lancelotchronicler - Tumblr blog

lancelotchronicler · 5 years

Text

So a friend introduced me to “Humans are space orcs” and...

It gave me emotions. Specifically the post by @soprana-snap , it gave me a LOT of emotions. Pardon if this looks rushed or like I was having a hard time seeing the keyboard. I kinda did.

We, The Titans.

“Shot?” “Seven times, mostly superficial flesh wounds but he's lost a lot of blood from one penetrative wound and needs a transfusion.”

“Damnit. Get him fixed and get A'rool to start scanning for another deposit as soon as scanners are back online!”

Voices swirled around Alex's head as he passed in and out of consciousness, he could hear his Captain yelling but it wasn't until he heard A'Rool's name that the pieces fell together. Groaning from the stinging pain of the gunshot wounds in his arms and sides, Alex started sitting up in the medical bed which caused everyone to rush over and try to keep him down.

“You've been badly injured, Alex! Please, lay down!” The second voice again, this time Alex was able to wipe the blood from his eyes to see the second in command, P'tuure, squeezing with all her might to try and keep him on the bed which amounted to a very weak grip to the human.

Alex pushed P'tuure's arm away, reached into the top pockets of his ripped and bloodstained cargo pants, and produced a small silver oval remote with a singular blue button in the center. He pressed the button, power surged through the ship and the whole thing jerked violently as a massive transport beam dumped over a hundred tons of pure Zanthani crystals into the cargo hold.

“What in the hell was-?!” The second voice, Captain D'tarr, spluttered out as the ship corrected its flight trajectory and the gravity generator recovered. “You're sure? The entire cargo hold? … Atta-Lure's light how...?” D'tarr grinned from ear to pointed ear as Alex wiped off his brow and gave the Captain a thumbs up. “Get him patched up and fed, and Alex?” he paused, shook his head and just tipped the edge of his hat to the human before leaving, “Good work out there, Titan.”

Alex smiled and closed his eyes, finally laying back down to allow P'tuure and the medics to tend his wounds. As he lay there, feeling the skin-healing foams applied to the superficial sites and the dull, deep ache of forceps entering his abdominal cavity to remove the bullet lodged near his hip, his mind wandered over to what exactly his life had come to.

He lived on a colonial ship, a Fourth Generation Spaceborne Human, or a Titan as his crew called him, and was one of the handful of his species that shared a home aboard the RLS Mul'toralow with a people called the Yorn. They were a wide-spread race with two major factions; The Royal Fleet which consisted of mostly exploration or Colonial ships destined to seed new worlds, and the Marauders. The Marauders stemmed from the first contact with humans, their original leader used Humans sheer durability and raw power as an example that without struggle the Yorn species would be too weak to survive. A lot of humans joined them, the call to adventure and deep space far too appealing, while a smaller yet arguably far better trained group joined with the Royal Fleet.

Small, three four and a half foot tall fur-covered creatures that looked like a cross between insects and felines. They had two pairs of ears that sat on either side of their head one above the other, two massive, oval eyes with a false eyelids, and multiple spines always in even pairs behind their ears. Their mouths were very thin, unless talking it almost looked as if their small nose was the only opening on their face, and a little scaled tail swished behind them, mostly for balance, that could glow with a colour matching their fur, and would change if the Yorn was experiencing a strong mood.

Most shocking of all, when space travel began to take off, was that humans discovered just how strong our mother Earth made us. We thought our forms were inefficient, always looking for ways to improve and enhance our natural limits, when the average lifeforms in space was something far, far less capable. Life elsewhere typically required very precise conditions, it was rare and only a handful of species had emerged into the cosmos, all peaceful for the most part due to the shared frailty of life.

Humans changed everything. Weapons that would outright kill a Yorn or Gab-rab-rou only caused minor damage to a Human, extreme weather or toxicity for the average species was a mild irritant for humans diverse and powerful biology. They were like demi-gods that had been growing stronger every day on their home world, and now they among the stars; drastically tipping the scales of power.

What the average species lacked in sheer physical capability they more than made up for in cooperation and connectivity, surging to space-age technology because there was nothing holding their societies back like conflicting religions. With a life span of roughly twenty human years, a human that lived sometimes five times that was unbelievable.

Alex smiled, eyes still closed, as he felt a small four-fingered hand slip into his palm. He squeezed very gently, the flesh of a Yorn was very soft and pliable, the species were hyper intelligent but very weak. “You don't have to worry,” he finally spoke as he cracked open an eye, catching P'tuure with those big eyes locked onto his wounds, startling her for a moment.

She scoffed, swore in her native tongue and proceeded to rain little whaps against his arm in frustration.

“Stupid Titan! You're not immortal, you let that damn title go to your head!” she exclaimed, sniffing hard as she fought back tears. “You and the other four are all we have to protect us... we need you,” she choked out, finally ceasing the assault on his bandaged arm.

He didn't speak, he knew she was right but the ship needed those crystals to power literally everything on the ship. Without it, they would be adrift in a matter of weeks with no way of signalling for help and they were at least another five years away from their destination with 20 years of travel already behind them. He just sighed, he knew he'd do it again in a heartbeat even in his current state.

P'tuure sniffled once more, moved the food tray closer so Alex could reach it and pat the top of his hand twice. “Eat, when you can, okay?” she asked, to which Alex nodded and smiled. She turned to leave, she still had crew to check on and a lot of damage evaluation to go through, so she had to leave him with the medical crews capable hands.

She looked over her shoulder, one hand on the door while she looked back at the bloodied human, a small smile cracked her expression as she watched him start to tear in to his food. With a nod she tapped the door to get his attention and called back: “Rest well, my Titan Atlas.”

Alex just raised one closed fist up, grinning as only humans could while the door closed behind P'tuure.

(Again I whipped this up in about fifteen minuets so I’m sorry if I screwed up on grammar or spelling. Now if you’ll excuse me I need to go convince myself to not add yet another story to my already massive list of things I want to write!)

#humans are space orcs #possibly a series?#idfk I just needed to write this thing out and share it

15 notes · View notes

lancelotchronicler · 5 years

Text

This has given me an idea, today I have discovered **gold**

Humans are unstoppable...Until they aren’t.

I’m not the most eloquent writer, but I’ve had this idea kicking around for a while and figured I’d put it out into the universe.

A lot of the basis for the “humans are space orcs” stuff is the idea that we’re pretty durable compared to many species, yeah? When it comes to physical trauma, we can bounce back from most things that don’t kill us outright, especially given the benefit of hypothetical space-age technology, and adrenaline is one heck of a drug when it comes to functioning under stress.

But that doesn’t make us unkillable, and even though we can survive debilitating injuries and not die from shock, it doesn’t mean it’s fun. Dying of shock sucks, but at least it’s probably quick.

So - Imagine a ship, adrift in space, slowly being drawn into a star or something. In order to save the ship, someone has to repair the hyper-quantum-relay-majig on the hull or in the engine or whatever. Bit of a problem though- there’s a ton of deadly, deadly radiation (Wrath of Khan style) or poisonous fumes or, I dunno, electrical current, between the crew and the repair. Like, enough to kill most species instantly, so the crew is just like, ‘welp, guess we’ll die then’. But then.

BUT THEN

They ask the human. Because everyone’s heard the stories - you’re basically unkillable, right? Could you survive long enough in there to fix it? And their human goes real quiet for a second, but still says ‘Yeah, I could fix it’. And the rest of the crew is like, ‘Whaaaaaa, it won’t kill you?’ and the human repeats “I can fix it” (which isn’t an answer, but no one catches that, not yet at least), so they send ‘em in. And the human fixes it, they come back, the ship flies to safety, and the crew is thrilled to survive. If the human is a little quiet, well, they’re entitled after pulling off a miracle. Everyone else is just excited to get to the nearest station’s bar to tell their very own human story, cuz, ‘those crazy humans, amiright?’.

The good mood keeps up until the human is late for their next shift. At first it’s just faint unease, but- but they earned a bit of a lie-in, right? No reason to begrudge them some extra rest, even if it is a little weird for them to oversleep. They’ll be fine. Humans are always fine.

(Right?)

(…Wrong.)

- What is… help. Help!-

- ake up! You have t-

- been days. You need sleep, you-

- nother transfusion. We could-

- out of sedatives!-

A week later, the crew finally reaches the station. They stumble into the bar, haggard and haunted. And over the next months and years a new rumor about humans starts to make its way through space. A rumor unlike any before.

‘Be careful with your humans’ it whispers. ‘Their strength is not always a blessing. Be sure they don’t do something they can’t come back from, because when a human dies… they die slowly.’

96K notes · View notes