id wreak mayhem for a really good scifi where sight was considered as exotic and numinous as telepathy by the protag species
#everybody else uses sonar or long whiskers and that thing with the sensing electrical impulses#meanwhile: humans can âseeâ which is a thing which is like and yet unlike ordinary perception#it would also only ever come into play in the same frivolous âVULCAN STRENGTHâ sort of way as Spockâs extra attributes#for maximum effect vision would be faithfully written as 100% an asspull in the best way
what the fuck dude this is awesome i want this too now
Okay, but what about those deep sea fish that produce light at a wavelength that *only they can see.* Predators that can somehow sense you in a completely undectable and unfathomable manner to you; they might as well be psychic.
YES, EXACTLYâvision is SUCH an asspull?? Sometimes itâs â"darkââ and we canât see anything. And also weâre impaired for plot reasons! Sometimes ALIEN WEAPONRY or otherwise-innocuous ship components are ââtoo brightââ and we yell and try to hide, subject to some sort of obscure, tortuous imperative. The rest of the time we can UNERRINGLY tell when anyone is trying to play pranks on us, the names and emotional/physical status of EVERY SINGLE BEING IN THE ROOM (or, when outside civilized warrens, ââline of sightââ)âand yes, of course, canât forget about our nigh-mythical fighting arts revolving around insane dodging skills.
And SNIPING. And also, god, fuckâdonât forget about completely arbitrary ââââatmospheric disturbancesâââ (fog, smokeâthe new âionic interferenceâ) ALSO plottasatically rendering our abilities moot.
Plus, some people have more powerful Vision than others, but some people have a very short effective range of Vision. However, humans have come up with devices that âchange the angles of refractionâ of the âlightâ so that the naturally impaired have their skills enhancedâbut they can always be knocked off their faces or be broken.
Also some people are terrible at normal Vision work, but have excellent night vision and are skilled at working under adverse conditions.
Oooh, and human art is almost entirely Vision based. Think about non-seeing aliens trying to access the majority of human art!
IM!!! SCREAMING!!! GLASSES. Glasses are SUCH another great Weird Alien Gimmick. Godâyou get all used to your Human friend and their bizarre abilities, you just start to really trust in and rely on them in tight places and problem-solving a little bit, then you get fucken marooned on a fucken planetoid somewhere and they just in this very small little voice, after you have pulled them from the wreckage and sat down to go over your options, inform you that theyâve lost their glasses.
Oh my god and an episode where weâre up against Evil Humans and our heros turn to their humans like âyou can see them, right, you can tell when theyâre near? you can counter them?â and our hero is genuinely shaken and worriedâ theyâve got high-tech military mechanical enhancers, the devices strapped to their heads let them see anywhere, they can operate in near-absolute âdarknessâ, they can operate in near-lethal âbrightnessâ, they can see through wallsâ not doors, not glass, but walls.Â
Then we have a heroic scene where the crewâs human is the scrappy, desperate underdog for once instead of the cool and collected superbeing. It is super cool. The human and the captain probably mack wildly on one another in medbay after this. Roll credits.Â
Person 1:  I dunno, dude.  This âlightâ stuff sounds like a bunch of mumbo jumbo to me.  I mean, how do we know itâs even real?
Person 2:  Seriously, how can something be a wave and a particle?  That doesnât even make sense.
Mysterious Human: Even if you cannot perceive the light, you can feel its warmthâ
Person 1: Oh my god, please shut it with the mystical hoo-hah. Â Youâre insufferable.
Mysterious, somewhat exasperated Human: the âlightâ enters the sensitive paired apertures in our faces, passing through biological lenses and chambers to stimulate specific nerves we call ârodsâ and âconesâ. one set of nerves tells us the volume of light weâre perceiving, while the other estimates the wavelength frequency. the total input creates in our mind a continuous sonarscape of immense complexity, where we can perceive âtexturesâ that are impossible to understand with mere sound or touch. this is why my peopleâs communication devices are small, flat, silent boards: we âreadâ the patterns of light they emit as language and âwatchâ the patterns of light they emit as sonarscapes.
Captain: okayâŚ. sounds fake, but okayâŚ
And they just keep on making up new bullshit rules for how light works, like
Navigator: Warp drive engaged. Â We are approaching 90% of the Lorentz limit.
Human: Â What now?
Navigator: Â Oh, uh, itâs really complex, but lemme try. Â So, matter can only move so fast through space, right? Â Like absolutely, nothing can ever ever possibly go faster than like about 3 hundred million meters per secondâ
Human: Ah yes. Â The speed of light.
Navigator:  âŚoh for fuckâs sake.
Captain: My god! Time! Has⌠frozen!Â
Human: Fuuuuuuuuck.Â
Captain: What?
Human: Remember how light is a wave and a particle?
Captain: Yes, we mention this every episode.Â
Human: Yeah, lightâs frozen along with everything else. I canât see shit.Â
Captain: My god! Our sonar doesnât work either! The soundwavesâ they canât propagate through this frozen air! Weâll have to use just our whiskers!
Human:Â Fuuuuuuuuck.Â
The fanfiction for this show has to be amazing.
âShh. Donât try to hide your needs, Captain,â Hue Mann soothed. Â âMy sight has told me all about your traumatic memories of the war.â
âWhat?â Captain gasped.  âButâŚhowâŚ?â
âThe light knows all,â explained Hue. Â âTime slows down at the speed of light. Â It sees all of the past..and all of the future.â
âAnd what is it telling you now?â questioned the Captain.
Hue leaned in close. âIt tells me, âMate with them now, you lovestruck fool!â
âDamn you, Hue Mann. Â Damn you and your penetrating âeyes.ââ
âOh,â breathed Hue, voice husky and sexual.  âThatâs not all my eyes canâŚpenetrate.âÂ
goddamn, you people amaze me.
I love the idea that the protag species has telepathy as âboring normal standardâ senses and they canât understand why human thoughts seems so strange, fragmented, occasionally blank⌠until they realise that a great of human thought is âvisualâ and so canât be heardâŚÂ
âLori, what do your Human eyes see?â
âCoupla billboards, and it looks like it might rain.â
This keeps getting better
This is so cute. Your human crewmember is getting a crush on another human. Time to observe the humansâ weird yet endearing courtship rituals.
âTell me all about them! What do you like about them?â
âWell, they have these amazing eyesâŚâ
âYeah? Better at the the wavemapping thing than yours?â
ââŚI donât know how good their eyes are at seeing. Theyâre just this beautiful shade of brown.â
âWait. You wavemap each otherâs wavemapping organs? And have opinions about what nice frequencies they refract the waves at?â
âYes? Whatâs so strange about this?â
âI thought your âvisionâ was passive. Do you listen to each otherâs ears too? And like the smell of each otherâs noses?â
âLike youâve never touched someoneâs whiskers with your whiskers.â
ââŚThatâs different.â
I just really like the idea of sighted humans telling their friends-who-donât-see about how interesting-looking they are. Like, âYouâre awfully pretty, you know that? Youâre such a lovely shade of blue.â
And the friendâs like, âYEAH sure buddyâ but they are secretly charmed, like someone discovering a new form of astrology that suits them really well - quietly thinking it over later when theyâre alone, like Iâm blue!! Yeah!! Whatâs blue?
@unmarkedcards isnt this the plot of a short story you read?
Imagine trying to explain colors when they do ask though âWhatâs blue?â âIt comes in many forms? Light blue is like how rain feels when water is neededâ âWhat the HELL thatâs beautiful! So what other forms does it come in?â âThereâs dark blue, that feels like sadness and remorseâ âShit⌠How are they so different?â âLight comes in many forms and colors and each human sees them a little differentlyâ âYou sound insane⌠you know that right?â âYou look insane rubbing your whiskers on everythingâ âTouchĂŠ â
Can you imagine the reports, though?
The aliens get all their intel via audio and the humanâs like âWhat do you mean I have to LISTEN to this? Itâs so monotone! Whoâs the narrator? I want to blast him into the next system! Geez, my grandmother tells stories better than this guy can!â
âTheyâre not stories, Human Crew Member. Itâs very valuable intelligence.â
âBut itâs SOUND! You guys do realise that if the enemy is listening to the right frequency, they can just listen in on the valuable information we just stole from them?â
ââŚ. *alien expletive*â
But then, the aliens make a ship out of a special alloy thatâs more durable and better for space travel. And theyâre all excited because itâs a new flagship with all these upgrades. But the humans, the mysterious, seemingly all-knowing humans, spend less than a day on it before going nope. They canât handle it. They just keep getting lost and walking into walls and wait there was another corridor there? How the- nope. Screw it, just lead the way out of this funhouse. The aliens ask why and all the humans go the new alloy is a two way mirror! Half the walls are mirrors, and the other half are glass! And which ones are which changes at different angles! Eventually a bunch of humans with maps paint lines and arrows and directions on all the walls.
