Humans. Are. Superior.

[andrewgpaul]

You know how lots of Sci Fi has the legendary ancient race who lurk in the background, eat anything that enters their space and are generally the space bogeymen? Vorlons, Shadows, Necrons, Elves, whatever? I always fancied having a setting where the ancient race that gives everyone else the heeby-jeebies was humanity. Not far-future transhumans with hyperspace AIs instead of bodies and brains, just something like Star Wars-level humans in a Star Trek-level setting. For whatever reason, humanity hasn't bothered filling the galaxy as is traditional - they just took the Solar System and perhaps a couple of nearby systems, and just got on with things quietly, didn't annoy the neighbours - until occasionally someone does the interstellar equivalent of playing their music too loud, and they find out the hard way why that was a bad idea.

I thought of it in the context of a miniatures game setting, and hadn't decided whether they'd be a playable faction or just part of the background.

[Tasoth]

The thing with this is that any species that makes it to the stars should be, in all regards, psychologically like humanity. They should be aggressive, intelligent, communicative and diplomatic in some regards. These are what have lead to human culture flourishing. Stark has the right view as to how humanity should be in a scenario such as that. Anyone who hit the stars earlier than us should have some kind of edge, and unless they are into giving it away, maintain it to some extent through research and experimentation in new areas.

As for examples of humanity in Sci-Fi, Baxter has humanity conquered and oppressed through at least two different time periods in the Xeelee setting.

[Simon_Jester]

I think the title is a tad misleading, since it's not so much about humans being objectively superior in all ways. If you go back enough, you do find stories like that, because John Campbell liked them and published the biggest SF magazine in the world at the time, which influenced the genre a lot. It was the drop in popularity of the European racial narrative in the '60s and on, I think, that really changed the most common theme into "humans are good at some things but not at others," as opposed to just being The Best.

No, no, no. It's a refrence to the Farscape episode 'Crackers don't matter.' where... you know what, it's probably easier just to show you.

Or not. Link here because embedding hates me.

Ah, sorry. I get it.

Since Fey'lya is one of the most scheming, power-grabbing politicoes in his setting, with a truly epic knack for shooting his own side in the foot rather than allow anyone else to succeed at his expense...

He is not even remotely qualified to call anyone else out there power-hungry. Well, not anyone this side of Gharlane of Eddore.

It's even funnier in context. It's from the second book of NJO, Dark Tide 1, where Leia is addressing the Senate to warn them of the new Yuzhan Vong threat and Fey'lya, now Chief of State, compltely brushes her off. Then he accues her of making stuff up to cover for a hotshot Jedi and her own failures. He patronizingly tells her that everyone knows all humans have an insatiable lust for power, that she's done well to stay ahead of it so far, but she just couldn't let it go and has ton invent an enemy rather than let someone else run the New Republic.
Only one person stands up for Leia personally, and no one really challenges the assumption of power-hunger on the part of all humans. Then again, it's implied many times that the NR was having trouble dealing with the backlash of the human-dominated Empire.
And, of course, even after seeing the threat of the Vong with his own eyes, Fey'lya never apologizes or retracts his statement.

My take on Fey'lya, now that I've read a bit of him, is similar to Eleventh Century Remnant's:

Last, and how I wish they were, something else that evolved during the war, the Bothan position. What was Fey'lya's constituency, anyway? How did he come to wield power so ridiculously far above his trustworthiness and honesty? What if he represented- took good care to represent- the upper working and middle class, the people who were squeezed by the Empire's doctrine of fear and by the measures they took to deal with the rebellion, although not so badly they joined the Alderaanian [i.e. vengeful- SJ] wing? If he captured that groundswell, that would explain his subsequent status. (Fey'lya will never appear, because I would be unable to resist the temptation to have someone push his face through the back of his head.))

Fey'lya is, in my opinion, a somewhat clumsy writing device, whose real literary purpose is what the purpose of career politicians always is in novels which revolve around the adventures of bluff, honest war heroes: to screw things up hopelessly so that only the bluff, honest war heroes can save the day, at the cost of great effort and sacrifice. If there is an impending threat he will ignore it, if there is a strategic option which offers an advantage he will dismiss it, if there is an honorable person offering to help him he will reject it, if military gains have been made he will throw them away, and if someone offers to help defend him free of charge he will send them away. He will predictably do all these things to score relatively short-term political capital, which he inexplicably does not lose after, time and time again, he winds up looking like a complete fool after his predictions go wrong and the Republic faces disaster as a direct result of his actions.

You can fairly reliably figure out what the right thing to do is by listening to what Borsk Fey'lya tells you to do and then doing the exact opposite.

To me, this is a sign of... kind of bad writing, in that he seems to exist for no purpose other than to cripple the New Republic's ability to respond to threats.

Only that's not necesserly true, you could quite easily write a story where humanity just happens to be the first there, doesn't mean they were the best, just the roll of the dice resulted in us being among the first star farers instead of newbie fish in an old pond.

That's not uncommon either- humans occupy many worlds, while alien species are (individually) less significant. Star Wars runs that way- aliens may have technology as good as humanity, but humanity is indisputably the "first species" of the Star Wars galaxy. The only species which are actually older have long since collapsed into decadence for various reasons, or at least no longer come close to matching human influence over the fate of the galaxy.

The thing with this is that any species that makes it to the stars should be, in all regards, psychologically like humanity. They should be aggressive, intelligent, communicative and diplomatic in some regards. These are what have lead to human culture flourishing. Stark has the right view as to how humanity should be in a scenario such as that.

It's mostly a question of the balance of attributes, and of whether cultural stasis can exist in interstellar civilizations.

A species more communicative and less aggressive might well have a very different balance of talents than humanity, without being 'superior' or 'inferior.' Likewise one whose members are very intelligent but naturally more competitive, or some other shift in the balance of features. It's unreasonable to assume that all starfaring intelligent species would be psychologically identical to humans when it comes to what they're good and bad at, relative to humanity.

[Omeganian]

Anyone here read this story?

http://www.datapacrat.com/Art/Fiction/B ... 47__21.htm

[Ahriman238]

I suppose you could also bring up 40k. In 40k, Humans are the most capable of hate and fanaticism. And mass sacrifice. And Bureaucracy.

I'd say the 'nids and maybe the Orks have us beated for mass sacrifice. Mankind certainly are great with the bureaucracy in that setting though.

Heresy! Humanity is the only race that is pure and just and loved by the God-Emperor!

You know how lots of Sci Fi has the legendary ancient race who lurk in the background, eat anything that enters their space and are generally the space bogeymen? Vorlons, Shadows, Necrons, Elves, whatever? I always fancied having a setting where the ancient race that gives everyone else the heeby-jeebies was humanity. Not far-future transhumans with hyperspace AIs instead of bodies and brains, just something like Star Wars-level humans in a Star Trek-level setting. For whatever reason, humanity hasn't bothered filling the galaxy as is traditional - they just took the Solar System and perhaps a couple of nearby systems, and just got on with things quietly, didn't annoy the neighbours - until occasionally someone does the interstellar equivalent of playing their music too loud, and they find out the hard way why that was a bad idea.

I thought of it in the context of a miniatures game setting, and hadn't decided whether they'd be a playable faction or just part of the background.

It's been done. Most famously in the short story 'the Sandkings.' but there have been many others.

Fey'lya is, in my opinion, a somewhat clumsy writing device, whose real literary purpose is what the purpose of career politicians always is in novels which revolve around the adventures of bluff, honest war heroes: to screw things up hopelessly so that only the bluff, honest war heroes can save the day, at the cost of great effort and sacrifice. If there is an impending threat he will ignore it, if there is a strategic option which offers an advantage he will dismiss it, if there is an honorable person offering to help him he will reject it, if military gains have been made he will throw them away, and if someone offers to help defend him free of charge he will send them away. He will predictably do all these things to score relatively short-term political capital, which he inexplicably does not lose after, time and time again, he winds up looking like a complete fool after his predictions go wrong and the Republic faces disaster as a direct result of his actions.

You can fairly reliably figure out what the right thing to do is by listening to what Borsk Fey'lya tells you to do and then doing the exact opposite.

To me, this is a sign of... kind of bad writing, in that he seems to exist for no purpose other than to cripple the New Republic's ability to respond to threats.

Not really. As I remeber Fey'lya from the Thrawn trilogy, he was paranoid, opportunistic and short-sighted but not really malicious. He was a political rival of Admiral Ackbar, so when Thrawn had Ackbar framed for treason, Fey'lya jumped right on it. That's not really all that unrealistic. Hell, the most un-lifelike part is that after Fey'lya realized how wrong he'd been in the third book, he apologizes and helps. Naturally, every following EU book completly forgot this bit of character growth.

Still... I admit he met his end well in Star by Star, that forgives a number of his sins. Not all, or most, or even that many, but some.

As for Fey'lya's rise to power, I believe one of his cousins or brothers was one of the "many bothans died to bring us this information" and he was able to translate that into a chair at the first council table when the NR was formed. And of course, he worked hard to keep up the image that the bothans almost single-handedly delivered the galaxy from the Empire.


Anyway, I wasn't really thinking of humanity being uniformly superior or inferior to others. More... for something to make us unusual, even unique. Could be something small, something drastic, or naywhere in between. Maybe we're the only sentient species that see the color red?

[Stofsk]

I like Fey'lya when Zahn wrote him. No big surprise there, since he was his character.

[Lagmonster]

I always enjoyed Alan Dean Foster's the Damned trilogy. It wasn't the greatest piece of sci-fi ever written, but in it, a coalition of advanced races were so damned civilized that they couldn't bring themselves to violence. Some were prone to physical illness at the thought of it. When they get attacked by a philosophically differing alien empire, they don't have a prayer.

Then one day, some of these peacenik aliens stumble upon our planet and decide, hey, these things just love to fight. Why, they'll even fight each other! And for gold, no less. Why, we can process that shit by the ton! Let's keep them nice and aggressive and let them fight our wars.

Yeah, in that series, humanity is a bioweapon. Some get engineered as telekinetics, others get drafted just as pure war machines. People are to the 'civilized' alien races what the Alien Xenomorphs are to Weyland-Yutani. Along the way they handle the issue of "hey, is it fair that we do this to their species", and the inevitable "what do we DO with these things once the wars are over?"

[Lord of the Abyss]

People are to the 'civilized' alien races what the Alien Xenomorphs are to Weyland-Yutani.

Heh, I remember how the protagonist alien lady from the third book saw humans; "She tried to ignore the fact that his eyes burned. She knew he couldn't help it." We make them just a little nervous.

[Lord Baal]

On most videogames humanity (and humans) are sort of jack of all trades, master of none, Imperium Galactica comes to mind. Often they get a little scientific research bonus (on strategy games) and win the day by sheer will and tenacity. I enjoy a lot more this kind of settings where humanity is somewhat in the middle of the power scale on physical, mental and technological prowess, with some aliens being inferior in some or all aspects and others being equally superior in some or all aspects (barring psych powers, I hate them, I don't like that kind of crap as I don't like the energy beings or the ascended people! I can take the force in SW and in WH40K the warp is the main plot device, but that's all I can tolerate)

[Simon_Jester]

Not really. As I remeber Fey'lya from the Thrawn trilogy, he was paranoid, opportunistic and short-sighted but not really malicious.

It's not that he's malicious, it's that he's a dickhead- and that yes, he doesn't grow. While he himself doesn't see his role as "harm the New Republic by making the wrong choice every single time," that's the de facto role he falls into. He does make the wrong choices, whether he wants to or not. He views everyone around him in political terms, and will nearly always abandon good strategy in the name of a political gambit. Whatever his reasons or justifications for doing so, this makes him a very one-dimensional character during many of his appearances.

He was a political rival of Admiral Ackbar, so when Thrawn had Ackbar framed for treason, Fey'lya jumped right on it. That's not really all that unrealistic. Hell, the most un-lifelike part is that after Fey'lya realized how wrong he'd been in the third book, he apologizes and helps. Naturally, every following EU book completly forgot this bit of character growth.

Right; that's kind of what I'm getting at. He keeps reverting to his stereotype- the obstructionist, the naysayer, the denialist who refuses to pay attention to a threat until it is on the verge of eating him alive, and who will merrily stab political opponents in the back given so much as a pretext, let alone a good reason.

As for Fey'lya's rise to power, I believe one of his cousins or brothers was one of the "many bothans died to bring us this information" and he was able to translate that into a chair at the first council table when the NR was formed. And of course, he worked hard to keep up the image that the bothans almost single-handedly delivered the galaxy from the Empire.

Yes, I know- but politicians in real life don't get to build a career based on the heroic sacrifice of their relatives if they don't have anything else going for them. Especially not if they're so unreliable (both in terms of politics and in terms of 'gets shit done successfully') that they fail repeatedly and glaringly.

In this respect, Fey'lya's existence became a shorthand way for authors to oversimplify the problem of "our heroes must deal with the political structure of the New Republic if they are to accomplish anything." Instead of a more complicated political system in which people split into numerous factions that are all part right and part wrong, we get a system where everyone is right or nearly right, except for Fey'lya, who is wrong, and yet inexplicably in power even though he keeps being wrong.

So his power base has to come from somewhere else- partly, yes, from being one of the leading coordinators of the non-human contingents of the Alliance and the New Republic. But it can't just come from his relatives being martyrs, not when he fails that consistently.

[Eleas]

So his power base has to come from somewhere else- partly, yes, from being one of the leading coordinators of the non-human contingents of the Alliance and the New Republic. But it can't just come from his relatives being martyrs, not when he fails that consistently.

Ever since reading Zahn's Conquerors saga, I've been struck by how similar the principal villain of that piece is to the Bothans. Problem is, in that series, it's at least used to thematical effect -- the Mrachani are explicitly shown to have a weird ability to manipulate other races and can get away with a surprising amount of shenanigans without facing consequences. Zahn's depiction of the Bothans carries echoes of the same thing, but here, we aren't really given an explanation for why other communities would condone such behavior.

[Purple]

I have not read the books or anything. So what I say now is total and absolute speculation about material that would not have been included in them anyway but been some sort of logical background to them.

From what I read here could it be that Fey'lya is playing on the SW equivalent of the Jew card? You know, the evil empire oppressed the Bottans and all other aliens. Many Bottans died to get the death star plans and probably many more in what ever retaliation Palpatine thought out. etc. etc. Ergo, by being the lead figure in the new governments alien wing he could claim that any political attacks on him are the actions of anti alien human supremacists. It's sort of the same how politicians in the west could for decades after WW2 not speak anything against Israel lest they be immediately ostracized as Nazis and their carriers ruined. (massive overexertion for the sake of explaining the point). Now imagine this wielded by someone who knows exactly how to play it right. That might well be what keeps the guy on his position. No one is willing to oppose him lest he get booed down by all the aliens.

At least that is my theory.

[Lord Baal]

The Empire was human supremacist?

[NecronLord]

Farscape (where did you think the title came from?) humans have shitty eyesight. Though the Sebacens were originally humans transplanted into the Farscape galaxy because they were outsiders and thus neutral in regards to Galactic politics.

Does this really apply here? It's ironic in context, and such advantages as humans have are - a human is in no way a match for a Scarran presuming he's munched his flowers lately, even in intellect - are situational and purely due to their relatively primitive biology.

[Eleas]

At least that is my theory.

It's not a bad theory, tbh. If it is true, my beef with its use as political commentary is that it's, well, lame. Unlike the situation of the Jews (who really were specifically targeted as an ethnic group and pursued with particular focus), in Star Wars there really wasn't a shortage of persecuted alien species. I don't care how good the Bothan PR machine is, their relatively paltry losses pale against the planet-wide depopulations and wholesale slavery suffered by many other species, some of who enjoy great influence over the New Republic. Try as I might, I can't see a Mon Cal or Wookiee reserving their sympathy for a few hundred dead Bothan spies.

[Simon_Jester]

At least that is my theory.

It's not a bad theory, tbh. If it is true, my beef with its use as political commentary is that it's, well, lame. Unlike the situation of the Jews (who really were specifically targeted as an ethnic group and pursued with particular focus), in Star Wars there really wasn't a shortage of persecuted alien species. I don't care how good the Bothan PR machine is, their relatively paltry losses pale against the planet-wide depopulations and wholesale slavery suffered by many other species, some of who enjoy great influence over the New Republic. Try as I might, I can't see a Mon Cal or Wookiee reserving their sympathy for a few hundred dead Bothan spies.

Yeah- if anyone's going to play the "we were oppressed by the Empire" card, it should be someone like the Wookiees (who were pressed into slavery), or the Mon Calamari (who were formally classified as animals)*.

The Bothans justified their position with reference to their contribution to the Rebel Alliance's success- not exclusively on the matter of the Second Death Star, but on other issues where their intelligence network prevailed. And yet in spite of that, it's still very hard to justify how someone like Borsk Fey'lya could remain in power for so long given his blatant paranoia and constant tendency to get things wrong.

He should have wound up being the New Republic's equivalent of Richard Nixon, only without the good policy decisions.
________

*That leads to some hilarious situations: "We're being attacked by a three kilometer long star cruiser! Call animal control!"

[Purple]

There is also one more thing. A different but somewhat related theory that might explain things. Borsk Fey'lya is the highest ranking Bothan right? And he got there thanks to having relatives in the Bothan spy network (like every other one of those things). So could it be that he used the spy network to gather just enough dirt on every other politicians to keep them in check?

Now combine this with widespread anti human racism (as evidenced by the above mentioned comment about humans being power hungry) and perhaps (my theory) the Jew card and possibly (my theory again) a mentality among alien senators to stick together in favor of one another due to anti human racism and we get a plausible situation where every senator both human and non human has very good incentive not to try and speak out against him whilst he can pull of what ever he wants.


PS. Is it just me or do my crazy theories sound like I am trying to elevate the guy from useless plot device idiot character to evil mastermind that happens to be good at everything other than running a country?
And no it is not intentional. But it does make you think.

[Lord of the Abyss]

PS. Is it just me or do my crazy theories sound like I am trying to elevate the guy from useless plot device idiot character to evil mastermind that happens to be good at everything other than running a country?

Sort of. But then if you aren't going to use an out of universe explanation like bad writing then you pretty much have to assume something of the sort for the situation to make sense.

[Lord Baal]

People are to the 'civilized' alien races what the Alien Xenomorphs are to Weyland-Yutani.

Thanks to this (I think), last night I had the most fucked up dream I ever had! The only nice part (In a very disturbing way) is that I got to see how a bunch of Xenomorphs violently dismembered Jar-Jar Binks and dissolved his skin with acid and riped off one of his eyes while falling to the ground limbless screaming in a agonizing, deafening way.

[Purple]

Thanks to this (I think), last night I had the most fucked up dream I ever had! The only nice part (In a very disturbing way) is that I got to see how a bunch of Xenomorphs violently dismembered Jar-Jar Binks and dissolved his skin with acid and riped off one of his eyes while falling to the ground limbless screaming in a agonizing, deafening way.

Do you think you could describe this scene in greater detail?

[Lord Baal]

I think... let me finish my breakfast and I will.

[koputusx]

Thanks to this (I think), last night I had the most fucked up dream I ever had! The only nice part (In a very disturbing way) is that I got to see how a bunch of Xenomorphs violently dismembered Jar-Jar Binks and dissolved his skin with acid and riped off one of his eyes while falling to the ground limbless screaming in a agonizing, deafening way.

Do you think you could describe this scene in greater detail?

Do we actually want to know more details?

[Purple]

Thanks to this (I think), last night I had the most fucked up dream I ever had! The only nice part (In a very disturbing way) is that I got to see how a bunch of Xenomorphs violently dismembered Jar-Jar Binks and dissolved his skin with acid and riped off one of his eyes while falling to the ground limbless screaming in a agonizing, deafening way.

Do you think you could describe this scene in greater detail?

Do we actually want to know more details?

Yes we do!

[Lord Baal]

Well I was on a fucking orbital platform with a team of military personal or something along those lines. There where several xenomorphs on the lose and we were supposed to clean up the thing but instead everyone was just playing cards and on one hangar. Suddenly we got attacked, I haven't any weapon at hand so I had to run a woman was with me, she was armed but was scared as hell so we tried to hid behind some boxes and that's when I got the chance to this morbid and sickening show.

I heard his infamous voice saying some non sense like "missa very scared" and as soon I turn around I saw him running from a corridor towards the hangar followed by 3 or 4 xenomorphs, suddenly stopping in the middle of it as one of the aliens got his left arm with his jaws, acid dripping and dissolving his senator clothes, with a quick turn it riped it from the elbow bellow. Then another two bitted the other arm and leg while stabbing him with their tails and pushing him with their arms trying to rip off the pieces. The right arm and the right leg where was riped off the socked and then the real screaming begun, it felt like 20 minutes of it. While falling to the ground the first alien bite the stump of his left arm preventing the fall while yet another one started to chew his left leg and riped it of from the knee down.

At this point the stump of his arm is completely dissolved so it falls to the ground limbless screaming at me to escape just as an alien get near its face and with the little mouth bit and rip off his right eye. At this point it was covered on acidic saliva from the xenos, all his clothes dissolved away and his skin starting to boil away. Then more yet screaming and some convoluted movements while staring to curl like a snail that had touched salt and finally die.

It was sick and horrible, yet I found it kind of funny, the dream then goes on about how almost every one with me where androids and all that, but I guess the part you where interested I already described.

Please don't toss any judgment over my because of this, it was only a very peculiar dream, what it shocked me is that I almost never dream anything (or at least remember it), even less something with that luxury of details.

[Ahriman238]

I leave you guys alone for twelve hours, and the thread suddenly turns into Aliens vs. Jar-Jar?
...
Awesome!

The Empire was human supremacist?

It's subtle in the movies. A lot less so in the books. Ask yourself, how many aliens did you see in the Mos Eisley cantina/ walking around the streets? Now, how many aliens did you see in Imperial uniform? Yeah.

In the EU, the Empire practices slavery, never of human though, and generally treats aliens as second or third class citizens. Turns out this was part of the backlash against the almost-exclusively-alien Seperatist movement. There was always a tension between humans and aliens in the NR as the result of aliens seeing the Empire as a human institution. Some of the greatest successes of the Empire were in playing the two groups against other (the Krytos Plague.)

But there was at least one movement, the Diversity Alliance, that tried to wipe out humanity with no coaxing from outside forces.

At least that is my theory.

It's not a bad theory, tbh. If it is true, my beef with its use as political commentary is that it's, well, lame. Unlike the situation of the Jews (who really were specifically targeted as an ethnic group and pursued with particular focus), in Star Wars there really wasn't a shortage of persecuted alien species. I don't care how good the Bothan PR machine is, their relatively paltry losses pale against the planet-wide depopulations and wholesale slavery suffered by many other species, some of who enjoy great influence over the New Republic. Try as I might, I can't see a Mon Cal or Wookiee reserving their sympathy for a few hundred dead Bothan spies.

Not for his people specifically, but he could and did ride the wave of general homo-phobia. Like I said, he used the sacrifices of the Bothans to be one of the people in the room when the charter of the New Republic was signed, and he was one of two or three people in the room who weren't humans. Fast forward twenty years, and he's the only person who was in the room that day, the prominent figures of the rebellion and the Republic's early days, who is still involved in politics. Is it any suprise that he's the Big Kahuna?

The Bothans in general are probably the third or fourth most hated people in the SW galaxy. At one point, the leaking of the Caamas Document raised enough anti-Bothan sentiment to bring the NR to the brink of civil war.