Humans Are Space Orcs

Why do we love dogs so much. I mean, more so than other creatures. I saw a shiba inu today so of course I had to tell everyone I know. Why is that?

I spent a good hour googling pictures of puppies in bow ties. Again, why is that?

Hey fellas, I’m feeling creative. Imagine - alien planets, in all their glory. Let’s throw a bunch of ideas together and create some worlds!

I’ll start.

The landscape was massive. You stand atop the mountain, a sheer drop right at your toes, with miles upon miles of glittering blue stone spread out under you like an ocean.

In the far distance, spirals of stacked stones reached up into the sky, a monument to the ancient civilisations that lived on this planet.

Warning, this is a little NSFW. Thanks to @transformars for the idea.

“Human-Kyla... what is this?” Kyla turned, to see her Tchaan counterpart, Jruyan, holding a long, purple, plastic object.

“JRU- Put that down! Where did you find that?!” Kyla snatched the object out of Jruyan’s long-clawed hand.

“It was in your bedside drawer, Human-Kyla. I looked in there to see if we couldn’t find the documents we’re after.”

“You don’t... oh good lord.” Jruyan observed that Kyla had turned an extremely worrying shade of red, all over the face. Desperately, xe tried to remember what human’s colours meant, but kept drawing a blank.

“Human-Kyla, I apologize if I have caused... offense?” Jruyan prodded carefully, trying to figure out what xe’d done wrong. “Was I not supposed to look in those drawers? You asked me to help find your documents-”

“I wasn’t... I forgot... whew, okay,” Kyla waved her hands around in front of her face, flapping them around as if they were wings. In that moment Jruyan remembered what red-faced meant - a rush of blood, causing the human’s face to become hot. This was an indicator of either anger, or embarrassment, and considering Jruyan hadn’t been attacked yet, xe assumed it was the latter.

“Human-Kyla, are you embarrased? I assure you, there is not need to-”

“No, look,” Kyla cut xem off. “This... item, you found. It’s... a very, VERY private thing. Humans keep them hidden, and... well... we don’t... we don’t talk about it. Well, not usually. So.. yeah, forget embarrassed, I’m fucking... I’m mortified. That you found it, I mean. Let’s not... uh, let’s not talk about it, okay? It’s a secret. If ANYONE found out, any one at all, that’d be it.”

“But... Human-Kyla, what IS it?” Kyla sighed, running her hands through her hair.

“Okay, I guess there’s no harm in... I don’t know if your species has an equivalent but... it’s called... oh jesus.” Kyla looked as if she were about to cry. “It... uh, it’s a dildo.”

“I’m sorry, Human-Kyla, the translator gave me a very odd phrase in return to your item... it said... human-plastic-penis?”

“Yeah. That’s about right.”

“...What?”

Kyla laughed nervously, her hands flying all around her hair now, mussing it up completely. She sat down on the edge of her bed and clasped her hands under her chin, musing over an answer.

“It’s... a... well, so, you know how humans reproduce, right?”

“Yes.”

“And... are you aware that, as well as for reproduction reasons, humans have... intercourse... for pleasure as well?”

“I am aware, yes.”

“Well... sometimes, when a human doesn’t have a sexual partner, they still desire... yknow, pleasure. So... we invent ways of... doing it to ourselves.”

“Wait...” Jruyan held up a claw, in the manner humans did when they wanted to interject themselves into conversation. “So, you’re telling me, instead of going to mate with another human for pleasure, you just... do it yourself?”

“Yep.”

“But there’s at sixteen human males and fourteen human females on this ship, Human-Kyla. Surely you could not just mate with one of them?”

“Ew, no!” Kyla exclaimed. “You don’t sleep with your co workers! Well, some people do, but what if it got awkward? I don’t want to compromise my job. Plus, I can’t just ASK. That’d be weird!”

“Do all humans do it?” Kyla shrugged.

“I guess. Like I said, we don’t discuss it.”

The silence between the Human and the Tchaan crewmates grew longer, until Kyla bustled up and hurried Jruyan out of the room, thanking xem for helping but assuring she could find the documents herself.

Yes food. What are your fab stress foods?

Anything filled with carbs and covered in crispy cheese. mac and cheese, pizza, toasties, you name it. Also, crisps. I could eat a truckload of those little fuckers.

Humans are currently most effective when their day is split evenly; a third resting, a third to half active and working (can vary from human to human), and the rest recreational.

If a human starts to cut down their recreational time in favour of their working time, or they don’t take regular cycles off (see entry: weekends), a human can become ‘stressed’.

Typical signs of a stressed human include; exhaustion, unhappiness, and anxiety. Some may develop habits, such as ‘procrastinating’ - often, habits don’t actually help the stress at hand.

If you encounter a stressed human, the immediate course of action is to remove them from their work situation. Your human may struggle and resist, expressing a want or a need to continue working. If this is so, it may be worth seeing what you can do to lower the human’s workload in order to let them ‘relax’.

Some effective ways of helping a human ‘relax’ include the administration of earth-animal company (see entry: puppies), providing the human with an electronic device loaded with ‘movies’ or ‘video games’ (see entry: recreation) or to provide sustenance to the human.

If the human resists all forms of ‘relaxation’ to continue their work, report it to a superior officer. It may be that the humans workload may be too high for the one human to handle efficiently, and consider redistributing the particular tasks amongst other humans. Also refer to the section on ‘anxiety: subsection guilt’. It may be your human is experiencing a wave of lowered self image, in which case they should be sent to medical staff.

Any cases of stressed humans should be reported to the superior officer and the medical official in charge of the human in question, regardless of effective relaxation techniques.

Our adaptability and ingenuity in the application of tools and aides set us apart from other alien species, because who else, apart from stubborn, mad geniuses, would think ‘right, something’s broken beyond all repair? Or even gone completely? We can sort that out.’

“Right. So, you’re telling me, that you lost BOTH of your legs in war, and instead of dying because you’ve lost half your body, you just... stuck new ones on?”

“Basically, yeah. They’re bio-mechanical and detachable. Wanna see?”

“Wait, you’re paralyzed from the waist down? But surely that’s enough of an excuse to... stop working? Rest? You’re stuck in that wheeled contraption! Isn’t that horrendously awkward and tiring?”

“Stuck? Dude, if I didn’t have a wheelchair, THEN I’d be stuck. It can be awkward, sure, when places don’t have ramps and wide enough doors and stuff, but apart from that, the chair lets me... be free again. It allows me to move and be a contributing human being again. Just, y’know. I’ve got wheels instead of legs.”

“You’re blind? Wait, if you can’t see, then why are you on this ship? Our visually impaired never pass even the first level of clearance.”

“Well, I’m hardly a navigator, am I? I’m a translator, I don’t need to see. I can speak five earth languages and seven alien languages, and I can get around perfectly fine, thank you very much. Besides, that’s why I’ve got my cane.”

“But... you can’t see? How can you read?”

“Braille, mate. Besides, nobody writes anymore. It’s all audio or that brain transmission telepathy shit anyway.”

“Your crewmate appears to act differently to most other humans I’ve encountered?”

“Oh, Alec? He’s lovely. He’s got this thing called Aspergers, and whilst there’s nothing technically wrong with him, it just means he... he processes things differently to someone without it. He doesn’t understand jokes or sarcasm or anything, but he’s really kind, and has an amazing green thumb. He tends to the onboard gardens.”

Humans wear heels because they make the legs and butt look awesome, but they hurt like hell.

Humans wear boots with inches of rubber and metal toecaps casually, despite them being heavy and clunky and awkward.

Humans wear designer running shoes that you can’t actually run in.

Humans wear hiking boots to the shopping centre.

Humans wear slippers to school.

Humans wear sandals in the snow.

“Human-Kaylee, those boots are hardly workplace appropriate.”

“Well yeah, but they look cool.”

“You’re wearing electric blue boots with a six inch heel, on a two inch platform.”

Idea from @bluwails !!

“Ngozi, please stop fussing, it’s fine!” A small cluster of humans were gathered around a table, chattering away amongst themselves.

“You can’t expect to function on two hours of sleep and potato crisps, Vex! At LEAST go to the med bay for some sleeping tablets tonight?”

“I told you, I’m used to it! I don’t need sleep or anything, and anyway these aren’t crisps, they’re lightly fried sweet potato slices, thank you very much.”

“Oh, pedantics, you know exactly what I mean! And Ashley, Jose, come here, what did you do Just roll out of bed? Come here, you need...”

Three of the Tchaan crewmates stood by watching this Human interaction in total bewilderment. Human-Vex, having escaped from the clutches of Human-Ngozi’s fussing, left the group to head over to the machine which produced the hot, black, bitter liquid that humans seemed to enjoy so much.

“Human-Vex, are you ill? Human-Ngozi appeared very concerned.” Vex jumped, spilling the liquid over the counter and letting out a stream of angry words that the Tchaan crewmates did not recognise.

“Oh, it’s Just you guys. No, it’s fine. I’ve just been having trouble sleeping recently, and she’s a right worrier.”

“Human-Vex, Human-Ngozi is not a trained professional, but perhaps you should still heed her advice if perhaps she feels you require assistance-“

“Oh, not you as well!” Vex groaned, rubbing her temples. “Look, she fusses, and it’s what she does, and she’s... look, she tries to be everyone’s mum and it just annoys me, I’m fine, I don’t need anyone to worry over me.”

That last statement really confused the onlooking aliens.

“Mum? Human-Vex, forgive me, but to my understand Human-Ngozi has never had any offspring according to her medical files, I don’t understand what...”

“Just-“ Human-Jean appeared, hurrying Human-Vex, who was visibly getting more and more irritated, away.

“Human-Jean, what is happening?” The Tchaan posited the same query to the new human as they had to Vex.

“She does that. Ngozi, I mean. She’s like, she’s not REALLY a mum, but she acts like she’s one.”

“Do humans need a surrogate mother is social situations? I understood that you were all of age to be independent of parental care?”

“She’s just like that.” Jean shrugged. “Happens all the time. Get a group of people, one of them is bound to end up the mum friend. You know, takes care of the others, is always prepared, that kinda thing.”

In the human cluster, the subject of conversation had moved from her seat and had now lined up three confused-looking junior crewman, and was adjusting their uniforms. Not in the way a commander woukd, there was a gentleness to her touch.