cross-posted from: https://lemmings.world/post/759157
What the title says, I’m tired of the trope where humans are the least advanced in the universe.
I’d like to read something different where we’re the more advanced ones (not necessarily the most advanced). As an example I quite enjoyed the Ender’s Game sequels and the angle of us being the more advanced ones was quite interesting.
Do you have any recommendations?
This isn’t quite what you’re looking for, but it may scratch the itch: Deathworlders. Effectively, humans aren’t the most technically advanced at all, but our evolution (because we live on a “death world” or a normally “inhospital planet”) has lead us to be effectively unstoppable in comparison to all other intelligent life forms. It’s definitely a cool take, IMO. Read until you get to the hockey game before making your decision.
The story is free: https://deathworlders.com/
This “genre” is called “humans fuck yea” for reference.
It starts off good but gets really bogged down in its own waste after a while, IMO.
Alan Dean Foster wrote a series with basically the same premise in the 90s, where evil mind control telepath aliens were waging a war against a bunch of free alien species, and the free alien species were hampered by the fact that very few aliens were capable of fighting at all, let alone effectively, but the evil telepath aliens could mind control their conquered subjects into fighting anyway. And then the losing free aliens find humans, who are basically xenomorphs crossed with hannibal lecter compared to the aliens and conveniently immune to telepathy, and they realize that humans will fight to the death for dumb shit like precious metals.