I've always had this idea that humanity is a strange quirk of a race that begun space travel, terraforming and colonization nominally under a single banner but in reality under a various power blocks and corporate powers, so there wouldn't be an effective voice for humanity.

All other races would be some sort of Empire or Military Junta and these aliens are obsessed with humanity's need for independence and sometimes self harming rebellion.

This coupled with humanity's liberal use of media spreads its cultural values of individuality and freedom to other races that instigate social upheaval and disorder. So naturally the leaders of each alien race looks upon humanity as a pest to be stamped out but fear it might provide a unifying force for all of mankind to fight against.

Human find themselves mostly alone. We become the seeder of a new wave of life across a thousand worlds. Eventually these new races, based on altered human DNA discover spaceflight. There is tension bewteen these new thrusting young races and the old humanity, long since grown aloof cold and alien thanks to transhumanistic forces within society and these new-humans chafe at man's paternalistic and authoritarian rule.

What about those that come after humanity? Like, a humanoid species digging out VERY old relics and trying to figure out what they exactly are. The relics being the last remnants of the now defunct human empire...

Read Eclipse Phase.

/thread.

I dislike the idea of humanity being the new comers and suddenly being better at everything and awesome just because they're human. It doesn't make any sense and borders fan fiction levels of lame.

What I do like though, is the idea of humanity establishing a gigantic intelligence agency to conduct technological espionage.

Humans are seen as two faced liars who'll stab you in the back when the need arises. Alien races are also finding a significant increase in technical setbacks and miscalculations, nothing blatantly points to sabotage but it is suspicious that humanity's technological gap is rapidly closing in.

>>7151176

Why not turn the spiel around and make humans the great old ones?

Backwards fucks who hang around in a sector of space no one cares about, duking it out against themselves. Centuries of ignoring later humanity has established a fragile empire teethering on collapsing on itself again, they decide to expand a little more for resources n' shizzle.

No single government, a thousand different worlds and colonies under their own rule.

Every place follows different and sometimes stupid rules. Aliens aren't sure what to do with a species that doesn't try to control its own, especially with the way they expand like crazy.

One of the first species to become a space faring species, however they have expanded slowly creating a empire that spans only some thousands of stars.
Despite of how united they seem they are not, the empire is actually made of mini feudalistic kingdoms of a sort.

Every now and then they send out colony ships to increase their ever expanding empire, having had more time to refine their space faring technology they are true masters of colonising, terraforming and changing plants to their whims.

Generally held in awe by the younger races often seeking the help of humanity to colonise harsh worlds and etcetera, ofcourse the humans will gain something from this, mostly.

I see no reason why humans in space should be any different from humans on earth.

A.) Come across an empty planet? IT'S MINE! Dig in, strip it of resources, if anyone has a problem with it they'll have to deal with your fortifications to get you out and you might be able to hold out until your reinforcements show up to blow them out of the sky and underscore your ownership.

B.) Primitive alien race? If it has less power than you, they're just a nuisance. Treat their worlds like they're uninhabited. If they act up, it's TIME TO GENOCIDE!

C.) Advanced alien race? If it has greater power than you, they're unimaginable demonic monstrosities to be feared and avoided like the monster under your bed. Band together with other humans if you have to for "mutual survival," but find a way to either get to their level of power or (optimally) exceed it. If you get to equal power, see Point D. If you exceed their power, break your alliance with other humans and see Point B - land grab!

D.) Equivalently-powered alien race? Finally we see diplomacy, due to the prospect of mutually-assured destruction. There is a commonly-understood need to deal with the "strange things" cautiously. Figure out how they work, keep them at arm's length, and try to be the first to get more powerful than them in the arms race. Basically current Earth diplomacy in space. Then, see Point B.

They found the object at the edge of the Tolan system. Drifting at sublight speeds it was picked up by an old cargo freighter. The object was old, almost impossibly so. Several million years at least. Battered by solar winds, and scarred with millenia of microimpacts.

It was also alien. Of that there was no question.

It, of course was reported in all the media. The first definitive proof of extraterrestrial life. It shook the world and colonies to their very foundations. There were just as many scientists lining up to disparage it as a hoax as there were partying for weeks in the knowledge we were no longer alone. The object itself was unremarkable. A twisted mass of barely unrecognisable metal, it purpose and function almost unknown. It was was what it represented that was important. It was proof that we weren't an accident. We had purpose.

>>7151379

Yet what they found next was even more incredible. Careful x-rays revealed an inscription, a methematically precise diagram of what appeared to be the objects home system. It took two years to dechipher them, feeding the little data into maps of half the galaxy before a match was found. A star system revolving round an unassuming sun.

The government commissioned a ship. The fastest ever made, that could make the journey to the home planet in less than 6 years. The day of the launch the whole world watched, eager for the day when we'd meet our brothers across the stars, whilst cynics protested we were foolishly exposing ourself to an unknown species. We watched them carry our dreams to the stars.

We had to wait 12 years for them to be broken.

>>7151384

The ship returned, but had found nothing, an empty habitable world, devoid of anything resembling intelligent life. Just a few peice of junk still limping around their decaying high orbits, but the planet below had long since scoured clean any trace of the people that once had lived there.

The object was forgotten, the hopes of a species that we weren't alone broken. Placed in the Planetary History Museum it lies gathering dust, a symbol of the cosmic joke that led us to believe that there was someone else out there. All that's left of a people forever a stranger to us. On it's side there are symbols. They have defied all attempts buy linguists to decrypt them, and represent no mathmatical patterns or laws we can identify. Perhaps they are merely meaningless decorations or characters of language dead since before we could talk.

Whatever they are. They look like

PIONEER

Humanity is one of the elder races of the galaxy. The first to actively use Alcubierre drive for FTL travel. Everyone else ignored it for being horrifically inefficient, but by the time post-scarcity comes around and power generation isn't a problem, the benefits of being able to bend space-time to your will become evident very quickly.

Fast forwards 2 billion years to the Andromeda-Milky Way collision and the now dominant and almost god-like Circum-Sol Protectorate decides its can't be bothered to keep shifting its habitats around to avoid destruction. They condense Andromeda into about 10% of its original size and sends it flying away. Much to the -albeit brief- chagrin of the inhabitants of our neighbour galaxy.

>>7151395

Awesome. Albeit I like it more when it's humanity is the mysterious, distant puppet master.

Like, being a bitter, old, old immortal race, having made the galaxy their playground the whole of it is the rivalry between those few millions active "humans" that still remain (the rest, faced with the prospect of an eternity of godhood have fled into oblivion, angry ghosts that wish not to be bothered with).

>>7151395
And then, five years later, the Human conquest fleet that's been inching its way towards the alien system for centuries finally gets there.

Turns out they want their probe back.

>>7151452

Or they find our "child". An AI that has gone a little off, scared because the parents have gone away, but still intrigued by the toys they have left it to play...

I like the humans from Stephen Baxter's Manifold series. Humans survive to the end of time only to be driven to slowly be driven mad due to the fact that all the technology they've developed, from time travel and omniscient computers to enormous super-structures spanning half the universe, isn't going to save them from the inevitable heat death of the universe. In response to their inevitable demise they go "Fuck this shit.", head back in time and troll modern earth for a little while, while they make preparations to blow the universe up.

Humanity immortal as it is, is often considdered the masters of the universe by all.
They were the first to enter space, as far as record tells. The fact they have survived all these millenia, where all other races have fallen prey to time, humanity has endured.
The humans often considder the entire universe their plaything, making elaborate schemes just for their amusement.

Having had millenia to perfect their technology, the humans have weapons of terrible destruction capable of splitting planets in half, tools capable of triggering entire suns, tools to create barren rocks into a lush world in an instant.
Technology they will share with noone else, even if it means their death.

Their homeworlds are impregnable fortress worlds with gleaming towers spiraling miles upwards, into the skies. And even stretch even further down.
Just to get near one of these worlds as a non human is virtually impossible unless taken in by a human, if not invited the vast defence systems will most likely kill anything venturing too close.
Even the planets with the lowest amounts of defence will often be capable of blowing up dreadnaught class spaceships of any kind.

Merely offending the humans slightly can often cause the wrath of the entire humanity come trembling down upon the offenders race and homeworlds.
The humans will hunt down and kill every last one of them, setting their worlds ablaze eternally for all to see. As a warning not to offend humanity.

However, the millenia are beginning to take its toll on the humans, their numbers are thinning slowly but steadily. Despite them being able to modify genetics, create clones, and so on.

I'm a horrible writefag aint I?

We are the technologically advanced super race that looks horrific to all other aliens as we slowly creep our way across the galaxy conquering all in our path. Every other alien empire has joined forces to repel the merciless invasion

rolled 10 = 10

i love this thread

>>7151571
And first now I spot several things I'd like to write differenetly, hurpadurp.

I like the ones in Michael Moorcock's End of Time stories. Immortal, amoral, with the power of the universe literally in their hands, and all they do is party and come up with ridiculous fads and collections

Take the Imperium of Man.
They actually know how thier tech works.
They're millenia ahead of anyone else in the galaxy.
Generally ignore anyone that doesn't directly confront them.
Anything that does doesn't tend to survive/come back.

Meaning that the most amazing accomplishment in the galaxy is for one of the other races to come across a damaged human starship, and salvage it, or to somehow ambush and capture one. (Remember the Imperium's Bureaucracy.)

Cortex Command: humans are BRAINZ.

In the millennias that followed the first visit to space humanity expanded beyond even the wildest dreams of the science fiction authors of the then called 20th and 21th century (the years -60 to +100 of the new cosmological calendar).
In their endeavors the mapped out most of the star systems, planets and galaxies in the known universe where they found
No one.
Sure, there were here and there structures drifting through the vast nothingness of space which might have been artificially created, there were strange microformations on certain planets which might have been bacterias, but in the end they realized that they were indeed all alone.
Maybe it was this cold and lingering desperation which settled in during the decades following that brought most wars to a halt. Killing each other felt pointless, after all you only have each other in this big universe. Humans started to feel tiny and moved closer together.
Yet by the time most of the scientist had reached the conclusion that we were indeed alone, humanity had already started to split into different subspecies.
Who knew, maybe humans would become alien life themself after they had searched for it for so long.

When humans are born they are put into machine bodies, they believe any species to be below them and that is why they must exterminate anything not human. They were later renamed Daleks.

Every other race is reptilian. We're looked at as disgusting, hairy things and forced into slums.

Epithets include:
milk-makers
hair-heads
pinkies
jiggles
Those...things

>>7151731
EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!

Super advanced humans dealing with lovecraftian horrors.

>>7151845
Or perhaps, Humans are the insanity inducing horrors.

http://baetzler.de/humor/meat_beings.html

They're made out of meat!

Humans are Abhs: they don't give a shit about actually taking planets but they strive to control intergalactic space and trade. Kinda like 19th century England..

Humans bargain with alien races for their technology.

Humans grow in importance among alien races for being great consumers of their "old" technology, and for being such a diplomatic race.

Humans mess with their bought technology, creating ULTIMATE WEAPONRY (HUMANITY FUCK YEAR!)

Alien races respond with even GREATER firepower, destroy earth, only human colonies survive, but have to live under strict alien rules.

Players are all humans, who want to restore humanity to it's former glory, and destroy ALL ALIEN LIFE IN SIGHT

picture unrelated

>>7151966
>pic
>Humans bargain with alien races for their technology.
>picture unrelated
For a second there, I thought I knew where this was headed. Thankfully I was wrong.

>>7151966
Inb4 asking for source:
http://www.hentairules.net/2009/09/02/tsundero-english-complete-version-235-pictures-by-takeda-hirom
itsu/
Here is more by the same artist:
http://www.hentairules.net/2009/03/18/redirection-page-takeda-hiromitsus-works-on-hentairules/

>>7152015
/tg/ - we deliver even before we're asked

>>7152042

Well, kinda.
Just thought that the picture looked really familiar, so I did a little "research" and posted the results.

"Humanity introduces a naive galaxy to their oldest profession..."

Humans become the pimps of universe. It just never struck the other races til we showed up on the scene to manage it.

>>7151494
I only ever read "Space". Did they succeed in booming the unierse?

>>7152100
>Humans become the pimps of universe
delivering alien ass to whoever can pay the higest price

>>7152155

I'm okay with this.

Dan Simmons up in this motherfucker.

>>7151966
>Humans bargain with alien races for their HOs.

>Humans grow in importance among alien races for having low standards (for them, at least), and for being such a diplomatic race.

>Humans mess with their bought bitches, creating the ULTIMATE RED LIGHT INTERNATIONAL DISTRICT (HUMANITY FUCK YEAR!)

>Alien races respond with even GREATER alien hottness, destroy earth (just for fun and giggles), only human colonies survive, but have to live under strict alien celibacy.

>Players are all humans, who want to restore humanity to it's former glory, and will FUCK EVERYTHING IN SIGHT

>picture half-related

I always envision a sorta of Space Age Roman Empire. Legions of well disciplined do it all troops with different subject alien races as auxiliaries. New races are either dominated culturally or exterminated.

>>7152263
you mean Space World of Warcraft?

>>7152271
You mean Starcraft Ghost?

>>7152271
Behold, the Space Troll!

>>7152271
>Implying WoW = Roman Empire

Aliens are fucking advanced, however, due to their rationalistic ways, they know close to nothing about consumer goods. So they end up with situations like having ultra advanced space ships that lack hygienic paper for the crew.

That's where humans come. The greatest suppliers of futile good in the whole universe. Slowly, we establish economic domain over entire planetary systems through Mcdonald's and user-friendly computer OS.

>>7152304
makes sense

>>7152304
1) present aliens with internet

2) introduce them to 4chan

3) ??????

4) CONQUER ENTIRE GALAXY, AND BEYOND

I had this one idea for a sci-fi story that featured humans gone star faring after the earth is destroyed for reasons left vague. The remains of humanity are kind of broken into their own nation states, sort of, but they do come together and are in agreement to help one another out no matter what.

One by one, humanity meets other races and people, one joke would be the when humanity comes across a seemingly "Proud Warrior Race" trying to kill us (humanity retaliates and shows that we're homeless but not defanged)... We learn that they were locked in kind of a World War and are not actually as much of a proud warrior race as we thought, but it's the cultural aspect they focus on most during war to give morale to the soldier by giving them a sense of warrior lineage. In times of peace they focus on the cultured aspects of their lineage.
But the sum is that humanity earns their respect since they're still stuck in the warrior mindset.

All in all, the big thing in this setting is that humanity would be acknowledged by most of the other races as equals, the rest of it was me focusing on the idea of avoiding the alien races suffering from monoculture syndrome.

>>7152336
>>7152361
Can you imagine a proud race, like the Eldar, being forced by their infants to stay in line for DAYS just to buy the latest Twilight book?

"You see our enemy over there men? I pity them.

Our foes are outnumber us three to one. They have spent more of time training than you've been alive. They're fast and they're mean, and by the end of the day today every single one of them will be dead.

You see men, our opponents are probably the strongest and most agile creatures in the known galaxy, but they are no soldiers. They live in harmony with their planet's ecosystem. There is no pollution, no wars, no disaster and no famine. This bond between them and their planet has formed them into mighty creatures. They believe mankind is impure and our philosophies are completely monstrous. They believe that, with the power of their natural prowess and their spirituality, they can wipe humanity from existence.

They are dead wrong.

While they have been sitting around eating food that virtually fell into their laps, we have been stabbing our best friends in the back for a scrap of bread.

While they have been singing tales of the harmony and magic of nature, we have watched our children wither away to husks from a bloody plague.

While they have sat sunning their wretched furry hides in open calm meadows, we have clung desperately to survival in frozen tundras and barren deserts.

Our suffering has become our strength. Despite the best attempts of nature, God and even our fellow man, humanity stands strong.
Humanity can endure anything, a fact that those sorry fools don't understand.

Let us enlighten our foes to the unyielding spirit of mankind. Within all of your veins flow the blood of generals, soldiers and murderers.
Shred their bodies with a storm of lead!
Tear their organs out with your bayonets!
Crush their skulls underneath your iron boots!

SLAUGHTER THEM ALL!"

>>7152381

This isn't the HUMANITY FUCK YEAH thread, but nice story either way.

>>7152376
Oh dear god!

Also, Aliens discover human video games and the X-Box 720 live servers are flooded with Jin Ice Car riders and Nu Drive spammers, their rationalistic nature making them not understand "cheap".

>>7152407
>their rationalistic nature making them not understand "cheap".

AAAAARRRRRGGGGGG

Shotgun whores everywhere

>>7152376
We will ruin their bodies with delicious unhealthy food. We will ruin their intellect with innocuous TV shows. We will ruin their spirit with senseless religious cults.

We will bring them to their knees through pop culture.

>>7152263
The Romulan Empire would like to speak to you.

>>7152304
>>7152361
>>7152376
>>7152437

ITT: the True American Way of War

>>7151010
>Terren Marine
>Terren

>nobody has noticed this yet

>>7152432
Don't forget knife dudes.

>>7152381
Wow, if you wrote that please write another one, or someone post another something like that.
Because thats awesome.
I practically jizzed my pants reading it

>>7152381
> furry hides

Humans vs. Furries?

I see a game wherein the human race has developed/adapted some high tech alien... er, tech, so as to farm various species for their adaptations to their environments. This way, when humans get to a planet that isn't Class M, they can "borrow" (More likely, steal) the genetic adaptations they need to survive. The spliced generation are hybrids, and their offspring might as well be native born sons and daughters.
...generally, the "aliens" don't appreciate this.

>>7152481

It was the first thing I noticed. And why I didn't post.

Saging for effect.

Aliens dont exist.
Government tells populace that aliens exist so as to unite all humans under a single banner against the horrifying prospect of utter extinction.
However, to turn it around, humanity advances at a blinding pace due to that false strife.

>>7152491

Thanks, maybe another day in a more appropriate thread.

Would you believe that is my first bit of writefaggotry?

One way or another, I think genetic engineering is going to be a pretty big deal. How about a society where humans are divided into biological castes?

At the bottom rung are people who have been genetically modified to completely lack free will or the capacity for independent thought. Its not fair to call them slaves, because following orders is literally all they are capable of. They enjoy the fruits of their labors in the form of good food, good sex (some of them are bred for that specific purpose in the first place), psychotropics or other forms of entertainment that don't require a soul, and other simple pleasures. They can speak just like you or I, and are perfectly competent problem solvers, but they have no ability to innovate or come up with ideas of their own. They are the laborers, workhorses, and canon fodder.

Then there are professionals. People who are designed to be really, really good at a certain thing, and to love doing it. Tough guys with an innate proclivity toward fighting. Smart guys with an innate passion for science. They are free to pursue whatever career they want; their very genes dictate that whatever they choose will be something they're very good at. Aside from these traits, they're just like baseline humans. Professionals are the majority of the population.

Then there's the brainboyz. These transhumans are modified for hyper intelligence, compassion, and pragmatism, incorruptible leaders. Though they are somewhat physically frail due to the nutritional demands of their hyperevolved brains, they have the greatest potential of all to enjoy the prosperity of the society, for when they make a majority decision, their power is absolute.

Reproduction is highly regulated, with intermarriage between castes strictly forbidden. There may still be some baseline humans in this society, but they are so often outcompeted by their genetically refined brethren that they have become a shrinking minority.

A fledging human colony (Isolated from earth.) Gets contacted by a super advanced alien empire and is offered territory,technology and allies with they align with the Empire and serve along with other Alien Species as a sort of warrior race for this Empire. The other Hyper Advances Alien empires do the same thing and have these warrior races fight there wars for them.
Mankind accepts this deal and 200 years later is kicking ass.

>>7152713
Im guna go start a more appropriate thread right now.

You dont have to contribute i just need to read summore amazing stuff like that.

Outstanding job tho.

I've been working on and off on a story concept set in the future. Mankind has expanded to the stars and all that malarky but due to a massive accident Earth was destroyed, fortunately most of humanity survived thanks to earth being a stopping off point for most.

The story has 2 parts, the first is a solider fighting a ground war against a bunch of aliens for control over an inhabital planet and the second is a diplomat trying to get the aliens to withdraw and/or have reinforcements sent to the planet.

It's not HUMANITY FUCK YEAH! but humanity is shown to be a bunch of warmongers that fight a good fight.

What do people think?

>>7152724

Hmm, not sure why I started waxing utopian when I wrote that. Feel free to take that post and add whatever amount of grimdark you'd prefer.

>>7152679
Plucky young soldier discovers truth, fights the whole of the government, incites rebellion, gets the girl.
The novel version would not include the girl, and the protagonist would finally, at the end, see the good in what the government is doing. A sot of "greater good" thing. Book ends, and begins - as a flashback -, with that same soldier torturing a rebel who followed the protagonists line of thought and got caught.

>>7152746

Interesting. How sympathetic are the main characters (and, to a lesser degree, humanity in general) supposed to be?

>>7152724
Thank you for a wonderful idea. I believe I have the setting for my next Sci-Fi RPG.

>>7152818

Glad you liked it. Sometimes my biologyfag ways come in handy.

>>7152679
Bet you thought of that 35 minutes ago.

>>7152790
The solider is committed to his job, he has Starship Troopers style gear and loves the feeling of power. Thanks to his training and indoctrination he cares more about his squad than anything. His story serves as a counterpoint to the politics, as he starts to lose squadmates the negotiations become more desparate.

The diplomat is a more detached character, humanity is seen as a dying race and due to a terrorist powerblock within humanity they've been terrorising huge areas of space. So the aliens are less than enthusiastic to give over this planet. The diplomat is more human than the solider and is simply trying for a new place for people to live.

I was thinking of adding another character who is a war-monger, they control a flying battle suit and they enjoy killing. Making the grunt and the diplomat seem more human and likable in comparison.

Humans are born into a great and ancient universe, and when they reach for the stars the stars reach back- Not with a clenched fist, but an open palm.

Each species has its place in the galaxy, and they control their populations so that they need not expand beyond their allotted sectors. Long ago, they learned that the terrible weapons they had developed would easily end each other and everything else if they were ever unleashed, and under this threat they attained the greatest, most difficult goal of any group of states: Peace.

Humanity is distrustful. They are at first suspicious, then paranoid. They are scared by the strange forms of some the creeping, writhing things, and the bizarre technology of others. They find nothing that resembles them. And so they lash out; their weapons are primitive, their ways barbaric, but in their complacency the aliens had long since abandoned their machines of war.

Humanity wins victory on world after world, the aliens easily ceding and retreating further rather than fighting, for they have nothing to fight with- At first. And then they again find their old machines, their long cast-off weapons. Two, three; a tiny fraction of a fraction of what was once an immense army.

>>7152943

And with these weapons entire systems are obliterated. Worlds and stars taken by humanity turned not to ash, not to atoms, but to quarks and quantum fragments. Within the earth measured time frame of seventeen hours, fourty-eight percent of all humanity was lost, and .13 of the entire known universe was reduced to nothing.

And so the humans, too, learned the value of peace, and the old weapons were again put to rest. And the scars they left on creation were sewed over; scattered dust from a billion nebulae across all creation brought, compressed, re-formed into new worlds, and left to be re-settled.

>>7152953

So it had been once.. Twice.. A hundred-fold, stretching back into infinity. Each new race, stabbing out into the void of the sky, only to be stabbed back; each new race, learning in blood, the value of peace. So it was for time immemorial, and so it would be until the end of time.

Archiving thread 7151010
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>>7152960
...and then humanity, upon developing the same technology, decided that it was time to deliver the cold hard pimpslap of the bitch named payback.

In a mere fraction of a second, every alien race with the capability to oppose humanity in any fashion other than attempting to smother the invaders in corpses was erased from existence, their bodies rendered down into raw material that would be combined with the ashes of their murdered worlds to create new ones, homes for the expansion of humanity now that they had been cleansed of the xenos taint.

>>7152960

I like the cycle of extinction concept (its an idea I use often, and it justifies there being awesome alien ruins all over the place).

>>7153045

ITT: there is no amount of creativity, imagination, or quality that can't be quashed by a neckbearded warhammerfag.

rolled 4, 2, 5 = 11

“This is disconcerting.”

“Sir?” The aide said softly, tilting her head to the side.

Secretary Stilden went on, grumpily, “The Machines captured Themistocles.” He motioned to the archaic, silver-trimmed hardcopy in front of him, “Got the 'fax on a Nine this morning. Of course,” he smiled thinly, “That makes the news twenty-three years past its due.” It was a well-known fact that lightspeed limits wreaked havoc with administrative duties. Any respectable bureaucrat learned very quickly to hate and despise the limitations of physics. And Stilden was, at the very least, respectable.

>>7153045

..And those weapons could not lay dormant. A conqueror does not conquer only to rest. Yes, there was Humanity. Man. United. Victorious. Alone.

..The slight would forever remain unknown, for there would be no mouth left to speak it. But in its wake, one careless human tongue left a single pinprick of light amidst the sky of a thousand worlds.

And in retribution, another speck of light was born. And another. And then another. Until all that was dark and silent in existence became one great, blinding pyre, its tendrils reaching out beyond the limits of even its empire, a single brilliant star that lit the empty corners of the void.

And when it faded, there was nothing. There was no dust. There were no bones. Only a great, blank slate, forever a testament to a lesson unlearned.

..Humanity had at last found peace.

>>7153084
No, by the simple hand of reality.

Given the evidence of these weapons, ones that are impossible to defend against and that can affect targets at any distance from the weapon instantaneously, the natural human response is going to be to use them to completely destroy our enemies before they think of using them to completely destroy us.

Humanity did not achieve mastery of this planet by being kind or peaceful, and I see no reason why our basic nature will have changed for any reason other than our extinction.

rolled 2, 5, 1 = 8

>>7153121
He folded his hands on the desk, running his tongue over his teeth as he considered the implications. “Lucky for us we severed ties with them, eh?” he chuckled without humor, glancing at his aide's expressionless mask of a face. Sometimes he wished the Lords hadn't forced the abominable thing on him. “Human-analogue” features or no, the aide was far from achieving any kind of a natural look. She was rigid; a grim parody of everything warm and emotional. With a smirk and a slight shake of the head, he closed that line of thought. He'd been over it far too many times, after all.

“It didn't take much. They steamrolled the system defenses as if they were made of paper and wood. If he had only surrendered...” But that was out of the question. The consequences would have been unimaginable. The political situation had never been anywhere close to stable, and if the Emperor showed any weakness, let his attitude of defiance slip for even one moment, the court would have been all over him, tearing him to pieces like a pack of hyenas. And once word got out to the public, the blood would flow faster than even the Machines could stymie it.

rolled 5, 4, 6 = 15

>>7153130
Stilden sighed, his shoulders suddenly feeling very heavy. “I suppose nothing could be done, once the missiles launched,” he looked into his aide's lifeless eyes, searching for any hint of understanding, “Sometimes I wonder how we can produce such stupidity concurrently with such greatness.”

The aide blinked. “It is the human condition, sir.”

“Ha!” Stilden leaned back in his chair, clasping his hands behind his head, “You're damn right it is. I don't suppose those awful Machines have any problem with that, do they?”

“No, sir,” the aide agreed with a tiny smile, “They most likely do not.”

The Secretary seemed satisfied with this. “Well, in any case, this is something we have to deal with,” he told the automaton, secretly wondering if it actually -could- be dealt with, “Schedule an appointment with the Lords. All of them, if possible. And bring me some brandy.”

The aide bowed with a mechanical whir. “Right away, sir.”

rolled 5, 4, 2 = 11

>>7153139
I have a few pages of stuff like that. Prematurely-ended writefagging set in the Iron Quest universe. I'll post the rest if anyone's interested.

>>7152376
iT'D END with a farseer snapping and letting rip with a Psychic Storm, or mind warring the clerk.

>>7152724
>>7152756
>>7152818

from the book Brave new World
it is a good book, very nice reading

I recognized it after reading two first lines of the post

>>7153123
Quite likely. Without an foe to unite against, it is the eternal curse of humankind that we shall war against each other, from nation against nation to brother against brother, until at last all dissent is silenced.

But oh, the glories that would be created before the end!

>>7153198
And man grew proud. The princes, putting the words of their wise men to naught, thought each to himself: If I but strike quickly enough, and in secret, I shall destroy those others in their sleep, and there will be none to fight back; the earth shall be mine. Such was the folly of princes, and there followed the Flame Deluge.

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>>7153319
...Canticle for Leibowitz?

>>7153339
You sir, win an internet.

>>7152724
TOUGH GUYS FUCKING BRAINBOYZ.

QUEER SEX LEADING TO MAGIC SUPER SMART SOLDIERS. ROBERT HEINLEIN WOULD HAVE AN ORGASM.

>>7153353
Sic transit gloria mundi, my friend.

>>7153196

Never read that, actually. Didn't even know it featured bio-engineering.

Ah well, I assumed it had already been done somewhere in scifi.

>>7153361

Well, I was thinking that each caste is totally optimized for their given purpose. A hybrid between two castes wouldn't benefit from all that fine-tuning, and would be much less effective all around than either of its parents.

DNA isn't as smart as we wish it was.

>>7153361
Speaking of Heinlein
In the Beginning there was Jordan, thinking his lonely thoughts alone.
In the Beginning there was darkness, formless, dead, and Man unknown.
Out of the loneness came a longing, out of the longing came a vision,
Out of the dream there came a planning, out of the plan there came decision—
Jordan's hand was lifted and the Ship was born!
-Orphans of the Sky

Heroes Die, and Blade of Tyshalle... Both excellent books.

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>>7153408

you guessed it right, it is a good book very old but still has a great story with a huge twist on its end (spoilers much) but yeah it covers a lot the genetic manipulation theme and the utopic society ideas

>>7153455
Funny thing, actually.
Nobody had even conceptualized the idea of DNA when Brave New World was written-he was just going off the idea of selective breeding.

Humanity: The only species in the Universe who stopped worshiping their sun.

>>7153497
"You mean you don't invoke the gaze of the seven moon dragons before initiaitng warp drive?"
"Uh, no."

>>7153479

I fund his description of the methods of human manipulation mind blowing

how they could achive diferent results by just changing the nutrient the fetus recieved during its growth

>>7153479
He also took into fact that there can be errors and how the created society should react to aberrations. His is also exclusively based on a weirdly capitalistic model as well.

>>7153526
Even slight changes make an aryan superman or a barely functioning retard at certain stages. I thought how space mechanics are made is kinda funny. Never truly happy unless standing on their heads or in zero gees.

>>7153745
This is impressive even now, in the Year of Our Ford 101.

>>7153745

even in the book you can see who much he mentions how the comunist equality system was faded to failure

"No, I cannot assist in establishing contact with the humans in the nearby sectors. I am not familiar with their social protocols."

"...No, you don't understand. I have made many commerce-exchanges with humans, but not with those humans. Their social protocols can...vary."

"I am aware of how strange it sounds. But after prolonged disconnection from the main hive, human colonies slowly begin to manifest alterations to the guiding social structure. The reason for this is unknown."

"I will call for my brood-mate, who has adopted the colorful shell-markings prevalent among that human colony-cluster in order to be recognized among them, and she will tell you how to approach them properly."

Any species that's advanced enough to leave their planet and go visit another species is just not going to have a lot in common with them. We probably can't eat their food or breathe their air. We won't need their technology and won't want to give them ours.

About the only thing we'll be able to exchange on an equal basis is culture. They will have to have some sort of pattern-recognition ability, and if they're anything like us, they'll use it recreationally. Representational art, performances, stories, games- these are things that are going to be universal enough to share, but every species will approach them differently.

So, the big questions-

1) Are we going to have some sort of sane approach to copyright law and intellectual property by the time we make it to the stars?

2) Are we going to bring our religions with us?

rolled 5, 5, 3 = 13

>>7154093
1) No.

2) Of course.

>>7151176
>What I do like though, is the idea of humanity establishing a gigantic intelligence agency to conduct technological espionage.

Sure is Culture Special Circumstances in here.

>>7154154
The Culture books suck.

>>7154171
Your face sucks

>>7154171
>>7154177

Only Excession was good, and that's because Minds don't have faces.

I wonder how much it would screw with us if we actually found alien species, except instead of being alien, they looked kinda like us, only with minor aberrations (ie: blue colored skin, or pointed ears)? I wonder why SciFi settings which utilize human looking aliens don't explore the ramifications of that?

Personally, I like the Buck Godot version of humanity.

We spread across the solar system, then collapsed when a massive solar flare anomaly fried every electronic circuit in the solar system. The only group that maintained power was a benevolent research corp beneath the polar ice cap. Using that as a starting oint, humanity rebuilt and spread across the stars, eventually gene-tailoring or evolving into specialized sub-races.

They met and were inducted into the Galimaufry, the local governmental union in charge of making sure every sentient species in the area has an opportunity to communicate with its neighbors, after the human representative performed the traditional initiation rite (Singing 'I wish they all could be femthuxian girls' in front of the assembled races' diplomats. The Galimaufry doesn't take itself too seriously.)

Unfortunately, to curb humanity's propensity for meaningless wars, we were placed under the rule of Lord Thezmothet, a plant-based super-being with the most advanced technology in known space. Then the Law was created. Law robots patrol every human world, one per world, and enforce whatever the local laws are (so know what's what when traveling), though Buck lives on New Hong Kong, where there is only one law: There are no laws. It's a fun planet. The Galimaufry serves, first and foremost, as a point of exchange for cultural concepts. Some races never developed the idea of radio communication, others are incapable of seeing in less than five and a half dimensions. This gives them a venue to expand their understanding under the watchful, but mostly laissez-faire eye, of the Prime movers, the local omnipotent and omniscient space-gods.

Oddly enough, humanity's only major contribution to galactic civilization? Popsicles. Huge hit.

Ahh, Phil Foglio. Master storyteller. I wish he'd continue Buck Godot.