my favorite part is when the aliens thought they were going to win but they didnt expect humanity to do the thing
The sound of the rifle firing was heard, and the beam of light left the weapon and struck Fredric, who didn’t even flinch.
“Fun fact about humans, you see, the star around the world that we originated from emits an insane amount of radiation. Much of it is more lethal than the radiation that you just fired at me.”
What book is this from? This seems like something created specifically for me.
This is great! Funny enough I think this is the series one of my former (mega CHUD) coworkers was excitedly telling me about one night at work. Glad you reminded me of it. I figured it would be fascist slop given how much he liked it. Chuds and zero art literacy name a more iconic duo.
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I’m pretty sure other stars emit radiation as well
It is their whole thing
I hope my excerpt is about persistence hunting
“Those Who Run?”
He laughed. “Not quite,” he said. “That was a mistranslation from a malfunctioning device. By the time we realized the error, it seemed too trivial to correct.”
“A mistranslation?”
He smiled, and for the first time I noticed the sharp teeth at the corners of his mouth. “It’s not Those Who Run,” he said.
“It’s Those Who Chase.”
Hell yeah!
i remember when some of those things weren’t about humans being murder machines like in 40k. they still weren’t good but they were at least about selflessness and stuff instead of being scary space fascists
The answer to that scared two of our scientists so badly that they went puce for three whole cycles. You see, these hell-creatures are able to easily work materials that are so far down at the bottom of our periodic table that it’s just not worth even trying. They can create and utilise compounds containing iron, and even titanium. I swear upon my progenitors, I am not making this up.
How is working iron impressive to presumably another space-faring species? Or, you know, a species that has electronics of any kind?
I’m all ears
“Oh. But your ship. It’s so powerful?”
“No, yours are just weak. I used a few mining lazers and it cut through your shields like butter, I through a few asteroids to soften you up, though I don’t really think I needed that. And your ships aren’t even built to handle a basic tractor beam. Honestly I’m still not convinced you’re actually from some military. I still think you’re trying to bluff me. Even Human pirates have better equipment than you.”
word
When every single Vendriq in the capital was killed, the legion spread out. Operating in two-man teams, they spread out across the planet like a virus. In the wake of each team, the dead were left mangled and piled. When it was all said and done, the thousand members of the Legion of the Damned reconvened in the capital. Not a single member of the Legion had fallen, but millions of the Vendriq had.
Ahhh yes, lets genocide a species in retribution for an act of terrorism.
I’m pretty sure this is just text from the plans for Operation Barbarossa with the names changed.
Alright I looked at the subreddit this is on and have now read all the Legion of the Damned one-offs and am on part 3 of Ascension. There goes my evening lol.
https://old.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/55v9e1/chrysalis/
i used to read hfy quite a bit when i was a lib teenager and i always thought this was the best one.
I’m quite liking the one I am reading now. I will maybe have to save that for last if you think it’s the best. I love pulp sci-fi, probably my favorite genre of fiction.
im not 100% sure if you can consider it pulp sci-fi. i think it tries to be too philosophical to be pulp if that makes any sense?
Yeah, I love that stuff too. As much as I like stuff like The Expanse, I grew up on the classics like Asimov and am currently really enjoying Pluribus. I saw there are some haters on here (regarding the latter) but I agree with the line that it is not necessarily anti-communist drivel but more conceptual thought experiment type sci-fi.
chrysalsis isnt really anti-communist just much more “end of history, communists/communism isnt even mentioned” and there is definitely a bit of a “UN is flawed but ultimately will save the day” type liberalism in it but i think a lot of the musing on revenge, what it means to be human, learning to let go, etc. might still be good (i need to reread it from my newfound “everything sucks and is fascist” perspective but im kinda afraid to ruin my fond memory of the story lol)
also i was listening to the audiobook recording just now that’s promoted on the reddit post and if you like audiobooks seemed like a very high quality one for being hosted by some random channel
chrysalsis isnt really anti-communist
Oh I was referring to Pluribus. I am firmly in the “we are still allowed to enjoy things” camp. I still love the Ender’s Game books for example, even though I have revisited the series with a Marxist lens.
oof, i’ve tried but the eugenics in it is nauseating i literally couldnt get through it. especially the ender’s shadow series, used to love those side books but the eugenics shit is like 10x worse than in the main books
I haven’t read it yet, so idk, but I would consider a lot of Philip K Dick’s stories pulp and like half of them come across like he was trying to be the Kafka of sci-fi.
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The Shriike aboard weren’t just slaughtered. They were hurt. Tortured. Civilians, females, young. The males were crucified.
Are these all from the same one? I struggle to think of how to parody the genre . . . maybe hyping up binocular vision? Or talking about nails as “they’ve got 20 knives affixed to their digits that are as sharp as our stone knives that are for some reason all we can make despite also having computers”
i once read a story where aliens still fought with like, spears despite being able to travel between planets…? maybe they had like, muskets or something like that?
I recall some 50s or 60s sci-fi story where FTL was really easy to discover but for whatever reason humanity just didn’t, so a bunch of aliens invaded in wooden steamships.
“The Road Not Taken” by Harry Turtledove.
even in the 50’s the science behind that would be shockingly bad, seems more like “space fantasy” lol
Definitely pulp slop but I’m pretty sure the author was just being goofy.
ah yeah could have been a parody of any HFY trends in scifi at the time (i must confess i dont really know anything about what was popular within the scifi genre within the 50s/60s)
“I hear the humans used some kind of sorcery to be able to make deliberate use of FIRE, you know, that supremely destructive force that we only see when something has gone wrong and we’re in danger! Our planet is small and that makes things light (or so we’ve been told? we don’t understand it), so we could just use a really big slingshot to reach escape velocity. They somehow took fire and used it to fly. I guess they’re like the sun or something?”
in this story im referencing iirc they’re like bloodthirsty ewoks or something so they land and have a pitched battle with some cub scouts (i.e. 5 and 6 yos) and then get slaughtered by amerikkkan special forces taking revenge for the cub scouts?
Does it specify how they were able to even accomplish space travel if they have a military ability on par with roughly a medium-sized dog?
found it. of course not lol. i misremembered the details of the story, the children managed to use sticks and stones to kill hundreds of aliens equipped with muskets (i assume? thats about the weakest gun that i can think of that can explain why they’re so confused by modern assault rifles?) who then get slaughtered by the military like i said https://old.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/dlmgyx/pi_youre_an_alien_soldier_preparing_for_the/
I’m sorry for putting you through that.
I am having a very difficult time understanding this. So they have bi-directional space travel, “slides,” digital cameras, wireless transmission of videos, and who knows what else, but when they have the big collection of human tools, they can only identify the slings, bows, and spears, despite that the scouts (who were probably teens, in fairness) probably had hunting rifles and some equivalent to phones or walkie talkies (which were probably some of the “intricately engineered devices of unknown use”). Then, while being executed by a gun, it is described this way:
It held a device in its hands, probably the noisy weapon, and lifted it up to point it at me. I did not understand the strange sounds it made . . .
A bright flash.
This suggests not just not understanding what a modern assault rifle is, but even what a gunpowder weapon is.
And yet, before, they briefly mention:
Short clips of combat footage played. They seemed pierced together from different gun cams.
So they do have “guns”. I cannot fathom how these pieces go together. My best guess is that they are using guns that they are basically using dart guns, but even then this level of abstract confusion is unwarranted. They should be able to tell that a gun is a gun, and if they have rockets there is no way they can’t understand on at least a very basic level how bullets are shot.
It’s amazing that this shit got 8k upvotes. What the fuck am I doing with my life when literally anyone can become so incredibly popular making something so worthless?
ah yeah i guess looking at it the symbol described probably is the boy scouts one not the cubscouts. ig back in the day i latched onto the “children” wording. however there’s no way it’s older scouts, during the briefing they’re describing the kids as being “two thirds the height of a standard warrior” but the adults are “Much taller” than the POV alien, there is not that great a gap in height between most teens and adults seems much more likely to be 10 or younger to me. supported by the author saying in a comment “Haha, three for one. I feel stabbed by a spear, hit by a slingshot and smacked in the face with a tiny vengeful fist.”
as for the guns… yeah that’s why i desribed it as them having muskets? i find it hard to believe they would have “blowdart” guns with cameras on them but are modern assault rifles really that much louder than muskets? that redditor seems to respond to people leaving comments though so if you’ve got a reddit account laying around u might be able to ask and get them to clarify lol
It’s amazing that this shit got 8k upvotes. What the fuck am I doing with my life when literally anyone can become so incredibly popular making something so worthless?
haha :yea: the fact this has twice the upvotes of chrysalsis is crazy (not to say chrysalsis is anywhere near perfect or even necessarily good but it’s the best story ive read on there and it’s only got 4k upvotes)
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i will engage in an act of self harm and browse thru r/hfy top/all-time to see if i can find it because i want to say no ofc not but i cant really remember anything from the story besides the extremely hammy shock reveal that the aliens were killing cub scouts and dumb instantgratification of OORAH GO US MILITARY KILL THE ALIENS!!!
Thinking about this, I feel like there’s an element of resonance based on the fact that life in general and the potential of intelligent organisms in particular is really amazing and we don’t appreciate it enough, but the authors’ brains are so cooked on chauvinism that they only think to express this in terms of untermensch – literally “life unworthy of life” in the sense that they are too fundamentally and totalizingly incompetent to make sense as living things and I guess also morally inferior and deserving of death according to the authors – for people to prove their worth by crushing. Like, there’s an element of it that I think is real and even positive, but it gets warped by fascistic thinking into something disgusting, sadistic, and nonsensical.
i think maybe what you’re trying to get at that it could be interesting to explore how alien biology maybe really could make them see the world differently than humans, but because they’re fascists the answer is “kill them all” instead of learning and understanding?
Was it dune? Lol
Purposeful genocide was committed for 4 months. And estimated 50 billion Gra’var drowned to death in the hulks of their ships. After the genocide was done, the human ships glassed the planet for good measure. The Gra’var offered their surrender. It was ignored.
Nyahallo!
“We use AI to regulate contracts between different parties in our worlds. These contract chips ensure that the contracts are fully carried out, otherwise the AI provides a suitable punishment. In this case since I’m sparing your lives after you tried to kill me, it would probably result in death.”
“That’s fine. What do you want us to do?”
“You’ll be working for me. How long do your people live?”
“We have 23 races in our fleet, though I’m not sure how many are left, but the average lifespan is about 60 years, with ranges between 20 and 100.”
“Good, I’ll have all of you work for me for… Lets say 20% of your total lifespan, or 60% of your remaining lifespan whichever is less. The details will be in the contract. I’ll provide food, lodging etc. but you will not receive pay.”
“I don’t think we have a choice do we?”
“No.”
As Prices Soar, Trump Denounces ‘Affordability’ as ‘Democrat Scam’
You mentioned using claws on human necks. Actually, human necks are pretty well protected by muscle and bone structure. Your claws would probably get caught in the muscle before reaching anything important.
drowning in your own blood is so epic and hardcore! #HumansAreMetal
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https://old.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/55v9e1/chrysalis/ if you prefer audiobooks here is link to reading of it on yt
idk if you’re being serious but imo this is the best of a bad genre and ironically part of it is because techincally humans arent even in it
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Among the best I read back in the day was Chrysalis: https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/55v9e1/chrysalis/
It’s not a Humans Are Space Orcs story, it’s a story about blowback and justified anger, and not losing yourself to vengeance, and how you can find new meaning after loss.
It also has ass-blasting space combat that better reflects how space battles ought to be fought than half the HFY “man the broadsides” naval nonsense.
https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/nw4o31/galactic_daycare/
I find this series entertaining. Less “humans are orcs” and more “humans are community builders”
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Before anyone could answer a Marine officer yelled across the room “Bring it on cock lips. You fucked with our boats and now want to try and fuck with our new found allies, you got another thing coming.” Boats refer to water faring ships on Earth and Cock is slang for Human male genitalia. The term Cock lips infers that the opposing has committed oral sex acts.
sure
The humans avoid war because it would be too easy for them to win.
A strange game. The only winning move is not to play.
i agree with that statement. seriously!
I used to be in a queer transhumanist roleplay eve online wormhole corporation with a prominent hfy author a while ago.
I think he voted ukip
Not one of those words is in the bible
Edit: except ‘online’, I’m pretty sure that’s in Revelations
Eve is fairly notably involved. She’s pretty important from my understanding
Hmm doesn’t ring a bell
spoiler
/j
(The joke is that I’m missing the most obvious biblical reference, Eve, in the original sentence, for the next word, which is probably unlikely to be in the Bible at all (‘online’)).
Flew over my head
Revelations was also the name of an eve expansion though
They gave their compiled reports on what the Shriike had awoken on the edge of the Black. Sol 3: Terra. Presumed high gravity combat species. A first contact war that had transformed their single world into an industrial hellscape; a munitions factory that supplied the ordnance to eradicate the entire civilization that dared to make contact.
When you surround an army, leave an outlet free.
All of their millennia of war and strife had trained them and bred them to this moment in their history when all of their accumulated data would finally be taken out on some ignorant outsider, something they could completely focus their hate and resolve on. We did not realize what kind of mistake we had truly made until we received the last transmission we would ever get from them, “We know where your home is. No survivors, no prisoners, no mercy.”
mostly harmless
Let us enlighten our foes to the unyielding spirit of mankind. Within all of your veins flow the blood of generals, soldiers, and murderers.
Shred their bodies with a storm of lead!
Tear their organs out with your bayonets!
Crush their skulls underneath your iron boots!SLAUGHTER THEM ALL!
Until reading your replies I thought HFY was supposed to be like made me smile.
Doctor gives gazan child a new 5 day lease on life before being killed herself.
Do you have any about humans being the sex-machines of the universe? Probably something harem related no doubt.
Luckily, a surge in student murmuring mostly swallowed my lack of composure. I got a few seconds before the next question came and tried to pull myself back together.
“So does it still feel good? This sex thing?”
