This is just an idea I had about how weird aliens would think we are about getting ready for a fight. It’s kinda long, so sorry for the longwindedness.
Raztahk volunteered for the assignment. Xe’d always heard about the Humans and their long history of bloody wars and their various death-implements.
The objective was simple; in order to colonize a perfectly habitable world, the indigenous, highly deadly parasitic arachnoids needed to be exterminated. Humans, given their war-like nature, and willingness to die in such conditions, were the logical choice to send. Raztahk knew the dangers, but who could pass up a chance to witness human combat firsthand?
Xe shouldered his personal defense disintergrator and looked at the human-medic Kate, who simply had her med-kit and a small human armament…..a pistol, he heard it called. The drop-pod was starting to rumble as it began the decent into the outer atmosphere.
Xe looked around at the various human-warrior tribes. He knew who belonged to which group based on their dermal paintings, and the symbols in their clothing. They had separated into their groups and were performing strange rituals.
The ones who had painted their enviro-suits in Terran-mocking colors were standing in a circle, holding their hands. The tallest one spoke, “Be not that far from me, for trouble is near; Haste Thee to help me. Blessed be the Lord my strength, which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight. My goodness, and my fortress; My high tower, and my deliverer; My shield, and he in whom I trust; Who subdueth my people under me. O my God, I trust in thee: Let me not be ashamed, Let not mine enemies triumph over me.”
Another group, who painted their EV-Suits black as an event horizon, hit each other’s helmets, and yelled together, “STAY LOW, GO FAST, KILL FIRST, DIE LAST, ONE SHOT, ONE KILL, NO LUCK, ALL SKILL”.
And the final group, who drew human skulls on the helmets, commenced to hitting their own sternum and helmets, and made screaming noises for what seemed like minutes.
Raztahk look at human-medic Kate in bewilderment. “Human-Kate…..what are they doing?”
Kate just shrugged her shoulders and said, “Getting hyped up.”
Xe looked at her questioningly.
“You know, hyped. Stoked. Excited? It’s kind of like psychological warfare.”
“But human-kate, the target species is not yet in sight. We haven’t even landed.”
“No no, big guy. It’s like doing Psy-war on yourself”
Both of xis eyestalks stood straight up in fear. What kind of insane species mentally abused itself to prepare for combat?
*releases pack of dads into home depot* go……be free
invasive species encroach on lesbian territory
This is a common misconception because they’re such similar environments, but you should be aware that dads are native to Home Depot, while lesbians are actually native to Lowe’s. At this point, however, both dads and lesbians have made themselves at home in both Home Depot and Lowe’s to the point that trying to separate them back into their original ranges would probably do more harm than good to the delicate ecosystem of large chain hardware stores.
A properly raised and socialized Dad will be perfectly comfortable cohabiting with Lesbians. Its not really “encroaching on another’s territory”. You wouldn’t say that about foxes in a forest that also homes bobcats, would you? No. It’s just two different species that have both evolved to live in similar/the same environment. As long as they recognize each other as equals, Dads and Lesbians are more than capable of cohabitation.
Now, if you were to release a pack of Lumberjacks into a Lowes or Home Depot, that’s where chaos will reign. Being adapted to a far harsher and more demanding environment, the Lumberjacks would simply push Dads and Lesbians both out and also consume far more than a sustainable amount of resources. It would be like releasing bears at a country club.
As a former timber-harvester… I feel this is potentially accurate in theory. But highly improbable in actuality.
Lumberjacks, like most megafauna species generally require more space than the average hardware store, even a big box store could provide. The misconception is that Lumberjacks are a social species because of how they often work and live together.
This is a matter of necessity, not preference, and a survival technique for thriving under the LogBoss.
A “pack” of Lumberjacks, if not under the environmental pressure of a LogBoss will naturally disperse until they each have a wide territory.
Lumberjacks rarely fight for territory.
One on one, a Lumberjack could drive out a Dad or Lesbian, however the latter tend to travel in social packs.
Lumberjacks will passively retreat on the presence of large numbers of people. Kind of like Sasquatch.
Getting a “pack” of Lumberjacks assembled would be hard enough unless they were forced into a Hardware Store by a LogBoss. In that case, they would already be in a heightened and potentially agitated state far above their natural behavior. This artificial scenario can be likened to a circus animal running amok. If it had been in the wild, the incident would not have occurred.
Free-roaming Lumberjacks are the cryptids of the Hardware ecosystem. They are surprisingly quiet and unobtrusive.
Please stop labeling Lumberjacks as dangerous roving social predators. They are intermediate level omnivores and remarkably peaceful unless threatened.
As a hardware store worker I can say that this is all 100% accurate.
Can confirm, having visited Hyder, Alaska. There are fewer than 100 people living in the town, but several pubs exist to serve the free-roaming Lumberjacks, who absolutely do not tolerate crowds.
I entered one bar with six lumberjacks who had staked out their territory around the rather large space, and who were all drinking, but not interacting with one another.
They did not interact with me, either, beyond a brief glance. But when I sat down at the bar, drinks started appearing in front of me, due to silent signals from lone Lumberjacks to the barman. The barman explained that the Lumberjacks only came out of the bush every few weeks, and seeing a human female was quite a novelty for them. I had to ask him to tell them to please stop sending me drinks, because I’d arrived by motorcycle, and could consume only one drink and still be able to safely and legally ride.
More silent signals ensued, and the barman presented me with a bottle of Everclear for the road, courtesy of the Lumberjacks.
When I left the bar with my bottle, telling the bartender to give them my sincerest thanks, the Lumberjacks all filed silently out of the pub, at a safe distance behind me.
They stood in a loosely-spaced semi-circle, and shyly waved bye-bye to me as I kick-started my motorcycle and rode off.
Still one of the most surreal experiences of my travels.
I’m not the most eloquent writer, but I’ve had this idea kicking around for a while and figured I’d put it out into the universe.
A lot of the basis for the “humans are space orcs” stuff is the idea that we’re pretty durable compared to many species, yeah? When it comes to physical trauma, we can bounce back from most things that don’t kill us outright, especially given the benefit of hypothetical space-age technology, and adrenaline is one heck of a drug when it comes to functioning under stress.
But that doesn’t make us unkillable, and even though we can survive debilitating injuries and not die from shock, it doesn’t mean it’s fun. Dying of shock sucks, but at least it’s probably quick.
So - Imagine a ship, adrift in space, slowly being drawn into a star or something. In order to save the ship, someone has to repair the hyper-quantum-relay-majig on the hull or in the engine or whatever. Bit of a problem though- there’s a ton of deadly, deadly radiation (Wrath of Khan style) or poisonous fumes or, I dunno, electrical current, between the crew and the repair. Like, enough to kill most species instantly, so the crew is just like, ‘welp, guess we’ll die then’. But then.
BUT THEN
They ask the human. Because everyone’s heard the stories - you’re basically unkillable, right? Could you survive long enough in there to fix it? And their human goes real quiet for a second, but still says ‘Yeah, I could fix it’. And the rest of the crew is like, ‘Whaaaaaa, it won’t kill you?’ and the human repeats “I can fix it” (which isn’t an answer, but no one catches that, not yet at least), so they send ‘em in. And the human fixes it, they come back, the ship flies to safety, and the crew is thrilled to survive. If the human is a little quiet, well, they’re entitled after pulling off a miracle. Everyone else is just excited to get to the nearest station’s bar to tell their very own human story, cuz, ‘those crazy humans, amiright?’.
The good mood keeps up until the human is late for their next shift. At first it’s just faint unease, but- but they earned a bit of a lie-in, right? No reason to begrudge them some extra rest, even if it is a little weird for them to oversleep. They’ll be fine. Humans are always fine.
(Right?)
(…Wrong.)
-What is… help. Help!-
- ake up! You have t-
- been days. You need sleep, you-
- nother transfusion. We could-
- out of sedatives!-
A week later, the crew finally reaches the station. They stumble into the bar, haggard and haunted. And over the next months and years a new rumor about humans starts to make its way through space. A rumor unlike any before.
‘Be careful with your humans’ it whispers. ‘Their strength is not always a blessing. Be sure they don’t do something they can’t come back from, because when a human dies… they die slowly.’
The thing is, humans can be tricky. And if they’re sufficiently pack-bonded with a ship’s crew? And that crew is in danger? They’ll willingly offer themselves up to make sure the crew survives.
They won’t tell their crewmates that whatever danger it is will just kill them slowly, that they can endure the exposure but not the long-term effects.
But the idea that humans can be fragile? Can die later from exposure to radiation or toxins or electricity or even smoke inhalation?
It seems preposterous!
There are too many stories about humans surviving all sorts of conditions that would kill their other crewmates. A human dying slowly, later, lingering and in agony? It’s a creepy story but of course it’s not true.
But then… another crew shares their own story. Their human volunteered to go into the danger zone to fix what needed to be fixed. Or maybe she had to retrieve a critical component or resource. And she lingered. Wasted away. Later the human doctors told their medical team there was nothing they could do but make sure she was comfortable, ease her pain before the end.
And yet another crew, whose human plunged through smoke and ash to make sure his crew could escape. He choked and coughed and couldn’t get enough air. Their medical commander performed an autopsy and found his lungs and throat and sinuses all coated in black soot and blackened mucus and red blood.
So the stories spread. Just because they don’t die of shock, just because they don’t die right away doesn’t mean it won’t kill them. They linger in agony or unconscious or waste away slowly.
But what’s most horrifying of all?
When other humans hear the stories from the traumatized crewmembers?
They aren’t surprised or horrified.
They say “Of course”
They say “I would have done the same”
They say “it was the Right Thing to do”
And they’ll smile (what the crew’s human would have called a sad smile) and toast to the dead. For making “The ultimate sacrifice for the folks they loved” and every human listening will say the name and drink a shot of liquor.
I noticed something on this that really stood out and relates to human society “si vis pacem, para bellum - if you want peace, prepare for war” and it made me think about something I read ages ago which was a post on tumbler with the humans are aliens stuff, it said in it that some terrestrial would try to make war with humans on purpose because as it figured out, humans evolve with war. We create new medicine we create new machines that are faster, better quality and more efficient, and once we gain peace for even a little bit we take into account the environment and try to make our items sustainable for it. But all in all we fight for peace but also we fight for evolution in our ways of thinking and lifestyle. Look at everything we have accomplished now. More than 80% wouldn’t be here today without fighting, without war…think about that for a bit.
