Humans Are Not A Product Of Intelligent Design | HFY | SciFi Short Stories

Humans Are Not A Product Of Intelligent Design

Story by u/UmieWarboss

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Humans are Not a Product of Intelligent Design

OC
This is my first short story, intended to be a one-off. I have some ideas that I might try to implement in the future, depending on how well this experiment plays off.
Also English is not my first language, so your corrections regarding grammar and vocabulary are welcome.

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The self-named Humans were deemed by the wider Galaxy to be a somewhat frustrating paradox. Humble but disrespectful, sheepish but aggressive, superstitious but godless, so painfully mediocre yet so annoyingly exceptional. No two humans were alike, but the patterns in their behavior were clear and predictable. (Even if often the prediction for a given situation was "expect them to do something unexpectedly stupid.") Worst of all, despite being known to us since the dawn of time, having met us as soon as we first broke the boundaries of our solar systems, the humans still had no clear place or purpose in the Galactic Community. And now it was my job as a leading Vellien anthropologist to find and assign them such a place finally.

It was widely known and accepted that each sentient race emerged under the guidance of a benevolent Precursor race, possibly deific but certainly at least very advanced. Every race was infused with traits and purpose necessary for its survival, and to encompass and represent some aspect of the holy nature of Intelligent Creators. We Vellien were wise leaders and inspiring artists, the Kurus were aggressive and fierce warriors, and the Boglings were skillful and resourceful traders and bureaucrats (even if the only thing you could trust them with was that they would rip you off eventually). Even the quiet and servile Drobolds had their place firmly established as stoic and faithful caretakers of whatever should be entrusted to them. The humans, well, the humans were a bit of everything and nothing.

When the Kurus were first found by the emergent Community, they promptly launched the war of conquest on unprepared Vellien and Shireling systems. If not for their innate competitiveness that led to frequent infighting between the rival warlords, the Shirelings would have been wiped out completely, and we would have lost at least a third of our colonies before the help arrived. But in the end, it was the humans that brought them to the peace table. Not by "honorable" (in Kuru's understanding) combat, but by a rather unsavory tactic of sneaking up on their clan keeps with stealth ships loaded to the brim with planet-cracker ordnance and issuing an ultimatum. However, the humans didn't attempt to conquer or subdue the Kurus, instead helping them integrate into the Community as its prime warriors, and also introducing them to various (comparatively) non-violent human sports as a way to temper and channel their aggressiveness.
So, Humanity could conquer but weren't conquerors.

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