All 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.

1. Only stories and artwork about HFY is allowed. It means your story or artwork should showcase the exceptional qualities of humans.
2. If your story does not have a human character, then their defining characteristics should be influenced by humans.
3. Content that's not created by you, should be posted only with the permission of the original author/creator.
4. Please dont copy content without properly crediting original author by including a link to the original post. In case the original author is not clear, atleast include a link to the original post.
5. Promoting hatred in posts/comments will not be tolerated. Let's all be decent human beings.
6. Please be kind to first time authors in comments. Help them correct their mistakes and provide constructive criticism.
7. Do not share links to external stories/artwork directly as posts. A seperate featured post is created for the same. Post your links in this thread. Links only posts should be in this thread.

Copying posts from HFY subreddit is allowed provided the following conditions are met:

1. Posts that are tagged Text can be copied directly.
2. Posts that are tagged OC can only be copied with the permission of the original author in reddit.
3. In both cases, a link to original post should be included.

For posts that are copied from somewhere else, the following rules should be met:

1. Make sure to get permission from the original author.
2. Add a link to the original post.

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 [email protected]

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

Ice

Ice reached behind her back, making sure the Mosin-Nagant was tightly strapped to her body. She allowed herself a second or two to hook her finger under the tough synthetic fabric and yank, checking it was secure. Then she gripped the weathered metal of the comms tower and began to climb.

Her real name wasn't Ice, of course. It was Yarina Baranouskaya, but nobody called her that in the field. Too long, too awkward to pronounce. By the time you'd gotten your mouth and tongue around the name 'Baranouskaya', the spiders would have already swarmed your position and neatly packaged you in viscous webbing for later. Or worse.

A rusty metal girder crunched loudly and gave way beneath her combat boot. She ignored the burst of adrenaline now propagating through her bloodstream, shifted her weight left onto another one that wasn't so rusted, and continued to climb. No point at all in panicking, even in briefly twitching a muscle. She'd long ago accepted that death was everywhere. Mors was a dangerous planet, a rocky graveyard with more predators than clean water. You learned to deal, or you became food.

Stretching prone on the tower, she took aim into the spider nest that had formed in the front of the compound in the entrance lobby.

One down. A clean shot to the thin patch of carapace where its eight eyes divided into two groups of four.

Two dead. Three. Hold, now. Breathe out, half-fill lungs. Brace your finger against the heavy tension of the Mosinka's trigger, and pull.

Four down. Breathe. Hold. Lock on.

Five. Exhale. Pull against the Moscreep.

Someone was still alive inside the webs. Ice took a deep, fraught breath, shifted her weight perhaps a millimeter, and took aim at the viscous rope trapping a man against the wall.

Tighten against the heavy inertia. Pull the trigger.

Ice saw the man panic. His eyes bulged, and he jerked as if trying to flee his own skin, but then he realized that he felt no pain and wasn't bleeding, and scrambled free of the webs.

She allowed herself a brief moment of triumph, then shuttered away everything but cold steel focus. There was a whole building full of those eight-limbed terrors down there.

Valdez

Valdez dropped his weight and braced his heels firmly into the floor. He gripped the rough concrete, bunched his hamstrings and heaved.

The brick crumbled. Pieces came away in his hands, the cement corroded from spider venom. The section of caved-in wall trapping the man and his daughter didn't move an inch.

Valdez spat out a volley of curse words and tried again. More trickles of dust and grit came away in his hands. Scrabbling under the mass for something solid to hold onto, he found a patch of brick that didn't give way, but he had absolutely no leverage to move it. His 500lb deadlift he'd achieved last week was no use here. Lifting a slab of rubble was not like pulling a barbell. The gym was a cozy sanctuary compared to this: you walked in. You warmed up on safe, springy matting. The weights were neatly structured so you'd only have to worry about strength, not balance. You didn't have to waste half the power in your muscles struggling to orient yourself.

Nothing for it.

He dug out an injector from the pocket of his combat pants, and he slammed the payload of Dirt into his thigh.

For a few seconds, there was nothing, then the drug rippled and tore through his bloodstream. His muscles engorged, his heart pumped so fast it was no longer a beat but a one-note drone. He reached down. He worked his forearm under the fallen wall, and he shoved forward and up. Radic and Velichko darted forward, plucking the father and daughter from the wreckage.

Valdez's vision pulsed blood-red as he paced off to comb the destruction for more survivors. An ominous, too-heavy pressure built either side of his spine. He'd taken too much.

Krivezhenko

Krivezhenko spun around and fired as the spiders swarmed, spraying the corridor with hot lead. Too many. The civilian girl at her side screamed. Krivezhenko reached down to her belt for a grenade and pulled the pin.

The blast cleared the corridor. More threats flashed at the edge of her vision. The hallway to her right was freshly filling with Megalonephila terribilis. One lunged, and its teeth were halfway to her throat before her bullets painted the corridor with its brain tissue. Too slow. She had been awake too long. Her reaction time was deteriorating.

The girl was screaming again, and her terror was understandable, but Krivezhenko needed to think - she couldn't focus -

'Shut up! Please!' she thundered back, and then felt the guilt weigh a hundred pounds on her shoulders. 'I'm sorry - don't you have a gun? You're old enough, you're wearing a school uniform...'

The girl nodded, pulled herself together and reached for the little snub-nosed pistol at her belt.

The air went dark. Towering shapes blocked out the lights. The main hallway was refilling with louring eight-limbed shapes.

Krivezhenko barked a command, and the girl opened fire with her now, feet planted and arms steady like they taught in schools. The swarm of spiders thinned, but they were still coming. She plucked another grenade from her belt, yanked the pin and flung it into the maelstrom.

And then the ceiling gave way - glittering chitinous limbs reached down - they were inside the attic -

And the ones in the corridor to the left were still coming -

So hard to think - too many - only have one pair of eyes -

Krivezhenko snatched the girl to her chest with one hand, wrenched open a storage cupboard with the other and stuffed them both inside. Stupid move, she knew, but she liked her chances. The cavity was too small to fit M. terribilis inside.

She fumbled in her pocket for a vial of Dirt, and she plunged the needle into her thigh.

Ice

Something was wrong.

The shapes moving in the building were erratic, crazed. Ice couldn't see much by now, because night was falling, but it was light enough to show that they were human and not arachnid.

She reached for her night vision lenses. The cold off-green glow confirmed her suspicions.

Valdez was hunched with his back to a radiator. Krivezhenko was wandering aimlessly, talking to the air in nonsense syllables. Davidson, Moore and Yee had forgotten that there was such thing as a gun, that they had rifles slung across their backs, and were throwing ceiling beams, rubble, whatever they could lift at the oncoming spiders.

Ice angled her scope left-right and tried to see further into the compound. Some of the unit were still lucid. Lawless and Velasquez were shepherding a gaggle of civilians out through a secured hallway. Velichko and Radic were crouched in a doorway still shooting at a pair of M. terribilis coming down the hallway.

The rest had clearly taken too much Dirt.

Ice reached into the left chest pocket of her combat jacket. Three Ozolex darts. Five people all looking pretty far gone. Ice sighed and began triaging her comrades in her head. Moore helpfully picked up a fallen ceiling beam and threw it, stunning one of the spiders and shattering a window. One less obstacle for her to shoot through.

Valdez should get the Ozolex first, she decided. Dirt overdose killed you one of two ways. One: your adrenal glands swelled to twice their normal size. You stepped a little too forcefully out of a vehicle or over a pile of rubble, and they popped like overripe fruit. You bled out internally before anyone could do anything about it. Two: you wandered into the mouth of a spider because you no longer understood what a spider was. It was just a shape - an ugly one, yes, a dour shade of dark brown or black, but you had no concept that it was a threat. No idea what 'venom' was, or 'fangs'.

Judging by how Valdez was wedged lower-back-first against a radiator, not moving, he was steadily heading for option one. Krivezhenko could wait. She was gone, but still at least had a gun in her hand, and enough base reflexes left to startle when the beam went through the window. If a spider lunged, she'd probably still shoot it out of sheer muscle memory. The three berserkers could wait. Anyone well enough to pick up and throw a 200lb chunk of metal was well enough not to need Ozolex just yet.

Ice locked on Valdez. She tightened her finger against the gravelly resistance, and she fired the Ozolex dart into his left deltoid.

Next she cast about the lobby for Krivezhenko.

Ice tracked her movements as she lurched this way and that. A plume of smoke caught her attention, and she ambled over to it, reaching out to touch it. Ice opened fire. The dart struck Krivezhenko's right thigh.

Now for the last one.

Pick one with your eyes closed, Ice told herself.

She squeezed her eyes shut for a second, then swept randomly around the lobby, and the first person she happened to see was Yee. Fixing her crosshairs on his upper arm, she fired the dart in.

Valdez sat up now, his expression confused but no longer in pain. Krivezhenko was still wandering aimlessly around the wreckage, but she was starting to look more awake now, her lips forming the word 'shit' instead of random nonsense syllables.

Ice strapped her rifle back in its home between her shoulder blades, and began climbing down from the comms tower. She had no power to do anything else here.

The hollow click echoed off the tiles. A high, predatory sound, an insect’s chitter. The magazine was empty.

She was still coming. She towered to the ceiling, her eight-limbed body glistening in the low light. Venom and ropy digestive fluids dripped from her fangs.

Nothing for it. Captain Kane Ulyanov rolled beneath a fallen ceiling beam, and he dug out his last vial of Dirt, and he shoved the injector into his outer thigh.

The dose might kill him before the spider did. The drug was called Dirt for a reason. It was a reference to death. Someone mentioned the phrase ‘dirt nap’ or ‘six feet of dirt’ and the name stuck. Already there had been a deep ache below his floating ribs these last few hours. His adrenal glands were swollen. Someone was yelling on comms, but his brain no longer parsed language. He understood one or two words at most.

The drug coursed through his bloodstream. His heart accelerated, his muscles engorged. The readout on his left suit sleeve said 200/110, heart rate 160, adrenaline level 1000ng/dl, brain activity moderately compromised. He wasn’t sure what any of it meant any more.

Ulyanov rolled out from under the beam. He threw up his fists like they taught him in hand-to-hand combat class. He balanced his weight loosely on the balls of his feet, his legs forming coiled suspension not so unlike hers. She sprang forward, fangs dripping. She was still hungry, still frenzied. All the human bodies snared in webs throughout the complex, and yet she wanted one more.

He threw a combination and perhaps stunned the spider a little, ignoring the crunch of small bones in his hands. At six feet eight, he was just about tall enough to reach the thing’s head.

Loops of webbing shot out. Her jaws snapped shut on his shoulder. By luck he thrashed and kicked his way free before the venom glands engaged and pumped the corrosion in.

Another snap of her jaws drew blood from his left forearm. Time to end this. He wouldn’t get lucky a third time. Ulyanov threw his weight forward and up, latching his arm around the seam of chitinous plates where the spider’s head fused with its chest to form the cephalothorax. Locking his legs around the thing’s body, he twisted onto its back, and he put every ounce of his waning strength into the elbow strike. One. Two. Three. The force of the blow split his right ulna into two shards. Doesn’t matter. No choice. Another axe-blow from his elbow, and finally the spider’s carapace shattered, and it dropped to the tiles as its brain matter spilled.

Ulyanov screamed a command to his failing muscles, and somehow summoned enough strength to wrench himself out from under the spider’s corpse.

The signs on the walls meant nothing now. Letters and numbers were just noise, weighted with no more meaning than static on a screen.

Still his legs remembered where the med bay was. His feet followed ancient subroutines, like a cat pouncing on a rat or mouse. The brain forgets, but bone and sinew understand. His body carried him down the corridor, emptily, mindlessly, like a strip of meat twitching in the pan because that is what meat does when exposed to salt.

And the building’s AI locked onto him via the few cameras still working, and its robotics array engaged, slipping a needle into his shoulder, weaving a cast for his shattered right forearm.

The Hunt

Marco Polo, Orbit of Uncharted Planet “WISE J050822.11-344357.1 b” alias “Bob”

Date: 23 February 2178

Time: 14:47:12 UTC

“Well, it looks like our preliminary naming of this world is off the table. We can't call a jewel like this just Bob.” Captain Jaxon Marks smirked and leaned back in his command chair, eyes fixed on the holographic display projected before him. The planet below, officially still designated WISE J050822.11-344357.1 b, was a stunning celestial body. Turquoise oceans, sprawling continents, and vast mountain ranges stretched across its surface. The ship's sensors had already confirmed a breathable atmosphere, and the readings were still coming in.

"Captain, I'm picking up something unusual," Specialist Elianore Tucker said, with a hint of excitement.

Captain Marks's gaze snapped towards Tucker, looking sceptical. "More unusual than a garden world, Specialist? Don’t tell me we found aliens."

Tucker nodded, her eyes darting between the captain and the data streaming across her console. "Affirmative, sir. I'm reading structures, possibly habitations, and what appears to be a network of roads or pathways."

Marks's brow furrowed. "That's impossible. We're over 200 light-years from Earth. There's no way a human settlement could be out here without us knowing about it."

He leaned forward, his voice taking on a more serious tone. "Double-check your readings, Specialist. I want to know if this is some kind of anomaly or a glitch in our sensors."

Tucker's fingers flew across her console, and after a few tense moments, she looked up at the captain. "Sir, I've re-run the scans. The readings are confirmed. Whatever this is, it's definitely not natural."

Captain Marks's mind was racing. The implications were staggering. If this was indeed a settlement, it could only mean one thing: they were not alone in the universe. The thought sent a shiver down his spine. He had always wondered if humanity would ever encounter extraterrestrial life, and now, it seemed, he might be the first to do so.

"Alright, Specialist," Marks said, his voice measured. "Let's take a closer look. Raise our sensors to high gain and see if we can gather more information about this... settlement."

As the Marco Polo's sensors began to probe the planet's surface, Captain Marks couldn't shake the feeling that they were on the cusp of something momentous. Something that would change the course of human history forever.

"Captain, I'm reading something else," Tucker reported hoarsely.

Marks's eyes locked onto the specialist. "What is it, Tucker?"

Specialist Elianore Tucker's voice cut through the calm of the bridge, her tone laced with concern. "Captain, I'm reading a disturbance in the Warp C-Band. It's distorted, but it's definitely there."

Captain Marks raised an eyebrow. "C-Band? Nobody uses that for warp, Elianore. It's too violent."

Tucker nodded. "I know, sir. Most WEST ships use the E-Band, it's harder to focus but smoother to sail.”

Marks was well aware of that. The Marco Polo could even use the experimental G-Band, which allows for nearly 2000 times the speed of light but was even more finicky to focus.

Just as Tucker finished speaking, the bridge was bathed in the eerie glow of incoming ships. Two hundred vessels, each a behemoth compared to the Marco Polo, emerged from the depths of space.

There was dire tension in the air as Captain Marks' eyes widened in alarm.

And immediately the proximity alarm sounded! Thousands over thousands of ballistic objects launched from the armada towards the Marco Polo.

"Red alert! Evade, evade, evade!” shouted Captain Marks, “Bring SHORAD online, now! Navigator Dorelman, calculate a warp out of this clusterfuck!"

The Marco Polo shuddered as the antimatter reactors roared to life, propelling the ship forward at nearly 10g. The inertial dampeners struggled to compensate, the crew was still thrown back into their seats. The SHORAD turrets sprang to life, spewing forth a hail of point-defense projectiles that shredded most of the incoming ballistic objects.

Captain Marks's grin was a mixture of relief and adrenaline. "That was a lucky call, people! We're clear of the initial barrage!"

But Navigator Dorelman's voice was laced with concern. "Captain, I'm having trouble getting the warp drive online. The disturbance from the C-Band is too great."

Marks's eyes narrowed. "Keep trying, Dorelman. We need to get out of here, now!"

As the Marco Polo continued to accelerate, the crew struggled to keep up with the chaos. The ship was taking small shrapnel damage, but it was still whizzing through space at incredible velocity, dodging the incoming fire like a fly a fly squatter.

Weapon Officer Kurz's voice cut through the turmoil. "Captain, the enemy is firing unguided... cannon balls? And they're using a 'crossing the T' formation, like a pre-industrial sea fleet, firing broadsides?"

The bridge crew exchanged stunned glances. What kind of enemy would use such outdated tactics? And how could someone be insane enough to travel through C-Band warp?

Captain Marks's face set in a determined expression. "We'll worry about that later. Right now, let's focus on getting out of here alive. Engineer Dorelman, can you give me an estimate on when we'll have the warp drive ready?"

Dorelman's voice was hesitant. "I'm not sure, Captain. The disturbance is too great. You need to bring distance between their warp generators and ours… I’ll try to calculate an E-Band warp, that should give us less speed but easier warp."

Marks's eyes locked onto the engineer. "Do it, Dorelman. I’ll give you some distance to work with, everyone, make haste, we need to get out of here, now!"

"Alright, listen up!" Captain Marks barked, his voice cutting through the chaos of the bridge. "Ready all weapons! We're going to punch a line into their formation and make off as fast as we can. Helm, align 75.15, Sensors, set target painters on every ship ahead. Weapons, prepare to fire the coax rail gun in short bursts. I want them licking theirs wounds but not dead. Repeat, avoid destroying these ships. Let's show them what we're made of!"

Targeting lasers beamed through the void, marking and measuring a dozen of the massive enemy battleships. Upon contact sensors calculated the distance to 14 klicks and immediately the rail-gun fired in short, controlled bursts, unleashing energized tungsten rods at 30km/s. The rods punched straight through the battleships, causing them to lose control and roll in space, venting atmosphere and inner structure.

Already the Marco Polo surged forward, its engines screaming in protest as it accelerated to 11g. The ship shuddered and groaned, its hull creaking under the strain. At least the enemy ships, due to their massive size, seemed to struggle to keep up. They lumbered forward, their acceleration pitifully slow compared to the Marco Polo's breakneck speed.

As the Marco Polo burst through the hole in the enemy formation, the four automated SHORAD turrets calculated imminent collisions, sprang to life, unleashing a hail of point-defense projectiles that obliterated almost two dozen small, nimble fighters within two seconds.

When the Marco Polo emerged on the other side of the enemy formation, its crew breathed a collective sigh of relief. But as they looked back at the enemy fleet, they couldn't help but feel a sense of incredulity.

"What in the...?" Captain Marks trailed off, shaking his head.

Weapon Officer Kurz chuckled. "I think we just got attacked by Steam Punk aliens, sir. I mean, who uses cannon balls in space?"

The bridge crew erupted into laughter, the tension of the past few minutes dissipating. But Captain Marks's expression quickly turned serious.

"Alright, let's keep the jokes to a minimum. We just got out of a very tight spot, and we don't know what other surprises these... Steam Punk aliens might have in store for us."

He turned to the crew, his eyes scanning the room. "Let's keep our focus on getting out of here and reporting back to WEST. If I never see those Steampunk aliens again, it will be too soon."

The bridge crew responded with a crisp "Aye, Sir," remaining resolute despite the smiles on their faces.

"Captain, I'm getting a clear warp on the E-Band," Specialist Tucker said, her voice steady. "We should be able to make it back to WEST space without any further incidents."

Captain Marks nodded, his eyes fixed on the navigation display. "Let's hope so, Elianore. Let's hope so."

Marks continued to call out commands in preparation for warp, his voice steady and calm. "Alright, let's get ready to head back to Earth. Navigation, plot a course for Earth. Engineer Dorelman, get me warp, whatever you can manage."

Just as the crew was about to execute the orders, a Security Ensign burst into the bridge, out of breath. "Hold the warp! Hold the warp, Captain!"

The bridge crew turned to look at the Ensign, annoyance and amusement on their faces.

Captain Marks raised an eyebrow. "What is it, Ensign...?"

"Jamil, sir," the Ensign replied, still gasping for air. "I'm Ensign Jamil. I couldn't help but overhear your plan to warp back to Earth, sir."

Marks's expression turned skeptical. "And what's wrong with that plan, Ensign?"

Jamil took a deep breath before speaking. "Sir, I think we should not underestimate the enemy. We should not warp back directly to Earth. We don’t know…"

Kurz, the Weapon Officer, stepped forward, droning with a stern voice. "Ensign, you're breaking protocol. You should have reported to your superior officer before coming to the bridge."

But Captain Marks interrupted Kurz, his voice calm. "No, no, Kurz. The Ensign speaks rightfully. Navigation, plot a course straight out of the galactic plane, away from Earth. We'll go to warp as soon as possible."

The bridge crew exchanged surprised glances, but Marks continued, his eyes locked on Jamil. "The Ensign is correct. The enemy might have outdated weapon technology but we don’t know if the enemy is able to track warp signals. We better don’t draw a map for him to our home world. And just to make myself clear, if your Captain makes a mistake, warn him. The worst thing that can happen for being wrong is an amused smile on your Captain's face."

As the ship entered E-Band Warp, Captain Marks turned to Jamil, a small smile on his face. "So, Ensign Jamil, what's your story? What brings you to the Marco Polo?"

Jamil smiled back, his eyes sparkling with amusement. "I'm an ex-police officer, sir. I studied criminal psychology in Mumbay and worked for the homicide department for 25 years. After my second gastric ulcer I wanted to see space before retiring. My job aboard the Marco Polo is usually to calm down minor disputes and maybe lock up a drunk once a week."

Marks chuckled. "You're overqualified for this job, Ensign."

Jamil grinned. "You can't be overqualified in space, sir."

Marks raised an eyebrow. "Fair point. So, Ensign, why do you think I didn't order to destroy the enemy ships?"

Jamil thought for a moment before responding. "I think you didn't want to escalate the situation further, sir."

Marks shock his head. "That's a good explanation but incorrect, Ensign. I didn't think that far, but I knew the enemy would be more busy rescuing damaged ships than writing off destroyed ships."

Jamil smiled. "You're not much of a diplomatic guy, are you, sir?"

Marks smirked. "Not at all, Ensign. But I'll take that as a compliment."

He turned to Jamil, his expression serious. "Stay around the bridge, Ensign. You have earned it and maybe we both can learn from each other."

Jamil nodded, a small smile on his face. "Aye, aye, Captain."

The Marco Polo warped for two hours, covering almost half a light year of distance. Finally Captain Marks ordered the ship to leave warp.

"Alright, let's take a look around," Marks announced, his voice calm. "Tucker, scan the warp bands and see if we have any company."

Tucker nodded, her eyes fixed on her console. "Aye, aye, Captain. Scanning now."

Jamil, who had taken a seat to the left of the Captain, strapped into the safety belts like everyone else, looked at Marks with a curious expression.

"Captain, I have to ask, what's the plan here?" Jamil asked.

The Captain checked his own console without looking up. "We're just taking a look around, Ensign. Making sure we're not being followed."

But before Marks could continue, Tucker's voice cut through the calm.

"Captain, I have interference on the C-Band warp, incoming!" Tucker announced, “ETA four mike.”

Marks's expression turned serious. "Align straight away from the incoming angle and accelerate to cruise at 6g. Let's create some distance."

The Marco Polo's engines roared to life, propelling the ship forward at 6g. The crew was pushed back into their seats as the ship accelerated.

Four minutes later, the enemy fleet popped back into real space, right where the Marco Polo had left warp. But the Marco Polo was no longer there. It had moved away over 1500 kilometers, far outside of the enemy's weapons range.

Tucker's eyes were fixed on her console, scanning the newcomer. "Captain, I'm reading the enemy fleet. 174 ships, the same fleet that jumped on us at planet Bob, minus 24 ships."

"This is not good," Kurz said, his voice low. "We can't outrun them if they can follow us through warp."

Marks nodded and used the intercom. "Dorelman, when can you get full speed on the G-Band?"

Dorelman's voice came over the comms system. "Even without those C-Band disturbances, it will always take a couple of hours, Captain. The G-Band is a finicky thing and only used for long distance warp."

Marks's expression turned thoughtful. "Alright, let's keep moving. We'll try to lose them in the vastness of space. It seems the enemies relativistic acceleration is limited around 2g. Let’s keep cruising at 5g until we can get into the G-Band"

“174 ships.” stated Jamil. “This means they left 12 ships to tend the damaged 12 ships. Their logic is somewhat resembling human psychology.”

The Marco Polo continued to burn its engines through space, its crew on alert, waiting to see what the enemy would do next.

Tucker's voice cut through the calm of the bridge, her tone urgent. "Captain, the enemy is aligning towards us, creating a C-Band-Warp Field!"

Jamil and Kurz looked shocked, their eyes fixed on Marks, who already knew what the enemy was trying to do.

"A short range warp, right on top of us!" Marks exclaimed, his voice rising in alarm.

The bridge erupted into chaos as Marks shouted out hasty commands to get battle ready. "Dorelman, get us warp, G, F, E, D Band, whatever, just get us moving NOW!"

Dorelman's voice came over the intercom, laced with frustration. "Captain, you better make up your mind! I've just configured the engines for an G-band warp!"

Marks's response was immediate. "JUST DO IT, Dorelman! We don't have time for this!"

The enemy fleet suddenly flashed in at just seven kilometers to their side, immediately opening fire. The Marco Polo's SHORAD turrets sprang to life, spewing forth a hail of point-defense projectiles to counter the incoming fire.

"Red Alert, evasive maneuvers!" Marks shouted, his voice carrying above the din of the battle. "Fire Wrecker Torpedos at the closest ships!"

The four Torpedo Tubes opened fire, sending the bulky warheads towards two carriers and two massive dreadnoughts. The carriers spewed out fighters, which were quickly engaged by the Marco Polo's medium range missile systems.

As the battle raged on, Kurz took the liberty to fire the coax rail gun at targets of opportunity, literally cutting an alien cruiser in half and punching holes into five more ships. The crew was thrown around their seats, only held in place by the safety constrains as the ship performed insane evasive maneuvers.

For almost ten minutes, the Marco Polo danced through the void, avoiding the enemy's attacks and striking back whenever possible. Finally, Dorelman's voice came over the intercom, his tone relieved.

"Captain, I've got a D-Band Warp ready! We can jump to warp now!"

“Engage!” shouted Marks so loud Dorelman could hear him without the intercom.

The Marco Polo sped off to warp space, riding along the rough D-band warp. The crew was shaken around, struggling to maintain their footing as the ship shuddered and groaned. The D-band was the oldest practically used warp technology but closer to a roller coaster than a smooth flight.

Marks's voice cut through the din, demanding ammunition and damage report. "Alright, let's get a report on our status. What's our ammo situation?"

Kurz’s voice boomed angrily behind him. "Captain, we've got one SHORAD turret down, and the three remaining are down to 30% ammunition. Mid-Range Missiles are down to 50%, and we've got 8 Torpedos left out of 16. The coax rail gun has 60% ammunition left."

Marks's expression turned grim. "Damage control, what's our damage situation?"

The damage control officer's voice came over the intercom, his tone strained. "Captain, we've got 400 small leaks, temporarily sealed by security foam. We're working on welding more permanent seals, but it's going to take some time."

Marks nodded, his mind racing. "Alright, let's prioritize the SHORAD ammunition, take it from the damaged turret to the working ones. Whatever comes next, without SHORAD we are toast. Don’t worry about the seals, the foam should hold up for a while and we still have EVA suits."

Kurz's smuggly laughed, his tone triumphant. "Captain, we disabled seven enemy ships, with at least four being total losses. And I scored at least 20 random hits on other ships, nothing critical, but hopefully taking them out of the fight for the time being."

Jamil shook his head in concern. "Captain, I think the enemy Commander is taking this personally. He is becoming more and more reckless, sacrificing ships in a fight he could easily avoid. He's not going to leave ships behind to help the damaged ones. He might even bring the damaged ships back into the fight, even though they're only good for soaking up more hits."

His face turned sour as the bad news kept on coming, meanwhile the Marco Polo rumbled harshly through the D-band warp, the crew on edge, waiting to see what the enemy would do next.

“Do not discuss this on the Bridge.” stated Captain Marks, “Kurz, Tucker, Jamil, Dorelman. Mess Hall. Now.”

Soon the core command found itself in the deserted mess hall.

Captain Marks's expression turned grim as he concluded the dire prospects they faced. "We're dealing with an enemy that can travel the violent C-Band as fast as we can travel the calm E-Band. They can do precise short range warps, and they're not afraid to get into a bloody fight without reason."

"Agreed, Captain," Jamil concluded calmly. "Their immediate violent reaction shows they're utterly territorial. Their restless pursuit hints at them being vindictive too. They're not just defending their territory, they're seeking revenge."

"Sir, the sheer size of their fleet is ridiculous," Kurz said, his voice laced with concern. "And that seems to be just one fleet guarding a single farming world with low population. The sheer tonnage of that fleet almost surpasses all space-born assets WEST holds."

"Affirmative, Lieutenant," Tucker added. "It's like they're trying to intimidate us with sheer numbers, and to be honest, it works. But it's not just the numbers, it's the tactics they're using. They will throw everything at us, no matter the costs."

"A single farming world could never sustain such a fleet, Captain," Jamil said, his eyes squinting. "They must be a multi-star civilization. Maybe hundreds, if not thousands of worlds. The implications are staggering. No matter how superior our weaponry is, a fight between our civilizations would be apocalyptic for us."

Captain Marks stood up and straightened his uniform, looking sternly at his command crew "I will not lead them to Earth, and I will not let the Marco Polo fall into their hands," Captain Marks said, his voice firm. "No matter the costs. We'll do whatever it takes to protect our people and our way of life. Sooner I will steer the Marco Polo into a black hole."

"Aye, aye, Captain," the bridge crew replied in unison.

"We'll keep running, and we'll keep fighting," Captain Marks said, his voice resolute. "We'll find a way to outsmart them, outmaneuver them, and outlast them. And if we fail, we make sure they get nothing out of it."

The Marco Polo shuddered as it hit a series of magnetic anomalies of the D-Band warp, everyone tightening their safety belts. This wasn’t going even close to the book.

Jamil spoke up, a hint of sarcasm in his words. "Captain, before we hop into a black hole, I think we should try something. We can't just give up."

Captain Marks nodded grimmly. "I agree. Let's hear some ideas. Speak your minds, people."

Tucker spoke up first. "We can never leave our chasers behind while running on the D-Band, Captain. At worst, those Steampunkers are even able to attack us in warp when they catch up. At best we run out of energy sooner or later."

Dorelman nodded in agreement. "And we would need a couple of minutes in real space to reconfigure our engines for E-Band again. Easily half a day for the G-Band."

Kurz's voice was grim. "We won't survive long enough with the Steampunkers warping right on top of us. We need to come up with something, and fast."

Officer Dorelman's face lit up with a hold-my-beer expression. "I think I have something, Captain. One of our eight warp field generators has been damaged and can't safely operate any more. Instead, we could use it as a decoy."

Marks's eyes narrowed. "Go on."

Dorelman explained, "We could strap an auxiliary generator to it and let it drift while the Marco Polo drops out of warp and reconfigures the engines for E-Band Warp. The decoy would continue on, making it look like we're still running on the D-Band."

Tucker's eyes lit up. "I can synchronize the warp fields between the decoy and the Marco Polo. For an external observer, it would be barely a noticeable blink when the Marco Polo drops out of warp and the decoy continues onwards."

Dorelman nodded. "The warp field generator would need to run at 200% to actually fake our signature. It would sooner or later explode like a nuke.”

“Later would be better,” Jamil remarked. “How about slowly reducing the energy after launch? It's better to keep them guessing than to completely expose the bait by blowing it up.”

Captain Marks's expression turned thoughtful. "Let's get to work. Dorelman, get the decoy ready. Tucker, synchronize the warp fields. Kurz, you’ll have navigation while Dorelman is busy, also double check all weapon systems. Jamil, get me regular sitreps."

The crew sprang into action, their faces set with determination. It was a long shot, but also a good plan.

One hour later, the preparations for the decoy maneuver were complete. Everyone on the bridge was tense as Dorelman opened the hangar doors and floated the decoy outside, a worrying pile of scrap metal held together by duct tape and prayers.

Tucker's hands flew across her console as she tried to synchronize the warp fields. "Slow down, Captain, just a couple of percent. I need to align the fields perfectly."

Captain Marks's. "Kurz, you heard her. After the decoy gets going we don't have much time."

The tension on the bridge was palpable as Tucker worked to synchronize the warp fields. Finally, she nodded, her eyes fixed on her console. "It's done, Captain. Everything is running on computer now."

The Marco Polo's warp field flickered and died, and the decoy propelling both forward for one, two seconds. Then the Marco Polo slipped out of the warp field and with a hefty shaking entered real space. The decoy, meanwhile, was already speeding away several times faster than light.

The crew held their breath as the massive fleet of pursuers passed by through warp space. They could almost feel the disturbance of real space, like someone walking over their graves. It was a chilling feeling, but they knew they had to hold silence.

Dorelman's voice was calm and focused. "Engine room here, starting to align our warp generators to the E-Band Warp Field. ETA three Mike.”

“Let's get away from our warp exit,” Captain Marks announced “Helm, heading 315.90, cruise speed. Dorelman, I love your tinkering but I am gonna get ready if things go south before we get into warp again."

The Marco Polo's relativistic engines roared to life, the ship began to shake and tremble. The crew held on, this was a risky gamble, but they had to try.

Kurz let out a hearty laugh as the ship reached cruise speed. "Let's do this. We'll make it out of here, or we'll die trying."

But then of Tucker spoke concerned. "Distortions in the D-Warp-Field have suddenly ceased, Captain."

Kurz's voice was grim. "Our decoy might have just gone the way of the dodo."

Moments later, Tucker announced, "C-Warp-Fields are winding down, Captain. The enemy seems to be slowing down."

Dorelman's voice was calm and focused. "ETA two minutes for E-Band-Warp, Captain."

The enemy signal came back, moving back towards them. "ETA one mike till Warp, Captain," Dorelman announced.

The enemy armada dropped out of warp, some 1200 kilometers away, realigning for a short warp towards the Marco Polo. "ETA 15 seconds, Captain," Tucker warned.

The enemy fleet blinked in within nine kilometers. "ETA 10 seconds, Captain," Dorelman announced.

Marks's opened the intercom. "Dorelman, hit the button whenever you're ready."

The enemy barrage was underway, but the Marco Polo was ready. "ETA minus 5 seconds, Captain. HIT IT!" Dorelman announced.

The Marco Polo blinked into warp, the enemy barrage wasted on empty space. The crew breathed a collective sigh of relief as the ship disappeared into the safety of the E-Band warp.

"Made it, Captain," Dorelman said, his voice laced with relief.

Marks's voice was calm and resolute. "Let's keep moving, people. We're not out of this yet."

The flight in the E-Band was now much smoother than before on the D-Band. The crew had settled into a routine, with repairs going well and the ship managing to keep a safe distance from their pursuers.

With Captain Marks overseeing the repairs of a torpedo launcher, Tucker's voice came over the intercom. "Captain, I've managed to guesswork from the sensor readings the number and tonnage of our followers. Still over 150 ships on our tail."

Captain Marks's expression turned grim. "Keep monitoring them, Tucker. We need to know what they're up to."

The next four days passed in a blur of routine and tension. The crew worked tirelessly to keep the ship running, while the Steampunkers, as the crew had aptly nicknamed them, continued to pursue them.

On the fifth day, Captain Marks called a staff meeting, inviting Reactor Engineer Ling. "Ling, how's our fuel situation looking?"

Ling's expression was serious. "We can operate on this level for two weeks, Captain. But then we'll run out of fuel. We need to stop and scoop some Hydrogen, which would easily require a whole week."

Jamil, who had been quietly observing the conversation, spoke up. "Not exactly an option with the Steampunkers on hot pursuit, is it?"

Kurz's voice was laced with a hint of desperation. "Maybe it's better to go out with a bang than a fizzle. How about the black hole again?"

The room fell silent, with everyone brooding for a moment.

Again it was Jamil who broke the silence, "I wonder if the Steampunkers would follow us into the black hole too."

A sudden blink of realization washed over everyone.

Captain Marks's expression turned cold and calculating.

"It's not the Marco Polo that needs to end in a black hole. It's our pursuers."

A thoughtful Dorelman spoke spoke up. "The Steampunkers have a much lower relative acceleration, Captain. The Marco Polo can burn at 12g for several minutes, maybe more. The Steampunkers... never went beyond 2g. Even their fighters are slower than us."

Jamil's eyes narrowed at Dorelman. "What are you up to?"

Captain Marks let out a cruel chuckle. "We could warp into the gravitational field of a black hole, so close that the Marco Polo could escape at full thrust. But our pursuers would be sucked in, lacking the powerful relativistic engines like the Marco Polo has."

The room fell silent, with everyone considering the implications of Captain Marks's plan.

"Captain, what if the Steampunkers could just evade by a short distance warp?" wondered Tucker concerned.

Dorelman raised a brooding brow. "I'm unsure about the distortions of the black hole, Tucker. It might make their warp ineffective. But if not... If I could generate a B-Band Warp Field, this would definitely disable their C-Band-Fields."

Captain Marks's eyes narrowed. "Nobody travels in B-Band because it literally rips atoms apart, but just generating a disruption B-field, that should be not too hard."

Dorelman nodded. "I can try to modify the warp generators to produce a B-Band disruption field. But we'll need to search for known black holes to find one that's suitable for our plan. We don't want to end up in an active black hole with an accretion disk that glows at billions of degrees.”

Captain Marks's listened carefully then made his decision. "Let's get to work on this plan. I want a list of potential black holes and a detailed plan for generating a B-Band disruption field."

The teams were busy for the next hours, tinkering with the warp generators and researching known black holes. Dorelman and his team worked tirelessly to modify the warp generators, while Jamil, Tucker and Kurz poured over star charts and astronomical data to find the perfect black hole. Everyone knew that their plan was a long shot, but they were willing to try anything to shake off their pursuers.

Four days later. MACHO-20896-BLG-19, an intermediate black hole of he Olbert class, lied in ambush in the darkness, was invisible to the naked eye, only made its presence aware by bending the light of the stars behind it, even consuming light itself, its hunger eternal. And today would be feeding day.

The Marco Polo aligned its flight path tangential towards the gravity well of the monster, its course precise almost down to Planck length.

At his final speech to the crew Captain Marks's voice was calm and resolute.

"Crew of the Marco Polo, you know the plan. This is the moment we shine, no matter the costs. We'll either get home in one piece or die trying. But either way, the Steampunkers are going down into the black hole. If anyone can make this plan work it is us. We'll take out the Steampunkers and hopefully make it back to Earth in one piece. Failure is not an option."

The crew gave back a war cry, their cries full of determination. They knew that they would be dancing on the blade of a knife, the teeth of the monster itself, but they were ready to face it head-on.

And then the Marco Polo flashed back into real space next to MACHO-20896-BLG-19, its gravity well stretching out like a predators claw in the fabric of space-time.

Specialist Elianore Tucker shouted worried across the bridge. "Captain, we're fucking close to the event horizon! We're talking kilometers from the point of no return!"

Captain Marks's calmly called out commands. "Align the ship and fire all thrusters at max power! We need to stabilize our position and hold position for the B-field disruption."

The ship groaned as it was almost bent at 12g, hovering so close to the event horizon that the monster literally blacked out half the sky. The Marco Polo slowed down from falling towards the singularity of the black hole, the limits of known physics straining while keeping the ship intact.

Meanwhile in the engine hall, Dorelman's voice was screaming in frustration while trying to connect another auxiliary power cable directly into the third warp generator. "Come on, you piece of shit! Create the B-field!"

Jamil's voice chimed in, "Did you try rebooting? Maybe it just needs a kick?"

Dorelman's response was a string of curses, "I've tried everything, you numbskull! I've kicked it, I've screamed at it, I've even tried bribing it with a pint of beer!"

To make things worse, the Steampunkers warped in. 152 ships, caught off-guard, facing the black hole, some straight forward warped beyond the event horizon, gone for good, the rest immediately pulled in without mercy. As expected, they quickly aligned, creating their C-warp-fields.

But it was too late. Jamil went bonkers and used a sledgehammer to force the power connector into the warp field generator. Suddenly the lights all over the ship flickered and the generator awoke with a dull humming.

“You fucking did it.” Dorelman laughed and focused the B-field, and the Steampunkers' warp fields violently flickered out of existence, their warp drives crippled by the B-field disruption.

The Marco Polo's crew watched in awe as the Steampunkers' ships were pulled towards the black hole, their screams of despair almost echoing through the void. It was a brutal, merciless end, and the Marco Polo's watched without remorse, the Steampunkers' ships slowly redshifted towards the event horizon, their lights fading into the distance. The Marco Polo's crew surelly respected their enemies but didn't shed a single tear for them.

"Well, I guess black holes just suck," Jamil chuckled with the last enemy ship slowly faded from space-time.

The Marco Polo still burned its engines at 12g, creeping out of the gravity well of the black hole.

"We're so close to the black hole's event horizon” Tucker's voice was filled with awe, “that our time shift is almost by a factor of one thousand, Captain. Time is literally slowing down for us relative to the rest of the universe. One second for us is almost 15 minutes for the outside universe"

Captain Marks's voice was cold and calculating. "Keep burning, people. We need to get out of here before we become part of the black hole's body count."

But before they could even process the enormity of their situation, another fleet of almost 400 ships exited warp below them. More Steampunks to feed the black hole.

The crew's reaction was one of flabbergasted shock. "What the...? How did they even...?" Tucker’s voice trailed off as he stared at the viewscreen in horror.

There was incredulity in Captain Marks' voice. “Did they really send 400 ships as reinforcements without sending a scout ahead? What kind of military strategy is that?”

Tucker's voice was barely above a whisper while she read her sensors. "I think this IS the ahead scout, Captain."

Moments later, almost 2000 ships blinked into real space, also instantly falling towards the black hole. The sheer panicked reaction was evident as tens of thousands of escape pods were launched, none escaping the hunger of the black hole.

And then another fleet, again 2000 ships. And another, 800 ships. All ending up in the maws of the black hole.

The dying took on absurd scales as nothing seemed to stop the vengeful Steampunks from warping into their death. The Marco Polo crew watched in stunned silence as the carnage unfolded before their eyes.

And then, finally... nothing.

The Marco Polo crew remained silent, their faces pale and shocked, as their battle-marked ship slowly crawled out of the gravity well of the black hole. The blackness of the hungry stellar predator seemed to hunger for them, not content with the thousands of ships it had already consumed, swallowed them whole, a dark warning of the horrors they had just witnessed, the crew's minds were reeling, trying to process the sheer scale of the destruction they had just witnessed.

Two hours passed, and the Marco Polo cleared the gravity well of the black hole, finally Captain Marks's relaxed and send out the long awaited command, low and somber. "Dorelman, get us out of here."

Jamil reminded the Captain gently. "Not directly to Earth, Captain. We don't know if they have any more surprises waiting for us."

Marks nodded, his eyes fixed on the viewscreen. "I know. Let's take the long way home."

They entered E-band-warp, again out of the galactic plane, their engines humming as they zig-zagged through local space to shake off any pursuers.

But none showed up.

For weeks, the Marco Polo travelled the endless dark of space, changing course randomly, sometimes luring for a couple of hours behind a deep space asteroid, looking for their hunters, their only companions the distant stars and the endless darkness of space. Finally, they dared to make a long stop around a dark rogue neptuniod, drifting between stars, siphoning off its cold hydrogen and conducting repairs.

Still, no sign of their hunters.

The crew's silence was palpable, an almost suffocating blanket. They knew what they had seen, what they had witnessed. Yes, they saw the defeat of their enemy. But more ominously, they had glimpsed the violent resolve that lay beneath their surface. The message they carried back to Earth was clear: humanity was not alone, and any notions of friendship were a delusion.

After weeks adrift, they finally engaged the G-band warp field, propelling the Marco Polo back toward Earth. They returned with news of how one scientific vessel had vanquished an armada of thousands of warships, but also about an unrelenting enemy. The defeat they had inflicted upon the new enemy would surely awake a vendetta in their alien foes. They had awoken a giant, filled with terrible resolve.

For better or worse humanity would now awake its own monsters to prepare when they meet again.

The story itself is complete but I think I need to rewrite some wording and maybe add a more fitting ending.

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?

Not mine, but by several people on tumblr (Archive.org link in case the tumblr link pushes a sign in)

Undocumented Buttons

"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.

The Survivors

“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.”

Found the first chapter of this on r/HFY and was entertained, saw it got posted offsite, thought I might share here. Warning for Wattpad.

Summary:

Humanity emerges from the aftermath of the technological singularity having conquered scarcity, disease, poverty, aging, death, and, or so they thought, even war. With the aid of artificial intelligence and uplifted animals they have founded a virtual Utopia among the stars where people work only for personal development, satisfaction, or selflessly for the benefit of others.

An attempt to help another space-faring species has unexpected consequences that threatens to engulf a whole region of space, and the Human Consensus is forced to intervene. When the small conflict grows into an existential threat to their entire civilization, humanity is forced for the first time to ask the question: can Utopia survive total war?

I was reading a TTRPG article and some of the things it said just made me think of a lot of HFY stories and with why nonhuman species/races are often written the way they are here, and how they are juxtaposed with humans to get a HFY effect. It might be stuff I might have known in the back of my head, but it feels different to have it actually written out by someone else.

In a section about always-good and always-evil fantasy races…

All of which, by the by, highlights a very important thing about humans. Humans are uniquely and distinctly not always anything. They can rise and fall like no other race. And that makes them special and powerful and dangerous.

About fantasy races being more of a monoculture than having individuals…

I know it’s a big part of why fantastic worlds feel fantastic. If every member of every race is a unique and distinct individual, then everyone’s just people. Some people are green and some have funny ears and some get to reroll the d20 whenever it shows a 1, but they’re all just people. And thus there’s nothing wonderful or special or magical or terrible or frightening about anything that isn’t human.

Sorry, your elf isn’t special if he’s a unique individual. He’s just like everyone else.

This got a nice little subsection to itself:

Do you know why always evil humanoids are great fodder for stories? It’s because they show what happens when, on a societal level, humans don’t rise above their base instincts. They represent humans who failed to create social orders that curb their impulses toward evil. Orcs are humans whose societies are governed by anger, bitterness, and hatred. Hobgoblins are humans whose societies are all about military conquest and enslavement. Goblins are humans whose societies reward the greedy, the grasping, the cowardly, and the lazy. It’s nice to be able to explore this shit without having to use stripped-down caricatures of historical societies that require more nuance to understand than what a story or game can handle.

I’d also like to point out that even the good non-humans aren’t exactly aspirational in traditional fantasy. Take Tolkien’s elves or his ents for example. They were kind of crap. They did nothing, accomplished nothing, and changed nothing until spurred on by the normal, everyday, human people whom Frodo and Sam and Merry and Pippin — and to a lesser extent Aragorn — represented.

Because humans are awesome when they make themselves awesome. When they don’t, though, they’re just the worst.

And then…

Remember that all this shit’s really just to show how amazing the human capacity for self-determination really is. We don’t appreciate that because, well, we’re surrounded by humans in the real world. That’s why we need fantasy worlds to show us all sorts of creatures that lack the traits we humans take for granted.

Originally posted on r/HFY, also crossposted to the Royal Road. Features us healing aliens :)

In no particular order, some of the Humans Are Weird stories which the author, Betty Adams, often crossposts to the HFY sub on Reddit. I have linked to her website where she also hosts them, instead of Reddit.

One of my favorite HFY series from r/HFY. It’s urban fantasy mixed with slice of life. The author has since moved off Reddit and is now posting it on the Royal Road website!

This one’s sci-fi, and in my opinion pretty HFY too. I personally think it helps if you know stuff about Alan Turing, but if not it’s still a good read.

Link takes you to a PDF on an external site, not to a page on Reddit.

I’d say this was pretty well-known on r/hfy. Figured I ought to post it here!

If you don’t want to read 20 pages and just have time for the summary, you can find one on the story’s Wikipedia page!