I feel like it should be mentioned that it takes some pretty damn advanced and tough life to evolve enough to achieve interstellar travel. What if humans are the last intelligent life to accomplish it in this galaxy because we spent so much time arguing amongst one another?

We assume aliens are super impressed by how horrifying and rough Earth can be, but we have a lot of needs. We might be versatile for Earth, but space?

The temperature, atmosphere, food types, and even gravity are all unique to earth and vital to our success. If we even change pressures too quickly, our blood foams and can kill us. Anywhere besides earth and we would be hugely disadvantaged!

Neptune rains diamonds. Venus’s atmospheric pressure would squash us flat. Jupiter’s winds would shred us to bits in 5 seconds flat. Uranus’ magnetic field would open once, let in a little radiation, and dammit our skin melted again.

I’d have to guess that any alien life form intelligent enough to speak has outcompeted everything else on its planet like we have ours, and that doesn’t come from being weak. We got lucky because we were just smart enough to make weapons.

These aliens gotta be the biggest, baddest motherfuckers in the Milky Way. Keep in mind, they’re smart too. It’s much more likely they would laugh us out of the intergalactic space station.

We’ve also been describing aliens as lacking creativity and empathy, but that’s what technology comes from. Creative creatures. What if these aliens are even more creative and capable? “Human Jim, you really only see from 670 - 440 wavelengths of light? You must be missing out. I can see ultraviolet through infrared.” What if our senses are dull compared to theirs, and that’s why we’re so far behind?

Our only saving grace at that point is our ability to mimic and learn new things. After all, that’s how we started. We saw other animals do the thing and then we did it too.

Aliens might be brainy and brawny, but the humans are good copycats. Don’t let them hear you speak your native tongue, as they will learn it. Don’t let them see you assemble a plasma base because they will immediately adopt it and modify it for their own needs. In combat, we’re not fearsome at first. But, we can see your fighting style and find weaknesses rather quickly in the heat of battle. God forbid you meet a social butterfly. Some humans can read body language and mimic it in order to make you like them.

Maybe our next biggest advantage is how nimble our fingers are, and how dextrous our two track brain is. What if aliens can’t play piano because that requires two hands to do different things? What about reflexes? Emotional reflexes? In the time the Ritaliroans decided the best course of action, the humans amygdala went insane and already did the thing anyways.

Just a lot of thoughts that I’ve had about this. Especially opposable thumbs. Aliens with tentacles might find it much harder to build microchips than we do.