Humans are Space orcs idea:
Alien ship crash lands on planet or moon or whatever. Its totally inhospitable. It could be anything. Sweltering desert, thick jungles, rough ocean. But im going with a completely frozen wasteland—let’s say, a little colder than Antarctica, so negative 50-ish C or negative 58-ish F. cold, dry, windy. Ice as far as the eye can see. Barely anything lives here. Nothing sentient, but plenty of predators and things that would eat anything that moves. There are barely any plants. Barely anything drinkable water because everything is frozen. Space antaricta. Which means ecosystem, but not a friendly one.
So alien ship crash lands. Maybe it’s a warship, or diplomacy ship, or completely unrelated, knocked off course by an intergalactic war. Maybe its a cargo ship and the engines are cut off by raiders and pirates after the goods were stolen. Maybe it’s a passenger ship that got wayyy lost bc the pilot was an idiot. it could be one species or many.
Personally, i would go with diplomacy. Important people, probably their families as well. Soldiers and generals and politicians and dipolmats, all stuck together. Maybe people would cling to their power and position. Maybe there’s a caste system or something and people cling to their status. But status and money doesnt mean anything when you are freezing. You could do something with diplomacy against warmongering, you could comment on how very often both are only done to secure more recourses. The common man vs the government. Idk, you could do a lot with it.
Doesn’t matter, the ship crash lands, there are at least 50 aliens there, they do not have comms to call for help, they do not have rations to last years because this wasnt a ship meant for permanent stay, they need to ration energy so that the heat can stay on and they don’t all freeze to death. They think they’re screwed, arguments break out. Maybe people advocate for just giving up and succumbing to the cold, no person could endure these conditions! (Wink wink nudge nudge)
then after a day or two, something crests the snowy dunes. It’s bipedal, covered in thick furs and walking calmly towards them. By its side? A beast, giant and built for this snow, with great big teeth and thick fur, nearly as tall as the figure. (Think polar bear meets saber tooth tiger, so around shoulder height with big ol teefies)
Theres three main ways this could go
a) humans are completely unknown to the rest of the universe, my least favorite option, but you get to do first contact stuff and have the aliens learn everything from scratch.
b) humans are known of but not interacted with. This is the typical HASO setup. Maybe humans are seen as animals, maybe humans are stereotyped as violent and crazy. Language barriers and misunderstandings and horrible preconception galore.
or c) humans are pretty well known. Maybe humans keep their knowledge to themselves, maybe they’re private and only interact for trading or whatever. Maybe they dont meant to be private, but the majority of humanity stays in the solar system because space travel is hella expensive. No language barrier, less space racism, but you could still have misconceptions.
whatever the case, there is a human. Just the one. It becomes clear, through charades or words or whatever, that they live here. Alone.
The human came to check out the massive space craft that landed in their inhospitable little backyard with their pet. Now, humans are social creatures and are hardwired to help people, and the human has learned how to live here and can spare some to help and show the aliens how to survive. So they help.
They sew pelts and parkas for the survivors, they teach them how to use the sinew as thread and the pelts as cloth. At first the aliens are disturbed and disgusted—butchering poor animals like this. The human is unimpressed and shrugs, if these idiots wanted to die out int the cold, then they could die. the human helps them fix up their reactor core and repurpose it for energy and heating. Shows them how to set up farms or smt becuase the aliens are herbivores.
Could get a lotta inspiration from Arctic peoples like Inuit or Yupik or Aleut.
anyway, the human shows the aliens how to live in the most inhospitable places, shows them the fun and beauty in a place like this. Blah blah blah. The heartwarming and the usual HASO stuff—persistence predators, endurance, omnivore, 6th sense, adrenaline, pack bonding, baby schema, the instinct to groom other ppl (like picking lint off of another persons shirt), language learning, breathing oxygen (the very combustible chemical) compared to whatever the aliens breathe (nitrogen maybe? That way humans and them can be in the same atmosphere).
Human has a bunch of pets—alien sled dogs, the alien saber tooth as a pack mule/horse, alien bison for easy meat and alien bird for falconing. Aliens are shocked human bonded with tehses super dangerous creatures. (Maybe human has been alone so long that they fill that void of people with pets)
Through this all, the human and the aliens are working together to survive and get the ships comms working to get someone to get them off this planet.
human becomes respected and well loved member of the community—despite being very pragmatic and unsentimental and cold, much like the planet. Aliens start to grow on human.
Everyone learns to work together and appreciate all the work that goes into not just surviving but living.
maybe human—who is resident expect and leader to all things survival—gets close to ship captain. Queerplatonic relationship??? Something something, pragmatic and inspirational, hopeful grump and worried enthusiast, over preparer and over thinker. Human is adaptable and flighty and needs to be ready for everything, captain is inflexible and sturdy and spontaneous. Human is cold and winter and an unstoppable force, captain is warm and passionate and summer and an immovable object. Human and captain are both authority figures in this situation but still relatively normal people. Something something opposites balance each other out.
Typical trope of a frigid, cold, calculating lone wolf slowly thawing and warming because of community. not turning into a completely different character, but smiling a bit more, snorting at jokes, being silly with kids, making friends.
Somehow it comes out that humans are pack animals—maybe human says it, maybe someone notices. The dots get connected that human is living alone without a pack. That human was living in a wasteland alone. Aliens start asking questions. Why was human out here? Exile? How did human get here? Crash? Force? Choice? Why alone? Pack dead? No pack?
now we get into angst. Touch starvation, the ache and overstimulation of living on your own and not really living but having mastered surviving and suddenly having people. The uncomfortable feeling of relearning how to be a person and how to be perceived. The relearning of being patient and kind and waiting for people to catch up to you.
Being from human in a vacuum of everything, to being human in a vacuum of humans. Not quite remembering who you were, and not wanting to be who you are, and scared of who you will be. The fear of the unknown and commitment.
Here we get into human’s backstory;
are they an escaped trafficked/abducted human who crashed their kidnappers’ ship and cant leave? Do they fear small cells? Do they guard their food? Do they freak around needles and medics? Do they fear leaving the safety of this planet and getting onto another ship?
are they an exile, Dropped into the wilderness for whatever crime? Did they do it? Did the punishment fit the crime? Do they regret it? Does it keep them awake at night? Thinking of dirt on their hands, a wolf among sheep. Do they try to push others away to keep them safe? Do they beg forgiveness from people that cannot hear?
are they abandoned? Did their friends/family/lover/superiors tell them to grab something and then leave them behind? Was it on purpose? Does it matter? Are they angry, raging at those who left them to die, spite fueling their survival? Are they sorry, do they promise to do better and be better and please come back, they will be good? Do they hold people at a distance? Do they leave before they can be left, or do they cling to any affection and make them stay?
Did they go willingly? Tired of humanity’s nonsense, did they pack a ship and leave? Did they mean to some here? Did they mean to survive? Are they some sort of doomsday prep-er, convinced someone is out to get them? Is someone out to get them? Do they think they are better off alone? Do they value independence and freedom over anything else?
what did they do before this? Were they already a survivalist, all about hunting and camping and whatnot? Had they graduated, how long had they worked previously? Did they have a family? children? Pets? A spouse? Do their parents mourn, or are they already gone?
(I think it would hit harder if human was an adult, like middle aged. Someone who had lived plenty on earth and now wasnt—bad habits ingrained, cynical about humanity and themselves.)
were they always alone, or did they just forget how to be together?
anyway, angst angst angst. Argument? Human gets defensive and evasive, aliens want to know if they can be trusted. Want to know just who they let near their children and into the remains of their ship. Captain wants to know if human had been honest about anything, what else had they been hiding? Human storms off. Then Big ol’ snowstorm, a blizzard.
A) Human feels guilty and actually worries about what happened to aliens, first time in a while they actually care and dont just look down on ppl who cant keep up. Goes back afterward, apologizes, gets forgiven, aliens apologize. Emotional hurt/comfort.
B) Queerplatonic route; Captain gets anxious, worries about human. Human is fine btw. Captain goes out during storm bc they are impulsive and anxious. Gets ill or injured or whatever, human finds them. Captain finally sees where human lives (maybe it’s shockingly comfortable, maybe it horrifically over prepared for any event, maybe it’s nice but impersonal). Human nurses captain back to health. Whump and recovery
C) max angst; human doesnt come back. Maybe they finally kicked the bucket, maybe they just used the incident as a reason to finally go back to isolation.
D) human doesnt come back, aliens look and find them. And apologize and ask them to come back and that they are missed and that the aliens were worried. Human is confused, why would they be worried. Nobody is ever worried about them. Casual trauma/lore drop. Aliens bring human back and promise to worry and care about them.
after a while, the comms are repaired and rescue comes. (Make it during the planets version of summer, a minuscule warmth, could make a bunch of metaphores about the rescuers bringing the most warmth they had expericed on the planet) Everyone is irrevocably changed. The world has changed in the however long they had been stranded—over two years. They are now more wild and stubborn than before. Mildly traumatized despite how well it went. People coming back and not being the same. Maybe some leave and then go back, now used to normal life and preferring the cold.
If human is still around, there can be a dramatic choice.
go with the aliens and leave the safety of ice and snow?
or stay here and leave community and togetherness?
what do you value more, safety or living?
neither need to be end all be all and most likely human would get togetherness if they stayed and get safety if they left.
maybe human chooses to stay—they have it good here, good food, good pets. They like being here. Maybe they prepare to go back to isolation, they prepare for it to hurt becuase now they know what they are missing. Aliens closest to human probably still stay with them.
maybe human chooses to go—to stay with people and go back to being alive. They like the people. Maybe they say goodbye to their pets/hunting partners, they prepare to leave everything familiar behind and fall into the unknown. Then aliens reveal that human can take their furry companions with them and that the aliens s have packed all their things together.
