It’s funny how science fiction universes so often treat humans as a boring, default everyman species or even the weakest and dumbest.
I want to see a sci fi universe where we’re actually considered one of the more hideous and terrifying species.
How do we know our saliva and skin oils wouldn’t be ultra-corrosive to most other sapient races? What if we actually have the strongest vocal chords and can paralyze or kill the inhabitants of other worlds just by screaming at them? What if most sentient life in the universe turns out to be vegetable-like and lives in fear of us rare “animal" races who can move so quickly and chew shit up with our teeth?
Like that old story “they’re made of meat," only we’re scarier.
oh god, i loved the “made of meat" story so much that i printed it out and gave it to my teacher in third grade. she returned it stapled and with a smiley face.
One of the things I love about Starflight is that it manages to avoid painting humans as that sort of baseline species. Humans are the most skilled species at geological sciences, which strikes me as a fun and oddly surprising field for us to be the best at. Humans of the franchise are also noted for having unnervingly similar males and females, and one other species regards us with fear and contempt for breathing air.
chequerootlurks
