So it’s so long…got kinda ramble-y and off point but I think I got my thought in there.
I’ve been thinking about these a lot again and I’ve seen a few saying that Aliens would have to be really tough to make it into space and survive. But I don’t think that’s necessarily true. What if the first Alien species that makes it out of their planets atmosphere or even lack there of, is a fragile, fast learning hive mind? Sure the first few attempts go array, ships explode, crumple in on themselves leaving the atmosphere and it’d be terrifying but they are able to build better, stronger ships, figure out how to grow vegetables or their closest thing to vegetables on board after they lost a crew to starvation because they have an idea of what went wrong and can work on fixing it because they are constantly connected to each other, no radio silence. Soon enough their whole planet is able to travel the stars, every sentient species, because “We all share the same planet why would we not help each other?” and that spreads to every inhabited planet anyone lands on. Then along come the humans, bumbling, tiny, innocent enough seeming humans. Shooting themselves out of their atmosphere essentially with explosives, trails of fire following them. It barbaric, something that failed to work for the Aliens, simply blowing their ships apart, yet somehow these predatory species that survived, conquered and thrived on a Death World were able to even bend explosive power to their will. They aren’t extremely strong looking, though that can be deceiving, they bare their teeth in greeting, act aggressively towards one another ‘playfully’, they’re unnerving. They didn’t help each other, instead turned it into a race, even to their own moon. So many died trying to figure out how to shoot themselves through their atmosphere and yet…here they are, traveling the stars with childlike wonder, always wanting to explore the unknown. They aren’t exceptionally strong, big or intelligent but they’re durable. Broken bone? Realign it, brace it and it heals back stronger. Stabbed? Sew that shit up and it heals. Blow to the head? Typically out of commission for a few days but heals up and back to whatever they where doing. Loss of limb, mental illness, weak heart…they push on, living, striving, making fake limbs to replace the lost one(s), takes medication, goes to therapy or even white knuckle grin and bear it to get through day to day, a tiny machine placed in the chest to help keep the heat beating. What they may lack in size they make up for in speed, they’re quick, most are fast working able to almost double the productivity of the larger Aliens, they sprint, they’re built for short distance sprinting some are amazing at running long distance which is terrifying knowing you wouldn’t be able to out run one for long, not to mention their pursuit hunting, they can follow you for days until you die of exhaustion. What they lack in intelligence they make up for in ingenuity. Part of the engine brakes and you don’t have a spare part? More than likely a human can jurry-rig something that’ll let you get to where you need to go to get the part even if they don’t know how the engine works, a general description of what the part does can make it possible for a human to throw something together. Suppiles running low on an expedition? Once more their pursuit hunting comes in handy, figuring out which plants are edible.
It’s easy to forget what they’re capable of, where they came from and the flames that followed them into space when they look so squishy, startle easily, mimic your movements, some even learning your languages, but there’s almost always moments that remind you that you’re sharing space and food with a sentient predator species. Maybe raiders attack, the human()s stone faced, starring them down waiting for a moment to strike, not even having to say a word before launching forward to protect their crew, their friends. Expedition gone wrong, animal attack possibly, you’re human(s) will most likely scare it off or fight it, tend to the wounded and search out help even if they are wounded. You don’t have to be tough to make it into space and survive, you just have to learn and build off the failures. Even the weakest of species could make it to the stars.
Here’s an idea for the “aliens think we’re weird” train: The Hypnic Jerk, otherwise known as being startled awake just as you were about to fall asleep. It can be caused by irregular sleep schedules or anxiety amongst other things, but it happens randomly to super healthy people too. It’s theorized that we evolved to have it back when our ancestors slept in trees because sometimes falling asleep can actually feel like falling and their bodies just developed an alarm system to keep them from falling off their branch.
So imagine sharing sleeping quarters with aliens and having one of them stare at you curiously as you curse at yourself because you were /almost/ finally asleep. And you gotta explain our primate evolution and the difficult to conceptualize feeling of falling.
I mean… humans are so frigging hard to kill that if you die people will just be OH NO YOU DON’T and start pumping your heart themselves and breathing in your lungs until you do it by yourself again. most races consider someone dead when the heart stops, but not humans. not you-can’t-kill-me humans. until there’s even a teeny tiny grain of hope they fucking won’t let death have them. they know that they have a few minutes to do so, at best, and it would be simpler to just let go, but not humans.
cardiac arrest? not on my shift, buddy. respiratory failure? heck no.
whatever happens, they will try to literally bring you back from the otherworld.
MonCalamari: I feel very sad. Human Jessie died the other day… a cardiac arrest. She was such a good friend, I can’t even-
Human Steve: buddy, Jessie is alive and well. she’s still in medic bay of course, what with the heart problem and everything, but now she’s good! who told you that she died?
MonCalamari: … are you kidding me? her heart stopped, of course she is dead!
Human Steve: she most definitely isnt, I just went to medic bay and she’s still kicking- mind you, they saved her by a hair, they tried for almost ten minutes… they almost had given up on her, but she is strong and they managed to restart the heart in time.
MonCalamari: they… they got her heart beating again? but that’s surely impossible…?
Human Steve: go in medic bay if you don’t believe me. surely by now you should have learned that humans don’t like to die?
So a lot of ‘Humans are weird/space orcs’ posts always say that humans are ‘apex predators’, but really we’re not.
We’re a 2.2 on the food chain (highest is 5). To put that into perspective about a pig or an anchovy. Yeah.
So imagine aliens thinking that well obviously humans must be the apex predators of Earth, after all they’re so advanced, use pursuit as a form of attack and have high pain tolerance etc etc.
But they find out that we aren’t. We literally just said “fuck you food chain” and rose above our standing. Imagine how aliens would react to that.
I walked into the room, avoiding direct eye contact with the alien waiting for me. Its huge eyes just looked like a jet black sclera set in a sack of vaguely damp, wrinkled gray leather. If eyes are a window into the soul, this creepy little guy would give satan a run for his money. They just put me on edge, somehow. I’d have to make eye contact anyway, but it could wait.
I strode up to the meeting table, pulled out the chair, and sat down. I shuffled around in my bag for a moment before pulling out a small piece of tech, which I set on the table in front of me.
“Before we begin, I want to be sure of a few things. This device you’ve provided us with, it is 100% effective at understanding and translating languages, correct?”
The alien across from me nodded. It’s a nice little allowance they’ve made for comfort, learning our body language, but its bulbous head threw the whole gesture off. It made me think of one of those old inflatable toys with a weight on the bottom, that would lean too far to the side before bouncing straight back up. Woobles or something. It didn’t really matter.
“Nearly. We occasionally find a race with one or two concepts that it has trouble with, but that’s easily smoothed over.”
I took a deep breath, and waited a moment to compose myself. This whole thing was going to be more trying than not interrupting old man Higgins up the street while he went on about whatever racist sentiment was in his head at the moment.
“One or two…okay. That’s odd.”
The alien blinked. Eyelids came in from not just the top and bottom, but also the sides. That’s just plain creepy. Reminds me of one of those really old movies they threw on the media blacklist pretty much as soon as first contact started. Something in black. Whatever it was, I remember seeing it as a kid, and that guy at the beginning had nothing on this alien’s eyes.
“Have you already found something it can’t translate?”
I nodded, then pulled out my communicator and scrolled through a few documents. I really needed to clean this thing out. Can’t believe I didn’t get around to it before coming to such an important meeting. Imagine the debacle that would result if I opened exactly the wrong thing. Never can know what that might be, honestly.
“Of a sort, yes. Mind humoring me for a few minutes?”
The alien steepled its hands together, and leaned forward. That’s just plain creepy. I wonder how they learned such context specific body language? Not that it really matters, I guess. Not my problem.
“Certainly. After all, it can take years to accept a race into the Federation.”
Nodding again, I pulled up a document on my communicator, then leaned back in my chair as I began. This was going to be more interesting than that time your classmate Jimmy found some old matches somewhere and almost burned the school down by mistake.
“Excellent. This shouldn’t take much time. I mentioned that we found some issues with your device. Allow me to demonstrate: Espionage.”
The little device on the table beeped, and a red light flashed.
“ERROR: NO ANALOGUE FOUND”
I sighed. That one had been an accident. We just had the thing sitting in a conference room while we discussed the implications of the visit when it came up. But, when something that simple for us to understand came up, we had to try for more.
“Reverse Engineering.”
Again, a beep and a flash of red.
“ERROR: NO ANALOGUE FOUND”
“Spycraft.”
And again with the beep. This was going to get irritating if I didn’t speed things up a bit. Too bad we hadn’t managed to find a mute option for that feature.
The device gave off a series of distressed beeps, punctuated by rapid blinking of the little red light. I almost felt sorry for it. Almost.
“TOO MANY ERRORS DETECTED. REBOOTING. RUNNING SELF DIAGNOSTIC. NO DISCREPANCIES FOUND,”
I paused, and glanced across the table at the alien before looking back down at the translator. This was going to hit it harder than a washed up holovid actor with no auditions and less money hits rock bottom.
“Xenocide”
The chair across from me clattered to the ground as the alien practically fell out of its seat. I don’t blame the poor thing. Of all the aggressive, militaristic words we tried, that was one of the ones we least expected to translate. I mean, really. Who has a word for the intentional extermination of an entire sapient species when they don’t even understand fundamental hostile international mechanics like spying?
“Why do you have a word for…what was all that just now?”
I chuckled a bit while motioning for the alien to sit back down. His reaction had been pretty good, perfectly suitable for one of those hammed-up old dramas where the hero realizes they’ve been working with the villain all along.
“We were confused about that too. So we took a look at the information you sent as part of first contact with us. We noticed something interesting. Every single race in your Federation is carnivorous. Why is that?”
The alien seemed smaller somehow as it settled back into a seat. It looked kind of like a balloon slowly losing air, if that balloon was made of moldering gray leather with eyes that made your spinal column decide it wanted a holiday in Fiji.
“First contact has always been made after sapient races make it to multiple worlds. We’ve never found a sapient herbivorous race which failed to destroy themselves in resource wars and aggressive action. We’ve never found herbivores capable of surviving long enough to leave their own world.”
I leaned forward in the chair and smiled while finally making direct eye contact with the alien. I think the poor thing shivered when I did that. Not that I blame it. Imagine your reaction when you start to put the pieces together and realize that your friendly, upstanding next door neighbor might be the world’s most wanted criminal.
“And the races you have found, while commonly using threat displays, do not waste resources on wars they cannot easily win, correct?”
The alien nodded as it slouched a bit in its chair. It looked kind of like it was trying to hide. Who wouldn’t want to hide from the monsters in their closet?
“Wasted resources means decreased likelihood of survival.”
I shrugged. That was true enough, though rather coldly logical. Dispassionate logic like that has never been our strong suit. Then again, that’s why I’m in this situation in the first place, so it evens out.
“And yet herbivores constantly waste resources on aggression, on movement, on having more young than will possibly survive.”
The alien was staring at me. I’m not sure when the last time it blinked was. I wonder if those eyes need some kind of lubrication to keep from drying out. Probably, they looked a bit less creepy than they should’ve. Looked like they were losing their shine.
“And they die for it. That’s exactly why we’ve never encountered spacefaring herbivores. Their inherent aggression is their own demise.”
I held eye contact. I’d almost swear the alien was a weird statue right now. Don’t know who would commission a statue made of old greasy leather, but I’m sure there’s someone with too much money and too little sense who would give it a shot.
“Indeed. Now, back to the subject at hand. I’ll ask you before we continue: what can you offer humans for joining your Federation?”
The alien sputtered as it started moving again. I’d swear it looked offended. Maybe it doesn’t see where this is going. Not that it really matters, I guess. I mean, it probably matters about as much as posting a formal complaint to a new corporate policy, which is to say not at all.
“We’ve already sent the offer. You’ve seen that, I’m sure.”
I nodded, and began to tap out a staccato rhythm on the table with my fingers. I never could remember where I learned this stupid tune. I’ve known it as long as I can remember, and it just moves into my head on occasion and sticks around like that one couchsurfing friend who doesn’t understand the idea of wearing out their welcome.
“And I’m asking, what else do you have to offer?”
The alien just shook its head again, staring at the device. I wonder if it thought we might’ve tampered with it. As if we knew how. That little thing is way beyond our current abilities. We had some scientists pry it open and look inside, just to be sure.
“Nothing. I’m not sure why you’re-”
I raised my hand, cutting him off. Huh. Not sure why that worked. Did they learn that much of our body language? That’s still really creepy, if it’s the case. Or, maybe I just have it on edge. I dunno. I guess it doesn’t matter.
“May I have permission to connect my datapad with my ship’s computers?”
The alien glanced away from me for a moment. I assume it was checking in with superiors somehow. Maybe it was psychic, to an extent. Or maybe they just had an implant of some sort. We’ll find out eventually, I’m sure.
“Yes, if you like.”
I sighed. I guess that makes things easier for us. I don’t think anyone was going to like what I was about to do. This whole thing felt kind of like one of those holovids of an accident, where you know what’s coming and don’t want to keep going, but for some reason you just can’t seem to stop and pull yourself away.
“Computer, show video: Hiroshima”
A screen appeared in the air above my datapad. It started playing back an old, grainy video. Shaky, taken by hand in an aircraft in a firefight. Below, you can barely see a city being blotted out by a massive explosion. A cloud of smoke, fire and debris was rapidly climbing into the sky, billowing, growing, blooming into an eerie and easily recognized mushroom cloud.
“That’s…you’re using weapons of that scale on a population center? How recent was this?”
I shrugged, and closed the video. The screen on my datapad went back to the document I had up earlier. Gotta love how well they managed to predict this whole thing. I made a mental note to recommend a raise for whoever set up that document for me.
“Three centuries ago. Prior to our invention of spaceflight. Part of a much larger conflict. This is a relatively minor example of “overwhelming force”“
“ERROR: NO A-”
“Shut it. Computer, show infosheet: Battle of Stalingrad.”
A series of graphs and diagrams appeared above my datapad. They showed resources, time, maps, battle plans, and death tolls. Images were interspersed throughout, as were annotations on the tactical value of this, the emotional value of that. Prominent among them was a single apartment building, including notes on sniping from the roof and support via tunnels.
“That…what purpose would that…why w-”
Again, I raised my hand to cut him off, before closing the infosheet. Maybe it was both. Nah, couldn’t be. Only way it was both having this guy on edge and our body language is if it somehow had our body language built in. Unsettling thought, but not exactly likely.
“Because Stalingrad was an advantageous location and the people who died there were considered ‘Acceptable losses’“
“ERRO-”
“Computer, show gallery: General Sherman’s March to the Sea.”
A multitude of images appeared over the datapad. Rail lines and roads intentionally broken and destroyed. Farms and fields scoured clean and left to fallow. Buildings and towns razed to the ground. A broken people left to mourn and starve.
“So much waste…that can’t be intentional, can it?”
I glanced at the images, the wanton destruction that campaign caused, and the very orders that caused it. That kind of thing may be considered morally reprehensible now, even a war crime, but it wasn’t always. At the time, the strategy was extolled as one of the reasons the war ended the way it did.
“It was intentional.”
The alien stared at me, its reflective black eyes bigger than I’d ever seen them before. Creepy as all hell, that’s for sure. I’d rather not deal with these kinds of meetings in the future. Maybe after this I could negotiate for some kind of retirement.
“But…why?”
I tapped my datapad and closed the gallery, then leaned back and tossed my feet on the table. May as well relax, I already knew how this was going to end.
“Because it rendered the enemy unable to use resources Sherman couldn’t keep. Computer, assemble and show video grouping: RTS Games”
A large grid of videos came up, showing a huge range of scenes. Largely battle, the settings varied from open space to deep ocean, from early history to the far “future.” Even battles across space and time could be seen.
“The translator can’t have gotten that right. Those are military tactical simulations. Higher level than anything I’ve ever seen or heard of.”
I laughed as I closed out all of the videos and turned back to the alien. Creepy and unsettling as it might be, I’m pretty sure I was terrifying the poor thing. Not that I really felt sorry for it. Not at all.
“No. They aren’t. Those are games. Toys. For. Fun. And they’re a couple hundred years out of date. From what I’ve seen, nearly every human capable of coherent speech is capable of tactically overwhelming your Federation. And since we’re already here, in space, it’s too late for you to say no. So, I’ll ask again:
Four thousand planets in the Great Unity. Six thousand sentient species, give or take. Technology so complicated it could only be repaired by crews with multiple different cognition types on the team. And that’s not even mentioning the violent flare-ups that had brought the Great Unity down from eight thousand planets and fourteen thousand species. It was entirely understandable for the humans to be intimidated. But no, that wasn’t quite it.
To the species with similar intelligences and social structures, it almost seemed that the humans were embarrassed, of all things. But nobody paid them any mind. Their insistence on using the freely given technologies to outphase the signals that they had been broadcasting for cycles? Odd. Same with their social quarantining of all human history, and with the electromagnetic shielding of their quadrant. The only thing people really paid attention to was when this backwater nothing asked for the other species to delete the preliminary data gathered earlier. Some worlds balked at that, but this tiny, flimsy race was so obviously terrified that even the most predatory of the war races consented to the purge. It didn’t really matter anyways – their quadrant, an even mix of death worlds and featureless rocks, was otherwise entirely empty of life, sentient or otherwise.
The Alab were the first to realize how strange that had been. If humanity had then hidden itself away, kept from the rest of the universe, it would have been as expected (there were many shy, prey-evolved races), and they would have been ignored, as seemed their wish. But no. The flimsy bipeds built ships of their own, founded settlements on half a dozen worlds. And these places weren’t shielded like Earthspace was; instead they were as obvious and unshielded as possible. Curious about the oddity – they were a plains evolution, so curiosity fit them – the Alab ventured as close as they could to the strange cities without being spotted, hidden beneath the best cloaking the Great Unity had to offer.
As it turned out, they didn’t need to hide. Partially because the Humans saw them, somehow, and partially because the Humans invited them down. By now the Alab’s interest had attracted the attention of most of the Great Unity, who telepathically watched through the Alab sensory hearts as a world opened up around them.
This colony was not the tarnished scar they would have expected of a nascent race. Even the planet was different from the dusty rock it had started as.
A cool breeze touched the Alab delegation. It was scented with so many things that, for a moment, the Alab was frozen in simply trying to process the variety. The variety, of course, came from the masterpiece of terraforming before them: where there were one craters, glittering pools shimmered with the reflective scales of aquatic creatures; the star-burnt ridges now housed both massive, rigid photosynthetic organisms and prancing furred quadrupeds.
Even that brief glimpse sparked massive speculation on the universal scale. Were the humans genetic engineers whose art surpassed even that of the Tra’di? Did their planet simply have that many organisms, with an evolutionary history far enough beyond anything seen elsewhere, to create such variety of perfectly proportioned life? Landscape designers hurriedly took notes and scans, preparing for the unavoidable rush of requests for the new style.
But that wasn’t the mission, as stunning as the landscape was. The Alab turned around, clicking their hearts at the abrupt change in input. The city was massive, a gleaming wonder in stone and steel, somehow surpassing the crystal forests of the Mavse in elegance. The ships soaring through the skies above shone like the stars they sought, yet the Alab could pick out individual details on the designs adorning them.
Not long after this event, other species began to visit Humanity’s homes. Without fail, each and every one of them was uniquely beautiful. Their ships weren’t the fastest, but one couldn’t help but be impressed at their symmetry. Their music wasn’t the most complex, but it often gave rise to more emotion than actual empathic abilities. And each colony had its own biome, its own set of unique species, each more impressive than the last.
Rumors began to grow, as they do, surrounding the home world of the greatest artists the universe had ever seen. Some said that it was drab, focused on training the artists they sent out rather than on making the art itself. Others declared that Earth obviously was a religious secret (they had found out that humans had religion only a few cycles earlier. Of course, their prayers and monuments were the most beautiful anyone had ever seen), but that was scoffed at. The sheer breadth of human religions wouldn’t allow a decision that unified, the debaters pointed out, and at least one human would have given it away before now if it was something centered on faith.
By far the most popular opinion was that even the most wondrous works on the colony worlds paled in comparison to the splendor of Earth. Tales spread, saying that anyone nonhuman who saw Earth in all its glory would be struck silent by awe, never to speak again, for fear of diminishing the memory of what they saw. That Earth was so wondrous that the colonists saw their own worlds, home to more abstract riches and honor than most of the rest of the universe, as hopelessly utilitarian, as gray and lifeless in comparison as Raner Alikrem to Ormek 8.
Over the Human cycles, Earth grew in fame and mystery. Despite taking advantage of every advancement shown to them, Humanity never once volunteered knowledge or technology beyond that of their art and culture. Nobody minded, though, as said art was definitely worth the cost. Humans got more and more famous, and continually better educated, as the Great Unity slowly funded and rewarded their astounding work. But they retained their peculiar aversions, never accepting any weapons, or training, or even remotely militant designs, acting almost horrified at the thought of violence. It made sense, in an odd way. The fragmentary human history that had been gathered from the occasional interview with the taciturn race was as pure as it came, one where even hinting at conflict would see one shunned. Traders and scholars learned this quickly, taking specialized training in avoiding the subject just to avoid scaring their precious artists.
It was with this in mind that the Gald set out for Earth. They were one of the oldest species in the galaxy, and undoubtedly one of those for whom the times of peace chafed the most. It was in seeking both truth and conquest that they sent out their expeditionary force towards Earth. The logic was plain even to the most sedentary of species – if the most fascinating mystery in all the universe was being guarded by the eleventh most physically weak of the races, and the second least violent (the least being an immobile, telepathic cellscape that covered a small moon), then of course a predator-evolved race with an undeniable urge to spread their reach, grow their power, would eventually come after them.
The first fleet was more of a team of armed ambassadors than an armada. Even as they attacked, the Gald hoped to stay in Humanity’s good graces. The Gald kept in careful contact with them up until the moment they crossed over into the shielded Earthspace.
The first fleet was never heard from again. The Gald, logically assuming that some standard space disaster had befallen their fleet, sent another, this one with precautionary reconnaissance and messenger ships. Again, all was well up to the shielded space. The Gald, sure that the new fleet was safe from all but the strangest disasters, waited with bated breath for the return of the messenger ships.
The first one came back early, not only with a report from the fleet (no notable planets had been found yet, other than twelve deathworlds. The fleet continued its search for Earth), but with cargo. That was unexpected, to say the least. The messenger ships had been intended to fly back and forth across the shield, transmitting messages from one side to the other. That one had been used instead to transfer what looked like an derelict satellite meant that, whatever was on that satellite, it was worth looking in to. The satellite proved a welcome distraction from waiting for the return of the second fleet. It had turned out to be an old mining surveyor, sent into what would become Earthspace mere ertd before the humans entered the Great Unity. It had been destroyed – they couldn’t tell by what – only twelve Human cycles before said entrance.
Excitedly, the Gald searched the recorded scans from the surveyor for images of Earth. It only took them a few hundred false positives – deathworlds and wastelands all – before they found it. A world, extremely high in water content, of substandard gravity. Cloaked, seemingly unintentionally, in a cacophony of electromagnetic signals, the world had all the readouts of a near-spacefaring race. The Gald, elated at their discovery of Earth’s exact location (what kind of planet hides themselves in the exact center of the protective shielding?), sent the messenger ship back across, with new commands for the fleet.
There was no response. The second fleet had, somehow, vanished.
Frustrated now, the Gald sent a proper fleet for the third time, targeting the exact location of their quarry. Armed with the most formidable equipment the Great Unity (home to almost a thousand intelligent warlike species) had to offer, and with a borderline-forbidden Breacher signal processing unit that would allow them to transmit past the shielding back to their home planet, they closed in.
Everything was going well – the invasion force was actually feeling a bit pointless – when they reached the first field of wreckages. They stopped for just long enough to check that there were no survivors of their fleet, and that there were no intact ships or weapon systems to harvest. It was when they reached the second fleet that they realized something might actually be wrong – these ships were perfectly bisected along the power cores, the corpses of their crew shot midfloat even as they died in the depressurization of space. But again, scans revealed no useful resources, personnel, or information about the opposing force.
By then the crews had begun to mutter. Nobody had any idea of what could have done all of this – the technology was far beyond that of the rest of the Great Unity. Some said that it was a rogue member of the Great Unity who had gotten there first. Others said that it was even a species from outside the known, who was trying to infiltrate the Great Unity through their physically weakest link. Either way, the mission of the Gald shifted in a new direction: save the humans from this strange new threat. The fact that doing so would net them the secrets of Earth was simply a bonus to a glorious war.
The high command glinted at that – it was a political win/win from something that they had expected to bring them only hatred. As the Gald, weapons primed against the unknown threat, passed into the solar system that Earth was supposed to be located in, they began to broadcast their oncoming victory across the universe. Every member of the Great Unity guiltily watched, greedy for the final answer to the Question of Earth. The Gald passed the star that Earth circled. They counted planets our from the center, pausing when they got to the third nearest. It wasn’t Earth. Or at least, it didn’t look like it. There were no towering cities of light, nor were there full monasteries of inspiration. There were no massive tracts of wildlife, no “forests”, no poles of ice, no massive mountains. Even the water, which had before been one of the natural wonders of this world according to the mining satellite, had vanished, leaving the continents indistinguishable from the sea floor. Horror and sadness filled the galaxy – clearly whatever had destroyed the Gald fleets had also smote the Earth into oblivion, leaving slag where there were once mountains, and radioactive craters where the satellite showed had once been glorious cities.
It was while the Gald drifted in shock that the armada appeared, dropping cloaks unlike anything the Great Unity had ever seen before unleashing whirlwinds of light and kinetics upon the unfortunate war fleet.
The signal cut off. Silently – so as not to alarm the human colonies, who had, of course, not watched – the myriad worlds of the Great Unity came to a consensus. They would keep this horrendous act of violence from the Humans for as long as possible. They would arm themselves, surrounding Earthspace with the best and brightest of every militant force the Great Unity had to offer. And they would study every recorded trace of the Gald transmission until they knew everything possible about those monstrous destroyers who came to be called the Worldbreakers.
Several erdt passed, with no trace of the Worldbreakers. Another fleet, armed again with a Breacher, was sent into Earthspace. They didn’t last long.
A pattern developed, over time. A fleet would go in, armed with the newest equipment, often technology inspired by their very foes. They would briefly be able to scan Earth and the neighboring systems, often places with even more melted planets, before being extinguished by the Worldbreakers. It happened again and again. The newest of weapons would be blocked with shields specifically designed against their unique energy signatures. The most outlandish of strategies was outdone as if textbook. Nothing could phase the Worldbreakers; it became clear that they had played at war at extremes beyond the imaginations of even the sadistic Denwim.
The Worldbreakers became a common component of human-free discussions. Cults formed around them, both worshipping their undefeated might and fearing the eventuality that they would notice the rest of the intelligent universe. And then the day came. The day that turned everything around. It was a combination of three simultaneous events, between an obsessive astronomical historian, a lab treating a Human child for brain damage, and a student’s analysis of the Gald transmissions.
The historian was comparing old electromagnetic transmission records to the current species database, to track how many near-spaceflight species actually developed it and entered the Great Unity. It was quite surprised when it found a plethora of electromagnetic records, all obviously from different species, from all across what became Earthspace. It wondered to its colleagues what could have happened to seventy-three distinct species that would leave no trace of their civilization. No disaster they could imagine would have allowed the survival of only the Humans, a race too fragile to survive much of their own planet, much less interstellar catastrophes.
The doctor who headed up the lab was doing routine lobe simulations, checking that each repaired part of the Human child’s brain worked as properly. He was quite interested in this, as Humans generally performed their own operations, and the Human brain was largely a mystery to most of the universe. He was hoping for some distinctive part that would explain Humanity’s artistic skills, so his simulations were very in depth.
One can imagine his surprise when, instead of symmetry and resonance being the core of the Human biopsychological makeup, his simulation showed little other than pure, unadulterated aggression and greed. Uncertain, he ran it again. And again. Then he called the other interspecies doctors he knew to have them replicate the results. It was confirmed – Humans, the race so famous for hating the mere thought of conflict, was at its core the most hateful species the Great Unity possessed, orders of magnitude worse than the Gald.
And the student’s work sealed the matter. In a thermometric readout of the planets destroyed by the Worldbreakers, she found that, according to standard interplanetary cooling formulas, the Earth had to have been destroyed long ago, before even the Humans reached out to the Great Unity to ask for privacy. Unity laws prevented locations with signs of unknown species from being placed under electromagnetic shielding and social quarantine, so the Worldbreakers couldn’t have been there to destroy Earth before the shield was placed. The paradox did not lend itself at all to any known theories.
The logic was clear. Even the hive minds agreed. Humanity was not the docile race of scholars and artists that they appeared. Nor were they shy about their homeworld. Not shy, but paranoid. Sensibly paranoid that, should the Great Unity discover their war-torn past, that they had not only destroyed at least seventy-three sentient species but also their own planet in the short time between when they had developed space flight and joined the Great Unity, the other members would have either fled or tried and failed to exterminate them. So they went with their other option – beauty. They hid their ugliness under a veil of wonder, only sending their unstoppable armada after those who came close to finding out their secret past.
The understanding rocked the galaxy. Nobody sane had even contemplated this before, that one species could appear so innocent and yet be so terrifying. Their worlds would never be the same.
Despite all of this, little to nothing changed for the Humans. Aliens still came from all over to view their work, even if they now did it with apprehension. Scholars still appreciated their mystery, perhaps all the more.
And, of course, the unofficial rule that the topic of violence was never, ever to be breached while Humans were in contact suddenly became a lot more official.
Tl;dr: Humans are the super shy aliens. Too bad. It’s always the quiet ones.
Humans are packbondy creatures. I mean, there’s just no arguing it. They packbond readily, and quickly, and unbelievably strongly. Once a human has packbonded with a thing, they will do anything to help and protect that thing.
There’s a downside to that, not often mentioned. It uses up a lot of their time and energy to build those packbonds, maintain those packbonds, and most especially to do the work of helping and protecting those with whom they have packbonded. It doesn’t leave them a lot of time and energy for helping other beings.
If you want a human to help you – if you want to reliably get their best effort – you have to packbond with them first.
“Yeah? So?” So you’re probably going to be working with humans for most, if not all, of your career. No matter how good or bad you are at your job, there will come a time when you need someone else in your workspace to help you with something, whether that’s manning the fry station for 2 minutes while you pee, sending over those numbers from marketing, or dropping everything to teach you how to do a thing that your boss told you to do or else you’d be fired.
Not to mention the big things. They don’t give promotions to just their friends – at least not so much any more. Promotions go to the people who’ve completed big, visible, important projects. It seems fair until you consider,,,, who gets the big, important, visible projects assigned to them in the first place?
Humans give boosts to the people they’ve packbonded with. They mention packbondee’s accomplishments to the boss (or the boss’ boss). They cover for the mistakes of people they’ve packbonded with.
“That’s not right! It shouldn’t be a popularity contest! It should be about who does the best –” Listen to me. Listen.
You may be right. You may be the most correct creature to have ever spoken since the beginning of galactic civilization.
It does not matter
Humans packbond. It’s what they do. I can’t stop it. You can’t stop it. No power in the ‘verse can stop it. This is how the human do.
All you can do is work with it.
If you want a human to help you – if you want to reliably get their best effort – you have to packbond with them first.
“Look, I’m introverted and scared of people and I have social anxiety so I really don’t know how to –” Hey, my pal, I feel you. I, too, am introverted. And I have social anxiety. And I have PTSD that actually – and I recognize that this is bizarre – has ‘business networking’ as a trigger.
For you, I have good news: Humans will packbond with anything.
Like, you don’t really actually have to do anything. You kinda just have to… exist. In their presence. They kinda do the rest.
If you can talk with them, that speeds things up. But it doesn’t have to be, like, good conversation. Like, it can totally go
You: boy, sure is hot out! Human: Man oh man, can you believe it? You: Wow, yeah Human: Totally You: …. Human: ….
This conversation – as awkward and uncomfortable as it felt to you, has caused this human to packbond with you a little more. If you repeat it weekly, you will get good results.
THE TAKEAWAYS
You need to packbond with the humans you come in contact with
Taking time to do that is not only justifiable, it is an important part of your job, and should be treated as such
That is to say that, as much as you hate it (and believe me, I understand), you have to take time away from actual work and dedicate it to packbonding with your fellow workers
Tips
Plan out your packbonding time. It’s easier if you can initiate than if a human springs packbonding-time on you all unexpected. In an office job I like to use Friday afternoon, but adjust according to what makes sense to you and your situation.
Keep some packbonding-time questions handy. My go-to list is:
(If it’s Monday or Tuesday) How was your weekend?
(If it’s Wednesday) How’s your week been so far?
(If it’s Thursday or Friday) Any big plans for the weekend?
How’s your day been?
You don’t have to care about the answers to these questions. All you have to do is remember that if the human is answering questions, they are not asking you any questions. Therefore questions are your friend. If you ask follow-up questions, you may be able to get through the entire packbonding time without having to do any of the talking
Learn to disengage from packbonding. You can use basically the same sentence (or variants on it), but you’ll want to practice it so that you can make it sound natural. I use “Awesome! Well, I gotta get going. Have a good one!”
I know it feels overwhelming, but a few minutes of packbonding, once a week, is all you need. Once you build it into your habits it can be no more annoying than doing dishes or showering.
What if humans are the only sentients to voluntarily leave their original planet? Like all the other aliens sent out messages like their own versions of SETI, and they all joyfully set up lines of communication to talk to each other, but they had no desire to go visit?
Aliens: AHHHH! What are you doing here?!
Humans: We came to visit! Wow, your planet is beautiful.
Aliens: Uh, thank you… we terraformed it to our exact desires… WHY ARE YOU HERE?!
Humans: We’re explorers! We love going places. Don’t you?
Aliens: What? No! We’re perfectly evolved to suit this planet; other planets would not be as pleasing, and might be harmful to us! Did something happen to your planet? Are you searching for new places to reside, because your planet has become uninhabitable? We’re… full, here. Yes, full. No room for any more people, sorry.
Humans: Oh, no, it’s not like that at all. We just like exploring!
