!hfy@lemmy.world
HFY - Humanity Fuck Yeah! is a community for writers and artists to showcase their talent in the HFY genre and for people who enjoy them.
While traditional science fiction often presents humans as vulnerable masses seeking refuge from menacing aliens or as feeble beings overshadowed by aliens with superior logic, strength or empathy. HFY disrupts these archetypes by challenging the norm.
In the world of HFY, humanity is bestowed with exceptional qualities, giving rise to a sense of optimism and empowerment within the reader. It seeks to uplift and inspire, demonstrating the potential of human greatness and the capacity for overcoming seemingly insurmountable odds.
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DISCUSSION - What is HFY, HWTF, HASO and WC?
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!hfy
@lemmy.worldAll external links to HFY themed stories (in any form) and art should be posted as comments in this post.
Welcome to HFY!!!!
This community is for authors to post their HFY themed stories and artists to share HFY themed artwork.
While traditional science fiction often presents humans as vulnerable masses seeking refuge from menacing aliens or as feeble beings overshadowed by aliens with superior logic, strength or empathy. HFY disrupts these archetypes by challenging the norm.
In the world of HFY, humanity is bestowed with exceptional qualities, giving rise to a sense of optimism and empowerment within the reader. It seeks to uplift and inspire, demonstrating the potential of human greatness and the capacity for overcoming seemingly insurmountable odds.
Alternatively, HFY can also serve as a thought-provoking cautionary tale. Emphasizing the significance of power and responsibility that accompanies any remarkable gift or advantage bestowed upon us.
Note: This community is not run by the mod's of r/HFY from Reddit.
Rules for posting/commenting in this community.
Copying posts from HFY subreddit is allowed provided the following conditions are met:
For posts that are copied from somewhere else, the following rules should be met:
This community is created for everyone in the fidiverse to enjoy their favourite genre of science fiction.
For Humans are Space Orcs themed stories, please visit !haso@sh.itjust.works
HASO themed stories/artwork can still be HFY if the humans in the story/artwork insipre the readers or other characters in the story. An example of this is Stellaris Invicta Season 1 - Greater Terran Union
If your story/art showcases how powerful/terrible/intelligent humans are, without any characteristics that seem to uplift or inspire readers or characters in the story, then the story belongs to haso
There's a whole genre of sci-fi that has a major premise as "humanity is the most powerful/dominating/victorious species in the cosmos...and that's not a compliment". I always understood that to be a facet of HFY, but per this sub's description HFY should be "uplifting".
Like, a story where aliens try to invade Earth and we kick their asses is definitely HFY. But what if we then enslave the survivors of the alien horde? What if we reverse engineer their tech, go to their homeworld, and nuke their planet? What if we tailor a virus to their genome and purge the galaxy of their entire species, and their little alien babies die screaming in their little alien cribs?
Is that HFY?
"Globtroq, what are these buttons for?" asked the spindly Ognimalf named Bert, holding the pilot chair upside-down to his obese Adnap buddy, Globtroq. The unlikely duo owned a run-down repair shop for small spacecraft in the remote corners of the galaxy. Their business was far from glamorous; in fact, they spent most of their days fiddling with spaceships that had been acquired in rather dubious ways.
Globtroq looked at the buttons: two green, two pink, one grayish. They were cleverly concealed beneath the obviously human pilot chair.
“Dunno…” Globtroq mumbled, reaching towards the buttons.
"Hell no, don't touch them!" Bert shrieked, pulling the chair away. "Last time you pressed an undocumented button in a human spaceship, you emptied the entire septic tank into our garage!"
“Uhm, sorry, instinct…” grunted the portly Globtroq “Never seen such buttons. Don’t know.”
Bert held the chair overhead, turned it around, then put it under the examination lamp and used the sonic scanner on it, looking for clues.
"This doesn't make sense," he snorted in annoyance. "No labels, no cables. What are these buttons for?"
The stubby Globtroq climbed on top of table and peered at the pilot chair. “Dunno… but they hid them well. Must be something very special. You know how humans are. Always doing something incredible stupid in a brilliant way or something brilliant in an incredible stupid way.”
Meanwhile Bert flipped through the printed manual, gasping in frustration. "Crap! This manual is printed in 24 different human languages, and I can't read a single one of them. Globtroq, get me a dictionary."
…ten hours later...
"...and this button controls the windshield wiper speed," Bert finished, tossing the manual annoyed into a corner.
Globtroq, scratching his fluffy behind, asked cluelessly, "Uh, Bert, I dozed off, did they mention anything about those buttons?"
“NOTHING!” squeaked Bert “They fucking wrote NOTHING about buttons under the pilots chair!”
"That's odd," Globtroq shrugged.
“That’s not odd, that’s steaming Nacluv Shit!” a pretty pissed Bert snorted. Then he declared, holding the thick manual in his hand, "I'm going to translate the entire manual until I find out what these buttons are for!"
"That's only the Quick-start Manual," Globtroq dryly stated, lifting a massive box filled with thousands of pages onto the table.
The spindly Ognimalf suddenly grasped the enormity of the task before him, and the vibrant pink in his feathers faded away...
…six days later…
Bert's feathers had turned almost grayish as he studied the endless stack of manuals in front of him. His annoyed brooding was interrupted when Globtroq startled him by entering without knocking. As usual.
"Globtroq, what the... who is that alien?" Bert asked, pointing at a newcomer.
The fatty pointed back at his companion and replied dryly, “I found a human. It is a human pilot chair. A human should know about the buttons. Human, that spindly dude is Bert. Bert is not his real name but I am unable to pronounce his real name. Bert, that is human.”
The human let out an amused chuckle and nodded at the spindly Ognimalf. "Hey there, I'm Max. Well, that's not my full name either, but Globtroq can't wrap his tongue around..."
Max couldn't finish his sentence as Bert interrupted him, exclaiming, "Oh, by the feather gods! A human! I was going bonkers! Look, we've got this pilot chair from a human spaceship, and it has buttons that are nowhere to be found in any documentation. We've been at it for nearly a week, and…"
"Hold on, buddy. I'm just a tourist; I know zilch about piloting a spaceship..." Max explained. However, seeing the color drain from Bert's feathers, he felt a pang of sympathy for the alien avian. "...but hey, I'll take a look and see what I can see, alright?"
Globtroq happily led Max to the chair and showed him the buttons, while Bert looked at the ceiling and wallowed in despair.
“Uhm, I have an assumption” Max stated “can I visit the cockpit for a moment?”
A sulking Bert and an overjoyed Globtroq led him into the small cockpit, where Max promptly opened the glove compartment, retrieved something, asking, “You wouldn’t mind if I take one of these human snacks?”
Bert just continued sulking while Globtroq happily took one of the small snacks offered by Max.
"Tasty," Globtroq remarked.
Max nodded in agreement and returned to the pilot chair “Cherry flavor. A bit past its prime, but still good.”
Bert reluctantly followed, trying to sulk as hard as possible.
And then, to everyone's surprise, Max spat out his snack and pressed it alongside the other buttons under the pilot's chair. It stuck.
“Gentlebeings.” Max announced dramatically, "the individual who sold you this heap of junk was a downright repulsive being. These buttons? They're dried-up globs of chewing gum."
--- The End ---
Not by me, originally on tumblr by multiple people (and an archive.org link to the post in case tumblr pushes a signup). Transcription originally done by u/ElliePlays1 on Reddit, cleaned up a bit by me.
Image Transcription: Tumblr [1/2]
manyblinkinglights
id wreak mayhem for a really good scifi where sight was considered as exotic and numinous as telepathy by the protag species
roachpatrol
#everybody else uses sonar or long whiskers and that thing with the sensing electrical impuses#meanwhile: humans can 'see' which is a thing which is like and yet unlike ordinary perception#it would also only ever come into play in the same frivolous 'VULCAN STRENGTH' sort of way as Spock's extra attributes#for maximum effort 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
curlicuecal
Okay, but what about those deep sea fish that produce light at a wavelength that *only they can see.* Predators that can somehow sense toy in a completely indectable and unfathomable manner to you; they might as well be psychic.
manyblinkinglights
YES, EXACTLY-vision is SUCH an asspull?? Sometimes it's ""dark"" and we can't see anything.And also we're impired for plot reasons! Sometimes ALIEN WEAPONRY or otherwise-innocuous ship components are ""too bright"" and yet 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, ""line of sight"")- and yes, of course, can't forget about our nigh-mythical fighting arts revolving around insane dodging skills.
And SNIPING. And also, god, fuck-don't forget about completely arbitrary """"atmospheric disturbances""" (fog, smoke-the new "ionic interference") ALSO plottasactically rendering our abilities moot.
glimmerbulb
Plus, some people have some powerful Vision than others, but some people have a very short effective range of Vision. However, humans have come up with devices that "change the angles of refraction" of the "light" so that the naturally impaired have their skills enhanced-but 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!
manyblinkinglights
IM!!! SCREAMING!!!! GLASSES. Glasses are SUCH another great Weird Alien Gimmick. God-you 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 they've lost their glasses.
roachpatrol
Oh my god and an episode where we’re up against Evil Humans and our heros turn to their humans like ‘you can see them, right, you can tell when they’re near? you can counter them?’ and our hero is genuinely shaken and worried— they’ve got high-tech military mechanical enhancers, the devices strapped to their heads let them see anywhere, they can operate in near-absolute ‘darkness’, they can operate in near-lethal ‘brightness’, they can see through walls— not doors, not glass, but walls.
Then we have a heroic scene where the crew’s 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.
gutterowl
Person 1: I dunno, dude. This ‘light’ stuff sounds like a bunch of mumbo jumbo to me. I mean, how do we know it’s even real?
Person 2: Seriously, how can something be a wave and a particle? That doesn’t even make sense.
Mysterious Human: Even if you cannot perceive the light, you can feel its warmth–
Person 1: Oh my god, please shut it with the mystical hoo-hah. You’re insufferable.
roachpatrol
Mysterious, somewhat exasperated Human: the ‘light’ enters the sensitive paired apertures in our faces, passing through biological lenses and chambers to stimulate specific nerves we call ‘rods’ and ‘cones’. one set of nerves tells us the volume of light we’re 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 ‘textures’ that are impossible to understand with mere sound or touch. this is why my people’s communication devices are small, flat, silent boards: we ‘read’ the patterns of light they emit as language and ‘watch’ the patterns of light they emit as sonarscapes.
Captain: okay…. sounds fake, but okay…
gutterowl
And they just keep on making up new bullshit rules for how light works, like
Navigator: Warp drive engaged. We are approaching 90% of the Lorentz limit.
Human: What now?
Navigator: Oh, uh, it’s really complex, but lemme try. So, matter can only move so fast through space, right? Like absolutely, nothing can ever ever possibly go faster than like about 3 hundred million meters per second–
Human: Ah yes. The speed of light.
Navigator: …oh for fuck’s sake.
roachpatrol
Captain: My god! Time! Has… frozen!
Human: Fuuuuuuuuck.
Captain: What?
Human: Remember how light is a wave and a particle?
Captain: Yes, we mention this every episode.
Human: Yeah, light’s frozen along with everything else. I can’t see shit.
Captain: My god! Our sonar doesn’t work either! The soundwaves— they can’t propagate through this frozen air! We’ll have to use just our whiskers!
Human: Fuuuuuuuuck.
gutterowl
The fanfiction for this show has to be amazing.
“Shh. Don’t try to hide your needs, Captain,” Hue Mann soothed. “My sight has told me all about your traumatic memories of the war.”
“What?” Captain gasped. “But…how…?”
“The light knows all,” explained Hue. “Time slows down at the speed of light. It sees all of the past..and all of the future.”
“And what is it telling you now?” questioned the Captain.
Hue leaned in close. “It tells me, ‘Mate with them now, you lovestruck fool!”
“Damn you, Hue Mann. Damn you and your penetrating ‘eyes.’”
“Oh,” breathed Hue, voice husky and sexual. “That’s not all my eyes can…penetrate.”
em-kellesvig
goddamn, you people amaze me.
kowabungadoodles
I love the idea that the protag species has telepathy as ‘boring normal standard’ senses and they can’t understand why human thoughts seems so strange, fragmented, occasionally blank… until they realise that a great of human thought is ‘visual’ and so can’t be heard…
annlarimer
“Lori, what do your Human eyes see?”
“Coupla billboards, and it looks like it might rain.”
jacquez45
This keeps getting better
vassraptor
This is so cute. Your human crewmember is getting a crush on another human. Time to observe the humans’ weird yet endearing courtship rituals.
“Tell me all about them! What do you like about them?”
“Well, they have these amazing eyes…”
“Yeah? Better at the the wavemapping thing than yours?”
“…I don’t know how good their eyes are at seeing. They’re just this beautiful shade of brown.”
“Wait. You wavemap each other’s wavemapping organs? And have opinions about what nice frequencies they refract the waves at?”
“Yes? What’s so strange about this?”
“I thought your ‘vision’ was passive. Do you listen to each other’s ears too? And like the smell of each other’s noses?”
“Like you’ve never touched someone’s whiskers with your whiskers.”
“…That’s different.”
actuallyasisterofbattle
Hang on though, how do you explain photovoltaics if they don’t know what photons are?
tharook
That’s a point; any space-faring aliens would (reasonably) have to have a good knowledge of electromagnetism and electromagnetic radiation. (And, potentially wave-particle duality and other quantum physics.) They might even have their own ways of detecting and measuring it (photodiodes, CCDs, radio telescopes, whatever) despite not being able to perceive it themselves just as we developed ways to measure things we can’t detect (like ultrasonics, heat (infrared), radio wavelengths etc.).
So our vision might not necessarily be so mystical as telepathy to us, but more like how some species of fish are sensitive to EM fields as well as sonar mentioned above. But our eyes and brain can do a lot of processing, still, and have an advantage over other ways creatures might perceive their environment. Pertinently to space travel, sight works in a vacuum and (theoretically) infinite distance. Instead of a sophisticated EM sensor array, fleets could simply install a human and a window.
darael
There’s potentially quite an interesting plot there where our nonhuman protagonists are entirely familiar with electromagnetism in the abstract, in the same way that humans are familiar with magnetism despite not having (much) direct sensitivity to it, but it takes them a while to work out that it’s how we do that weird “seeing” thing we keep talking about,and even longer to get the hang of what frequency range we use to do it.
And they might still be baffled by optic lenses.
n1ghtcrwler
But think about the discovery of humans.
You have this space-faring race kicking around, doing their thing, discovering new worlds and civilizations. They have all this advanced technology to hide themselves from all known senses so they can enter into the lower atmosphere of a planet and observe for a bit, cloaked from being noticed until they’ve decided whether or not the new race is ready to be introduced to galactic society.
And they show up at this blue world way out on the edges of civilized space, and detect life, and drop into the atmosphere fully cloaked and ready to research, and suddenly a scientist sends out a distress message to the rest if the crew:
Millions of Earthlings have immediately begun observing *them*.
roach-works
i still love this thread and i want to further suggest: what if all those UFOs everyone’s been seeing all this time are just merrily zipping around under the assumption that we can’t fucking perceive them at all, because their saucer-shaped cloaking field hides them from just about every kind of sonar or radar or emp device.
and sure, maybe if some of us humans had a really, really complicated photon measuring machine and pointed it at just the right spot, we might be able to get a reading that light is behaving a little bit strangely, very briefly, in one tiny part of the sky (where most light comes from!) but those things are the size of a suitcase, so obviously we don’t have them.
except also those things are the size of grapes and we have two of them built into our skulls.
(This is my first attempt at writing HFY, I hope you guys enjoy it)
The k'tarr representative raised their voice over the hum of chattering dignitaries "Attention every, may I have your attention please! I understand we are all concerned but if we are to find a solution we must have order."
As the chattering of dignitaries subsided they continued "As you all know we are gathered here today to discuss the ongoing attack by hostile species fourteen..."
"What do we even know about species fourteen?"
"Would the tyrl representative please allow me to finish before speaking. It is indeed true that we know almost nothing of species fourteen itself, other than that which we have been able to discern from the construction of the catalyst weapons used against our worlds."
Catalyst weapons; the words sent a murmur through the arrayed representatives while the photocommunicators flashed with alarmed reds and sorrowful blues. Seated at the head of the assembly, the races of the afflicted worlds reacted with mixed stowicism, anger, and deep saddness.
Struggling to maintain composure the k'tarr representative continued "I will now scede the floor to the honorable prince sheltaf of the mycorian republic who may be able to grant us further insight on the nature of species fourteen."
Hobbling and assisted by a ceremonial bodyguard, sheltaf radix, third prince of the mycorian republic, ascended to the podium soft lines of pained yellow flashing along his side with each step. "I'm sure none of you here today know me, as a mere third prince my role in political affairs was minor. I do believe however that all of you knew my older sister the honorable diplomat rhelsha; it is my deepest regret to bring you news of her death, as well as that of the second and fourth princes, and my parents."
Solemnity at once took the crowd as the last whispers and feint flashes died away.
"As the eldest surviving member of the radix family it is my responsibility to take on her role as representative to the council, and to tell you how she died."
"As many of you know our capital world was the first hit by the catalyst, though the exact events are murky and reconstruction is ongoing I believe we are now able to provide the council with an aproximate series of events."
Behind him the council chambers screen lit up to display a diagram of a long elipsoid object reminiscent of a torpedo. "On the date of approximately 14/09/2358 [translated for readability] standard galactic time this object is believed to have been picked up by sensors entering the secure space around the capital world shala. At the time the object was dismissed as debris and recieved no further attention beyond the standard logging of such objects."
The screen changed to display a real image of the same object, this time inside a biohazard containment chamber and bearing dents and scorching from re-entry.
"It was not until the object subtly shifted orbit at the last minute and entered into a re-entry trajectory that the alarm was rasied, unfortunately for all of us it was already too late. Immediately preceeding and for some time post impact the object began dispersing a cocktail of various previously unknown micro-organisms, fungal spores, and seeds; the first response team on site had their respiratory systems completely overwhelmed within minutes."
The screen changed once more, revealing an image of shala from low orbit, Even from orbit a pale green scar could be seen originating from the impact point, overtaking the pastel blue of the worlds native flora. "Before we knew what was heppening the foreign organism began overtaking our natural environment at an alarming rate, our forrests were broken down into slurry by alien bacteria, the air became choked with deadly spores and the most unfortunate were directly parisatized and consumed by aggressive flora; my sister..."
As the last prince of shala lapsed into silence representative k'tarr resumed the podium and glanced at the head of the assembly. "I'm sure many of you have similar stories to share, at present twenty one worlds have been overrun by the catalyst bioweapon and trillions have died."
There was a commotion among the assembled delegates as the lanian representative broke down and had to be removed from the assembly.
"Thanks to the bravery and sacrifice of mycorian scientists, and many others from all over the union we do now have at least some information about species fourteen. Reverse engineering of the catalyst weapons themselves suggests their spaceflight is surprisingly crude as each one utilizes only the most basic and inneficient of blink drives, analysis of the alloys used suggests they were manufactured under a lower gravity than is standard for habitable worlds. Finally sequenceing of the genomes of some of the bioweapon strains shows they share a common base, though we cannot expect species fourteens natural ecology to be remotely similar to that of their bioweapons our scientists believe we can still uncover valuble information about their metabolisms and the likely atmospheric composition of their homeworld."
The council chamber erupted in speculation as delegates considered the potential implications of such information and argued about how it should be used. As the chatter grew into a roar the delegate k'tarr once again had to raise their voice. "I'm sure you all have questions, even demands; before then I have one simple proposition. Scientsits from the mycorian republic working with the countil believe they have pinpointed the aproximate location of species fourteens homeworld. My government proposes a resolution to launch a covert expedition to this world in order to gather more information about our enemy in advance of a counterattack. If there are no objections to this proposal would the esteemed representatives please now cast their votes.
Originally made by swanjolras on tumblr, however that tumblr deactivated or renamed itself. Currently-working tumblr link (it's a reblog) and a Reddit screenshot
gosh but like we spent hundreds of years looking up at the stars and wondering “is there anybody out there” and hoping and guessing and imagining
because we as a species were so lonely and we wanted friends so bad, we wanted to meet other species and we wanted to talk to them and we wanted to learn from them and to stop being the only people in the universe
and we started realizing that things were maybe not going so good for us— we got scared that we were going to blow each other up, we got scared that we were going to break our planet permanently, we got scared that in a hundred years we were all going to be dead and gone and even if there were other people out there, we’d never get to meet them
and then
we built robots?
and we gave them names and we gave them brains made out of silicon and we pretended they were people and we told them hey you wanna go exploring, and of course they did, because we had made them in our own image
and maybe in a hundred years we won’t be around any more, maybe yeah the planet will be a mess and we’ll all be dead, and if other people come from the stars we won’t be around to meet them and say hi! how are you! we’re people, too! you’re not alone any more!, maybe we’ll be gone
but we built robots, who have beat-up hulls and metal brains, and who have names; and if the other people come and say, who were these people? what were they like?
the robots can say, when they made us, they called us discovery; they called us curiosity; they called us explorer; they called us spirit. they must have thought that was important.
and they told us to tell you hello.
Originally written by injuries-in-dust on tumblr (non-tumblr link in case tumblr pushes you to make an account), not by me.
“Boredom is a dangerous thing to a human.”
“I don’t understand,” Chuul’s mandibles clicked nervously, “why not simply take the tool from the human.”
Minxx’s antennae stood straight up, a sign of shock, fear, or surprise, “You don’t simply take something from a human. If you do they will either turn the ship upside down trying to find it again, or they will replace it with something else that will lead to more destruction.
“I speak quite literally by the way. Human-Mark used to have a tool he called an “Hex Key” he used it to remove the doors to the clothing storage areas in his quarters because he was bored. When he lost it he literally turned the ship upside down by reversing the gravity.”
Chuul’s tentacles curled up defensively, “Gravity controls are locked, how-”
“No one knows how.” Minxx shook her small wings as the memory of suddenly falling upwards returned to her. “but his reasoning was that the tool would fall out of whatever hiding place it had come to rest within. He had not considered that all tables, chairs, equipment, and personnel, would also fall. It took weeks to clean.”
To be fair to the human, Mark had only intended to reverse the gravity in his own quarters but had, quote, “pushed the wrong button.” A sentence which would send fear through any intelligent creature in the known galaxy. To be completely unfair to the human, there were still stains on the ceiling in almost every room of the ship from dropped food, chemicals, various other liquids, and even a couple of empty bowels. Some races just didn’t find the idea of resting comfortably in their sleeping quarters, only to be suddenly awakened as they fell ten feet toward a ceiling which had now become a floor. Mark was no longer allowed near environmental controls.
Minxx continued, “He did not find this “Hex Key.” However, he did find the screwdriver and it seemed to please him when an owner was not located. The captain let him keep it since it seemed that it would keep him from doing any more strange things to locate his original lost tool. We did not consider-” she trailed off as her wings quivered again.
There was silence between them for a few moments, Minxx was almost unwilling to continue and Chuul was almost too afraid to press for more details. Slowly, but surely, Minxx calmed herself enough to speak again. “we did not consider what he may be able to do when armed with a leverage optimiser.”
“We were given shore leave while the ship was being fixed after the gravity incident. Thank goodness the captain took out act’s-of-human insurance or it would have cost the profits from our next five cargo hauls.” The premiums were high, but it was worth it. “After 14 rotations, human-Mark began to complain over the lack of stimulation, he called it “bored.” On the 15th rotation he disappeared for some time and he had hoped he had found some new activity to occupy his time.”
Chuul did, but at the same time didn’t, want to know, “Had he?”
Minxx waved her antennae in confirmation, “he had. He was located in one of the cargo holds, using the screwdriver to dismantle one of the mining probes. To, quote “see how it worked.” It was almost 90% deconstructed.”
Mark had claimed it was almost 10% REconstructed, as he was trying to put it back together again, but couldn't quite remember where all the parts went. In Mark’s words, the captain was a “glass half-empty kinda guy” (whatever that meant) and wrote DEconstructed on the claim form for a replacement probe.
Chuul’s natural camouflage kicked in and they took on the colour of the chair they were sitting on. “Those probes have no screws for the leverage optimiser to use, how did he-”
Minxx’s wings shivered again, “no one knows how. He just did.”
Chuul was silent for a moment. He’d never served on a ship with a human before. He’d heard they made things “interesting” and if you ever got into trouble, a human was the very best thing to ever have on your side. It was why they were so many job opportunities for humans in the alliance. All the same...the thought of a human causing such damage and destruction just because of a lack of mental, or physical, stimulation was a more than a little frightening. What if the human wanted to see how the engines worked, or the weapons?!! “Maybe I should transfer to another ship.”
Minxx’s antennae curled, a smile to her race. “You are safe. The captain has found a way to occupy our humans free time. During our last stopover, he commissioned a shiny orb be constructed.”
Chuul coked their head, “what is a shiny orb?”
Minxx’s curled antennae moved up an down; a sign of mild laughter. “It is nothing. A sphere made of shiny metals, humans do like shiny things, roughly two feet diameter made of a collection of gears, levers, screws and switches which appear complex and should have a function, but do entirely nothing. The captain handed it to Human-Mark and stated: “see if you can fix this.” and Mark has been “tinkering” with it during his off-duty hours for almost 24 rotations now. He can take it apart and rebuild it as many times as he likes, but it will never perform any task.”
Chuul was just thinking about how their captain must be a genius, when the door to the mess hall opened and Human-Mark entered. He was carrying the shiny orb under one arm, and his screwdriver in the other hand. He looked around, seemingly not noticing any of the crew members. He smiled when he spotted an empty liquid container and sat down at the table with the cup.
Chuul and Minxx watched curiously as Mark set the orb on the table in front of the cup. He used the screwdriver to tighten one small screw and flipped a switch. At once there was a whirring and clicking of clockwork, a blinking of lights hidden in the depths of the machine and even a TING from a small bell. Then a small funnel-shaped piece of metal opened up in the side of the machine and poured a small amount of hot, black, liquid into the cup.
Mark jumped to his feet, pumping the air and yelling loudly enough to send Chuul’s camouflage reflex off again. He grabbed the orb, abandoning the cup of steaming hot liquid, and moved to the door.
Minxx stared after them, “Human-Mark?”
Mark only paused for a second in the doorway. He was prominently displaying his predatory teeth. Chuul had read about these “smiles” but it was still disturbing to see. “Can’t stop Minxy. I gotta let the captain know I fixed his coffee maker.”
With that, he left. Leaving Chuul and Minxx frozen in place, dumbfounded.
Wherever Chuul was going to transfer to, Minxx began to hope she could get a posting on the same ship.
“How did your people survive your first contact with the humans?” Slaver Lord Abrax catches up with Guild Master Felbin right after the official part of the conference was over.
“Hm?” the fat albino wombat wonders while munching fried roaches, looking puzzled into the face of the mighty reptilian warrior. “What do you mean? Survive?”
“You said you made first contact recently with the humans, didn’t you?”
“Oh yes. Weird people. Crossed into an exclusive trade zone inside our border, nibbled at some asteroids without asking. I send a scout ships, delivered an angry message to them. They were all ‘Oh, did we something wrong? You claim these? We need fuel, can we make a deal?’”
Felbin shovels another hand full of roasted bugs into his mouth, munching happily.
“So they were in a weak position? And you did press your advantage?”
Between munching the wombat mumbles “Oh No. Their fleet was quite impressive. Two medium support carriers, around a dozen smaller escort ships, two dozen industrial ships. A lot more than we had at hand at that moment. We were quite surprised when they offered compensation for trespassing our territory and a pretty fair deal on keeping the resources. And they immediately entered trade talks with us.”
“Stop bullshitting me old usurer!” the reptilian growls “How in the world did you force the humans into submission? When we learned of the humans we send a slaver fleet to their world, numbering hundreds of mighty warships, demanding 0,2% of their population per year as tribute. A very fair deal as you will agree!”
The wombat did the equivalent of shrugging his shoulders “Well if you say so. How did it end?”
“It ended terrible for them! We killed millions of them by our penal operation when they rejected our generous offer!”
“Well, that is partially true but not the whole story.” Princess Shem, her large belly swollen by hundreds of eggs interrupts the discussion. Outranked, the Slaver Lord hissed in annoyance and fell silent.
“They fought your fleet back with monstrous weapons, vaporising your mighty flagship with a single one of their ungodly ‘Nukes’, even ships dozens of miles away had their outer hulls molten by this single attack. After less than an hour your fleet had scattered. The biggest damage your fleet did was raining debris on their world, killing a couple of million unprepared civilians.”
“How do you know…” the Slaver Lord gasps “Not a single Slaver made it back alive!”
The princess bows down her antennas in shame “Because my father, the rightful ruler of my people, is currently prisoner of war in the hands of the humans. He watched your foolish posturing on television in his prison cell and was allowed to report the incident back to his home world as a deterrent against future aggression.”
“Your people surrendered to the humans? How pitiful!” laughs the Slaver Lord.
“Surrendered? No, we were simply overrun. And we most likely only got off easy because the humans decided you were a bigger threat.”
The wombat looks at the princess in surprise “Oh, your people went at war with the humans too? But why?”
“Territorial dispute. They settled a barren world in a remote system, we had a claim on it for centuries. In return we annexed one of their border colonies, arrested their officials and put them on trial.”
Master Felbin put his empty bowl aside and reached for the wine. “Oh. I guess they send you an angry letter, did they?”
“The letter was lacking all rules of court.” boasted the princess with her antennae twitching angrily “It made demands were praise was required and disputed the obvious. It was literally an insult. Can you imagine? They demanded ‘a diplomatic talk’ and ‘compensation’.”
While grooming his fur Master Felbin dryly stated “Well, I know myself human diplomats and lawyers are a very special pest. The trade agreement we worked out with them is literally an epic in itself, surpassing absolutely any work of literature of my people in length and complexity. The chapter on the shape of bananas alone is over 1400 pages long. Thanks but no thanks."
Felbin licked some wine before continuing "So you found their diplomats lacking and tried if their warriors were more amicable and found them lacking too?”
The princess grumbles ashamed “We never met their warriors. They send a police assault unit and subdued our occupation force while we were hibernating…”
Slave Lord Abrax laughed aloud “Oh yes, we also found out the hard way that humans do not hibernate like most others do. In fact they only need a light sleep to recover and not much of it anyway. Also they can go for days without sleep. Freck. To keep up with them we needed to outnumber them 10 to one, taking turns in sleeping 18 hours and fighting one hour. And then they still manage to outdo us most of the time.”
Guild Master Felbin stopped licking at his expensive gobble of wine. “Aha, so you were pretty lucky when they offered you a somewhat fair peace deal?”
“Ending slavery was not a ‘somewhat fair peace deal’” Abrax railed “Our whole society was based on exploitation of the weak and now even high warriors have to clean their houses themselves and pay for mere services like food preparation. This is utterly unacceptable!”
“Oh dear, how pitiful you look.” Felbin giggled “And still both of you can be happy you survived your first contact with the humans almost intact.”
“Like there is any bigger disgrace than having ones father being prisoner of war.” Princess Shem grumbled.
“Or having to change your entire way of living.” Slaver Lord Abrax muttered.
“Yes, I think I am the lucky one of us three” smirked Felbin “although I have regular nightmares about human paper work recently. But trust me, compared to the devourers, we all got off easy.”
“The Devourers?” Abrax laughed “They are a myth. Parents tell their children about the Devourers when they don’t behave and need a good scare.” and with a mocking tone he continued “Head your parents words or the Devourers eat you!”
Even Princess Shem proclaimed with fervour: "As if nature would even allow such horrors! Beasts the size of a house, attacking entire worlds in apocalyptic numbers and devouring everything in their path."
“Oh, nonono. Devourers are not a myth.” the guild master explained “Yes, they haven’t swarmed in two centuries but my people still remember them from the old times when they crushed even the best defended worlds into dust during their reproduction cycle.”
Looking for something, Felbin continued “Actually, have you seen the Human Ambassador? Or, to be more precise, his young daughter?”
Shem turned her antennae towards the girl on the other side of the conference room: “She doesn't look anything special. For a human.”
“Nonono, also not the daughter. Her pet. The six legged creature sitting on her shoulder?”
Abrax and Shem looked puzzled at Guildmaster Felbin, then at the creature on the young girl's shoulder. The creature purred and played with the scraps of food the daughter offered to it.
“That is what is left of the devourers after the humans have tamed them.”