Humans by Any Other Name: Difference between revisions

* An older established term was "Earthling" - something of a [[Discredited Trope]], as nowadays this brings to mind "naive children under the bootheels of little green martians", rather than "badasses". [[Puny Earthlings|It also immediately conjures up the word "Puny".]]

** ''[[Star Control]]'' used the term "Earthling Cruiser" to describe our Alliance starship in the first game. The subsequent game([[Canon Discontinuity|s]]) switched to calling them "Human Cruisers" likely due to the word's discrediting.

** The term "humanoid" refers to anything relatively human-shaped (bipedal, upright, two arms, one head), including [[Ridiculously-Human Robots]], [[Rubber Forehead Aliens]], and denizens of the [[Uncanny Valley]]. Sentience and genetic relation to humankind are not required.

 

* ''[[Keroro Gunsou]]'' gives us the title of ''Pekoponjin'', because they refer to Earth as "Pekopon". In the manga it was "Pokopen", a rather nasty Japanese word for the Chinese, which was changed for obvious reasons.

* In ''[[Super Dimension Fortress Macross]]'', humans and miniaturized Zentradi are known as "Microns" ("Micronians" in ''[[Robotech]]'').

* In ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]'', the humans are also referred as "Lilim", {{spoiler|and the entire humanity is the 18th Angel}}.

 

== Card Games ==

* ''[[Magic: The Gathering]]'' considered doing this when they first decided to make Human into a creature type (previously, humans had only a "class" creature type and no "race"). They eventually decided to just use human, though.

** Other creature types like Metathran and Kor showed up around the same time as Human in much the same manner: previously, all members of these races had only had "class" creature types. Apart from their [[Amazing Technicolor Population|blue skin]], both qualify as examples of this trope.

 

* ''[[Animorphs]]'' averts the convention that aliens are named after their own home world, and instead, they call their planets "the Andalite home world," "the Hork-Bajir home world," and so on; it's mostly unclear whether they have any other names for these planets. Despite the fact that they use this convention for every other inhabited planet, they still call this planet "Earth" rather than "the human home world."

** In ''The Andalite Chronicles'', Elfangor asks Loren if she is an Earther after hearing the name of her homeworld for the first time, leading to some speculation that the Andalite homeworld is called Andal.

* In the [[Antares]] novels by Michael McCollum, the Ryall aliens refer to humans as "Monsters".

* In [[Fred Saberhagen]]'s ''[[Berserker (Literature)|Berserker]]'' universe, ''all'' sapient life forms are called Human. Homo Sapiens is called the E.D., or Earth Descended "theme" of humanity. (Non-human Earthlife is also referred to as E.D. lifeforms.)

* In [[Hilari Bell]]'s YA science fiction novel ''A Matter of Profit'', the humans call themselves the Vivitare.

* The [[Our Dragons Are Different|Kantri]] of [[Tales of Kolmar]] call humanity "Gedri", [[You Are the Translated Foreign Word|Silent Ones]], because humans {{spoiler|mostly}} can't use or hear the psychic "truespeech" that Kantri have as well as vocal speech.

 

 

** Rebels attempting to free Mars from Earth control call their fellow humans from Earth "Earthers".

** Gaim are from N'chak'fah, Drazi are from Zhabar, Hyach are from Shir-shraba, Abbai are from Ssumssha, Yolu are from Pa'ri, Llort are from Vartas, and Hurr are from Androma.

**** [[Lampshaded]] in the [[Novelization]] of In The Beginning, where an aging Londo muses on the humans' choice in names for their homeworld. ''Earth''. "''They might as well call it "Dirt".''"

**** It's suggested in the show that Z'Ha'Dum is not the homeworld of the Shadows, they go there {{spoiler|because they think they're honoring Lorien, who lives there.}} And "Shadow" isn't even the race's name; it's said their actual name for themselves is over 10,000 letters long.

* It is endlessly debated as to whether or not Hylians are human, though the word "human" is used often in ''[[The Legend of Zelda]]: Twilight Princess'', the Oracle Series, and Majora's mask. Maybe Nintendo was trying to end the bickering?

** The difference between Human and Hylian is actually made in some games (ALTTP and OOT). The hylians are usually an almost extinct race, of which Link and Zelda are part.

* "Human" and "Earthling" are ''mostly'' interchangable in ''[[Star Control]] 2.'' This is in part because they just arrived on the galactic scene (through donated technology from the Chenjesu), and because of the overprotective Arilou. (It's explained exactly ''why'' the Arilou are overprotective in ''Star Control 3''.) In the situations where the difference matters, "Earthling" means "from Earth", while "Human" means ''Homo Sapiens Sapiens''. A squirrel is Earthling, but not human; the protagonist is human but not an Earthling. (An Arilou catches itself making this mistake at one point, and corrects itself.) The status of the Androsynth is somewhat vague, but knowledgable characters in-game consistently refer to the Androsynth as a ''culture'', not a species in its own right.

** There is also an interesting note in that humans called themselves 'earthlings' when they first were meeting with alien races in an attempt to avoid the [[What Measure Is a Non-Human?|implied speciesism in calling aliens inhuman]], while the aliens skipped all the bother and just called them humans. Except for the Spathi, of course, who continually refer to them as "Hunams".

* In ''Guild Wars: Eye of the North'', the Asura use the pejorative term "bookah" for humans. In a cutscene, the term is revealed to refer to a violent, clumsy, stupid, bellowing imaginary creature used to frighten Asura children. This has somewhat expanded to cover any race they see as less intelligent than the Asura, meaning every other race.

* ''Kohan: Immortal Sovereigns'' referred to humans as the Mareten.

* In ''[[Dragon Age]]: Origins'', the [[Our Elves Are Different|elves]] (particularly the Dalish) refer to humans as shemlen. The shorter term "shem" is used in a derogatory manner (not surprising, given what humans did to them).

* ''[[Albion]]'' uses the expression Celt and Helromier (a portmanteau of Hellenic and Roman) to distinguish the magic using humans of Albion and the technologically advanced Terrans. Terran humans are also referred to as Earthlings by the Kenget Kamulos.