Humans by Any Other Name: Difference between revisions

 

A subtrope of this is [[Planet Terra]].

 

== General ==

** Note that the French for Earthling is "Terrien", which reads and sounds pretty close to Terran. Thus, in many French-translated stories where 'Terrans' are involved, their name does not sound that cool and exotic (it even sounds dull when said with french phonetics).

** ''[[Schlock Mercenary (Webcomic)|Schlock Mercenary]]'' uses the term "Terran" not to describe humans, but as a term to encompass any Earth-based sentient species, which includes humans, [[Uplifted Animal|gorillas, chimps, dolphins, and African and Indian elephants]]. And yet aliens still say, [[Fantastic Racism|"All you Terrans look alike to me"]].

** In addition, Solarian is the term used to describe the races native to the Solar System: Tellurians, Martians, and Venerians.

* [[Piers Anthony]]'s ''Cluster'' books used the term "Solarian", named after the star, as opposed to the planet.

* Arthur Dent of ''[[The Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy]]'' gets called Earthman, although he is one of only two remaining humans. (Trillian is only ever "Trillian".)

* ''[[Animorphs (Literature)|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 ''[[Sector General]]'' books, every sentient species refers to themselves as "human", or by a word that the [[Translator Microbes]] translate as "human". As this is utterly useless to the medically-oriented protagonists, they frequently have to insist that their patients use the hospital's four-letter code description for different species.

* In the ''[[Tairen Soul]]'' series the word that isn't used is ''human'' or even ''Man''. Instead they call the humans by their nation's name or [[Our Elves Are Better|elves and fey]] call them ''mortals''.

* 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 (Literature)|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.

*** In some games the difference is obvious: Hylians have [[Pointy Ears]].

* "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.

** Androsynth are refered as Androsynth, as they are no longer Earth-connected AND make pretty clear that they are not in friendly terms with Humans. Not that we can blame them. 100 years of racism and slavery can cause it, just because you are born normal way.

* The human factions in the ''[[X (Video Game)|X]]-Universe'' series are called the Argon and [[Planet Terra|Terrans]]. The Argon Federation is a [[Lost Colony]] cut off from Earth.

* Averted in ''[[Mass Effect]]'' - humans are still referred to as humans. The only exception is the volus, who refer to humans as "Earth-clan". This extends to aliens as well -- in the game, no aliens species are named for their homeworld (asari come from Thessia, salarians come from Sur'Kesh, turians come from Palaven, and krogan come from Tuchanka), and, unlike many, ''many'' other SF franchises, spell them in all-lowercase, just like the word "human".

** Yune, the goddess of chaos in ''[[Fire Emblem]] Radiant Dawn'' has all sorts of names to refer to the player characters. "Meat puppet" is by far my favorite.

* In [[The Last Remnant]] Humans are called "Mitra".