Not Greeting Someone This Way Is A Sleight To Their Honor.

This seems important to you humans.

URGENT ALL AUSSIES!!!

i know!!! the stupid liberal government has decided on the plebiscite and even tho it’s a waste of money….. please vote!! IF YOU ARE GOING TO BE 18 BEFORE NOVEMBER 25 ENROLL TO VOTE!!! PLEASE DO NOT THROW YOUR VOTE AWAY THIS IS SO IMPORTANT TO ME AND SO MANY OTHERS!!!!!!! PLEASE VOTE YES ON MARRIAGE EQUALITY!!!!!! WE CAN DO THIS!!!!

Imagine a group of humans and aliens talking about their home worlds while in the ship’s canteen. One world is covered entirely by water (the crew members from there have to wear special masks to help them absorb the oxygen they need from the air); one is full of rare minerals and littered with what, on any other planet, would be precious stones and one is carpeted with dense vegetation and has the more biodiversity than any other planet.

Once they’ve all finished talking about their own planets, everybody turns to the humans and asks them what Earth is like. They’re only doing it to be polite though. They haven’t heard much about humans (except the usual stories, and only fledglings believe in those) and they can’t really believe that these fleshy bald looking things come from anywhere even remotely as interesting as their own planets.

There’s a pause and then one of the humans speaks up, “well, I come from a part of Earth called ‘England’ and, to be honest, it’s nothing like as cool as your planets sound. It’s alright though. We got some snow last year, so I’m hoping that we’ll have some this year as well when I get back.”

“Snow?” one of the water breathers asks, hissing slightly through their mask, “what’s that?”

“Frozen water that falls from the sky.” The human explains, “it’s really fun to play with. It’s only called snow when it’s soft though— when it’s hard it’s called hail. Nobody likes hail, you can’t do anything with it and it hurts if it hits you. I looked up during a hail storm once,” she adds, “when I was a kid. Huge hailstones and one hit me right in the eye! Hurt like Hell.”

“Is your planet really cold then?” one of the aliens asks, sounding doubtful since nothing has looked less equipped to deal with cold weather than a human.

“No,” she says, “not everywhere. England’s pretty cold, but in the Summer sometimes we get heatwaves. Last year I went out in one and forgot to wear suncream and got sunburn all down my arms.”

“Your planet’s sun… burned you?” a horrified creature asks, “was it painful?”

“Not really, just stung a bit,” she shrugs, “it was fine once the skin started to peel.” (At the back of the crowd that has now amassed around their table a voice says “I didn’t know humans moulted.” and another, horrified sounding voice replies “that’s because they don’t!”) the human continues on regardless. “It was really annoying actually, because it meant I couldn’t go out for a bit without wearing a jacket. Then when my burns had finally healed, I wanted to go to the beach, but when I got there there was this huge thunderstorm and I had to go home again.”

“Thunderstorm?” the word is whispered, mainly because the person asking secretly hopes the human won’t hear them so they won’t have to know.

“It’s when the clouds get all dark and it starts raining,” the human explains and everybody sighs with relief. Most planets have rain. “The clouds make these really loud banging noises,” she continues, “that’s the thunder, and electricity shoots down from the clouds— that’s called lightning. Sometimes people get hit by it, a few people even survive. I once—”

But one of her human friends cuts her off. “God,” he says, “you Brits are so boring, always talking about the weather!”

While she argues with him, the creatures seated around the table stare at them in astonishment and start to give a little more credit to those old stories. Because, though they look pretty harmless, a species would have to be tough to be able to survive on a planet where a person could be pelted with ice, burned by the sun and nearly electrocuted by the sky and then have another person describe those experiences as boring!

Keep them happy so they do not turn on you

Hey you! Don’t forget to water your human and give it plenty of nutrients! Humans are kinda fragile and need a lot of special attention so give it a little hug and a nice wash to keep it feeling ok.

If your human is feeling a little down make sure you remind it how strong it is! It’s made it this far!

Sometimes humans have problems with liking themselves and staying happy. Make sure you give this human plenty of love and support. Sometimes it’s hard to cheer up a human when they’re down so please don’t get mad at if it has trouble!

Humans are high maintenance but it’s worth it because they’re so nice and huggable and they just cuddle up and create and get so excited and they’re just so adoreable!

The pack bond feature your race has aquired is vastly inconvenient to say the very least.

Okay, so I feel like contributing to the Humans Are Weird section and it’s just, humans and predators get along? Like, we have mutual beneficial relationships and companionship with animals that, in theory, we should be fighting with. 

Like, we have cats and dogs as pets, some people have wolves, we see lions and tigers and think they’re cute, hell, zoologists have been raising Big Cats for years, not to mention the stories about people care taking bears. 

And if Jurassic World became a thing, you can bet your ass someone would Chris Pratt a set of pack dinos

So like, imagine that theres a race of aliens who are, by genetic script, predatory, and vicious and every alien system are like “Theres no chance at establishing peace with them, it’s impossible.” But then humans come and we stumble across a wounded one like 

“this species ?? Is adorable ?” And all the other aliens are like 

“No, human Mike, it is a vicious predator! It’s bet to just avoid the quadrant where theyre from and destroy any that come too close.” 

“You want to kill him, but he’s just a wittle cutie!” 

“ … Human Mike, stand back!” And of course the humans rally around it and force the other aliens out and slowly feed/build up trust with the species and we form a bound with them and Aliens are like ???? 

Evetually humans teach the aliens how to respond to the species and while they’re still pretty dangerous if they’re hungry and you shouldn’t turn your back on them, there’s still like, relative trust between the species. 

Humans are weird, apparently

Ok, I decided I wanted to try my hand at adding to this “Humans are Space Orcs” thing.  Apologies if it’s been done before, but I haven’t seen this particular thing.

Imagine the aliens coming to Earth and looking at our media, at the products in our stores, and all over the place they see the most obvious warnings and disclaimers.  “Caution, food will be hot,” “Professional driver on closed course,” “Do not attempt.”  And they just think that humans must be absolute idiots because who the heck needs to be told that, right?

But they don’t know about human litigation.

Sure, the aliens have laws and treaties and whatnot, but what with an intersteller community and all these different races and languages, they just naturally abide by the spirit of the law, because who would want all that precise translation and finicky language and loophole abuse and obvious rule patches?  Way too much work for the aliens.

So humans join the galactic community, start developing relationships and trade deals and agreeing to abide by whatever the aliens call their Geneva Convention.  Everyone’s happy.  Until the aliens start looking a little closer at actual human behaviour.

“Umm, Ambassador Joseph, we can’t help but notice that your people have been making more dreadnoughts than the Isni Treaty allows.  This is making us very nervous.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean, President Gangril.  We only have four dreadnoughts.”

“You registered four, but when reviewing your fleet, we found there were at least twenty?”

“The other sixteen are heavy crusiers.”

“They’re clearly dreadnoughts.”

Joe brings out a large stack of papers.  “Actually, according to the treaty, dreadnoughts are over 906 metres, and these cruisers are 890 metres long.  The guns also…”

Until the aliens are collectively tearing out their hair analogues and somehow human lawyers get even richer as the galactic community desperately hires them in an effort to prevent this behaviour.

Gravity

Something I haven’t seen yet with the “humans are weird/space orcs” thing is differences in gravity

Like imagine humans going to planets or moons and having to have an alien escort to hold them down. Humans stuck to their alien friends with those little backpacks with leashes that parents put on their kids or pets!!

Or humans going to a planet with such high gravity that the aliens feel like they’re being crushed to death and ppl are just “ah yes, the comfortable pressure of home world”

Imagine aliens reacting to human eating habits.

For instance, taste. Like, one day an alien notices the human crew member dumping something bright orange on their midday ration.

Alien: Does your supplement not have the right nutrients/? Human: No, it just tastes bad. Alien: ???? Human: Well, not precisely bad, but bland. It’s boring. So I thought I’d spice it up a bit. *waves bottle of bright orange substance* Alien: You add items to your food that provide no necessary sustenance??? Human: Oh, just wait ‘til you hear about junk food.

‘Cause humans eat stuff that is not good just for the sensation. Like really spicy foods, chewing gum, and all these spices. And the aliens don’t get it. You put that in your body? Doesn’t that mess up your digestive system? What purpose does it serve?

Or human eating rituals. If you eat with one group of humans there are all of these utensils, some of which look extremely similar, but each with it’s own unique purpose. And if you don’t use the right one at the right time it’s a social faux pas. Then another group mostly uses their hands and lick their fingers. Does this not introduce pathogens? And you’ll see the same human doing both behaviors.

And there’s the whole concept of a meal as a social endeavor. Humans will have a meal with those they are close with as a sign of affection. Humans don’t even spend the entire meal eating, no they use it to talk. Business is done, friends catch up, families share news. All over a meal.

Aliens considering food a necessity not to be discussed in public. Yet here are these humans, who post pictures of their food to social media, share recipes, use food as a social catalyst, and as comfort. Hell, comfort food as a completely human idea that aliens don’t understand.

Anyway, humans are weird.

but what if,,, what if humans aren’t the only Hold My Beer species.

We are one of two.

The Adt’harra people look kind of like a cross between a bat and an elf. Big ole radar dish ears, slender bipedal bodies, all that. Their planet is heavily forested with gargantuan mangrove swamps, and they lurk under the roots to hunt fish and birds. More importantly, they lurk under the roots to prank the shit out of any and all intergalactic visitors. 

The Adt’harran love of pranks was at first a non-starter for joining the Intergalactic Alliance, but then they realized that these creatures were absolute geniuses for rigging complex mechanics in a matter of minutes, and also were simply too enthusiastic to refuse.

At around the same time, the Human people were discovered. They were rather flimsy compared to many other members of the Alliance, but further interaction proved them to be loyal crewmembers willing and able to risk life and limb for their cause and teammates. Further interaction also proved them to be reckless bastards who think it’s great fun to glue six warp cores together and try to poke a tunnel through a sun.

It was very quickly decided by the high-ups that Humans and Adt’harrans should never be allowed to interact, they would surely blow up at least three ships and cause a half dozen interplanetary incidents with their scheming.

When the Humans and Adt’harrans eventually meet anyway because neither species is really into ‘rules’, they are fast friends and the collective universe tears its hair out.

I have become pretty obsessed with Humans are Space Orcs/Space Australia posts, and here’s what popped out of my brain: Disobedience. Humans can be told “Under no circumstances are you allowed to do this”, be threatened with punishment, and STILL DO THE THING! We have a specific phrase for when something we wanted to do has negative consequences: “Worth it” Even more, it’s EXPECTED that children will be disobedient. “Rebellious phase” and all that. Parents will tell their kids “Don’t run on the sidewalk you’ll fall and scrape your knee” and the kids RUN ANYWAY. And they fall and scrape their knee. And then THEY DO IT AGAIN THE NEXT DAY. Sometimes being told not to do something makes us WANT TO DO IT MORE! (Same vein as morbid curiosity, i.e. ‘That’s a bad thing which makes it more exciting’)

Now imagine the aliens trying to deal with it: “Human Clara, I can see you are looking at that rocky cliff. Do not climb it, it is very perilous” “Well, I was just thinking about it, but now…” “Thank you for seeing reason Human Clara… Human Clara? Human Clara get down from there!” “Haha, nope!” *falls* “… Worth it.” “Human Clara there was no gain from this it was not 'worth it’”

Humans Are Weird: Not Noticing Pain

The humans were at third meal when Zork'ak sat on the bench. The nutrient researchers had been experimenting with the human flavors, attempting to add it to the meals. This bowl had a slight ‘savory’ undertone that Zork'ak very much enjoyed.

           Wren moved over to allow Zork'ak to sit next to her, which caused a weird constriction around xer straque, xer fluid-pumping organ. Wren smiled at xem, and it happened again. Xe might need to go to the medical wing after meal.

           "I don’t feel sorry,“ Adam was saying.

           "You sprained my wrist!” Steve was clutching his extremity to his chest.

           "You should’ve landed the right way.“

           "Oh, shut up,” Carrie grumbled.

           As Carrie lifted her utensil to her mouth, Zork'ak caught a glimpse of a long cut running the length of the lower half of her extremity. “How did you hurt yourself, Carrie?”

           She looked surprised. “Where?” Zork'ak carefully traced the line with xer talon. Carrie twisted to look at the scabbed cut. “Hmm. Wonder when that happened.”

           "The piercing of your skin sends pulses through your nerves, correct?“

           "Well, yeah.”

           "So you should feel it.“

           "Well, I mean. You usually do. I guess I just didn’t notice when it happened this time.”

           "Sometimes our body can be more focused on other things or like the pain is so minor we barely notice or remember it,“ Adam said. “I mean we obviously notice big things.”

           "I probably cut on something while we were at the collection field.“ Carrie continued eating.

           "She also is the kind of person who doesn’t notice a lot.” Adam closed his eye in what Zork'ak had been told is called a ‘wink.’ “I, on the other hand, do notice things like this.” He flipped his extremity over to reveal two blue spots on his arms. Zork'ak did not study human bodily science, just behavior so xe did not know what this medical condition was.

           "What disease do you have?“ Zork'ak leaned forward to look at Adams, running a talon over the skin to see if it felt different. Xe had been told that xe could touch the humans without asking permission in these situations.

           "Oh, it’s not a disease. It’s called a bruise. It means my blood vessel, the tube that brings the blood to all my organs, was ruptured. It’ll go away after a few days.”

           "You rupture delivery vessels that are necessary to keep your organs functioning and it does not affect your body?“

           Adam shrugged. “We have multiple blood vessels.”

           "Is this an extremely painful occurrence?“ Zork'ak had noticed humans did not seem to mind pain.

           "Nah. I mean, you can usually tell if you are going to bruise because it hurts a little when that spot gets hit, but very minor.”

           "So you don’t notice when you are cut but when one of your… blood vessels,“ Adam nodded,” blood vessels ruptures but you do notice when you touch an object too hard.“

           "Uh, kind of? It just really depends.”

           Zork'ak did not understand how some humans would notice these nerve impulses but others did not. Xe turned to look at Wren, who had been listening to the conversation, and noticed a dark purple spot on Wren’s upper extremity.

           "What is this?“ Xe pointed at the spot on Wren’s arm.

           "Uh,” Wren tried to twist her extremity. “Where?” She was stretching it out, twisting around, finally able to look at the spot on the back side. “Oh, bruise.” She poked it. “Ouch. That hurt.” She proceeded to press it again. And again.

           "Wren?“ She touched the spot again and wrinkled her nose. "Why do you continue to press the spot that hurts?”

           She looked at xem. “You know, I don’t have an explanation really. I guess it doesn’t hurt that much so it’s enticing to keep pressing it to see if it hurts more each time. I’m not sure.”

           "How did you get that bruise?“

           "Couldn’t tell you.”

           Zork'ak looked back at Adam. “I thought you said you all noticed when you have ruptured your blood vessels, and that one looks more painful.”

           "Hers is a dark color because it’s healing, not because it’s more painful. Bruises are nearly the same pain level. Some hurt when you press them,“ he cut his eyes at Wren, "but having them doesn’t hurt really.”

           "She does not know how she received hers.“

           He looked at her arm, then his. "Like I said, it depends.”

           "But.“ Zork'ak was looking at their bruises. "How do you-you don’t notice-I do not understand.” Klyls always noticed any abnormality in their body’s functioning. There was not a time that Zork'ak had not noticed something causing xem pain.

           "It’s complicated, I guess. Our species doesn’t have set rules really.“

           "I have noticed.” Xe looked at Wren. “It makes your species quite hard to study.”

           She laughed. “Good. You can’t know all of our secrets.” She winked at xem then.

           Zork'ak found it hard to breathe for a fraction of a cycle. Xe definitely needed to go to the medical wing.