Today in “humans are space orcs” news we have this awesome “humans are unstoppable… until they aren’t” thread. Most aliens think that humans are basically invincible, but they find out we do have our limits is these horrible ways:
Source: Space Australians
“Humans are space orcs. Space orcs are good dogs.” is my fav line ever. What do you think, could humans seem unkillable to aliens? Leave a comment below!
And I’ll raise a glass to another space orc who did the right thing for his pack, so they could survive even though he paid the ultimate price. It’s surprisingly common.
Drink a small quantity of flammable poison to celebrate the slow death of a friend..
A raised glass to a friend I never met…
“We’re not monsters and we’re not weaklings – we’re dogs.”
There’s a reason dogs and cats are the two most popular pets in the world – they have so much in common with us, we can see a bit of ourselves in them.
for good reason
We _made_ dogs. Out of fire and wolves and meat, with our bare hands. And in return, they shaped us too; we ended up with a pack structure closer to theirs than to other primates’ amd with lasting Best Friends.
And cats … well, they wandered by one day, said “oh, mice! rats! y’all seem to have a lot of those here, easier hunting for us … and you’ll FEED us? _sold_!”, and moved in. And then made _themselves_ into US. They mirror us as much as they do other cats; there’s a whole category of vocalizations which they don’t use with other cats – only with humans. They will learn tricks from us, whether we know we’re teaching them or not. They’ll demand our attention, especially when we need to be doing something else.
–Dave, there is more than a bit of them in us, and vice versa
This is a GREAT story line!
For space is wide and good friends are too few.
Raise a glass to old Sam jones
any time I see a space orc story I jump at it, it’s the best stuff possible.
Someone write this book so I can read it 😂
in youtube look for agrosquirell and listen to him for a bit, i do it while i drive
The most fearsome of the space orc-dogs, who was considered the least killable, yet strangely the most calm and mood lifting of others, is the Mighty Outback Austraaaalian” (nicknamed MOAs for short).
They’re the ones who always volunteer to lead the way through a space spider territory (“Crikey! those m-fs are huge! But wait ’til you hear about the spiders from down under! These are nothing to worry about, mate!” — And the other crew members aren’t quite sure… down under what? Or where? ).
Or the Sirian jungles filled with mythical large creatures (“Ah, mate! reminds me of the Yowie. Less muddy, though.” — Reminds him of a what?!), and giant three-legged birds (“If you ever met a cassowary, or our emus, you’d think this was nothing!” — The crew had heard tales of these two most dangerous birds, who held aspirations to simply eat any human they ran into!).
And lets not forget their confiidence when facing the quicksandish desert of Triton 8, singing “an old song from back home. Waltzing Matilda! — what, or who, in all the nebulas was Matilda??!!) while setting up camp, lighting a fire, and heating up water in his “billy” to “ensure nobody got Salmonella or Giardia”— the crew didnt even WANT to know what those sicknesses entailed! But they must be terrible.) Also, if the quicksand got you, he knew the best way to get back out, using his simple walking stick.
The MOA did all this with a relaxed demeanor, and adventurous spirit and armed with a stick, some terrible “Dadjokes” amd a bumch of storries from back home about the various dangerous situations theyd faced before. Sure, the MOAs tended to be heavily scarred from their legendary fights with 8-foot tall demons with a massive tail, huge kick power, and fists like a professional fighter. The beast called “Roo.” (A fight they won, in five rounds, but their cousin Danno did it in four, by the way!)
And yes, they absolutely needed that hat with the round “kork” things hanging off it. It would protect them from drop bears! But the crew always knew that he would be the best at spotting the dreaded drop bears, killer venomous space worms, and had even wrangled a few of each while working with other crews.
Any away team was honored to have the MOA on their team. Nothing seemed to hurt him, or scare him. And he always told the most fascinating stories. If there were other MOAs on the team, they always confirmed the lead MOA’s stories, no matter how unlikely or unusual. They never forget that one time he got bit by a Saggitarian Rock Lizard. He just shrugged it off. “Crikey, wasnt she a beauty, though? Similar to our geckos. She’ll be right, mate,” he croaked, as he fought through the fever that followed the bite. And when he finally came to, after a frightening night, he whispered, “Its all good, mate. At least now I’ll be immune!”
The crew were never sure what might actually end the MOAs life. But if he was up for anything dangerous, they trusted his judgment (the lizard situation notwithstanding) and just let him work his magic. After all, he’d be right. He said so himself.
And don’t forget about the “Red Necks…sometimes referred to as “Hill Billies” even though theirs necks are the same tone give or take a few shades and very few are actually named Billy! Their regional dialect is harder to understand than other humans leading many to write them off as less intelligent. DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE leave this type of space orc UNSUPERVISED with either scrap/junk or high ordinance or energy weapons! Ours MADE a rail gun that fires depleted fuel cells that he had altered to EXPLODE on impact from a scrapped orbital lander slated for disposal next time we were in drydock…because he got bored and thought it would be fun…FUN!!! Then there was the time our away team was pinned down and under fire by an enraged and well armored war chief. Our Redneck peeked over the rock we were using for cover and nearly had his head shot off. He just sat there shaking while looking at the smoldering pile of ashes that was his traditional head covering. We thought we were done for with our human scared senseless…until he grabbed my long range plasma rifle and began to partially disassemble it with his “Leather Man” (again not made of leather nor man shaped, & they wonder why we question their intelligence). Not even 2 cycles later he uttered a phrase that I have come to both fear & be awed by…”That should do it” jumped up and fired 1 shot. He had bypassed the overcharge restrictors, something our best engineers say isn’t possible, and set the charge to MAX which resulted in large sustained energy discharge that he aimed directly at the War Chief’s torso vaporizing him…all we found was his feet! We all looked at this scene in shock & horror as our Red Neck human walked up with a ruined & smoking plasma rifle, spit on the war chief’s remains and said “Sonufab’ich ruined my best hat, my Mama gave me that hat!” We haven’t been able to translate this but it must he a human phrase of great contempt. Remember a bored human is a dangerous human and an angry human is capable of terrifying destruction!
Of course we’re dogs. What is a dog if not a wolf we taught to be a little bit human.
individually many humans are very stoppable, but as a species we just keep coming, once we go somewhere we don’t stop filling it until humans are dominant. collectively we are unkillable and when working together can achieve impossible things.
One of the hardest tasks of command, in the military or police or fire service, is to verbally and even physically haul back personnel from extreme danger.
Studies have consistently shown that personnel recognize hazards too late, knowingly push forward beyond point of return, and if left to their own devices will pile on the bodies trying to save each other.
Either the problem is a sniper, or hazardous materials in a confined space, or hopeless firefighter (RIC) rescue … the hardest command to give and to enforce is:
“Don’t go in there!”
Yeah, speaking from experience- scene safety is more of an advisory system.
The crews who happen to have one or more “Murikin” human found out, usually in ways involving the human doing something that should NOT, according to physics, be possible, that when they say “hold my beer” (whether what they’re passing over is beer or not), record video, because only other humans will believe it!
Larry Niven footfall. All out attack on an alien ship. One of the human craft with two pilots, out of weapons, low pn fuel, no way home. One of the attacks has torn a hole in the side of the alien craft. They look at each other, shrug, and dive in at full tilt. There is a catastrophic explosion and the aliens start to lose control. Inside the captain is demanding to know how the humans made automatics like that, and a human captive laughs and says ” there are people in there. That’s how much they hate you and want you dead.”
Love and spite are both very good at carrying a human way past their breaking point.