thisisdefinitelyacreativename:
Four roommates are extraterrestrials who have taken human form in the hopes of learning about Earth’s culture. Unfortunately, each alien is from a different planet and believes the other three are normal humans.
I would read this
OH MY GOD
Starring Jack Black, The Rock, Jeff Goldblum and Taika Waititi
And Mads Mikkelsen, the human neighbour that is weird enough that all the aliens think he’s an alien too.
they all are sure hes an alien and will go talk to him about how hard it is being an alien on earth, will even talk really frankly to him about it, but weirdly no matter what they say hes always like ‘oh yeah i can relate’
It got about a thousand times better than the last time I reblogged this I think.
They find each other because one of them puts up an ad for PERFECLY NORMAL HUMAN ROOMMATES NEEDED and none of them know enough about earth culture to realize how weird that is
The roommates develop a close, loving friendship with each other while still not knowing that none of them are humans. They begin to feel some sadness at hiding their true nature from their dear “human” friends.
Every now and them one will say something to kind of hint at the idea of aliens, trying to feel the others out. Unfortunately it often gets misinterpreted as trying to figure out if that person’s an alien and the response is usually paranoid and negative.
Unknown to any of the aliens, two of them are from different planets that have been at war with one another for centuries, and have been raised to believe inhabitants of the enemy planet are bloodthirsty monsters.
Give me this now.
Tag: aliens
Aliens have invaded and are taking over. Their technology, intelligence, and power is unstoppable. They just didnt plan on one thing: The old gods returning.
When they first arrived, we were overjoyed. Proof that we weren’t alone
in the universe, that there were other races to share and exchange technologies
with! Their arrival brought about world peace – with other life forms out
there, we needed to present a united front. World hunger and poverty was solved
within a decade, a demonstration to our new friends that we were worthy of the
responsibility of exploring the galaxy.They disagreed.
They accessed our histories, they saw everything, and they recoiled in
horror. They could not fathom the world we had created, and the solutions we
had brought about not because it was the right thing to do, but to impress
them.They were not impressed. They told us, regret tinging the translators,
that we could not be trusted as keepers of this world. The damage we had done
was coming close to being irreparable, and for our own good they’d need to take
over.I have to say, I agreed – humans are terrible. But the funny thing
about humanity is, even if something is right, if it means giving up our
control, it is wrong.We fought back.
At first we fought back democratically. This race that had descended
from the stars was peaceful, never seeming to favour violence. We didn’t think
they’d start killing indiscriminately. We didn’t think they’d take inspiration
from our own history books.As with so many other things, we were wrong.
An extreme group of humans succeeded in ambushing and killing several
of their high-ranking Xenos. Human lives were lost in the process, but the
extremists saw that as a necessary sacrifice, a means to an end. The Xenos had
been shown that we wouldn’t tolerate their kind here, that they should leave
and let us get on with things how we always have.Within days, war had been declared, and we learned why we should have
tried harder. Had they decided to simply fight the moment they touched down, to
systematically advance and wipe out every human life they came across, we
wouldn’t have stood a chance. Their weapons, armour, tactics, the sheer
firepower and the size of their armies were beyond comprehension. Out of rage
and grief, they marched over us, and began the slow process of wiping us out.
Bullets couldn’t pierce their armour and shields, rockets fell to the ground
lifeless, and even nuclear devices were somehow disabled mid-flight.Still we fought back. Humans never have figured out how to give up when
all hope is lost.There was no formal resistance of rebellion, we simply gathered,
fought, and survived where we could. When something new happened, it took
weeks, months, to reach every last survivor.And then, something unbelievable happened.
Stories started filtering through to the pockets of us in hiding, strange
stories – a freak electrical storm in Greece that appeared from a clear blue
sky and wiped out a thousand of them in less than 15 minutes; Xenos impaled on
braches of rare trees, some kind of grisly warning that we chalked up to particularly
violent survivors in that area; whole armies frozen to death because the
temperature around them had dropped too quickly for their environmental suits
to keep up with. Freak weather patterns that worked in our favour, violent
survivors, terrain they couldn’t navigate. That’s what we told ourselves when
the stories filtered through.But then they got weirder. There were stories of Xenos being swallowed
by the ground itself. A pack of wolves, larger than anything ever before seen
appeared from a crack in a mountain range to storm through an encampment and
kill every last Xenos. There was a massive surge in the number of corvids
around the world, and they always seemed to congregate where the Xenos were
thickest… days before something killed everything. Then they’d vanish, and more
corvids would appear somewhere else. Harbingers, just like the old tales.One day a massive seafaring vessel chasing a fishing trawler was pulled
under the water – no reefs or icebergs in the area, and the sea mines had long
been disarmed and deactivated. I spoke to a man who had been in the sloop
running from the Xenos ship, and he swore blind the Kraken had got it, the
tentacles alone bigger than the tiny boat he’d been huddled on. He shuddered
and drank too much, and I put it down to hallucinations caused by a bad batch
of moonshine. There was no such thing as monsters.Then we heard about warriors. We heard about chariots, of all things,
chasing down whole platoons of Xenos in Egypt, chariots so bright it felt like
staring into the sun; a huge hound with three heads was spotted in Greece, a
man in shadows and a woman of light removing the leash as Xenos advanced on
them; a woman showed up in Iceland standing head and shoulders above the
tallest man there, with an army of her own. They didn’t seem to fall in battle,
and pushed the Xenos back, fighting with sword and shield and spear, a fury
that our alien invaders couldn’t match.Humanoid creatures with eyes of fire supposedly began granting wishes
over in Syria, as long as your wish was for them to kill your enemies. There
were sightings in Ireland of pure white horses, horses that once ridden wouldn’t
let you off, that dragged people into bogs and rivers. Tales came out of brazil of monstrously large snakes, sometimes
with the faces of women, dragging aliens into the gloom of the rivers and
rainforests.But there’s no such thing as monsters.
I finally believed when I saw three women facing down the largest army
of Xenos I’d ever come across – at least twelve thousand by my counting. I’d
been running from a scouting party, and when I stumbled out of the treeline onto
a road I realised they’d chased me right into the path of the oncoming horde.The moment you face your death is a strange one. Everything felt calm
except the thundering of my pulse in my ears, and the crows that seemed to come
from nowhere to blot out the sun.Then three women strolled into the road in front of me, placing
themselves between me and the advancing army. A young woman, barely out of
girlhood; someone who could have easily been my mother; and a woman so old she
was almost bent double. It was the oldest who strode towards the mass of Xenos
without any fear, leading the other two towards their deaths, and the din of
the crows got louder.The youngest one glanced my way and smiled playfully, and something
from my grandmother’s tales made me flatten myself to the ground, hands clamped
firmly over my ears.The scream started low, in the back of the old woman’s throat,
travelling through the ground and making every bone in my body shudder with the
vibration. Realisation began to dawn on me as Maiden and Mother joined in with
their Crone, and the scream climbed to a crescendo that could have shattered glass.
Even with my hands tight over my ears it pierced me to my core, a screaming
agony that made me want to curl in on myself and die.I survived because it wasn’t meant for me.
The Xenos, however, felt the full force of the rage these women contained.
An entire planet’s worth of grieving poured out of them in this shriek, rooting
their enemies to the ground with the difference in tone and pitch between these
three women telling their stories.The mother stood tall and resolute, screaming her grief at these
invaders, a mother mourning all of her children.The crone’s low snarl was that of war. Weary of the fighting but always
ready to defend what’s hers, she growled her challenge, and the Xenos couldn’t
stand against it.The maiden was hope, the only act of defiance in a world on the edge of
ruin. When everything was dust, when the last stragglers of humanity were
contemplating giving up, she was the hope that kept them fighting.Part of me wondered how many shirts they’d washed, how many rivers they’d
wept together, before standing up and saying “no more.”The scream stopped abruptly, leaving me feeling like the breath had all
been sucked out of me, a void in the air around me that rushed back in and
filled my lungs with a long, shuddering gasp.I opened my eyes to carnage. The Xenos had died where they’d stood,
their organs haemorrhaging, what passed for blood pouring from every orifice,
their eyes turning to liquid in their skulls. Bodies were everywhere, and the
crows circling overhead had fallen silent, uninterested in the feast this must
have surely been for them.The Morrigan was one woman now, ageless and terrifying.
“Get up, child.” She commanded, and I had no choice but to obey,
trembling legs pushing me to my feet. She reached out a hand, and gently wiped a
trail of blood away from my ear. “Did you really think we’d abandoned you?” She
murmured, and the crows descended, carrying her to the next battle.Monsters are real, and some of them look like people. But the Gods are
also real, and they still believe in us.So I’m still fighting, and my battle cry is full of hope.
Wow… I have no words. This is just magnificent.
You know that whole trope where like, the protagonists get teleported up into the aliens’ spaceship or base or whatever and the alien appears to them only it doesn’t appear as it really looks like but rather, since it doesn’t want to scare the protagonists, it takes the form of something we find familiar and pleasing and is like, “I look like your dad or whatever–is this form okay?” Like I think about that trope a lot and I think like, what if the alien couldn’t pick out a form via telepathy and only had earth media to try and decide what form would scare its human guests least and be accepted almost immediately and honestly the more I think about it the more options for what form that might be are just really fun to me.
“I have chosen the form of your earth playwright and composer Lin-Manuel Miranda–do not be afraid. I come in peace.”
“Greetings. I am Glofnorbo of the cloud you call the ‘Pegasus Nebula.’ I have scanned your earth media from afar and empirically decided that you would find the form of the one known as Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson most pleasing. I have come to confer with your leaders.”
“Do not be panic. I come in peace. I have assumed the form of your insectoid demigoddess ‘Hatsune Miku’ so that we may communicate peacefully without my true form horrifying you.”
“It was decided that I would assume the form of your ‘Mister Rogers’ in order to best welcome your world to the galactic neighborhood without frightening your kind.”
“…So did your colleague take on the form of Jack Black for that reason too?”
“No, that is the actual Jack Black. We do not know how to make him leave.”
Secretly scary
To a telepathic race, Humans would be terrifying, borderline psychotic, monsters.
Let’s start with “Intrusive Thoughts”. You ever been walking alone and wonder what would it would be like to jump off the bridge, or leap into traffic, or just punch a random person? Those are intrusive thoughts and everyone has them but most sane people never act on them. They’re still there but we know to ignore them.
To a telepathic species, these random urges that cross our brains would seem like humans are constantly on the verge or violent and self destructive acts and some unknown force holds us back.
Second, let’s take into account grudges, dark imaginings and just general seething anger.
Recent events in my own life have taught me there is always one person in any group of people who is so stressed by the little things at least one other person is doing that they wish they could strike out. Hit them, shout at them, swear like a sailor, or destroy their stuff. I know because, apparently, I’m that person. But I hold it in and tolerate and say nothing to maintain the peace.
To a telepathic species we would seem like barely in control psychopaths who are waiting for this moment to snap.
Finally there’s “compartmentalisation” our ability to separate our thoughts and our feelings. We can go through such a stressful time at work, school, or other places, and we want to quit, want to leave it all behind, quit, storm out etc. Adults can wake up in the morning hating that they have to go into a job they don’t like, but once their out of the job at the end of the day, once we’re away from that place, everything is fine. Because those problems are “work” or “school” problems and not part of our outside life.
To telepathic creatures we would be schizophrenic sociopaths. Or masochists, because despite our apparent hate of or jobs we keep going back.
I really want a science fiction story where aliens come to invade earth and effortlessly wipe out humanity, only to be fought off by the wildlife.
They were expecting military resistance. They weren’t counting on bears.
Imagine coming to a hostile alien world and being attacked by a horde of creatures that can weigh up to 3 tons, run at 30 km/h (19 mph), and bite with a force of 8,100 newtons (1,800 lbf).
By the time you realise that they can traverse water, it’s too late. The surviving members of your unit manage to make it back by shedding their excess gear and running for their lives; the slower ones were crushed to death within minutes.
You later describe the creature to one of the humans you captured, wanting to know the name of the monstrosity that will haunt your nightmares for cycles to come.
The human smiles as it speaks a single word, slowly and distinctly, in its barbaric tongue.
“Hippopotamus.”
This is giving me the biggest, creepiest grin I might have ever grinned
Imagine being the next crew to go down to earth and thinking “it’s fine, we got this. We have the weapons and equipment necessary to deal with bears and *shudders* hippopotamuses. We’ll be fine.”
And at first you are, you’ve learned how to dodge. You’ve learned where their territories are. You know how to defend yourself.
But then one night you are sleeping in your shelter. You’re in a tree covered temperate part of earth. It seems benign. There are been no sightings of the dreaded “hippos” around. Not even any bears. But there is a slight rustle of the undergrowth. You try and ignore it telling yourself it is just the wind.
Then you hear the rustle again. closer this time.
You peer out into the darkness but see nothing amongst the trees.
The rustle again and now you realise you can smell something. It’s musky and slightly foul. It’s the smell of an omen, a warning. But what of? Where is this smell coming from.
You sit up, but it’s too late. The foul smelling creature is on you. You are hit with 17kg of coarse fur and vicious bites. Long dark claws tear in to you and you are pinned down white the striped creature tries to bite your throat.
It takes some doing but you manage to wrestle free. Blood drips from your wounds and already they itch with the sign of infection. The creature has a bloodied snout, rust rad, mingling with the black and white hairs. It lets out a terrifying growl from the back of its throat and looks to attack again. It’s between you and your knife, so your only choice is to back away.
Eventually the creature gives up and snuffles off in to the undergrowth, down a hole near your shelter you hadn’t noticed before.
When you make it back to your base you once again consult the captive human.
“Badger.” they say, with a solemn nod.
One word: Moose
“Our vehicles are far superior to the local human models, in range, speed, armament, and any other metric you care to name! Nothing could possibly-”
BAMrumblerumblethumpcrash!!!
“That’s called a moose.”
Wolverines.
Also.. dolphins.
The invasion is going slowly. The humans have caught on and are actively destroying information on the planet’s flora and fauna before Intelligence can capture and process it. All that they have are survivors’ accounts. Bears. Hippos. Badgers. Moose. It is becoming obvious this mudball planet is a full-on Death World to the unprepared, and you are so very unprepared.
You lost Jaxurn to a plant. Not even a mobile or carnivorous plant, just one that caused a vicious allergic reaction on contact that killed him in less than a rai’kor. Commander Vura’ko died to an insect bite, a tiny local pest that sucked a tiny bit of her blood and apparently replaced it with a bit of its last meal, which was full of disease. Backwash. She died to bug backwash. And yet you honestly envy them after that… thing you encountered…
When you got back to base the quarantine officer refused to let you inside. They had to roll a containment tank outside to put you in, because you all knew there would be no chance of eliminating the smell if it got into the ship’s air ducts. Smell. You wonder if your nasal slit will ever recover from this stench.
And the smell would. Not. Leave. After incinerating your gear the Q.O. had you use every cleansing agent they could think of, including a few janitorial ones, and still everyone fled the stench if they were downwind of your tank. Desperate to protect everyone’s nasal slits from the smell the quarantine officer interrogated the humans. From them, a glimmer of hope: there was a cure. Somehow the juice of a certain fruit on this mudball was the only thing that could break up the chemicals in the little horror’s spray. Immediately the Q.O. sent a team to recover buckets of the stuff and made you bathe in it. That was hours ago and it didn’t seem to be working, though. All it was doing was turning your blue skin an interesting shade of purple.
Sighing in frustration you wave the med-assist on duty over, who only approaches after checking the wind direction. Annoyed, you flip on the tank`s vox speaker.
“The humans did say it was “grape” juice that removed “skunk” stench, right?“
Every night.
It came for someone almost every night.
Any soldier alone was a viable target for this native monster that moved unseen by any but the security viewers, usually only spotted in hindsight. They were taken as silently as this earth-monster moved. Sometimes they’d find the remains in the morning taken up a tree and hung there, mostly eaten, as if it were a grisly reminder that the monster was still there, waiting unseen, to strike again.
What little they saw of the monster on the vidfeed showed true horror. Yellow eyes that shone with all the light it could gather. It had fangs as long as his grasping digits. Claws half that size formed curved hooks that allowed it to climb up their fortifications with impunity. And in the underbrush, its spots made it almost impossible to see clearly in the undergrowth, if it could be seen at all.
Even the native sentients, the humans, had a healthy respect and fear for it.
The earth natives called the monster a leopard.
It was a constant fear that muddied the senses, and let the monster hunt even more effectively as the soldiers were always on edge. Sleep deprived with fear, it made them even better targets for the monster.
But rumor was that there was worse on this planet. Rumors of a monster like a leopard but larger, and bigger in every imaginable sense. Stripped instead of spotted, which leaped from the underbrush with a sound.
A sound that burst eardrums, paralyzed entire units, and let the monster kill with impunity. While the Leopard wrestled soldiers down and ripped their throats out. This other monster, the Tiger, killed with its pounce alone.
“We’ve been through this,” Group Leader 455 snapped. “The dissection of an Earth life form will help the scientists make weapons to combat the rest of this planet’s hellbeasts. And these are domesticated. Harmless.”
The troops were not-quite-looking at her in the way troops do when they don’t want to be seen to contradict a ranking officer, but can’t quite muster a correct Expression of Enthusiastic Assent. “The name of this species,” she pointed out, “is synonymous with dullness and slowness in the language of the Earth barbarians.” Well, one language out of several thousand—these creatures needed Imperial guidance more than any other world on record—but there was no point in confusing the rank and file.
More not-quite-looking. 455 bubbled a sigh and consulted her scanner. “That one,” she decided. “Alone in the separate pasture. Scans suggest that it’s a male, which means it’s probably weaker. Possibly it’s kept isolated so that the females don’t eat it before mating season. And yes, I know some of you are here on punishment detail, but you’re still soldiers of the Imperium. This squad is perfectly capable of handling a lone, helpless, pathetic male cow.”
I’m enjoying this immensely. Wait until the aliens try Australia for size…
It was a strange creature Tar’van glimpsed at on the vast island known to the humans as ‘Australia’.
“I would warn you not to fuck with us, mate.” Their forced guide, a prisioner, had warned with a chilling grin upon capture. “If you think a moose is bad, wait until you tango with a red back.” To this day Tar’van fears the creature known as the red back, and what horrors it would bring.
The prisioner turned out to be of little help,the stubboness of his people causing them to refuse the danger that the captured human warned of. Tar’van recalls a moment when one of his squad members approached a creature know as a dingo, insistent they had seen these creatures before and they were tame. They barely escaped with 5 of the original 7 members of his squad.
Another moment Tar’van recalls was the brutal mauling they witnessed by the hands of a creature called an ‘Emu’
“Don’t feel too bad,” the prisioner mocked. “We lost a war to the Emu’s as well.”
Now with only 4 members of their squad left, including themself, Tar’van had learned to listen to the prisoner, to be wary of the simplest of creatures. This human was of the sub-species of ‘Zookeeper’ after all.
The ‘Zookeeper’ looks off to the distance, where the creature is.
“It’s a kangaroo, leave it be and you’ll be fine.” Tar’van nods, a human signal of acknowledgement if they are correct. The human smiles a bit.
“That creature cannot possibly harm us.” Tar’van’s squadleader protests. “It is so docile. I will aproach it and bring back it’s head to show this human is a fearmongering liar.”
The human reels back, a look of disgust crosses their face and anger passes through their eyes.
“Fucking do it mate, I dare ya.” The human hisses. The squad leader puffs up their hoinn gland, a sign of pride to their species, and aproached the so called ‘Kangaroo’.
“This will be unpleasant.” A squadmate mutters as they watch their leader raise their fist and bring it down on the creature. The ‘Kangaroo’ looks a little stunned by the impact, before it raises itself upon its strong tail and uses its powerful heind legs to launch their squadleader backwards through the air.
Their squadleader lands upon the ground, unmoving with black blooded oozeing from them. It appears Tar’van is the squads leader now.
“I don’t know what they expected.” the human says, smugness filling their tone. “Kangaroos are fucking shreaded. 8-pack and all.”
Tar’van steps forward to the human, whom inches back in a sign of fear as Tar’van pulls their blade from its holster, and in their first act as leader, frees the human of the bonds around their hands.
“Please,” Tar’van bags. “Get us back safely.”
@kryallaorchid, you guys really lost a war to emus? Why was it necessary?
oh, mate, you never mess with the emus.
(Jesus christ. Dont get us started on kangaroos)
They had faced Emu’s. They had lost one in the battle but had experienced them. But this was no emu.
Looking to their guide, they all stare in horror as his face changes from calculating to fear. Pure, heart consuming horror as he stares at the large bird.
“Cassowary…”
They mimic him in fear. Squawking the horrific name as another joins the first in the mad run towards them.The only ones to survive was the native guide and Tar’van. The guide was carrying the soldier over his shoulder as they made their way back to the settlement.
Tar’van was a wreck. Periodically alternating between rocking in complete silence and whispering broken words in horror.
When they consulted the native all he said was “Its spring…. Magpie season…”“Listen up, troops. This armour upgrade has been tested both in the laboratories of the best Imperial military scientists and in the field. We are impervious to the stings of any insect on this hellhole of a planet, striped or not! We can brave the perils of its wildlife, and conquer it at long last! Revenge for our fallen companions! Glory to the Emperor!”
“Excuse me,” the native Terran guide speaks up in a tired tone, and the squad’s cheers die on their lips. “This is Japan. You haven’t seen what–”
“Silence, worm! No sting can penetrate this plating!”
The guide tries to warn them once again, merely earning a blow that throws them to their knees. The troops set out, morale high, certain in their ability to brave the wildlife now and thirsting for vengeance against the non-sentient native species. One soldier thumps his fist against a tree. A hollow sound follows.
In an instant, the soldier is the centre of a storm of the striped insects. At first, no one pays it any mind. Their little stings cannot penetrate the new plating, after all.
But then the soldier falls to his knees, and the squad stares in horror as the insects enclose him in layer upon layer of their own bodies, all moving. The squad’s medic yells a warning at everyone to stay back, watching the readouts of the unfortunate soldier’s armour on their diagnostic screen with undisguised horror. The insects aren’t even stinging. They simply keep moving, one atop the other, and the soldier’s body temperature is slowly rising until he drops to the ground, quite literally cooked alive. The insect swarm takes off, unharmed save for the ones that were crushed when the trooper fell.
Finally asked about what happened, the human sighs. “Japanese honeybees. They do this to wasps, too.”
“How?” You ask. “How has your species dominated this planet?”
The human bares its teeth. A smile, they call it. Something humans do when they are happy. Yet you can’t help but think of all the creatures with the their large fangs and sharp teeth. (What kind of species uses a threat signal as a sign of happiness?)
“Persistence and ingenuity.” The human answers, still smiling.
It doesn’t matter that this one is your prisoner. Humans, you decide, are as terrifying as their planet.
“And scattered about it … were the Martians–dead!–slain by the putrefactive and disease bacteria against which their systems were unprepared; slain as the red weed was being slain; slain, after all man’s devices had failed, by the humblest things that God, in his wisdom, had put upon this earth.”
– HG Wells, The War of the Worlds,1898
I’m picturing aliens going up against a hoard of Canadian geese, or a swan.
I think at that point they’d just give up.
Or fire ants
No one even MENTIONED snakes yet…
This thing gets better EVERY FUCKING TIME I SEE IT.
“Let us try the creatures that the humans keep for domestic companionship”
“Is that a miniature tiger?”
“Why does this human own a small pack of wolves?”
The aliens ask their human captive why small wolves live with them.
“Oh, you mean dogs? Yeah, they’re the only animals that can keep up with us.”
The aliens look at each other in fear. “What do you mean?”
“Oh well that’s why you guys ‘won’ is because humans aren’t super fast or strong. I think my middle school biology teacher called us pursuit predators? It means we evolved to hunt things by following them at walking pace until they had to stop to sleep and then catching up to them then. Dogs are the only animals that can keep up with us. Did you know one time a pack of wolves tailed a herd of caribou for three days straight?”
“Uh… okay, what about these small round things with big teeth?”
“Omg dude no if you give a hamster enought time that little fucker can chew through concrete :)”
The aliens wonder if the surrender of humanity was a trap.
Somebody do sharks or sea creatures next. Giant squids would wreak havoc on their ships.
The aliens have sophisticated technology which pretty much allows them to live underwater, which is something even the inventive humans have never managed. Submarines have nothing on alien submersion pods, which can withstand the crushing pressures of even the darkest depths of the oceans and seas.
The aliens aren’t expecting any difficulties with their underwater expeditions. Of course, that’s when four of the life signs on the central screen simply vanish, like they’d never been there.
Alpha turns on the direct communication lines to the remaining submersion pods, and the only thing they hear through the tinny speakers is screaming.
Alpha resists the urge to turn and stare at the shackled human standing behind them, but Beta, Gamma and Theta have no such compunctions.
The human shrugs. “I mean, we’ve never really been down there so we’re not entire sure, but we’ve heard stories of giant squids and stuff. No smoke without fire, and all that.”
“There can be neither smoke nor fire underwater, human, cease your prattling.”
The human snorts. “It’s a phrase. A metaphor? Man, I don’t know, I studied marine biology, not literature.”
The human is unable to tell them anything useful about what might have happened to the submersion pods, but retrieved footage later shows tentacled behemoths snaking out of the depths of disturbed silt and cold water, and crushing the submersion pods effortlessly, in full view of the outer-hull cameras. The monsters have giant beaks which rip through the organic alloy sheets, and into the bodies of the pod pilots within.
The outer-hull cameras register the blue of fresh spilled blood and gore, at the same time the on-board cameras register screaming and the red glow of critical power failure.
The last thing the aliens can see on the retrieved footage is thin, long, snakelike creatures appearing out of the darkness and gloom, creating their own light and descending upon the remains of their brethren. They are accompanied by creatures that look like plastic bags, but which feed upon the toxic remains of the organic alloy of which the pods were made.
The human appears completely nonchalant – there is no love lost between slave and master. “Wait till you see sharks.”
Every time it gets better
this is my take two, and i fucking love this post.
Dihesil cautiously followed their leader onto the terrain. It is rough, though patches here and there are slick and glassy. Their human guide is terrified. It strains against the soldiers holding it, muttering frantically under its breath. “We’re gonna die, we’re gonna fucking die.” Squad leader Tarhsis seems unconcerned. As the small group approached the top of the sloping terrain, a slight rumble shook the ground. The human yelped and struggled worse than ever, and the guards scowled and lifted it straight off the ground to carry it along.
“Please!” The human cried. “We have to retreat now, if any of us wants to survive! Please, I’m a geologist, I know what’s happening! We’ll be killed!”
Tarhsis laughed. “Silly human. Your fellows have tricked us before, and we will not be tricked again.” They pointed toward the top. “Advance.”
“No!!” The human kicked its guards in the loikinin glands and ran, the two soldiers left coughing and wheezing.
Dihesil reluctantly raised their blaster to strike the human down, but Tarhsis stopped them. “There’s nowhere for it to run. We have camps down there, and we’ll punish it properly after we’re done here.”
The squad had taken only another two paces when the ground rocked beneath their feet and threw them down. A horrible gasping roar began at the top of the incline, and bright orange liquid spilled out. The heat slapped Dihesil in the face, making them realize that perhaps the human had been right to flee.
In the end, only Dihesil made it back to the sip and to the camps in time to warn the others. The human who had run shook its head as it saw the burns lacing Dihesil’s body.
“I told you so.”~~~~~
Yunor had been on the first ship to land on the island chain, and had seen their good friend die at the hands of something the Terran had called “Japanese honeybees.” It made them furious that such a small creature could kill their friend. Now, they swore to explore these islands and discover, conquer, and catalogue all of its deadly features.
Their three hundred and twenty-second day began quite well. They were off to investigate the water creatures that lived around the islands. Curiously enough, no rogue Terrans were on the beaches, nor were there any complicit guides on recreation. They greeted one of their other friends cheerily, then began combing the beach for creatures.
An hour after arriving, Yunor had been pinched by several “crabs,” and was becoming irritated. A tremor ran through the sand, strong enough to knock them off balance. It continued for several seconds, then ceased. They picked themself up and laughed, returning to the search. The ocean seemed to recede as he walked towards it, further than normal, and far out, it was rising into a massive wall of water. The sea approached fast, growing larger and larger as it came, and Yunor gasped, tried to run, but too late—
“A what?” Piklono shook the bars of the Terran cage. “What was it?”
“A tsunami,” one Terran said.
Another shook its head. “We told all of you not to go out today.”
“You want to go out now? After a fuckin’ snow storm?”
“We’d like to get this over as quickly as possible human.” It was true. This human country, Canada was it? Was large and cold.
It took far too long to get ready and the vast expanse of it made exploring the country difficult. This and Russia had very little volunteers for these exact reasons.
“Fine then, I guess. If you wanna get frostbite and amputate a toe or three than who am i to judge eh? Lead the way.”
The human rolled his eyes but remained compliant. Good. Retily wanted it to be over as soon as possible.
He did not like the cold or the way his comrades appendages would turn black in it.
——–
“Human hurry up!” Squad leader Fargin yelled, brandishing his prod to help move the human along. The human, whose name was Michael he found out from his collar, stood at the end stiff.
“Don’t-, Don’t fucking move guys.” The human, or Michael really, hissed.
Only then did Retily notice his eyes were much larger than normal. Was the human experiencing the so called frostbite it talked about? Than why was he staring off into the distance at that certain spot?
“Hey uh, Fargin i think i just saw something move?” Comrade Yurien said, staring at the same spot the human was.
Huffing Squad leader Fargin brought out his binoculars and looked where the two were. A small excited noise came from the back of his throat as he brought his binoculars down.
“Ah Human! No need to fret. It is simply an albino version of a black bear. Do not worry i shall take care of it immediately!”
What was meant to be reassuring sentence, and one of Fargin showing off his might, made the human pale considerably. He took a step back and dread filled his face.
“No fuck we need to-, we need to get out of here immediately. It ain’t safe. Just-. oh fuck oh fuck” The human seemed afraid of whatever this thing was. And if the human seemed afraid than Retily didn’t think it was smart to go after whatever it was.
“Pull yourself together human!” Fargin said, “Yurien and Mastive come with me. We shall dispense of this creature at once!”
The three set off towards the animal and each step they took made the human shrink behind Retily. It was all going so well but then the animal turned around and attacked.
Yurien was the first to go, with a bite to the neck and claw marks to the chest he bled out immediately. Fargin came right after, his screams echoing around the frozen tundra. Mastive however made a mistake.
Mastive ran.
The bear chased after him and in the distance they could hear loud screams of pain. The bear had caught up to him it seemed.
“Wha-, what was that?” Retily asked, immediately turning towards the human.
“A polar bear. Largest, most vicious, bear of bears and we’re fuckin’ lucky it didn’t notice us.” The human replied, still shaking and pale.
“Why?”
“Because” The human started slowly, disbelief crossing his face at the thought of still being alive “It hunts humans.”
They trudged through the musky swamp, the humid air sticky, their clothes sticking to their skin due to the sweat, even though it was nighttime.
“Human, where are we now?” asked Kron, the general. The human, Josh, who didn’t even seem fazed by the heat, answered, “This is Florida.”
A few soldiers had already been killed off to panthers and black bears, so the remaining decided it’d be best to travel at night when the wildlife were asleep. Before, there had been a total of twenty soldiers. Now there were only six.
Something brushed against Neerin, causing him to yelp, only to realize it was moss dangling from a tree. The stems reminded him too much of jellyfish tentacles that they had encountered earlier, causing him to shudder as he scratched at the stings on his legs.
As they continued trekking deeper into the swamp, the water became less shallow until they were no longer wading and had to swim instead. The faint sound of ducks quacking in the distance was almost a relief to listen to. At least they’d have food if they needed to stop for the rest of the night.
Suddenly, there was noise.
Everyone stopped, asking each other if they all heard the same thing. They scanned the area, but it was too dark to see. Thinking it was probably a fish, they resumed their trail. Surely nothing would attack them at night on water, right?
Then, there was the noise again, only it was closer and sounded like a low rumble.
Everyone paused. Something was stalking them. But what?
“Oh shit,” Josh whispered in horror. “Human, what is that noise we just heard?!” Kron demanded. “I recognize that sound anywhere, I heard it before while I was kayaking,” by now, Josh’s voice sounded panicked. Kron grew impatient, “Well? What is it?!”
Josh gulped, “Its an alligator.”
Before Kron could ask what this ‘alligator’ is, one of his soldiers let out a bloodcurdling scream as something dragged him beneath the water. Everyone looked around frantically, calling out his name, when a dismembered leg with a noticeable bite mark floated up.
All soldiers froze in shock when the creature resurfaced, baring its rows of bloodied teeth lining the inside of its elongated snout in rows, hissing as it swam closer.
“SWIM AWAY!”
Everyone scattered, frantically swimming as fast as they could. Unfortunately, the ruckus only attracted more alligators, which were faster and bigger. There was no hope for survival.
Kron hadn’t even noticed Josh escaped, paralyzed as he watched his army be dragged underwater, the sounds of agonizing screams and the snapping of jaws as the gators devoured them.
Then, he heard it. The guttural growl as one approached him. Even in the dark, the reptilian creature looked like it was… Smiling. Sadistic and hungry.
Grabbing a nearby stick floating in the water, Kron tried swatting at the carnivore, only for it to bite the wood in half and clamp its teeth into his arm. Kron screamed in pain, tugging at his arm in a panicked frenzy. The gator was relentless, only biting down harder with each pull until Kron’s arm ripped off, the remaining swallowed whole by the beast.
Tears and snot ran down Kron’s face, stumbling backwards as the gator swam towards him again. When he was able to think rationally, Kron pulled out his combat knife and aimed for the reptile’s back, but the blade didn’t even penetrate through its skin, like it was made of its own scaly armor.
There was that dreadful hissing noise again, only this time it was behind him. Then all around him. Kron was surrounded by the alligators who had finished off his men and were now focused on him for their last meal.
Kron whimpered in defeat and all the gators pounced on him at once, above and below the water. His limbs ripped off and chunks of flesh torn out of his body, the water turned red with blood, his screams echoing in the marsh as the alligators ate him alive.
None of the aliens survived. Only Josh the human.
“Good thing I’m a native Floridian,” Josh laughed in relief when he was finally out of the swamp, “otherwise I never would’ve recognized the growl of a gator.”
If you’re a native Floridian, you know to stay away from swimming (or even wading) in the swamps at night at all. Namely because gators are fucking everywhere. There’s actually a saying about how common they are. “if there’s a puddle, there’s a gator.”
Space Australian Medicine
Despite the best efforts of everyone involved, something truly nasty escaped Earth. They call it giardia, a microscopic organism that their Planetary Protection Officer called “pretty dumb” and “not too bad, really, a week of digestive upset and then it’s over.”
Yes, Earth has a Planetary Protection Officer. They have a Planetary Protection Office, and have had one since they were sending probes around their own solar system. Doctor Ma-et had found it a bit silly, like a child concerned about the cleanliness of their toys, until she learned that the job of the Planetary Protection Office had always been protecting other worlds from Earth.
So a lot of ‘Humans are weird/space orcs’ posts always say that humans are ‘apex predators’, but really we’re not.
We’re a 2.2 on the food chain (highest is 5). To put that into perspective about a pig or an anchovy. Yeah.
So imagine aliens thinking that well obviously humans must be the apex predators of Earth, after all they’re so advanced, use pursuit as a form of attack and have high pain tolerance etc etc.
But they find out that we aren’t. We literally just said “fuck you food chain” and rose above our standing. Imagine how aliens would react to that.
On the humans are weird thing, what about the Hadron Collider?
Like, aliens come to earth and are kind of impressed with how fast our technology is progressing, and they’re like, touring the earth and meeting the greatest minds of our generation and eventually end up at CERN.
Alien: So what are you doing here, Human Scientist of CERN?
Scientist: Oh, well, we made this machine that smashes atoms into even smaller stuff.
Alien: Oh? And how did you achieve this?
Scientist: Well, we throw them at each other at amazing speeds until they break apart. It’s actually pretty cool.
Alien: It does sound interesting.
Scientist: Right? It sucks there’s people who are pissed about it.
Alien: Excuse me?
Scientist: Well, theoretically there’s a chance that we could create a black hole if we go through this process.
Alien:
Alien:
Alien: Why do you persist in this endeavor if this is a possibility?
Scientist: It’s fuckin’ sicc
And then the aliens realize that oh, humans are only so ahead of the times is because they’re fucking crazy and just do shit. And then they leave.
Just in case.
I absolutely love all the space australia/ humans are weird/space orcs things going around, so I haven’t been able to stop thinking about stuff like metaphors and idioms and figurative speech. Like, what if those had been purely human concepts?
Human: “He really broke Omar’s heart”
Alien: “What?? Is Omar still alive? Can he be healed? Is it culturally appropriate to seek out revenge?”
Human: “No, no, like… He hurt him badly.”
Alien: “Yes I understand that your cardiovascular system is important.”
– – –
Human: “She’s a real wolf in sheep’s clothing.”
Alien: “What is a wolf?”
Human: “It’s a predator – you know, the one dogs descent from?”
Alien: “… She looks human. How do you know the value of her clothes?”
– – –
Human: “That dickhead stabbed me in the back”
Alien: “MEDIC!!!!”
– – –
Human 1: “Wish me luck!”
Human 2: “Break a leg!”
*Horrified aliens in the background*
Imagine a group of humans and aliens talking about their home worlds while in the ship’s canteen. One world is covered entirely by water (the crew members from there have to wear special masks to help them absorb the oxygen they need from the air); one is full of rare minerals and littered with what, on any other planet, would be precious stones and one is carpeted with dense vegetation and has the more biodiversity than any other planet.
Once they’ve all finished talking about their own planets, everybody turns to the humans and asks them what Earth is like. They’re only doing it to be polite though. They haven’t heard much about humans (except the usual stories, and only fledglings believe in those) and they can’t really believe that these fleshy bald looking things come from anywhere even remotely as interesting as their own planets.
There’s a pause and then one of the humans speaks up, “well, I come from a part of Earth called ‘England’ and, to be honest, it’s nothing like as cool as your planets sound. It’s alright though. We got some snow last year, so I’m hoping that we’ll have some this year as well when I get back.”
“Snow?” one of the water breathers asks, hissing slightly through their mask, “what’s that?”
“Frozen water that falls from the sky.” The human explains, “it’s really fun to play with. It’s only called snow when it’s soft though— when it’s hard it’s called hail. Nobody likes hail, you can’t do anything with it and it hurts if it hits you. I looked up during a hail storm once,” she adds, “when I was a kid. Huge hailstones and one hit me right in the eye! Hurt like Hell.”
“Is your planet really cold then?” one of the aliens asks, sounding doubtful since nothing has looked less equipped to deal with cold weather than a human.
“No,” she says, “not everywhere. England’s pretty cold, but in the Summer sometimes we get heatwaves. Last year I went out in one and forgot to wear suncream and got sunburn all down my arms.”
“Your planet’s sun… burned you?” a horrified creature asks, “was it painful?”
“Not really, just stung a bit,” she shrugs, “it was fine once the skin started to peel.” (At the back of the crowd that has now amassed around their table a voice says “I didn’t know humans moulted.” and another, horrified sounding voice replies “that’s because they don’t!”) the human continues on regardless. “It was really annoying actually, because it meant I couldn’t go out for a bit without wearing a jacket. Then when my burns had finally healed, I wanted to go to the beach, but when I got there there was this huge thunderstorm and I had to go home again.”
“Thunderstorm?” the word is whispered, mainly because the person asking secretly hopes the human won’t hear them so they won’t have to know.
“It’s when the clouds get all dark and it starts raining,” the human explains and everybody sighs with relief. Most planets have rain. “The clouds make these really loud banging noises,” she continues, “that’s the thunder, and electricity shoots down from the clouds— that’s called lightning. Sometimes people get hit by it, a few people even survive. I once—”
But one of her human friends cuts her off. “God,” he says, “you Brits are so boring, always talking about the weather!”
While she argues with him, the creatures seated around the table stare at them in astonishment and start to give a little more credit to those old stories. Because, though they look pretty harmless, a species would have to be tough to be able to survive on a planet where a person could be pelted with ice, burned by the sun and nearly electrocuted by the sky and then have another person describe those experiences as boring!
andtheytoldustotellyouhello 