produced under specialized conditions of extreme heat, and requires very specialized facilities to produce. They are shocked to discover that humans have been smelting copper before they developed writing.

And they are definitely not expecting nuclear weapons. (Which are basically “bombs” that instead of using combustable chemicals use an uncontrolled nuclear fission reaction. They are also aghast to discover that not only was this apparently the first thing we thought to do when we discovered fission, but that competing human faction have “how many of these weapons stockpiled!?”

After retreating in disgrace, the task force sent to monitor the plant is horrified to report that humans are rapidly expanding into space. They aren’t using gravitic lifters or electromagnetic mass drivers. They are apparently simply loading equipment and personnel into special “missiles” and using a shit ton of highly combustable fuel to simply launch themselves into space.

Empathy

So the Humans are Weird tag keeps popping up and I absolutely love it, so I’m going to add!

So everyone talks about pack bonding and how humans are super friendly but imagine the aliens trying to find out why and discovering the humans actually have the ability to tap into empathetic fields. To feel a small bit of what another person if feeling.

Like they don’t have to be looking at someone to tell if they’re upset. They just ‘feel’ it. Like 'so I just got a call from Jenny and she seems sad’. And the alien is like 'she sounded fine to me?’ but the humans like 'no, no, I know Jenny, something is wrong’ and guess what something is.

Or how in really tense situations humans sort of just MOVE together. Shift and cover each other’s blind spots without even talking or looking. How they just seem to know when someone is upset and the aliens are like cool low level hive mind.

And then they find out about mob mentality and that freaks them out, that someone can get so caught up in the emotions of a group they basically become one person in 100 bodies. About how when humans go to conserts and dance the music just enhances Thier emotions and they all get in sync and that’s why humans like music so much, it strengthens that empathetic connection!

And then they realize that yes, when the John-human winces because Mizan smashed his finger TS because he somehow 'felt’ that and they’re all like wait no and the realize yeah, Humans can tap into us too.

Tavik is going threw a rough patch with Thier mate but doesn’t tell anyone and acts the exact same so HOW DOES THIS HUMAN KNOW IM UPSET? And all the aliens are like forget telepathy, humans just freaking FEEL this stuff.

okay so i’ve seen a lot of post about What If Humans Were Weird and stuff about humans and aliens interacting but………….give me some human/alien relationships? where are my complicated courting rituals???? where are my human alien marriages??? Give Me That Shit! what if aliens consider humans the Epitome of Beauty and grace? like yknow how some ostriches prefer presenting to humans instead of other ostriches? and anyone who is lucky enough to be mated to a human is thought of to be like a tier above.

but like the flip side where any human who marries an alien is immediately known as a Kinkster. “i fucking knew david was into weird shit!!! no wonder he got married to an alien from sector 764b4 HE LIKES TENTACLES!!”

or maybe?? aliens who like humans are weird to other aliens? “omg ru'garr stop fetishizing an entire species, u creep.” and ru'garr is trying to hide his weird human porn like “ITS NOT THAT WEIRD GUYS THE GENITALS ARE COMPATIBLE!!!” “fuck off ru'garr”

i just,,, can’t believe i haven’t seen any of this?? @space-australians

But seriously tho, on the topic of temperatures we can survive and stuff, aliens would flip the heck out if they lived where i do.

I live in a part of southern Canada that gets so cold that being outside for more than 2 minutes means you have a good chance of getting frost bite.

My room has two outside walls, and is very well insulated. In the winter i get frost on the inside of my walls and i couldnt give two shits. I sleep with the exact same blankets i do in the summer.

Like you see all these things about Australia, or rainforests, or Florida, and how extreme they are.

But id like to see aliens take on a candian hosehead. They’re like red necks, but with more crazy stunts, more beer, and more guns. Like can you imagine???

Alien: ah yes a nice cool region this will do nicely for the invasian

Human: *careens off building on a ski doo towing another man on a toboggan, hollering about how he left his beer at the lodge*

Alien: well perhaps the local species are a bit strange, but mostly harmless! After all, this species of humans “can-ayy-dee-ins” are known throughout this planet as kind and docile, we shall have no difficu-SMACK- HOLY GILSNIP YOU HIT ME WITH A PEICE OF ICE YOU PRIES FROM THE LAKE AND NOW IM BLEEDING HOW DARE YOU FEEL MY WRATH

Humans: WEEEE HEEEHEHEEEEE you came to the wrong neighbour hood, bud!

Alien:…. my scans say you are heavily intoxicated. This shall be a easy fight

Human: *whistles loudly and gives a big toothy smile*

Alien: starts screaming as another human on a sled heads a MASSIVE HEARD OF WHAT THE HELL IS THAT BEAST ITS FURY AND IT HAS BEEN HORNS GREAT GILSNAP GET ME OUT OF HERE

Humans: high fiving as they climb on their sleds and chase after their herd of buffalo because that will take a while but it was ABSOLUTELY WORTH IT DID YOU SEE THAT ALIENS FACE GET REKT

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