One of the crew approached me after the latest shipment of supplies arrived "Ztelrin. Human Paul dropped this when he collected his crates, what is..."duloxetine" and "sertraline"?"

On account of me currently sounding and coughing like a V8 on a Cold Start while just trying to breathe and mostly failing.

i spent this weekend measuring every crack, water stain and uneven tile in my bathroom before starting a backsplash project. wrote it all down in a spreadsheet. the tile is cosmetic but I needed to know what was underneath first. my Xelti neighbor watched me do this for two hours and asked why I was cataloging damage I had no intention of fixing today. i tried to explain that you have to know the full picture before you start even a small project because you do not want surprises halfway through. she looked at me like I was performing some kind of ritual grief ceremony for drywall. apparently most species in the galactic assembly just fix the thing in front of them and deal with new problems as they appear. humans will map every possible failure point in a five foot radius before touching a trowel. we call it being prepared. the galactic community calls it pathological structural anxiety. is this a humanwide thing or is it just people who have owned old houses.

However, just because something is rumored to be invincible doesn't mean it actually is invincible.*

__________

May 18th, 2330

Asgtia Naval Station, Republic of Antares (Claimed by Antarean National Reclamation Government)

Belfast's Audio Recorder

File Comments: I have diarized this audio file for ease of comprehension.

BEGIN LOG

UNS Belfast (CA-173): "This situation is terrible as is, but recent developments have made things even worse."

UNS Warspite (BB-94): "How so?"

UNS Belfast (CA-173): "On May 15th, the Antarean destroyer ARS Arahan (F90) reported the presence of an unknown ANRG battleship and several escorts entering Barakan through the Antares-Barakan Hyperlane, and reported firing eight torpedoes at the enemy before disengaging with severe damage. Later that day, scout planes from the light carrier Unicorn (CVL-120) had reported that the enemy battlegroup had changed their trajectory towards the hyperlane leading towards Asgtia. Unicorn's task group was ordered to return to Asgtia to rearm and resupply."

UNS Belfast (CA-173): "In response, the battleship Prince of Wales (BB-67) and the battlecruiser Admiral Hood (CB-61) were sortied on the 16th, and successfully identified and the battleship on the 17th as the ANRAN Tanara, the second of the Ori'ana-class super-battleships. Following an hour-long engagement in the orbit of Barakan IV, the latter was destroyed by plasma fire from the Tanara, and the former escaped with severe damage."

UNS Canberra (CA-210): "Fucking hell, they killed the mighty Hood? How much damage have we done to the Tanara?"

UNS Belfast (CA-173): "Prince of Wales's reports have indicated that she and Hood had barely done any damage to the Tanara before being forced to retreat. This is assuming the worst-case scenario."

UNS Ark Royal (CVN-01): "What were they planning?"

UNS Belfast (CA-173): "Given the avoidant route that the Tanara was taking, I suspect they were seeking to avoid detection and to raid our convoys in Aranai. With the element of surprise ruined, they will surely attempt to retreat back to Antares for repairs, if any."

UNS Halifax (CA-214): "What would you have us do? Since QE isn't here, you're in charge by virtue of experience."

UNS Belfast (CA-173): "I suggest to wait for orders from above, although we will not have to wait long. The Admiralty as a whole will understandably be hard-pressed to destroy the Tanara at all costs."

UNS Ark Royal (CVN-01): "I'll keep every bird I've got on standby. Although, I could use a few escorts."

UNS Belfast (CA-173): "I am sure the Admiralty will deliver on that. As for now, we wait for orders."

END LOG

*Note: Tanara can't be cheesed via Mjolnir Missile (UNS Madison CG-07), as she shares several abilities preventing ramming attacks with ANRAN Kaniae.

SPF#23 - FIFTY-FIFTY

Species: Two-Dimensional Axe Beetles

"Listen, boy, when you go against a human, it's not a big deal if what they call "Xeno" Is in command, it's too common to use modern tactics with outdated tech, you can always outshoot their crude guns in a conventional war. When a human takes command, be ready for many years of never ending meat grinder. But when a human commander dares to meet the enemy personally, it's either 100% chance of victory or 100% chance of defeat."

"The worst type of warfare is melee for sure. Compared to us, humans don't care about death as long as dying will ensure getting advantage over enemy. I've heard of Do or Die, but it's not exactly that, it's Die but Do. Taking a Forsid contract was a blessing and a curse: the newly formed Forsid Consulate needed every gun available, and all mercenaries served alongside human formations. The blessing was in the way they taught me how to survive in hell. The curse was that I happened to need these survival skills when Earthlings are around. On my front 50% our losses against enemies losing up to 70% is a regular thing. If you want to be a perfect soldier – stick to humans. If you want to spend your service in silence – keep yourself away from them."

"Do you know what's the most fucked thing? Their combat AI's regulator is a perfect random number generator. People sometimes forget what it is, but I'll remind you: when combat AI faces the paradox of equally good options, there's a regulator that gives some kind of a second opinion, and it helps AI make a decision. Humans created a contraption that gives perfectly random numbers, and every slightest contradiction is answered with a random number left up to AI's interpretation. Do you know how annoying it is to intercept Earth rockets?"

"Once a slave empire buys humans, it's only a matter of time before some rebel movement starts hanging red cloth around. I was a slave troop of Oriki clan when the streets blew up. The millions of slaves stopped working, they got out of the streets and started crushing everything that looked like Oriki symbol. Well, the revolt would be crushed if my squad didn't turn off the restraining fields, but I know what can save my life and what will seal my fate. They killed everyone that looked like it owned someone, so in their eyes slave troops were just as oppressed as them. When the revolution succeded, I left the planet to go back home, humans didn't mind."

"Nothing special. They use the tactics fit for their anatomy and biology. Their body is perfect for what I call "shambling mass" doctrine, nothing special. Had to fight against them, it hurts, nothing else what I didn't see."

Humans: Scavengers of the Galaxy                          Excerpt from Teardown the Builders

As another proof of the humans’ barbarity, it has been discovered that humans are scavengers. Unlike most of the species which have made their way to the starlanes, they eat the flesh of murdered animals. However, disgustingly enough, unlike even the krakiz, they can also eat plant life like most of the civilized species. They even combine them, burning them both over flame with otherwise inedible materials to make veritable garbage to consume and subsist their horrifying existence upon.

Humans are scavengers and garbage-eaters, parasitically feeding on whatever parts of the galaxy they can get their hands on, and it was the builders who gave them the chance. It is the builders who have unleashed these scavengers to feast upon the bloated society which the builders have propped up. Instead, we should tear away these supports, exterminate these human parasites, and begin anew! The starlanes should be claimed by those both civilized and bold, not horded by those of the decadent past nor fed upon by upstart barbarous scavengers!

This is from a setting where humans are recruited (in the 2060s) as the enforcers for the builders who control safe interstellar travel across the starlanes. Needless to say, being their enforcers hasn't made humans popular, and being the only sapient omnivores when most species have very limited diets has led to the pejorative of "garbage eaters".

Anyway - I just picked up this artwork, and since I've enjoyed this sub for awhile (The OG 'Humans are Space Orcs' was part of my initial inspiration years ago) I figured that this would be a fun place to share it.

Aliens have discovered Earth very early in Human History, 17th Century to be exact when Humans discovered Steam Powered Machines.

They continued to watch and document Humans until the 18th Century, due to external factors. They left Humanity for thousands of years, a backlog of other upcoming species got the aliens attention as Humanity was forgotten about.

Until a researcher found documents about Humans and wondered what happened to them. The aliens realizing their mistake sent both scientists and diplomats to hopefully greet the forgotten Humans.

When traveling to Earth, they found a giant derelict ship, taking a small detour to examine it, they found out that it was a Human Colony Ship. It's reactors and cryogenicly frozen crew long dead.

When exploring the ship, they find multipule recordings Humans. Celebrating? Leaving their solar system for a new planet, and even when they all had to be frozen due to the lack of food and other resources. They cheered for their future selves finding a new home.

This situation wasn't a one off thing, as the aliens continued their course to Earth, they found more and more colony ships. While each colony ship was different, they all had the same story as the 1st. Hopeful till the end.

When they finally made it to the Solar System, it to has drastically different than before. Saturn's rings were completely gone and there was no asteroids or void based structures anywhere.

But the biggest shock was Earth, instead on the green planet, they found a dusty and rocky planet with no signs of life.

As they stepped onto the planet they found almost zero signs of both intelligent life or any life in general. Besides a few broken buildings scattered around, nothing remained.

But then, they found a vault door at the base of a mountain. Filling the aliens with hope and as they cracked open the vault, their hope turned into confusion. As the vault held no humans, only their history.

Entire libraries of books and long dead servers containing more than the library, were left instead of humans. This perplexed the aliens as humans didn't even try to preserve there own species on earth.

So they searched for more vaults and every new vault had the same purpose. Some held more, some less; all only had knowledge and dust to give.

While there efforts where fruitless, after going over some of the records, they found out that all of Humanity fled to Mars.

This brought hope back as, after a quick scan of the planet, it said that life and growing there. As they raced over to Mars they would find. Robots.

Robots that were maintaining living domes that, supposedly, once held humans. Trying to talk to the robots was not going well, as the robots didn't acknowledge the aliens existence.

Until all the robots stopped their tasks all at once. The aliens thought they tripped a security alarm or responce, but the robots didn't move. They only raised all their arms in unison, pointing in 1 direction.

After startling the aliens, the robots went back to work as if nothing happened. And with no other leads, they followed the robots direction.

They passed neighborhoods filled with robots tending to them. Each house felt different and lived in, even with no signs of life anywhere.

After traveling to a few other Bio-Domes, they found they found the final Dome. Unfortunately, it did not lift their spirits when entering the dome; they only found more robots. But instead of maintaining a neighborhood, they were maintaining a supercomputer that commanded all the robots.

After getting some communication set up, the aliens began to ask it about the humans. Each answer given only fueled their despair as it seemed that the humans tried everything to live on. Even sending out colony ships and random communication to get any response.

They never received any.

The aliens asked there final question before they left to report back to their people.

"Who was the last human?"

"Answer, Human Female. Name, Sandra Fox. Age, 114. Cause of Death, Heart Attack."

"Human died, 10 years before alien discovery. End Answer."

General Grazly was skimming through the report the advisor had just given him.

“Am I reading this right, Advisor? Are they really using laser weapons?” His voice was totally disbelieving.

“Yes, General,” came the immediate answer, “and pretty low power too. From this distance, it is hard to get an accurate result, but we estimate the laser at between one and two kilowatts.”

“What? That’s not enough to penetrate our navigational shields! Are you saying these…” he glanced at the tablet, “… humans are so backward that they use low-power laser weapons?”

“Yes, General.”

“And what about their shields?” came the next question.

“We didn’t detect any shields, General,” came the even stranger answer.

The General just stared at his advisor for several long seconds in total disbelief.

“And they are fighting with other humans? Is that a territorial dispute or something?”

“We do not know, sir. But it appears to be.”

“How is it going? Casualties?”

“We didn’t see any damaged ships yet, which is not surprising with the low power they are using. But they are moving with extreme speed - we've even seen in-system warp jumps!”

“So, they are using lasers, which wouldn’t be enough to cut thin steel, but using advanced maneuvers and even in-system warp jumps. These humans are weird,” came the conclusion from the General.

He read the rest of the report in silence. They are fighting in an asteroid belt with one big asteroid near them. Perfect opportunity to sneak up on them from behind it. Finally, he asked one more question:

“Is there any reason we shouldn’t start an invasion against them?”

“No, General.”

Just a few hours later, the General’s armada moved out of the shadow of the large asteroid to surprise the fighting parties. Not that it was necessary based on their firepower, but you shouldn’t miss a dramatic entrance when you have the opportunity. When he jumped in with his one hundred and thirty-seven ships, all activity stopped in the system. Everyone was looking at the new armada.

General Grazly waited a few minutes just to let the humans scan his ships and realize they don’t use laser weapons.

After the wait, he opened a channel to both parties and sent an ultimatum.

“Humans in this system: surrender or die. My name is General Grazly, and I declare humanity a vassal species of the great Krox Hegemony.”

Silence. No response from either side for minutes. Then, one side opened a channel.

“Ehhhmm, my name is Peter Smith. And I’m the president of the Orion LARP group. Not sure why you directed your message towards us. We are just reenacting the Titan battle of the Unification War of 2286. Which, by the way, I was winning before you interrupted,” came the awkward and somewhat irritated reply, finally.

“What do you mean? I directed it towards you because you are the protector of this system.”

The General started to be pretty agitated - what are these humans even talking about? What does LARP even mean?

“Ehhhmm, that’s not us. You should talk to the UES Behemoth instead.”

Okay, that made even less sense.

“Who’s the UES Behemoth?”

“Not who - it’s a ship. And that’s the one behind you,” came the answer from Smith.

What? There were no other ships in this system. They scanned. Twice. Only them and the fighting parties.

This is when klaxons sounded around the bridge.

“Energy signature detected.”

“Weapons are detected.”

“WEAPONS LOCK!”

Where did this ship come from? How can they ambush without detection? But surely, a single ship is no match against one hundred and thirty-seven ships.

“Put the new ship on display,” ordered the General.

The screen flickered and switched from the battle to the large asteroid they just used as cover not thirty minutes ago.

“I don’t see a ship,” Grazly snapped, gesturing wildly at the display. “I see the asteroid! The one with the grey dust and the giant impact craters! Magnify!”

The viewscreen zoomed in. The jagged, pitted surface filled the screen.

“Sir…” the sensor technician whispered, his voice trembling. “The asteroid is the power source.”

Grazly froze. He leaned in, staring closely at the magnification.

The "grey dust" wasn't regolith - it was dull, non-reflective stealth plating. The "impact craters" weren't from meteorites - they were armored turret wells. Some of them were bigger than his own ship! And right before his eyes, massive planetary-grade barrels inside those craters were slowly, smoothly elevating, locking directly onto the Hegemony flagship.

The bridge comms chimed with a crisp, polite ping. A calm, deeply bored voice broadcast across all channels:

“Attention Hegemony armada. This is the United Earth Defense Force dreadnought Behemoth. You are currently obstructing a registered historical reenactment zone. Please clear the airspace immediately, or we will be forced to use you as target practice. You have five seconds.”

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After discovering an cosmological anomaly of an square death planet the galaxy sends a team to research the planet.

Only to be met by an singular subject of an species that is also cubical and very industrial.

(I have zero clue what to title this 1 am idea. And yes this is minecraft. I mostly want to see what crazy things people make up about this.)

The agency has not been around for long, but it has quickly become vital in determining safe colonization of new planets. When something can't be fully explained by established sciences, that's when the agency steps in, if not immediately called upon.

Although skeptical at first, galactic society played along with mankind and their niche little agency. Their shock was palpable when the mundane and sometimes outlandish tactics and strategies the humans employed consistently worked, especially since their methods were made with earth based issues in mind, not intergalactic. They didn't always work to the same effect, but it established a baseline of the kind of methods that would be effective.

Now, it is a highly respected profession, and extremely difficult to be selected as an official member, sometimes with the agency itself scoping out potential members instead of training with the intent of becoming one. It's an extremely high honor, and to work alongside a human, if only for a little while, is the ultimate honor and eternal bragging rights. More so with proof.

Art by me.

Humans are Weird – Neighborly

Original Post: http://www.authorbettyadams.com/bettys-blog/humans-are-weird-neighborly

First Sister was reminding herself, for the third time this morning, that humans – mammals that they were – developed a bit slower than Shatar. She gave a final firm tug on the tape that secured the new branch to the understory fruit bush, and bent over her workbasket to line her thoughts up before she turned to Human Second Cousin Betty.

“Are you quite ready to move on to the next shrub?” First Sister asked, being very, very careful not to sound annoyed.

Human Second Cousin Betty started up suddenly from where she had been studying a local insect in fascination. Her pheromone profile flushed the air with just enough stress to let First Sister know that she had failed in keeping her irritation to herself, but the human only smiled and quickly shoved her tools into her bag. First Sister very carefully ignored the indisputable fact that Human Second Cousin Betty ignored the specially made holsters for each tool and simply tossed all the tools in the bottom of the bag, where they would damage each other and make it much harder for the human to find them again. That was not a useful thing to point out however. The human made tools were ridiculously sturdy.

Despite her obvious stress a moment before Human Second Cousin Betty was cheerfully singing to herself by the time the crossed the short distance to the next fruit bush. The human thrust her hand down into the bag and rooted around for the tool utterly without care for the skin on her fingers. First Sister fought back a wince and reminder herself again that human skin was much more resilient that Shatar outer membrane. Human Second Cousin Betty finally gave a satisfied grunt and pulled out out a set of hand worked mechanical clippers, she gave a few test clicks, for some reason she considered this necessary every time she pulled them out of bag, and looked at First Sister expectantly.

First Sister considered the plant and chose a stem of the correct age. “This one!” she said tapping the wood.

With, a speed and skill that seemed wildly beyond her overall maturity level Human Second Cousin Betty set to work trimming the stem of excess branches, clearing the other stems around it, and tossing all the extra biomatter into a pile to the side. This part of the grafting would have taken First Sister much longer and she was grateful to have the human’s help, even if Human Second Cousin Betty had a tendency to mentally wander off when she wasn’t actively using the clippers. First Sister took her razor thread and cut into the stem.

“Hold this,” she requested.

Human Second Cousin Betty carefully pried apart the halves of the stem and First Sister reached into her bad and pulled out the new branch, a different fruit, far more magnesium rich. She placed the new cutting in the existing stem. Human Second Cousin Betty release the stem and its own force was enough to hold the new graft in place while First Sister wound the tape around it.

“So what’re we having for dinner at the hive?” Human Second Cousin Betty asked.

“Your First Father said that you are not staying for dinner,” First Sister reminded her with half an antenna as her fingers continued wrapping the tape. “Along after that we do not have meals at the hive.”

“I know,” Human Second Cousin Betty said rolling her eyes, “but we are staying and I want to know what there is to graze on when I get hungry.”

“The gourd-mushrooms are in full bloom,” First Sister said. “You enjoy those correct?”

“They taste like chicken!” Human Second Cousin Betty agreed with a nod.

“Why do you think you are staying?” First Sister asked as she finished the wrap and gave it one last touch to be sure it was solid.

In response Human Second Cousin Betty pointed to Human First Father who had come into view around a particularly dense stand of grass. He was walking with one of the free ranging Human Grandfathers who lived deeper in the undeveloped forest. The new human had a long ragged fringe of hair that seemed to consume his head and upper arms. His clothing was tattered and fraying. He looked, to any Shatar, like someone half dead, but his walked with the full confidence of a healthy human and in his hand he clutched a preposterously heavy stick.

“I see the visiting Grandfather,” First Sister said as they walked towards the next bush, “but what does that have to do with your departure time?”

“Did you see how they were talking?” Human Second Cousin Betty demanded as she started skipping after First Sister. “Once Daddy gets going like that with one of the forest neighbors he won’t stop till he gets hungry. He had a big lunch too. He’s probably not going to come out of the tall grass until after the sun goes down.”

First Sister flicked an antenna over her eye at that, but Human Second Cousin Betty would know her own father she supposed.

“If he is going to loose track of time perhaps we can get First Aunt to fry him some gourd-Mushrooms?” she suggested.

“Oh yeah!” Human Second Cousin Betty agreed as she pulled out her clippers and gave them an experimental click.

Science Fiction Books By Betty Adams

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