Then, at long last, they reached the stars. They were limited by their own biology when they began, their bodies breaking down after many a cycle. But as their visions grew more and more amazing, so did they grow more and more evolved. Where nature and natural selection had left off, they began. Humanity twisted and altered their own forms, adapting and advancing exponentially as they continued to reach for that which could not be touched. By the time they made first contact, they had rid themselves of what they had been forced to make due with. All that they were, they had made themselves. No other species could claim as much.

At first they did not mesh well with the other races of the universe. They were creatures of motion and progress. The others were ones of order and complacency. At least in the eyes of humanity. To the others, humans were as a flood of advancement. It was both wondrous and horrifying to watch as the humans spun webs of science, art, and culture over the universe, spreading themselves wherever they could. Looking for what could not be found. I was there when it began. A leader among my people, we had for so long led other races in the darkness of space, races new and frightened of its size. I had expected the humans to be the same, to be in awe of my race's works. So it had been for millennia. The others would at first believe us as gods, and slowly rise to be nearly our equals. It was not so with the humans, for our power, while vast, was nothing compared to what the humans believed they could achieve. And so they did not join with us as lessers as so many had done. No, their path they had to forge themselves.

HFY?

HFY. But this actually sounds pretty interesting thus far. Please, OP, continue.

It had been only a hundred cycles since the humans stepped into the spotlight when we first began to suspect their true intentions. They had taken so much space for themselves, all, they claimed, in the name of progress. But they were after something we could not hope to comprehend. They wanted out. Out of the dance. Out of the slow march into death. Out of the universe. And so, all while the other races' admiration for them grew, they plotted to leave them behind. Humanity had felt reality trying to crush their visions, their dreams, and they resented it for it. They hated it for it. Reality was the problem, they believed. It lacked vision. While this may seem insane to you and I, dear reader, it made perfect sense to the humans.

But how to force reality to conform to their visions? This puzzle haunted them for centuries as they assumed dominance over the other races around them. Their minds stretched back and forth across the endless expanse of time and space, slowly becoming more than real. But it was still not enough. They wanted more. I was there when they first began to form the Great Engine. It came together like it was meant to be, like the human design was something intrinsic to the universe. Galaxies burned like coals in the fires, as humanity's visions began to reach their peak. We who watched from below thought them mad with power. What possible way could they ever hope to overturn the very laws that gave them life? We continued to watch as the Engine spun and heated to greater heights, to higher levels of energy. It seemed to turn forever, and in the unknowable instant between never and eternity, something changed. We could all feel it. The dance was different, the tempo was changed, the beat had become more rapid. And the humans were nowhere to be found.

Friendly bump for interesting HFY in need of minor proofreading.

If OP is finished I'll go ahead and drop something lengthy, it's only been posted once before.

What had happened to them, shall perhaps remain a mystery for all time. But there is work to be done. I too, feel the drive I can only think the humans once had. And when I look out upon the stars, I feel not dread, but hope.

There. Quick and painless. It wasn't meant to be long, just an interesting take on HFY.

Go ahead and tell me how much it sucks now.

>>14719335

It's a lot better than the majority of the HFY drek that gets posted here.

The ending leaves something to be desired though. It's nice, but doesn't really go anywhere in the end.

>>14719335
> Go ahead and tell me how much it sucks now.

It sucks

Somewhat more tolerable than most HFY trite, but that isn't saying much

Actually this was fairly innovative. A bit of fresh air amidst all the stories of slaughter and conquest.

In the end we are beings of creation and vision, but sadly we often seem to be interested in more base desires.

>>14719389
>>14719377
It was mostly just to see how /tg/ liked the general theme. I'll probably write some better, longer stuff with the focus on those traits in humans.

>And here we go...

Chief Navigator Fvellic's brow lowered as his eyes contracted, focussing his annoyance on the scanner in front of him. A chitinous limb exposed itself from the folds of his ceremonial robes, and a single digit unfurled. He rubbed at the dark smudge on the screen. It stubbornly remained.

They had patrolled the Alithrak system - named for the Commander of their flagship, the Ritellis - for seven days now. They had seen it all, and the disappointment of these meagre planets had reached all the way back to the homeworld. Initial dossiers had sent a jolt through their entire species: an inherently stable system with a rich asteroid belt and three planets in the right place for all Commonwealth species. It would have been invaluable for the war effort if the three planets weren't all nightmarish wastelands.

Alithrak II was a planet-sized pressure-cooker: the probes they had sent down had lasted minutes. IV was a dry, airless worlds bearing the scars of relentless asteroid bombardment, and III was a hostile combination of both. Positive news was circulating about a few of the system's moons, but Fvellic wasn't impressed. The Commonwealth needed a hub, a manufacturing epicentre for the system. The current swathe of backwater colonies was simply not enough.

"So why are we still here?" asked Ythc from behind, as Fvellic almost jumped out of his carapace. Ythc, the leader of the ship's strike team, was good at sneaking up on people.

"Mhasi," Fvellic said. No more was needed.

"Simple enough."

"Alithrak's briefing had the detail, but that's what it boils down to. Search and destroy."

"Well, I can't say that tactic's failed me," replied Ythc, spreading his mandibles in a grin.

"Hey," Ythc said suddenly, "what's that on your scanner?"

"A mark," Fvellic said dismissively, "I'll procure some cleaning a-"

"It's moving."

>>14719419

“Commander on the bridge!” shouted Ythc as he and the other soldiers snapped to attention. Alithrak emerged into the room, and he was just as imposing as the Mhasi whispered. His sinewy frame reached eight feet easily, despite his hunch, and his gaunt face held eyes of fierce intelligence. “What have we got?” he asked as his subordinates scrambled to comply.

“A large object over Alithrak II, Commander, in a very low but stable orbit,” said Fvellic.

“And it's a dead read across the board: we only spotted it against the bright clouds of the planet,” said another.

“How large?” Alithrak inquired.

“Just under eleven kilometres, end to end...”

“... Which seems ordinary for a small natural satellite to me, Commander.”

“What my colleague is failing to take into account is the shape, sir,” said Fvellic.

“And what shape is it?”

“It is... well...” the first analyst trailed off.

“Ship shaped.”

Alithrak nodded slowly, considering the situation.

“Notify all ships. The Sifvohren is to take point for a clean scan, whilst the Phexis and the Dhoem plot firing solutions.”

The bridge erupted in the clacking of keys and mandibles as orders were issued and followed. Alithrak turned to leave, pausing briefly by the door.

“Captain Ythc, make your preparations.”

“Absolutely, sir.”

>>14719443

“...Three... two... one... firing. Probe fired.”

Silence loomed over the bridge of the Ritellis as glowing rear of the probe flashed briefly into view. It vanished into the void, but the tracking locator remained to give a steady reads of distance and speed. The fleet was observing from behind the third planet, spread into a tenuous skirmish formation. Watching it with particular interest was Captain Ythc and his strike team from a small monitor in the armoury: if the probe was successful then they could well be the follow-up.

“Fifteen... ten kilometres... five! Impact!”

Ythc had his eyes closed, as he imagined the probe coming in like a kinetic round. The flash of raw heat on impact and the immense shudder which would ring through an entire ship. The spray of debris into space and the red-hot hole in the side.

“Impact confirmed.”

“Breach?” asked Alithrak urgently. The probe's handler hesitated. “Did we breach?!”

“Affirmative... we're in. Probe is damaged but we have a signal.”

“Display on main.”

The bridge darkened as a rotating icon appeared cheerfully against the window.

“Gravimeter on,” said the handler as a messy stream of data occupied the top-left corner of the projection.

“Thermals on,” was the confirmation as the second quarter came online. Some white patches from the impact but otherwise solid grey: no heat.

“GPR on.” Blurry schematics started to appear in slices in the third quarter.

“Visual... on.”

As the fourth panel came online Alithrak craned to see, stretching to his full height of over nine feet. His subordinates didn't even notice him, so drawn were they to the monitor. In the armoury an autorifle fall freely to the ground, and nobody even blinked.

>>14719455

What are they?

How many are there?

Are they alive?

Endless questions were cast from every corner of Alithrak's fleet as the same image from the probe was held in every mind. The picture had already been smuggled off of the military network and onto the Commonwealth net. It had already been recognised as a hoax, as the apocalypse and as everything in between by the so-called experts back home.

Alithrak stared at the same image in his quarters, in endless awe.

There were pods. Hundreds of thousands them in a vast cylindrical chamber, with as many as eight such chambers mapped out on the GPR scan. In the foreground every detail was visible on a single pod including, most importantly, a nude grey figure suspended in a stagnant fluid. Alithrak couldn't gauge it's size from this perspective, but he already had a team of scientists studying the images. He was fascinated by the mane of thick fur at the top of the otherwise hairless creature. It had the musculature of a young Mhasi, but its skin was pale and dotted with black and silver sockets.

Alithrak had made up his mind. He left his quarters and strode straight into the armoury, garnering a reflexive salute from a surprised Ythc.

“Soldiers of the Ritellis strike force: you will soon be launched through space, through someone's hull and into history. You are tasked with recovering a specimen from the ship and, if the entire species is not dead, you will be the conduit for our ambassadors to establish first contact.”

“You mean, sir, that even if they are alive we should still secure the specimen?”

“Correct, Captain Ythc. We will have an alien to study, whether dead or alive. Ten minutes to prepare.”

>>14719473

“Breaching... breach confirmed!” came the satisfied call of the lead gunner on board the Ritellis. His ordinance this time was jokingly referred to as 'live ammo': an assault-shuttle bearing two teams of Commonwealth Special Forces. Approximately two kilometres away from the target a charge in the midsection would detonate, accelerating an exploding nose to make a breach as the rear half followed through with the troops.

“Captain Ythc, this is Ritellis Control, do you read?”

“We read you, deployment successful. We've established a perimeter, nothing unexpected so far.”

“He's good”, said Alithrak, brimming with confidence.

Ythc and his two teams had deployed into a large room which, their GPR schematics showed, was just above another large chamber. Air, heat and gravity were all offline but their combat suits could handle that. Ythc could hear his troops over open microphones, and nothing else but the rhythmic clunking of his magnetic footsteps reverberating through the suit.

“Team one front and centre,” he barked as he gestured towards a door, “I want this open!”

With a grunt of confirmation two troops moved forwards as others covered the door. One drew a breaching plate and clamped it to the front of his rifle as another scanned the door with a hand-held device.

“Right here,” said the one with the scanner, tapping the middle of the door, as his colleague raised his weapon and pushed the breaching plate against it.

“Breaching!” came the call as the locking mechanism exploded into the next room. Ythc was already in with a crowbar, and the door was quickly opened.

They descended a short set of stairs and were confronted with another door. This one, however, seemed to read their intent and opened itself in silence.

>>14719485

“Control,” announced Ythc, “Looks like bits of this thing still have power... just how old is it?”

“The science team is working on that, Captain. Current best guess is a couple 'thousand years at least.”

“Control, be honest with me here. Do we have any idea who built this?” asked Ythc.

“Negative, Captain... but given the size of this thing we're hoping that they're dead or friendly.”

“Dead or friendly,” said Ythc under his breath.

The team relaxed a little as they moved through the next few rooms: the inside of the alien ship was a complete mess, but they didn't see any signs of battle. Eventually they found a large round opening which they knew would lead into the pod array.

They walked through in a wedge formation, and emerged in the cylindrical chamber onto a catwalk that spanned the entire length of it. The individual pods were larger than the images had suggested, and Ythc walked up to one of them, as if hypnotised.

An alien floated in the pod before him, just like the one in the image.

“Two arms, two legs, one head. I was hoping for something more interesting,” cracked one of his troops.

“Ugly fuckers, though,” replied another.

Ythc seemed satisfied with the specimen in front of him.

“Control,” he called in, “please ask Commander Alithrak if this particular alien would be sufficient.”

“One moment please.”

>>14719494

The squad's technician stepped forward, casually removing the front panel of the pod's console. He poked around inside with a little light.

“Shit,” he said, “this whole damn system is... well it's alien.”

“You can't hack it?”

“Short answer, no. Long answer... I'd love to get this back to the Ritellis and try. Let's see...” said the technician as he started experimenting with the keyboard. An interface flickered into life, presenting a menu in the alien language.

“Just one option, so I'm guessing that's release.”

“Let's find out.”

With a quiet whir the console burst into activity, throwing up alien text as beeps and whirrs came through. A speaker behind them made a cheerful ding as the large round exit slammed shut.

Atmosphere began to rush back into the chamber: thick yet colourless. Less oxygen than would be considered optimal in the Commonwealth, but perfectly breathable.

“Captain, this is Control! What the hell is going on down there?”

“We, uh... I think we turned it on.”

Lights were coming on everywhere, and the vibrations of heavy machinery could be felt through the catwalk. An alarm sounded within the alien pod, and the dirty, viscous fluid was drained in seconds. It cracked open, globs of liquid floating through the massive chamber.

“Quick, before the gravity comes on!” yelled Ythc, “Control, we have the alien, I think it's alive! We need a pressurised route out of here!”

“No pressure to any of the adjacent rooms, Captain... wait, the LZ is above you! Go up!”

“Gimmie that!” shouted Ythc as he snatched an anti-tank weapon from the leader of team two. He aimed upwards and fired, blasting a large hole through the ceiling.

“Mag boots off, let's go!”

With two of them clutching the alien they jumped in unison, emerging not far from their landing zone. Clambering aboard the shuttle, the team strapped in and sealed the door.

>>14719501

“Form a damn line! Medics, engineers, scientists, everybody else! In that order, you grubs!”

The clamour surrounding the shuttle, back on board the Ritellis, was intense as personnel surrounded the returning raiders.

“I don't know what you did down there!” yelled Alithrak as he strode towards Ythc, “but it's active and I am hoping that it's not pissed off!”

“Commander,” said one of the analysts, feebly.

“Not now!” replied Alithrak as he turned his attention back to Ythc, “Captain, I've got fifteen thousand crewmen in this fleet here cleaning shit out their robes because you turned something on! You got any idea how loud I had to shout to stop those assholes on the Phexis from putting holes in it?”

“Yes-” said Ythc.

“Commander!” tried the analyst again.

“Did you get the damn specimen at least?

“Yeah, we did.”

A stretcher emerged from the assault-shuttle, bearing the unconscious alien.

This stunned the crowd into silence. Everyone except one determined analyst.

“Commander, look at this!” the analyst demanded quietly, passing a data-pad with the now famous pod image on it.

“Yeah, the pods. Welcome to three hours ago, now get-”

“Yes, the pods,” replied the analyst, patiently, “look!”

Alithrak did look, and when he saw it it was like a slap in the face. This was not the original image, this was the probe's live feed. The same room, from the same angle, with the same countless pods. Except that they were empty.

>>14719508

Within minutes the alien was situated in the laboratory, with a horde of scientists taking samples. The rest of the crew were scrambling for their battle-stations as their potential target, the behemoth alien ship, poured incredible force from its engines and broke the gravity well of the second planet as if it were a paper chain.

“Incoming broadcast, text only,” shouted the communication's officer above the chaos.

With a nod from Alithrak the message was brought up on several screens. It was a short one.

“They seem to have guessed the structure of our language and have provided... suggestions for us regarding translation.”

“Good. That's good, right?” queried Fvellic, “if they wanted to destroy us, then they wouldn't care if we read it or not. Right?”

“How long to translate?” asked Alithrak

“Not long, they've done most of it for us... they must have been monitoring Captain Ythc's communications.”

“The first word reads: Attention interlopers”

“Not a good start,” said Fvellic.

“Power to weapon capacitors” commanded Alithrak.

“Right, it reads... Attention interlopers: Earth stands today as a withered husk of what it should be. We were judged and found wanting by forces far beyond us, but there was survival amidst the destruction. There was learning amongst the chaos and, finally, from within anger and hatred and fear came retribution.

“Earth stands today as a monument to our survival, for there is far less remaining of their homeworld. We do not care that ours is a dead world: it is ours by rights and we shall hold it. We do not care that we are a doomed species: we shall survive and learn against the malevolence of all others and of the universe itself.

“The Human Remnant marches forward, with not one left behind.”

>>14719508

“INCOMING!”

Alithrak's first reaction was one of relief; had their main gun fired then they wouldn't have had any notice.

“What have we got?”

His question was answered by a resounding WHAM as something slammed into the side of the Ritellis. The Phexis had opened fire at the first human capacitor surge, and the Dhoem had now joined it. The two heavy cruisers were moving to shield their flagship as an array of destroyers and corvettes fanned out. These would form a missile-shield for the larger vessels with their point-defence systems, and in turn they would soon launch missiles of their own.

“Slug? Charge? What the fuck just hit us?”

“Minimal damage, sir” said the chief engineer, apparently surprised, “it slowed rapidly just before impact.”

“Wait,” started Ythc, still in his combat suit, “It's a fucking assault-”

“SURGE!”

“INCOMING!”

Warnings screamed urgently as a small, silent flash came from the human ship. The battle icon of the Phexis winked out.

“Are we hit?”

“The Phexis!”

Crewmen swarmed to the viewscreen to see the front of the Phexis burning. The fireball mushroomed from the front of the ship as the atmosphere inside combusted: the human slug had torn an opening along the vessel's length. Survivors would remain in outer armouries and hangars, but the ship was lost.

Alithrak had been stunned into silence.

“We need to fall back!” yelled Fvellic.

“There's another problem,” countered Ythc, “intruders in the main hangar.”

“Stop them!” ordered Alithrak to Ythc, his control over this situation draining with every second.

>>14719514

With a muffled ding the door opened Ythc moved through, with him was the twelve-man strike team he had taken aboard the human ship. Another two hundred soldiers had armed up and would soon move in through the main door.

The corner of the hangar was twisted and charred, with the open nose of a human assault pod poking through. It was far larger than the covert shuttles used by the Commonwealth, and so too were its occupants.

Four humans had already disgorged from the pod and taken position in the hangar.

They looked very different to the specimen Ythc had retrieved: gone was the flesh and hair and instead stood a grey mountain of armour and equipment. Although silent, the towering figures had their attention focussed on just one of their number. Officer.

Ythc raised his weapon, took aim and fired. He watched in dismay as the round plinked against the human's head and failed to penetrate. It turned.

“Get down!” yelled Ythc as one of the humans stepped forwards, holding a multi-barrelled weapon from the hip. It spun to life as Ythc hit the deck, and then it loosed a long burst of pure hell towards the Commonwealth squad. Exploding rounds hammered into the team two leader as his mutilated body collapsed.

Another burst forced Ythc and his men to duck and run, returning only a few shots as they retreated to the door. The four humans advanced, pouring suppressive fire into Ythc's position. Two humans flanked rapidly, standing between Ythc's squad and the main hangar doors as the other two continued to suppress. Two more of the Commonwealth soldiers were shot at close range, and Ythc heard them expire over the open microphones.

Just in time his reinforcements arrived, as the main hangar doors whirred open to reveal two companies of ground troops. The first two humans, now themselves outflanked, simply turned and fired.

>>14719525

“Commander, we've lost contact with Captain Ythc.”

“Have his reinforcements arrived?”

“They arrived at the hangar, and we seem to have lost contact with them too. We have four alien signatures moving towards the science wing.”

“Four? Where are the rest of them?”

“We don't know.”

“Lock it down, lock everything down! Have the Betka send us more ground troops. Use a fucking assault-shuttle if we have to, we need to stop those intruders!”

The next ten minutes passed in near silence, save for the steady pings of computers tracking the exchange of fire in space. The Dhoem had fallen back after taking a glancing hit, and soon after the human vessel had stopped firing its main weapon. It was now plugging casually at the smaller vessels with its secondary guns, and had yet to score a serious hit.

“Sir, they've breached the science wing and are converging on the alien.”

“Is the science team alive?”

“Yes, apparently they ran and the 'humans' neither fired nor pursued.”

His enemy honoured surrender, or at least recognised civilians. The silver lining on a particularly gruesome cloud, thought Alithrak.

“Do we have working cameras in the science wing?”

“Displaying on main.”

Four figures, armoured and invincible, stood around the naked alien. One put down a huge case it had been carrying on its back as two others used some sort of scanner on the alien. It stirred. From inside the case came another armoured suit, with the boarding party helping the fifth human get dressed.

The leader of the human assault team then turned to look straight at the ceiling camera. For a second, Alithrak doubted that the viewing was one-way.

“Incoming broadcast... from inside our ship! It's audio!”

It was spoken crudely in Commonwealth, but they recognised it instantly as it filled the bridge.

“Not one left behind.”

>>14719532

That's actually pretty badass.

I was wondering why Earth was described as an uninhabitable waste at the beginning.

>>14719532
Is that it?

Pretty good.

This was posted a while ago, but it's a great story.

>>14719585

>Is that it?
>IS THAT IT?!

3449 words goddamn, and I managed to cut near-all of the useless shit out. I was constantly having to trim it down into chunks that can be posted in one go, and honestly it was very useful for me. Editing is a bit of a hack-job for me because the longer I spend tweaking something the less I like it. There were I think four or five versions of the human introduction message.

With 4chan's character limit in mind, however, I'd continuously be evaluating my ideas and (hopefully) only chose those which were interesting but not leaving masses unexplained.

In the original version the alien fleet was tracking two enemy cruisers, but this idea proved to be untenable.

What I'd really like to try is writing a specific setting, not vague-and-generic-as-fuck sci-fi.

OP you're fucking awesome, MOAR.

Someone put this on sup/tg/.

>>14720036
You do it, lazy ass.

>>14720059

...I don't know how.
I'm quite useless.

Reposting.

>>14720265
i like this one

>>14720265

Very nice.

>>14720357
cute, but,
youfailbiologyforever.jpg

>>14720397
So you're saying that, amongst non-human species, it is 100% impossible for human sperm and egg cells to function as a universal stem-cell, conforming to the requirements of more advanced reproduction paradigms? Even after accounting for genetic treatments and splicing to expand compatibility?

I didn't write that story, BTW, just saved it because I like the thought of hippy philosophy finally pulling its weight and contributing something positive to the species.

>>14720434
>>14720397
I like the fluff, just saying that the idea that we would naturally be like that is out the window, and effort it would take to make us like that is so large that we would need a daaamn good reason to do so, and I just cant see humanity deciding to conquer the stars via the horizontal tango.

>>14720468
who said it's an organized conquest? Maybe it's just human perversion combined with nano-viagra and hippy free-love philosophy.

Interesting thoughts on humans:

Evolutionary path that led to ecological dominance ? Debated by galactic scientists.

Some say the early evolution from ape to man and subsequent development of civilization (the "killer app" for dominance [<--- note from overseer Kl'x'tk: archivist Scragkl'ggg's usage of ancient terms and phrases is inaccessible to the average reader]) was driven by the natural selection of the traits of tool use - gaining intelligence to better take advantage of the hands of the apes.

But others point out that the more obvious transition was not from ape to smarter ape or further development of hands into some kind of super-hands, but the transition instead from the trees to the plains.

In the light, would the evolutionary path that led humans to greatness be adaptation through natural selection of enhanced bipedal movement across flat landscapes ("walking")? Could the form of locomotion found so clumsy and limited by so many species of the galaxy really have been what led them to greater socialization, greater tool use, domestication of livestock, agriculture, organized city-states, and from there writing, mathematics, astronomy, the distillation of alcohol, and automatic rifles?

This question merits further study. Additional research grants are necessary.

>>14720451
Contact Xenos
>TrollmanityFuckYeah.jpg
Give them clove cigarettes

OP, if this was original, I thoroughly enjoyed it....well, I enjoyed it regardless.

It expresses the very soul of humans, that has been stifled in the US almost entirely.

HFY?

what does it mean

>>14720636
Humanity: Fuck Yeah. It's a direct rejection of the conventional tropes of humanity is scifi stories as being weak, or underdeveloped, or helpless. Instead, it celebrates humanity as being equals with other races, sometimes superior, and often so unconventional that other races have difficulty understanding or confronting them.

>>14720636
Humanity, Fuck Yeah

>>14720685
>>14720709

thanks

>>14720685
>Instead, it celebrates humanity as being equals with other races, sometimes superior, and often so unconventional that other races have difficulty understanding or confronting them.

This sounds like a BNP pitch. You know, trying to convince the listener that they aren't a bunch of racist fuckheads.

Humanity, Fuck Yeah was good in principle for all of 5 minutes before it got hijacked for space genocide. Humanity kills, rapes and defiles anything it touches and it's right in doing so because, clearly, if the aliens didn't want to be fucked up they would have defended themselves better. It's become even more repugnant than the trope it's meant to oppose. Not that said trope was even that common.

>>14720636

There was/is some awesome short fiction that is HFY, but too many of the bandwagoners spewed out fanwank level tripe that most of /tg/ either avoids or trolls the shit out of HFY threads. A solid amount of the later stories were nothing more than marysueish bullshit.

Must be noted that I like the new stuff showing up in this thread... I prefer the 'humans are different, but not OP' style as it is.

The ship is all. The ship moves.

>>14720730
>desire to limit immigration to preserve the native majority
>racist

Nope. Mass immigration can be considered genocide under the UN's definition of genocide, hippie.

>>14720730
name one single HFY story that's been posted here more than once that's like that. One.

That's what I thought. It doesn't happen. Look at the stories in the thread so far. Almost all HFY stories, and certainly those that get saved and repeated, are about humanity taking the High Road, treating others well and only harming those who attack them first. Your opinion is uninformed. Please read before you post.

>>14720730
>Not that said trope was even that common.

You are a fucking moron.

>>14720804
THE SHIP MOVES

http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/7723751/
http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/7760069/
http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/7765640/
http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/7782415/
http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/7973860/

>>14720434
The chance is so infinitesimally small it might as well be. The idea is fucking retarded.
Aliens are not fucking elves. We'd have more of a chance of mating with a mushroom.

>>14720819
Seconded. Aside from the garbage that floats around in any medium, I have never seen anything to propose that this idea is integral to HFY at all. This is like looking at fantasy in general, and drawing the absolute worst examples within it to prove that George R.R. Martin is a bad writer, even if they weren't written by him and were markedly different in theme, tone and style.

It's retarded is what it is, the only bandwagon I see now is the "HFY is for nazis hurr", which is pure mudslinging.

>>14720819
To be honest, there are a large number of stories posted where it's 'Humans are these insane, super strong savages that leave other races awestruck'.

There are some really good ones, and the whole idea of telling the story from the Xeno's point of view is certainly novel, but it does leave itself open for some 'we're goddamn amazing' circlejerks.

>>14720842
he's not wrong, you know

"humans are special and beat aliens with their spunky, go-get'em attitude" is a much more common cliche than "humans are weak/useless/insignificant/whatever"

remember, alien invasions in fiction usually end with the aliens losing

>>14720807
Do you understand how and why?

>>14720819
Well, you've got stuff like this, but-and I'm agreeing with you here-it isn't what he's describing. This is a perverse anthropomorphic depiction of Earth itself, representing the cruelties of nature and the overt effect they have had on human nature.
It's got implications of humans going out and raping the galaxy because they're just more hardcore than everything else. It has all of the elements of bad HFY, but it isn't bad HFY, it's some of the better, because it picked a premise, a theme, and a sensation to convey, and then conveyed the fuck out of it.

So even accepting his ludicrous premise (which we needn't), it is still not a valid critique of the genre as a whole.

I always liked this piece in particular.

>>14720933
He's not wrong, but he's also not right. Unless we are to go and search this shit out manually, the numbers can be assumed about even. One is just a lot more preachy than the others, which is what has caused this resurgence of the idea that humans are a worthy species that is allowed to be impressive. This all began around the time Avatar came out, if you'd remember, which had made it a very popular idea in the public consciousness that humans were inherently flawed, and needed to be 'improved' by an outside force to make them worthy of existing.

People were pissed at this idea, and this is what we got. I think it was a fair reaction, and it's cooled down a bit from its fiery roots into stuff more like what we've got in this thread, where humans are creatures that don't need your goddamn help, despite having disadvantages, they persevered how they've always persevered, and this is, in its own way, a greater strength than anything else.

WOULD YOU LIKE TO KNOW MORE?

>>14720730
The BNP still exists? Jesus Christ, I was using that as an example of British political schizophrenia back in 8th grade, I didn't think it would actually endure past 2000.

>>14721022
It got jack shit in the last election, so it might be on its way out. Kind of like the Green Party in the US.

>>14721022
Stupidity is perennial, bro.

>>14720994
IIRC the whole HFY thing predates Avatar by a year or so.
At least, I remember reading a bunch long before it came out.

I don't see the issue with HFY.
I mean, isn't it just switching the traditional role of 'human underdog-Alien Superior?'

I mean, if you replaced the word human with Brickmonster, no one would care.

>>14721125
Some of it came before, but that was when it really heated up. That was when it hit the high point of its fervor, because it really spoke to people at the time, it was an alternative to the predominant message at the time as some folks saw it, and it was when some of the best and some of the worst of the stories were produced. I'd consider it the bronze age of HFY, it was the time of legends.

I never quite understood this Humanity-Fuck-Yeah stuff. We all know humans are deeply flawed. The average person isn't driven to achieve anything but a basic level of comfort and an attractive spouse, and of those with alternate goals, there are a thousand thieves for every artist and ten thousand zealots for every innovator.

I'm not saying we don't have good qualities, but it's fucking easy to imagine a race superior to us in every way.

>>14721125
BEHOLD
The first HFY.

Entry One
The delegation will meet for the first time today. I’m keeping this record as ordered, though I don’t see the point. The humans aren’t exactly reclusive, but the hoops they made themselves jump through before they even returned our first contact message were absurd. I heard second-hand that they nearly went into a civil war over the possibility of our message being bait for some sort of trap. Are they just naturally paranoid, or have they run into some other species of non-humans that gave them trouble? I rather suspect the former, their military, for just having one star system, is pretty numerous.

>>14721185
It's equally easy to imagine the opposite. When presented with the choice, many will choose not to arbitrarily designate their own species as the inferior. This is the HFY crowd.

>>14721145
Who cares about Brickmonsters?
>>14721185
Then you'll love this story.

Entry Two
The humans sent up some civilian diplomat instead of a military leader. I was surprised; they seem to value martial prowess fairly highly, so why do they have a civilian leader? Apparently, this guy was selected after a brief voting period, which wasn’t made open to the general population, but was only open to national leaders. That’s troubling: national leaders in a spacefaring species? That can only mean delays in the future.

Entry Three
A few more diplomats came up today, with huge stacks of portable computers. Our translators already added the one language they have used so far to the universal system, so we didn’t have any trouble deciphering the data from the computers. Apparently they want to know as much as possible about us, and in exchange, they provided a bunch of information about themselves, their history, some more language dialects we didn’t have covered yet, and some of their own starmaps. I was stunned. Why are they being so trusting? They were on the verge of a civil war when we contacted them. No, it was because we contacted them.

Entry Four
I know it’s been several weeks since I last updated this thing, but the human’s data is taking up all of my time. Apparently they have been in a state of what we would consider constant civil war since their people evolved far enough to grasp fire. Over the dumbest things, too, from religion to territory. Nearly a fifth of all of their most important technology, including their relativistic drive technology, was derived from something designed to kill other humans. No wonder they’re being so open, our people wouldn’t engage in an internal war on the scale these humans have, ever. They’ve killed more of themselves in the last thousand years than my people have ever died. Total.

>>14721236
I don't know, it just seems silly to me. Almost pathetic. Why imagine that this cluster of hedonistic monkeys could be the best the universe has to offer?

Entry Five
The ninth week of the contact meeting is ending now. The reactions from the humans on their worlds have been more interesting than all the data they gave us, by now: they’re starting to get back to routine. They have their own planet, another planet, and about five moons in their system colonized to some degree, and each has a distinct culture and way of life. The reaction on each when we made contact was the same: they flipped out, and their peoples were seized by everything ranging from panic to joy. But now? Their reactions have stabilized to the extent that I don’t think we’re going to get a reaction out of them unless we create some further provocation. The most-read news articles on their electronic communication networks are more about domestic problems and entertainment and their economies than they are about us. Are humans just more comfortable in routines, or are they frustrated with our lack of diplomatic progress? I’m confused. The humans I’ve met seem unconcerned, but I know the Ambassador from our people is getting worried.

Does anyone recall that one HFY thread where the rest of the galaxy popularly had sexual fantasies about humans thinking them a myth, and then humans burst onto the scene and craziness ensues?
I recall some writefaggotry about beetles secreting date rape goo, I searched the archives and found nothing..

Entry Six
I’m relieved. The human ambassador met me personally, today, informally, here on the ship. He said that he could tell that I was getting worried about the negotiations, and he wanted to address me personally. I asked how he could tell I was worried when he had only met our species for the first time less than one hundred Solar cycles ago, and he replied that it was all part of being a diplomat. I stated outright that I was confused by the seeming lack of disruption on the part of the people below. He said that there were plenty of people who were disrupted, but that most of the humans in the system had already decided to wait and see what the outcome of the negotiations were before doing anything. “After all,” he said, “even if my species becomes an active member of the galactic community, most humans will stay right here, living their lives. We’ll be affected by galactic politics, new technology, and colonization, even assuming that we could find new Earth-type worlds out there, but most will want to stay right where they are.” I asked him how he could say that when so many of his people had colonized the rest of the system, and he laughed. I think. “It’s completely different when you can see Earth out your window.”

>I recall some writefaggotry about beetles secreting date rape goo
I am all but sure that that sentence has never been typed before.


_______________
Entry Seven
Things have picked up so much. We got our translators working to the effect that nuance of speech, not just content, can be translated appropriately. The human ambassador’s speech and conversation were suddenly so much clearer. To his credit, he told us that he had been refraining from common speech, slang, and aphorism as much as possible. “I wouldn’t want to use a saying or phrase that had a clear meaning to another human, but made no sense – or worse, insulted – one of your people. Now, I can speak freely.” I have to wonder if this faster-paced dialogue will negatively affect the negotiations. The Ambassador broached the toughest topic today: Faster Than Light travel.

>>14721277
>Why imagine that this cluster of hedonistic monkeys could be the best the universe has to offer?
>the universe

Very few stories deal with the entire universe. A limited scope is more common. It is much easier to imagine that humanity is superior to those species present in its local area. Humanity being superior to all other species in the galaxy, at least in its present state, might strain suspension of disbelief, unless humans have certain explanatory advantages that others do not. Humanity could have chosen to upload, and become entirely machine-borne, for instance.

I can think of more than a few justifications for humanity's superiority in any number of situations. I'm sure you can, too. The key seems to be structuring the story in such a way that it does not come across as self-absorbed wankery.

I think that what you find pathetic is the tendency to make humans big, bad, and invincible with absolutely no justification.

Entry Eight
Generally, species are content to create FTL on their own, before they even contact us, or vice-versa. Humans are the exception. They colonized their entire star system, with seven inhabited bodies and over a thousand mined, explored, probed, or mapped bodies with no habitation in their system. So much of their population lives in their orbital platforms that their own homeworld barely even supports two thirds of their species. They did this without FTL. Clearly, the fact that they have reacted peacefully to our presence rather than precipitously fighting or ignoring us indicates that they are mature enough to handle Faster Than Light travel…but I am privately concerned. One of the human diplomats has already begun copying our speech and movement patterns. I found myself opening up to him without even realizing it until afterwards. He must be doing it on purpose, to set us at ease. After one hundred twenty of their days, they’re copying the behavior of their first alien contact. This is one of their finest diplomatic minds, of course, but still. If they can do it with behavior, can they do it with technology? I suspect they will ask for a working FTL drive to study in their next meeting.

Entry Nine
I am vindicated, it seems. I spoke my concerns to the Ambassador today, and he agreed that there would be no gifting of FTL technology to the humans, that they would have to earn it on their own. The humans would react poorly, I guessed, but tactfully, as at least a few of them seem to genuinely care what we think. I was right, naturally. The human ambassador asked that their people be given a working FTL drive to reverse-engineer, in exchange for an unspecified piece of technology of theirs. Their technology, the Ambassador quickly replied, was inferior to ours in every way save communications, and we had no need for their communications technology. Communicating faster than light is something we can do already; communicating instantaneously anywhere in their system, as they do, is a wondrous piece of technology, but not necessary for our people. The human ambassador reacted with shock and surprise immediately, and then quickly became suspicious. I think he may have gleaned that we have discussed this amongst ourselves. How? I can not guess. We spoke of other things, and the ambassador of the humans seemed mollified by the discussions that followed. Will he broach it again? Probably.

Entry Ten
The humans surprise us. It is exactly half of one year after first contact, and life, as I before noted, continues. They are fully one third finished with another of their orbital habitation platforms, and we were given a tour of the construction site. Huge robotic construction devices smelt down chunks of ore from the many, many asteroid and lunar mining platforms the humans have throughout their system, ferried to them by relativistic drive-powered ore haulers. The slag is then fed into their forges and reduced to elemental purity, and the refined ore is then crafted, still in space, into modules, which are then attached to the frame of the space installation. The elemental slag is mostly hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and silicon, in this system. They use these things to make air and computers, apparently, which are then used in the construction of their platforms. I am astounded. They have created the most efficient industrial complex we have ever seen…by necessity. They lack FTL, so in the absence of easily-reachable resource deposits that they can mine on their colonies, they simply process asteroids into something useful. Another reason to deprive them of FTL? If they can prosper in such paucity, how will they react to plenty?

Entry Eleven
Disaster! One of the probes that the humans use to drag the ores they extract from their asteroid belts slammed into our ship today! Our forcefields held, but the drone was wrecked beyond repair, and the asteroid deflected towards Earth! It now moves only a few times faster than the speed of sound, leisurely by space travel standards, but it is colossal. It will depopulate the part of the planet it hits, surely. I am told that the probes and ore-haulers use a computer guidance system to slip into Earth orbital slots with their payloads, where the ores are removed by the pace and need that the human construction schedule dictates. If we had not been in the path of these probes, this would have never happened! The humans provided us with a copy of the ore haulers’ schedules to avoid just such a calamity! How did this happen?! What will happen to Earth?!

Entry Twelve
We have come to a conclusion. The crew and diplomatic staff have decided that we will divert the asteroid into the Earth’s sun, using our own ship to provide the stopping mechanism. Our fields are not recharged; the impact will kill us. We are not committing lightly, fully half the crew said that we should abandon the humans to their fate and continue on negotiating, some of the rest said that we should do all that we can without destroying ourselves, but I and the Ambassador disagree. We did this. Our misgivings about their technological level aside, the humans should not be driven to near-extinction by their own first contact.

Entry Twelve: Addendum
Bizarrely enough, all is well. The asteroid nearly hit the planet when the humans took matters into their own hands. We had maneuvered our ship into the path of the asteroid, ready to deflect the massive thing with our own ship, if need be. We did this. This was our fault. Except, the human diplomats were frantic, demanding that we move the ship at once. We were baffled. We were offering to solve the problem we had caused, so why were the humans demanding that we did not? They beseeched us to move, to let the asteroid move along its own path, directly towards the planet, saying that we did not deserve to suffer, to bear the brunt of this calamity. Finally, we gave in, and moved out of the course of the asteroid. We were watching what we thought would be the end of the Earth below…but we were wrong. A blast appeared near the asteroid, and we realized what was happening: the humans had detonated a nuclear device in the asteroid’s path to divert it. Not destroy it, no, but divert it. A few dozen of their own drone craft slammed into the side of the asteroid which had just been hit by the bomb, propelling it into near-Earth orbit. The human ambassador actually took me aside and explained that they had a contingency set aside for just such a catastrophe, dating back to when they had first created the mining drone and ore hauler network. He told me that the technology they had first employed to create the interplanetary ore haulers had originally been far more primitive, and unable to precisely calculate the appropriate course and speed to get the asteroids safely back to Earth. The Asteroid Diversion weapons and drones had been created to reduce any risk. In total shock, I asked why they had done this, and almost as importantly, why they had been willing to risk such a mining venture if they knew such a potential problem existed. “Necessity is the mother of invention,” he replied.

Entry Thirteen
Fifty days have passed since the asteroid incident, and the human’s reaction has been alarming. Civilian populations – and not a few military – across the system are clamoring for attention, some demanding that the human diplomats apologize for what “they” have done – as if the humans caused this! – others demanding that we suffer for this transgression, others yet launching into wild speculation. Above it all, the human ambassador has changed the tack of these negotiations completely. Now, all he seems to ask about is the justice systems of the galaxy, where before he has inquired about everything from laws restricting invasive plant species in agriculture to FTL drives to the origins of our linguistic colloquialisms. When asked what his official stance about the asteroid incident will be, by other members of his own species who are not part of his delegation, he replies cryptically. “Patience is a virtue.” “Never close doors you can not open.” “Invite no conflict where none exists.” “Yellow is most flavorful.” I have no idea what the last one means. Perhaps our translators are not as capable of translating euphemisms as we thought. Regarding the possession of the nuclear devices they employed to divert the asteroid, he has hastened – quite uninvited – to assure us that it has been over a century and half since any nuclear device was used in war. This assuages my fears somewhat, especially since we discreetly scanned the complex on the planet’s surface that launched the “nuke” and found that even the most powerful of these devices is little more than six times the effective power of the ones they employed: strong enough to damage our fields, surely, but nowhere near enough to destroy us outright. But I should not be thinking of these potential new friends as potential new enemies, as he himself says.

Entry Fourteen
Again, I am amazed by the humans’ ability to ignore trouble. It is now two hundred fifty days after first contact, and the human media has actually greatly reduced their mention of us, and the asteroid incident. They are now beginning to return to what I am told (with vast disgust, interestingly) by the human ambassador is the norm for their media: music, banal daily news, and what I think may be some form of medical treatment, aimed at those who suffer reproductive isolation. The fact that, in less than a year, the human species has been exposed to alien life and nearly been wiped out by the carelessness of said life seems to have been absorbed by the population with a genuinely amazing degree of blasé acceptance. I understand we will be going on a tour of Earth itself, tomorrow, though in full body-suits, naturally. We will have to be. Their atmosphere is breathable, of course, but their sun is so much more radioactive than ours in the spectra of ultraviolet and radio that to not wear suits would be downright stupid.

Entry Fifteen
What in the world are these humans doing without their own FTL drives?! I returned from a ten-day tour of their homeworld today, and I can say with certainty that I have never been more unnerved. These humans possess, I knew, massive space stations, tightly packed with their own, and their non-Earth colonies were barely at the level where abundant food could be harvested. I had made, naturally, the same assumption that the Ambassador did when we saw these places: that these were criminals being made to suffer, or volunteers who chose to live in these awful conditions because they had literally no choice, or the infirm and weak, who could be sheltered in a completely artificial environment because their homeworld was too harsh for them in some way. What I discovered is that Earth is, if anything, nearly as badly overpopulated in its capitals and trade hubs as it is in their colonies and space stations! I saw towers of apartments, some with over two thousand people living in them, stacked so close together they looked like rows of molecules in a crystal, and the people there seemed as if this was the norm! The leaders and visionaries and great speakers of humanity spoke and feted and recited prepared lines, but I heard none of it. These people are not a people in true squalor, not really, certainly not by their own standards, but I hear tell of truly shocking slums in the cities of the poorer continents. It seems a disparity of wealth and power exists here, and I am unnerved deeply. A population this large achieving the great works of their peoples, like the ore haulers and orbital platforms, is not impossible…but only a tiny fraction of their people are wealthy enough to have done it. A small percentage…without FTL.

Ctrl-R-ing like a madman.

Don't let it be over!

>>14721492
F5ing like a champ, enjoying it so far.

Entry Sixteen
I suppose the entry before this must seem quite hysterical. It was not the numbers alone which disturbed me, and the others of the delegation. The human ambassador told me once that “necessity is the mother of invention.” These people need a means of controlling their population so badly that the first thing some of us did when we returned to privacy was propose that they be given a working FTL drive and the coordinates of a world they could inhabit and we could not. Of course the Ambassador rejected that foolishness. I approve. What unnerved me so deeply was that the humans seem to be capable of surviving so much that we could not. I do not, of course, speak of solar radiation. A little extra stellar radiation could be compensated. These, however, are a warlike people. That was my impression when first we met, and my opinion has not wavered. Yet, they coexist in tight groups in most of their population centers, their colonies were made of a mix of people that their nature states they could not tolerate, and their culture overcomes fractious divides so fast…we nearly kill them off, and then, not sixty days after the event, those who continue to demand that we suffer retribution are labeled – OPENLY! – by their leaders as deluded. If these people had developed FTL drives on their own, we would have met them on the edges of our own territory, I am sure. We would have met as friends. But we would have met as equals, when we are currently not. I should not be so disturbed by that thought. Yet I am.

Entry Seventeen
Two hundred seventy days gone by. The human ambassador has become more and more reluctant to divulge information about his own people to us, even as he shows us around his homeworld and pours more and more data about his species into our computers, for our analysts to devour. He answers every question we ask him, yet he divulges less and less in the way of specifics. Oddly enough, he actually seems far more relaxed in our presence than he was when we met. He showed up in a completely different set of clothing than the type he usually wears today, lacking the odd cloth around his neck. I wonder why?

Entry Eighteen
We returned to Earth today, and I am far more impressed this time than I let myself be last time. The human ambassador this time took us to what seems to be a site of great importance to his people: a building in one of their largest cities called the UN Headquarters. The building, I mean, not the city. We spoke to a panel of two hundred human ambassadors, each representing a human nation or extra-planetary colony. We answered questions, and had our images captured by their media, through a very thick-looking defensive device. When I asked why we were being defended, the human ambassador’s aide told me that it was for our own protection from those humans who did not appreciate our presence here as much as they should. I was touched by this, though apparently this is not at all unusual. We spoke to many of these diplomats, and I came away with the feeling that many had wanted to ask far more questions than they had been able to, out of a sense of propriety. Our own Ambassador told me that he thought it was to prevent any sort of insult, but I was not sure. Some of the human ambassadors seemed outright angry at our presence, and several were apparently restrained from outburst only by their peers’ angry gestures. I think it has something to do with the nearly groveling request the human chief ambassador gave to us on the very first day: not to even decrypt, let alone translate, a single one of the millions of messages sent to our ship, directly or otherwise, that did not bear his signature.

Entry Nineteen
Three hundred solar days have passed since the humans replied to our communications. We hold meetings on their planet as often as we do in space now. I am pleased by this, in all honestly. There is a strange appeal to these people that was simply not there when we first met. One particularly unguarded conversation with a human diplomatic aide produced an interesting result. The young woman said that she and many others were raised on fiction involving humanity playing the defender against unexplained or meaningless alien invasion, or playing the victim of some horrible, incomprehensible force of destruction, and the thought that life beyond their own system would be friendly and share the virtue of self-sacrifice was a vast relief. I had never considered this. Most species in this galaxy, we find, are very open with us immediately, or at least after a very brief period of distrust. These people did not trust us beyond discussion until we had offered our lives to save their planet, yet it seemed that we had achieved more in that act of proposed sacrifice than we had realized. These humans do, however, place too much emphasis on propriety for the sake of propriety. I do hope this woman does not come to reprimand because of our entirely unofficial exchange. The ambassador of the humans has certainly been making more and more of an effort to control what we see and hear of these people the more time we spend with them.

Some day I'll remember to put the title on every post. That day is not this day.

Also, it's taken an hour to post what should take maybe ten minutes.

Entry Twenty
I understand fully now why the human ambassador was trying to restrict our communications. The ship’s crew, not a part of our diplomatic efforts, have been covertly compiling and translating vast amounts of the messages directed to our ship, without our approval. We have been exposed to their indirect communications, of course – we discovered them through the presence of their first radio transmissions, after all – and we have tapped their system-wide information networks, but the unauthorized communications directed to us, specifically, have been politely ignored and untranslated, thanks almost entirely to the human ambassador’s fervent pleas. The crew of the ship, however, have found that some of these signals contain messages of such hate and vitriol, such murderous rage and terrorized accusations, that had I not spent over three hundred local days immersing myself in their culture, I could have mistaken it for a declaration of war.

The human ambassador has much to answer for.

Entry Twenty one
The human ambassador was confronted over the messages we have received today. I asked him to meet us aboard the ship, not our own Ambassador, such as to put him at ease. He met us without his various aides and diplomats, with nobody but him, his second, the Ambassador, the ship’s captain, and me present. We tried a tactic that I suggested myself, placing transcripts of the communications before him with no comment. He picked them up, curious, and riffed through them, displaying a chemical reaction that drained much of the blood from his face. His second could stand to look at the communiqués no more than he. He looked through a few pages before seemingly getting the gist, dropping them on the table and looking at us blankly. Our Ambassador asked him what he had to say on behalf of the people who sent the messages, and he replied only after a few seconds of staring at the table. “I wish they did not exist.”
Imagine the room: the three of us, sitting across from two human diplomats who looked so nervous they could have been taken for gravely ill. Not one of us even saying a word. I do not know how long we sat like that. Finally, the Ambassador asked the obvious, just to ensure no meaning was lost. “The people, or the messages?”
“The people,” the ambassador replied sadly. “People so afraid of what they’re unfamiliar with that they hate it. It’s an instinct we should have shed by now.”

Entry Twenty two
The human ambassador seemed disarmed. Even resigned. Why should he not be? He had been caught in a lie of omission. The ship’s Captain spoke next. “Some of these people are threatening violence against the diplomats under my protection. Why should I permit that?”
The human ambassador’s second looked rather sullen at the word ‘permit,’ but did nothing. The human ambassador acted as if he had not heard. “Humans are a tribal people by nature, and we did not evolve as the pinnacle predator. So, we treat cultures we have not experienced, and potential threats we have not faced before, with great skepticism. Why do you think we suddenly allowed you to visit Earth after the incident with the asteroid? You showed a virtue we share: willingness to sacrifice. It’s easier to relate to someone who acts like you.”
“Then why did the hateful messages not cease entirely?” I asked.
The human ambassador shook his head. “Because, sir, the human race is a fractious one. We do not think with one mind, or share one opinion. Why do you think we still have the United Nations around? The more humans there are in a room, the more inevitable the disagreements are.” He actually smiled. “It’s about the only thing that makes normal human diplomacy bearable: the educated mind likes nothing more than a disagreement.”
“But these messages are not invitations to a debate,” I pressed. “Some are open messages of hate.”
“And many humans are stupid,” the human ambassador replied with disgust. “Products of intolerant upbringing, or ideology.”
“Suppress them then,” the Captain said with equal disgust.
“Never,” the human ambassador said with sudden vigor. “All humans of any importance agree on this: everybody has a right to be wrong. Anyway,” he said with somewhat less passion, “nothing is more attractive to the dispossessed than an officially sanctioned bad idea.”

Entry Twenty three
Eleven Lunar cycles, just over three hundred local days, have passed since I arrived. The humans have given up pressing for FTL drive technology completely now, seeing that it will get them nowhere. We have addressed the humans directly, without a buffer of diplomats at the UN Headquarters, or through proxies like the ambassador. We spoke on their interplanetary data network, using their admittedly superior instantaneous broadcaster. The human ambassador has recovered quickly from the shock we gave him, much to his credit. It was, in fact, he who suggested that we address the people directly. He told us people would react best if we broke down our speech to the simplest possible elements, explaining why we made each decision. I thought that that would be interpreted as an insult, but he assured me that if there was one thing that humans resented in unison, it was having people talk as if everybody in the audience understood exactly what was going on. So we told them what the ambassador had told them already: that we were representatives of a large confederacy of species who agreed to mutual defense in the case of extra-galactic invasion (constantly invoked), refusal of FTL drive technology to those who did not already have it (blessedly a rare concern), and integrating new species into the galactic community (humanity was one of less than a dozen). The people of Earth were then permitted to ask questions of us directly, screened by a human diplomatic team on Earth and sent up to us. They ranged from the banal (what’s your homeworld called in English?) to the probing (from what stems your desire to keep us from FTL?) to the disturbing (do your people ever invade others?). I wonder what use it could do, but the human ambassador seemed to think it was a success.

Entry Twenty four
Only a few days left in our Earth diplomatic exchange. The ambassador of the humans seems to have taken ill, somehow, he has been more and more uncomfortable in his dealings with us, in the physical sense. At the advice of his cohort, we have taken to keeping all of our meetings on Earth, so that he does not have to abide by the discomforts of the quick, but rough transit from the surface to the ship. Here he seems more familiar, if not more comfortable. He has explained to me the reason for his sudden change of topic all those days ago, after the asteroid incident. He said that he had wanted to know how our people treated its criminals, not in punishment for their crimes, but in our leniency to the excused. If someone commits a crime, for instance, but saves another’s life, do we let him go, or punish him fully, or punish him less? We told him then, that generally it depended on the severity of the crime, for some crimes can not be uncommitted. He explained that he had relaxed upon hearing that, because it was a value we shared, though not all of the nearly two hundred nations on Earth, let alone the six colonies, had justice in common.


>iFish produce
captcha needs to go to the grocery store

Entry Twenty five
The ambassador worsens now, his health deteriorating. Our meetings last only a few hours, with the rest of our time spent pouring over the larger and larger amounts of information his staff have been releasing to us. Information about their militaries, mostly, knowledge regarding their capability to adapt to warfare in space. Our talk of extra-galactic threats, it seems, has startled several of the species’ military leaders, and they wanted to know how much they would have to change if they agreed to be part of our confederation. We took one look at their military history and realized that they would have to retool their entire military from the ground up. Over nine tenths of the armed forces they had available to them were tied to the ground, with most if the remainder comprising obsolete oceanic navies and aerospace forces that couldn’t seriously threaten our escape pods, much less our juggernaut-tier defender ships. One thing that was actually somewhat surprising to me was the data regarding their nuclear weapons. One file stated that at one point, one of the now-dissolved nations of their people had possessed a nuclear weapon, called Bomb of Kings, that could have produced a yield over two hundred times that of the bomb that diverted that asteroid. A blast like that could have reduced our diplomatic cruiser to a fine, radioactive powder. Yet, it seemed that all such weapons were decommissioned and turned into power plant fuel decades before our first contact. What was surprising to me was that these very warlike people could have displayed the restraint needed to make weapons such as that and not use them. There were well in excess of twenty four thousand nuclear weapons in humanity’s history, detailed in two global arms races in two centuries. Yet only two had been used?

Entry Twenty six
Three hundred sixty days have passed. The human ambassador is dying. Neither their own medical technology, nor ours, even if offered, could save him. He is suffering from a massive, systematic organ failure that his staff has privately informed me to be symptomatic of heavy metal poisoning. I am in shock. How? Why? We have done no such thing to him. The hate-filled messages aimed at us from the surface have not changed in volume or content, either. So who has done this?

hitting F5 likethe fist of the north star

Entry Twenty seven
The human ambassador has contacted me privately from his deathbed. Not the Ambassador, not the Captain, me. He has told me privately that he knew he had been poisoned when he had taken us on one of our tours of the United Nations, when someone had slipped a poison in his drink. He hadn’t figured it out until his doctors had told him roughly what day it had occurred, and had no idea who, specifically, was responsible. He told me to contact the Ambassador and Captain on his behalf and tell them, and instruct them to tell nobody else. I asked him why I was to keep it secret, and he told me that he wanted us to make a decision. He then broke the connection before I could ask him what he meant. Needless to say, I am apprehensive. The man knows he’s been poisoned in the final days of the negotiations, so keeping it quiet when the culprit is unknown I can understand, but why would he distrust the rest of our crew and diplomats? Had he suspected us, he would never have told us.

When we do contact an Alien race we're goning to hace too purge our HFY archives to avoid getting cast as space bigots

Entry Twenty eight
The human ambassador is perhaps the boldest being I have ever encountered in all my centuries of life. Surely he can not have planned for every single outcome of this venture, surely he can not have predicted what we would do. Not now, after less than a year of knowing of our existence, after forty days of crippling illness. Surely he could not. And yet, here we are.


Now, on the final day of the conference, he announced – live to the whole species! – that he had less than a day to live, and that he knew that one of the diplomats on his trusted staff had poisoned him in the UN. He then cut the three of us into the transmission, streaming from the bridge of our ship. I can only thank goodness that we have been in front of live humans beyond the diplomatic corps so infrequently, else they would have seen our shock and horror at the sudden recording. The human ambassador then went on to state that he had told the aliens, had told us, that he knew that we were innocent, and that it was time for us to make a decision.

>>14721827
"Sir, the radio signals are too regular to be anything but artificial. Instructions?"
"PURGE THE GODDAMN FIREFOX HISTORY BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE"


Entry Twenty nine
He said that if humanity was to become a trusted and valuable member of the galactic community, capable of upholding the responsibility of the confederacy’s laws and mutual defenses, that we had to do the same. We had, he said, the means of depopulating Earth right before us…the asteroid we had accidentally diverted towards Earth. He smirked through the drugs and pain, and said that trust was a “two-way street.” We needed to be able to trust humanity…but humanity needed to trust us. “And so, I leave it to you, my far-away friends,” he managed, “to render unto us the just desserts of this betrayal. I am dead, by the hand of one I trusted. You can inflict the punishment of the arbitrary, dropping an asteroid on our entire population, almost certainly killing the one responsible, and demonstrating what humanity has in excess…or you could not, and demonstrate what I think I see in you.”


He cut his channel.

>>14721827
I think if you're worried about bigotry, HFY stories are the least of our problems. I'd start with the actual, apparent beliefs (and actions) of a few billion of our own people and work from there.

Entry Thirty
There we sat, three aliens, before the entire human species. I couldn’t see them, but I could see their world. An entire planet, ten billion people…with three aliens controlling them all. Every single one of our communications channels, from radio to data stream to the instant-cast relay we were using to broadcast, was active, with unheard hails from across the Solar system.
Three aliens and a year of diplomacy to decide the fate of a species.
The Ambassador broke our frozen state of shock. Choosing his words carefully, he spoke to the instant—cast. “We have just seen the closest thing to a human leader killed by one of his own aides. This reflects rather poorly on your species ability to think ahead. You have had two periods in your history when you collected nuclear weapons…in case you MIGHT have had to use them. Half of your people live in untenable squalor, the other half travel the planets.”
He leaned forward, obviously dreading his next words. “I have read your history, steeped in blood. Your own ambassador admitted in shame that tens of thousands of communications, with which we have been bombarded since we arrived, represent a substantial portion of your population and their mindset: ignorant, fearful, theocratic. You actually have the nerve to make war on yourselves even as you petition for the ability to spread to other star systems, and join our defense against the enemy from beyond the galaxy.”
He sat back, looking drained. “Now, your ambassador, without even so much as warning us, forces to decide whether or not your people get to exist, or join the confederacy even if you do. It is not, to borrow a phrase, what I signed up for.”

Level 20 Diplomancer right thar.

>>14721705
I'd buy an iFish.

>>14721894
You magnificent fucking bastard.

Entry Thirty one
Then, he turned to me…and his thoughts must have echoed my own, and the Captains’. He looked back at the camera…and grinned. “Yet…the very person who just entrusted you to us clearly thought that you were worthy of us. He has spoken at length about the virtues we share…compassion for the family, sacrifice when needed, curiosity. He said that nothing we had done or said or shared could have achieved as much as our willingness to divert that asteroid did. He showed us the monuments to progress your people have made. Your people achieved powered flight less than three hundred years ago, yet you have colonized six bodies in your system, two terraformed from little more than rock and methane ice. You show a drive and an adaptability we have never seen before.
“After less than a year of meetings, when one year ago he did not know we existed, your ambassador decided that not only were you deserving of our trust…but we were deserving of yours. About your culture and mindset, I know only what I can learn in one year, and already, your ambassador chose to think that I knew enough to judge you favorably.”
The Ambassador stood, the camera tracking him. The Captain and I joined him. The Ambassador faced the instant-cast and spoke.

“He was right. Our greeting lasted a year, humanity. So, now, let me welcome you to the galaxy.”

>>14721990
Happy end! :D

>>14721990
BEST END.

And now I must to bed. Before I depart though, I must say, this is the second of your stories I have read, and you're now my favorite writefag. Bless you.

>>14721277
>>14721827
>Implying that any other intelligent life couldn't possibly be just as bad.

>>14721986
>>14721957
<-- the human ambassador

Entry Thirty two
Life has become rather hectic of late. A new human ambassador has been chosen, and the UN is busily streamlining their voting bodies to make it easier to make decisions on behalf of the species, rather than opposing political ideologies. I understand that the process was eased by the discovery of the one responsible for the poisoning of our friend, the former ambassador. He died mere minutes after hearing our decision. I didn’t think I would be capable of getting so personally involved in an alien diplomatic affair, but I felt emotionally drained when the diplomat responsible for slipping the poison to the ambassador was caught.
Representatives from the other twenty eight members of the confederacy that have attained spaceflight have arrived to officially welcome humanity into the greater galaxy, but the UN Security Council was most direct in their demands that our Ambassador take point.
The negative backlash against the decision to leave the entire species’ fate up to the Ambassador was disheartening to behold; I understand that entire regions of the planet nearly rose in arms over the human ambassador’s choice. I am led to understand that his appointment had not been uncontested, as he was apparently very rich in his own right, and some did not think that he would represent humanity faithfully. I am glad he proved them wrong.
Our own Ambassador has been the subject of rather angry commentary from the human press of late, apparently those few moments wherein he looked like he might really drop the asteroid on the planet, and alongside the litany of complaints against humans including “theocratic,” were enough to convince some elements of humanity that the choice had been a loaded one. More than a few people in our own staff grumbled that we had been saddled with an unfair burden, now having the responsibility of leading a foreign race by example, and they are not wrong.

>>14721290
I remember that thread. Thought I had a screen shot of the story, no luck so far. If I find it, I'll post it.

>>14722016
Second?
What?


Entry Thirty three
Still, I can think of worse men to lead by example than one who has had centuries of experience in diplomatic patience, and made the correct choice given the opportunity to blunt such an apparently threatening species as humanity. As for myself, I have tabled the recommendation that we use one of our freighters to drag the largest asteroid we can to the orbit of Earth and have it be used to create another of their space platforms, and use that, a truly neutral ground, as the base of operations for future participation in the Confederacy. Certainly the easily preventable death of their previous ambassador helped to convince the new one of the idea’s merit.
The galaxy is a convoluted place, and the diplomatic tactics embraced by the humans since we met them – poisoning, ultimatums, et cetera, whether these are the norm or not – will not be greeted with anything even remotely approaching enthusiasm by the rest of the galaxy…but I am confident that, in time, the rest of the confederacy shall see as we do: that humanity has a place among equals in the defense and enrichment of the spacefaring people.
End Journal.

>>14722053
Uh, this is the picture Captcha ate.

>>14722072
I was sure that the asteroid they were towing would crash into the earth and then big oh shit moments all around would happen until "END JOURNAL."

I'm glad we got a happy ending.

>>14721827
Or we mention it shortly after first contact, explaining that it's a part of our history and psyche, as much as we try to get past it.

If the aliens are worth respecting, they will understand that growth is possible, and won't hold the rambunctious words of our species' youth against us. Quoth Optimus Prime: "Were we so different?"

If they do hold words from the distant past against us, well...we've already worked out how to deal with that, haven't we?

>>14722108
He looks like Trolldad!

>>14722128
I prefer them

That's why I fucking hate people who say HFY is played out and jingoistic. They don;t give it enough credit.

I'm writing a sequel soon, from the perspective of an alien assigned to "advise" (read: corral) a human division helping out in the fight against the extragalactic invaders.

>>14722144
Fuck yes jingoism is the best word ever

Now, for the best HFY ever written. It is made of sheer :3

>>14722139
I'm not even sure it would be held against us. This is very much a powerful part of human nature, and either it will be accepted, or it will be rejected.

Pretending we're not tribal monkeys isn't going to solve anything, the fish will just find the hook further down in its stomach, instead of in its lip. Better I agree to let them know up front that it is human nature to form groups and tribes, and then fight to the death against all outsiders.

The logical conclusion is to include other species in some sort of omni-tribe, united against some other alien threat. If we all share an anthem, a flag, and a lot of hollywood buddy cop movies, our differences will disappear.

Another classic.

I saw the Gurren Lagann pic two posts in and I knew this was gonna be a good thread.

HFY Revival. Don't Ever Change, /tg/.

>>14720685
I think "humans, fuck yeah" is the general rule, not the exception. At least in American sci-fi. Which would make sense, because it's the logical extraterrestrial extension of "America fuck yeah."

Notice how Superman (probably the most famous fictional alien ever) is all super-American, but claims that those are universal values, not just American values? Yeah.

keep this bitch alive until the sun rises
THAT IS YOUR QUEST

>>14722226
The assumption that aliens will be good people, just like us, emphasis on good /people/, in no way bodes poorly for our potential future with them. The Americans express this with the belief that aliens will love freedom, rock and roll and apple pie just like them. I would rather like that kind of blind optimism to become more popular.

Another good one.

I still like the "Veil of Madness" one best.

It's just too funny.

>>14720036
http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/14719196/

>>14722313
Subtle request: granted.

>>14722313
ooh please post

Does anyone have that story where a Human ambassador goes to see a movie about the Scary Human Monster and messes with the audience?

>>14722313
i wish there were more based in that setting :(, i quite liked it.

>>14722156
Cute, but for some reason the idea of us being good enough to predict the development of every language enough to have it be in EVERY LANGUAGE ON THEIR PLANET including their computer code when we put them there from before they even had writing seems a little extreme.

Still cute though.

part the second

>>14722311
>the first taste of the chocolate bar he gave me

Because everybody loves chocolate.

>Humans. The very word speaks volumes about their nature. About their personalities. About their souls.

I died a little on the inside.

>>14722367
Unless it preceded their entire linguistic evolution, and they simply based their language on the symbols they encountered on the monuments. Or perhaps the surfaces are not static. Who cares? It's feelgood HFY.

For some reason, in HFY, we never encounter Yog-Sothoth or shit. I mean, it's always LOL HUMANITY IS SO ALEIN TO YOU THAT YOU GET FUCKED UP LOL. That's bullshit. Add to that the fact that in a lot of HFY we participate in "Space Genocide", and act in an extremely western, if not American way (we're suposed to be HUMANITY in its entirety), you get yourself a great bullshit.

>>14722428
Oh my, that's truly horrible, please direct me to the source of your woes in this thread so that we can share in your disgust.
No really, please, direct me. Show me, it's got to be here somewhere.

>>14722428
>he thinks Western civilization isn't going to eventually take control of humanity

You're an idiot. Rag-headed tribals and Communist midgets will not stop the march of logic, reason, science and the Bible.

>>14722428

Have you fucking READ THE THREAD ARGH

>>14721185

TAU

>>14722457
Logic and Reason are the punk cousins of science and the bible. The fist of God will strike the cosmos, but it shall be a power fist, crackling with the searing energies of SCIENCE.

>>14722428
No, ethnic cleansing and genocide is pretty much a world wide thing. Asians did it, Europeons did it, Africans did it. Hell, even the American natives participated in the destruction and complete eradication of cultures. Inca, Aztec ect.

Brutality and a lack of compassion has plagued humanity from the start. That's why philosophy pretty much narrows it down to "Peace is more civilized than War."

>>14722428
The reason it often reads as "American" is because most of the writers, as well as the population of 4chan are American.

If you want something from another cultural perspective you're going to need to write it yourself (if you're from a different culture) or wait till someone else does it.

Complaining about writers writing in the own cultural perspective is basically saying "you, that group over there, don't write."


I personally enjoy HFY provided it's well written and not about destroying for the sake of destruction (the war pieces aren't necessarily bad just cause they're about war people, if you don't like fighting why are you even on this board?)

>>14722472
Wouldn't surprise me.

Even if all the "believers" are really shitty Christians, I hope I come back when we're slapping massive gold crosses on space ships.

>>14722477
The problem I have with HFY is people assuming aliens wouldn't be exactly the same.

Everybody is subject to the same evolutionary pressures.

>>14722477
The problem I have is people assuming aliens wouldn't be exactly the same.

They have the same evolutionary pressure as we do.

LOL U MAD AHAHHAHAHA

>>14722509
>Everybody is subject to the same evolutionary pressures.
WHAT
That's patently ridiculous. What if another sentient species evolved as the apex predator instead of the apex omnivore like we did? They would have COMPLETELY different social mores.

>>14722509
That's not really true, we wouldn't have evolved the same way if we were apex predators, and certainly not if we had remained herbivores.

Food predation and habitat are what determines evolutionary course, and even minor changes in origin can have huge sweeping impacts on the final result.

And that's well before cultural evolution even begins to take place.

>implying 2000 years later murika will exist
>implying 2000 years later we won't have sunk into barbarism
>implying even if we don't, we won't encounter a godlike race that will laugh its ass of to us
>implying 2000 years later religions of today will still exist

>>14722494
You don't have to be a bad Christian to like rocket ships. At least I don't think so. I hope not. I'm going to have to talk to my pastor about that.

>>14722516
Considering how different even the various groups of humans can be, uh... no. That's a fucking retarded assumption.

>>14722509
>>14722516
Stupid 4chan. Stop fucking with my posts like that.

>>14722530
Didn't mean specific cases, I meant in general. A species that doesn't try to expand/thrive is pretty fucked. Also, I'm not convinced a predator species could ever evolve to be sentient.

>>14722548
...What?

>>14722540

What if we were herbivores and had moving plants we had to hunt?

See where I'm going?

>>14722552
I too wish to slap a reading from Revelation on the side of a spaceship.

>>14722559
>Also, I'm not convinced a predator species could ever evolve to be sentient.
...Why not? Hunting requires more complex brain functions than grazing.

>>14722509
>>14722516
The key here is Alien. What we understand and know, what we experience as "Human" needs to be thrown out the window when we start thinking "Alien." The common theme with HFY, is that the Aliens are aloof, and almost always the dynamic opposite of what you would think as "Human." This isn't nessecarily the case, but we think of our selves as a brute force. Always going forward, recklessly and without thought. Likewise, something that isn't us, we can all agree on, is a race that has determined that peace, and slow, methodological pace, that could only be achieved through being older, wiser, and smarter than a Human.

It's 2:30 am and here I'm babbling again...

>>14722559
>Also, I'm not convinced a predator species could ever evolve to be sentient.

You mean sapient. Also, what do dolphins eat?

>>14722567
You could wait exactly where you were grazing as plants moved under your mouth?

>>14722559
We don't know what environments aliens will develop sentience in. There are an effectively infinite number of variables which could turn them out different, and only a few are ones that we have an actual idea of how likely they are.

Aliens are alien. Might be that we're unique in that we communicate through sound. Might be that we're unique in that we don't breathe methane. Might be that we're really fucking big for sapient creatures, or small, or it might be bizarre that there are multiple of us instead of one, huge swarm with a shared intelligence.

We really can't know. That's what science fiction is for, we guess at crazy shit that might turn out to be the case.

>good writing
>good reposts
>a few people complaining how HFY is all genocide and humanwank
>none of it in the thread
>they're complaining about nothing
>others respond
>thread turns to shit

It was good while it lasted, though.

>>14722593
The idea that aliens are fundamentally different from us is what I wrote Journals of an Alien Diplomat to overcome. The aliens came to trust us because we were so similar, not because we were different.

>I'm not convinced a predator species could ever evolve to be sentient.

I can only assume you mean an APEX predator. Cause, dolphins are arguably there, as are many cephalopods. And hell, it's not like primates are herbivores.

Less arguing, moar stories please. This is my first experience with HFY, and im really enjoying it.

ilsoiicl identify
yes Captcha, we have beeing trying to document the elusive ilsoiicl for a long time

Well, Humanity will never be able to go "fuck yeah" if we don't unite. Apart from the impossibility of doing this in our current mind state, the unisson will certainly be something that is the result of merging all cultural values.
So, if you want Space Americans Talking With Aliens, don't think that it's HFY.

>>14722559
I think the word you are looking for is sapient, but continue. How would an apex predator species not evolve sapience? It seems to me that out of the three different types, carnivores would benefit the most from higher intelligence.

>>14722619
And that may well be the case. And it would be ideal were that the case, but it doesn't have to be. A namefag once explained to me that at its core, all HFY, and indeed all fiction in general, tries to convey a theme or a message as it goes on.

Yours was something along the lines that trust comes from seeing oneself in others. And that's a good message, but what if there's nothing of ourselves to see in the Klaxons of Vorpkris IX? What do we do then? That's another story, with another message.

The beauty of this whole subgenre of first contact sci-fi is that every story can be different. They all convey a different message through a different set of circumstances, and to a degree they are all equally plausible.

Some are just less equal then others, as you well know.

>>14722667
Again, an idea that I wish to overcome. There's a horrifying income divide in the world of Alien Diplomat. We still reached the stars.

Right, people want some HFY? Here's some original mildly HFY.

* * *

Seated in his command chair in the bride of the Carthage, Lugh watched anxiously as the two refashioned shuttles made their descent towards the planet. Behind him, seated at the communications and sensor console Saxon spoke in a low tone as he carefully guided the shuttles towards their designated landing zones. When Lugh was finally satisfied with the distance between the shuttles and the Carthage he turned his attention to where Sergei sat quietly behind the navigation console.
"Bring us about to the new orbit." said Lugh.
"Coming about to new orbit, aye." replied Sergei as his hands raced across the controls, using the maneuvering thrusters to bring them on course with the programmed course.
"New orbit achieved." said Sergei after a short time had passed.
Lugh turned his attention towards the seldom used tactical console where Langley sat. The second in command of the Carthage tapped a sequence of commands onto the holo display before him and nodded towards Lugh.
"Ready to fire." said Langley after a moment’s pause.
Lugh contemplated the preprogrammed firing trajectories of the missiles they were about to deploy before finally entering his command override into the display before him.
"Fire." said Lugh quietly as Langley tapped his index finger once on the console before him.

>>14722596

No, INTELLIGENT plants. They escape fro yuo and you have to hunt them and shit.

And meat grows from the ground, but we prefer it less.

>>14722585
True, but only up to a certain point. In my opinion, to progress technologically requires agriculture to make communication and permanent settlements advantageous.

>>14722594
I mean sentient in the science fiction usage, same thing really, I just copy pasted from his post. Dolphins eat fish, but I don't believe dolphins are capable of anything other than the most simple tool use.

From the prow of the Carthage, two missile tubes opened for a moment and ejected their contents towards the planet’s surface. The first of the missiles was an old pattern XD-72 from the original weapon stores that had been aboard the Carthage when Lugh first took command. The first stage of its two stage engine lit off once it reached a safe distance from the hull of the Carthage and it had burned out the first stage of its drive long before entering the moons atmosphere.
The second stage made minor corrections as the friction of the high speed atmospheric insertion altered its course. Finally, upon reaching its predetermined height above the surface it detonated and the several kiloton neutron warhead bathed the surface below with lethal waves of radiation. The second missile that followed closely upon the heels of the first missile detonated directly above what Erich thought to be the main origin of the transmissions that emanated from the moons inhabitants.
Lugh stared at the readout before him as the atmosphere lit up brightly with the missiles explosions. Behind him, seated at the communications console Saxon spoke up.
"I'm not picking up any more broadcasts." Saxon said in a subdued tone.
"Good." replied Lugh, his voice absent of any emotion. "Let both shuttles know that they can proceed towards the targets."
"Aye sir." said Saxon as Lugh watched as the moon below glowed in the hell of nuclear fire.


* * *

>>14722667
We do not know that. Might be that balkanized human factions, struggling to gain more power on the homeworld through colonization, will end up increasing their power faster than a more peaceful species would.
Might not, but we don't know that. You can write Americans in Space, Russians in Space, fuck it you can write Serbs in Space and have them shoot the Space-ArchDuke of Space-AustrioHungary, it's science fiction, it's the land of unlikely coincidences and bizarre parallels, it's been that way forever.

When finally the side panel of the two shuttles slid open and the gathered men and women from the Carthage first stepped foot upon the alien surface, all of them were ready for the worst. Their collective experience had prepared them to face unimaginable horrors leaping towards them intent on defending their homes.
Melted edifices and partially collapsed towers of a crystalline structure however were not what they expected. Nor was the eerie silence that greeted them as they quickly and efficiently exited the shuttles.
"Alright people." barked Ray Stemmler as he turned from speaking with Carter after the final member of the team emerged from the shuttle. "Keep an eye on your rad counters, if they start picking something up, move away from it. By twos, spread out and get a perimeter set up."
Quickly the group began to disperse as individual pairs started spreading out to surround the landing area. William found himself alone momentarily as he waited for Carter to finish speaking with Ray. His eyes tracked across the flattened crystalline city and after a moment he lifted his rifle to his shoulder as a flash of light caught his eye.
"See something?" asked the approaching Carter as he made his way to where William stood.
"Not sure." said William, his eyes once again searching the unfamiliar surroundings. "Possibly, but I can't be certain."
He indicated with his rifle in the direction of a large structure that leant half melted; against another tower. "Over there." William said. "It could have been nothing, but I thought I saw a flash of light for a moment."

"Better check it out." replied Carter, hefting his rifle as the two of them moved cautiously through the ruins towards the towers William had indicated. For several tense minutes they picked their way carefully over shattered crystals and melted rock before drawing close to the ruined towers.
"Strange." muttered William to himself as he stepped around a particularly large and strangely faceted crystal that rested upon the ground.
"What is?" asked Carter from behind him as they walked.
"There's no vegetation." replied William curtly. "No grass, no seeds, and the ground looks like it's just hard packed clay and rock."
William held up a hand and dropped to one knee as he once again sought to locate the source of the light flash he had seen earlier. The wide opening into the opaque tower before them stood empty and inviting, yet something about the numerous large crystals scattered about the entrance struck him as strange.
"See it?" whispered Carter as he took up position beside William and aimed his flechette rifle towards the opening.
"Something's not right." William replied, scanning his rifle across the area before them. "Look at the tower, other than the heat melt that's caused it to sag like it is, do you see any damage?"
Carter glanced upwards at the side of the tower and shook his head negatively. "Not really, no." he said.
"Then what's the deal with the shards scattered everywhere?" asked William as he gestured around them at the many large crystals scattered about the towers entrance. "Where are the inhabitants? If this place just got fried with radiation, you would expect some bodies at least, and a building like that should be setting off our rad counters like crazy."
"You're right." agreed Carter as he subvocalized a command to open up a channel to where Ray waited with the shuttles. "Something's strange over here Ray."

>>14722712
That's HFY of the kind that fully half the posts in the thread are complaining about: we're space nazis.

notice that there are practically no non-english names in HFY?

>>14721290
I'm still wanting this, it was too much of a golden piece of unique culture.

A bunch of weird crystals?" replied Stemmler through the earcom. "If that's what you are wondering about, they're everywhere. Probably damage caused by the detonations, but steer clear of them regardless."
"If they broke off the towers, then why aren't there visible holes in the buildings or more obvious damage?" Carter asked, moving slightly away from William as the former Marine continued to glare across the open area. "There are no shattered ones; all we're seeing are ones that look melted."
Out of the corner of his eye Carter saw William whip his rifle around and fire a single mag round that shattered one of the large crystals near to the tower entrance. Carter cut off the transmission with Ray, raised his flechette rifle to his shoulder, and began searching the area around the shattered crystal for targets as William came running to his side.
"What the hell was that?" demanded Carter angrily as William pulled him away from the large crystal he had been using for cover while he tried to spot whatever it was that William had fired on.
"It moved." replied William, raising his rifle once again before shooting another of the scattered crystals; shattering it under the force from the slug fired by the mag rifle..
"What did?" asked the confused Carter looking about them frantically as William destroyed two more crystals that were close by.
"They did." William barked, as one of the furthest crystal shards began turning in place. His eyes wide in shock, Carter leveled his rifle and tore splinters and shards of crystal from the moving form as hyper velocity flechettes from his rifle pounded into it. The crystal began to deform under the impact of the darts fired from the rifle before finally it ceased moving and split apart.

>>14722672
>How would an apex predator species not evolve sapience?

Look at the larger sharks, as well as 'gators.

Top of their particular food chain (until humans) but they have not been making much in the way of improvements.

to mother nature, "good enough" really is good enough most of the time.

>>14722704
Oh, so you're a PREDATOR species hunting PREY species.

William rapidly switched targets as the magnetically launched slugs from the mag rifle in his hands shattered crystal after crystal each time he pulled the trigger. "Move!" he bellowed as a high pitched keening sound began to fill the air around them. "Get back to the others!"
Carter wasted no time worrying about following the orders from the newcomer to the security force as he stood and began to sprint in the direction of where the shuttles had landed. From behind him he dimly heard William's rifle firing as the rising tone of the high pitched keening emanating from the crystals began to drowning out all other sounds. Faintly he heard the sound of more crystals shattering as mag rounds from Williams rifle blasted them apart. From the ground before him one of the crystal forms emerged and Carter stumbled as his ankle turned on the uneven ground, his rifle fell to the ground before him and he clapped his hands to his face as a bright flash of light blinded him momentarily.
His hands held tightly over his eyes, Carter was unable to bear witness to the beam of intense light that bathed over him from the crystal. He screamed in pain as his skin began to blister under the harsh beam of light before it began turning black and cracking apart.
Behind Carter, William turned and began to sprint away from the tower as more crystals began to emerge from the entrance, their large forms propelled along the ground by small rotating facets that seemed to sprout from their countless sides. The rifle in his hands firing rapidly, he leapt over Carter's smoldering form and shattered the large crystal that blocked their path with repeated shots.
Slinging the mag rifle across his shoulder, William hoisted the screaming man up in his arms and took off at a ground eating run towards the parked shuttles. Ahead of them the faint sound of gunfire broke through the high pitched noise that filled the air and William pumped his legs furiously as he ran for all that he was worth.

>>14722672
Generalized intelligence is not necessarily the best way to work your way to the top of the food chain.

Omnivores benefit more from intelligence than carnivores because carnivores are almost always evolved to hunt specific prey, and thus use particular strategies to catch that prey (or at least a small number of strategies to hunt each prey species.) Omnivores, on the other hand, have to make broad decisions about how they choose to spend their time: hunting, foraging, what sort of flora or fauna to go for, etc, which is ideal for selecting for generalized intelligence.

>>14722711
>I mean sentient in the science fiction usage, same thing really, I just copy pasted from his post.

No, you mean sapient. Flies are sentient. Robins are sentient. We are sapient.

>Dolphins eat fish, but I don't believe dolphins are capable of anything other than the most simple tool use.

That may have something to do with their lack of hands, and the fact that they live in the fucking ocean. It doesn't change their intelligence, or diminish the chance that they might be just as self-aware as we are.

>>14722711
protip, herding came well before farming, and well after language.

>>14722724

I don't necessarily mean being peaceful by being united and mixed.
I think itt needs to reconsider the links between being civilized and being able to use violence. They aren't contradictory.

William dumped Carter's limp form down inside the entrance to one of the shuttles before turning and raising the mag rifle to his shoulder once again. During his mad dash carrying Carter to the landing area he had been unable to do anything other than watch in shock as the crystal shapes had torn into the ragged perimeter that the security contingent had managed to set up around the twin shuttles. To his trained eye, it was obvious that while enthusiastic about their job, the vast majority of the men and women who were on the planet with him were woefully inexperienced when it came to combat.
"Stemmler!" barked William as he ducked low and moved to stand beside the former Martian Scout. "We can't hold this position!"
Stemmler nodded as he sighted carefully down his newer style twin rail mag rifle and shattered an advancing crystal. "I know!" Stemmler said as he sighted once more at their attackers and triggered a second shot which missed its target. "The problem isn't with me; it's with getting everyone pulled back. We're stuck ourselves in the middle of some kind of nest of these things, and they're tearing us apart!"
William struggled to hear the words as Ray spoke, the high pitched vibration that came from the advancing crystal forms made it hard to hear without paying close attention. William tore his focus from Ray for a moment and without hesitation snapped three shots in the direction of a large group of advancing crystals. Several long moments passed as the two of them poured mag rifle fire into the cluster before the last one finally shattered under repeated hits.
"Unless it's just me..." shouted William in an effort to make himself heard, "There are a lot more of these things coming at us than there were a few minutes ago."

My HFY isn't really HFY. It's mostly humans getting their ass kicked because they thought they were the big bad.

>>14722734
You know what? Fuck them. Fuck the people who complain, if they're so determined to cry nazi when there are none to be found, I see no reason why not to let them find whatever they want, and let whoever wants to write whatever they want. If the story is good, it's good no matter what those cocksuckers say. If it's bad, then it's bad no matter what topic it's on.

I say bravo, bitters, write on.

Pyotr stumbled around the shuttle and collapsed where the two former military men crouched. His body armor smoked from several blackened and charred patches that appeared to have burned the way through the thinly layered ceramite to the skin below.
"Ehud and Cipriano." gasped Pyotr painfully as he tried to make himself heard, "The things burned them up right beside me."
Ray closed his eyes in sorrow as the news of the loss of two long standing members of the security team reached him. Beside him William once again raised his rifle and triggered a flurry of shots towards a small cluster of crystals that were emerging from one of the large buildings. Three members of the security detachment ran across the ground and caught the crystals in a vicious crossfire that left shattered shards of crystals lying in several inanimate piles upon the ground. When finally it became obvious that there were no further targets emerging from that particular building the two men and one woman made their way quickly across the torn and broken ground to where the small group stood watch over the shuttle.
Ray tapped the side of the communications array that rested against his left ear and jaw. "This is Stemmler to all team members." began Ray. "Fall back to the shuttle as fast as you can. We're getting off this miserable rock."
As Ray spoke, a bright light flashed briefly before a loud explosion detonated against a nearby building. Williams attention wavered momentarily as he watched the building shatter and come crashing down.
"I'm full!" cried Canute in their ears as the first of the two shuttles began closing the entrance hatches. "It's gonna be a bumpy ride for everyone, but I've got as many of the wounded aboard as I can carry safely!"

The loaded shuttle's engines whined to life behind William as it lifted ponderously from where it sat upon the ground before it began its lazy ascent into the air.
"About damned time." muttered William to himself as he slipped his third block magazine into the mag rifle and armed it. Beside him, Ray Stemmler stumbled before collapsing back on the ground, the chest plate of his armor blackened and charred.
"This is Richardson." said William matter of factly into his earcom transmitter, as he shattered the Crystal that was the source of the bright beam of light that played across Ray's chest. "Stemmler is down. All remaining personnel are to set up around the second shuttle and make certain that the wounded are evacuated first before boarding the shuttle."
Assent came quickly across his earcom as the remaining members of the security force pulled back towards the remaining shuttle. William noted abstractly that despite instruction for the wounded to be the first on board the shuttle, several members of the security force hauled themselves inside the shuttle as quickly as they could.
"You two." said William to the two men hunched down beside him. "Get Stemmler aboard the shuttle as fast as you can."
"Right." said the quicker of the two as he gently lifted Ray Stemmler to his feet and began guiding him towards the shuttle while the second man followed along behind them providing ineffective covering fire with his scorch rifle.

>>14722757
>tool use
actually dolphins are capable of remarkable tool use considering the whole not having any [GRASP] body parts.

William slung his mag rifle before heaving the massive bulk of Pyotr to his feet and glancing at the diminutive woman who remained behind with him. "Cover us." he ordered simply as he took off as fast as the dead weight of Pyotr would allow.
From behind him William heard the rapid discharge of the woman's flechette rifle firing as quickly as she could. "I have gotta get these guys better trained." thought William to himself as he finally pushed his way through the five men and women who held the ever tightening perimeter around the shuttles single entrance. Lifting Pyotr's bodily though the hatch proved to be a difficult task before one of the unhurt men that stood inside the shuttle set down his rifle long enough to help him in getting Pyotr inside.
"Anyone else?" demanded William as he turned and pulled his rifle back to his shoulder. "Are there any more wounded?"
"He's the last one that's gonna make it." shouted one of the men still holding the perimeter. William nodded as he recognized Roger, his erstwhile poker partner. "There's a few out there still, but the damned Quartzies have them cut off inside that melted building over there." William's eyes followed in the direction that Roger pointed and he grunted as he gauged the open ground that they would have to cross to reach the building.
"With me!" shouted William as he took off at a run in the indicated direction. From behind, he heard the volume of fire from the few security members surrounding the shuttle intensify as Roger and he sprinted towards the group of crystals that surrounded the entrance of the melted building.

As they ran William flipped the holoimaging sight system of his S.L.A.M. rifle on and began hammering away at the crystals before them. Two small missiles streaked past him from the shuttle and fountained shards of crystal and dirt into the air. Roger leapt across the remains of a fallen crystal that partially blocked their way, and fired a ripple of micro rockets from the bulky launcher he carried with him into the last crystals that blocked the entrance.
Their eyes adjusted rapidly to the difference in lighting inside the building as the two men finally crossed the entrance of the alien building. Inside the building their eyes beheld badly charred bodies sprawled in an ungainly heap surrounded by a pile of crystal shards and splinters.
"Crap!" gasped the deeply breathing Roger, eloquently summing up Williams thoughts as the two of them slid to a stop. "Looks like Kwasi won't be paying what he owed me after all." From one of the bodies on the ground a single hand clawed around it for a moment as the badly burned face of a man turned blind eyes towards the sound of their voices.
William exchanged a quick glance with Roger who nodded and turned back towards the way they had come. Aiming carefully William gently feathered the trigger of his mag rifle, sending a single round into the horribly burned figure before joining Roger once more.
"You ready?" he asked the freckled man beside him.

"My mother always told me I was born to hang." grinned Roger in response. "I guess getting burning alive for doing the right thing one time in my life is almost as good."
"I know the feeling." smiled William as he took an appraising look at the ground they had just run across.
"Kwasi would have thanked you." said Roger as he slung the nearly empty micro rocket launcher across his back and took several long steps back into the room. "Let's go."
Roger had made it seven steps outside of the building before William followed him out of the building and across the killing field towards the remaining shuttle.

>>14722806
Indeed. This is partly because they have prehensile penises and labia, which they can use to manipulate objects with a high degree of dexterity. It is possible that, in the future, we will encounter a species whose primary manipulators are also its sexual organs.

Perhaps mankind will be mature enough to...

No, probably not.

You know, if Predators actually went to abandon their primal lifestyle and instead wanted to live like Humanity, we'd be fucked. I mean they got extremely good technology, but still live in huts and go around hunting their shit. IMO, that's a good example of alien behavior.
I think that the Tau from 40K are also a good example. They are a race that is completely united (disregard the latest bullshit about pheromones), and since its memebers normally only live around 40 years, all of them are commited to do their tasks to the end, and in the best way possible. This allows them to become a very advanced race in a very small time. That is something we humans will never be able to do if we stay in our current mindstate, for example.

"One of the shuttles just broke atmosphere." said Saxon from where he sat behind Lugh.
"Show me." said Lugh turning sharply before glancing down at the display that he was staring at with Langley. Ever since the two shuttles had entered the moons atmosphere communication between them and the Carthage had been nonexistent. Despite several attempts by both Langley and Saxon to reach the shuttles via laser transmission all communications had been cut off for over three hours.
"I've got an incoming transmission, audio only." exclaimed Langley from beside Lugh.
"Let's hear it." said Lugh before turning and crossing the short distance to his command chair. "Main speakers."
For a moment static crackled forth from the rarely used speakers before Lugh heard the chilling panic of Canute's voice. "... I repeat this is Shuttle Two to Carthage; I've got twelve badly wounded aboard. I need immediate medical assistance the minute we get aboard."
"Copy that." said Langley briefly before Lugh waved him silent.
"Canute, this is Lugh. Can you tell us what happened?" asked Lugh.
Canute's voice paused for a moment before coming across stronger and louder than before. "Not really, one minute they had a perimeter set up, then all of a sudden these things were coming out of nowhere and lighting people up! The alien sons of bitches were using some kind of high intensity beam weapon. Everyone aboard the shuttle except me has multiple burns from those things; they were getting cut to ribbons down there!"
"We'll have Chan Yu and his team standing by." said Lugh, the words tasting of ashes in his mouth. "What about the second shuttle?"
"They should be behind me." said Canute's voice. "They were getting everyone they could loaded up as I took off."

Lugh sat back heavily into his chair and waved angrily towards Langley who cut the main speakers off and began talking to Canute quietly. At the main sensor console Saxon updated the medical bay of the situation and began relaying information from Langley to Doctor Chan Yu as Lugh sat brooding in his chair as he waited for the second shuttle to break atmosphere.
Finally, as the first shuttle began docking procedures with the Carthage, Saxon broke through Lughs self absorbed reverie with the news that the second shuttle had finally breached the atmosphere. Nodding faintly Lugh had Saxon route the communication directly to his station and initiated transmission.
"I hope you have some good news." began Lugh before he was cut off.
"Don't even start." barked William Richardson's voice from the small speaker before Lugh. The obvious pain in his tone set Lugh back apace as William continued. "I've got two walking wounded and five critical on this heap that you call a shuttle. Only one of us made it out of that death trap unhurt."
Lugh winced mentally as the number of returning men and women reached him. Of the thirty four people that had landed on the moon, only twenty were returning, and almost all of them were injured. "I don't know what kind of idiot set this mission up without even getting an idea of what we were walking into, but if I find out who it was, I will personally shove their ass out a damned airlock." rasped William. The language that followed was both brutal and highly descriptive of what he would do immediately before shoving that unfortunate out the airlock.

"Put Stemmler on." said Lugh after William finished ranting.
"Can't." replied William simply. "He's critical."
"What about Bragg?" asked Lugh of the archeologist that had supposedly led the expedition.
"Dead." answered William flatly. "And so are thirteen others."
"Stemmler left you in charge then?" Lugh asked as morbid curiosity got the better of him.
"Not really. Nobody else really knew what the hell they were doing, so I took over. I'll give you a full debrief once we get aboard." came the reply before William brusquely shut down the transmission.
Lugh rubbed his hands across his face, sighed, and turned to face Langley before Saxon's raised voice drew his attention.
"I've got incoming pocket emergence!" shouted Saxon from behind the sensor console. Lugh's eyes snapped down at his console as information began to stream across the display that showed the tell tale signature of another ship emerging from pocket travel into the system.
"Signature reads about sixteen hours old." said Saxon frantically as Lugh studied the information. "I can't get an exact fix on their readings, but it's big. Not quite big enough to be a capital ship, but close."
"Keep an eye on them." said Lugh as he turned to where Sergei sat behind the astrogation console. "Sergei..." he began before Sergei cut him off.

"Not a chance Captain." said the astrogator simply, shaking his head. "We're too far in system, and if that's an Alliance ship they'll overtake us long before we can reach the heliosphere. And we still don't know if the pocket drive is going to work after that last trip, Nogai still has his crew going over it."
"Do what you can." said Lugh simply as he began plotting a course away from where the unknown ship had arrived sixteen hours ago. "As soon as we get the second shuttle aboard, give us as much speed as you can. I'm going down below to meet with the landing party and find out just what happened."
Sergei gave a fatalistic shrug and turned towards his holo display, "Aye sir."

* * *

Do you ever feel, in your caves of steel,
The chill of an ancient fear?
Do you shudder and say, when you pass this way,
A human once walked here?

They've cut off our heads, but we're not dead,
And we're bound by an ancient vow.
That does not sleep which dreams in the deep,
We're the Great Old Ones now!

And that's the end of the only HFY I've done. It's not really HFY, as I said, its more humans making a mistake that life will always exist as something they recognize, and can exploit/destroy/rob.

Anyone read "Tiger! Tiger! (=The Stars My Destination)" by Alfred Bester?

I recommend you to read it. It's actually some kind of a HFY story, but it takes that twist in the end, and it does it in a very good way. We need more of that stuff.

pretty sure writefaggotry goes in /ic/
of course you'jll get ripped to shreds there
but still, not tg

>>14722739
Sorry man, couldn't find it. If I recall correctly, there were two stories in that thread, one with I think a janitor or someone in a bar getting seduced and another being a beetle prostitute.

>>14722605
It's true, there are all sorts of crazy things that could happen. But at lot of them are unlikely.

Chemically, carbon based life is far more likely. A requirement for life is replication, as far as I know the only chemicals we've discovered which do this are RNA. Which requires water, which requires a planet of a certain specifications.

Then, there is generally one optimal solution to a problem. Legs are the best solution for getting around on land. Wings are still the best solution for getting around in air. Tool use requires the equivalent of hands (tentacles aren't viable out of the water). Advanced tools require metal which requires settlement and a boring atmosphere. That's not to say there isn't variation of course, we could have things with 2 thumbs and finger, eyeballs could be much more efficient, etc.

Breathing methane is interesting, but still requires lungs, and would still require something like oxygen to react with.
Gravity and atmospheric oxygen (or whatever fuel they use) content determine size.

Of course, none of that means there aren't some sort of weird species out there, just that they would be in the minority.

>>14722757
No, I mean this sort of sentient
>In science fiction, an alien, android, robot, hologram, or computer who is described as sentient is usually treated as a fully human character, with similar rights, qualities, and capabilities as any other character.

Notice I said simple. I'm well aware dolphins are smart, and can use tools. That doesn't mean they're capable of anything past that.

>>14722917

Meh. It was /tg/ when I posted the start of my book like 8 months ago. I'm not worried if the janitor comes after me because of it. I posted it because hey, why not.

>>14722786
That's like saying my Romantic Comedy isn't really a Romantic Comedy and is in fact a Slasher/Horror. Or this cow isn't a cow, it's mostly a space ship.

>>14722917
>/ic/
>Artwork/Critique
>he probably means /lit/
>cannot into grammar and spelling, failed a DC 10 4chan knowledge check
>saging ineffectually

A cornucopia of fail blesses us this morning.

>>14722941
>No, I mean this sort of sentient

When the word is used in that manner, it is used wrong. The correct term is sapient.

>I'm well aware dolphins are smart, and can use tools. That doesn't mean they're capable of anything past that.

It doesn't mean they aren't, either. You could have said the same thing about man, several thousand years ago. Though dolphins are unlikely to develop space travel, that doesn't mean a race rather like them could not.

>>14722941
You know, usually people complain about aliens being too similar to humans.

>>14722941

No.
Of course the only replicant we found is the RNA. We haven't encountered Aliens yet, remember?
Evrything is likely. things of unimaginable weirdness are out there. I mean, even on earth, we don't appreciate how weird things we have. I mean, plants nigga. Fucking trees. Can't you see how alien they actually are in shape to us?

Tell me why this thread belongs to /tg.
No game systems. No universe creation. Nothing.

>>14722992
Well yes, they could evolve, but in the process they'd lose the qualities that make them dolphins.

>>14723008
Humans cannot into asymmetry?

>>14723045
It's awesome to the max? Calm down your butt hurt

>>14723045
>No universe creation.

...that's basically all this is.

>>14723047
And what, exactly, makes a dolphin a dolphin?

>>14723075

It's in water, talks, has fur and doesn't afraid of sarks. It als not have two legs and two arms and a round head.

>>14723008
Just because there's space, doesn't mean there are magical chemicals out there. There are a certain set of properties needed to for replication, and the vast majority of chemicals can't ever meet those properties.

Can't you see how trees are designed? In any system with a soil/water system and sunlight coming from the top a tree like shape is the optimal solution for absorbing light. It's not weird at all, it's practical.

Of course I'm not saying weird things don't exist, it's just my belief that most sapient life out there will be human life.

>>14723065

No, universe creation starts with an idea for a unverse, and asks posters to add ideas. Like that "China/Russia/America/India suddenly disappear from the Earth, what do?" thread a couple days ago.

>>14723098
>It's in water, talks, has fur and doesn't afraid of sarks. It als not have two legs and two arms and a round head.
>has fur
>sarks
>als not have two legs and two arms and a round head

WHAT

>>14723101

Well ok, we can all believe what we want.

>>14723108
I don't think you're in any position to decide what is and what is not universe creation and dictate that to the rest of us.

>>14723114

>I think he means hair
>sharks probably
>dolphin anatomy

>>14723045
I witnessed the mass banning of people trolling an HFY thread a few weeks ago. The moderation staff have chosen a side, and it is the human side.

>>14723125

Yes I am, and I can

>>14723101
*human life.

>>14723075
This is a impossible question to answer, but I'm sure you can think of a set of things that identify a dolphin to your satisfaction.
If we can agree flippers and being aquatic based are requirements for being a dolphin, I think we can also agree they would exclude them from ever being capable of space travel.

>>14722994
In general I don't have a problem with people creating weird and awesome aliens, but it really bugs when they just randomly say this race is more X just because. I love HFY, but I don't like us being magical super beings or regarded as super violent for no reason at all.

>>14723148

Oh and I am not trolling. You are an idiot if you jump "troll!" to a post like that.
This thread is composed of literature and has 0 gamesystems or universe creation discussed, which normally places it in /lit/

>>14723167
Yet no-one appears to be heeding your decrees, Lord Master.

>>14723174
Fuck you 4chan and your post mangling.
*human like.

>>14723116
Absolutely. Everything is just speculation.

>>14723174
>If we can agree flippers and being aquatic based are requirements for being a dolphin, I think we can also agree they would exclude them from ever being capable of space travel.

Yeah, pretty much. Which is why I didn't suggest that dolphins could achieve space travel. I was using them as an example of a predator species that may be sapient, or close to it.

Well, Thread has turned to shit.
Thanks Someone (Journals), Bitter old man and the guy who linked The Ship Archives.

You were all very entertaining and are a credit to this board.
Night

>>14723174

>>14723075 --> >>14723098

>>14723194
You misunderstand, I'm not saying you're trolling, I'm saying it doesn't matter whether or not this is related.
It has been consistently and explicitly accepted by the guys whose job it is to ban stuff that isn't related. I've seen more people dropped for posting RPGs built off of webcomics than I have seen for this sort of thing.

>>14723198

and yet I can do that shit

>>14723101
have you ever notices how inefficient tree growth patterns are? they have multiple layers of leaves due to the fact that the don't have full coverage on the outer surface.

A tree that evolved for more efficient growth might only have one giant leaf supported by multiple branches.

>>14723194
Normally. But HFY is, apparently, /tg/-related, and along with the drawthreads and other writethreads, and various discussion topics that do not primarily involve game systems or universe creation... it stays. Until the administration decides otherwise. Email moot if you have a problem with it. Posting in this thread will accomplish nothing besides moving it to the front page.

>>14723232

Oh, ok, fine then.

>>14719224
I know I'm late to the party, nut I wouldn't use "twist," it has too negative a connotation.

Rudimentary creatures of blood and flesh, you touch my mind, fumbling in ignorance, incapable of understanding.

There is a realm of existence so far beyond your own you cannot even imagine it. I am beyond your comprehension. I am Sovereign.

Organic life is nothing but a genetic mutation, an accident. Your lives are measured in years and decades. You wither and die. We are eternal, the pinnacle of evolution and existence. Before us, you are nothing. Your extinction is inevitable. We are the end of everything.

The pattern has repeated itself more times than you can fathom. Organic civilizations rise, evolve, advance, and at the apex of their glory they are extinguished. The Protheans were not the first. They did not create the Citadel. They did not forge the mass relays. They mere found them - the legacy of my kind.

Your civilization is based on the technology of the mass relays. Our technology. By using it, your civilization develops along the paths we desire. We impose order on the chaos of organic life. You exist because we allow it, and you will end because we demand it.

We are legion. The time of our return is coming. Our numbers will darken the sky of every world. You cannot escape your doom.

Your words are as empty as your future. I am the Vanguard of your destruction. This exchange is over...

>>14723262

>mfw people rage when Fire Warrior is discussed

>>14723266
Indeed. Forgive me for the misunderstanding, I understand that this is obviously a thread with a lot of hostility in it, and I may have approached you in an abrasive tone.

>>14723283
The Reapers are consumed with blind arrogance. Because they have never been beaten before, they assume they can't be.

Commander Shepard will prove them wrong.

...and the Council will deny there were ever any Reapers in the first place.

>>14723283
please see
>>14720882
Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of man's mind, bring it on, etc etc

>>14723315

>>14723409

>>14723409
>>14723482

raisinsface.jpg

The Predecessors, the Enlighteners, Humans,. Whatever name your have for them is irrelevant. All that matters is their impact. For centuries Humanity searched the stars hoping to find life on a scale of intelligence equal to their own.

They colonized the galaxy, brought justice and peace to the void. They were benevolent, and they raised all of us from the most inkling of stages. The Dakes, the Ichnopods, the Formians. We all owe our intelligence and our status and stature to the work of the Humans. Their legacy lives on in each of our races, and the works that we do in the Galaxy that we have inherited.

We do not know what happened to the Forefathers. We know only that they left suddenly. Where they went, or what prompted such a mass exodus is unknown to us. Perhaps they felt the call to adventure that lead them to the stars, or their species-long dream of contacting other races was finally complete. All we know is that they left us with their homes and their ideas to pass along to others. They are an inspiration to us all, and we would do well to remember that.

>mfw people argue that HFY isn't /tg/ related

>>14723699
>They colonized the galaxy, brought justice and peace to the void
>brought peace to the void
what is this
i don't even
IT DOES NOT GET MORE PEACEFUL THAN VOID DAMNIT!!!!

You want to hear about humans? Didn't you learn this in school or something? Whatever, I can give you the abridged version.

The logical starting point would be fucking Africa. Nice place, if you like 110 degree weather and fucking tigers. That's where humans started. But we didn't stay there. We moved about like a bunch of fucking morons, spreading ourselves to the four corners of the goddamned Earth before we even had a spoken language. Far as I know, this played hell with our development time. Took us five thousand years longer than the next slowest species to figure out electricity.

Well by the time we hit what you lot call 'the unity', the information age, we had already fought wars that killed fifty-plus million fucking people. Fifty plus million. This wasn't in space mind you, we did this manually, on the ground, without nuclear weapons. Some aircraft, some artillery, always conventional explosives and fucking hand held guns.

Unlike the rest of the sapient species in the galaxy, unless you want to count those Soledrin fucks or the fucking Kithx -which you shouldn't because they aren't fucking sapient, I swear to God I'll never accept it- We kept up this whole pointless violence thing right up until, and continuing on after, we got into fucking space. Space war was something else, let me tell you. We lost a lot of fucking people to stupid shit during the early space age.

And then we bumped into you fucking lot. Kind of put a damper on our goddamn parade, you did. Higher technology, larger holdings, more resources, there was no way for us to continue fighting with you right there. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying you were planning anything, but you try telling a human that back in those days, we didn't even trust each other, why would we trust some fucking big with seven legs and a prehensile cock?

>>14723929

So we united into our raggedy ass confederacy and acted like a biker at a goddamn high school reunion, until we finally got the war we were expecting. Got our shit ruined, we did, lost most of everything, but I maintain to this day it was worth it.

Why? Well think about it, you fucking cockroach, Mankind's a scattered mess now but that's just the way we like it. No population centers, no goddamn capitals, no countries, no cities. Just an eternal frontier and a lot of time. We're fucking nomads again, wandering around odd jobs for the species what like their tinker toys better than their star charts. There's always work for people nobody trusts anyway and who'll be moving along in a week or two regardless. Mercenary work, security work, courier work. Worked for the fucking Cossacks, working for us now.

We're the fucking tile grout of your shitty galactic civilization, and when the rest of it breaks into fragments, which it always does, we'll be there, everywhere, between everyone, holding everything together, armed to the teeth and with no loyalties.

And that'll be a grand fucking day, won't it buggy? Now finish your fucking drink, your parents are going to be worried sick if you're not back by 79.

>>14723929
>>14723950
>Zaeed Massani, Mercenary Daycare

Fund it.

>>14723929
>>14723950

mfw I read that in his voice

damn it people shat all over the thread while I was alseep

Awesome.

OP here, fuck yeah /tg/. This thread is awesome, great work.

Bump for the bump god.

BUMP!

I'm not sure what this is, but I'll post this anyway.

>>14733754

Eh, not HFY, but cool story, bro.