Earth Oceans And What's In Them

Emphasis

Imagine aliens coming to Earth and having translators that work perfectly. Except they don’t pick up on tone.

Tone has a HUGE impact on a message. Consider the following sentence:

“You look nice today.”

Now repeat it stressing each word one by one.

“YOU look nice today”, implying someone else that you are probably indicating with your body or to whom you’d previously referred does not.

“You LOOK nice today”, implying that you don’t smell/sound it.

“You look NICE today”, thus turning what would otherwise have been a casual remark into a compliment. You don’t just look nice. You look damn fine.

“You look nice, TODAY”, which is clearly an insult purpoiting that you usually look like crap. Damning by faint praise, as they say.

And all of these are possible - and wildly differing - meanings to a simple four word sentence.

In this scenario, super secret plans could be discussed in front of the aliens with them being none the wiser simply by saying it à la Mean Girls. Should war between the two factions emerge, humans would win by the power of passive-aggressive bitching

Humans are ridiculous

I just want to throw my hat into the ring about the Humans Are Space Orcs trope that has been going around and I’ve been enjoying immensely.

You know how a large percentage of us have a fear of spiders? Even cripplingly so, like “kill it now I’m crying and breathing into a bag” kind of fear. So what if the aliens are monitoring our transmissions before making first contact, and see, for example, a bunch of Tumblr users discussing how scary spiders are? Put that with how badass humans generally are (seriously, we invented surgery before we invented anesthetic and consume literal poison because we like the taste), how freaked out would the aliens be to learn that there’s something we truly fear? I can see it going down like this: Human Steve: Tell us about FTL travel and your culture, we have much to learn from each other Alien: Yeah yeah in a minute tell me about the spider threat are we safe right now or

Even better would be if Human Steve is not one of those people who is afraid of spiders at all. Like, he has a pet tarantula and puts wild spiders outside safely when they come into his bathroom, if he bothers with them at all. And the aliens are VERY CONCERNED about the little guys and he’s like ???? They aren’t??? A threat???? But then they consult with Human Bill, and Human Bill is basically Professional Spider Hater and goes on for a weirdly long time about how spiders are the actual devil and how black widows are really dangerous and let’s not even MENTION Australia. He gets the heebee jeebies and starts twitching and itching as he begins to feel phantom bugs on his skin. Both Human Steve and Human Bill insist that the other is the weird one. The aliens are more concerned than ever.

((Start at 1:51))

One day more!

One day more to revolution

We will

nip it

in the bud!

We’ll be ready for these schoolboys

They will wet themselves with blood!

One day more!

Watch ‘em run amok Catch ‘em as they fall

Never know your luck when there’s a free-for-all!

Here’s a little “dip” There a little “touch”

Most of ‘em are goners so they won’t miss much!

One day to a new beginning (Raise the flag of freedom high!)

Every man will be a king (Every man will be a king!)

There’s a new world for the winning (There’s a new world to be won!)

Do you hear the people sing?

My place is here, I fight with you!

One day more!

We will join these people’s heroes We will follow where they go

We will learn their little secrets, We will know the things they know.

One day more!

Watch ‘em run amok Catch 'em as they fall Never know your luck when there’s a free-for-all!

One more day to revolution We will nip it in the bud We’ll be ready for these schoolboys

Tomorrow we’ll be far away,

Tomorrow is the judgement day

Tomorrow we’ll discover What our God in heaven has in store!

One more dawn

One more day

One day more!

Can we talk about the concept of humans adopting other sentient aliens as equal members of their families?

Like, in the posts I’ve seen so far, there’s mostly talks of humans adopting dangerous alien critters as pets but what about humans adopting sentient aliens?

“Human-George, just leave that be, they’re just a runt.” - “… No.” - “Human-George, you can’t - put them down! What are you doing?” - “Krlunk, I’m not leaving a child behind on this forsaken moon to die.” - “But they’re just a runt, not worth raising. The broodbirther and the feeders must have left it behind when they migrated 5 sols ago.” - “Are they going to come back?” - “No, Human-George, Twargs migrate for long periods of time, and we can’t spare the time to go after them.” - “Then I’ll take them with me.” “- “What?” - “I’ll take this little champion here with me and I will raise them as my own.” - “You- you can’t just do that! You can’t just spill your pack-bonding instincts- Human George!!! Get back here!” - “Don’t listen to Krlunk, kid, I won’t leave you here alone. Doesn’t matter how many appendages you have. You hungry? Thought so, let’s go get you some grub.” - (in the distance) “Human-George! The extra rations are coming out of your pay!!!” - “See if I care, Krlunk. Go eat paperwork or so.”

Imagine human patchwork families with little aliens raised and loved alonside their own, imagine some human trying to explain to crewmates how they have a Twarg sibling and a Sh’ilean sister even though their parents look very much human, imagine humans parents trying their very best to provide their alien child with the best possible care.

Also imagine it the other way around. Humans getting adopted by aliens and bonding with them just as much as they would with their own kind, either through deeds or just love. Humans building their own families in a wild mix of colours and number of appendages or eyes.

“So this is my human side of the family, see, these are my human parents.” - “Is that your larval form in their arms, Hooman-Cassandra?” - “Sort of, yeah, and this is my Gran’hroo mother and all of her children.” - “How can you have a Gran’hoo relative? I thought your kind could only come from a bonded pair of hoomans?” - “Oh, I used to live on the same mining colony as her when I was a child and I’d play with her children, spent most of my days in their house and one day I called her ‘Acraï’ - ‘mother’ in Gran’hoo language - by accident. It kind of stuck. She took me in when my parents temporarily left for another space station and I wanted to finish my education where I’d started it. When I left for my first space journey, she gave a clan insignia and called me her daughter so yeah… this is my Mom, my Dad, and my Acraï and they’re all my parents.”

What is this planet

There’s someone who has their iPhone named “hot single horses in your area” and they airdrop people pictures of horses randomly. Nobody knows who it is. Once, during an assembly, the laptop that the projector was from had airdrop turned on, and in the middle of a presentation about bullying, it popped up in front of the entire school. HOT SINGLE HORSES IN YOUR AREA WANTS TO SHARE AN IMAGE. A picture of a horse, with text in bubble letters over it saying “available”

Not greeting someone this way is a sleight to their honor.

Whenever I see a post on tumblr suggesting aliens don’t have gender, I always think–‘but what if also the reverse. What if aliens also have some fundamental social construct we don’t’.

Like, they come and meet us and they’re like ‘hey this is an awkward question but what’s your gooblebygark?’

And we’re like what.

‘You know, the… the thing. Your goobledygark. The thing that dictates whether you’re gnarfgnoovles or brubledoopes’

What. What. What the fuck, those words don’t even mean anything??? What are you talking about?

‘Look, your ridiculous human languages don’t seem to have the words for these! But they’re totally a thing, they’re like, fundamental aspects of social life for our species, just… just let us lick you so we can know what verb tense to use when we speak to you.’

What does one thing have to do with the other??? That makes no–

‘UGH, nevermind, you’re totally brubledoopes, I can just tell, I don’t even need to taste your bacterial skin colonies.’

And then another alien overhears and is like ‘holy shit, you can’t stereotype like that, that’s SO NOT COOL’

‘yeaH BUT THEY WON’T LET ME LICK THEM’

This "Bon Jovi" is a conquerer and unifier of Terra Prime? And has created a neural network that cause humans to randomly burst into song?

Bon Jovi, Earth’s Global Unifier

The result of reading possibly too many ‘Humans Are Weird’ stories while also listening to Adam Hills standup

So, two humans from different countries with different languages are both seperately brought onto alien ships somehow.

These two ships come across each other, and open a hailing frequency. In the background, one human is quietly singing to themselves as they work. “Tommy used to work on the doooocks~ Union’s been on strike, he’s down on his luck, so tough~”

And then a voice pipes up from the other end of the hailing frequency. “Gina works the diner all daaay~”

All of a sudden these aliens have their respective humans practically yelling something they’ve never heard before over the frequency in perfect union and synchronicity, despite the impossibility of them having ever met.

The aliens question for a good while if their humans were lying when they said humans do not have a hivemind.

You set off explosives. Recreationally. Somehow I lack the capability to be surprised by you anymore.

Aliens and Fireworks

Alien: Despite this being a Level 27-F deathworld, I have had a pleasant time here. Thank you for your persistent invites, Human-Dave. However, I am concerned. There are packs of humans gathering here at this large body of water, but isn’t it time for their circadian rhythms to knock them unconscious?

Dave: *unfolding two chairs* Yeah… But all the alcohol will do the same job soon enough. *reaches into a cooler and takes a beer out as he sits down*

Alien: Um… Are those humans over there supposed to have access to those missiles? They’re not in any uniforms; in fact, they lack the usual amount of clothing humans tend to wear.

Dave: Fireworks, man.

Alien: *as soon as they hear “fire”* Excuse me?

B O O M

C r a c k l e

C r a c k l e

C r a c k l e

*everyone at the lake begins drunkenly bellowing and chanting “USA” in disturbing unison, and someone falls off the back of a truck*

Alien: So, this is how I die.

Human: *juggles* Alien: !? Human: Oh, yeah, it’s just a trick I picked up. Just for fun. I’m not, like, a real juggler Alien: ‘Real’ In these contexts indicates a profession? There are people who do this for money? Human: Oh yeah! I got a friend who’s a professional juggler *finds YouTube video* Alien: !! Human: Yeah, and also there’s combat juggling Alien: This is a metaphorical combat, yes? For social dominance? You do not injure each other? Human: Well, I mean, some injuries are gonna happen. That’s why my friend – the guy in that video – he can’t do combat juggling very much. He can’t risk injury, cuz he has to perform. it’s super fun, though.  Alien: WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS??

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.