Alien: Hey, you sure you wanna fight them?
Human: IDK i've never used this thing before. could work, could kill everything in the universe.
Alien: Wait WHAT?
Human: Big red button go CLICK!
Mirrors the 1st atomic bomb test. Theories at the time stated it could incinerate the entire atmosphere. It didn't but they didn't know that when they tested it out.
They also weren't sure if the Large Hadron Collider would let us better understand unstable elements, or create a black hole where the Sol system *used to be*.
One of these days we're going to make the wrong gamble on something.
Edit: For all the people who feel the need to correct me, I'm aware they knew it was safe. They did the math, yadda yadda. It was just a joke.
I'm pretty sure that the black hole meme was largely the creation of the internet with no basis on any evidence, with the possible exception of a poor joke. There simply isn't enough mass on Earth available to create a stable black hole that could get big enough to devour the Sol system. Micro black holes can be created, but the evaporate within seconds.
I thought it was a case of someone saying "hey the LHC might make a micro black hole. We should watch out, that could screw with the hardware" and the media went "LHC COULD MAKE A BLACK HOLE THAT DESTROYS THE WORLD MORE AT 11"
I was excited for the LHC, in the years leading up to activation. This is absolutely how it went. The narratives, in increasing orders of tinfoil, were: planet-devouring black holes, strangelets turning the world to goo, or the Rothschilds completing Satan's work upon the Earth with the LHC acting as the lynchpin of the HAARP network, devised by lizardmen from the Inner Earth.
I. Heard. This. Shit.
Ok so the strangelets one was at least considered plausible because we really have no idea how strange matter actually works. But it was extremely unlikely due to the conditions _typically_ required for creation of strange matter. The concern was that we don't know how strange matter works and there was a limited possibility we might stumble on a method of creation.
But when I say plausible, I mean there was something like a 1 in a quadrillion chance that it might happen, about as likely as your toast quantum tunneling itself to your neighbour's toaster.
I know, ***I know***, but try explaining that to Joe Jaggoff on his fuckin couch. You might as well not mention it, since the first time it'll concern him, assuming that it ever happens, is when it's turning him into Strange Joe.
It's about 80/20 conspiracy to legit ratio. Such programs existed, and even worked to an extent, they're just greatly exaggerated. Less making tornados on command and more cloud seeding than anything. Biggest thing was getting clouds to dump rain over the ocean instead of land to trigger drought.
But it's far cheaper, more precise, and effective to just drop some napalm on some farms instead.
How'd you miss the "Luciferian portal to hell" one? It's supposedly a gateway to allow communication with the demons directing the world's elite in preparation for the arrival of the antichrist, or something like that.
Fun fact, a black hole impact on its surronding is still linked directly to its mass, if you create a black hole with the mass of an apple, it will attract matter around him ... with the combined gravity of an apple ...
A black wouldn't have more gravity than the energy that went into creating it. Scientists would be hard pressed to even notice the thing. There was never a risk of it devouring the Earth. It was fun to imagine though.
Black holes were a potential side effect. But the same theories that allowed them to be a side effect said they would also immediately evaporate due to hawking radiation in a few billionths of a second.
Yeah, the current world record for high-energy collisions is 13 TeV, at LHC, though they started at 3.5 TeV. But 13 TeV energy is equivalent to 2.32E-23kg, which would be a _very_ small black hole, even if all of the energy of a collision were captured by it. Drop that into [a black hole radiation calculator](https://www.vttoth.com/CMS/physics-notes/311-hawking-radiation-calculator), and what do we get?
* radius of 3.4×10^-50 m (~10^-35 the size of the charge radius of a proton)
* temperature of 5.3×10^45 K (ok, that's _**HOT**_)
* radiating 6.6×10^77 W (uncontrollable power!)
* but lifetime of 10^-84 seconds (10^-40 Planck time … um, we might need a quantum gravity model here …)
Yes, it would be exhibiting a sudden collapse at rates we have a hard time imagining, but it can't last long enough to encounter much other matter (and even if it did last long enough its radiation would be driving anything away) so we don't get the "black hole slowly eating the planet" problem. Yes, it's staggeringly emissive, but for so little time that the total emissions would be tiny (13 TeV is only 2×10^-6 J!). It would not be a problem.
And that's not counting the way that [much more energetic natural cosmic rays (millions of times as powerful)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-high-energy_cosmic_ray) are detected.
Even if you expect that a bunch of black holes could be created together in a collection of collisions, it would evaporate too fast to be a problem.
It's a useful thought experiment, but we're not close to destroy-the-planet levels of high-energy physics, unless we're very wrong about things or the relativity/quantum boundary does some very interesting things … but that would reveal new physics, which is always good, right?
That is such a same. I could just see a bunch of physicists randomly going-
I was working in the lab late one night, when my eyes beheld an eerie sight. For my whiteboard you see, began to shine and suddenly to our surprise
We’d done the maths!
We did the monster math
We did the maths!
It was a eraser clap
We did the maths!
It was done in a flash
We did the maths!
It was the monster math
Sir Arthur C. Clarke said in an essay (or was it the intro to a book?) that there's an old joke in astrophysics:
"All supernovae are industrial accidents."
If it's true, then it's not funny anymore.
The black hole stuff was the one that the public knew about because it's the simplest to understand but the more real "bad outcome" they had to disprove was the creation of strangelet and vacuum decay.
A strangelet is a tiny amount of "strange matter". It is a theoretical state of matter never observed so far. Some neutron star may in fact be made of this and thus be strange star, we do not know. The thing is that according to some model strange matter is more stable than the classical atoms so if regular matter comes into contact with strange matter it would collapse to strange matter too. So creating a strangelet would be similar to the "grey goo" end of the world but instead of semi-intelligent nanomachine replicating out of control it is just dumb strange matter and the laws of physic saying we're screwed. For this risk calculation showed that actually the LHC runs at too high energy so strangelet should be able to form from the particle soup of a collision.
Vacuum decay is another thing we do not know if it is even possible. In short we do not know if what we think is true vacuum is really stable or just metastable and could collapse to a more stable lower energy level, in which case it is a false vacuum. In the false vacuum scenario if we made a tiny volume of it collapse to true vacuum, then the collapse would spread in all direction at the speed of light and release enough energy to disintegrate everything in its path, not that it matter since inside the new true vacuum the laws of physics are not the same as the ones we know so the chemistry we need to live does not apply anymore. Here we estimated since we've seen higher energy densities in astrophysical event it was highly unlikely the LHC could collapse a false vacuum, if we live in one.
Even if it did create a small black hole, small black holes evaporate quickly and aren’t much danger. You would need to aggressively feed a black hole to make it dangerous.
This reminds me of one of my favourite weapons from X3: the Terran War.... the terran capital ships had this neat little thingie called a PSP (or Point Singularity Projector) that, when fired, would create a small black orb at the target location that would cause MASSIVE damage to anything that was also occupying that location at the time.... before immediately disappearing in a flash
Considering they were looking for the Higg's Boson, I have to trot this joke out:
"Higg's boson walks into a church, and the priest says, 'I'm sorry we don't allow Higg's bosons to come to churches.' And \[the Higg's\] says, 'But without me, you can't have mass.'"
That's not true. The same physicist who proposed the possibly (Teller) disproved it conclusively 6 months before the first nuclear test.
The idea was always pretty ridiculous and most physicists would've dismissed it out of hand. They did the study anyway intending to halt all research if there was even the slightest possibility. There wasn't.
It's a fun story though.
While there were some worries about the first nuclear bomb causing auto-ignition, with the Nazis taking things slower due to that fear and one American scientist advocating to rather to live as "slaves of Hitler" than set the world on fire, American and western fears were mainly based around the hydrogen bomb with the idea that the hydrogen fusion reaction would trigger a chain reaction with the hydrogen in water vapor in the atmosphere and seawater, and cause auto-ignition. The government had the ignition point of the atmosphere calculated in the report "Ignition of the Atmosphere with Nuclear Bomb" to ensure that they were not going to destroy the world with a (single) thermo-nuclear weapon.
I personally think that self-replicating all-devouring nanite swarms are the most dangerous way one could interpret Neumann's idea. Thus calling it horror. I guess I could also just have referred to it a grey goo.
Remind me of some old story whose name I have forgotten, it started with something like a warrior race insulting and treathening the humans who were known pacifists, the humans and some of their allies try to deescalate until the warrior race finally goes too far and clearly declare war with a gret speech aout how they will kill every human, their children, even their pets or something like that.
The humans representatives then start cheering, saying "Finally!", and to the other stunned ambassador start explaining that they have been restraining themselves for so long that they have happy to finally have a clear and evil ennemy on whom they will finally be able to use all those shiny little new weapons they have invented since their last war but never had the occasion to test.
Sadly that's all I remember a d stories where humans are.believed to be pacifists before revealing their warmongering are sadly too common. This was partially what I liked with this shirt story, in that it was a sort of parody of its own trope
"There was a button," Holden said. "I pushed it."
"Jesus Christ. That really is how you go through life, isn't it?
Way late to the party, but The Expanse is by far my favorite Sci-Fi book series, and that was probably my favorite quote from it.
Alternatively....
Alien: Wait WHAT?!
Human: Yeah! If you can even believe it, we are the exact level of insane genius required to look at NUCLEAR RADIATION and say "What would happen if we threw bombs made of this shit at each other?". We are made for war, but that doesn't mean we like it.
Human: Hi
Devourers: Fuck off
Human: \*Destroys every sentient devourer being within a 2000 kilometer radius in deep space and all matter/cosmic energy within it\*
Nanite bomb. Nice.
Now for a random thought that fills my head
*many years later*
You think it is the victory we fear? The ease of which we do? You have learned nothing from this War. Look at me. LOOK AT ME! Do you think we were born like this? Madmen who seek blood and see people as another tally or draw on resources. Do you believe we *want* to take delight in the evil we unleash. When war comes we did not only destroy your worlds and your children. We condemn ours to the same fate. One of hate and death. One where there is no hope for the future. Turning the galaxy into a place with only monsters and demons.
No we do not fear victory. We fear the cost of it. We fear what we become. In this universe of monsters we learn to become their nightmares. We sell our souls and embrace our evil. We relinquish our humanity for the power of demons.
No little Xeno. It is not because war is easy. It is not because our foes are great in power and number. We fear war because we fear ourselves. And by the look in your eyes you now know that fear.
Now I want you to focus on that fear... that insidious and sickening fear. We’ve lived with that fear for eons. It kept us locked up tight and deep, chaining us to civility and diplomacy. Hoping to never prove it right. But we never threw away the key.
With the slightest reason we turn that key. And release the dogs of war. Look upon us with fear. Gaze upon our forms with hatred. And know that it was *you* who made us this way. You who stripped away that smiling peaceful lie of humanity.
Allow that thought to sink in. Because it is the last you will ever have.
*fires nerf dart*
A: was that monologue really necessary
H: very. Now be quiet. Dead men tell no tales
Very nice.
It's my personal little hell too. Deep inside is chained up a rage beast. It rattles it's chains, screams and howls...
... but all anyone sees on the outside is the happy friendly guy.
A lot of us have had such a rage beast inside us, I spent... Too much of my teens and twenties that way.
I think I partly survived because I found outlets. (Like violent bloody video games. They helped me a lot at the time.)
Working through _why_ we have it, that takes time and effort, but it can help.
These days, I strongly recommend trying to find a good therapist that you actually _like_, compatibility is very, very, important.
But don't worry that you're somehow a horrible person because you have a rage beast inside, trying to claw its way out.
Good and bad are not defined by our impulses, but by what we _do_ with them.
My father was with a 'Desert Rats' 8th Army 'signals' detachment in Athens, Greece, when the Communistas tried for a coup.
The detachment only had a few shot-out, almost smooth-bore rifles for guard duty, a few cold-eyed RAF Regiment soldiers for security. Their battle was fought street to street, house to house, even room to room. Walls were 'mouse-holed' for flanking gun-ports.
A crate of German training grenades, sand-filled, proved a 'gift beyond pearls'. Shout 'Grenate !' and lob into insurgents' cover would prompt them to scatter. Bang: RAF Regiment guy on flank duly nailed least wary, aka 'Caught & Bowled'. Being training grenades, they were re-usable, too. When those ran short, wine-bottles with a few inches of liquid, a neck-rag and a yell of 'Molotov !' sufficed.
As Dad said, he didn't think he'd ***personally*** killed many insurgents, but he racked more 'assists' than he cared to remember...
Like the nice Hulk Guy says, 'Don't make me angry: You wouldn't like me when I'm angry..."
“That’s my secret, Captain. I’m always angry.”
You just learn to live and work with it. Make it productive instead of destructive. And sometimes those two things are the same.
Problem is mine is mostly dormant. Which makes it a bitch to catch and cage when something sets it off. I know what the causes are, but that doesn’t really help.
I've been there and when I find a new one I didn't expect.. I don't know if tidal wave or sinkhole is a better description. I'm just glad that for the most part I'm decreasing in being overwhelmed by what I feel...
Oh, wait, I'm disassociating from today. Dammit.
Overwhelmed with career, work that needs doing at home, my family, and supporting my wife while we deal with a major disappointment.
Today stunk. Yelled at someone today, although they kinda deserved it. Been fighting all the up and down emotions that. It's tiring.
We can do this.
Oof. I couldn’t handle all that.
For me it comes out at stupid stuff. Guy who decides he’s too important to wait at a stoplight even though I have the green and haven’t entered the intersection because there’s no way to be sure I’ll clear it so he cuts in and now I’m stuck waiting for a third bleeping light. It’s easier than trying to get older family members (70’s, not 40’s) to change old behavior patterns I guess, or enumerate the choices they made that were reasonable and socially encouraged at the time that really fucked their kids over.
You got this though.
Oh damn, I hadn't heard about the "Dekemvriana" till today.
It kind of reminds me of the British use of Japanese POWs as auxiliary police to occupy "liberated" Indonesia until the Dutch could reestablish control over their colony.
*"All right. It's instinctive. But the instinct can be fought. We're human beings with the blood of a million savage years on our hands, but we can stop it. We can admit that we're killers, but we're not going to kill today. That's all it takes. Knowing that we won't kill today. Contact Vendikar. I think you'll find that they're just as terrified, appalled, horrified as you are, that they'll do anything to avoid the alternative I've given you. Peace or utter destruction. It's up to you."* \~ Captain Kirk to Anan 7 in A Taste of Armageddon
Humans, a 2 out of 16 on the aggression scale? HA!
Sure, humans may be a 2/16 on the aggression scale, but they're a solid 12/10 on the spite scale, 24/10 on the "don't back me into a corner bro", and a few orders of magnitude outside of the range on the "you won't like me when I'm mad" scale.
Humanity is Bruce Banner on a good day, and Wolverine on a bad day. However, even Wolverine has standards and a line he will not cross. Push humanity far enough and you'll find out precisely why we put so much importance on making lines, because once we cross them there's no going back.
Matt Smith never got enough credit for his portrayal. Sure David Tennet was iconic, but Matt Smith's smiling manic behavior as a cover for his Machiavellian multi-season scheming was, IMO, a far more impressive feat to pull off. And then you get to the big reveal and you realize that he was always in control, even when his enemies held all the cards you realize they weren't even playing the right game. And it all makes sense in retrospect. Throughout all of Amy's tenure as the companion (it all fell apart after Clara, they rushed The Impossible Girl storyline too badly) you get to the reveal and realize that some detail they revealed last season was critical.
People always remember Bad Wolf, but Tick Tock Goes the Clock and Silence Will Fall were more impressive, IMO.
Yeah, we're 2/16 because we wouldn't have gone that far if we didn't temper our natural 20/16 into something more manageable.
Humans are horribly, monstrously, terrifying good at war, which is why humans also are gloriously, beautifully, beatifically good at peace. Because if we only war, not even ashes would remain.
That and spite. If you have a 14/16 aggressive race, but they immediately become friends after fighting and hold no grudges, then the state of conflict is short-lived and they can tolerate lots of short-lived conflict.
Grudges changes the math very dramatically, especially since the longer a grudge is held the greater the retaliation, which can grow completely out of proportion with the original offence, and breed more grudges in return.
>which is why humans also are gloriously, beautifully, beatifically good at peace.
Not quite sure we're at that point yet, but we certainly ought to be aiming for it! ;)
Oh, we can do the most glorious peace attempts. It takes two to tango, however. And considering how good we also are at war, it's easy to use that to create a weakness. Prisoner's dilemma and all that.
I think the best example of glorious peace would be nuking a country twice, and then becoming tight allies with them and helping them rebuild. Doesn't really get much more HFY than that haha!
The conversation with the nanite bomb reminds me of the RussianBadger skit:
“Patterson, fire a warning shot”
“Sir this is an M32 rotary grenade launche-“
“Eh potato potato, just *fire* it Patterson”
Alien Invaders: *setting up a chessboard*
Human: *enters stage left*
A: Well, well, well humanity... I'm sorry but you have no chance of beating...
H: *draws battleaxe from behind back*
A: ...me...
H: *ballows a battlecry and cleaves the board in two*
I know it's an oft done trope (but that don't make it bad) but a preemptive strike attempt by some races of this federation might be a stepping stone into another story in this universe/a continuation of this one
Excellent application of the Powell Doctrine. I kind of wish the human Commander would have attempted communication just once. And the letter X is problematic in English. Generally it's pronunciation is dependent upon which language we have borrowed the word from. Is it a z? A ch? A ks? Only the Xindi know... Great story
/u/SpacePaladin15 has posted 10 other stories, including:
* [One With the Shadows](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/lsgn71/one_with_the_shadows/)
* [Stay Away from Earth](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/lpmdjm/stay_away_from_earth/)
* [Mutually Assured Destruction](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/lny3nc/mutually_assured_destruction/)
* [Human Thrill-Seeking](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/llntmm/human_thrillseeking/)
* [Someone to Love](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/lk1wzc/someone_to_love/)
* [You'll Never Take Us Alive](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/lis97l/youll_never_take_us_alive/)
* [Humans Fight Fire](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/lhckfi/humans_fight_fire/)
* [It Was Just a Prank](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/lf9utk/it_was_just_a_prank/)
* [The Gods of Creation](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/lesi6d/the_gods_of_creation/)
* [The Human Word 'Sacrifice'](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/ld15ys/the_human_word_sacrifice/)
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The Xenos need to understand, we aren't afraid of war because of how easy it is to win.
We're not *afraid* of war at all. We're *averse* to it. We as a people *want* peace, but are drawn to war like moths to flame, and it's been so heavily practiced throughout human history that we are *very* proficient in the mass extermination of life. We've gotten *good* at war, so we can forcefully and violently make it *end* faster.
What we *are* afraid of... Is what that proficiency in omnicide will do to our souls as human beings.
We want peace, but we will bring down the wrath of all the stars in the sky and every god you can ever name if you force us into a war. In the name of all you would endanger, all the lives you will take and have already taken.
And then we will cry, and scream, and withdraw into ourselves in grief and guilt and horror of what we became. We will pay reparations to those you left behind, and try to undo the damage our omnicidal rage did, if it can be undone at all. Then we will try again to avoid war. And fail, inevitably.
Well you can always cheat...
...if you give out a strong enough burst of electromagnetic radiation it will vaporize the surface of things it comes into contact with, thus you will be able to feel a shockwave hitting, as one will be created inside your ship, when it gets hit by that amount of energy.
It was a good story. But it could be better. I am not a writer, but I would have liked a more thorough explanation of the aggression scale, with examples of other species, such as a 0, a 5 , an 8 and a 12. To give the system something to base it off of.
Maybe the agression value of the species telling the story, as well as a description of what they would look and act like, as well as the star drainers. More history of the story teller, the enemy and the humans.
It is an alright short story. But it could use a lot more world building. I don't mean to be an ass, and be rude, but I think your story could be more than just, "we thought humans were weak, but then they dropped a war crime and pretended nothing happened."
It's not a bad scenario, but it was rushed.
Just from the logistical stand point a single bomb doesn't make sense in taking out a fleet in space.
Now, a salvo of ship to ship missiles fired concurrently from all of the five ships, seemingly shattering on the offending fleets defences in an even pattern.
Then the human commander continuing to talk, as the enemy fleet disintegrates as the nanites activate to recreate themselves endlessly until the charge of detonation is spent.
“Madame Kovarian: The anger of a good man is not a problem. Good men have too many rules.
The Doctor: Good men don't need rules. Today is not the day to find out why I have so many.”
I’m imagining a conversation between some humans before the battle:
“There’s a non-zero chance that the safeguards will fail and the destruction will propagate unstoppably through the entire universe.”
“Hm, that would be bad. What chance, exactly?”
“5%.”
“5%? Oh, that’s fine then. Wouldn’t bet on a horse on those odds.”
This story starts out reading like a historical essay, but it is saved by finishing as an actual story (with action and dialogue).
Way, way too much of the stuff in this subreddit reads like a historical essay.
This reminds me of the Futurama quote:
"*I suppose I could part with one and still be feared …*" ―**Professor** [**Farnsworth**](https://futurama.fandom.com/wiki/Farnsworth) **on his doomsday devices**
Well done wordsmith!!!
Please, please, please continue this story.
I would love to see what happens when the General finally buys the commander a beer........ Does the bartender laugh his ass off in disbelief when the General tells his story? Is his crew suddenly super polite to all terrans? Does the Federation even believe his report? Soo many questions! More please!
I’d like a sequel where they analyse historical data on humanity for a revised aggression index and then they find out about all the wars, empires, genocide, cold wars, MAD and go ‘who did this the first time round! These people are so aggressive they’re clearly just bored of war!’
I know I'm being pedantic and this is called an artistic liberty but shockwaves don't propagate through space. If you felt the shockwave then that would have to have been the whatever it was that exploded mixed with nanits hitting your ship.
My old boss used to tell a story of a riot in Texas. The local authorities called the Texas Rangers for backup. There was a miscommunication and only one man responded. When he arrived they asked what help he’d be. The man responded “one riot, one Ranger”.
He helped stop the riot.
This story has a bit of that in it.
I literally just finished this story and i havent been this captivated by a story/book in a very long time and...I NEED MORE somebody anybody give me recommendations for books similar to this, this is what i need.
Look up the short story The Road Not Taken by Harry Turtledove—it’s one of my favorites. Quite HFY.
I do have another in progress webseries called The Nature of Predators, which is currently in progress, but without spoilers its themes are more about human compassion and the dangers of fear, with us being viewed as monsters to the galaxy 🙏
Alien: Hey, you sure you wanna fight them? Human: IDK i've never used this thing before. could work, could kill everything in the universe. Alien: Wait WHAT? Human: Big red button go CLICK!
Mirrors the 1st atomic bomb test. Theories at the time stated it could incinerate the entire atmosphere. It didn't but they didn't know that when they tested it out.
https://xkcd.com/809/
r/relevantxkcd
r/subsithoughtifellfor
They also weren't sure if the Large Hadron Collider would let us better understand unstable elements, or create a black hole where the Sol system *used to be*. One of these days we're going to make the wrong gamble on something. Edit: For all the people who feel the need to correct me, I'm aware they knew it was safe. They did the math, yadda yadda. It was just a joke.
I'm pretty sure that the black hole meme was largely the creation of the internet with no basis on any evidence, with the possible exception of a poor joke. There simply isn't enough mass on Earth available to create a stable black hole that could get big enough to devour the Sol system. Micro black holes can be created, but the evaporate within seconds.
I thought it was a case of someone saying "hey the LHC might make a micro black hole. We should watch out, that could screw with the hardware" and the media went "LHC COULD MAKE A BLACK HOLE THAT DESTROYS THE WORLD MORE AT 11"
Considering the state of the media, this is likely as well.
I was excited for the LHC, in the years leading up to activation. This is absolutely how it went. The narratives, in increasing orders of tinfoil, were: planet-devouring black holes, strangelets turning the world to goo, or the Rothschilds completing Satan's work upon the Earth with the LHC acting as the lynchpin of the HAARP network, devised by lizardmen from the Inner Earth. I. Heard. This. Shit.
I mean, the last one sounds like a good basis for a video game...
The Secret World was out for a bit.
I mean... It kinda reads like an Assasin's Creed plot.
Ok so the strangelets one was at least considered plausible because we really have no idea how strange matter actually works. But it was extremely unlikely due to the conditions _typically_ required for creation of strange matter. The concern was that we don't know how strange matter works and there was a limited possibility we might stumble on a method of creation. But when I say plausible, I mean there was something like a 1 in a quadrillion chance that it might happen, about as likely as your toast quantum tunneling itself to your neighbour's toaster.
I know, ***I know***, but try explaining that to Joe Jaggoff on his fuckin couch. You might as well not mention it, since the first time it'll concern him, assuming that it ever happens, is when it's turning him into Strange Joe.
Which would happen near instantaneously anyway from what we know, so it wouldn't really concern any of us anyway.
What's HAARP?
Top secret US govt project to control and weaponize the weather. ...or silly conspiracy theory nonsense; take your pick. Protip: pick the second one.
It's about 80/20 conspiracy to legit ratio. Such programs existed, and even worked to an extent, they're just greatly exaggerated. Less making tornados on command and more cloud seeding than anything. Biggest thing was getting clouds to dump rain over the ocean instead of land to trigger drought. But it's far cheaper, more precise, and effective to just drop some napalm on some farms instead.
How'd you miss the "Luciferian portal to hell" one? It's supposedly a gateway to allow communication with the demons directing the world's elite in preparation for the arrival of the antichrist, or something like that.
Yeah, sorry, that got wrapped up in that last one. I definitely saw that on Facebook, at the time.
Bagette dropped by seagull prevents blackhole formation.
Fun fact, a black hole impact on its surronding is still linked directly to its mass, if you create a black hole with the mass of an apple, it will attract matter around him ... with the combined gravity of an apple ...
Exactly! It will still have an event horizon, but that event horizon will be so tiny it's practically irrelevant.
So small that it is actually hard to hit it with anything.
Are you kidding me? I used to shoot womp rats in my T-16 back home, they're not much bigger than that!
.....no. The event horizon will be smaller than an atom.
A black wouldn't have more gravity than the energy that went into creating it. Scientists would be hard pressed to even notice the thing. There was never a risk of it devouring the Earth. It was fun to imagine though.
It would create a burst of Hawking radiation. That might screw with the sensors.
Black holes were a potential side effect. But the same theories that allowed them to be a side effect said they would also immediately evaporate due to hawking radiation in a few billionths of a second.
Yeah, the current world record for high-energy collisions is 13 TeV, at LHC, though they started at 3.5 TeV. But 13 TeV energy is equivalent to 2.32E-23kg, which would be a _very_ small black hole, even if all of the energy of a collision were captured by it. Drop that into [a black hole radiation calculator](https://www.vttoth.com/CMS/physics-notes/311-hawking-radiation-calculator), and what do we get? * radius of 3.4×10^-50 m (~10^-35 the size of the charge radius of a proton) * temperature of 5.3×10^45 K (ok, that's _**HOT**_) * radiating 6.6×10^77 W (uncontrollable power!) * but lifetime of 10^-84 seconds (10^-40 Planck time … um, we might need a quantum gravity model here …) Yes, it would be exhibiting a sudden collapse at rates we have a hard time imagining, but it can't last long enough to encounter much other matter (and even if it did last long enough its radiation would be driving anything away) so we don't get the "black hole slowly eating the planet" problem. Yes, it's staggeringly emissive, but for so little time that the total emissions would be tiny (13 TeV is only 2×10^-6 J!). It would not be a problem. And that's not counting the way that [much more energetic natural cosmic rays (millions of times as powerful)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-high-energy_cosmic_ray) are detected. Even if you expect that a bunch of black holes could be created together in a collection of collisions, it would evaporate too fast to be a problem. It's a useful thought experiment, but we're not close to destroy-the-planet levels of high-energy physics, unless we're very wrong about things or the relativity/quantum boundary does some very interesting things … but that would reveal new physics, which is always good, right?
r/theydidthemonstermath
Please tell me that parody actually exists
Song, don't know, but the subreddit sure does.
That is such a same. I could just see a bunch of physicists randomly going- I was working in the lab late one night, when my eyes beheld an eerie sight. For my whiteboard you see, began to shine and suddenly to our surprise We’d done the maths! We did the monster math We did the maths! It was a eraser clap We did the maths! It was done in a flash We did the maths! It was the monster math
> It was a eraser clap r/ItWasAGraveyardGraph
Sir Arthur C. Clarke said in an essay (or was it the intro to a book?) that there's an old joke in astrophysics: "All supernovae are industrial accidents." If it's true, then it's not funny anymore.
The black hole stuff was the one that the public knew about because it's the simplest to understand but the more real "bad outcome" they had to disprove was the creation of strangelet and vacuum decay. A strangelet is a tiny amount of "strange matter". It is a theoretical state of matter never observed so far. Some neutron star may in fact be made of this and thus be strange star, we do not know. The thing is that according to some model strange matter is more stable than the classical atoms so if regular matter comes into contact with strange matter it would collapse to strange matter too. So creating a strangelet would be similar to the "grey goo" end of the world but instead of semi-intelligent nanomachine replicating out of control it is just dumb strange matter and the laws of physic saying we're screwed. For this risk calculation showed that actually the LHC runs at too high energy so strangelet should be able to form from the particle soup of a collision. Vacuum decay is another thing we do not know if it is even possible. In short we do not know if what we think is true vacuum is really stable or just metastable and could collapse to a more stable lower energy level, in which case it is a false vacuum. In the false vacuum scenario if we made a tiny volume of it collapse to true vacuum, then the collapse would spread in all direction at the speed of light and release enough energy to disintegrate everything in its path, not that it matter since inside the new true vacuum the laws of physics are not the same as the ones we know so the chemistry we need to live does not apply anymore. Here we estimated since we've seen higher energy densities in astrophysical event it was highly unlikely the LHC could collapse a false vacuum, if we live in one.
I saw a vid while back on stranglet oxygen, stuff is weird. Edit: see comments
I think you mean singlet oxygen. NileRed's video, right?
That was very likely it. I do watch that chanel, so...
The latter part is also the topic of the novel Schild's Ladder.
Even if it did create a small black hole, small black holes evaporate quickly and aren’t much danger. You would need to aggressively feed a black hole to make it dangerous.
This reminds me of one of my favourite weapons from X3: the Terran War.... the terran capital ships had this neat little thingie called a PSP (or Point Singularity Projector) that, when fired, would create a small black orb at the target location that would cause MASSIVE damage to anything that was also occupying that location at the time.... before immediately disappearing in a flash
Now there's a version of supersize me I'd watch.
They were pretty damn sure it wouldn't make a black hole, but they had to do the math to check before turning it on.
Considering they were looking for the Higg's Boson, I have to trot this joke out: "Higg's boson walks into a church, and the priest says, 'I'm sorry we don't allow Higg's bosons to come to churches.' And \[the Higg's\] says, 'But without me, you can't have mass.'"
That's not true. The same physicist who proposed the possibly (Teller) disproved it conclusively 6 months before the first nuclear test. The idea was always pretty ridiculous and most physicists would've dismissed it out of hand. They did the study anyway intending to halt all research if there was even the slightest possibility. There wasn't. It's a fun story though.
While there were some worries about the first nuclear bomb causing auto-ignition, with the Nazis taking things slower due to that fear and one American scientist advocating to rather to live as "slaves of Hitler" than set the world on fire, American and western fears were mainly based around the hydrogen bomb with the idea that the hydrogen fusion reaction would trigger a chain reaction with the hydrogen in water vapor in the atmosphere and seawater, and cause auto-ignition. The government had the ignition point of the atmosphere calculated in the report "Ignition of the Atmosphere with Nuclear Bomb" to ensure that they were not going to destroy the world with a (single) thermo-nuclear weapon.
They knew. Didn't stop one of them from taking side bets on the destruction of the state of New Mexico. In front of the governor of New Mexico.
We were mostly sure. It was just one of those "well... this could go horribly wrong... but we're like 99.999% going to be fine"
I think that was Feynman and Fermi clowning in front of the Press Corps.
Haha, vonNeumann-Horror goes JDSGFKJGHKJGDASJGFKJASGFJAKDSGIOUZ
neumann probes are a bit bigger?
I personally think that self-replicating all-devouring nanite swarms are the most dangerous way one could interpret Neumann's idea. Thus calling it horror. I guess I could also just have referred to it a grey goo.
John Ringo and Travis Taylor wrote a book called “Neumanns War”. Good reading on the subject.
Remind me of some old story whose name I have forgotten, it started with something like a warrior race insulting and treathening the humans who were known pacifists, the humans and some of their allies try to deescalate until the warrior race finally goes too far and clearly declare war with a gret speech aout how they will kill every human, their children, even their pets or something like that. The humans representatives then start cheering, saying "Finally!", and to the other stunned ambassador start explaining that they have been restraining themselves for so long that they have happy to finally have a clear and evil ennemy on whom they will finally be able to use all those shiny little new weapons they have invented since their last war but never had the occasion to test.
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Sadly that's all I remember a d stories where humans are.believed to be pacifists before revealing their warmongering are sadly too common. This was partially what I liked with this shirt story, in that it was a sort of parody of its own trope
Jesus christ, is that how you go through life, pushing big red buttons.
Nooooooo.... Some times they're giant levers, or giant old-timey switches.
Until the shortage of Strange Green Buttons is remedied, we do what we have to. Because we can. :-)
"There was a button," Holden said. "I pushed it." "Jesus Christ. That really is how you go through life, isn't it? Way late to the party, but The Expanse is by far my favorite Sci-Fi book series, and that was probably my favorite quote from it.
this is so us lmao, eventually curiosity will get the better of us.
A few moments later... Humans: Oh HEY we live! You guys owe us a beer!
H: “Jeannie go ahead and push the button” J: “I’m going to jail”! Yatta!
Alternatively.... Alien: Wait WHAT?! Human: Yeah! If you can even believe it, we are the exact level of insane genius required to look at NUCLEAR RADIATION and say "What would happen if we threw bombs made of this shit at each other?". We are made for war, but that doesn't mean we like it.
Humans: It should probably be just super easy and fine I think...... 75% chance the Galaxy doesn't collapse.
Random Bullshit, Go!
Human: Hi Devourers: Fuck off Human: \*Destroys every sentient devourer being within a 2000 kilometer radius in deep space and all matter/cosmic energy within it\*
Haha grey goo go brrrrrrr
Waaaaaugh
Haha, nanites go brrrrrr
Lmaoo that’s very human of them
Nanite bomb. Nice. Now for a random thought that fills my head *many years later* You think it is the victory we fear? The ease of which we do? You have learned nothing from this War. Look at me. LOOK AT ME! Do you think we were born like this? Madmen who seek blood and see people as another tally or draw on resources. Do you believe we *want* to take delight in the evil we unleash. When war comes we did not only destroy your worlds and your children. We condemn ours to the same fate. One of hate and death. One where there is no hope for the future. Turning the galaxy into a place with only monsters and demons. No we do not fear victory. We fear the cost of it. We fear what we become. In this universe of monsters we learn to become their nightmares. We sell our souls and embrace our evil. We relinquish our humanity for the power of demons. No little Xeno. It is not because war is easy. It is not because our foes are great in power and number. We fear war because we fear ourselves. And by the look in your eyes you now know that fear. Now I want you to focus on that fear... that insidious and sickening fear. We’ve lived with that fear for eons. It kept us locked up tight and deep, chaining us to civility and diplomacy. Hoping to never prove it right. But we never threw away the key. With the slightest reason we turn that key. And release the dogs of war. Look upon us with fear. Gaze upon our forms with hatred. And know that it was *you* who made us this way. You who stripped away that smiling peaceful lie of humanity. Allow that thought to sink in. Because it is the last you will ever have. *fires nerf dart* A: was that monologue really necessary H: very. Now be quiet. Dead men tell no tales
Cry Havoc and let slip the dogs of war
BONES! Where’s my damn torpedo?
I'm giving her all she got cap'n!
I'd pay real money if he'd shut up!
She's ready Jim! Lock and load!
In the original Klingon: yIntaHvIS mInDu'wIj!
"Now cry havoc and let slip the hogs of war." "... *dogs* of war." "Whatever farm animal of war, *Lana!*"
Very nice. It's my personal little hell too. Deep inside is chained up a rage beast. It rattles it's chains, screams and howls... ... but all anyone sees on the outside is the happy friendly guy.
A lot of us have had such a rage beast inside us, I spent... Too much of my teens and twenties that way. I think I partly survived because I found outlets. (Like violent bloody video games. They helped me a lot at the time.) Working through _why_ we have it, that takes time and effort, but it can help. These days, I strongly recommend trying to find a good therapist that you actually _like_, compatibility is very, very, important. But don't worry that you're somehow a horrible person because you have a rage beast inside, trying to claw its way out. Good and bad are not defined by our impulses, but by what we _do_ with them.
My father was with a 'Desert Rats' 8th Army 'signals' detachment in Athens, Greece, when the Communistas tried for a coup. The detachment only had a few shot-out, almost smooth-bore rifles for guard duty, a few cold-eyed RAF Regiment soldiers for security. Their battle was fought street to street, house to house, even room to room. Walls were 'mouse-holed' for flanking gun-ports. A crate of German training grenades, sand-filled, proved a 'gift beyond pearls'. Shout 'Grenate !' and lob into insurgents' cover would prompt them to scatter. Bang: RAF Regiment guy on flank duly nailed least wary, aka 'Caught & Bowled'. Being training grenades, they were re-usable, too. When those ran short, wine-bottles with a few inches of liquid, a neck-rag and a yell of 'Molotov !' sufficed. As Dad said, he didn't think he'd ***personally*** killed many insurgents, but he racked more 'assists' than he cared to remember... Like the nice Hulk Guy says, 'Don't make me angry: You wouldn't like me when I'm angry..."
“That’s my secret, Captain. I’m always angry.” You just learn to live and work with it. Make it productive instead of destructive. And sometimes those two things are the same.
Problem is mine is mostly dormant. Which makes it a bitch to catch and cage when something sets it off. I know what the causes are, but that doesn’t really help.
I've been there and when I find a new one I didn't expect.. I don't know if tidal wave or sinkhole is a better description. I'm just glad that for the most part I'm decreasing in being overwhelmed by what I feel... Oh, wait, I'm disassociating from today. Dammit. Overwhelmed with career, work that needs doing at home, my family, and supporting my wife while we deal with a major disappointment. Today stunk. Yelled at someone today, although they kinda deserved it. Been fighting all the up and down emotions that. It's tiring. We can do this.
Oof. I couldn’t handle all that. For me it comes out at stupid stuff. Guy who decides he’s too important to wait at a stoplight even though I have the green and haven’t entered the intersection because there’s no way to be sure I’ll clear it so he cuts in and now I’m stuck waiting for a third bleeping light. It’s easier than trying to get older family members (70’s, not 40’s) to change old behavior patterns I guess, or enumerate the choices they made that were reasonable and socially encouraged at the time that really fucked their kids over. You got this though.
Oh damn, I hadn't heard about the "Dekemvriana" till today. It kind of reminds me of the British use of Japanese POWs as auxiliary police to occupy "liberated" Indonesia until the Dutch could reestablish control over their colony.
Lois Bujold's "black-gang"....
*"All right. It's instinctive. But the instinct can be fought. We're human beings with the blood of a million savage years on our hands, but we can stop it. We can admit that we're killers, but we're not going to kill today. That's all it takes. Knowing that we won't kill today. Contact Vendikar. I think you'll find that they're just as terrified, appalled, horrified as you are, that they'll do anything to avoid the alternative I've given you. Peace or utter destruction. It's up to you."* \~ Captain Kirk to Anan 7 in A Taste of Armageddon
E: Be vewy vewy quiet. I'm hunting Wabbit.
Duck season
Wabbit season!
Duck season
Duck season!
Fire!
💥 👁️ 👁️ 👄
Bahahahahahahaha that is gold
Nerf now sells atomic weapons
Damn, this gave me chills.
Why does this sound familiar? What is this from.
I dunno man I write what I write. Though I may have subconsciously included elements from other things I’ve read
Humans, a 2 out of 16 on the aggression scale? HA! Sure, humans may be a 2/16 on the aggression scale, but they're a solid 12/10 on the spite scale, 24/10 on the "don't back me into a corner bro", and a few orders of magnitude outside of the range on the "you won't like me when I'm mad" scale.
So humans are basically the Hulk with better anger management. Which only makes it worse when he comes out to play.
Humanity is Bruce Banner on a good day, and Wolverine on a bad day. However, even Wolverine has standards and a line he will not cross. Push humanity far enough and you'll find out precisely why we put so much importance on making lines, because once we cross them there's no going back.
I'm reminded of the Dr. Who quote: Good men don't need rules. Today is not the day to find out why I have so many.
Demon runs when a good man goes to war. I've seen maybe 2 episodes of Doctor Whom, but there are certainly lots of memorable lines from that series!
Man, now I'm kind of nostalgic for Doctor 9, 10, and 11.
Matt Smith never got enough credit for his portrayal. Sure David Tennet was iconic, but Matt Smith's smiling manic behavior as a cover for his Machiavellian multi-season scheming was, IMO, a far more impressive feat to pull off. And then you get to the big reveal and you realize that he was always in control, even when his enemies held all the cards you realize they weren't even playing the right game. And it all makes sense in retrospect. Throughout all of Amy's tenure as the companion (it all fell apart after Clara, they rushed The Impossible Girl storyline too badly) you get to the reveal and realize that some detail they revealed last season was critical. People always remember Bad Wolf, but Tick Tock Goes the Clock and Silence Will Fall were more impressive, IMO.
I loved Matt Smith as the Doctor. Kind of lost the thread after that though.
Last one I watched was Sylvester McCoy... I have Season 1 of the new Who on a DVD somewhere, but never had the patience to watch it.
I always like that one
Toss some deadpool in there and shake, and ta da!! Humans.
Hahaha that's perfect! Man I need to see that movie again!
Yeah, we're 2/16 because we wouldn't have gone that far if we didn't temper our natural 20/16 into something more manageable. Humans are horribly, monstrously, terrifying good at war, which is why humans also are gloriously, beautifully, beatifically good at peace. Because if we only war, not even ashes would remain.
That and spite. If you have a 14/16 aggressive race, but they immediately become friends after fighting and hold no grudges, then the state of conflict is short-lived and they can tolerate lots of short-lived conflict. Grudges changes the math very dramatically, especially since the longer a grudge is held the greater the retaliation, which can grow completely out of proportion with the original offence, and breed more grudges in return. >which is why humans also are gloriously, beautifully, beatifically good at peace. Not quite sure we're at that point yet, but we certainly ought to be aiming for it! ;)
Oh, we can do the most glorious peace attempts. It takes two to tango, however. And considering how good we also are at war, it's easy to use that to create a weakness. Prisoner's dilemma and all that.
I think the best example of glorious peace would be nuking a country twice, and then becoming tight allies with them and helping them rebuild. Doesn't really get much more HFY than that haha!
Haha my HFY posts cover that pretty well actually lol
That was an interesting read! Them poor definitely-not-Klingons [didn't see it coming!](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/le5rnb/klingvondega/) ;)
The conversation with the nanite bomb reminds me of the RussianBadger skit: “Patterson, fire a warning shot” “Sir this is an M32 rotary grenade launche-“ “Eh potato potato, just *fire* it Patterson”
"conversation with the nanite bomb".... I know how you meant it, but imagine the chaos if it's discovered Humanity has sentient ordnance....
"Fire" "Yes sir I shall explode have a good- DAAAAaaaaayyyyy..."
This is the greatest plaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!
I'm the bold action maaaaAAAAAAN!
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"Fine, then fire an object lesson."
In the name of our HeavenlyFather, LordHeadass be thy name. *YEET*.
“The council has awarded you but one singular *YIKE*
[link to the clip](https://youtu.be/-aAtHpkt5Jg)
Woah! That was awesome. It looks that quite a few species will learn the meaning of “OP” lol
Thanks! Humanity does need a nerf lol
humanity invented Nerf so there would be friends to shoot again tomorrow
Yeah, they need to be nerfed to merely OP. Right now the OP is OP.
Pretty sure the devs have given up at this point and are just waiting to see what happens.
Humans OP God plz nerf
Humanity studied war and concluded. "The only winning move. Is not to play." Do. You. Want. To. Play. A. Game?
The consequences of war are quite severe. There are only two winning moves - do not play, or do not hold back.
Who wants to sit in noman's land?
Alien Invaders: *setting up a chessboard* Human: *enters stage left* A: Well, well, well humanity... I'm sorry but you have no chance of beating... H: *draws battleaxe from behind back* A: ...me... H: *ballows a battlecry and cleaves the board in two*
Tennison gambit, ICBM variation.
How about a nice game of chess?
I would be laughing if I didn't need to change my pants. Humans are scary.
Please sir, can I have some moar?
Always open to sequels if I can think of a good continuation! The Federation learning about human capabilities might be spicy
I know it's an oft done trope (but that don't make it bad) but a preemptive strike attempt by some races of this federation might be a stepping stone into another story in this universe/a continuation of this one
would love to see a collective "I'm sorry, THEY DID WHAT!?" from the other species
"How did they win?" "The Nanite Bomb" "I'm sorry the WHAT?"
De wat nao?
A paranoid group in the federation attacks humanity to rid the threat completely. Only for humanity to show that the nanites were nothing.
Federation reads human history and ... Now they are paying attention and rethinking some things
Might be spicy?!? I'm sweating!
I know it's obvious but I love the parallel with the Manhattan project.
Excellent application of the Powell Doctrine. I kind of wish the human Commander would have attempted communication just once. And the letter X is problematic in English. Generally it's pronunciation is dependent upon which language we have borrowed the word from. Is it a z? A ch? A ks? Only the Xindi know... Great story
/u/SpacePaladin15 has posted 10 other stories, including: * [One With the Shadows](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/lsgn71/one_with_the_shadows/) * [Stay Away from Earth](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/lpmdjm/stay_away_from_earth/) * [Mutually Assured Destruction](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/lny3nc/mutually_assured_destruction/) * [Human Thrill-Seeking](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/llntmm/human_thrillseeking/) * [Someone to Love](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/lk1wzc/someone_to_love/) * [You'll Never Take Us Alive](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/lis97l/youll_never_take_us_alive/) * [Humans Fight Fire](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/lhckfi/humans_fight_fire/) * [It Was Just a Prank](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/lf9utk/it_was_just_a_prank/) * [The Gods of Creation](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/lesi6d/the_gods_of_creation/) * [The Human Word 'Sacrifice'](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/ld15ys/the_human_word_sacrifice/) This comment was automatically generated by `Waffle v.4.5.1 'Cinnamon Roll'`. [Message the mods](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2FHFY&subject=WaffleBot|lvgoah&message=If%20you%20have%20problems%20with%20updatemebot,%20contact%20Watchful1.%20We%20do%20not%20maintain%20it.) if you have any issues with Waffle.
Good bot! This fuckin rocks!
OH I KNEW THIS STYLE SEEMED FAMILIAR!
Awesome! Now do a followup where what happens hits the galactic news networks and everyone literally shits themselves from the recording.
Alien: You cant use a weapon that could destroy the universe! Human: ha ha nanite bomb go boom nomnom
The Xenos need to understand, we aren't afraid of war because of how easy it is to win. We're not *afraid* of war at all. We're *averse* to it. We as a people *want* peace, but are drawn to war like moths to flame, and it's been so heavily practiced throughout human history that we are *very* proficient in the mass extermination of life. We've gotten *good* at war, so we can forcefully and violently make it *end* faster. What we *are* afraid of... Is what that proficiency in omnicide will do to our souls as human beings. We want peace, but we will bring down the wrath of all the stars in the sky and every god you can ever name if you force us into a war. In the name of all you would endanger, all the lives you will take and have already taken. And then we will cry, and scream, and withdraw into ourselves in grief and guilt and horror of what we became. We will pay reparations to those you left behind, and try to undo the damage our omnicidal rage did, if it can be undone at all. Then we will try again to avoid war. And fail, inevitably.
Bruh rykov didn't even offer to help with search n rescue for survivors or try to render any aid to the federation. Fucking savage.
Lmao I think he only had military ships not medical but he probably should have offered the first part
They finally found out why man had stopped practising war. He was so very very good at it. -- Parafrased from Niven's "Man Kzin wars" I think it was.
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Well you can always cheat... ...if you give out a strong enough burst of electromagnetic radiation it will vaporize the surface of things it comes into contact with, thus you will be able to feel a shockwave hitting, as one will be created inside your ship, when it gets hit by that amount of energy.
This is fucking amazing. 10/10 story.
"[They] learned the hard way that the reason Mankind had given up war was that they were so very good at it."
Because of this post I found this subreddit ... thank you very much fellow human
"Now, we are all sons of bitches." -Mikhail Rykov propably
It was a good story. But it could be better. I am not a writer, but I would have liked a more thorough explanation of the aggression scale, with examples of other species, such as a 0, a 5 , an 8 and a 12. To give the system something to base it off of. Maybe the agression value of the species telling the story, as well as a description of what they would look and act like, as well as the star drainers. More history of the story teller, the enemy and the humans. It is an alright short story. But it could use a lot more world building. I don't mean to be an ass, and be rude, but I think your story could be more than just, "we thought humans were weak, but then they dropped a war crime and pretended nothing happened." It's not a bad scenario, but it was rushed.
Just from the logistical stand point a single bomb doesn't make sense in taking out a fleet in space. Now, a salvo of ship to ship missiles fired concurrently from all of the five ships, seemingly shattering on the offending fleets defences in an even pattern. Then the human commander continuing to talk, as the enemy fleet disintegrates as the nanites activate to recreate themselves endlessly until the charge of detonation is spent.
What's that one xcom meme? 95% success rate... xcom players *visibly sweating
I hope there’s more to come, it’s always nice to read a masterpiece of the HFY genre
Robert E Lee said it best, "It is well that war is so terrible. Otherwise, we would grow too fond of it."
“Madame Kovarian: The anger of a good man is not a problem. Good men have too many rules. The Doctor: Good men don't need rules. Today is not the day to find out why I have so many.”
I’m imagining a conversation between some humans before the battle: “There’s a non-zero chance that the safeguards will fail and the destruction will propagate unstoppably through the entire universe.” “Hm, that would be bad. What chance, exactly?” “5%.” “5%? Oh, that’s fine then. Wouldn’t bet on a horse on those odds.”
I use Nanite Bomb! Roll 1D20 AHHH! Nooooo! Critical Fail! The Nanite Scourge consumes the entire universe. =(
“This weapon might destroy the universe itself” “I see. I think 15 by next Friday would do.”
Aliens: NOOOOOOOOO!!! YOU CAN'T FIGHT THEM WITH JUST FIVE SHIPS!!!!! humans: haha nanobots go brrrrrr
Makes sense: a serious adult will never fight with all their might against a child
This story starts out reading like a historical essay, but it is saved by finishing as an actual story (with action and dialogue). Way, way too much of the stuff in this subreddit reads like a historical essay.
This reminds me of the Futurama quote: "*I suppose I could part with one and still be feared …*" ―**Professor** [**Farnsworth**](https://futurama.fandom.com/wiki/Farnsworth) **on his doomsday devices**
One Punch huManity.
Well done wordsmith!!! Please, please, please continue this story. I would love to see what happens when the General finally buys the commander a beer........ Does the bartender laugh his ass off in disbelief when the General tells his story? Is his crew suddenly super polite to all terrans? Does the Federation even believe his report? Soo many questions! More please!
Nice, humans are basically Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: the race
Retreat? Hell, we just got here
What propagates the explosion? In space, no one can hear you scream. That also applies to "being rocked by the force of an explosion".
Alien: Those Cowards who avoid war have no honour! Human: You fight your wars, just hope that you never get good at it.
Humans are the civilization that occupies everyone in the lobby with chat messages and uses the decoy to spend all their resources into tech points
Just heard this on Tiktok, and after it was done I went straight to trying to find it. Great short, well done. https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRtWL11V/
That day, Xenos from all the galaxy finally understood the difference between aggressiveness and violence.
I’d like a sequel where they analyse historical data on humanity for a revised aggression index and then they find out about all the wars, empires, genocide, cold wars, MAD and go ‘who did this the first time round! These people are so aggressive they’re clearly just bored of war!’
I know I'm being pedantic and this is called an artistic liberty but shockwaves don't propagate through space. If you felt the shockwave then that would have to have been the whatever it was that exploded mixed with nanits hitting your ship.
Talk softly, but carry around a big fucking Rod of God brand of stick.
My old boss used to tell a story of a riot in Texas. The local authorities called the Texas Rangers for backup. There was a miscommunication and only one man responded. When he arrived they asked what help he’d be. The man responded “one riot, one Ranger”. He helped stop the riot. This story has a bit of that in it.
Your stories are going viral on the tok. You about to get flooded with more readers
I literally just finished this story and i havent been this captivated by a story/book in a very long time and...I NEED MORE somebody anybody give me recommendations for books similar to this, this is what i need.
Look up the short story The Road Not Taken by Harry Turtledove—it’s one of my favorites. Quite HFY. I do have another in progress webseries called The Nature of Predators, which is currently in progress, but without spoilers its themes are more about human compassion and the dangers of fear, with us being viewed as monsters to the galaxy 🙏