In the autumn of 1929, Anne Morrow Lindbergh and her husband Charles flew across the Yucatán Peninsula. With Charles at the controls, Anne snapped photographs of the jungles just below. She wrote in her journal of Maya structures obscured by large humps of vegetation. A bright stone wall peeked through the leaves, “unspeakably alone and majestic and desolate — the mark of a great civilization gone.“
Nearly a century later, surveyors once again took flight over the ancient Maya empire, and mapped the Guatemala forests with lasers. The 2016 survey, whose first results were published this week in the journal Science, comprises a dozen plots covering 830 square miles, an area larger than the island of Maui. It is the largest such survey of the Maya region, ever.
The study authors describe the results as a revelation. “It’s like putting glasses on when your eyesight is blurry,” said study author Mary Jane Acuña, director of El Tintal Archaeological Project in Guatemala. Read more.
Years ago I hauled myself by rope up the steep stairs to the top of the enormous pyramid at Coba. (stock photo below) The guide who was with me gestured panoramically, pointing out literally scores of suspiciously symmetrical hills stretching to the flat jungle horizon in every direction.
“Pyramids,” he said. “Every one of them is a pyramid. Almost none have been excavated.”
“Let’s go to one of them.”
He gave me the side eye. “That would cost you.”
“Name a price.”
He quoted me a price that was at the upper end of reasonable. In American dollars. I counted out the cash.
He smiled. “Oh, I should probably mention. They’re all haunted.”
A lot of ‘humans are weird’ posts play with the idea that humans are one of the few species that actually evolved as a predator and, as such, we are unusually strong and fast— but what if we’re not.
What if we’re tiny?
What if, to the majority of species in the galaxy, ten feet tall is unusually short— it basically only happens due to rare genetic conditions— and the average human is basically cat sized or smaller?
Instead of being terrified by our strength, the aliens’ most pressing concern is how exactly they’re going to communicate with us when we’re all the way down on the ground.
There are experiments, with aliens crouching low or humans standing on high platforms— but it usually ends up being either uncomfortable for the alien or dangerous for the human, or both, and just generally impractical for everyone.
But, while the diplomats and politicians are trying to figure out a dignified and simple solution, the ordinary people who actually have to work with the aliens have found one. Humans are, generally, pretty good climbers, and most species have conveniently places scales, feathers, fur or clothing that can act as a hand or foothold. Sure, some humans have a fear of heights, but those aren’t typically the ones going into space. Besides, climbing on a living alien often feels safer than climbing up a rock or something— at least you know you’ve got somebody to catch you.
Soon it becomes accepted that that’s the way humans travel with aliens— up high, easy to see and hard to tread on (there were quite a few… near misses, in the first few meetings between humans and aliens), balanced on somebody’s shoulder like the overgrown monkeys that we are.
Many humans see this as kind of an insult and absolutely refuse to go along with it, but they aren’t the ones who end up spending a lot of time with aliens— it’s just too inconvenient to talk to somebody all the way down on the ground. The ones that do best are the ones who just treat it like it’s normal, allowing themselves to be carried (at least, it’s ‘carrying’ when the aliens are within earshot. Among themselves, most humans jokingly refer to it as ‘riding’), and passing on tips to their friends about the best ways to ride on different species without damaging feathers, or stepping on sensitive spots (or, in at least one case, ending up with a foot full of poisonous spines…).
The reason they don’t feel patronised by this is that they know, and they know that nearly everyone else in the galaxy knows, that humans are not just pets.
After all, you’d be surprised when a small size comes in handy.
Need somebody to look at the wiring in a small and fairly inaccessible area of the ship? Ask a human.
Need somebody to fix this fairly small and very detailed piece of machinery? Ask a human, they’re so small that their eyes naturally pick up smaller details.
Trapped under rubble and need somebody to crawl through a small gap and get help? Ask a human— most can wriggle through any gap that they can fit their head and shoulders through.
If you’re a friend, humans can be very useful. If, on the other hand, you’re an enemy…
Rumours spread all around the galaxy, of ships that threatened humans or human allies and started experiencing technical problems. Lights going off, wires being cut— in some cases, the cases where the threats were more than just words and humans or friends of humans were killed, life support lines have been severed, or airlocks have mysteriously malfunctioned and whole crews have been sucked out into space.
If the subject comes up, most humans will blame it on “gremlins” and exchange grim smiles when they’re other species friends aren’t looking.
By this point, most ships have a crew of humans, whether they like it or not. Lots of humans, young ones generally, the ones who want to see a bit of the universe but don’t have the money or connections to make it happen any other way, like to stowaway on ships. They’ll hang around the space ports, wait for a ship’s door to open and dart on in. The average human can have quite a nice time scurrying around in the walls of an alien ship, so long as they’re careful not to dislodge anything important.
Normally nobody notices them, and the ones that do tend not to say anything— it’s generally recognised that having humans on your ship is good luck.
If there are humans on your ship, they say, then anything you lose will be found within a matter of days, sometimes even in your quarters; any minor task you leave out— some dishes that need to be cleaned, a report that needs to be spellchecked, some calculations that need to be done— will be quickly and quietly completed during the night; any small children on the ship, who are still young enough to start to cry in the night, will be soothed almost before their parents even wake, sometimes even by words in their own tongue, spoken clumsily through human vocal chords. If any of the human are engineers (and a lot of them are, and still more of them aren’t, but have picked up quite a few tricks on their travels from humans who are) then minor malfunctions will be fixed before you even notice them, and your ship is significantly less likely to experience any major problems.
The humans are eager to earn their keep, especially when the more grateful aliens start leaving out dishes of human-safe foods for them.
This, again, is considered good luck— especially since the aliens who aren’t kind to the humans often end up losing things, or waking up to find that their fur has been cut, or the report they spent hours on yesterday has mysteriously been deleted.
To human crew members, who work on alien ships out in the open, and have their names on the crew manifest and everything, these small groups of humans are colloquially referred to as ‘ship’s rats’. There’s a sort of uneasy relationship between the two groups. On the one hand, the crew members regard the ship’s rats as spongers and potential nuisances— on the other hand, most human crew members started out as ship’s rats themselves, and now benefit from the respect (and more than a little awe) that the ship’s rats have made most aliens feel for humans. The general arrangement is that ship’s rats try to avoid ships with human crew members and, when they can’t, then they make sure to stay out of the crew members’ way, and the crew members who do see one make sure not to mention them to any alien crew members.
The aliens who know, on the other hand, have gotten into the habit of not calling them by name— mainly because they’re shaky as the legality of this arrangement, and don’t want to admit that anything’s going on. Instead they talk about “the little people” or “the ones in the walls” or, more vaguely, “Them”.
Their human friends— balancing on their shoulders, occasionally scurrying down and arm so as to get to a table, or jumping from one person’s shoulder to another, in order to better follow the conversation— laugh quietly to themselves when they hear this.
Back before the first first contact, lot of people on Earth thought that humans would become space orcs. Little did they know, they’d actually end up as space fae.
Space fae… I love it… aliens would wake to a full hot breakfast ready… and maybe some missing currencies
In the same vein as other ‘things humans do that aliens might be weirded out by’ what if human pattern recognition skills were the thing? Like the ability to see a cloud resolve into a dog, or faces in wall patterns. Stuff that evolved from predators having camouflaging abilities, or let’s face it, bugs that can look basicaly like a leaf to prey ON.
Imagine an alien being super confounded by a human being like ‘oh, that control board looks like a face’ and it’s just this big grouping of random lights and line but no ALL the humans on board think it looks like a FACE and theyve started NAMING it. And it just seems so confusing- is there anything on this flat painted wall? ‘No of course not’ HOW IS THERE AN OF COURSE NOT. What about in that galaxy? And the human squints and stares at it and says ‘yeah, it looks like a cat.’
And they an draw out what they’re recognizing in the lines but it’s just so strange.
And then an enemy develops ‘cloaking technology’ that’s based on camouflaging and are so angry that every single human is able to point it out because it’s a completely obvious moving shape to them.
or: alien species are introduced to leaf insects, tigers, and that one octopus that imitates a coconut and freak the heck out.
god I love this kind of post
The Girrami had never known deception until they started expanding into the greater galaxy. They did not like it. The closest word in their home language for deception translated roughly to “speaking before having all the facts”. It had taken time to learn that other races would outright hide information, or worse, speak untruths for their own ends.
It was fortunate, the Girrami thought, that they had resources that the race who called themselves “Humans” desperately needed for medical supplies. The fact that the Girrami had (in line with their overarching philosophy of sharing what was needed) offered these resources freely, without (as the Humans would say) “strings attached”, had made many the Humans quickly warm to the Girrami, and in turn, freely offer the Girrami advice on how to better negotiate.
Human: “Honestly, that was almost embarrassing to watch. Tell you what, you said that you had contact with the Farop?”
Cappa Girrami: “Yes. We have had… difficulties in our dealings with that race.”
Human: “Yeah that must have been like watching puppies walk through a meatgrinder. Those guys are total assholes. Tell you what, your medicine saved my little boy, so I’m willing to do a little quid pro quo. Are you people familiar with the concept of a corporate lawyer? Because I am willing to offer you my services for cheap. No, don’t thank me, this will be my pleasure.”
Humans sometimes had the most odd and upsetting turns of phrase. But once the Girrami started contracting these… lawyers and businesspeople to conduct major negotiations, many of their dealings with other races did seem to be flowing a lot more smoothly.
It did however make the Girrami wonder just how it was that the humans had become so adept at sensing deception. It seemed natural to them to start learning to “lie” and detect untruths from an early age.
And then the Girrami scientists were invited to observe a collection of specimens kept in a “natural history museum” and suddenly it all made sense.
Girrami Scientist 1: “Wait, what is that!?”
Human: “It’s a stick insect.”
Girrami Scientist 2: “And that?”
Human: “A leaf insect.”
Girrami Scientist 1: “…your insects practice deception?”
Human: “… I guess you could call it that? It’s a form of camouflage.”
Girrami Scientist 2: “What is this…’camouflage’?”
And then the Girrami realised that the Humans came from a planet where deception was so endemic that even plants practiced it.
No wonder the Humans were so good at detecting it.
Person A owns a flower shop and person B comes storming in one day, slaps 20 bucks on the counter and says “How do I passive-aggressively say fuck you in flower?”
Omfg
MY TIME HAS COME
so you’d need a bouquet of geraniums (stupidity), foxglove (insincerity), meadowsweet (uselessness), yellow carnations (you have disappointed me), and orange lilies (hatred). it would be quite striking! and full of loathing.
