# SF/fantasy where the humans are (a) good and (b) tough? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 6, 2008, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-fantasy-where-the-humans-are-a-good-and-b-tough/466635 "2008-10-06T04:48:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2008, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-fantasy-where-the-humans-are-a-good-and-b-tough/466635/21 "2008-10-06T18:12:45Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > In a very different vein, another story held that, in fact, the key to creating an advanced gravity-warping star drive was a particular pile of rocks (I Am Not Making This Up; the writer thoguh it funny). You could make artificial gravity and air-bubble effects in the same way. Most intelligent species found this by accident. The galaxy was ruled by a vaguely Victorian culture which conquered planet after planet in its wooden-hulled frigates and its legions of musketmen. > > Then they go to conquer one newly-discovered planet. As the soldiers went on deck to prepare to assault it, they wondered. Huh. What are all those strange light sources coming from the surface? They seem to be arranged in odd patterns, like a spiderweb across the major landmasses, particularly in the tropical and temperate regions. > > 😃 > > The novel cuts out there, and we are left uncertain as to what happened to the spacemen when they tried to assault Earth… with cannons and muskets aboard their starships. That sounds like Turtledove’s “The Road Less Travelled” short , but it doesn’t end there. the bear-like aliens get their asses kicked, and of course we now have FTL tech, and a galaxy to conquer ---
**Author:** ![Buran](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a88e57/32.png) [@Buran](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buran)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2008, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-fantasy-where-the-humans-are-a-good-and-b-tough/466635/22 "2008-10-06T19:59:00Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Alan Dean Foster’s _The Damned_ trilogy comes to mind. We, as it happens, are the the only species that fights wars among itself. We aren’t the best at any one thing ( save fighting ), but are the best generalists. We are both tough and strong - there’s a scene in the first book where a human helps an alien Masood soldier over a railing and injures the Masood’s wrist by accident ( the human in question being an artist and a pacifist by the way, not some buffed muscleman ). And the more timid races find us intimidating; “She tried to ignore the fact that the human’s eyes burned. She knew he couldn’t help it.” And to top it off, if the enemy, the mind controlling Amplitur try to control us, _Something Bad_ wakes up in our subconscious, reaches down the mindlink and fries their brain. I’ve read and enjoyed the first two books of that trilogy but have had trouble tracking down the last one. I have a question regarding the end of the trilogy, I’ve had a hunch that there’s a twist in the last book and would like to have it confirmed or not: I got the impression that the amphibious aliens that are part of the good guys alliance but looked down on and treated with disrespect by the other species are actually capable of mind-control themselves and it is they who are holding the disparate parts of the alien alliance together and enabling them to fight back against the bad guys. Am I right? Thanks ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2008, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-fantasy-where-the-humans-are-a-good-and-b-tough/466635/23 "2008-10-06T20:19:41Z")
> [@Buran](#): > > I’ve read and enjoyed the first two books of that trilogy but have had trouble tracking down the last one. I have a question regarding the end of the trilogy, I’ve had a hunch that there’s a twist in the last book and would like to have it confirmed or not: > > I got the impression that the amphibious aliens that are part of the good guys alliance but looked down on and treated with disrespect by the other species are actually capable of mind-control themselves and it is they who are holding the disparate parts of the alien alliance together and enabling them to fight back against the bad guys. Am I right? > > Thanks Nope. [Spoiler]However they do have a secret; they are indeed relatively stupid, but are also careful and systematic enough ( to avoid errors ) that they can work around it. They hide this, and play dumber than they are. They are also, unlike most of the others able to kill, because they are dumb enough to willfully ignore what they are doing and have done. They hide this in order to avoid becoming cannon fodder. One of them assassinates a human in fact; humans may be better fighters, but he didn’t expect a harmless and dumb amphibian to pull out a gun and shoot him. However; while mind control isn’t involved, there ARE masterminds manipulating the war. There’s one species; IIRC named the Turlog. The ones who operate the ship’s weapons, but are too slow and clumsy for personal combat; they live alone, one to a ship. As it happens, they don’t even like each other, and positively hate other intelligent life; they have the long term goal of killing everyone else, and living in solitude, perhaps one Turlog every light year or so. They’ve been trying to manipulate the war in order to drag it on, get as many people killed on both sides as possible; in fact, they joined the Weave, the good guys, because the Weave was losing and that would have ended the war.[/spoiler] ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2008, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-fantasy-where-the-humans-are-a-good-and-b-tough/466635/24 "2008-10-06T20:29:50Z")
> [@](#): > > Starship Troopers would be a good example if the humans didn’t need a metric buttload of hardware to compete with the bugs; see above re: tough & good guys but vastly outnumbered, too. “Bugs, Mr. Rico! Millions of 'em!” I don’t see why that would be a problem, since the bugs used a metric buttload of hardware to compete with us, too. The whole “spitting spaceships out of orbit” thing is only from that damned idiotic Verhoeeven movie. ---
**Author:** ![StarvingButStrong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/starvingbutstrong/32/335_2.png) [@StarvingButStrong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StarvingButStrong)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2008, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-fantasy-where-the-humans-are-a-good-and-b-tough/466635/25 "2008-10-06T21:14:30Z")
How about the “Man-Kzin Wars” tales (Niven as editor and sometimes writer)? The whole point of those is that humans are better at war than the Kzin, mostly due to sneakiness and ability to out-think them. Not that the humans are overwhelmingly ‘good’, but since it’s set up that the Kin are the aggressors and humanity on the defense… ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2008, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-fantasy-where-the-humans-are-a-good-and-b-tough/466635/26 "2008-10-06T21:58:19Z")
David Sherman and Dan Cragg have a (cheesy, but I like it) series called “Starfist”, that have amphibious aliens getting their butt kicked by human mercenaries. The humans are better at fighting, and the aliens are “invading” human worlds, and not particularly pleasant to the civies there. I think the authors were real life infantry veterans. ---
**Author:** ![Buran](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a88e57/32.png) [@Buran](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buran)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2008, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-fantasy-where-the-humans-are-a-good-and-b-tough/466635/27 "2008-10-06T22:04:49Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Nope. Thanks, I haven’t read your spoiler as I’m now determined to get the last book in the trilogy and read it! I’m in the UK and there doesn’t seem to be any copies from the Amazon UK website for some reason. ---
**Author:** ![Baldwin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baldwin/32/7264_2.png) [@Baldwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baldwin)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2008, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-fantasy-where-the-humans-are-a-good-and-b-tough/466635/28 "2008-10-06T22:20:57Z")
I guess we might consider Poul Anderson’s _The High Crusade_, in which 14th century Englishmen conquer an interstellar empire. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2008, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-fantasy-where-the-humans-are-a-good-and-b-tough/466635/29 "2008-10-06T22:46:25Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > That sounds like Turtledove’s “The Road Less Travelled” short , but it doesn’t end there. the bear-like aliens get their asses kicked, and of course we now have FTL tech, and a galaxy to conquer Yes, this certainly seems like Turtledove’s story (it’s “The Road Not Taken” actually) in which humanity is the only species that doesn’t figure out anti-gravity and hyperdrive sometime during the Bronze or Iron Age. So while other species are out fighting space wars in wooden ships lit by torches, humanity stumbles along by inventing science. Turtledove wrote a sequel to the story btw > **[The Road Not Taken (short story)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_Not_Taken_(short_story))** > > "The Road Not Taken" is a science fiction short story by American writer Harry Turtledove about the first encounter between humanity and an alien race, the Roxolani. It is a prequel to another Turtledove short story entitled "Herbig-Haro". > The story is told through limited third person point of view, with most of the story concerning a single Roxolani captain, Togram. During a routine journey of conquest, they happen upon Earth. The Roxolani anticipate a simple and rewarding campaign, as they de... ---
**Author:** ![Caveat\_lector\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ea5d25/32.png) [@Caveat\_lector\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Caveat_lector_1)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2008, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-fantasy-where-the-humans-are-a-good-and-b-tough/466635/30 "2008-10-06T23:28:10Z")
In John Ringo’s Posleen War Series humans are approached by several more advanced but pacifist species to help them fight the Posleen, a less advanced but very violent species that somehow has obtained intergalactic travel. You can read the whole series free here. [Free](http://baencd.thefifthimperium.com/11-UntotheBreachCD/UntotheBreachCD/index.htm) It starts with _A Hymn before Battle_. They are pretty good, but I recommend staying away from the sequels he wrote with other authors as I understand they tend to be horrible. Edit: It seems to be called “Legacy of the Aldenata” series there. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2008, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-fantasy-where-the-humans-are-a-good-and-b-tough/466635/31 "2008-10-07T01:02:05Z")
> [@StarvingButStrong](#): > > How about the “Man-Kzin Wars” tales (Niven as editor and sometimes writer)? The whole point of those is that humans are better at war than the Kzin, mostly due to sneakiness and ability to out-think them. Not exactly. The Kzin being (originally solitary) predators, their whole philosophy of combat is basically an all-out win or die attack. They only start to learn better after so many hotheads get killed by humans that only the comparitively cautious and cowardly live to reproduce. The other factor is that humans are only somewhat moderated mutant Pak, a species that responds to any threat by total extermination. The Kzin may be literally bloodthirsty conquerers, but they don’t erase life from entire planets or cause suns to go nova like humans do- they’re not _crazy_. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2008, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-fantasy-where-the-humans-are-a-good-and-b-tough/466635/32 "2008-10-07T01:32:00Z")
Some people describe John W. Campbell as a human chauvinist: > **[Biotic invasions: ecological imperialism in new wave science fiction. - Free...](https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Biotic+invasions:+ecological+imperialism+in+new+wave+science+fiction.-a0167030908)** > > Free Online Library: Biotic invasions: ecological imperialism in new wave science fiction.(Critical essay) by "Yearbook of English Studies"; Humanities, general Languages and linguistics Imperialism Analysis Science fiction Science fiction writers... ---
**Author:** ![Hunter\_Hawk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/50afbb/32.png) [@Hunter\_Hawk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hunter_Hawk)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2008, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-fantasy-where-the-humans-are-a-good-and-b-tough/466635/33 "2008-10-07T04:15:57Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > You forgot option (c) Both the good guys and tougher than the opponants on a one-on-one basis, but significantly outnumbered or outgunned. Good point. And now that you mention it, that’s also an explicit plot hook in the “Pandora’s Legion” stories by Christopher Anvil. > [@CalMeacham](#): > > You want stories in which humans are a.) Tough and b.) Good, and you don’t start off with Robert Heinlein? What’s wrong with you? After having _Glory Road_ and _The Number of the Beast_ inflicted upon it lo those many years ago, my brain did its level best to remove all memories of anything having to do with Heinlein from my consciousness. ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2008, 6:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-fantasy-where-the-humans-are-a-good-and-b-tough/466635/34 "2008-10-07T06:33:08Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > Not exactly. The Kzin being (originally solitary) predators, their whole philosophy of combat is basically an all-out win or die attack. They only start to learn better after so many hotheads get killed by humans that only the comparitively cautious and cowardly live to reproduce. The other factor is that humans are only somewhat moderated mutant Pak, a species that responds to any threat by total extermination. The Kzin may be literally bloodthirsty conquerers, but they don’t erase life from entire planets or cause suns to go nova like humans do- they’re not _crazy_. And let’s not forget the meddling of the Puppeteers, in both the human and the Kzin races. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2008, 8:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-fantasy-where-the-humans-are-a-good-and-b-tough/466635/35 "2008-10-07T08:40:19Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#): > > Yes, this certainly seems like Turtledove’s story (it’s “The Road Not Taken” actually) HA! No wonder I couldn’t find anything other than blog posts about it. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2008, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-fantasy-where-the-humans-are-a-good-and-b-tough/466635/36 "2008-10-07T21:38:36Z")
> [@Hunter\_Hawk](#): > > Good point. And now that you mention it, that’s also an explicit plot hook in the “Pandora’s Legion” stories by Christopher Anvil. The Anvil stories are really a nice subversion of the idea - Humans are on average smarter (more likely to come up with clever and convincing new ideas) than the aliens but still get conquered by the aliens, and the story is told from the POV of the aliens, with the humans as a problem to be solved ---
**Author:** ![A\_shameful\_cracka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ebca7d/32.png) [@A\_shameful\_cracka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/A_shameful_cracka)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2008, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-fantasy-where-the-humans-are-a-good-and-b-tough/466635/37 "2008-10-07T22:03:07Z")
In “The High Crusade” by Poul Anderson, Earth is invaded by aliens in the 14th century and their first landing is near an encampment of crusaders. They get their butts kicked, and the humans take over their spaceship and end up taking over their entire empire. The humans weren’t ever able to find their way back to Earth, and when mankind finally explores space on their own, they are surprised to find a space empire ruled by the descendents of the crusaders. In the “WorldWar” books by Harry Turtledove, humans are bigger, tougher, and smarter than the aliens that invade Earth in 1943, and despite the aliens having more advanced technology (not TOO much more advanced, though, their technology stagnated at an early 21st century level) are able to fight them off well enough that the aliens are forced into a truce. I’m not sure if the humans qualify as “good” though - the aliens are pretty benevolent invaders and there are a lot of nasty humans. ---
**Author:** ![A\_shameful\_cracka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ebca7d/32.png) [@A\_shameful\_cracka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/A_shameful_cracka)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2008, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-fantasy-where-the-humans-are-a-good-and-b-tough/466635/38 "2008-10-07T22:08:03Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Alan Dean Foster’s _The Damned_ trilogy comes to mind. We, as it happens, are the the only species that fights wars among itself. We aren’t the best at any one thing ( save fighting ), but are the best generalists. We are both tough and strong - there’s a scene in the first book where a human helps an alien Masood soldier over a railing and injures the Masood’s wrist by accident ( the human in question being an artist and a pacifist by the way, not some buffed muscleman ). And the more timid races find us intimidating; “She tried to ignore the fact that the human’s eyes burned. She knew he couldn’t help it.” And to top it off, if the enemy, the mind controlling Amplitur try to control us, _Something Bad_ wakes up in our subconscious, reaches down the mindlink and fries their brain. I remember those - I think the premise was that Earth was a very unusual planet, no other world with life on it was as radioactive or dense. All the other races were used to relatively low gravity and very stable, non-competitive ecosystems with a slow rate of evolution. To the average alien, humans frequently move so quickly that they can’t see the motion - when we run, our legs are a blur, when we move our arms quickly, it just seems like our fist went from being at our sides to being imbedded in their torso. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2008, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-fantasy-where-the-humans-are-a-good-and-b-tough/466635/39 "2008-10-07T22:16:19Z")
> [@A\_shameful\_cracka](#): > > I remember those - I think the premise was that Earth was a very unusual planet, no other world with life on it was as radioactive or dense. It’s been a while, but I recall them being surprised at the extreme climates and huge amount of tectonic activity. Until they found Earth, they’d never imagined that such a world could even support life. To the aliens, Earth was a “hell planet.” ---
**Author:** ![Rapier42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/90db22/32.png) [@Rapier42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rapier42)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2008, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-fantasy-where-the-humans-are-a-good-and-b-tough/466635/40 "2008-10-07T22:30:50Z")
> [@StarvingButStrong](#): > > How about the “Man-Kzin Wars” tales (Niven as editor and sometimes writer)? The whole point of those is that humans are better at war than the Kzin, mostly due to sneakiness and ability to out-think them. > > Not that the humans are overwhelmingly ‘good’, but since it’s set up that the Kin are the aggressors and humanity on the defense… I don’t think it qualifies. Ringworld and Engineers makes it clear that humanity needed Puppeteer/Outsider support to win the Man-Kzin wars. Without the Outsiders FTL drive, mankind becomes another Kzin slave race. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-fantasy-where-the-humans-are-a-good-and-b-tough/466635.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-fantasy-where-the-humans-are-a-good-and-b-tough/466635.md?page=3)