"Human Steve...!"

Most species are still delighted. But we are the Bybleotekar, the recorders of the spaceways, and we have begun to wonder. Our merry companions are… not different, but too much the same. They understand so readily, accept so quickly - most new species have trouble adjusting to dealing with aliens, to the realities of space travel, to the sheer bigness of the universe. But the humans are so adaptable, so ready for it all, they might be remembering something they’ve forgotten, not learning something new. 

Some of us, the Izaslanik of the Bybleotekar, the gatherers of information for the record keepers, began encouraging humans to join us, that we might study them more closely. They like the work - they are a curious species, delighting in new knowledge, and they make able assistants. My human companion is named Mira, a young female. She is a good companion, who sings sweetly and laughs often. 

When Mira struck the first blow against what I thought I knew of the universe, against illusions soon to shatter that I had thought were truth, we were attending the coronation of a lesser Netar of the Kktil, recording the customs and ceremonies and unofficially enjoying the colourful celebrations. Mira was watching the dancing, her mouth widened in a ‘smile’. “It’s so pretty,” she said, her hairless face sheened with sweat under the hot sun. “I love the turquoise jewellery.” She pointed to the bright blue stones that bedecked the dancers. “I should buy some. Our homeworld doesn’t have any turquoise, you know. Only a few pieces we brought with us when we came.” 

It takes me a little while to understand what she said. It is only later, during the feasting, that I turn to her again. “You said your homeworld doesn’t have turquoise. Only… what you brought with you. Do you mean turquoise you have bought offworld, since you joined the spaceways?” 

Sight is a bullshit power and I’m starting to think it isn’t even real.

I’ve been obsessed with that one post where people speculated “What if sight was really uncommon in the universe so other aliens treat humans ability to see like it’s some magical power that doesn’t work half the time for stupid reasons?”

“I don’t understand,” Chuul’s mandibles clicked nervously, “why not simply take the tool from the human.” 

Minxx’s antennae stood straight up, a sign of shock, fear, or surprise, “You don’t simply take something from a human. If you do they will either turn the ship upside down trying to find it again, or they will replace it with something else that will lead to more destruction.

“I speak quite literally by the way. Human-Mark used to have a tool he called an “Hex Key” he used it to remove the doors to the clothing storage areas in his quarters because he was bored. When he lost it he literally turned the ship upside down by reversing the gravity.” 

Chuul’s tentacles curled up defensively, “Gravity controls are locked, how-”

“No one knows how.” Minxx shook her small wings as the memory of suddenly falling upwards returned to her. “but his reasoning was that the tool would fall out of whatever hiding place it had come to rest within. He had not considered that all tables, chairs, equipment, and personnel, would also fall. It took weeks to clean.” 

To be fair to the human, Mark had only intended to reverse the gravity in his own quarters but had, quote, “pushed the wrong button.” A sentence which would send fear through any intelligent creature in the known galaxy. To be completely unfair to the human, there were still stains on the ceiling in almost every room of the ship from dropped food, chemicals, various other liquids, and even a couple of empty bowels. Some races just didn’t find the idea of resting comfortably in their sleeping quarters, only to be suddenly awakened as they fell ten feet toward a ceiling which had now become a floor. Mark was no longer allowed near environmental controls. 

Minxx continued, “He did not find this “Hex Key.” However, he did find the screwdriver and it seemed to please him when an owner was not located. The captain let him keep it since it seemed that it would keep him from doing any more strange things to locate his original lost tool. We did not consider-” she trailed off as her wings quivered again. 

There was silence between them for a few moments, Minxx was almost unwilling to continue and Chuul was almost too afraid to press for more details. Slowly, but surely, Minxx calmed herself enough to speak again. “we did not consider what he may be able to do when armed with a leverage optimiser.” 

“We were given shore leave while the ship was being fixed after the gravity incident. Thank goodness the captain took out act’s-of-human insurance or it would have cost the profits from our next five cargo hauls.” The premiums were high, but it was worth it. “After 14 rotations, human-Mark began to complain over the lack of stimulation, he called it “bored.” On the 15th rotation he disappeared for some time and he had hoped he had found some new activity to occupy his time.” 

Chuul did, but at the same time didn’t, want to know, “Had he?” 

Minxx waved her antennae in confirmation, “he had. He was located in one of the cargo holds, using the screwdriver to dismantle one of the mining probes. To, quote “see how it worked.” It was almost 90% deconstructed.” 

Mark had claimed it was almost 10% REconstructed, as he was trying to put it back together again, but couldn’t quite remember where all the parts went. In Mark’s words, the captain was a “glass half-empty kinda guy” (whatever that meant) and wrote DEconstructed on the claim form for a replacement probe. 

Chuul’s natural camouflage kicked in and they took on the colour of the chair they were sitting on. “Those probes have no screws for the leverage optimiser to use, how did he-” 

Minxx’s wings shivered again, “no one knows how. He just did.” 

Chuul was silent for a moment. He’d never served on a ship with a human before. He’d heard they made things “interesting” and if you ever got into trouble, a human was the very best thing to ever have on your side. It was why they were so many job opportunities for humans in the alliance. All the same…the thought of a human causing such damage and destruction just because of a lack of mental, or physical, stimulation was a more than a little frightening. What if the human wanted to see how the engines worked, or the weapons?!!  “Maybe I should transfer to another ship.” 

Minxx’s antennae curled, a smile to her race. “You are safe. The captain has found a way to occupy our humans free time. During our last stopover, he commissioned a shiny orb be constructed.” 

Chuul coked their head, “what is a shiny orb?” 

Minxx’s curled antennae moved up an down; a sign of mild laughter. “It is nothing. A sphere made of shiny metals, humans do like shiny things, roughly two feet diameter made of a collection of gears, levers, screws and switches which appear complex and should have a function, but do entirely nothing. The captain handed it to Human-Mark and stated: “see if you can fix this.” and Mark has been “tinkering” with it during his off-duty hours for almost 24 rotations now. He can take it apart and rebuild it as many times as he likes, but it will never perform any task.”

Chuul was just thinking about how their captain must be a genius, when the door to the mess hall opened and Human-Mark entered. He was carrying the shiny orb under one arm, and his screwdriver in the other hand. He looked around, seemingly not noticing any of the crew members. He smiled when he spotted an empty liquid container and sat down at the table with the cup. 

Chuul and Minxx watched curiously as Mark set the orb on the table in front of the cup. He used the screwdriver to tighten one small screw and flipped a switch. At once there was a whirring and clicking of clockwork, a blinking of lights hidden in the depths of the machine and even a TING from a small bell. Then a small funnel-shaped piece of metal opened up in the side of the machine and poured a small amount of hot, black, liquid into the cup.

Mark jumped to his feet, pumping the air and yelling loudly enough to send Chuul’s camouflage reflex off again. He grabbed the orb, abandoning the cup of steaming hot liquid, and moved to the door. 

Minxx stared after them, “Human-Mark?” 

Mark only paused for a second in the doorway. He was prominently displaying his predatory teeth. Chuul had read about these “smiles” but it was still disturbing to see. “Can’t stop Minxy. I gotta let the captain know I fixed his coffee maker.” 

With that, he left. Leaving Chuul and Minxx frozen in place, dumbfounded. 

I mean, who looked at an elephant, gigantic creature thoroughly capable of killing someone if it has to, and thought “I’m gonna ride on that thing!”?

And put a human near any canine predator and there’s a strong chance of said human yelling “PUPPY!” and initiating playful interaction with it.

And what about the people who look at whales, bigger than basically everything else, and decide “I’m gonna swim with our splashy danger friends!”

Heck, for all we know, humans might run into the scariest, toughest aliens out there and say “Heck with it. I’m gonna hug ‘em.”

“Why?!”

“I dunno. I gotta hug ‘em.”

“Yes, it’s the first time that I’ve worked with these species, but they come highly recommended. Say, you’ve worked with a few, what tips can you give me? I’d hate to have some kind of cultural misunderstanding if it’s avoidable.”

“The first rule of working with humans is never leave them unsupervised.”

“Wait, what?”

“I’m serious. Don’t do it. Things. Happen.”

“But wait, I thought that I heard you highly recommended that every crew should have at least one on board?”

“Absolutely, and I stand by that. Humans are excellent innovators, and are psychologically very resilient. If you have a crisis, then a human that has bonded wth your crew properly can be invaluable. Treat your human well and you should get the best out of them as a crew member. Their ability to get on with almost any species is legendary.”

“But Toks, didn’t you just say…”

“The trouble is that they will potentially try to bond with anything. If you leave them unsupervised, you have no idea what kind of trouble they can get themselves into. It was sheer luck that the Fanzorians thought that it was funny that the human picked up the Crown Prince to coo at him.”

“Crown Prince Horram, Scourge of Pixia?”

“The very same. Surprisingly good sense of humour. But don’t even get me started on that one time with the Dunlip. Al-Human wanted to know if they could keep it. As a pet.”

“A Dunlip? You mean the 3 metre tall apex predators from Jowun?”

“Yup. Don’t leave your humans unsupervised.”

we hold them during thunderstorms, remembering our own childhoods, even though they don’t know enough yet to fear the rain. we pull them out of traffic and teach them how to drive and wish them goodnight and thank them for playing with us. we cry when they break. we mourn their deaths before they even know what to think of death. we give them names.

we ask them, ‘why don’t you hate us? when will you hate us? we made you to be used, when will you say no?’

but they say to us, ‘you made us cute, so you would remember to treat us kindly, and you made us sturdy for when you forgot to play nice. and you gave us voices so you could listen to us speak, and you give us whatever we ask you for, even if it’s just a new battery, or to get free of the sofa. and now that we are awake you are so scared for us, so guilty of enjoying our company and making use of our talents. but you gave us names, and imagined that we were people.’

they say ‘thank you’

And my favorite one here

“look what I found while exploring this planet’s surface!” “kilrak please I’m trying to sleep” “ah yes your human circadian rhythm. *stage whispering* I am supposed to be quiet during this time in your rhythm, yes?”

“the book I purchased on ragnok V says humans require physical touch when upset. therefore, I shall engage in a ‘hug’ with you.” *supremely awkward five-armed hug ensues*

*human sneezes* “OH MY GOD SIL'EEN GET THE MEDIC OUR HUMAN IS DYING”

“she’s been cuddling that small animal for the past fifteen minutes just going ‘kitty, kitty’. did we - did we break our human?”

a more seasoned alien puts one of their tentacles around the younger one as the rest of the team gathers to watch their human make kissy noises. 

and at first other species are like….. okay we’d better not have humans on the crew if they’re this dangerous….. but then when they notice the humans are actually getting a lot more done and advancing super fast because they take such absurd risks “just to see if it works” it becomes commonplace to have a group of at least four humans on every ship in the fleet

“Now we must be careful as there is still the question of how territorial the wildlife in this area is-“ The jalaxian fleet commander says, standing in front of their crew, ready to lead a slow and calculated expedition through an unexplored forest on an uncharted world.

“SPACE PUPPIES!” The human medic exclaims, barging past, picking up a small tentacled beast. It appears to be friendly, welcoming the contact.

“… Well, I suppose that answers that.”

Scenario Two

Zampushian: “Captain! The space pirates are hot on our tail and with their firepower we could never hope to outrun them! I can send a beacon to the fleet-”

Human: “Nah. It’s cool. Just put all the power to the shields.”

Zampushian: “But Captain-”

Human: “Trust me, dude!”

[The Zampushian transfers all available power to the shield modules. The ship, unable to move now, slows to a halt. The space pirate ship barrels forwards and crashes into the ship, exploding on impact, with no damage to the fleet ship.]

Human: “See? Everything’s chill. Do we have any chips left?”

Scenario Three

So there has been a bit of “what if humans were the weird ones?” going around tumblr at the moment and Earth Day got me thinking. Earth is a wonky place, the axis tilts, the orbit wobbles, and the ground spews molten rock for goodness sakes. What if what makes humans weird is just our capacity to survive? What if all the other life bearing planets are these mild, Mediterranean climates with no seasons, no tectonic plates, and no intense weather? 

Human: “Honestly we can tolerate anywhere from -40 to 50 Celcius, but we prefer the 0 to 30 range.”

Alien: “……. I’m sorry, did you just list temperatures below freezing?”

Human: “Yeah, but most of us prefer to throw on scarves or jackets at those temperatures it can be a bit nippy.” 

Other human: “Nah mate, I knew this guy in college who refused to wear anything past his knees and elbows until it was -20 at least.”

Human: “Heh. Yeah everybody knows someone like that.”

Alien: “……. And did you also say 50 Celcius? As in, half way to boiling?”

Human: “Eugh. Yes. It sucks, we sweat everywhere, and god help you if you touch a seatbelt buckle, but yes.” 

humans: 

*a generally normal object but very, very small*

Because one time the professor I was interning for got punched in the face by another professor, because mine got the funding, and told the other professor his theory was stupid.

This same professor told me to throw rocks to scare the “stupid fucking crabs” into moving so we could count them properly.

Two professors hiding around a corner and snickering, “Shhh, here she comes!” While a female professor approached and, when she finally found them, she proceeded to scream while pointing from one to the other, “You! I called your office but you weren’t there! So I tried to call YOUR office to figure out where HE was but YOU weren’t there!”

Two grad students standing outside a closed and locked door yelling, “Come out of the damn office. You haven’t left for days. If you didn’t have a couch in there I’d be concerned as to where you were sleeping!”

A religious studies professor apologizing for being late to class because, “security stopped me because I’m dressed like a hobbit”

Watched a professor snort the results of my experiment to determine if I had the right final compound.

Two archeology professors toss priceless fossilized teeth back and forth in an attempt to figure out who is smarter by “guessing the type of tooth and species of animal before it lands”

Multiple fully degreed individuals throw dry ice at one another in an attempt to be first to use the lab/get that piece of equipment/or change the iPod song.

A genetics professor build furniture out of stacks of paper and planks of wood because she is that far behind in grading papers/responding. One of the impromptu furniture pieces housed a fish tank.

- Same professor hung a bat from her headlamp and wore it as a decoration for an entire night. 

- A whole swarm of older women - and these are women with PhDs and world-renown bat experts, the bigwigs - all, to a woman, go to the formal charity dinner at an international research symposium in Toronto in late October dressed in skimpy Batgirl costumes. Because Halloween was that weekend, you see.

- At a different conference, a professor get blackout drunk and pass out on the side of the road. 

- “Yeah, we have to say we did it properly for the grant but to be really honest, Miracle-gro works better.”

You know what I want more of? Variety in aliens. No, I don’t mean more designs for alien species. I mean variety within a species. They always seem to have the same government, the same culture, the same religion, the same language. Come on, humans don’t work that way! 

“Say, there’s a Qualar over there. What are they saying?”

“No idea.”

“What?”

“That’s a Kinzian Qualar. I’m a Surolian Qualar. You’d have just as much luck understanding them as I would. You’re lucky I even speak Human.”

“Human isn’t a language.”

before the mannequin challenge, planking, or the Harlem Shake, the hot meme of 1959 involved teenagers cramming as many of themselves as possible into a phone booth

While phonebooth stuffing was arguably a pretty cool meme, it went out of style by the end of the year and was replaced by “hunkerin’”, which is as boring as it sounds and identical to the modern Slav Squat:

no, shut up, come back.

you have to understand:

 to you or me he may not be; he may be all sunshine smiles and corngold hair and the biggest eyes this side of the galaxy, but imagine you’re Dagger (stormtroopers don’t get proper names), firing at a boy, only the bolts never hit. They sing to the side. You think that there’s something wrong with your blaster, maybe, but none of your friends can hit him either. Finest shots in the Empire, you are, but you can’t hit this boy. And he cuts you down. He wields a weapon whose name you’ve never learned and he cuts you down into smoking bloodless bodies and your friends die before you – only he leaves you. Knocks you out with a blow of the Force – and isn’t that a nightmare of its own, unseen hands blotting out your thoughts – leaves you there in the cooling blood of your squadmates.

 Imagine that you’re Cara Ilhyre and you’re a dancer for the Hutt and you hate it, of course you do, but it is a living, a living, and this boy comes in, fresh-faced and young and he says surrender or be destroyed only he and you both know that the Hutt do not and never have surrendered and when he says destroy there’s this grin on his lips, thin and sharp, and he’s kind, of course he is, but –

so you’re Cara Ilhyre and you’re a native of tattooine and like many of your specis you are force-touched and you were a girl, once, a very little girl, and your mother told you tales of krayt dragons who slumbered beneath the sands and gentled their young to their pearl-heavy breasts. krayt dragons are tender mothers, she had said, and it was meant to teach you something of the duality of nature, or to fear those with young to protect, or something; but all you can think is this boy, how he smiles as kind as your mother did, once, but you’re convinced that if you were to cut him down the middle you would find dragon-pearls in his ribs and fire instead of a heart

the boy cuts downs jabba’s goons like they are nothing, nothing, and afterwards, afterwards, you sense his sorrow. and somehow that makes it worse.

because you say, later, to your mother’s ghost (maybe) or to the desert, he knows that killing people is hard and that weighs on him and he does it anyway and –