#haso

Humans are space orcs idea where other aliens don’t do that so looking at human eyes constantly shaking is real unsettling. Theres a lot of fun to be had about the intensity of eye contact, the almost hypnotic effects of their gaze, the difficulty in ambushing them, ect.

Which is very odd to the galactic community.

Rest comes in all sorts of forms across the galaxy, some having sleep similar to ours, some having hibernation/brumation cycles, some going into meditative states, some retreating to cocoons, some photosynthesising, some even being technologically advanced enough to simply just plug themselves in and literally recharge. But the seeming inescapability of human sleep is…a little concerning.

If a human is tired enough, they will be able to sleep just about anywhere. Bed, sofa, armchair, the floor, a table, three chairs lined up, propped up like a doll against the wall, on top of another person, on a rock that’s even vaguely flat, on a gnarled tree branch, sometimes even floating in water or suspended by a harness. Wherever. So long as we can breathe, we can and will fall asleep.

The same can’t be said of aliens, they’re a bit more picky by comparison, or they can stave off their exhaustion through emergency chemical reactions long enough to find somewhere appropriate to rest. Some are so specialised that they require their environments to be utterly perfect before their body allows them to rest. Those aliens are deeply jealous while waiting around at the Spaceport for their shuttle to start boarding and seeing humans clumped together on a bench in a very uncomfortable looking pile, snoring away.

And then, an alien species named the Khak’Cthrax, a species known for their aggressive behaviour and bodies covered in rocky scales and dangerous barbs, discovering this aspect of humans.

One Khak’CThrax soldier being deployed to assist in saving some human civilians from a war zone and ending up having to carry a teenager for a while due to there not being enough gurneys. The juvenile human ends up nodding off in the soldier’s hands and at first he thinks the teenager has perished because the Khak’CThrax are not the type of person you would consider comfortable to rest on much less feel ‘safe’ around inherently, but after the field medic explains that the child is only asleep, unsurprisingly from the day they had had, the soldier practically becomes a broody mother hen for the human. This little one trusted him??? Enough to rest while held in his arms??? They are his baby now???

Are treated almost like... PETS??

Hear me out, NONE of them actually work like they are supposed to. One has a cracked wheel and makes horrible noises, other one will lower itself randomly, a lot of them lift only if you wiggle them in specific ways–

The point is, you rather quickly pick a favorite. And will look out for it CONSTANTLY or else it gets snatched within minutes.

That leads to me finding some interesting quotations written over these guys. Like:

"I will BREAK YOUR LEGS if you touch him."

"This one belongs to Matt. TO MATT."

"My precious boy."

We called out into the dark over and over. We sent out messages in hopes. We searched every planet we could reach, in hopes of any sign of life. Any at all.

We thought, hoped we were the last, because we couldn’t bear the idea of being the one ones this awake and alive in a world as vast as this.

And we died alone.

When the others are born, many many years later, they find us, everything we left for them.

They recover The Golden Record and look at it a million times over, they dig up our fossils and put us in museums, they study us for years and years, loving us as we love our ancestors’ painted hands on cave walls.

They were supposed to be dogs. They really were.

See, there’s this joke going around among the other civilized species of the galaxy about the way humans have domesticated this one animal into so many different types that it’s hard to tell which Earth animals are, and are not, dogs. So I really felt like someone must have been messing with me when I looked at the large crate of animal cargo that we were supposed to deliver.

“Captain,” I said slowly. “These aren’t dogs. Well, one is, and it’s not the one you’d think.”

Captain Sunlight looked up at me, concern on her lizardy face. I could see how reluctant she was to ask me, “Are you sure?”

“Very,” I said, pointing at the Chihuahua. “That one’s a dog, one of the smallest kinds. But that is a ferret, that is a capybara, and that is a bear cub, and none of these should be in the same cage. Please tell me they’re going somewhere with an accredited zoo?”

Captain Sunlight turned to look at the client who had brought us the crate. He flicked his antennae and flexed pincher arms, giving away nothing but annoyance. Which wasn’t unusual for a Mesmer. “I was told they were dogs,” he insisted.

“They are not,” I said, pointing at the bear cub. “When that one grows up, it will be bigger than you, and able to rip the door off this ship.”

Like humans grow up on a world where *anything* can kill you. Bugs. Mold. Unclear water. A sneeze. The sun. The rain. Plants. Mushrooms. Large predators. Large herbivores. Small predators. A cat scratch. The list goes on and on.

This kind of environment doesn't make people less afraid. Okay it might if they're sufficiently desensitized, and most people will do okay in settings they're familiar with, but in a new situation? Everything is a threat.

Humans adapting to spaceships and/or alien planets would not be confident and gung-ho. They would be cautious, curious, and exploratory. They would freak the fuck out at every new alien bug. They would be very hesitant to engage with any animal. They would freak out every other alien on the crew because the humans keep staring at them, watching them to make sure that none of the aliens are going to attack them.

And when a solo human with an alien crew meets another human, also the only human on their crew?

So I didn't realise my alien lover was part of a hivemind species.

Not until I was secretly shopping for an engagement ring on station K-7.

Another memeber of their race ran up and kissed me before screaming "Yes! I love that one!"