What if oxygen is poisonous and it just takes 75-100 years to kill us?
My science teacher said he thinks that’s true actually
Yeah this is actually pretty much exactly what is going on. It’s why anti-oxidants are such a big deal. Bonus fact: oxygen oxidizes stuff in your cells or, in other words, it’s not toxic, just setting you on fire very very slowly.
What if there are aliens out there but they subsist on entirely different substances and they’re just scared as shit of us and our crazy ass hell planet? Once in a while some alien anthropologist type suggests checking out the people on this inhabited planet out towards the galaxy’s edge. The other aliens just look at the naive academic with horror. No!! We do not go to that world. That is where the DEATH BREATHERS live. They recreationally consume poisons and are more or less composed of biological fire. Their atmosphere is made of rocket fuel. We must leave the DEATH BREATHERS in peace. Do not go there. Do not.
I tend to always reblog posts about humans being terrifying weirdos to aliens.
okay but…that is actually what went down on earth about 2.5 billion years ago.
Earth was doing just fine with a mostly nitrogen/carbon dioxide atmosphere and everyone was happy to go on living in anaerobic bliss and then cyanobacteria suddenly hit the scene, altered the atmosphere composition so that there was a ton of oxygen gas and killed practically everything (97% or more of all species on earth).
We are literally descendants of the DEATH BREATHERS and cyanobacteria is our deadly mother.
The cyanobacteria holocaust is so big, it doesn’t even have a cool name; it’s just called “The Great Oxygenation Event”; the *second* most apocalyptic extinction event in our planet’s history is the one that’s called THE GREAT DYING (the Permian-Triassic event, about 252 million years ago).
This shit makes like the rock-throwing that wiped out the dinosaurs look like kindergarten.
OH HOW I LOVE THIS POST. It makes me so much happier about being alive. I AM BURNING VERY SLOWLY. *hugs it*
“Hey Goediun, did you finish- ah hell, not MORE earth wildlife.”
“This planet’s completely fucked up Clyod.”
“What the fuck are THOSE?” Guenoid demanded, peering over his co-worker’s mass to squint at the pojection.
“Third-most dominant carnivore on the planet.”
“Yeah but what’s the little thing next to it?”
“Same species.”
“You’re emusifying me.”
“Absoultely not. This thing’s got the genetics from hell. Apparently they just have hundreds if not thousands of copies of any gene they might need and can suffer drastic radiation, inbreeding or rapid enviornmental selection and come out mostly functional organisms. Both of these are actually pretty far from the species average- here, this is a more common specimen.”
“Oh that’s not so bad-”
“Remember how the Humans are Pursuit predators?”
“Oh no. Don’t tell me it can do that endless “Fun Run” Human-Steve did last year for the Beeblebrox Children’s Hospital?”
“It can!” Goeduin writhed gleefully at his partner’s discomfort. “They can do continuous runs for hundreds of miles through the polar regions of the planet, and at tremendous speed! Some of them have a sustainable gallop of over 50 miles per hour!”
“What’s that in civilized Units?”
“uuuuhhh… 210?”
“FUCK.” shouted Clyod, collapsing back into the sleeping tank, though he suspected that there would be no rest for him this cycle as images of the wretched earth creature pursuing him flashed through his ganglian network.
“They’ve got a bite strength that can snap through our building materials and even human bone!” Goeduin continued, vibrating with the kind of wild humor that belied genuine terror. “Thier senses are even more accute than Human-Steve’s! It’s got his entire hearing range and then up into our ‘hypersonic’ vocal range!”
“Great, it can tear me apart after hearing me talk smack. Terrific.” Clyod sighed, dedicating himself to another round of nightmares.
“And it’s Chemosensitivity! They can track prey by the oils left from the prey’s footsteps for MILES! they can even track scents through the air and underwater or buried in in six feet of ‘concrete’!”
“Good grief. With compettion like that, it’s no wonder the humans are so barbaric. Please tell me it’s stupid.”
“They’re comparable to juvenile humans in terms of reasonaing capacity and may be more socially intelligent than adult humans, living in communal groups that can have DOZENS of members. Also they hunt in packs.”
“WHY??” Clyod begged “Why do you even subject yourself, and furthermore, why subject ME to this kind of knowledge? I won’t be able to rechage and be all gross and floppy in the morning.”
“Human-Steve is getting one.”
“…Pardon?”
“Humans keep them as domestic companions. Apparently they’re socially intelligent enough to get humans to raise and feed thier young for life.”
“and. Human-Steve. Is taking on one of these? He’s not worried about it eating him?”
“He said it might nibble on his appendages while it’s teething but that the one his parents kept when he was an infant-”
“HIS PARENTS HAD A DANGEROUS CARNIVORE IN HIS HOME WHILE HE WAS AN INFANT?”
“He showed me many images of them playing and cuddling together. They are quite fond of human children, and not just as snacks.”
“Please tell me he’s getting the little kind.”
“He’s getting a variety called a “Siberian Husky”. He said it was very fluffy.”
to add to this “humans are weird” thing did you know that humans are the only species on earth with the ability to throw things with any significant degree of accuracy and force (apes can throw with about the force of a human ten year old, but cant lock their wrists well enough for accuracy)
and we just never really think about it bc its so easy and simple to us that pretty much all of our sports are based around the concept of throwing things accurately
so what if the concept of projectile weapons takes most species FOREVER to get the hang of, or even come up with in the first place. a human goes onto a ship and throws some trash into the nearest reclaimer, shouts “kobe!” and all the other aliens on board absolutely LOSE THEIR MINDS
I definitely didn’t know this about humans but it’s actually really neat
‘This place needs a dartboard.’ *darts is explained* ‘You… throw sharp objects at a tiny point on a circle with the expectation of hitting it and mock those who do not achieve this amazing feat.’ ‘It’s better if you’ve had a couple of beers.’ ‘You insist that you’re more accurate when partially intoxicated. I have seen you intoxicated. Fine motor control is not something I associate with intoxication.’ ‘The one sport where doping is actually encouraged.’ ‘Humans. How. Just how. ’ ‘You think this is hard, try throwing cards.’
I’m now super enchanted with the idea that there are all these alien racs out there that basically didn’t do projectiles until at least they had geometry and aerodynamics worked out– no throwing stones or slings and arrows, nothing range until catapults with some heavy maths calculations behind them because they couldn’t eyeball it. And some of them not even having that– going from hand-to-hand to computer-targetted bombs, pretty much. And then coming to earth and finding out about spears and bows and arrows and slings and skipping stones– and suddenly there’s a rush on their homeworlds of all these really bad pop-xenopyschoanthropology books about the effect of being able to kill at a distance on our pyschocultural development, how it effects our perception of ourselves and the universe – all these bad science, lurid explanations about how this has effected our strange alien minds to give us warped senses of territoriality or death or social-unit-bonding.
Of all the humans are weird I like this one the most. Feels mundane enough yet just weird enough without making us out to be supersoldiers because I dunno I guess aliens have weak constitutions now or something..
Most ‘humans are weird’ things try to focus on the things humans can do that most animals can’t, but like, they kinda blow it out of proportion. Like sure humans are sturdier than most animals but not by THAT much.
Personally, I’ve always like the combination of facts that A) We’re obscenely flexible compared to anything with else with bones B) We have crazy endurance and C) We’re DTF pretty much whenever. And whatever, for that matter.
Super soldiers nothing, I’m pretty sure Humans would be the Weird Sex Alien.
Those ones are also decent and reasonable “humans can be cool space alien planet of hat biological archetypes too!”
humans:
internal organs are full of acid
eats poison for fun
can throw things like woah
can run for a long time even when normally you would get tired
flexy
probably will fuck you if you ask
Accurate.
Oh, hey, forgot about this one.
(Edit: just posted my full tag rant as a comment since it got cut off)
my problem with a lot of the ‘humans are space orcs’ posts, is that a lot of the things that come up make biological sense, when you consider our rough body shape (i.e. bipedal and high intelligence)
we’re more energy efficient and good at being pursuit predators BECAUSE WE ONLY NEED TWO LEGS, that’s HALF AS MANY LEGS, so we use less energy to move, and in order to do this (and many other things) we need larger brains, that can handle things like balance easily, and because we have two limbs that aren’t used for walking, they can be specialized for object manipulation which easily leads to dexterity and accuracy, and an advanced collarbone and shoulder joint and muscle control that leads to throwing things
a LOT of humans are space orcs posts are just, imagine this species that should have evolved all the same things as us, but is absolutely SHOCKED by it because for some biologically unlikely reason they aren’t basically the same thing, a lot of criticism of scifi ends up being ‘the aliens look too much like humans’, but you know what, a highly intelligent apex species with advanced communication WOULD LOOK A LOT LIKE US, as an apex species they’d most likely have evolved as predators, and therefore needed binocular vision (at least), plus BIOLOGY REALLY LIKES SYMMETRY so two eyes two ears two nostrils bipedal high intelligence advanced vocal communication etc, …are pretty much all BASIC REQUIREMENTS of any species that would develop enough for space travel
if anything should freak out other species about us it’s probably our psychology not our biology, we have an ABSURD range of sociological behavior and emotional triggers, we can be compassionate easily to the point of sacrificing our lives to an altruistic cause (we do this regularly!), but also like … sometimes we murder each other because of parking spots
our social psychology is NOT conducive to developing space travel, we’re so VOLATILE and we form cliques that hate each other, WE’RE NOT SUITED TO BEING IN FRAGILE CONFINEMENT PROTECTING US FROM THE VACUUM OF SPACE, OH AND OUR PROPULSION SYSTEMS ARE BASICALLY SLOW BOMBS, WE’RE FUCKING IDIOTS WE SHOULD NEVER HAVE SURVIVED LONG ENOUGH FOR SPACE TRAVEL
we’d kill each other in one heartbeat and die for each other in the next, we’re FUCKED UP psychologically as a species and THAT’s probably the weirdest thing about us, most space orc posts are just … how the biology of a species that got to our point SHOULD work
Okay but going back to “Humans are really good at throwing stuff”. Imagine how shocked and terrified aliens would be regarding hand grenades. Here is a very small explosive weapon which a human can casually throw in the midst of alien soldiers. Very small, very powerful and humans can carry loads of them and use them without any kind of targeting aid.
And now imagine if most of the other aliens had the ability to spit liquid at about a dozen meters or more with many standard technologies designed to make use of this mundane ability.
And then humans come along and just can’t.
A human spits some saliva at like 3-4 meters and tells the alien he is really good at this and the alien just stands there with a “Are you Effing kidding me?” face.
But now combine both of those things:
“So let me get this straight Xahar of the Crimson Sand: You can spit your goo at about a dozen meters?” “It’s not goo Human Steve. Shinegh plays an important role in many of my cultu…” “Ok, shinegh sorry. So you can spit your shinegh at a bout a dozen meters, with pinpoint accuracy and enough kinetic force to at least stun a small creature. Is that correct?” “Indeed Human Steve. It was one of the favourite past times of my pack-mates and I, during our juvenile phase to shoot our shinegh at mohoks during their breeding season.” “Yeah that… So you can spit far with great accuracy, but are still unable to crumble a piece of paper and throw it into the trash can across the room by hand?” *Proceeds to do the exact thing* “Why do you always have to flaunt your talents in front of me Human Steve?”
Some piece of equipment is activated by a button placed in a way that everyone canactivate it with their shinegh and then Steve from Earth just showed up with a round object he called a “baseball” one day and threw it at the button from across the room.
The entire bridge went quiet like it wasn’t an emergency because whaaaa?
I had been briefed that pack-bonding with humans they would be working with would be essential to any mission with them, and that it was relatively easy if one came bearing gifts. The Hotri matriarch who had been assisting him with his preparations had given him a tip that one of the humans he would be paired with excercised at the nature trails near the launch field at a regular time in the morning.
Sure enough, I arrived at the location and found a lone human running along the path showing signs of exertion. He slowed to a stop near me, intaking more atmosphere than I thought a creature of that size would be physically capable of processing. I lifted my crest in a display of friendly excitement.
“Greeting, human co-worker! I am Va’a’an, I look forward to serving with you!”
The human did not speak, instead bending double and showing intensifying signs of distress. I was very concerned. “Human? Do you require medical assistance?”
“Nah nah… oh god… whew!” The human checked his chronometer. “Haa… sub-fifteen… getting better. Hi there. Whooo… I’m good I swear.”
“You do not seem ‘good,’ human co-worker.”
“Good as I can be for running five kilometers. Gimmie a minute… M’name’s Craig… nice t’meet ya.”
“Greetings, human-Craig! As I said, my na-“ I stopped as my second brain finished with the math needed to convert kilometers and minutes into something understandable. “That is very far. I am now certain you need medical attention.”
“Nah!” Human-Craig straightened up. “I’m just outta shape. Nice to meet you, Van.”
“I must insist. Any creature running half the distance you just did would be at risk of expiring from exhaustion.”
“Bro, chill. Five K is basic conditioning for human athletes.”
“Running such extreme distance is a sport?”
“Literally the oldest. We call it a marathon. Forty-two kilometers.”
“What.”
Human-Craig nodded, stretching his limbs, a behavior that at least made some biomechanical sense. “Yep. Current Earth-gravity record is just under two hours.”
I stayed silent, considering the evolution that would be required to perform such a feat. I knew humans evolved as pursuit predators but what insane creatures were they chasing?!
But human-Craig felt the silence was awkward and appended more information. “Yeah. First marathon was by some Greek to announce the victory of some war in ancient times. Ran the whole way, shouted ‘we won’ and died.”
