Hidden_Tempest

Human: Fun fact we aren't technically venomous, we just have so much bacteria in our mouths that most human bites get infected.

So q human goes on a research ship and that ship gets stranded on a deathworld and everyone freaks put bc they don't know how to handle this but the human's just like 'build shelter, hunt food, start a fire' and they're all like 'hunt food???!!' And they human's like 'shit'.

So they see a human climb trees, throw shit, track prey and realize 'oh no, that thing could kill us' but the human's helping and they don't really have the man power to get rid of them.

Crossed paths

Humans are very sneaky when it comes to hiding objects, even using their own body to do so. Can you imagine how horrified aliens would be if humans hid objects inside their bodies?

.  .  .

The leader of the archaeological team looked around at his team. They were hiding from the pirates, but they would soon be discovered. “If the pirates find these stones a vital piece of this planet’s history will be lost.”

“Back up is coming, right?” The lone human asked.

The leader nodded. “Yes, but they will not arrive in time.”

“Don’t worry, I got this!” The human said. He grabbed the small pebble like things and put them in his mouth.

The crew did not have long to freak out as the pirates arrived and there was a fight.

After the rescue team arrived and the pirates were dealt with the human spat the stones into his hand. Everyone recoiled in disgust.

“How!” the leader demanded.

“I just kept them in my cheeks,” the human replied.

“How! You spoke normally and even fought!”

“Dude, I have kids. I have to be good at hiding things in my cheeks if I want to snack in piece.”

.  .  .

Specialty Retrieval was interesting with a human. They seemed to have no appreciation for danger. And they were crazy.

The pair had successfully found the chip they were assigned to retrieve and taken it without being located. However, they had a problem. It would soon be discovered that the chip was missing.

“They will do a strip search,” the alien partner said. “We will need to hide the chip and come back for it later.”

“I have a better idea,” the human said. She pulled out a little rubber baggie, put the chip in it and sealed it closed. She took a big drink of water, put the baggie in her mouth, and swallowed it.

“What have you done!” the partner demanded. Had the human lost her mind!

“Relax,” the human said. “The rubber will protect the chip from my stomach acid-”

The alien paled at those words.

“-and the chip is like the size of my thumb nail, so it’ll pass through my digestive track just fine. We’ll get it back by tomorrow.” She smiled brightly.

The alien wanted to bag his head on the wall.

(They survived the strip search, made it off the planet, and did get the chip back the next day)

.  .  .

The five teammates stared at the little statue. It was small, fitting in a human’s palm, but it was big enough that it wouldn’t be easy to hide. How were they going to get it out? They would surely be searched when it was discovered missing, and they wouldn’t be able to leave the planet for another planetary cycle and a half!

The two humans looked at each other. Both seemed apprehensive, which put the rest of the team on edge. If something scared a human, it had to be bad.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Human Steve asked Human James.

Human James nodded grimly. “Rock, Paper, Scissors?”

The aliens stared at the humans has they held out their fists, counted to three, and then made shapes. Human Steve looked at his hand and then swore.

“Sorry bud,” Human James said.

“Give me the statue, and then everyone turned around,” Human Steve said, looking very unhappy.

Confused, but trusting their teammate the three aliens did to. Human James also turned around. They waited in tense silence.

“Okay, we’re good,” Human Steve said.

The four turned around. The statue was gone.

“Where… is the statue?” the team leader asked.

Human Steve grimaced. “You don’t want to know.”

What if aliens don’t have the concept of vestigial systems? And so while they are a much, much older species and their bodies don’t really have cure-alls, when the problem solving thing kicks in, it pretty much just works.

Take the most obvious example for humans: appendixes. The prevailing theory is that it used to be important (like for digestion or immunity), but now we know it’s largely useless. So maybe a human has an appendicitis, they get taken to the med bay, the other humans are a little worried, but not overly so. Alien gets told about it and they flip.

“Human Barbara’s organ has exploded?!”

“Okay, not exactly exploded, but it got all swollen and filled with goo. So they’re taking it out.”

“Human Barbara is having an internal organ permanently removed?!”

“Dude, chill. This happens all the time, no biggie.”

“You are telling me that your internal organs will frequently, and without warning, cease to function entirely?”

“Well, it’s not really ‘cease to function’ per se, ‘cause the appendix doesn’t really do anything. I mean, some scientists think it might? Or like, it did a while ago? But not anymore. We don’t really know anything about it, it’s kinda there.”

“…you have an entire organ inside of your abdomen that simply has no purpose except to malfunction?”

“I mean, yeah, pretty much. It’s called appendicitis.”

“This specific condition happens on such a regular basis that you have a name for it?!”

And maybe even weirder, it’s not just physical stuff. Our social-emotional makeup flaws are responsible for a huge part of humanity’s problems. Our pack-bonding instincts manifest in tons of negative ways, like our nasty habit of “us verses them” conflicts. The fact that we define entire cultures and lifetimes by our dissimilarities is whack.

“Human Bob, I have just heard mention of something called ‘The Crusades.’ What is that?”

“Oh, they were these huge wars that happened during the Middle Ages. Basically it was Muslims and Christians fighting each other for, like, two hundred years over some land that was considered holy.”

“Two groups of humans systematically slaughtered each other for roughly eight generations? Why did they not just share the land?”

“They didn’t want to.”

“I do not understand. Why did they not wish to share?”

“It’s sort of a territorial thing. We don’t like other people near what’s ours. It’s how we survived when we were a developing species, by making groups and fighting off outsiders. That’s why a crew has to do a test run before they get sent out to space. When we first started sending out explorers, we didn’t do that, so lots of missions went to shit because crew members couldn’t handle living together and, in a couple of cases, ended up murdering each other. Pretty bad for PR back then.”

“Humans will become violent if someone they are not pack-bonded with comes near them?”

“Not even near. A lot of colonisation and wars happened because one group didn’t agree with another, so they went out and killed them all.”

“What?!”

“Yeah. Pack-bonding is super super important to us. Human infants will actually die if they don’t get enough physical affection.”

“What?!”

“Uh-huh. Remember when Brian and Steve weren’t talking to each other for a week because Brian’s favourite sports team lost to Steve’s? We don’t even have to belong to a group to get crazy about it.”

“SOMEONE NEEDS HELP! what are you doing?!”

They panic wondering why a human wouldn’t want to help a fellow human.

“It’s not human.”

They would be bewildered but ultimately trust you as this is your native planet and you likely know best.

You explain to them that it was likely a mountain lion. Another apex predator of the planet that can make human screams.

And depending if this was another part of the world some birds can call your name or mimic children/people cryin.

“Your planet is terrifying. How do you know the difference between your own and what wants to kill you?”

“Just do”

It’s part of our evolution. It’s why we fear the dark and monsters under our bed. We slept in trees once and predators roamed below. We can’t see in the dark but predators can. We may be super predators but we were once prey too.

Humans live in a highly oxygenated environment. Oxygen is a very potent oxidizer (oxygen, oxidizer. It basically names a whole class of chemicals) we breathe a chemical that can destroy metals. We breathe rocket fuel.

There are a few different ways you could take this.

Human ships are highly prized among the galactic community because they’re basically indestructible. Since human ships have to withstand their caustic breathing mix, the rest of the galaxy sees them as highly armored. Flush human breathing gasses out and replace them, now you have a ship that can handle anything the galaxy can dish out!

Because only humans breathe oxy, they walk around alien stations and ships in complicated pressure suits. They become a faceless bogeyman.

Hydrogen peroxide is another oxidizer (also another rocket fuel) and we use it as a disinfectant.

By the time the rest of the galaxy realized that is a joke, it was too late. Earth was considered to be relatively mild and not much of a threat because Humans, the planet’s dominant species, classified their cradle world and species as such. Most aggressive species in the galaxy considered it to be an easy target for conquest. They had no idea how wrong that assumption was.

It took one ill-timed and easily stopped planetary invasion for the Cprix, generally accepted as the galaxy’s boogeymen species, to fear Humans and their cradle world. By the time word got out that the Cprix had launched an attack on Earth and for a response to be mounted, the invasion had been repelled. The Cprix fleet was retreating from Earth’s solar system at a fast rate.

No Cprixen would ever disclose what happened or what caused them to be defeated.

No Human gave the same answer about what happened. Some said the invaders made the mistake of landing in Australia or Canada or the Amazon or in the Yellowstone super caldera. Some said it was the honey badgers or some deep sea creature. A few even joked about more obscure (possibly cryptid) Earth creatures were involved, such as the chupacabra or the kraken or the mama bear/mom friend. There was discussion about natural phenomenon, like hurricanes and volcanoes. Some cited the variety of military technology that was so low-tech or outdated by comparison to the rest of the galactic standards. The only thing that Humans would agree on was that they didn’t know why the Cprix fleet was afraid of them. Earth was just Mostly Harmless, after all.

Those answers from the Humans generally prompted more questions. Earth suddenly received more interested visitors from their alien friends. That’s when the other species began to realize that Earth was far more frightening than they had previously realized and Humans more deadly.

A self-professed Mostly Harmless death world is still incredibly terrifying by most generally accepted metrics. Only a Human would call their cradle world Mostly Harmless.