When In Doubt, Duct It

"We call it vff," said the alien. "It's - it's hard to describe to a species without vffsense. Imagine trying to describe light to a species that never evolved eyes. But there are forms of life that are only perceptible with vffsense, and they've visited Earth and fed on life as long as it's existed here."

There was a pause.

Then the human said, "That's the worst thing you've ever said."

"Don't worry about it."

"I think I have to, now."

"No, because - well - you have a species of spider which pretends to be an ant, correct? It's not capable of understanding the fact that it's mimicking an ant, but it instinctually mimics an ant in order to deter predators."

"Sure?"

"Humans produce a vff to mimic varths, predators only perceptible through vffsense. The organisms that would like to feed on you are terrified of varths, and so they leave you alone. You aren't aware you do it, you don't have the capacity to understand you're doing it, but you evolved to instinctually do it to deter predators you can't see."

There was a pause.

Then the human said in a very soft and thoughtful voice, "And are there varths on Earth?"

"Yes," said the alien. "Everywhere. But don't worry about it."

Aliens are floored by tardigrades

Life is pretty resilient. It has to be, especially if the rest of the Galaxy thinks we're from a Deathworld. In comparison then, if their planets are not as demanding, would life there ever be under enough pressure to survive to go to the extreme lengths that some Earth creatures do? I think one of the most profound things aliens might learn from Earth and Humanity is just how powerful life itself can be.

That itself could shake their understanding of themselves - a billion year old civilization could never even conceive of a thing we accept as simple fact, ushering a revolution in thinking not seen in eons.

___________________________

The Galactic Coalition scientists are busying themselves with obtaining, analyzing, categorizing, and integrating the libraries of information Humanity has brought with them as they incorporate into the greater space faring matrix of civilizations.

A good grasp of Physics, though lacking in certain fields for now; unmatched Engineering doctrines, they really do think of everything, although, perhaps, better to say - they really do attempt everything, then take notes and improve for the next attempt.

Chemistry is another fine addition to the collective knowledge base, a disproportionate part of the catalogue is comprised entirely of explosive reagents and combinations - always good to know more about what NOT to do.

And Biology. Oh boy. What a chaotic but beautiful but also disturbing mess. Life on most planets has a long period of just chugging along, surviving as best it can, until eventually something has the bright idea to evolve the ability to have bright ideas. Then in almost no time at all (on a cosmic scale) a dominant intelligence emerges and civilization alongside it, and in the blink of an eye it finds itself exploring the stars.

A similar pattern happened on Earth, but interrupted alarmingly often by utter catastrophes. Humans call them Mass Extinctions. It is exceedingly rare to find life that can talk about its own extinction events. Kind of deflates the term a bit. Life on planets as inhospitable (by Galactic norms) as Earth tends to be found only as fossils, and almost always on the microscopic level - very rarely do they get the chance to form more complex and advanced lifeforms before the planet with its harsh conditions and scarce resources kills it just as randomly as it spawned it.

We were incredibly saddened to learn from the Humans that the biodiversity of Earth had dwindled by roughly 85% since they accidentally created that giant hole on their planet, and that it had already been on a steady decline before then. Even so, when they revealed there were still 2.4 million species alive on Earth was a shockingly high number. Most are on the brink of extinction, yes, but the fact remains that Earth is easily one of the most biodiverse planets in the Galaxy.

Then we started looking at each individual species and learned about the Tardigrade.

what

It is literally the toughest creature ever discovered, and it's not even close. At least, so far, we haven't looked at absolutely everything Earth has or had yet.

It can just... basically turn itself off and then back on again when the outside becomes livable again - Cryptobiosis, or suspending their metabolism, something we considered only possible through artificial means. And the levels of various extreme they can endure and still be alive would just be utterly ridiculous if they didn't give us samples to confirm for ourselves.

Then we came across the term Extremophile and just decided to take a day off.

Technically speaking, I am terrified of that...

Bro wait till the aliens learn about humans who can hyperextend their limbs

Alien: human Alex are you ok?! Your arm is broken!

Human Alex: my arms? Oh I’m double jointed

Alien: ????

The thing where you can pull your thumb backwards and touch your wrist, an alien would be traumatized from that

See, we got this... inclination

The Galactic Coalition is no stranger to war. Every sapient race has a history filled with external conflict, and most with some internal strife as well. Even now, the Coalition is in a stalemate with the United Federation on the North-Western arm of the Galaxy, a recently cooled hot war over what the Federation call foreign meddling in internal affairs, while the Coalition claim is an abusive contractual effective enslavement of a pre-stellar civilization, which goes against the Coalition's Ethics Directorate For All Sapient Encounters.

The Humans, who managed to learn of this on their own, sparking a hushed debate about their espionage capabilities, wanted to send their own delegation to the established Neutral Zone to speak with the Federation. As a party to the Coalition governing body, they have free reign to make contact with anyone on their own terms, with the understanding such individual activity will not represent the Coalition itself.

It did not take long for the Humans to reach back to us with an inquiry:

"So like, this might just be us, but these fellas are giving us some nasty fascist vibes, ya feel me? Maybe we're wrong (though we do got a lot of experience with that), but have a look at this data we've gathered so far."

What we saw were shockingly detailed and up-close images of clearly Federation design medical and emergency disaster relief encampments. A baffling number in fact, but technically nothing that would indicate wrongful action or intent. But there were a lot of them all across the planet.

"Yeah, we only got data from right now, so do you got info on this planet and it's folk from earlier? My gut, and all these shuttles full of some kinda cargo we can't scan hyperin' away, is telling me that it's not gonna match well."

The Human, or his... gut?... (we'll have to ask them to elaborate, we thought they only had one mind?) is correct, startlingly so. We informed the Human the atmosphere was far thinner than it was merely 40 years ago, containing a third less Nitrogen and almost no trace gasses at all, save for CO2, which was at nominal levels, but the planet used to have an abundance of Helium, now almost entirely gone. If further investigation corroborates this, and perhaps other inconsistencies, this will be cause for a full open investigation and possible sanctions!

"So... can we fight them?"

The Human's question startled us from our anger, now replaced with confusion and worry. Humanity boasted the most powerful fleet in Coalition space, there was no question about it, but they are still only a singular planet with some specialist stations dotted around local space, while the Federation was composed of dozens of races across thousands of planets in a very efficient hierarchical structure, plus the true strength of their military was unknown.

This is a delicate matter and we need them to not act rashly. We have learned, however, that outright denying Humans anything leads them to desire it more, so we must adopt a new approach to each situation we wish the Humans to... not take the initiative on.

Offering the delegation leader command of our own covert investigation units, and requesting he withdraw his ships to act as emergency response and intervention forces in the area seemed to please him. He had an important task to do, and his crew busied themselves preparing for a variety of possibilities, thus making the Humans feel both needed and engaged in productive activity, preventing them from escalating the situation. For now.

We really hope this "gut" will not cause rash action.

To sorta piggyback off my last headcanon with hobbits being just genetically superior to all other races, dwarves are the fucking opposites

They’re made to live underground, in dark damp places. They know how to do that. So they have really good nightvision, and they thrive in moisturizing climates. They have rough skins to take hits from falling rocks and debris, and they can survive long without much food.

But you put those bastards above ground and they will die immediately.

They can barely see when it’s bright (The reason they have their long hair and busy beards is because it helps block out the sun), they need to constantly hydrate or else they’ll dry out which is very fatal to them, their bodies are not made for combat in the slightest (There’s a reason they wear bulky as hell armor, one stabbely stab and they’re dead, rip Durin’s but you were fucked from the start), and there’s a lot of things that they just straight up can’t eat, like caffeine, nuts, sugar, and sometimes even simply dairy products (Bombur is an anomaly here, being able to consume almost anything without any side effects).

So like, Hobbits are small rodent like creatures with long ears and tails, but you can throw that fucker in a volcano and they will live, while Dwarves are bulky as fuck with literal rocks coming out of them, but one slice of cheese could be the end of them

The elves being carnivores makes the dinner scene in the hobbit so much funnier actually

“Lindir what the fuck do dwarves eat?!”

“I’m not entirely sure my lord, I-“

“Do they eat meat?! Should we serve them meat?! We still have some human flesh over from that hunting party last week!”

“Well, I’m not sure my lord. Their teeth are fairly round”

“Fuck you’re right, they probably don’t eat meat. What about that other stuff? The green things that grow from the ground that’s edible?”

“I believe it’s called Wedge Table”

“Right. Do we have any of that?!”

“No”

“Fuck it, just throw some leaves on a plate, it’s probably the same thing”

Tactic to earn a degree? Unfortunately only possible.

Tactic to stay alive during those period?Toxic af, but still useful and that should be considered insane.

The alien should be alarming others to lower our sick standards of memorizing unbelievable amount of information that will no longer be valid in the next five years.

What would be alien's reactions to battery acid. Y'know that thing with red bull marinated sour strips, energy drink plus coffee and a minimum of five beers. Read more at your own risk.

Alien: Human, I can't find the-

Human: *currently stoned*

Alien: ... What. Are you doing?

Human: seeing God.

Alien: how many?

Human: *raises one finger.*

Alien: ... Human. If my memory serves correct. It takes twenty.

Human: try a strip.

Alien: ... *processing, before taking a sour strip.*

Human: *still stoned*

Alien: *starts coughing.* WHAT IS IN THIS?

Human: that's battery acid. Marinated in red bull, put red bull into coffee. Uhm, ooh, had a gummy. And about. Hic. Five beers?

Alien: ... How did you make the marinade?

Human: fourth book, red leather.

Alien: ... it's called uni recipes.

Human: yep.

Alien: stoner pizza?

Human: fries on pizza.

Alien: ... reduce five cans of red bull, leave to cool before marinating for a minimum of three hours. Five days at maximum, because the caffeine will break down the glucose bonds?

Human: yep. Chem students are smart!

Alien: ... That's your battery acid?

Human: I'm on car acid.

Alien: ... Two cans of reduced Red Bull, 125ml per can. Reduced to 25ml put into your choice of coffee, reduce the coffee to 10ml.... Take one edible, one battery acid and the coffee concoction. Then down five beers reduced to... Half a bottle of beer. Or around one shot of tequila.

Human: *proud of themselves.*

Alien: ... I'd be horrified if I wasn't impressed.

Human: yeah, that's how I got my degree in uhh, neurology, bio chemistry and a few more Celciuses.

Alien: ... You made a recipe book and got an associates?

Human: I actually have. 27? bachelors, just from that shelf.

Alien: ... How are you-

Human: remember when I mentioned I'd figured out a way to be high and speak somewhat normally?

Alien: ... *glances at the bookshelf*

Human: give it a minute.

Alien: these are all acedemic papers. Aren't they?

Human: 1387 recipes. Times that by the number of java files on the USB that's labelled the same as the eight number of pie.

Alien: ...

Human: there's 40567 academic papers, not including the top and bottom shelves which are dictionaries, explanations and half of them have paper which explode upon contact with oxygen.

Alien: ... Most of this case is behind glass.

Human: mhm.

Alien: How did you even do this?

Human: mixture of car acid, ADHD, tunnel vision and crunching for two months.

Alien: crunching like.

Human: forgot to sleep for two months.

Alien: ...

Human: I went to hospital for about a year because of that.

Alien: I have so many questions, but I get the feeling this ain't common?

Human: my level of insane, no. Cramming for a stupid period and doing something wonderful somehow. Yes.

Alien: you're less high now huh?

Human: *making a hangover cure.* Mhmm, woke up around the time you noticed the glass.

Alien: how are you alive?

Human: good question. I don't know.

loving lord of the rings is the secksiest personality trait there is btw

Humans are symbiotes

When we met humans we were naïve enough to assume they were like us. We thought each of them was a single entity until our ships systems completed their routine scans.

Of course we offered to rid them of the parasites they carried, it was politeness or so we thought. It took some careful explaining, we expected they would be horrified by the realisation there were microscopic creatures living within them. Instead they were horrified at the thought of losing them.

Humans are each a chorum. Do not be fooled by their use of the singular, the body you see is a vehicle carrying a population of billions.

All the bacteria and viruses we worked so hard to eradicate, humans instead invited in and made a part of them. The relationship is so profound they will deliberately cultivate and ingest the species they prefer to have inside them, and their digestion of food (another horror with their definition of food including a lengthy list of poisons) relies on of having the right population mix.

They create and alter viruses at whim to do many chores, and easily tolerate micro-organisms deadly to us.

They are each a walking army, deadly in the most terrifying way imaginable.

How do I know this?

We thought our systems isolated everything, we thought we were safe and their protective suits were sterilised. Somehow, we missed it. One of the suits had clinging to it a tiny virus colony.

When the Captain realised what was happening they closed every airlock and isolated each section to halt the spread. I got stuck on the lower storage deck for almost two cycles.

The humans did all they could to reassure me from a distance, sharing their knowledge to cleanse the ship for the rescue party. They knew they could not come in, but they would speak to me, make sure I knew what was happening and that they had called for rescue on my behalf, and how long it would be until I could be released.

They were mortified by the actions of one of the feral viruses they consider little more than an irritating pest.

I think they were sad to realise they can never safely interact with us or fully join our union. They can watch from a distance, but never walk on our worlds or share our ships. For a symbiotic ensemble that isolation must be painful even knowing it is vital for life.

I am one of the only members of the union to have met humans in person.

I alone survived the plague the humans later identified as ‘the common cold’.