Humans Are Special: Difference between revisions
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* Used in David Brin's ''[[Uplift]]'' series where the humans—young, inexperienced newcomers to a very old galactic political scene—manage to fight, win, and show the superiority of their culture (or at least their capacity for unconventional military tactics) against several alien races.
** In this case it's not that humans are innately special, but that the human race matured naturally without being "uplifted" by another race, something that hasn't happened since the [[Precursors]]. We had to make our own mistakes and learn our own lessons, and everything we know how to do, we know because we worked it out from first principles through experimentation. Most other races learn about electricity and gravity and everything else by rote out of a huge encyclopedia, and while they are more advanced than humanity, they are effectively in technological stasis. If the Library doesn't say it can be done, it can't be done. Humans tend not to trust the Library as the ultimate repository of all knowledge; after all, they've done without it for this long!
* This is the entire premise behind the [[Arthur C. Clarke]] short "[https://web.archive.org/web/20150603072421/http://www.webscription.net/chapters/0743498747/0743498747___1.htm Rescue Party]".
* In the fourth book of Rick Cook's [[Wiz Biz]] series, the protagonist is told by a dragon to save a village of humans from dragons, before realizing that his job was to save dragons from humanity in general, since we may be puny compared to a dragon, but there are a ''lot'' of us, and we learn ''very'' fast.
* The [[Gordon R. Dickson]] short story ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20111203151014/http://www.webscription.net/chapters/0743471741/0743471741___1.htm Danger - Human]'' featured aliens who have captured a human for study. During previous eons, humans have been found to be responsible for the destruction of galactic civilization, multiple times, and the aliens wanted to find out what trait or stimulus caused this change, in order to prevent it. Multiple security precautions are used including a sealed chamber, constant surveillance, and a single exit guarded by a 20-foot-high force field that only turns off for a short period of time during certain parts of the day. In the end, the human character, who has been repeatedly vivisected, psychoanalyzed, and generally given a rough time, snaps. He manages to escape his chamber, evade all surveillance, and somehow pass through or above the force field, completely unaffected by it. He then hijacks a nearby interstellar cargo vessel and heads back to Earth. The aliens are all suddenly feeling an existential dread as they realize that they have just provided humanity with the reason and the means to destroy galactic civilization once again.
** Suppose "We are really, ''really'' sorry about that" won't cut it, huh?
** The same author released a book, ''The Human Edge'', containing a collection of short stories where humans have [[What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?|some]] [[Guile Hero|special]] [[The Unfettered|ability]] not completely understood by other aliens. One story in that book has one species of alien intend to start a [[Curb Stomp Battle]], {{spoiler|but the [[The Quiet One|even-stronger aliens]] will intervene}}.
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* The most obvious difference between humans and every other species on the planet is our sapience—but then, that hardly counts, since any intelligent aliens (which is what this trope is about) would have that too, by definition (and it's not like we can really ''know'' that other creatures don't have sapience too). Ditto opposable thumbs and toolmaking, agriculture, language, music, art, etc. in the vast majority of examples.
** These two videos [https://web.archive.org/web/20131111031101/http://www.ted.com/talks/robert_sapolsky_the_uniqueness_of_humans.html 1] [https://web.archive.org/web/20140227025311/http://www.ted.com/talks/matt_ridley_when_ideas_have_sex.html 2] cover unique aspects of humans.
* One real physical advantage enjoyed by humanity is our endurance. Humans are able just ''keep going'' far longer than most other species. A prehistoric technique called [[wikipedia:Persistence hunting|persistence hunting]] takes advantage of this; it essentially entails following around an animal that you want to eat until it collapses from sheer exhaustion (then killing and eating it).
** The only animals that can match us in this regard are wolves—even horses, which are commonly thought of as high-endurance animals due to their ability to travel at high speeds even while carrying heavy loads, can't match human endurance over a period of days rather than hours.
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[[Category:Humans Are Indexed]]
[[Category:Humans Are Special]]
[[Category:Tropes of Hats]]
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