It’s funny how science fiction universes so often treat humans as a boring, default everyman species or even the weakest and dumbest.
I want to see a sci fi universe where we’re actually considered one of the more hideous and terrifying species.
How do we know our saliva and skin oils wouldn’t be ultra-corrosive to most other sapient races? What if we actually have the strongest vocal chords and can paralyze or kill the inhabitants of other worlds just by screaming at them? What if most sentient life in the universe turns out to be vegetable-like and lives in fear of us rare “animal” races who can move so quickly and chew shit up with our teeth?
Like that old story “they’re made of meat,” only we’re scarier.
HOLY SHIT THEY EAT CAPSAICIN FOR FUN
YOU GUYS I HEARD A HUMAN ONCE ATE AN AIRPLANE.
A HUMAN CAN KEEP FIGHTING FOR HOURS EVEN AFTER YOU SHOOT IT
humans are a proud warrior race with a pantheon of bloody gods: Ram-Bo, Schwarzenegger, etc.
REMOVING A LIMB WILL NOT FATALLY INCAPACITATE HUMANS: ALWAYS DESTROY THE HEAD.
WARNING: HUMANS CAN DETECT YOU EVEN AT NIGHT BY TRACKING VIBRATIONS THROUGH THE ATMOSPHERE
WARNING: HUMANS CAN REPRODUCE AT A RATE OF 1 PER SPACEYEAR. DESTROY INFESTATIONS IMMEDIATELY
THE HUMAN MOUTH HAS OVER THIRTY OUTCROPS OF BONE AND POWERFUL JAW MUSCLES.
HUMAN BITES CAN BE FATALLY INFECTIOUS EVEN TO OTHER HUMANS
WARNING: HUMANS CAN AND WILL USE IMPROVISED WEAPONS. SEE CLASSIFIED DATA LABELED J. CHAN.
HUMANS CAN PROJECT BIOWEAPONS FROM ALMOST EVERY ORIFICE ON THEIR BODY. DO NOT INHALE
OH GOD THE HUMANS FIGURED OUT DOOR HANDLES OH GOD OH GOD
More seriously, humans do have a number of advantages even among Terrestrial life. Our endurance, shock resistance, and ability to recover from injury is absurdly high compared to almost any other animal. We often use the phrase “healthy as a horse” to connote heartiness - but compared to a human, a horse is as fragile as spun glass. There’s mounting evidence that our primitive ancestors would hunt large prey simply by following it at a walking pace, without sleep or rest, until it died of exhaustion; it’s called pursuit predation. Basically, we’re the Terminator.
(The only other animal that can sort of keep up with us? Dogs. That’s why we use them for hunting. And even then, it’s only “sort of”.)
Now extrapolate that to a galaxy in which most sapient life did not evolve from hyper-specialised pursuit predators:
Our strength and speed is nothing to write home about, but we don’t need to overpower or outrun you. We just need to outlast you - and by any other species’ standards, we just plain don’t get tired.
Where a simple broken leg will cause most species to go into shock and die, we can recover from virtually any injury that’s not immediately fatal. Even traumatic dismemberment isn’t necessarily a career-ending injury for a human.
We heal from injuries with extreme rapidity, recovering in weeks from wounds that would take others months or years to heal. The results aren’t pretty - humans have hyperactive scar tissue, among our other survival-oriented traits - but they’re highly functional.
Speaking of scarring, look at our medical science. We developed surgery centuries before developing even the most rudimentary anesthetics or life support. In extermis, humans have been known to perform surgery on themselves - and survive. Thanks to our extreme heartiness, we regard as routine medical procedures what most other species would regard as inventive forms of murder. We even perform radical surgery on ourselves for purely cosmetic reasons.
In essence, we’d be Space Orcs.
Our jaws have too many TEETH in them, so we developed a way to WELD METAL TO OUR TEETH and FORCE THE BONES IN OUR JAW to restructure over the course of years to fit them back into shape, and then we continue to wear metal in out mouths to keep them in place.
We formed cohabitative relationships with tiny mammals and insects we keep at bay from bothering us by death, often using little analouge traps.
And by god, we will eat anything.
We use borderline toxic peppers to season our food.
We expose ourselves to potentially lethal solar radiation in the pursuit of darkening our skin.
We risk hearing loss for the opportunity to see our favorite musicians live.
We have a game where two people get into an enclosed area and hit each other until time runs out/one of them pass out
We willingly jump out of planes with only a flimsy piece of cloth to prevent us from splattering against the ground.
Our response to natural disasters is to just rebuild our buildings in the exact same places.
We climb mountains and risk freezing to death for bragging rights
We invented dogs. We took our one time predators and completely domesticated them.
On a planet full of lions, tigers and bears, we managed to advance further and faster than any other species on the planet.
Klingons and Krogan and Orcs ain’t got shit on us
We drink ethanol (in concentrations high enough to be used as an effective as microbicide or a solvent!) for the express purpose of achieving blood toxicity and disrupting normal brain function… AS A RECREATIONAL ACTIVITY!
On the same subject, we also deliberately incinerate assorted substances and then inhale the particulate-heavy smoke and vapor resulting for the same effect. EVEN IN THE FACE OF SAID SUBSTANCES BEING CARCINOGENIC, BECAUSE WE JUST DON’T GIVE A FUCK.
Humans do not have biological castes. Kill their commander and another will take its place. Soldiers left alone on a planet will start farming and manufacturing to survive. Farmers and manufacturers will take up arms and kill you if pressed. Just because two humans look different doesn’t mean they cannot do each other’s jobs.
Breeding does not kill them. A single human can mate dozens or hundreds of times in a lifetime. They often do so as recreation. Xenobiology team six believes they do not have a mating season but this is too strange to be true.
Their appendages are not designed for hitting, so they developed special training to make them very good at hitting anyhow.
The proteins making up their bodies are toxic and cause prion disease. Do not touch anything humans have touched. Do not consume earth foods. Fire does not adequately remove this contamination.
Humans perceive sixteen times the colors we do. Do not hide in bushes or vines from humans. They can distinguish your pelt from the foliage with ease.
We tried venting waste gas into the tunnels to kill the humans when they attacked. Turns out they breathe it.
Everything on their planet came from a single biological strain. They developed comprehensive genetics BEFORE they developed space travel.
They lack radio receptors and cannot be brought into compliance with right-thought simply by broadcasting to them. Even after we learned how to translate it into sound-waves one of their hatchlings drove the Great Authority mad by responding to every demand with a single question: “Why?”
Slightly touched on here, but let’s not forget this gem:
Want to point out a few things though, Humans aren’t the only ones to get high/drunk, Elephants, dogs, cats, bats, like a noticeable portion of the animals living on this planet really like getting drunk or high and having a good time. Also, the prion disease thing really only applies is one human eats another humans brain, the rest is free game to eat generally. And yeah, horses are crazy strong and muscular, but their legs are so frail, one jump that is too hard, and their legs snap, and fixing the bone takes forever, and the horse won’t ever be the same again.
And humans actually can survive perfectly fine with a limb lopped off, it’s just a matter of if the wound is sealed or tied closed within a few minutes. But even bleeding out humans can fight till just about half of their blood is gone, and that is scary.
But, pretty much everything @prokopetz said, this is actually something people generally know, humans are actually tough a fuck. Like Holy Shit are we scary, there is a reason many times in Sci Fi, despite what started this chain, where the aliens ARE scared of humans, fear them, hate them, and attack, not because they think humans are pitiful and weak and boring, but because they legitimately see humans as a threat, one they are trying to wipe out.
Humanity is in it’s infancy, and they fear what humans are capable of, what they WILL be capable of one day if allowed to spread and progress. This is actually the very theme of many Sci-Fi settings. Doctor Who is more or less all about this, The Doctor sees the potential of humanity, the wonder and strength of humans, that nothing can really stop them.
But Humans are a violent race, angry, their lives over in a blink of an eye, but in that blink, they do so much, so The Doctor is their protector, guards them, trys to temper them and lead them away from war, and more towards peaceful and thought out solutions and refuses to get involved at points, ones that need to happen, even if he could effect the outcome, change it. And a few times he has tried, which has altered time and events, case in point The Waters of Mars.
Other Sci-Fi sources such as games also touch on the strength and power of Humans, such as the Mass Effect Series, the lore behind so much of that, it speaks volumes of human strength, how humanity got drawn into a war in it’s infancy, only to end up just about ‘winning’ in a sense. Humans, squishy little flesh bags, vs aliens that literally had a culture of warriors and fighting, who has basically metal plates for skin.
Humans are tough, even in Sci-Fi they touch on that, that humans are comparatively primitive, simple, lack a lot of assets, and are treated like they are weak, little more than pets, only for them to turn around and show their strength and overcome things. Humans are by definition insane, humans are tough, one day, we will either be the scourge of the galaxy, truly space orcs, or become a defender of it.
We may not be the deadliest, most adapted for murder physically, but we are adaptive, and as long as there is several of them around, generally, they come out on top.
This is the kind of content I like to see. This shit gives me hope for the future sometimes when I can’t find it elsewhere.
Exactly, humans are hardy, the moment we get space bound, nothing will ever kill us out. The moment a colony, becomes a settlement, becomes a town, becomes a city, and expands; the moment we start to spread out, to the Moon, to Mars, to planets in our system, is the moment we become, as a race, as good as immortal.
We as a species adapt, we are where we are, not because we are superior hunters, because we are the strongest animals, the smartest, the fastest, the one with the best attributes. It’s because we adapted, and have adapted for years. If we as a a species where exposed to plentiful radiation, not enough to kill, but enough to be more than normal, we’d evolve over time the ability to withstand and adapt and become more resistant to it.
We are a strange anomaly, and are proof of survival of the most fit to live. We have so much fucking shit in us that is no longer useful, has no use and some things detrimental to health. The Pancreas, the spleen, wisdom teeth, all fairly useless or minimal use. And then there is things like the periods women have, that is actually detrimental to survival, makes disease and pestilence much easier, it’s a wonder we even survived as a species with such a thing, even if it was something that serves a purpose or did once upon a time.
Things set humans as these weak, fragile, worthless beings, at the beck and whim of outsiders, and that isn’t true, we as a species are strongest when unified against an enemy. We survived today, through luck, and what we adapted to have, adaptation is what is important in a species, not physical strength, not strongest jaws, not height and build, but how well you can adapt.
And when it comes to adaptation, humans have it in spades, as do foxes, which is why they thrive, while wolves struggle, wolves don’t adapt well or fast to changes.
You can remove half of a human’s brain and it can make a full recovery. (Hemispherectomy)
You can remove a large portion of the liver, and it will make a full recovery. Not only that, but if exposed to small doses of poisons over time, it will develop a memory of which chemicals the liver must synthesize to neutralize those poisons.
Severe trauma that may kill a human may not be enough to stop it. Humans require partial lung function, heart function, and brain function. All other functions can be destroyed in their entirety and the human will continue to fight until they collapse, which may be several hours or even days later.
Humans are subject to hormone surges which can overwhelm rational thought, drive them to frenzy, push them into territory where they do not know pain or fear, and enable them to lift many times their own bodyweight or endure significant physical stress they may not otherwise be able to handle.
Humans have survived falls from 32,000 feet unprotected from the thin atmosphere or sudden stop at the end of the fall. From some lower distances they have even managed to get up and walk away. This is not all humans, but it happens often enough that it can be considered an example of how sturdy humans are.
Humans can survive 6-7 minutes in an absolute vaccuum. That’s not very long, but it’s worth noting. With goggles to protect the eyes and a source of air, a human can survive much longer, and only needs these things and some protection from direct sunlight to survive short-to-medium-term durations in space.
There is no known upper limit to the amount of atmospheric pressure a human body can endure as long as it has time to acclimate. No known limit whatsoever. Their ability to dive deep into the ocean is limited by the technology they use to store gasses for breathing, not by biology.
A human can withstand up to 100 Gs along their front-back axis. While their up-down and left-right axises are much weaker against G forces, kinetic impacts from the front or behind are very unlikely to kill unless the G forces are immense.
A type of human known as a Russian once stuck his head into an active particle accelerator just to see if it was turned on. It was, and a beam of protons shot straight through his head at luminal velocities. He survived, albeit with minor brain damage.
Humans are photosynthetic. Exposure to minor amounts of UV radiation actually improves their health and cognitive function by generation of vitamin D in their skin. A complete absence of background radiation actually harms their health.
They are ridiculously tolerant of radiation for an organism of their genetic complexity. The amount of radiation required to kill a human is nowhere near enough to kill them instantly, and they may make a full recovery even from LD90 doses of radiation.
They are a genetically homogenous species. Between any two members of the human species, 99.9% of the DNA is identical. There is more genetic variation among two chimpanzees who are immediate relatives than there are between any two humans on the planet.
Their sternum and their forehead resist small caliber kinetic projectiles from point-blank range. Shots that fail to penetrate either of these areas will only anger the human.
It’s a joke about how weird the glitches in zelda are that can let you beat the game early.
Like in OoT where you can glitch out of the woods before the first temple, get a bottle and fill it with bugs and then use that after fighting ghoma to glitch to fighting ganon.
don’t think about rey getting like… confused? that she’s allowed to eat as much as she pleases while with the resistance? without turning any work in? and throughout her whole meal she keeps expecting someone to announce they’ve made a mistake just GIVING HER ALL THIS FOOD FOR FREE?
don’t think about rey playing and splashing in the puddles the first time she sees it rain and getting soaked to the bone but grinning from ear to ear.
don’t think about all the resistance droids coming to rey to fix their bent antennae and whatnot until they follow her around like ducklings.
don’t do it your heart cant take it
Don’t think about rey seeing an ATAT and freezing with the memories of the years she spent hiding in one, starving and just trying to survive.
