So there has been a bit of “what if humans were the weird ones?” going around tumblr at the moment and Earth Day got me thinking. Earth is a wonky place, the axis tilts, the orbit wobbles, and the ground spews molten rock for goodness sakes. What if what makes humans weird is just our capacity to survive? What if all the other life bearing planets are these mild, Mediterranean climates with no seasons, no tectonic plates, and no intense weather?
What if several species (including humans) land on a world and the humans are all “SCORE! Earth like world! Let’s get exploring before we get out competed!” And the planet starts offing the other aliens right and left, electric storms, hypothermia, tornadoes and the humans are just … there… counting seconds between flashes, having snowball fights, and just surviving.
To paraphrase one of my favorite bits of a ‘humans are awesome’ fiction megapost: “you don’t know you’re from a Death World until you leave it.” For a ton of reasons, I really like the idea of Earth being Space Australia.
Earth being Space Australia
Words cannot express how much I love these posts
Alien: “I’m sorry, what did you just say your comfortable temperature range is?”
Human: “Honestly we can tolerate anywhere from -40 to 50 Celcius, but we prefer the 0 to 30 range.”
Alien: “……. I’m sorry, did you just list temperatures below freezing?”
Human: “Yeah, but most of us prefer to throw on scarves or jackets at those temperatures it can be a bit nippy.”
Other human: “Nah mate, I knew this guy in college who refused to wear anything past his knees and elbows until it was -20 at least.”
Human: “Heh. Yeah everybody knows someone like that.”
Alien: “……. And did you also say 50 Celcius? As in, half way to boiling?”
Human: “Eugh. Yes. It sucks, we sweat everywhere, and god help you if you touch a seatbelt buckle, but yes.”
Alien: “……. We’ve got like 50 uninhabitable planets we think you might enjoy.”
“You’re telling me that you have… settlements. On islands with active volcanism?”
“Well, yeah. I’m not about to tell Iceland and Hawaii how to live their lives. Actually, it’s kind of a tourist attraction.”
“What, the molten rock?”
“Well, yeah! It’s not every day you see a mountain spew out liquid rocks! The best one is Yellowstone, though. All these hot springs and geysers from the supervolcano–”
“You ACTIVELY SEEK OUT ACTIVE SUPERVOLCANOES?”
“Shit, man, we swim in the groundwater near them.”
Sounds like the “Damned” trilogy by Alan Dean Foster.
“And you say the poles of your world would get as low as negative one hundred with wind chill?”
“Yup, with blizzards you cant see through every other day just about.”
“Amazing! when did you manage to send drones that could survive such temperatures?”
“… well, actually…”
“… what?”
“…we kinda……. sent……….. people…..”
“…”
“…”
“…what?”
“we sent-”
“no yeah I heard you I just- what? You sent… HUMANS… to a place one hundred degrees below freezing?”
“y-yeah”
“and they didn’t… die?”
“Well the first few did”
“PEOPLE DIED OF THE COLD AND YOUR SOLUTION WAS TO SEND MORE PEOPLE???!?!?!?”
My new favorite Humans are Weird quote
“PEOPLE DIED OF THE COLD AND YOUR SOLUTION WAS TO SEND MORE PEOPLE?”
aka The History of Russia
aka Arctic Exploration
aka The History of Alaska
‘But surely you have records of volcanic activity doing tremendous damage to human settlements.’
‘Yep. Pompeii is legendary. Entire cities went. Towns buried under lava, peoples’ brains boiled in the first rush of heat, loads more killed by falling pumice.’
‘ah, good, they learned their lesson and didn’t build there again.’
‘…well…’
‘Are you seriously telling me this volcano is legendary for killing several urban conurbations and you built on top of it AGAIN?’
‘In our defence it hasn’t actually done it since.’
‘What about earthquake-prone areas? Tell me you’re at least vaguely sensible about those.’
‘Oh yeah. After the first major earthquake that flattens a city, we build them better.’
I live on both Earth Australia and Sace Australia.
alien: people died of the cold and your solution was tosend more people
human:
Aliens and monsters fascinated by humans will never stop being a thing for me
These are my favorite posts.
Alien – Ok, so tell me about war.
Human – Ok – lists everything from the 300 Spartans to possible WW3 –
Alien – So who are these people fighting in a square and a caged circle?
Human – Those are sports fighters.
Alien – You fight each other for fun?
Human – Yes.
Alien – WHEN YOU HAVE ALL THESE WARS!? THAT WOULD EXPLAIN IT!
Human – Well there’s the geneva convention. – explains what it is –
Alien – YOU BANNED WEAPONS OF WAR BECAUSE THEY WERE TOO EFFECTIVE!?
Human – It’s like cheating.
Alien – AT WAR!?!? WHERE YOU ACTIVE GOAL IS TO KILL EACH OTHER!? YOU ARE WORRIED ABOUT CHEATING!?
Human -…………………..
Alien – What?
Human – Nothing.
Alien – No, what? There’s something else isn’t there?
Human – Nukes are not technically banned under the convention.
Human: All this celebration needs is some booze
Alien: some what now?
Human: Booze. Alcoholic drinks.
Alien: What is alcohol?
Human: Ethanol.
C2H6O
Alien: wait, isn’t that the stuff your people use as disinfectant?
Human: yup.
Alien: and a fuel additive?
Human: yup.
Alien: Isn’t that a poison!?
Human: well yeah, but it’s watered down when we drink it.
Alien: !?
THIS IS MY FAVORITE SHIT
So what about the fact that humans can take so much abuse to the body and miraculously survive
Alien: So let me just review: You have records of people surviving fatal wounds commonly…
Human: Uh-huh.
Alien: And some of these stories include stab wounds to the brain…
Human: Oh, yeah, all the time.
Alien:….and then…surviving and even improving from crippling injuries or brain damage…
Human: Those are some of the truly strong ones, that.
Alien: Yes…indeed…………………………………………………
Human: What? What is it?
Alien: It’s just…..well………we had heard….rumors….
Human: Of?
Alien: It’s nothing. They’re false, they must be! Humans coming back from the dead–it’s funny really!
Human: o-o……………..
Alien: You must be joking.
Human: UM………WELL…….
Alien: TELL ME YOU’RE JOKING. PLEASE.
Human: *patting the alien sympathetically* I’m…sorry?
Alien: *slams head on table. Done*
This is the best thing in the entire world
I mean we only really “come back” like that if the water’s really cold…
Or if there’s an AED RIGHT there, or if they get us to the hospital in time to give us enough epinephrine to restart the heart …
(A first aid instructor was once super blunt about the stats around CPR, which are quite low – less than five percent of cases result in anything. Then he said, “However: WHEN DO YOU DO CPR?”
The class replied, “When someone isn’t breathing and has no pulse?”
And he said, “Right! Now next question: WHAT DO WE CALL SOMEONE WHO ISN’T BREATHING AND DOESN’T HAVE A PULSE?”
“ … dead.”
“Right! So let me reframe what I just said to you: in five percent of cases if you do CPR you can bring someone back from the dead. Now how do those stats sound to you?”
We then went on to discuss the stats in a bit more detail, such as how they cover EVERY REPORTED CASE OF CPR … including those started long after there was any hope of it helping, or when even if begun right away there was some other massive traumatic injury that meant even if you kept the heart going or got it going again it wouldn’t matter the body was dead anyway, etc etc etc, so the stats were actually less bleak if you sort of took that into account; and then even more importantly that in cases of cardiac arrest or severe distress and cessation of breathing that were treated IMMEDIATELY WITH THE FULL APPROPRIATE TREATMENT – AED when appropriate, hospitalization fast response, etc etc – the stats were actually frankly pretty bright. They just also dropped exponentially fast over a very short period of time – if someone’s got appropriate aid from the second they go down, great stats! … a minute later, meh stats … a minute after that, worse stats … etc.)
However my godfather did in fact get a metal spike through his head, survived, and lived several decades: there were after affects of the TBI to deal with, but he was still happy and comfortable in his life and a great guy and if you didn’t KNOW it happened, you’d never guess.
Kimchi and Justice 