Fun fact: humans aren’t responsible for the first mass extinction caused by organisms polluting the atmosphere with poisonous gas. Blue-green algae did it first, with “a decrease in the size of the biosphere of >80%”.
Is that the one where humans are consensually employed by all the comparatively more advanced alien species of our galaxy as their warriors or executives because even our weakest human is significantly more powerful to any of the nearest alien due to the nature of us all having been evolved from an ancient ape species that were prone to violence?
deathworlders.com - Dunno if it goes into that detail of us evolving from violent apes, but at least from chapter zero, seems to be mostly due to us being from a “high gravity” world and having “builtin combat drugs” (adrenalin)
Considering the amount of things that can kill us, both micro and macro, and the fact that we ingest poison (alcohol, drugs and even actual frog poison) for fun, it’s pretty easy for any alien life to look at us and think “holy shit, those creatures are fucking hardcore!”
I second the recommendation, it’s a great story. The writing isn’t perfect, but it’s absorbing and there’s plenty of good world building and characters.
There’s another series like that, the Human Chronicles Saga by T.R. Harris. Humans are super strong because the gravity on Earth is much higher than on other planets. Materials on the other planets are weaker too, simply because they don’t need to be as strong, so the humans can break through walls easily.
We are a species that came to prominence by literally throwing ourselves at monsters until we won. Injuries (such as a giant beast’s foot crashing at you at 80KmH) that would kill any other species 100 times over is basically a little medical treatment and a month of rest away.
Fun (and also not fun) Fact is that the reason why bullet caliber exists is because when settlers were doing their genocide they would often unload their entire magazine into warriors to no avail, they would just rush up unimpeded and chop the settlers to ribbons. The concept of stopping power was literally invented because of the sheer resilience of humans and the amount of damage we can take and survive.
The only lifeform on this plant which can take anywhere near the level of punishment we can are insects, and in those cases even one injury is often enough to permanently disfigure and condemn them to a crapshoot of maybe being able to reproduce before they eventually die, because for as resilient as they are, nature didn’t really build them for long distance survival like we did through our monster-hunting exploits.
Regarding bullets in ye olde times, I suppose a significant portion of immediate survivors had a hellish time dealing with chronic pain and lead poisoning. Also worth nothing: it was common for pre industrial ammo to shatter on impact due to imperfections, acting much like current day hollow point, which shreds tissue in a nasty way.
From the pov of an organism in a high-oxygen atmosphere, thats true. But on a planet with little to no oxygen in the atmosphere, it would have to be added separately, the same way we add fuel
According to the drake equation we’re looking at at least a few million planets with at least ordinary carbon-and-water-based life in this galaxy alone- and in such an unimaginably huge place as even the galaxy (never mind UNIVERSE) there’s bound to be at least 2 of everything, including sentient species.
Yet we see nothing. Even if FTL is impossible, we should be seeing signs of more advanced civilizations (starts shifting due to Dyson swarms etc). Something in our understanding is very wrong, and most of the options are horrifying, in their own ways.
Nah. The distances are too vast. Even if you could touch 1/4 of light speed then that means to get anywhere you take light years and x4 and you start to see the issue.
Then there’s the time dilation thing. Suppose you do see some evidence…so u fly towards it. Only in the time it takes u to get there the civ is gone.
There are a few unexplained phenomena in the universe that physicists do little more than shrug their shoulders at. Any of them could be evidence of other life, and there are proposed theories suggesting as much. We can’t prove anything definitively because we’re too limited in how far we can go towards explaining the unexplained, but I’d say there’s an asterisk on “nothing”.
This ends badly for the Precursors, we become corrupted after creating our 2 potential replacements for holding the Mantle. Our own children, the Forerunners, nearly wipe us out and we have to flee the galaxy. We come back with a vengeance and manifest as the Flood and get our revenge in the end.
We would’ve gotten away with it too, if it wasn’t for those pesky Halo rings
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