Herewithstupid

Human technicians start hopping ships and upkeeping the general maintenance, the stuff that most aliens put off or don't notice because they never access the crevices of their ships. As human companies become more popular and lead the tech world in everything from warp cores to game stations ("it's so compact! How are the graphics so good?" Says a 60' tall grimbleback, holding a new VR headset that has all of its components included because it's so BIG by our tech standards), soon many things have accessibility ports for humans to be able to use as well. This means that these shiprats hoping ship to ship cause such a huge improvement in everything running smoothly, and there's a huge downtick in pests on ships because those "pests" are not only big enough and aggressive enough to bite a pitbull or a person in half, they're invasive to so many planets and humans hate nothing more than dog killing planet overrunning monsters.

All the while, from the Aliens perspective, humans are an elusive race that don't fraternize much with them. You almost never see a human as most places aren't exactly safe for the little things to run around in. They do export so much stuff though, and the custodial staff at the Central Galactic Outpost insists that there's more humans around than any other race if you just know where to look.

And sure it's somewhat known that some of the little daredevils hop ships and help out in exchange for room and board, usually without permission, but that can't be that common, can it?

Maybe your ship is running better this cycle ever since you stopped at the last station, that just means that tuneup was better than you thought. And maybe for some reason that program you were working on last night is finished when you wake up, but you're so tired maybe you finished it before you passed out. Somehow that faulty light in the galley has fixed itself as well, which is odd, but maybe the Engineer finally got to it. You'd know if there was someone else on your ship.

Right?

I think we found the perfect enrichment for human crew members.

Our humans really enjoyed this area we provided for them.

They can run, fall, climb and more, to their hearts content.

They really enjoy being lifted and thrown into a large pit of foam blocks, or plastic spheres.

Note: our crew is mostly Xarnian, so we possess the necessary strength to lift the average adult human despite the density they have evolved on their deathworld.

Human larvae enjoy it the most, but even the mature humans are also thrilled by these activities.

Imagine an alien species that evolved to be semi-aquatic watching humans (a species evolved to climb and run on land) jump eagerly into the water to swim with them. No safety equipment, no flotation devices, just a thin modesty suit and sheer glee.

And humans, by the alien’s standards, are terrible at swimming. Just…truly awful. They can’t hold their breath for long, their bones and muscles are dense, their lungs make them too buoyant, their hair creates drag, their gangly limbs are slow and clumsy, and they can’t open their eyes underwater because the water will hurt them.

And yet the human laughs and splashes with their alien friend and alien can’t help but marvel as the human seems to adapt in real time right in front of their eyes.

The human streamlines themself to glide through the water as best they can, trying their best to turn their grasping hands into paddles, their feet into flippers. The human watches and copies how the alien moves and mimics them, learns and copies them until they move almost gracefully.

Rocky, whose age difference means that he’s sent back pre-mission to before Grace was even born.

So he protects his crew from the radiation, gets the Taumoeba, and once their sun is fixed, heads out to Earth.

And so, just as the Hail Mary project is in full swing, a giant-ass spaceship appears in Earth’s orbit, releases SOMETHING to the sun that stops the Petrova line, then communicates in English(??!!??) that in thanks, it wants to meet One Scientist In Particular.

Which then leads to two branching options:

Grace didn’t timetravel

Stratt: What the fuck did you do??!?

Grace: I don’t know! I’m just a teacher???

Grace DID timetravel

Stratt: huh. Guess you didn’t actually go crazy…

I thought Grace would already be freaky with just the ability to perceive light alone but it would probably be way worse when it gets learnt that he has three additional senses over Rocky and all other Eridians for that matter.

Like,

Rocky: Constructing the biodome will be easy. The only thing we'll struggle on is sight since humans have 3 senses instead of 2.

Grace: 5.

Rocky: what?

Grace: we have 5 senses. debatably 6, though its unproven. sometimes people even think we have a 7th.

So Grace 1000% starts picking up and mimicking Eridian noises.

One day, Rocky will be working on something, only to freeze as he hears Grace behind him suddenly exclaim in fluent Eridian "SHIT!"

"I'm Slowly Forgetting Your Face"

Flowers:

Roses - Love

Forget Me Nots - Memory