Humanity Is Superior

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

"I'm not deficient. I'm SUPERIOR! Humans. Are. Superior."

—John Crichton, Farscape, "Crackers Don't Matter"

Humanity, despite all our weaknesses in comparison to most of the other alien races, have managed to carve out or create an interstellar empire usually with Earth as the capital. This can be in The Future or Twenty Minutes Into the Future, usually made possible by captured, recently discovered alien or Ancient Phlebotinum and through sheer willpower or just simply being Human, enforced with an offscreen Redshirt Army and Cool Ships. If in the case of Evil Is Cool, humankind is led by an Evil Overlord, or some form of One World Order with extraterrestrial or mutant racism or hatred, and the higher echelons of these governments are almost never seen. All aliens are portrayed by the government as Aliens and Monsters despite some of them having feelings too, or in the case of a nation or The Federation, Humanity is at war.

Often the Homo sapiens race is genetically, technologically, and racially enhanced or turned into a trained Tyke Bomb force in the attempt to ensure Humankind always comes out on top against the Scary Dogmatic Aliens. This usually works, with the resultant super soldiers and the navy turning the tide of the wars in humankind's favor. Eventually after the war is finished the super soldiers end up as a sort of Space Police, and with the Imperial Forces in the case of an evil humanity. Sometimes the ruling agencies lead by a Hidden Agenda Villain has the intent of upgrading the human race genetically.

If Evil Is Cool is noted, this can occur with Humanity's subjugation of alien races along the way as well as aiding them in their ultimate goal of having Humans on the top of the food chain constantly. However, if there is a resistance with alien sympathizers, usually this will take momentum and can lead to the Empire being overthrown to become The Federation. If a bunch of aliens ally themselves together to defeat the Human Big Bad (often with renegade humans leading the revolution) then humanity is put on trial or it subtly is the either the end of humankind or the beginning of human subjugation.

It has nothing to do with the writers being humans themselves.

Sub-Trope of Humans Are Special. Compare Mirror Universe, Humans Are the Real Monsters, Humans Are Cthulhu, Humans Are Warriors. Contrast Humans Are Morons, Superior Species, for when it's a non-human species that is superior.

Examples of Humanity Is Superior include:

Anime and Manga

  • Human(oids) are explicitly stated to be superior in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann due to their ability to access Spiral Energy, because their physical shape is the most efficient form for using it.

Film

  • Star Wars: Not only are humans one of the most common races (everywhere from Tatooine to Coruscant), they're also the one with the most widely known descendants (Zabrak, Miraluka etc). One of the fundamental tenets of The Empire was that Humans were best - everyone from Palpatine down was at least partially human unless they were a) extremely lucky or b) really really good at their jobs (see also, Grand Admiral Thrawn).
    • Whilst they aren't all force-sensitive like some species they do have a very high number of these compared to other species and have produced the strongest of force users the galaxy has ever witnessed.
    • Slightly inverted in the EU novel Star Wars: The Old Republic: Revan, where it's revealed that the old Sith Empire, while didn't discriminate against humans (those who weren't slaves), had the True Sith holdings all the power (the Emperor and several members of the Dark Council are shown to be True Sith). The humans are still the majority even in the Empire, though. In fact, the True Sith discriminate against other True Sith who aren't Force-sensitive.

Literature

  • In Nick Pollotta and Phil Foglio's novel illegal aliens, though initially technologically inferior to the alien races they encounter, Humans catch up very very quickly (albeit with the help of an alien technician) and surpass the weaponry, medical, and general technological abilities of the aliens they got most of the technology from in the first place, by sheer inventiveness, for example, they regenerate members of an extinct alien race, create a type of Unobtanium ship armor an alien earlier on in the story was lying about to make them think alien ships were tougher than they really were, created original weapons based on an "atomic vortex" that started with a pistol that was ridiculously powerful and escalated to a cannon that could wipe out massive fleets of automated attack satellites, and generally overcame any and all opposition by races whose technology they hadn't even known about mere months before.
  • In the novel Pandora's Planet, Humans are, on average, smarter than the aliens who invade Earth, only being beaten because half the time the Humans were fighting each other.
  • Humans in The Damned Trilogy by Alan Dean Foster are faster, stronger, tougher, and fiercer than every other sentient species, bar none. They're also the only species with the ability to resist the Psychic Powers of the Amplitur, who have brainwashed entire species into being happy slaves. So, the discovery of humanity by the Weave of free species at the beginning of the first book marks a critical turning point in their war to remain free. Unfortunately, humans are feared by the other sympathetic alien species precisely for those qualities and the uncomfortable question comes up that if they win the war, what will happen to human/alien relations then?
    • Technically there are faster, stronger and tougher races than humans but Humans are a "jack of all trades" species, faster than the strongest species, stronger than the fastest but fiercer than all. Ironically all three books deal with Humans who try to be more than just warriors.
  • The Empire of Humans in Yulia Latynina's "Inhuman" is very much evil, bloated and corrupt; at the time of its founding it was less corrupt and more evil, with constant executions, mind control and biological warfare. However, almost all of that is revealed to have been Necessarily Evil: The Empire's founder only came to power and introduced those measures after the democratic government, along with the Earth's entire ecosphere and 98% of the human population, was eaten by the Ttakas, a race of truly extreme omnivores who ate other species as an alternative to eating each other (though they did that too whenever possible) that also happened to breed very rapidly and be incredibly inventive. And those measures worked: humanity survived and built an empire, while the Ttakas were killed off by use of a very nasty, advanced human-engineered virus, along with other things whenever that proved impractical. Later wars and oppression really were mostly for the evil, though. Admittedly, it still is not so much a case of humans alone being bastards; more like almost all the sapient species encountered, in one way or another.
  • In Anne McCaffrey's Rowan series, Humans are the only ones with Psychic Powers, which not only give them Casual Interstellar Travel, they allow them to handily defeat the hostile insectile aliens swarms. The Mrdini, who have been restricted to slow Generation Ships and which have to kill off (and it's implied, eat) excess population to finish the trip, and use mass kamikaze tactics to fight the Hivers, are both grateful and pissed when they meet this Mary Sue species.
  • John Ringo's Legacy of the Aldenata series has humans as one of only two (out of six) races physiologically capable of killing. Naturally, we're better at it than the other one.
    • Although the other races were all genetically modified by their Neglectful Precursors to be either pacifists (for four of them) or Proud Warrior Race Guys (for the fifth)
    • There's also an element of religion as well. The Aldenata learned to Ascend on a philosophy that is similar to Buddhism combined with psychic powers. They convinced everyone the only way to do it was that path. The revelation that less enlightened races are conquering the galaxy using ascended powers is causing some problems with those ideas...
  • In Fred Saberhagen's Berserker novels, the technically pacifistic Carmpan race (they are literally pained by even indirect performance of a violent act against any species, but have no trouble giving humans militarily useful intel) found in humanity the potential "badassness" to be effective Berserker-killers, and so trained and equipped us to be just that.
    • They were certainly deeply indebted to humanity for suffering the scourge of war through its history until the point where nothing less would serve. But where did the Carmpans train and equip Humanity? What follows suggests that the humans had all the goods:

When they came, you were dug in and ready on a hundred worlds. Because you were, some of you and some of us are now alive.

  • The Colonial Union in John Scalzi's Old Man's War and sequels is very much like this.
    • At least until you start to get a wider view of the 'verse in The Last Colony. Turns out that, despite humanity's quick expansion immediately after venturing out into the universe, in the last century or two humans have settled into the same Status Quo Is God back-and-forth as the rest of the local races. The necessity of allowing the viewpoint characters to survive gives a very distorted view, one encouraged by the government.
  • Strugatsky Brothers' Noon Universe series depict the humanity as the superior power in the galaxy, with only a few of other races capable of spaceflight. The humans are so advanced that they are helping other civilizations into space age using covert agents known as Progressors.
    • Subverted in that many alien species are humans in anything but name, and are only written as aliens as an excuse to write dystopian settings (dystopian Earth humans would not be accepted by Soviet censorship).
  • Turtledove's Worldwar and Colonisation series both play this straight and divert it. When the aliens come they overrun most of the world using superior (presumed modern) technology, but are unable to full conquer Europe, America and some of Asia due to a combination of lack of numbers and human tenacity, and the fact that the aliens were expecting Crusades level technology. Humanity is also far more variable than the aliens (their homeworld has been civilised for ~50,000 years), and so manage to make up most of the difference in about 50–60 years, and by 100 years after the initial invasion are way ahead, including some sort of faster-than-light drive (as seen in Homeward Bound).
    • It's not just the Race either. Apparently, the Race has already conquered two other races, who were exactly like them (Lizard Folk with a set mating season and a slow, measurable approach to innovation).
  • Another one by Turtledove, short story "The road not taken". Due to some weird twists of fate, humanity suddenly finds out the universe is full of spacefaring alien races. It also finds out everyone else has a technological level several hundred years behind its own, with very rudimentary knowledge of space travel and warfare. The result is a (implied) curb-stomping of intergalactic proportions.
    • The sequel inverts this. After humanity starts conquering the galaxy, its own progress pretty much stops. Then they encounter a race who also doesn't have the FTL technology but are way more advanced than humans in other areas. Guess what's implied here.
  • Birthright: The Book of Man by Mike Resnick
  • Name-dropped briefly in Jack Vance's Planet of Adventure. A Humanity on Trial (by combat) ends with a very angry Reith repeatedly smashing the alien's head against a sidewalk.

Dirdir Elite: "Sub-men are not subject to arbitration."
Adam Reith:""I am no sub-man. I am a man and quarry to no one. If a wild beast attacks me I will kill it."

  • Eric Flint's novel Mother of Demons both plays this trope straight and subverts it, at the same time. On the planet Ishtar, humans encounter a species of mollusk-like sophonts called gukuy. Humans are far speedier than gukuy (in fact, the gukuy are not even able to properly see the running motion of humans until they become used to it because it's so much different than they expect), and are capable of using spears, which gukuy cannot use and which can exploit a weak point on the gukuy (namely, it can hit an area unprotected by the hard mantle which results in impaling a gukuy's brain). In fact, gukuy widely consider humans to be demons because of those two factors. Yet, gukuy bodily fluids are so poisonous to humans that they will die within minutes from a bite wound, and humans are only capable of digesting regurgitated "childfood" (partially digested vegetation) produced by the maia (a larger, less-evolved sophont than the gukuy).
  • A recurring theme across the Discworld novels is that, white the Elves are prettier, more graceful, and have stronger magic than humans, they lack wisdom, intuition, and the ability to create new things—areas in which humans will always be superior, giving them the upper hand over Elves every time.

Periodicals

  • Lampshaded in an early Mad Magazine parody of Flash Gordon called "Flesh Garden", in which the evil alien emperor pits Flesh Garden against the great enemy of all - a man in boxing gloves.

Live-Action TV

  • In Babylon 5, the human power (Earth Alliance) likes to give off the impression of punching well above the weight of such a young power with their militaristic bluster and gigantic ships), but considering their humiliatingly poor performance against the Minbari, Babylon 5 being taking nearly as much damage from a Centauri cruiser's warning shots in "Acts of Sacrifice" as it took from a massive Earthforce assault in "Severed Dreams", Sheridan describing Centauri fighters and pilots as decisively superior to Earthforce's own in the same episode, and the Bad Future in Babylon Five The Lost Tales where Galen shows Sheridan a possible timeline where the Centauri easily stomp the Earth Alliance and bomb Earth's cities to dust, they're nowhere near the top of the Younger Races, let alone the Middle Children such as the Minbari and Streib or the First Ones. J. Michael Straczynski himself describes the Earth Alliance as being in the "lower third" of the Babylon 5 food chain, and they helped win the Dilgar War by tipping the balance in an alliance with several other races, not because they were as powerful as the Dilgar. Also note that the Narns are near or at parity with the EA despite being around a century newer to the galactic scene. The Earth Alliance is a subversion—a race that on first impression seems exceptionally powerful, but is militarily a paper tiger that uses bold impressions, clever diplomacy, and extensive trade networks to build clout rather than force of arms.
    • Let Me Get This Straight...: Humanity is a lower tier power that regularly has a seat at the table with the most powerful races in known space. In fact, they usually provide the table, too. While the Earth Alliance may not be superior in a strictly military sense, it's a little harder to make the broader point about humanity.
  • Blakes Seven has the Terran Federation survive an alien attack in the home galaxy with warning from the Liberator.
    • The Intergalactic War cost the Federation 80% of the navy. In "Aftermath" two officers state the the Federation's 'historic' victory was bought at a terrible price. Later in the series, the Federation suffers multiple revolts and is forced to use a mind control drug since they lack military power.
  • Farscape has the Sebacean Peacekeepers as a ruthless space 'human' empire with hardcore soldiers. But the quote is from John Crichton, the only true, Terran human in this part of the universe. The instance quoted though was a subversion - the alien was attacking them through their eyes, and Crichton was the only one with dull enough eyesight to fight it.
    • Sebaceans are eventually revealed to be an engineered offshoot of early humanity (with generally enhanced lifespans, physiology, and healing) that were used as a peace-keeping force in an ancient interstellar U.N.. The do have one major flaw; they don't sweat efficiently and at high temperatures they shut down. Essentially anything near body heat temperatures causes them to fall into a coma- giving Crichton a serious advantage when Moya is invaded by a team of Peacekeeper commandos.
    • In the Scarran-Peacekeeper War the Peacekeepers suffered many defeats, which just goes to show that there's Always a Bigger Fish.
  • Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis has Humanity surviving against near-impossible odds against the Scary Dogmatic Aliens who've annihilated many other species who attempted resistance. This is mostly limited to humans from Earth since the Goa'uld has enslaved humans and the Wraith cull entire civilizations. Even with humans from Earth this is occasionally subverted with an Alternate Universe where the good guys lose.
    • Let's review: in 1994, the Tau'ri used the stargate to go to Abydos; on this trip, they confronted the Supreme System Lord Ra and killed him. Three years later Apophis paid a visit to us using the Stargate and pissed off a few people. We just declared war to an interstellar empire while only having limited resources due to keeping the Stargate a secret. Twelve years later the Goa'uld are gone, the Ori are gone, the replicators are gone, the Wraith are in the middle of a civil war and the Tau'ri are a major intergalactic superpower while no one on Earth has any clue about what's going on out there. In a span of ten years, we progressed from petty civil wars on our planet to bearing the legacy of two of the greatest races which have ever lived with ourselves becoming the Fifth Race(actually, the sixth if we count the Ori). All in secrecy and with limited resources. If we would have the whole planet's support, we could crush the Wraith and thus surpass the Ancients themselves.
      • Of course, considering that all of the alternate universes seen in the show are in some degree worse off than the main universe, it is implied that we're seeing the best possible outcome, where everything goes right for Earth.
    • You know, all of this could be due to Tau'ri being far more careful using the Stargates and using them effectively. Other races just use them for travelling and the best they care do to at guarding them is just to place a few guards around them or leaving them without any attention at all. Tau'ri put their Stargates deep inside military bases, guarding it with enough firepower to annihiliate a small army and in addition installing a some sort of shield to the gate that can be closed to prevent any kind of enemy forces coming through. And unlike most other races of galaxy, they also use scientists to study gates, aliens and alien technology in an attempt to reverse engineer something new out of them.
      • The reverse engineering of alien technology is a little strange, given that they couldn't reverse engineer technology designed by humans from another world. The Tollan have a few hundred years on humans due to not having the equivalent of the Dark Ages (which really wasn't as bad as people think it was) to slow down scientific progress and being generally peaceful in nature. It's mentioned that their technology doesn't have any moving parts, circuits, or wires, which makes reverge engineering nearly impossible. Then they turn around and start reverse engineering Goa'uld, Asgard, and Ancient technology, which is mostly crystal-based (i.e. no moving parts, circuits, or wires). Hmm. Granted, the Tollan had some neat toys none of the other races appear to possess (only one Ancient managed to come up with a wall-phasing device and didn't tell anyone about it). Granted, they've had help with some of it, like the naquadah reactor, but not the rest.
  • The Terran Empire in the Star Trek Mirror Universe used captured Vulcan technology to carve their own empire, which ended with them being subjugated.
    • Of course, this only happened because they started being nice.
      • After having pissed off a large number of races inclined to hold a grudge. The sudden total transformation of the Terran Empire is something that no-one in their right mind would have trusted in - not after a couple of centuries of utter brutality.
  • The Upright Citizens Brigade eloquently stated, "Humans RULE, dolphins can SUCK IT!"
    • "No way dolphins! You'll never get our jeans!
  • In the Doctor Who episode "Utopia", it's revealed that baseline humanity (as in, non-Transhuman, look-in-the-mirror humans) is one of three species that makes it through to the dying days of the Universe, 100 trillion years into the future. Let that sink in for a while, and also consider that of the other two species, one is the Sycorax.
    • Not only that, but humanity is also a very successful species throughout its history, building at least four "Great And Bountiful Human Empires" (the third of which spanned three galaxies). Even in the 21st century, UNIT forces take it to the Tenth Sontaran Battle Fleet, cleaning their clocks in ground warfare, and by the 41st century they are going toe-to-toe with the resurrected Dalek Empire.
    • And wiping the floor with the Cybermen in the Cyberwars.

Tabletop Games

  • Generally, humans are the dominant race in Dungeons & Dragons. Guess that bonus feat really does help.
    • It's not as prevalent as it was in 1st Edition though. Races like dwarves and elves were flat out barred from all but a handful of classes, and even then could never level up as high as humans. Most humanoids (orcs, goblins, ogres, etc.) in the Monster Manual got it even worse, being little more than savage brutes that deserved to be exterminated to the last individual, whose only spellcasters were "shamans" and "witch doctors". Gary Gygax flat out stated that the game was meant to favor Human Player Characters in the DMG.
    • Bonus feat, bonus skill point per level, no attribute penalty (often more problematic than the bonus), no permanent crippling of level competence and spellcasting ability (in a game where spellcasting progression is essentially quadratic to a nonspellcaster's linear progression)... Dungeons & Dragons has been designed to exemplify this trope, barring system breaking exploits. In the 3rd edition "core" races only Dwarves (who have heavy defensive bonuses) are remotely as good as Humans. Even in 4th Edition, they retain large advantages in anything they want to follow, and are the baseline no other race shall surpass.
  • In the Fading Suns RPG setting, humans have been expanding onto other planets and conquering alien races for thousands of years with little trouble- until they meet the Vau. Not so much expanding now, as the Vau aren't expanding or aggressive, but they could be called ultra-defensive.
  • Warhammer 40,000 brings us the Imperium of Man, a massive dystopic empire guarded by gene-boosted human killing machines and armies of religious fanatics, which stands as the most powerful civilization in the galaxy. Its long-term goals involve nothing less but the complete eradication of every alien and 'heretical' life form from the face of the galaxy... It's just too bad that having said aliens and heretics gang up on you (mostly because the Imperium is so frickin' big that finding non-human enemies is more of a rarity) means the Imperium is slowly but steadily losing.
    • Be that as it may, the Space Marines and the Imperial Guard aren't going to give up without a fight.
    • In the Warhammer 40,000 universe, humans have come to power over the galaxy once in history, when the "Emperor" led a Great Crusade with his primarchs and their super human space marines. One million planets are conquered (out of countless billions in the galaxy, granted, but still, a million is a lot), yay humans, and of course the Emperor's favored son starts a civil war. So once again, with the emperor out of commission the Imperium is slowly falling apart again (Go humans). However it is speculated that the emperor will rise one way or another in the near future.
      • Although the Great Crusade was more of a reclaiming exercise than a conquering army. It was meant to reunite the planets already conquered by humanity previously before they were all cut-off from each other. So that'd be twice in history.
        • The galaxy at the time was ruled by the Eldar Empire; D Ao T humanity merely colonized planets that the Eldar didn't want or need. Humanity never conquered the galaxy while the Eldar Empire ruled it. So it's once in history.
          • Incorrect. Warhammer 40,000 5th Edition Rulebook, page 122 "DARK AGE OF TECHNOLOGY: Mankind realises its destiny amongst the stars, colonising world after world at a rapacious pace. Warp space is tamed and the first alien races subjugated." All and all, humanity was at its peak. We even created new life (The Iron Men), a feat only the great old ones could match. The Eldar were an empire, but certainly not the sole power (Think the 40k empire of the Tau). Mankind didn't "merely" take the eldar scraps, they formed a federation of stars that was only toppled by our own creations. (Other sources used are the battlefleet gothic rulebook, Space Hulk, White Dwarf, and Galaxy in flames)
  • Web and Starship is a 2–3 player board game where the players compete to form the largest empire. One species travels faster than light by using the Web, which allows near instantaneous travel between planets that are part of the Web, but to get to a new planet takes years. The second uses Starships, which get to new planets much quicker, but results in slower internal communication. In a three player game, the third species is humanity, who starts off with no means of traveling faster than light. But each of the first two races will be negotiating with the humans to get an advantage over the other race, and humans are capable of developing both Web and Starship, which makes it pretty easy for the humans to win if they do.
  • Humans are the biggest and the baddest in the Traveller universe.

Video Games

  • It's shown in Halo's fluff that the Covenant tend not to be very inventive or innovative when it comes to their own superior technology, as the vast majority of it had been scavenged from the remains of the Forerunner civilization. Humans, on the other hand, had to pretty much build everything on their own, and was predicted that had the war gone on longer, the humans would have eventually managed to surpass the technology barrier.
  • Played with in Mass Effect, where this can be the ultimate fate of humanity if Shepard chooses to destroy the Council.
    • It's a pretty straight example when you consider that, within 30 years of appearing on the galactic stage, humans gave the Turians a run for their money, made peace, joined the Council Space races, infiltrated every aspect of galactic society, won a massive colonization argument against the Batarian Hegemony, defeated Sovereign, became a Council Race (which other species haven't managed to do even after 2000 years), and pretty much orchestrate the saving of the Galaxy in Mass Effect 3.
    • This trope is twisted heavily in Mass Effect 2 in which superiority is probably undesirable, where the Reapers agree that Humanity Is Superior, which is why the Reapers have given humanity in general and Shepard in particular their personal attention. The Big Bad even mocks non-human party members as unworthy of its interest.
    • There are also a number of human organizations who use this as their core belief. Of note are Terra Firma, a political organization that constantly lobbies the Systems Alliance government, and Cerberus, a secret black ops group with many government connections and wealthy financial backers whose goal is to ensure human superiority in the galaxy. These two are closely linked, with Terra Firma serving as Cerberus' political mouthpiece.
  • The Black Lance organization, in Wing Commander IV, was part of a far-ranging plot to upgrade the human race after the war with the Terran Confederation's war with the Kilrathi out of the belief by Tolwyn that humanity wasn't superior without genetic modification of humans and their society.
  • Pokémon Red and Blue: Alakazam has an IQ in the thousands. Macargo is hotter than the surface of the sun. Ponyta's hoofs are harder than diamond. There are several more Pokémon with similar godlike abilities (or who are simply gods), yet humans are the ones in charge.
    • Humans invented pokeballs, giving them a bit of an advantage. On the other hand, however, as anyone who's played the games can tell you, those things only work two, maybe four times out of ten once you get to that level of play.

Game: [insert Pokémon name here] was only pretending to be caught!
Player: FUUUUUCK!

  • X-COM in the titular series of games goes from a clandestine U.N.-backed organization (UFO Defense) to a self-sufficient paramilitary entity dedicated to preserving Earth's interests in space (Interceptor and Apocalypse) thanks to a tenacious penchant for reverse-engineering alien technology. Organizations outside X-COM, however, exhibit some Humans Are the Real Monsters with their wanton discrimination against androids and alien-human hybrids.
    • Spiritual Successor series UFO: After Blank has humanity recovering from being almost completely wiped out to successfully scaring the beejesus out of a superior alien species (in the first game), successfully destroying not one, but two alien invasion forces (in the second game), and successfully terraforming Mars, despite the attempted intervention of four separate alien species (in the third game). Humanity Is Superior almost taken to the extreme, if you exclude the fact that more of the principal characters are driven by desperation rather than heroics.
  • The extremely racist Lord Garithos of Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne holds this belief. He's a Jerkass toward his dwarven and elven allies, and is pretty much the reason that the Blood Elves break away from the Alliance.
    • The rest of the universe definitely disagrees with him since the humans needed their alliance with the high elves and dwarves to beat back the Horde. It's very clear that currently, no singular race would ever be able to rule over the rest of Azeroth.
  • The Fal'Cie in Final Fantasy XIII believe that Humans Are the Real Monsters and that Humanity Is Superior. Their entire scheme revolves around taking advantage of both of these traits to manipulate humans into destroying Cocoon (which would doom the Cocoon Fal'Cie and the human populace) in order to bring back The Maker.

Web Original

  • The Salvation War: Armageddon: in response to Satan declaring dominion over humanity and "God" (or rather, Yahweh) closing the pearly gates... humanity fights back, and eventually, the U.S. military kills Satan with a pair of anti-ship missiles. As a defecting general turned newly-installed-by-the-U.S.-government ruler of Hell puts it:

"Satan is dead. Humans killed him with their weapons. With their weapons, not with magic, for magic and superstition is powerless in the face of human science. We are powerless in the face of human engineering. They have won this war and nothing we say or do can change that. Hell is changed forever and nothing we can do will change that either. The humans have told me they wish me to be the new leader in Hell, answerable only to them. I have agreed. If you do not like the idea of me as your leader, don't tell me." Abigor gestured at the Marines and their vehicles. "TELL THEM!"

  • The story of Glarion: The Glorious Conquerer from Orion's Arm is a deliberate contrast to the rest of the setting where humanity is anything but superior. Terragen civilization on a whole is superior in many ways to all xenosophonts it has contacted though, but there have been still more advanced civilizations discovered elsewhere - just not contacted yet because of the distance.

Real Life

  • It's not overly arrogant to make this claim about humans compared to other species on Earth (at least compared to other complex animals). We have the unique Game Breaker combination of sentience, dexterity, and language that's allowed us to invent ways to overcome our weaknesses in many other areas, while also making us extremely versatile.
  • We also have superior endurance and bodily temperature control compared to practically every other animal in warmer climates, not to mention a more efficient means of locomotion. One of the oldest hunting techniques involves simply chasing an animal for a couple of hours until it finally collapses from overheating or lack of energy.
  • One of the arguments about Humans Versus Nature, is thus: Humans don't adapt to suit the environment. Humans adapt the environment to suit us.
    • That's why its believable that one day humans could colonize even distant, hostile places like Mars and beyond. Any other animal, not so much.
    • The argument ignores things such as beaver dams and ghost shrimp burrows, of course. Keystone species aren't as backward as many people think.
  • This is what we all think.
    • At least on an individual level.
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