Humans are the weirdest aliens?

Hello yes I love those tumblr threads speculating on human-alien interactions, mostly the ones about how fucking weird humans are as a species. We are the ultimate "hold my beer" race and somehow we're making it work well enough that we got to space.

Scream with me about what aliens think of us.

 

I am gonna go through my space humans and space orks threads later and link all the ones I can find here

 

I like to think that aliens likely wouldn't have the same ability as humans to process trajectories and such in real time (like when you hit a baseball with a bat successfully it's because your brain ran a zillion physics equations in realtime and you didn't even notice) so things like our hand-eye coordination and ability to parallel park astound them. (not to mention juggling. I bet humanity is the one race weird enough to invent juggling)

 

this is also one of my favorite things yes

 

*sets up a tent in this thread*

 

aliens are astounded by professional sports
they assume they're the equivalent of like the Ultimate Mathletes/Science Bowl Championships

they commend the human race for valuing intellectual pursuits so highly and in hushed, reverent tones admit that they are secretly relieved they decided against destroying us on sight.

 

The main thing that separates us from the other apes is that we're endurance predators, right? We mostly got protein by running after it until it gave up or died.
So that "Space Orcs" post isn't too far off the mark.

One thing that germinated from that for me is that we're renowned for being stubborn even when it's against our best interests. Nothing else has a "sunk cost fallacy" -- they didn't need a phrase for it until they met us. We don't back down from fights we know we'll lose because fuck if I'm giving that sumbitch the satisfaction. In tones of polite horror, alien anthropologists argue over how something like us could have survived inventing nuclear weapons, much less lasted long enough to make first contact.

Earth is the Planet of Lost Causes.

 

I want to see an alien being introduced to the concept of a marathon.

"Wait. You're telling me that the legend goes that after a battle, a human ran this distance to deliver a critical message and then dropped dead."
"Right."
"And now hundreds of thousands of humans ritually re-create the fatal run every year."
"Uh...I guess?"
"WHY?"
"To prove to themselves that they can, mostly."

 

I have a tag on my tumblr titled "the space files" specifically for these posts and i am so happy

(if you check it out, there are definitely repeats because i just tag them in whenever i see them, and it's badly curated)

 

There are so many human concepts that would be horrifying to aliens:

"stopping power" - Wait. So your weapons have a general design goal that, in addition to inflicting lethal damage, they need to somehow prevent the mortally wounded target from killing the wielder anyway?

"overtime" - Your species has a routine work-to-idle ratio of one to three, which your economic decision-makers can cause you to exceed just by paying extra money?

"catch" - Humans can launch solid projectiles tens of times their own body length without tools, and then stop them with their hands

 

Please enjoy the Humanity, Fuck Yeah! reddit which, yes, it's reddit, but it's got TONS of stories about the premise.

 

Too bad the most popular HFY series are in the Jenkinsverse, which somehow manages to turn every human ever into a Mary Sue.

As I mentioned before, combining human-as-space-rednecks with the possibility of the EmDrive actually working is pretty interesting. I really doubt other alien species would have built their first (if any) reactionless drive on a dinner table.
... Hey, what if it worked because we were actual basically-orks, latent psychic powers and all?

On a more serious note, and also a thing I've said before: "What if humanity’s Sci-Fi Thing™️ was biological engineering? We’ve been doing that ever since basic civilizations were a thing, and all over the world."

 

That would be pretty sweet. There's the obvious stuff of breeding domesticated animals to suit us, shifting plants to be more accessible for eating... And the stuff we're getting into bacteria, like eating plastic so it doesn't clutter the planet or fighting HIV...?

 

I like combining this with that one post talking about what if humans were inexplicably considered really adorable by other species
so it's like
"aaawwwww so cute OH SHIT WHAT ARE THEY DOING"
like cats
super adorable, and then they break half your stuff and haul a bunch of dead animals into your house.

 

continue this train of thought: the aliens don't meet cats until a while after meeting humans

so then it's like

"OH GOD THE HUMANS DOMESTICATED MINIATURE HUMANS"
"THEY PURR"

 

I know it's a big thing in fantasy stories to make humans the short-lived race and all, but consider: Compared to most of the other species on the planet, we actually live long lives at the ~80 year average. What else lives that long - some tortoises and some birds?

So compared to alien races, we might be basically immortal-timescale, "our family has worked with this human for generations" beings.

 

I'm happy to say:

 

Yeah, I've seen the dogs one. It's not particularly interesting to me, because A) cat person, B) not about aliens.

 

beautiful
aliens freaking out like "THEY'RE EVEN SOFTER"

 

My favorite one is that humans are the only ones who domesticated animals for pets. Like,

aliens: they serve no purpose, human. You don't eat them. They don't do any work for you. They just sit around and eat your food. Why do you keep dachshunds?

humans: Idk man, they're pretty cute. I think being that cute is a full time job in and of itself, and sometimes he lets me put a little hotdog costume on him. That's pretty rad.

Aliens: so... you do eat it? Why would you have to turn it into a hotdog to eat it?

humans: *aghast!* No i'm not going to eat Sir Snuggles! It's just a costume, man. I just like how he looks when I put him in a hotdog suit, because he's kinda shaped like a hotdog, you see?

Aliens: ...no? hotdogs have neither a head, nor legs or a tail.