Settings where humans aren't 'The Mario'

[Coidzor]

I wouldn't say that, exactly. There are other sapient beings which are similar to humans, but they treat humans more or less like we treat lab rats, pest creatures or service animals.

Basically, there are creatures which could potentially be innocuous to human life, they're just rarely ever encountered in a state when the meeting would produce neutral or beneficial responses from the human's side of things. Because that's not what the story is about.

Mostly I meant that even amongst themselves it's all "X slaughtered all of the Y for ****s and giggles while joyriding on a saturday night equivalent after Y had reigned over a slave empire of Zs for a thousand yerblatz."

Whereas humans, I mean, well, their reactions run the gamut of trying to have sex with 'em, worshipping 'em, trying to study 'em, wanting to deck 'em in the schnoz, and going insane at the revelation that they're not alone in the universe.

[Eldan]

Mostly I meant that even amongst themselves it's all "X slaughtered all of the Y for ****s and giggles while joyriding on a saturday night equivalent after Y had reigned over a slave empire of Zs for a thousand yerblatz."

Whereas humans, I mean, well, their reactions run the gamut of trying to have sex with 'em, worshipping 'em, trying to study 'em, wanting to deck 'em in the schnoz, and going insane at the revelation that they're not alone in the universe.

There's not a lot of historical records, really. A lot of the creatures in Lovecraft are just too alien to really coexist with us. But some of the closer ones...
Ghouls really don't seem too bad. Sure, they are disgusting and they seem to have some rather dangerous powers, but compared to a lot of the others, I'd say we could work with them.
The Mi-Go seem to be both at war with and worshipping the gods, both is mentioned at different times. On Earth, they mostly seem to want to be left alone by humans and occasionally study them.

[TeChameleon]

... it would probably be hilariously disturbing to any alien species we encountered just how fast we'd find out whether or not we could interbreed with them. Or their livestock. Or their ships. Or basically anything else they brought with them. Or, for that matter, whether or not we could eat any or all of the above.

Because I honestly believe that there is almost literally nothing on Earth that some human, somewhere, has not tried to eat and/or have sex with (with obvious exceptions like lava and other things we can't actually touch), and I don't really anticipate that particular habit changing just because we start finding stuff that's not on Earth.

[Knaight]

Alan Dean Foster's Damned Trilogy goes out of its way to subvert the humans-are-boring trope- in that, humans are one of the only species that are capable of conceiving of violence against other people, much less actually doing harm to other sentient beings. It makes them... rather dangerous.

They're one of three within the weave - maybe four, depending on what the Lepar are actually capable. The entire amplitur faction is willing to be violent. Humans are still exceptional survivors from what is seen as an inhospitable waste (between the weather variations, natural disasters, and other such things Earth is seen as horrible), humans are still easily the best fighters in both tactics and personal combat, and they certainly aren't generic. On the other hand, none of the species are.

I guess StarCraft has the humans as Marios. One race is a hyperpsionic dying warrior culture with advanced technology, the other race is a hive-mind organism with living buildings. Humans are humans. Their tanks and planes are "future-ier", but they're still just tanks and planes. The only thing that really seperates them from today's humans with just better technology is their psionic potential, but the Zerg and Protoss outdo them in that.

In gameplay they're actually pretty distinctive. They're a very ranged faction, with no melee units (other than the worker, who shouldn't be fighting), the best range in the game, etc. While they are near the middle on the quantity-quality scale, that's about it.

[Benthesquid]

Mostly I meant that even amongst themselves it's all "X slaughtered all of the Y for ****s and giggles while joyriding on a saturday night equivalent after Y had reigned over a slave empire of Zs for a thousand yerblatz."

Whereas humans, I mean, well, their reactions run the gamut of trying to have sex with 'em, worshipping 'em, trying to study 'em, wanting to deck 'em in the schnoz, and going insane at the revelation that they're not alone in the universe.

Offhand, and blending the Cthulhu Mythos and Dream Cycle, since it's not like they're strictly delineated anywho...

The Great Race of Yith mostly seems interesting in studying humans, via mindswapping with them across ungussed aeons of time. They even go so far as to mind-wipe them afterwards, so they don't get all weirded out.

Ghouls eat people, probably, but mostly people who were already dead, y'know. And people can turn into ghouls- Robert Pickman seems to have. Randolph Carter teamed up with ghouls on a couple of notable occasions.

Night Gaunts want to pick people up, carry them somewhere else while tickling, and then set them down. I can't stress this enough- this is an actual behavior they exhibit.

Zoogs are predatory, but willing to stop and chat with Randolph Carter.

The Deep Ones seems to have some long term goals of conquest, but also seem quite content to spend a couple centuries trading treasure and fish for sex with coastal denizens.

The Moon Beasts are eating people, too, but are going about it by employing the Men of Leng (Satyr like fellows) to trade rubies for slaves.

The ones who are most intrinsic to humanity are often, oddly enough, those least aware of it. Cthulhu isn't planning to wake up and destroy civilization, it's just a likely side effect.

[Stardrake]

There's Harry Turtledove's Worldwar series (including the Colonization Books and Homeward Bound) where humans are the outlier of known species, being the only mammal. Humans in this setting advance preposterously quickly by alien standards, have a talent for deception that boggles all other species, and

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are so stubborn that, refusing to accept impossibilities, they develop FTL drives long before the Race was even willing to accept they were possible.

Sometime in the series, a theory comes out that this is not because humans are mammals, but

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because humans are sexually active all through the year rather than having a mating season. This drives humans to be constantly competing with one another to build prestige and attract mates, while the other sapient races have a ritualistic process at specific times and otherwise it's just not something they think about. This makes them generally less concerned about impressing others with accomplishments (including scientific ones), less risk-averse, and generally, from a certain point of view, more rational and conservative.

This holds up for people who are voluntarily celibate or otherwise not directly competing to mate because the urge to outdo one's peers is still part of the psychology, where the other sapients are more concerned with what's best for society over their own promotion - this isn't to say they're without personal ambition, but it's less of a driving factor for them.

...and there's a reason you don't see Octopoid carpenters or engineers or artists. They have no method of skill transference and no group to reinforce learned traits.

Squid are arguably as intelligent, probably moreso since they actually work in groups and have developed rudimentary communication.

There are... I don't know the exact term off the top of my head, animal behaviour specialists might be closest - that have observed that colour-changing cephalopods use colour changes as part of their language. Exactly where it sits in complexity I don't recall off the top of my head, but they have enough control over their colour-changing that they could theoretically use their own bodies as whiteboards for a written language.

You could say the same about dogs and they're the animal most capable of understanding complex communication that we have found. As well as one of the animals on the list of smart creatures given.

Interesting, according to some articles I've read, dogs are less effective at problem-solving than wild wolves. Essentially, they've traded independent problem-solving in exchange for being able to better understand a species that they're in a symbiotic relationship with and that is better at problem-solving than they are.

* Meganthropus (may have been subspecies of homo erectus) - 8 feet tall, powerful jaws, mostly similar to homo erectus

Hadn't heard of these before. Wonder if they're where legends of giants came from?

[Brother Oni]

Because I honestly believe that there is almost literally nothing on Earth that some human, somewhere, has not tried to eat and/or have sex with (with obvious exceptions like lava and other things we can't actually touch), and I don't really anticipate that particular habit changing just because we start finding stuff that's not on Earth.

There's a (paraphrased) Chinese saying of "If it has four legs and is not a chair, if it has two wings and flies but is not an aeroplane, and if it swims and is not a submarine, the Cantonese will eat it", which was most famously mentioned by Prince Phillip.

The ones who are most intrinsic to humanity are often, oddly enough, those least aware of it. Cthulhu isn't planning to wake up and destroy civilization, it's just a likely side effect.

Cthulhu was just taking a nap, chilling under Antartica when some irritating little kids wake him up and when he goes all crazy old man "Get off my lawn!" and chases them off, they ram a steam boat into him! If anything, he's got a good reason to hate humanity.

[BeerMug Paladin]

The Great Race of Yith mostly seems interesting in studying humans, via mindswapping with them across ungussed aeons of time. They even go so far as to mind-wipe them afterwards, so they don't get all weirded out.

Not so much studying the humans, but checking out what the condition of things on Earth are like while humans are on it. It's implied that the race itself was inhabited by a race of mind-stealer creatures riding them around piggyback the same way that one human was ridden around. I interpreted the memory loss as a kind of self-infliected amnesia in order to preserve the mind that experienced those things. Not something done for the human's benefit.

I don't actually know if the Great Race of Yith are the mind-stealers or the original cone-body creatures. That was never clear to me.

I'd add to this that the Elder Things arguably killed people in self-defence, but they did spend a little time to disect a human they had just killed, presumably for the sake of curiosity. That's actually a pretty human behavior.

Most of the human-like behavior of creatures in the mythos is only hinted. Telling the audience they are human-like directly would kind of undermine the point of the setting, since part of it is that the human mind is too fragile to understand the true nature of things, and chance human encounters with anything outside a limited range of experience leave events mistaken for gods, demons, angels, or magic.

It's also pretty clear that humans are the least fit intelligent species. The other species are pretty much just as helpless against the whims of an uncaring universe as humans, you just see that element hinted at fairly infrequently, as the aliens have an advantage of mental fortitude that humans lack.

The aliens can potentially understand that they're doomed without going nuts. But humans can't. So particularly clever humans who figure that out realize humans should not know about these things for their own sake.

I don't know why the people who believe knowing these things is bad spontaneously write long journals of their experiences. I guess they must be crazy or something.

[hamishspence]

I'd add to this that the Elder Things arguably killed people in self-defence, but they did spend a little time to disect a human they had just killed, presumably for the sake of curiosity. That's actually a pretty human behavior.

That was pretty much the narrator's conclusion:

"poor Lake, poor Gedney... and poor Old Ones! Scientists to the last - what had they done that we would not have done in their place? God, what intelligence and persistence! What a facing of the incredible, just as those carven kinsmen and forbears had faced things only a little less incredible! Radiates, vegetables, monstrosities, star spawn - whatever they had been, they were men!"

[thorgrim29]

Something about giant Homo erectus:
Hadn't heard of these before. Wonder if they're where legends of giants came from?

From what I read/heard what is considered Homo erectus had a huge range of sizes (like some subspecies were twice as tall as others). That seems to me like a reclassification waiting to happen, but my only knowledge of human evolution comes from watching people who are not anthropologists debate creationists so it's pretty sketchy.

[Cikomyr]

From what I read/heard what is considered Homo erectus had a huge range of sizes (like some subspecies were twice as tall as others). That seems to me like a reclassification waiting to happen, but my only knowledge of human evolution comes from watching people who are not anthropologists debate creationists so it's pretty sketchy.

But are the distinct species or merely subspecies that can produce viable offspring?

Only one way to know.

We have to clone them and have them have sex with each other

[Talakeal]

But are the distinct species or merely subspecies that can produce viable offspring?

Only one way to know.

We have to clone them and have them have sex with each other

After we are done with them first of course.

[GolemsVoice]

Offhand, and blending the Cthulhu Mythos and Dream Cycle, since it's not like they're strictly delineated anywho...

The Great Race of Yith mostly seems interesting in studying humans, via mindswapping with them across ungussed aeons of time. They even go so far as to mind-wipe them afterwards, so they don't get all weirded out.

Ghouls eat people, probably, but mostly people who were already dead, y'know. And people can turn into ghouls- Robert Pickman seems to have. Randolph Carter teamed up with ghouls on a couple of notable occasions.

Night Gaunts want to pick people up, carry them somewhere else while tickling, and then set them down. I can't stress this enough- this is an actual behavior they exhibit.

Zoogs are predatory, but willing to stop and chat with Randolph Carter.

The Deep Ones seems to have some long term goals of conquest, but also seem quite content to spend a couple centuries trading treasure and fish for sex with coastal denizens.

The Moon Beasts are eating people, too, but are going about it by employing the Men of Leng (Satyr like fellows) to trade rubies for slaves.

The ones who are most intrinsic to humanity are often, oddly enough, those least aware of it. Cthulhu isn't planning to wake up and destroy civilization, it's just a likely side effect.

The Nightgaunts however take you to some pretty disturbing places, and that can ruin your day. The Deep Ones and their cultists won't go out and look for a fight, but they will destroy you if you come close enough, so I'd say we can live with them as long as we don't know about them.

As Banthesquid said, however, many of the other species are either predatory, but not actively hostile or will mostly be a nuisance to a few people, like the Great Race. And yes, they basically go around hopping from species to species, outrunning their own doom each time while leaving their old host species to die.

And yes, most of the other species aren't THAT much better off than humans in the long run, but they at least have a clear picture of what's really going on.

[McStabbington]

...and there's a reason you don't see Octopoid carpenters or engineers or artists. They have no method of skill transference and no group to reinforce learned traits.

Squid are arguably as intelligent, probably moreso since they actually work in groups and have developed rudimentary communication.

Just a quick note: that is true in the wild. In the laboratory, researchers have long since known that octopi can learn from one another, or from humans. If I recall the stories my philosophy of the mind professor correctly (believe it or not, philosophy of the mind and clinical psychology have a huge overlap), they first found out about this accidentally, as some biologists who were doing experiments on both fish and octopi couldn't figure out how their fish kept disappearing until they put cameras in the lab. It was only then that they found that the octopi had learned how to open both their aquariums and the fish aquariums from watching the researchers do it, and were sneaking into the fish aquariums at night and eating the fish.

They're nowhere near human intelligent, but they're at least as adept at tool use as a chimpanzee once taught.

[Brother Oni]

They're nowhere near human intelligent, but they're at least as adept at tool use as a chimpanzee once taught.

To reinforce this point, cephalopods have honourary vertebrate status in the UK with regards to animal testing, meaning there's a much higher standard of care.

[Killer Angel]

An historical info on the topic. I've read in an Asimov's biography, that John Campbell was in love with stories that depicted humans as superior (in one way or another) to alien races.
So, the godfather of the Golden age of SF, was agains the concept of humans as "the Mario", which appeared later.

[Stardrake]

Just a quick note: that is true in the wild. In the laboratory, researchers have long since known that octopi can learn from one another, or from humans. If I recall the stories my philosophy of the mind professor correctly (believe it or not, philosophy of the mind and clinical psychology have a huge overlap), they first found out about this accidentally, as some biologists who were doing experiments on both fish and octopi couldn't figure out how their fish kept disappearing until they put cameras in the lab. It was only then that they found that the octopi had learned how to open both their aquariums and the fish aquariums from watching the researchers do it, and were sneaking into the fish aquariums at night and eating the fish.

They're nowhere near human intelligent, but they're at least as adept at tool use as a chimpanzee once taught.

If I recall that story properly, the tanks were also far enough apart that it also served as a demonstration of how long they could hold their breath (metaphorically speaking) in order to get their midnight snack.

[Benthesquid]

Not so much studying the humans, but checking out what the condition of things on Earth are like while humans are on it. It's implied that the race itself was inhabited by a race of mind-stealer creatures riding them around piggyback the same way that one human was ridden around. I interpreted the memory loss as a kind of self-infliected amnesia in order to preserve the mind that experienced those things. Not something done for the human's benefit.

Nah, there was a definite interest in human civilizations.

On the books the narrator read

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I learned of chapters in human history whose existence no scholar of today has ever suspected. Most of these writings were in the language of the hieroglyphs; which I studied in a queer way with the aid of droning machines, and which was evidently an agglutinative speech with root systems utterly unlike any found in human languages.

Other volumes were in other unknown tongues learned in the same queer way. A very few were in languages I knew. Extremely clever pictures, both inserted in the records and forming separate collections, aided me immensely. And all the time I seemed to be setting down a history of my own age in English. On waking, I could recall only minute and meaningless scraps of the unknown tongues which my dream-self had mastered, though whole phrases of the history stayed with me.

Judging from the list of entities he mentions having been time-snatched along with him, there seems to be a heavier focus on humanity than on other races, terrestial or otherwise, although that may have been merely a phase, or just the specific collection he was in.

On how the Great Race treats those who wind up trapped in the past.

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Once in a while, as before mentioned, a keen mind would escape death by forward projection in time; but such cases were not numerous. When one did occur, the exiled mind from the future was treated with the utmost kindness till the dissolution of its unfamiliar tenement.

The Great Race has even apparently adopted some social institutions and behaviors from humanity!

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Resemblances to human attitudes and institutions were, of course, most marked in those fields where on the one hand highly abstract elements were concerned, or where on the other hand there was a dominance of the basic, unspecialised urges common to all organic life. A few added likenesses came through conscious adoption as the Great Race probed the future and copied what it liked.

You seem to be right, though, that the amnesia was a 'fragile human mind trying to protect itself' thing, rather than a conscious effort. And I certainly wouldn't call the Great Race of Yith benign, between the general kidnapping shenanigans, and the fact that they're going to steal the bodies of the beetle-people who follow humanity as rulers of the earth, and leave them to face the vengeful erruption of the Elder Things (and later do the same thing to some vegetable people from Mercury).

Just that their motivations are more complicated than "Yarrble yarrble, gribbly death for you, humans!"

[Raimun]

John Carter? Of Mars? The dude is pretty much the superman of that setting because he is a human from planet earth.

Tolkien needs to be mentioned again. Humans (or Men) are special in that setting, even if you are confused by the so-called apparent elven superiority.

3.5 D&D and Pathfinder subvert this by playing it straight. Humans are special because they are "the mario". Most of the time, humans are the most powerful race, both within the game and in metagame. Humans have more drive, diversity and resourcefulness than other races to reach the stars. Metagame is even more brutal. That extra Feat and Skill Point per level (and +2 to Stat of choice in Pathfinder) really do make the difference.

In Warhammer 40000 the imperium of man has conquered the galaxy because no other race is as warlike. Even the forces of Chaos (Bad Guys) pale in comparison to the extent and volume of atrocities the imperium has commited. I'm pretty sure that if imperium went suddenly totally pacifist forces of Chaos would collapse because they are fueled by the negative aspects of living beings. I mean, c'mon, the imperium has killed more of its citizens than Chaos ever has. Really:

"For more than a hundred centuries the Emperor has sat unmoving on the Golden Throne of Earth. He is the master of mankind by the will of the gods and master of a million worlds by the might of his inexhaustible armies. He is a rotting carcass writhing invisibly with power from the Dark Age of Technology. He is the Carrion Lord of the Imperium for whom a thousand souls die every day, for whom blood is drunk and flesh eaten. Human blood and human flesh - the stuff of which the Imperium is made. (...) Forget the power of technology, science and common humanity. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for there is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter and the laughter of thirsting gods."

[Flickerdart]

In Warhammer 40000 the imperium of man has conquered the galaxy because no other race is as warlike.

The Imperium of Man is far from the only race to have conquered the galaxy.

[Benthesquid]

John Carter? Of Mars? The dude is pretty much the superman of that setting because he is a human from planet earth.

To be fair, John Carter is also quite possibly an immortal demigod of war.

[Hytheter]

Raimun are you telling me that Orks are less warlike than the Imperium?

[Benthesquid]

Raimun are you telling me that Orks are less warlike than the Imperium?

Less warlike, more Waaaaaaaaughlike.

And I seem to recall a note or a short story somewhere mentioning that pretty much everything *not* in the galaxy is Orks.

[Eldan]

John Carter? Of Mars? The dude is pretty much the superman of that setting because he is a human from planet earth.

That seems to be just him, though. He's an immortal superman, also compared to other humans.

[GloatingSwine]

In Warhammer 40000 the imperium of man has conquered the galaxy because no other race is as organised. Even the forces of Chaos (Bad Guys) pale in comparison to the extent and volume of atrocities the imperium has commited.

Fixed that for you.

The Imperium isn't particularly warlike for the setting, they're just the only ones left with any of their **** together.

The Eldar used to run the galaxy (and do so more and better than the Imperium), but they descended so far into hedonism and excess of all kinds that they literally ripped the Eye of Terror open with their collective **** and raped a new god into existence, which promptly ate most of their souls.

(the Dark Eldar are what the Eldar empire used to be like, except when Slaanesh rose they doubled down on everything they used to do to give it a reason not to eat them)

[Brother Oni]

There's CS Lewis' Narnia books where humans ('Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve') become more physically and mentally able the longer they spend in Narnia.

Less warlike, more Waaaaaaaaughlike.

And I seem to recall a note or a short story somewhere mentioning that pretty much everything *not* in the galaxy is Orks.

While I agree that Orks are more warlike, that doesn't translate directly into competence. Even if the Orks had set up a massive empire the size of the Imperium with a zogging huge Warboss in charge of everything, chances are they'd be too busy with infighting to get anything done (not that the Imperium is that much better, but at least they know which direction to point their weapons most of the time).

The footnote was that Imperium probes sent out into the vast reaches of space beyond known space, have reported nothing back but Ork signals.

[LibraryOgre]

Yes. Octopi were mentioned as a counterpoint to the idea that you need to be a pack hunter to be smart. Because they're as smart as pack hunters, while being solitary. Saying that they're not as smart as humans is rather missing the point, given that no animals are known to be as smart as humans and certainly not to have any of the specialized professions you mentioned.

I'd point to elephants, actually. Spectacularly intelligent, very social animals... but not hunters.

For humans not being the "guy who is average and good at everything", I think that tends to be a literary conceit, especially in games, allowing humans to be played as pretty much anything. After all, when you look at later versions of D&D, they went with "every race can be everything"... imagine proposing a game where you said "Ok, humans can't be wizards. The closest a human gets to a wizard is a bard." Even if humans are generally able to be good at anything they put their hand to, that inability to be a wizard would be frustrating to a lot of people.

So, instead of pointing to the things that make humans unique and awesome among the animals of Earth (some of which, like tool use, we have to cede to other races if we're going to have a world-wide or galactic society), we tend to emphasize "Well, they're all kinda like us, just sorta better at certain roles, while humans are generally good at any role they choose to take."

Earthdawn had humans as the only race that could break their role... while all adepts were limited to their discipline powers, humans could break out of that mold.

[ShurikVch]

Anybody familiar with russian books?

Sergei Lukyanenko:

The Stars Are Cold Toys — Star Shadow: humans are the only race capable to survive jump

Line of Delirium and Emperors of Illusions - aTan technology - human-only

Genome - not even the Humanity as a whole, but a single colony world - Ebon -, considered, among aliens, galaxy-wide threat, despite their technology should be generation-old, and quarantine is not exactly helpful to build new star-fleet

A Lord from Planet Earth - most of so-called extraterrestrials are, actually, human colonists... from the future!

Among the fantasy, I rather like series "Странные приключения Ингви, короля-демона из Харькова" (Strange adventures of Ingvi, the king-demon from Kharkov) - unfortunately, not translated into English, there is author's page: [rus], [deu]. Humans in that series is the only species which can use magic - it's explained later by their origin. (Elves can control nature (weather, animals), but it's not a magic, but a direct call to their goddess. Dwarves, orcs, trolls, and vampires doesn't get anything)

[Yora]

That seems to be just him, though. He's an immortal superman, also compared to other humans.

I only read the first book, but isn't he the only human on Mars for most of the series? And do the others that show up later not gain the same powers?
As I understand it, he isn't really special (aside from being an ageless immortal for some reason), it's just that because of the low gravity of Mars all the native creatures are very flimsy. If any Martians were to visit Earth, they would be crushed by the gravity.

I'm in the preperatory steps of a couple of stories I want to write down and have been thinking about the issue of nonhumans and elves in particular (I decided to keep those as the only classic race to emphazise that it's an earlier stage of civilization than in generic fantasy settings).
For one thing, I want to occasionally highlight the exceptional human endurance. If they can get sufficient head start, even untrained humans can outrun experienced elven, beastmen, and lizardmen hunters. A second aspect of humans is that humans are one of the few races that are almost omnivores. They can eat a wider range of food than any other race and most importantly stay quite healthy if forced to improvise with their food sources. When food gets scarce in an area, humans will be the last ones to suffer from malnutrition.

Compared to other mammals, how is the human immune system? I believe to vaguely remember having heard somewhere that humans are actually quite good at coping with disease and infection.

[LibraryOgre]

The more I read this thread, the more I think we need to define the Mario.