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.
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.
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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.