Humans quickly get a reputation among the interplanetry alliance and the reputation is this: when going somewhere dangerous, take a human.
Humans are tough. Humans can last days without food. Humans heal so fast they pierce holes in themselves or inject ink for fun. Humans will walk for days on broken bones in order to make it to safety. Humans will literally cut off bits of themselves if trapped by a disaster.
You would be amazed what humans will do to survive. Or to ensure the survival of others they feel responsible for.
That’s the other thing. Humans pack-bond, and they spill their pack-bonding instincts everywhere. Sure it’s weird when they talk sympathetically to broken spaceships or try to pet every lifeform that scans as non-toxic. It’s even a little weird that just existing in the same place as them for long enough seems to make them care about you. But if you’re hurt, if you’re trapped, if you need someone to fetch help?
You really want a human.
you know fantasy dragon soulbonding fic i want more of that where the humans are the dragons, like, we’re huge, we’re old, we’re scrappy as hell, and if you are small and cute enough we would be delighted to carry you around on our back
holy shit that’f b amazing.
also imagine an alien being like
‘I THINK A HUMAN IMPRINTED ON ME THEY KEEP HANGING AROUND ME’
But imagine aliens that only form social bonds under very specific circumstances having to deal with humans though:
Like, they will bond with a group, and if they move they just bond with a new group while still talking to their old group. They will bond with other species. They encourage their children to practice bonding with inanimate objects. They can have more than one mate in their lifetime. Sometimes they have more than one mate simultaneously. Once they bond with you they’ll start trying to bring other humans they are bonded with to bond with you.
If you stand around them long enough they’ll probably just wander over and try to pat you, this is how they bond with other species. You may have accidentally bonded with a human without knowing it.
Or how about telepathic species? Our ability to read body language and a situation with our nil/near nil telepathic capability absolutely terrifies them.They know we have no way to read minds, but we keep figuring shit out anyways.
At first some of the aliens think that humans have a strange type of co-opting hive mind, where they gather individuals into the social networks of their species. Hive minds are not outside of the aliens’ experience, the Xtork from Korlinko 5 are single-minded in the most literal of senses but perfectly cordial in diplomatic relations, so this is not automatically a problem, but the co-opting of other species is frankly weird and the Urmagurmas are pretty wary of that that could mean about psychic coercion.
Then they figure out that no, it’s not that logical. Humans don’t form social bonds so freely because they can control the other individuals, but because they feel that they can predict them. Humans call it “familiarity”, which is a word that is derivative from their word for biologically and reproductively determined social network, but is translated as “well-known”.
Which sounds ridiculous. An entire species of gamblers, betting on their ability to tell what a being is going to do next, and wishing to stay in close contact with them just because they have previously been in close contact from them and not (yet) on the whole experienced any particularly detrimental effects. The humans trust what they term as “known quantities”.
It sounds insane.
And yet, when Urmagurma LingLingSpooffi chose to sell her crewmates for spare parts at the Organic Markets, the human members of the crew somehow saw past her psychic shielding, figured out what she was doing and then proceeded to formulate a plan to get everyone, human or not, out of the Markets alive.
The human tendency to bond may be inexplicable, as inexplicable as their ability to read intentions whilst being a perfect Null on the Spork Scale of Telepathic Sensitivity, but it sure is useful.
The drawings and original story belongs to @caretaker-au, if you do not know it, go read it!
Posting this shenanigans here because the submit option only allows 1 page at the time >_<
Because I don’t have much time to write and too many hesitations into trying to write my own/a whole UT story so far, I am messing with zooms and textless pages. And I had a lot of fun doing it ;p
Presumably, if adult humans are weird, then human kids must be weird as well. But of course, since aliens probably wouldn’t interact with human children too much, there might not be much about them in the human guide.
Imagine a human leaving her kid with an alien friend because her SO is sick and none of her human crewmates are able to act as babysitter and she’s got an important meeting. So she goes to the meeting and the alien takes her kid to one of the rooms in the ship that acts as a sort of play area.
Then, when the human comes out of the meeting, she picks her phone up and sees that she has some missed calls…
1st call: “Hey, Katie, it’s me, Grit. I know you’re probably in the meeting by now and can’t answer your phone, but I was just wondering… Jackie’s been chasing the other kids a lot, is she hunting them? Is that part of the whole predatory instincts thing? They all seem to be having fun— at least I think so, they’re all making that weird noise you guys make— but I just thought I’d let you know. And, um, listen… she’s not going to try and eat the ones she catches, is she?”
2nd call: “Hi, Katie, Grit again— look, I know that you guys are descended from tree climbing mammals and so your offspring need climbing equipment to satisfy those instincts— but there’s no way she’s supposed to be that high, right? None of the other parents are doing anything and I can’t go up and get her down because my hooves can’t get a grip on the frame. She’s right on top and— NO!<incomprehensible noises that sound like a cross between the moo of a cow and the bray of a donkey>— okay, so she’s swinging from the bars. One of the other humans just explained that that’s normal. He’s offered me some coffee, but I said no because I’m pretty sure that stuff’s toxic. I’ll try not to call again unless there is an emergency.”
3rd call: “I’m so sorry, Jackie’s been injured. She tripped over and seems to have lost a layer of skin from her knee. She’s making these noises and there’s liquid coming from her eye sockets and I don’t know what to do! Please pick up! There’s blood and the coffee offering human keeps saying she should suck the blood out or something. Is that a thing? Does your species’ saliva have healing properties? Shoud I call a medic?! Please pick up!”
4th call: “Sorry for that last message. Jackie seems to be doing fine now. I don’t know how— she should be laid out for weeks after an injury like that! Please, for my sanity, can you get a human babysitter next time?”
The chance to eat some guac is well worth risking my life. Test me banana man, I will eat that guac.
dont touch my guac! !!
no!! not my guac!!!!!
Alright, I didn’t want to say anything earlier, mr. Banana man, but if you don’t put that gun away now… I’ll have to use my enchanted sword to cut off your fingers.
