Title. A sci-if setting where humans are the scary super aliens. A friend of mine actually proposed the thought. He simply commented that “...it makes perfect sense. Imagine observing humans and watching them get shot, stabbed and run over or any other daily trauma we might suffer. Now imagine seeing them survive a good deal of these, you’d be scared.” and so here we are now. So the plot I think would be around xenos fear of humanity. We’re tall, muscular and we can throw you ten yards on your home world. We can sustain more physical damage than you’re toughest war fighters while still fighting. Not to mention we out breed you three to one. The idea I had I initially was that an advanced race saw us as a “powerful weapon”. They wanted to subjugate us and use us for war while slowly integrating us as a warrior caste in galactic society. Everyone else says no, aliens do it anyway. Chucking an asteroid at us to kill most of us and swooping in to save the remaining humans. Sixty years later we make our debut to the dismay of the rest of the galaxy, population controlled at a steady 2.5 billion and fully decked out for war. What do you guys think? Either one looking good so far?
Well, I know from floating about the internet that this idea has been proposed a lot, often for short form works or just jokes. It works as a world (or universe XD) but I don't know what sort of story you'd want to go for. I think a serial or again, a short form work might work better because the impact would soon wear off I think as it has unfortunately for me, just floating around online and seeing this idea thought up and rediscovered over and over. It also seems to work better as a dark comedy thing, than played straight, as far as I've seen. It's a good idea, don't get me wrong, I just think you're gonna have to work real hard to make it punch like you seem to want it to. I hope you find a way to make it work ^^ Ps, 2.5 billion seems a tad low for a scary race, I mean we're already marching towards 8 billion, and as you say, we breed quite fast with a higher possiblity of multiple birth than most creatures. And that I think most aliens might feel as if its the leaders of the humans are the scary ones, cus I don't think the methods used to control population would be too moral.
It's a cool premise, but not too different from simply being enslaved but set in a sci-fi setting. What's the story though? And the reason why we survive all those traumatic injuries is probably thanks to technology and medicine. Are these aliens backwards in tech (yet can fly a spaceship and throw an asteroid?) that they didn't know how these humans were surviving these injuries, which leads to their awe of us? And once the humans are enslaved, the aliens simply must discover it's thanks to medical and technological intervention that we survive traumatic injuries - so what makes us more special than them? If the aliens possessed the tech to intervene when we are injured, then they themselves can also survive the same things. If they can't intervene, then the humans would die pretty quickly because they wouldn't survive what they previously did. It seems to me it'd make more sense for the aliens to steal our technology in order for them, the aliens, to also survive the same level of trauma, and maybe use humans as rats for experiments since they can survive so much already, supposedly, to see where the breaking point is. They'd be more interested in our brains, I feel, and not our physical bodies. Also, since it's our tech that helps us survive things, throwing an asteroid at us and thereby destroying all that tech isn't very clever...
What Mckk said, you need a story. This is just background exposition you have to be careful not to info dump. That said, I think it is pretty good. About medicine, I think the implication TS is making is that low gravity aliens are more susceptible to incapacitation and quick death by trauma.
Yes, the idea goes under the title "Humanity Fuck Yeah" on the internet. There is a subreddit dedicated to this concept. A very nice example is the story about Jenkins. Go read it - it's fun!
While normally I would agree with going the Space Marines in WH40k route, it is really extreme high fantasy/sci-fi, and they are surgically manipulated super soldiers that undergo something like 25 surgeries (and possibly without the use of anesthetic?). Also the Imperium is extremely xenophobic. Moving back to the more practical basic human soldier being able to achieve such feats as tossing one of the aliens 10yrds on their home world explains a lot about them. They live on a lower gravity planet and therefore would be physically weaker than a 165-200 pound soldier standing average 5ft 8-6ft 2. So I can kinda start to see your reasoning in them taking interest in us as a warring caste based upon those concepts. Not too mention we are kinda violent species with all the neat war toys we have, and employ pretty regularly. Though you have to consider that if you chuck a rock at us and kill a whole bunch of us, we kinda turn our sights away from each other long enough to bond together and fight this new enemy threat. So you must take this into consideration that every species no matter how horrible they are to themselves still have the basic instinct to survive at all cost, and being the devious destructive shits we are will not simply negotiate to easily over a cup of coffee at a conference table with the new would be alien overlords and listen to their intent of what they want of us. A more subversive approach would be a better way to go about it. Where they come in, and simply spread propaganda and play the 'oh woe is us, we need your help' card and put some intricate spin on it to make the people feel sympathetic to the aliens cause. Then they can have a voluntary recruitment of those that are willing to get on with what they want, and slowly over time subvert the society as a whole to such point that they aliens become the defacto rulers over humanity over time and underhanded tact. Then they will have a much more willing an able fighting force that they came for. OR.... Have them do what they do in parts of Africa, abduct young children and then brainwash them from an early age to see the aliens as their masters and train them to be soldiers for their own personal wars. While it is a much darker approach, they could effectively use the children they captured to breed and make more soldiers that way once they become of physical maturity, or clone them, or simply extract the genetic material and grow more of their human soldiers in labs. The latter would also allow them to genetically alter these new humans to be stronger, faster, etc. for whatever they feel would make them much more effective in combat roles.
A child friendly concept of humans as being the aliens is seen in an episode of Buzz Lightyear of Star Command and the film Planet 51. Both take nods from the Area 51 rumours and flipping it. The idea is a good one, certainly, but I agree a plot is required. The alien culture, the motives, and then a central storyline and figure all need to be established before we can create something that would flow right. I could easily picture a prequel where scouts swap places with various people worldwide in order to understand our culture and nature while the originals are observed in controlled conditions to further their research. I think that the time and effort such a thing would require needs a good justification. Aside from rebuilding humanity to their ends, the survivors and their offspring would need to be trained in the differences between wars on earth and intergalactic battles. Equipment would need to be provided, (ships, suits to allow travel in different atmospheres, and of course food, water and shelter when they're not in combat situations) theoretically hybrids could be developed in time if you go with a cloning rather than the biological route, but it is worth noting that DNA degrades over time (a plot point of an episode of Star Trek) so they would probably need to either permit biological reproduction (which means that women would likely need permanent settlement as well as the children requiring schools and training) or regularly harvest DNA from these soldiers to maintain viable stock. Before you can get a good plot together, I think these are questions that need to be answered.
