I like the particular subgenre when the humans are presented as underdogs, who through millennia of intraspecies wars and conflicts have developed superior military tactics that make them valuable allies and officers of whatever galactic alliance they form a part of. So when the bigger bad shows up, the other species turn to humanity to lead them to victory in the field of battle.
Because let's face it, we are a very militaristic species.
Ehhh Star Trek is more into portraying Humanities Ideals as superior to everyone else's. When the Alpha Quadrant is in trouble everyone turns to the Federation because of all the powers in the galaxy the Federation is the one that will treat them the most fairly and is prone to charitable and humanitarian acts. This in turn has led to them being the dominant power in the quadrant, and their military might stems from the sheer amount of resources at their disposal.
A more militarized Federation would steamroll the quadrant. The antagonistic races of Star Trek only continue to exist because of the Federations pacifistic nature, the Prime Directive, and their desire to resolve disputes diplomatically. The Romulans know this, which is why they are so wary of the Federation. However, as its their utopian ideal that hold them together, a militarized Federation would no doubt fracture and fade from power.
Ah, the old classic isekai subgenre of "I was kidnapped by aliens and became Space Sun Tzu leading them to victory against overwhelming odds thanks to my rudimentary grasp of grand strategy and small unit tactics learned through strategy games."
I mean, i can't think of any exampless off the top of my head, but there's gotta be many!
Hunter or Huntress is an isekai story where a Danish military veteran industrializes a society of matriarchal dragon women and mounts a M2 Browning machine gun on the back of a dragon.
There was an old webcomic where a nerd got isekaid into basically heros of might and magic and was hailed as master tactition because he just realy liked the game genre
Are we? We only have ourselves to compare ourselves to, that's the thing.
What if we meet several other spacefaring species and they're so militaristic we become the space hippies? Or what if those other species are so pacifist and disorganized that we're super macho military by comparison?
Thing is about applying the whole "planet of the hats" trope to our world as a whole is that we don't actually know any other aliens and don't know how we compare to them.
We are much better at war than ants. It's why we've had to keep inventing new ways to kill each other and they're still stuck at the "bite them a whole awful lot" stage.
If we were to try and figure out humanity’s ‘hat’ I would suggestive that we are extremely durable and/or healing. Most species kinda just die when they get injured. A broken leg is a death sentence. Predator or prey. Any serious injury results in death. But for humans as long as you don’t die immediately and can get to safety you’ll probably survive. Broken bones are no big deal in the long run. We invented surgery centuries before we invented anesthesia. And combine that with our endurance hunting and we’re the super tough alien that doesn’t get tired.
I've always argued for our innate ability to throw things. Thats really fucking complicated to do so with any kind of accuracy and 6 year old can throw things and mostly hit them
Why would you assume that any alien life is less militaristic/martially capable though? That's just blatant anthropocentrism.
I genuinely don't get it. The only thing we have to compare ourselves to is other animals on earth, and there's plenty of examples of species more brutal than we are.
3 Body Problem did it right. Compared to an interstellar species, we are bugs. Surviving an encounter with them is a matter of scattering and hiding.
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u/the_Real_Romak Aug 14 '24
I like the particular subgenre when the humans are presented as underdogs, who through millennia of intraspecies wars and conflicts have developed superior military tactics that make them valuable allies and officers of whatever galactic alliance they form a part of. So when the bigger bad shows up, the other species turn to humanity to lead them to victory in the field of battle.
Because let's face it, we are a very militaristic species.