Those poor humans

[Asperion]

We have lots of stories where humans are if not the dominate race out there (it feeds our ego) then at least on equal footing with the aliens. The list for either one would go on for several pages. I got wondering reciently about the reverse of the firest: if humnans are in an inferior position among the aliens and everythinbg that humans do gets laughs from their alien overlords, but for some reason the alien keeps the human around. Of course the alien will have some aches heal that the humans will eventually learn and exploit.

[Lucius]

Sounds like most fantasy role playing campaigns I've been around lately.

"Aches heal?" You mean the aliens have good medical technology and heal all their aches?

Lucius Alexander

Why does the palindromedary look so amused?

[GoldenAge]

Titan AE takes this kind of approach.

[Lord Liaden]

David Brin's "Uplift" novel series takes this view. In his cosmos almost all civilized species are the products of genetic modification to raise them to sapience, with the passing down of technologies from the past to them, by their "patrons." Humanity is the exception, having been unknown to the galactic community until we went out to the stars on our own, and with no known patrons who uplifted us.

Humans are viewed with a mixture of contempt for our sometimes-inferior technology, and our lack of powerful allies; yet also grudging respect, and even fear, for our independence.

[Starcloud]

Not exactly, but there's the League of Peoples universe from James Alan Gardner. Humans aren't on top. They're not even close to on top. They're not exactly pets, but they are very low on the ranking scale.

[L. Marcus]

"Aches heal?" You mean the aliens have good medical technology and heal all their aches?

I'm guessing "Achilles' heel". ^^

[Manic Typist]

Actually, I feel like there's a lot of sci-fi out there where aliens are contemptuous of humans, and humans don't really seem all that powerful or even necessarily equal.

[Ranxerox]

When I read the title of this thread, I thought it was going to be about the how racial package deals tend make every other species superior to humans. In Hero the PCs can use the points that they didn't spend on the racial package deal, but the rank and file humanity with a cost of zero is pretty much inferior to virtually every fantasy and science fiction race out there.

Since that is what this thread is about, I don't know why I'm bringing it up except that it is a pet peeve of mine and I gripe about it when I can.

[Bloodstone]

Actually, I feel like there's a lot of sci-fi out there where aliens are contemptuous of humans, and humans don't really seem all that powerful or even necessarily equal.

Well, you see it a lot in comics too, where "alien" is often just a good origin for someones powers

As such, we tend to have more superior aliens like Superman than we do humans elevated like John Carter of Mars.

[John T]

Well, you see it a lot in comics too, where "alien" is often just a good origin for someones powers

As such, we tend to have more superior aliens like Superman than we do humans elevated like John Carter of Mars.

Speaking of which:

[Christopher]

I got wondering reciently about the reverse of the firest: if humnans are in an inferior position among the aliens and everythinbg that humans do gets laughs from their alien overlords, but for some reason the alien keeps the human around. Of course the alien will have some aches heal that the humans will eventually learn and exploit.

Why did nobody mentioned it so far? Stargate! It has all these elements.
The bad guys just always were to busy fighting amongs themself/afraid of the asgard/afraid of the Ancient Droneweapon (except for certain episode where they always were beaten with the tech the humans "just got" and a lot of heroic action).

In a way most apocalypse settigns would fit.
Most "aliens where out there long before us" scenarios have the humans at a disadvantage at first.

[Badger]

Well, there is Battlefield: Earth (if your constitution can stand it)

[Folded]

I think it was Greg Bear who wrote them, but I can't remember the series or any of the titles. Machine cultures come through and destroy earth in the first book, and the remnants of humanity end up living (literally) like the rats in the walls of their ships.

Arthur C. Clarke hit this a couple of times, at least, with Childhood's End, and the Rama books, not to mention 2001 and its sequels. Spider Robinson's Stardancer series does it, but the aliens are mostly in the background.

[Xavier Onassiss]

Greg Bear wrote a couple of books called Forge of God and Anvil of Stars. In the first book, Earth is destroyed in war between rival groups of von Neumann machines. In the second book, one faction saves a few humans, trains them and equips them to fight in the war.

[sinanju]

Kevin O'Donell Jr. (I think) wrote a novel in which the human star-faring culture is fighting a war for survival against an overpowering, ruthless enemy. Turns out, they're just using us to give their newbies troops a little experience before sending them out to fight the REAL enemy, which is slaughtering them wholesale. The human-slaughtering bad guys are the only thing between us and the REALLY bad guys....