Humans Are Space Orcs

A 313-post collection

Challenge #01283-C188: Steep Learning Curve

Names of recordings of training scenarios.

"Ode to places a cutting torch should never go"

"Three drones, one airlock and no sense"

And the cautionary tale about plasma torches, hypergolic fuel and explosive decompression simply entitled: "Don't" -- RecklessPrudence

Human training videos were baffling. They seemed designed to entertain, but also contained the full, gruesome consequences in order to horrify their audience into learning the lesson.

Newbies, it seemed, were suicidally incompetent. Sometimes, they were also homicidally so. And chief amongst their flaws was acting as if they were still planet-side. Or in some other environment where the doors did not need to be double-checked before proceeding.

They called their basic training ochre, even though the initials were OECR. They stood for; Observe, Evaluate, Consider, React. And, according to the assembled fids, humans had a very hard time doing those things in order.

Humans instinctively threw water on fire. Some even threw water on smoking things. Frequently, these instincts had disastrous results.

Humans acted as if air was infinite. Casually using tools that gobbled up air and acting surprised when the supply failed.

Humans acted as if water was infinite. Carelessly tossing good water into waste systems without considering the consequences for the purification biota.

Things considered minor sins in a planetary setting had immense consequences for a confined environment in space. And this had to be drilled into their heads.

Fortunately for most non-human cogniscents, the type of people who stole other people's food were prevented from travelling far from their place of origin. Natural selection usually weeded out those who were persistent in that bad habit. And for those who continued their disregard for others' property... well... a year or two in agrarian therapy generally cured them of their inclination to scavenge.

But the most frightening thing about human training videos, above all things, was the population of humans who laughed at them.

(Muse food remaining: 17. Submit a Prompt! Ask a question! Buy my stories! Or comment below!)

Challenge #01278-C183: Kintsugi Ronin

The art of repairing pottery with gold or silver lacquer, understanding that the piece is more beautiful for having been broken. This can also apply to People. -- Knitnan

The ships' human was, in their own words, winding down. They had extracted themself from their armoured shell, removed the thermal suit that helped regulate their temperature, and otherwise stripped down to their Skins.

Most Gigaru kept away from the human at this point. Downtime was important to these mammals. And yet Kithkith

Read more »

Challenge #01273-C178: The Coffee Oath

"It is caffeine alone..." You know the rest of this quote. Have fun. -- KnitNan

Theobromine was dangerous for most species, but humans took it in several different preparations. This was the waking preparation, as the ship's human went about their post-somnolence ritual.

Humans could push themselves to operate for an entire standard day, if they needed to. Their human had just done so, and proceeded to sleep for an astonishing twelve hours. Now they emerged, still in their sleeping clothes, to

Read more »

Challenge #01266-C171: He's Just a Softie, Really

http://iopele.tumblr.com/post/145552354602/iamacutetiger-cosmictuesdays-pilgrimkitty

Captain Steve and his horgler -- Anon Guest

Humans will pet anything. It is a fact as true as their renowned insanity. They get reward through tactile contact and it is part of their pack-bonding process. Almost nothing, short of losing their arm on contact, will stop them.

The only thing that has stopped them in the past is knowledge of the frailty of the thing they wish to touch.

Humans stopped by planetary station

Read more »

Challenge #01263-C168: Bodyguard

http://iztarshi.tumblr.com/post/145107805571

On the flipside, when the space orcs want you safe, you are very safe -- Anon Guest

There were times when Talil could swear that humans were made of determination and venom.

They were not, strictly speaking, toxic. Not completely. But their skin was host to ecologies of bacteria that made their lives possible, and had been weaponised against Havenworlders. Their guts were hosts to bacteria that were toxic even to them. Their bites could fester

Read more »

Challenge #01230-C135: So This is How I Die

http://haberdashing.tumblr.com/post/143039331394/memeufacturing-human-after-being-stabbed-four -- Gallifreya

There are games the mind plays in extremis. One of its favourites is Hallucinations. But when the imagination is lacking or the mind is sufficiently aware of reality, the mind defaults to Good News, Bad News.

Good News, there is still air.

Bad News, it is filling with smoke.

Good News, there is still gravity.

Bad News, I am on my back.

Q'riikix, known to the humans in the crew as "Queasy", rattled

Read more »

Challenge #01209-C114: That Which is Left

The Sedlec ossuary of Kutna Hora

(if you're interested, there's a gallery of photos here (not for the faint of heart I suppose, but it's clean bones) https://imgur.com/gallery/QZE8a) -- Gallifreya

Logical solutions can look disturbing in retrospect. Take a small area with a large population. Arable land has to be kept clear for farming, so the living can eat. There is not enough fuel to burn the corpses, but just enough to cook. Therefore, the buried dead are

Read more »

Challenge #01198-C103: Pax Haptis

There was more added to the petting post from earlier

“we were going to blow them up, but they engaged in an oddly pleasing patting ritual and, well, it was nice.” -- Gallifreya

They had charged into a human nest that had already been abandoned. Some fired at stationary vehicles. Some fired at mannequins. Some fired because they feared for their lives. But when nothing fired back, the troup took their fingers off their triggers and looked around.

Somehow, the humans had

Read more »

Challenge #01190-C095: The Journals of Terry Six

http://soggywarmpockets.tumblr.com/post/141055057822/audiencecat-songofsunset-fireandwonder

that one with the regenerating species got more added - a misunderstanding with a much happier result -- Gallifreya

Taken from Journal of Observations: Human reproduction:

There is an ancient Terran song, one of the ones that is hard to get out of the mind-space after it is introduced. There is a refrain within it, Ob la dee, ob la da, life goes on, rah. La la, how the life goes on.

My name is

Read more »

Challenge #01121-C024: Humans Are Space Orcs

A couple of case studies that had managed to be kept away from the general galactic knowledge pool (except under specific licensing and non-disclosure contracts) come to light - the cases of Phineas Gage, James Brady, Ahad Israfil and others that have suffered massive head injuries and made practically full recoveries, despite the loss of large amounts of brain. (And often despite the lack of medical care of the time - Phineas's accident was in the 1820s)

(Warning for Ahad, pictures from

Read more »

Challenge #01078-B346: A Miracle by the Riverside

We have a saying, "They're not dead 'til they're warm and dead" -- Gallifreya

Lizards watched in alarm as the humans pulled the child out of the freezing water. Limp and lifeless, the sad scrap of a life seemed beyond salvage. And yet...

The humans around the baby were working tirelessly to instil life into the apparently lifeless. They stripped off wet clothes. Wrapped the tiny body in foil and applied heating blankets. Warmed up bags of saline to plumb into the

Read more »

Challenge #01050-B318: Fidelity

You can break my soul.

Shatter my mind.

Take my life away.

Beat me, hurt me, kill me.

But for the love of God

And for the sake of your own lives

Don't you

DARE

Touch her. -- Anon Guest

The human was already half-mad, even by human standards, when Kri'ko met her. She called herself Dog. Mutt on the bad days. Whenever she was awake, Dog would chatter to herself. A constant diatribe of ideas and denials.

They threw Kri'ko in

Read more »

Challenge #01034-B302: Pupup

A human is raised by aliens, and it turns out a lot of things humans like that weird out the rest of the galaxy are innate. For example the love of explosions, climbing and/or jumping off tall things, interacting with potentially hazardous wildlife, and chucking rocks into water. -- Gallifreya

They had found the survival pod some distance from the crash. And inside, a human. It was unmistakably a human. No other species had that almost complete lack of fur. Nor

Read more »