I was active on Tumblr for less than a year, and it decided to show me its ugliest face. So now I'm trying to slowly move over here, and I'll start by porting the singular piece of writing I had. For those unfamiliar, here's a little background:
Some time ago, someone asked "what if humans were not one of the weakest species in a sci-fi setting, or even an average one, but they were instead one of the more dangerous?" and thus spawned an entire genre of posts about how humans can be seen as Space Orcs due to a combination of our incredibly high resilience and general love of violence as a species. And while many of those posts were fun to read, I found much of them lacking in the way that they flatten the non-human species in order to portray humans in a quirky/awesome light. So to rectify this, I decided to do some writing of my own in the genre (several years late to the party), wherein I give the general diaspora of alien species some of the respect they deserve.
Following below is a complete copy-paste of my writing. I hope everyone enjoys!
It was four sols prior when the security contract with the mercenaries ended.
Three sols prior when the ship’s Captain had said Xe might know someone.
Two sols prior when we had landed on the sandy, hot planet.
And one sol prior when I had first seen a Human fight.
It was an underground fighting arena – almost literally, with only the very top of the domed structure rising out of the sand dune, its colored glass absorbing the worst of the radiation. The seating was arranged in the large, concentric rings common of many gathering places (and yet we still do not have a word in Common for it, is that not strange?), and they were packed with people and dust alike. Despite the obviously ill maintenance of the ventilation and heating, they were bearable, and I only had to remove a small amount of dust from my body coat as we ventured deeper inside.
“So, boss, who’s your mysterious benefactor?” Asked Asdelon as its left eye moved towards the Captain, the right one continuing to scan the crowd.
Our pilot was something of an outsider – from both its home culture and, perhaps, every culture it has ever entered. As a Khetansh, it was born an almost perfect clone of its progenitor, who was itself part of a set of almost perfect clones of their progenitor, like the rest of its species one way or another. And yet Asdelon has always described itself as different, in a way that the Common tongue can not express. There was a word for it, in its language – but it had never found the need to translate it, and I had never dared ask. It was one of the species that felt the need to stare at others’ eyes as it spoke, and while I would now trust it with my life, back then those large eyes and sharp teeth reminded me too much of the old cautionary stories my parents used to tell me.
Those eyes turned fully onto the Captain after some time of no response. While the scales on its face could move very little, its voice was higher and definitely sarcastic when it continued:
“Thanks for the info, boss, makes tracking this Iethid a lot easier.”
The Captain’s eyes swayed in time with his antennae, a sign of what I had begun to recognize as amusement.
“Oh, don’t scuff your scales now. I was just looking around.”
Captain Exlasl was a Xelthor, and a large one for Xirs age. Xirs outer skeleton was a slight blue and white, and Xe liked to brag that the brown stripped markings on Xirs abdomen were signs of great strength and wisdom in Xirs culture. As I did not – and do not – have much knowledge on Drugarian Xelthor culture, I never challenged Xir about that.
“And we could be helping you, if you were a little less mysterious about it.”
“Don’t worry, I think you’ll have your answer soon enough…” The translator trailed off as Xe reached up to adjust it with Xirs smaller hand, but Xirs eyes began turning towards the arena floor where the latest combatant (a Horenga, with a body coat almost identical to mine) had entered. Asdelon looked down at the combatant, and I could tell it was not impressed.
“Really? That one? I’ll give you that they’re probably a little faster than our Horenga here, but I can tell you right now they’re still more…how do you say…more words than action.”
“The Horenga has a name.” I reminded it. “And their name is Linome.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever.” Its tongue flicked out to drag down its right eye (a method of self-cleaning that was also an expression of boredom, almost like how I and other Horengas clean our ears) and it shifted the weight on its legs. “Listen, if you’re out of ideas, then you could’ve just told us. No need to –”
The announcer’s voice called out, in a dialect of Common so blended with the local language that I could not understand a single word. A combatant walked out, and I have never felt such awe and dread so strong in a single moment before.
Humans are not rare. They are not the strongest species, or the largest species, or the toughest. But they are resilient, they are tenacious, and many are warriors.
This Human was small for her species – which meant her eyes were level with the middle of the ears of her opponent. Her skin had multiple marks on them, wounds healed from past battles in the raised and bumpy way Human skin heals, and her limbs were large and clearly muscled. Her clothes were loose and flowing, and her hands were wrapped – from the base of her digits up to the second joint of her arm. Her face, though, drew my attention.
Supposedly, Human faces change drastically as they emote – the movement of skin and muscles in the face being their primary form of expression. Since moving onto the sand, though, the Human’s face had changed as little as Asdelon’s had – even when they bowed to their opponent, even as they moved to opposite ends of the arena.
“Is that your secret weapon?” I still could not pick up on the inflections of Asdelon’s voice, but the way it moved closer to the arena showed it was interested in some way. Exlasl’s pincers clicked together quickly, amusedly – excitedly, even.
“You bet your behind it is. You’re about to meet the person that once tore off my big arm.”
That caught my attention – but the bell had already rung, and the combatants were running at each other face first already.
~
The event lasted almost an entire rotation, and afterwards we still could not immediately contact the Human, because she was still being treated for her injuries. She had promised to contact us on the next rotation, though, which was good because I needed the time to prepare myself.
The brutality and relentlessness of Humans were not exaggerated. When that poor Horenga struck the Human a over and over, she simply took the blows she could not avoid, and a single direct strike to their chest was enough to end the fight. When an Asdelon walked into the ring with her, she did not flinch as she stared down those large eyes, her face did not change as her skin became torn from claw and teeth. And when a Xelthor entered…
They say human hands were not born for fighting – they are dexterous, but with no more reinforcements than the rest of their body. Yet they taught themselves ways to fight with them anyways, and trained until their bones would break stone.
And on and on and on like that she went, battle after battle, until the rotation was done when her final opponent simply dropped from the exhaustion of so many previous battles. And we were to talk to that, because she was old friend of the Captain’s and “more than willing to be violent when necessary”.
I was scared. Terrified. Multiple levels of fear beyond that which the Common tongue could not fully describe. I was pacing the doorway in front of our rented resting place because I had rested and eaten multiple times during the rotation already and felt like I might be sick if I had done any more of either. I wanted to run, and – what? Feed the stereotype that Horenga were mostly weak cowards? Abandon the Captain and Asdelon, after all they’d done for me? But – but we were about to have a Human onboard! A fleshy, hairless, skin and bones death machine –
“Hello?”
The word was in Horengian (the global version of it, anyways) and while it was clear and understandable, it sounded…wrong. Like a machine had spoken it, except the voice was very clearly…
“Human?”
That was a rude way to address her, looking back on it. She did not mind though, instead only tilting her head slightly in a…shockingly familiar expression of confusion.
“Do you…prefer…the Common language?” Despite the pauses and hesitation and the accent (or, well, the complete absence of any accent), she was easily understandable. I was, of course, afraid for my very fragile life so I did not have an answer ready for her.
Luckily for me, it was at that moment that the Captain opened the door to investigate the noise. Xirs antennae rose fully up at the sight of the human, and her mouth curled upwards as she saw Xir (a human gesture of joy, the one that didn’t involve baring teeth).
Xir didn’t even turn on his translator, simply started clicking in his native Drugarian. And she answered back in kind, pulling her lips back and finally showing clear white teeth as she clicked back at him…somehow (Humans and their terrifyingly good mimicry.) The entire conversation afterwards happened entirely in Drugarian, and I wound up serving drinks for them almost out of an absence of other things to do.
The Human did not ever take off her coat – light brown, large, almost seeming to drag her down – and every time I turned my back to her, I could feel myself being watched. When the captain went to go fetch Asdelon, she turned and looked at me directly.
“You never answered my question, earlier.”
Cornered, instantly. Like a true predator.
“Well…I don’t mind whatever language you use, really. It’s not like I particularly like our global language.”
She moved her head up and down – nodding, a gesture of understanding in some cultures. “What’s your…original language, then?”
“Oh, no need to ask, it’s not like you need to learn it to really talk anyways if we’re going to be travelling together.” Deflect, quickly. “Why do you ask, anyways? The Common language was made for this situation, wasn’t it?”
The human tilted her head, again – the lack of moving ears removes much of the subtler indications in body language, so I wasn’t sure if she was just considering me or confused. She was staring at a point above my head, which – well, I appreciated, but still.
Eventually, when she spoke again, it was slow.
“The Common language…it is what we all have in common. The one through line to unite us disparate people. But it is not…comprehensive.”
She took off her coat, then – and I almost jumped when she let it drop onto the floor, its impact as heavy as if it was filled with sand.
“There are sandbags, in my coat.” Well, that explained it. “The gravity here…it is less than that of my home. Dirt, as we call it.”
Her lips curled up, briefly, at the name.
“The rotation cycle here is different as well. The people are of course different. Yet…when I see them…many are not from this world. Many do not need bags. They need other things. Things to maintain temperature, gravity…level of water.”
Her digits were moving, again, four of them thrumming a rhythm (humans sang, of course they did, anything with a voice like that could sing) as she tried to piece together her next words.
“The Common language is the thing we have in common. That we are people is another of those. But reducing so many people to only the things they have in common…it is like reducing a galaxy to a painting. Too much is lost in translation.”
There was a moment of silence. She was staring to a point to my right. I was looking just over her head.
“…we have a saying for that. In my language. Ylimuan Horenga, I mean. It…” I could not help but chitter a little at the irony. “It doesn’t translate very well.”
She tilted her head, a small amount to the other side. When her face changed this time, a little bit of teeth was showing, but she closed her lips almost immediately to hide it.
“Could you…teach it, to me?”
- Excerpts from "What Is Lost Between The Words" by Linome Aiklion Prinou, translated into Earth English.