smolpaperboat:
i know this is so late but i love the humans are space australia thread i have never appreciated my species so much
1.
imagine trying to explain vaccinations—that we’re injecting our young and vulnerable with a little bit of life-threatening disease in the hope of preventing said life-threatening disease in the future, and it only works because our immune systems petty af and refuse to forget their old enemies.
alien: WHY DO WE HAVE COLONIES OF HEPATITIS B, INFLUENZA, AND MEASLES IN THE CARGO LOAD SHOULD WE CALL TOXIC WASTE—
humans: oh, those? some kids need their shots this year.
alien: you inject hepatitis B, influenza, and measles into your young—and they survive??
human: oh sure! some go under the weather for a little while, but they’re all back up by the next week and immune forever!
alien:
2.
for most alien species, it’s probably a natural response to get rid of the weak and prioritize the survival of the fittest. it’s the standard strategy to keep a species going. on the other hand, humans just don’t give up.
a human struggles with vision? it looks through little glass disks or uses correctional lasers. even at worst, it trains a canine to serve as its eyes.
a human lacks audioreceptors? it gets little devices in its ears to amplify incoming sound waves.
a human lacks a limb? it gets a replacement made out of metals that could have otherwise been used for artillery or construction, and it goes to therapy until its body accepts the prosthetic as its own.
a human can’t walk? other humans push it in a special wheeled chair.
out of all other intergalactic species we may be the one with the most compassion for our weak and disadvantaged; the only species with its frontrunners willing to slow down to let others keep up.