Humans are space capybaras
Its like that scene in the pilot of community where Jeff snaps the pencil:
Jeff Winger: What makes humans different from other animals? We’re the only species on earth that observes Shark Week. Sharks don’t even observe Shark Week, but we do. For the same reason I can pick up this pencil, tell you its name is Steve and go like this…
[breaks pencil] Abed reacts in shock
Jeff Winger: and part of you dies just a little bit on the inside. Because people can connect with anything. We can sympathize with a pencil, we can forgive a shark, and we can give Ben Affleck an Academy Award for screenwriting.Humans are good at anthropomorphizing everything. Even aliens.
Don’t anthropomorphize computers. They don’t like it.
Well now you’ve gone and made him feel bad.
Man, when Data express emotions 😬
Agimus intensifies
draws a protogen
Even Ben Affleck.
“Humans are the loveable idiots in the galaxy.”
See also: Farscape.
“I love that idiot. Let’s make him president.”
It’s just that humans get to have all kinds of personalities while other races are for the most part depicted as being exactly what the cliche of their races would be if they truly existed.
Therefore Star Trek is racist.
Perhaps the most egregious example would be the Klingons. Worf talks of Klingons in an idealized sense, code of honor and all that. But apart from him and Martok, most of the Klingons we see are stupid and belligerent, and just as conniving as any Romulan. If you assume that the totality of them as a people are what we see of them there’s simply no way they would ever have adopted the scientific method let alone made it into space. Somewhere out there there would have to be klingon scientists, lawyers, janitors, engineers, doctors, artists, etc. All we hear about is warriors but they alone do not make a civilization.
I thought the Klingons didn’t develop space travel on their own. Weren’t they invaded by another race and then the Klingons eventually defeated them, and took their technology for themselves?
I always figured Worf had an idealized view of Klingon honor, given it was a culture he cherished but wasn’t actually raised in. Dax also calls him out on his atypical behavior - “Klingons do not laugh.” “No, you don’t laugh!”
Dax also called out the empire on their bullshit. Everyone there was a snake. Backstabbing , lying, cheating. Prattle on about honour then go and behave like slightly dimwitted Romulans. At least Romulans are honest about valuing cunning and guile above all else. The workings of the Klingons empire are also a great demonstration of why monarchy is a bad idea.
That was especially Ezri Dax and IMO a great way for the writers to show that Jadzia and Ezri are very different. Jadzia was very into Klingon culture and kind of celebrated the backstabbing and cheating way of the Klingons. She played the game and enjoyed it. Ezri was more like “you guys are hypocrites and you suck”
That was Guinan.
Y’know, I’d forgotten that Guinan also did that!
There are definitely more Klingon professions shown on screen. There’s a Klingon Chef working on DS9, there are more than one case where we see Klingon lawyers and I remember at least one Klingon Scientist. And while B’Elanna is only half-Klingon, her character shows how a Klingon could work as an engineer. All of them probably cases of toxic work environments, but they seem to work. What we see mostly on screen are the crew of warships. Other species must think every Human is a scientist or diplomat.
simply no way they would ever have adopted the scientific method let alone made it into space.
Isn’t it canon that they stole most of the spacefaring technology from the Romulans when they made first contact?
I really enjoyed Strange New Worlds portrayal of vulcans, they were much more nuanced.
I really appreciate that the new shows actually demonstrate how Spock and T’Lyn are mavericks. They only seem stoic and stuffy because they’re around humans; put them with other vulcans and they’re clearly much more emotional and, counterintuitively, more rational, than their peers.
“I regret that you had to witness that outburst.”
On one hand, the Duras Sisters disprove your point. Then again, “You have manipulated the circumstances with the skill of a Romulan.” Yeeeeaaaahhh… Point taken.
That was said not as a racial jab, but as a not so subtle statement that Picard and the Federation knew the sisters Duras were working for the romulans. It also carries the underlying significance that the Federation knew about Khitomer and their families betrayal.
It’s a warning shot to let them know their subterfuge had been uncovered, and the Federation has them by the short hairs in several directions. Its intended to put them on the backfoot in the ensuing fight.
Putting the “human” in galactic HR since 2161.
The concept behind Enterprise was compelling and clever, I just wish it got different actors, writers and plots.
I just wish it got different actors
Jeffrey Combs doesn’t count as an actor in Star Trek. He’s part of the lore in every Star Trek like phasers and warp drive.
It’s like how all races are more or less humanoid, all races also have a Jeffrey Combs phenotype. All of them.
The original race that seeded the galaxy with dna must have been all made up of Jeffrey Combs.
Pikachu face
You can thank me later
Hey that’s not fair, clearly I didn’t mean JC.
I imagine a whole series, based on the premise that someone made thousands of clones of Jeffrey Combs, and all episodes are about a society where Jeffrey Combs plays all roles.
If you think about it it’s just a spin off from some episodes with missed opportunity. There was this next Gen I think where there’s 6 people who are cloned forever. Or the lower decks that collects ensign Kim from multiple universes. Imagine if instead we had a dashboard counting the number of Kim’s vs <Weyoun + Brock + Shrank…>
Enterprise has some incredible episodes, but I just can’t with the temporal cold war arc.
Well anytime the humans try to stereotype the others to support an argument of “we can’t ally our selves with them” there’s always some lieutenant noting “but Anderson over there isn’t like twice as [insert stereotype] and we generally manage to deal with him.”
Humans have so much more variance than Vulcans or Klingons or any of the other races which are just incredibly narrow societies ideologically.
Typical definition of outgroups.
We are: <many good things, with variability, nuance and tolerance>
They are: <not as good, shallow and not complex, predictable>
Hence lieutenant Woof is always saying “they’re going to attack us, we should attack first” every episode.
Then there’s romulans. Fuck romulans.
Then there’s romulans. Fuck romulans.
That reminds me, I still hope Picard got with Laris.
I always saw it as other species being a bit frightened about humans and their potential. Just like in D&D - the first take is that the human is the generic baseline and all the other races are cooler because they have different special abilities. Then you realize that being generic means you can go any direction and still have the other abilities, just not top level. Humans are OP because they are so versatile. Add in emotions and irrational behavior, and other species would rather just be on good terms with us, even if they find us distasteful. Don’t poke the humans.
“They irradiated their own planet?”
Klingons: okay we don’t get it
Vulcan science academy: what what?
Klingons: You Vulcans are a bunch of stuffy prisses but you’re also tougher, stronger, and smarter than humans in every single way. Why do you let them run your Federation?
VSA: Look. This is a species where if you give them two warp cores, they don’t do experiments on one and save the other for if the first one blows up. This is a species where if you give them two warp cores, they will ask for a third one, immediately plug all three into each other, punch a hole into an alternate universe where humans subscribe to an even more destructive ideological system, fight everyone in it because they’re offended by that, steal their warp cores, plug those together, punch their way back here, then try to turn a nearby star into a torus because that was what their initial scientific experiment was for and they didn’t want to waste a trip.
VSA: They did that last week, we have the write-up right here. It’s getting published in about six hundred scientific journals across two hundred different disciplines because of how many established theories their ridiculous little experiment has just called into question. Also, they did turn that sun into a torus, and no one actually knows how.
VSA: This is why we let them do whatever the hell they want.
Klingons: Can we be a part of your Federation?
We’re Deathworlders.
As a result of evolving on one of the most dangerous temperate worlds in the galaxy; with higher than Galactic Standard (9.81 m/s² vs 7.55 m/s²) gravity, poisonous plants and animals, competing with carnivores, infectious microorganisms, natural disasters e.g. earthquakes, volcanoes, hurricanes, high background radiation, Humans have developed unique physiology to galactic species at large.
First chapter is a banger.
https://deathworlders.com/books/deathworlders/chapter-00-kevin-jenkins-experience/
Lemmy could use something like Reddit’s “Humans Fuck Yeah!”. https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/
Glad you pointed this series out.
I need to get caught up on The Nature of Predators. =D
In D&D, Humans are overpowered because of the free feat at level 1.
Yeah, D&D humans may not be as fast, strong, or smart as the other races, but they make up for it by being really good at learning things. Depending on edition, that extra feat might be supplemented with extra skill training. If you’re going to multiclass, humans are almost always the race to do it with.
Reminds me of Footfall where the humans nuke Kansas because that’s where the aliens setup headquarters.
“They nuked their own breadbasket just to get a handful of us! These humans are crazy!”
Great book. Still love the opening to the one chapter. “God was knocking on the door, and he wanted in real bad.”
To be fair about that last bit, isnt having engaged in nuclear war at some point relatively common for species in the star trek verse? I seem to recall the Vulcans having done similar?
I don’t know that answer, but I do know that Vulcan prehistory was probably worse than Earth’s. The difference is that Vulcans came to realize how dangerous their emotions were and learned how to suppress them to survive. What may scare them is that humans managed to stay emotional and survive. How? It’s not logical.
I can’t remember who says it, but this comes up in the Syrrannite arc of ENT S4. That Humans reached the stars (warp drive) 100 years after their nuclear wars, when it took Vulcans 1500 years and suppressing their emotions. It was revealed as the main driving force behind the Vulcans saying Humans weren’t ready to visit other worlds.
OMG, the kids actually saved the marriage.
someone find that long post about how the vulcans let us lead because all the crazy shit we do makes breakthroughs that nobody saw coming
Do you mean this exchange?
omfg i haven’t seen the FULL thing in like 5 years. just the bit about punching through universes. thank you :D
I feel like I’ve seen an entirely different one, but this was awesome thanks for sharing
Aw man this makes me miss /r/hfy
If I knew what to search for I would find it. It was beautiful.
Space capybara
ENT is the best Star Trek because of Porthos. It’s not even a contest. Best character in any Trek, ever.
How much cheese-induced canine diarrhea do you think the crew had to clean up bc archer wasn’t a responsible pet owner? Seriously, he let Porthos romp free on worlds they’d just landed on before extensive testing-- almost killed him in that one episode too, which he tried to blame on the alien hosts.
Archer was awful, yes. If his bullshit with Porthos didn’t directly contribute to the prime directive, it should have. But that wasn’t Porthos’ fault. Poor guy was just trying to boldly go, and he’d no idea those trees were sacred.
He also got the worst ending of nearly any character, with Scotty just misplacing him.
The was the actual divergence point in the Kelvin timeline.
Seriously, what species (other than those stuffy Vulcans) wouldn’t want to get a beer with Trip?
Humans
Exactly!
Vulcans just want to fuck him. Well, just one Vulcan. Despite the fact that he stinks like all humans. I guess she’s into that kink.
Who, Trip the Tramp? The galaxy s bitch? I hear he got pregnant to get alien alimony.
