Awhile back Jonathan Wojcik posted a lament about how strange it is that sci-fi usually depicts humans as mundane and weak while aliens are badasses of the galaxy. He referenced Terry Bisson’s short story “They’re Made Out Of Meat” and pointed out some human traits which might be horrifying to an advanced alien race, like our fast movement and ability to chew up other living things with our teeth. Then a commenter on the post, spacepolicepoliceman, added some awesomely terrifying aspects of the human species.
It seems like in every space-faring science fiction setting there is always a big scary race of aliens that revel in war and conflict, What makes most writers think humans aren’t that species? […] We have almost doubled in height in 3000 years, pound for pound human bone is harder than concrete, there are recorded instances of humans falling out of planes or being struck by lightning and surviving with little to no lasting effects. A form of plant life developed an adaptation to prevent us and other mammals from eating their seed pods by producing a substance that causes pain to creatures with tastebuds, we carefully cultivated them to make them more and more painful to eat and even hold contests. The lion’s share of our technology is based on harnessing explosions or lethal levels of electricity, hell we have set off fission bombs within our only known sustainable biosphere without knowing what it’d do. In our religious texts our creator came down to visit with us and teach us to be nice to each other and we nailed him to a bit of wood and left him to die. If you take a step back and view us with alien eyes we are far more likely to be the Space Ork/Krogan/Klingon/etc race than the middle of the road guys we’re usually cast in the role of.
Humans as the Klingons of the universe? Qapla’!
Anyway, Tom Scott ran with the idea and made a Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy style video called “Danger: Humans”. In it, the Interstellar Safety Council warns of this insane race inhabiting a particular area of space which should be avoided. That’s right, yIntaghs, stay away from our Homeworld.
This also seems relevant:
Banner image elements courtesy of NASA and MGM. Inset picture via The Frogman. Video via Tastefully Offensive.