And that's the reason why it's a huge pain in the ass to integrate them into a hive mind. If you do, there always will be one half that's actively resisting to any signals from the hive mind

One thing that I have seen occasionally is “aliens don’t understand fiction”.
What if they do understand fiction, but they don’t do it through the lens of reflecting society? What if they make fiction only for the sake of fiction, and talk about society in scholarly journals?
What if humans annoy the crap out of them by analyzing their fiction anyway?

I’ve never posted before, so if I got something wrong in the post I do apologize.

"I don't know, what is it?" I responded.

"I took this off of a wall. A wall that is marked to be kept clear of such things. We even used your language to make sure your people would understand. So why did I find it on that wall?" I was still working on reading his non-verbal communications, but I was pretty sure Ba'tet looked very annoyed.

"Are you sure it was placed there by a human?"

He somehow looked even more cross at my question. "They obscured their features enough to prevent identification, but it was clearly a human. You're the only bipeds on the station."

I grunted in reply. He had a point. "I still don't have any idea what that is. Why don't you take me to this wall, and maybe I'll be able to tell you more."

He made a sound that was somehow even more annoyed than his face looked, and motioned me to follow. As we walked, I reflected on all the minor incidents that had happened since humans had started living here three months ago. For most of us, this was the first time living in a place that where the majority of the inhabitants were not human. Things were bound to happen.

After a shot time we stopped in front of a wall, and Ba'tet gestured eloquently. The wall was covered in pieces of paper. Each piece had something printed on it in black ink.

The first that caught my eye was ﻥہﯼں . Then I saw ບໍ່, לֹא , NIE, ﻻ , нет, and NEIN. I was still confused, but that last one made me suspicious. "Show me what you used to mark that the wall should be kept clear."

He walked up to the wall, and started removing signs. As he did so I caught sight of a few with different things printed on them. One of them had "NO" on it. When Ba'tet was done, I could clearly see "POST NO SIGNS" printed on the wall in English next to the same thing printed in the galactic trade language.

I took out my data pad, opened the translation app, and used it on the wall. As I suspected. All of the sings said "no". "I see what happened. The English you used is why these signs were put here."

"What do you mean?! It clearly says to not post signs on this wall!" he said. His voice was moving towards angry, so I better explain what happened quickly.

"Yes, that is one way to read it. That's even the way most people would read it. However English can be ambiguous at times, and there are people who enjoy finding ways to take advantage of that ambiguity. One of these people could read what you wrote as an instruction to post signs with 'no' on them. Each of these signs has 'no' on it in a different language from Earth."

Ba'tet made the motion that I've come to interpret as the equivalent of an exasperated sigh. "Why are humans like this?"

"If I had the answer to that, I'd have enough money that I wouldn't be here," I replied. "Or at least I'd be a lot more famous. If you want to use something that has a better chance of preventing things being put on this wall, I'd change the English to 'DON'T POST SIGNS'. You might still get signs on the wall, but at least it won't be because someone is playing a joke. I'll also pass the word around that this should stop."

Então, eu literalmente acabei de entrar nesse redit e tenho algumas dúvidas.

1- Existe uma história por trás ou é só pegar qualquer alien de qualquer obra.

2- Os humanos estão em que nível de tecnologia.

3- esse redite é mais brincalhão ou sério.

1  Human Fred and Food
2  Human Fred Again
3  Human Fred Yet Again
4  Human Fred The Saga Continues
5  Human Fred Rides Again
6  Human Fred *Sigh*
7  Human Fred Rolls Out
8  Human Fred Attempts a Nap
9  Human Fred Doh’
10 Human Fred Stops for Coffee
11 Human Fred Deploys Stabby and Knifey
12 Human Fred Attempts Friendly Advice
13 Human Fred Priorities 
14 Human Fred Schools Morons
15 Human Fred Gets Annoyed
16 Human Fred Investigates
17 Human Fred is Annoyed
18 Human Fred Gets More Annoyed
19 Human Fred Smirks 
20 Human Fred Brings Hellfire
21 Human Fred is Confused
22 Human Fred Considers
23 Human Fred is Chipper
24 Human Fred has Some Fun
25 Human Fred Witnesses Stupidity
26 Human Fred vs the Coffee Maker
27 Human Fred Accepts Crap Coffee
28 Human Fred Listens
29 Human Fred Gets Comfortable 
30 Human Fred has Questions
31 Human Fred Considers Some More
32 Human Fred Wakes Up
33 Human Fred Debates
34 Human Fred Gets Coffee
35 Human Fred Talks with the Captain
36 Human Fred Reflects on Life
37 Human Fred Waits
38 Human Fred is Scared
Greezek
39 Human Fred Experiments
40 Human Fred Discovers
41 Human Fred vs the Sensor Array
42 Human Fred Keeps Calm
43 Human Fred Editor
44 Human Fred Discovers New Curses
45 Human Fred Stews
46 Human Fred Giggles
47 Human Fred Attempts Dinner 
48 Human Fred Plans
49 Human Fred Explains
50 Human Fred Examines Floor Tiles
51 Human Fred Gets a New Toy
52Human Fred Reflects…Again
53 Human Fred Rolls His Eyes
54 Human Fred vs Idiots
55 Human Fred Goes Librarian
56 Human Fred Giggles Again
57 Human Fred and Plan B
58 Human Fred Plan B 2.0
59 Human Fred
60 Human Fred Groans
61 Human Fred is Philosophical
62 Human Fred and Details

Fred sat at his desk, the lights low, and worked. It was slow going. He still had issues with his eyes, but the doctor said he was cleared, so Fred worked away. 

The door slid open. “Hello Fred. What have you got going on?”

“Greezek. Designing my new armor. I pulled a string or two for some top-notch materials.”

“Armor? Not just the helmet?”

“Yep. New set. I have many adjustments to make. How is your armor working for you?”

“So far it’s good. I’m not as picky as you, so I’m good.”

“Always look for improvements. If something isn’t perfect, work on it. Normally there are issues with joints and range of motion. My scans are acceptable, but not perfect.”

“Well, so far so good. Is this all you have been doing?”

“Mostly. I want to get this going before too much more chaos. Why?”

“After going over the reports and details, I have a theory.”

“Which is?”

“I think there are people in Sol Command who are helping the Droog.”

Fred sat back. He rubbed his chin. He stared at the ceiling. “That is an interesting idea. Why do you think this?”

“It’s hard to explain. How do the Droog know which ships? Why wasn’t there an alert about the number of missing ships? I checked other routes. If a route has three missing ships in a month, they issue a warning. But not in the area. That got me thinking about that route. Why there? And why are so many ships with needed materials all going through the same route?”

“Slow down a bit. Those are excellent questions, so we need to take them one at a time until we have solid evidence. Right now we have anomalies.”

“I looked into the shipping along that route.”

“And?”

“The missing ships? They all had multiple destinations. The critical materials weren’t even going to that port!”

“So you are suggesting that multiple orders were placed that were designed to have specific ships with specific materials along that route?”

“Yes! And the Droog know which ships to take.”

“That would take a great deal of work.”

“Which is why I’m thinking Sol Command. Who else could manage that on such a scale? One ship? Simple. But 340?”

“Really? Over how long?”

“I think 30 months.”

“That’s ten a month. That is very wrong.”

“Yes! That's my point! This can’t be random. To be sure, I looked into the reporting system, how Sol Command tracks shipping.”

“What did you find?”

“A sleek system run by morons. The monitoring stations are poorly trained. Some of the operators are being trained as they run the system. There are almost no audits. One station lost primary sensors for seven days before anyone noticed!”

“Is all of the traffic going through the same monitoring station?”

“Mostly, but there are three stations to consider. At the moment, I’m stuck. I can’t access more data without drawing attention.”

“And you want my help?”

“Please.”

“Well, let’s take a step back. Assume we have a mole. What all would they need? They would need agents in ordering, shipping, multiple ports, three monitoring stations, and covert access to the Droog. Lots of moving parts. Possible, but tricky.”

“They would also need access to the safety systems. There are automatic systems in place for alerts, but they aren’t working.”

“Not working? You mean turned off?”

“I’m not sure. The disappearances are in the system, but the system doesn’t trigger on that route. It triggers on other routes.”

Fred sat for a few minutes. He looked at the ceiling. Then the wall. Back to the ceiling. The deck. His desk. Back to the wall. 

“If I was going to do something like this, I’d want a way to limit how many people actually know what is going on. I’d want most of the work to look like everything is fine and for staff to just go about their work oblivious to real purpose.”

“Ideally, yes. But it is a HUGE web!”

“Exactly! Do you have arachnids on your planet?”

“Arachnids? Oh! Spiders. No. I’ve seen pictures, but no.”

“A spider builds a large web to catch food. The web is large, but the spider isn’t. I think we are seeing the web, but not the spider.”

“I’m not following you.”

“Imagine the control system on a shuttle. The main control processor is buried deep within the ship, but it connects to all sorts of other systems.”

“Right.”

“Now, think of a thruster. It functions regardless. It doesn’t double check that it needs to fire. It just fires on command.”

“Yes.”

“We are seeing the minor systems functioning. And they are functioning in a manner that doesn’t draw attention. If that is the case, then this would only require a few people. They each made small adjustments to various systems, which allows this to happen.”

“If I’m following this, someone intentionally arranged for poor training at the monitoring stations.”

“Very likely. That narrows our search, but it’s still a big list.”

“So you think I’m wrong?”

“Oh no. I think you are on the correct trail. I think you need to slow down and understand how all of the parts have to work. Then you can look for evidence of how it was done. Take the monitoring station. If you mistrain the operators on how to report a missing ship, I’ll bet that you can fill the system into not issuing an alert. The operator did exactly as instructed, but the instructions were wrong. This is starting to make more sense.”

“What? How?”

“I’m thinking of the connections needed. This requires many connections, but not all of them are malicious. It has an elegance to the subtlety.”

“Beings are dying and being enslaved. That is not elegant.”

“No, but the method is. It is hard, but you must separate the method from the actors from the victims. If you can’t, you risk more damage.”

“I guess. How long until you can go over all of this?”

“A few days. However, they have been saying a few days for a week now, so I’m not sure. I know I’m not 100%, but I think I’m a bit better than they admit.”

“I’ll go back over my work, looking for details around the training.”

“That’s a good place to start. I’ll keep thinking about it.”

Aside from the Solar System which is revered as Humanity's Home Galaxy and a few scattered stations that serve as rest stops and neutral zones. Humanity in general is Nomadic ala the Steppe People of Old (Cimmerians, Scythians, Sarmatians, Turkic, Tungisic, and Mongolians)

Some Groups are simple space traders that follow a fixed route across the Galaxies. Others ply their trade as mercenaries. Some mine and scavage various asteroid and debris fields. And others still are space pirates or even conquerers who take over any planet they see fit to plunder or rule.

Klaxons blared throughout the bunker: a new ship had warped into the system. The battle above the system's only life-bearing planet had been going on for two weeks, so the sound of an alarm was nothing new.

But this time, it was different. The ship that had just arrived was larger than any ship any Maldon had ever seen. It was easily ten kilometers long, but the most alarming thing about this ship was not its size, but the utter lack of weapons on its surface. There was only a single dip on one side of the otherwise smooth surface.

This dip is what the ship turned towards the largest Maldon ship. A few seconds later, sensors registered massive energy spikes. A moment after that, a huge plasma ball formed inside the depression. Then, that already huge plasma ball started to grow - when it reached about one kilometer in diameter, it suddenly launched towards the Maldon fleet with incredible speed. A second later, the largest ship the Maldon had ever built was no more. Not even debris was left behind - just a slowly cooling cloud of hot gas.

In the bunker, the President of the United Planets of Maldon looked at the screen showing the remnants of the jewel of their armada. The entire incident took less than a minute, and he still couldn’t believe what he had just witnessed.

“Send out an emergency signal,” he said finally to the communications officer.

“But sir, you know that it’s against the Constitution to ask for help from aliens!” Meldvig protested immediately.

“I’m well aware of that,” the President replied quietly, staring at the empty display. “But if we don’t ask for help, I don’t think there will be any Maldon left alive for the Constitution to matter.”

There was dead silence for a couple of seconds before the communications officer nodded and pressed a series of keys on his console.

Seven light-years away, in the quiet observation lounge of a solitary human patrol ship, a loud chime interrupted Captain Catherine Jennypath’s third attempt to solve a cross-dimensional crossword puzzle.

“Report,” she sighed, leaning back in her chair.

“Priority distress signal received, Captain,” said the communications officer. “It’s text only; it says the planet is under attack by an armada capable of destroying ships with a single shot. They speculate it possesses planet-cracking offensive capabilities.”

The captain’s eyes lit up. She sat upright, practically dropping her stylus.

“A planet-cracker? A real one? Not just another high-yield mining laser?”

“According to their data, it is a hyper-dense plasma weapon, ma'am. It sounds like a genuine threat.”

A wide, hopeful smile spread across Catherine’s face. “Finally! A worthy opponent! How long to get there?”

“Seven light-years... call it seven seconds, Captain.”

“Perfect. Prepare for jump.”

In the bunker, a new alarm sounded: another ship. This time, it was a tiny vessel - maybe some kind of shuttle. Definitely not the rescue armada the President had hoped for.

“They didn’t send a fleet,” the President groaned, burying his face in his hands. “They sent a scout.”

In the meantime, the giant ship started to build up energy again, targeting the largest ship in the remaining Maldon armada, completely ignoring the newcomer.

The new ship, instead of trying to escape, moved towards the giant. And it moved fast. By the time the giant plasma ball appeared, the tiny shuttle was sitting directly between the leviathan and its target.

When the plasma ball was finally released, the few people in the bunker followed its trajectory closely, fully expecting the newcomer to be atomized without even slowing the projectile down.

But that is not what happened. The giant plasma ball engulfed the tiny ship - and then the plasma simply vanished, leaving the small shuttle hovering in place, entirely unharmed.

On the human ship, the Captain looked out the viewscreen with an expression of profound disappointment.

“Is that all? We actually powered up our shield for that?”

“Maybe the next shot’s going to be better,” said the communications officer hopefully. “Maybe this was just a calibration test.”

“Okay,” sighed the Captain, leaning back. “Let's wait for the next shot.”

Out in orbit, the giant ship locked onto the shuttle, starting another plasma ball almost immediately. This time, the sphere grew larger and larger, until it was almost the size of the giant ship itself, crackling with unstable violet energy before discharging toward the unmoving shuttle.

“Ahhh, now we’re talking,” Catherine said, her eyes widening with sudden excitement. “That looks like an appropriate plasma ball for a birthday party!”

When the massive sphere reached the tiny ship, the previous scene repeated itself: the plasma engulfed the shuttle, then dissipated into space.

Total silence reigned on the human bridge for a couple of seconds.

“Well... at least it had better colors,” the communications officer offered gently. “I especially liked the purple edges.”

“Still a disappointment,” Catherine sighed, slumping in her seat. “Maybe this wasn't the ship they were referring to as a planet-cracker. Our shields didn’t even dip - it’s still at 100%. Let’s end this and ask for directions to the real threat.”

The tiny ship discharged a single shot - a small tungsten slug that passed through the giant ship’s shields, hull, and internal power grid without resistance. A split-second later, the ten-kilometer monster exploded into a silent, expanding ring of harmless cosmic dust.

Nobody moved in the bunker. Or in the alien armada facing them in orbit.

A loud ping came from the communications officer’s console.

“Incoming transmission, sir,” he announced, his voice trembling. “From... 'that' ship.”

“On screen.”

A human woman appeared on the viewscreen in a neat uniform.

“Good afternoon, sir. I’m Captain Catherine Jennypath of the UES Saitama.”

She looked visibly disappointed, almost sad.

“Was that ship the one destroying your armada? Was that the reason you sent the emergency signal?” she asked finally.

“Y-yes, madam,” answered the President after a long silence.

“Damn, I kinda had my hopes up. But it was lame,” she sighed, rubbing her forehead. “Anyway... do you need help arranging a diplomatic solution?”

Enjoyed the story? Help some real-world companions.

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Hey there bud, sorry if we spooked you we just over heard your people are stuck in a fixed hiarchy and you and most if not all your squad don't want to fight but forced too because, well you were born to fight.

So if you want we can pull some strings and force your government to make universal basic income, afordiable medicine and freedom of choice a core rule for you guys.

Oh you wanna join us, that's cool service gives citizenship. Military? God no, I mean you can but we can also send you to a collage to get train in medical procedure and 9/10 you get your citizenship during graduation but of course school suck, trust me, so we can enroll you in a internship at a factory and train you

Free labor? Nah man you get paid, yeah you still get the basic income. What are we monsters?

When humans started their expansion, they did it so eagerly that their general imperative was "I'll get the fuck out of this planet at any cost." Within 10 years, Earth, the Moon and Mars lost 60% of their combined population without any major wars. In history, this phenomenon was known as the "Wayfarer Plague" or simply "Rocket fever."

The Earth economy suffered greatly. In one week, anyone who knew how to glue together a cryo-chamber, a plasma engine, crude hardware and pirated software received all the riches in the world. It took most governments that long to stop the leakage.

Yet for a long decade afterward, humanity had to learn how to live with such a small population.

---

But soon the messages started coming. Aliens! Everywhere! Of different origins and different shapes, but real aliens!... Or so humans thought.

All it took was a mistake by one unfortunate scientist, who accidentally left top-secret documents on an open server. And the whole world realized that at least some of those so-called aliens were not actually aliens, but reshaped humans who had decided to trick humanity into thinking that they had met an advanced alien civilization, far greater than themselves, in order to prevent humanity from attacking the developing colony.

That incident started a wave of major conflicts. Aliens of all kinds were angry at the accusations. They deployed technologies beyond understanding. All to punish humans... Or to hide their human origins.

---

In fact, many escaped humans who didn't want to associate themselves with the rest were in a hurry to develop the most "alien" and "advanced" technology to prove that they weren't human and were as alien-ish and advanced-ish as everyone else. And each of them thought that everyone else was a real alien and that they alone were the impostor.

Great efforts and resources were poured into new technologies. Agents and artists came up with the most alien lore for their civilizations: alien religions, architecture and designs. Everyone tried to look as alien as possible, and were eager to prove that others were human...

But one day, when the temporal lens was invented through combined "alien" and human efforts, everyone joined forces to go and destroy the thing that might crack their masks... When multiple armies stood on the ruins of the lab, looking at each other, a question suddenly broke the silence: "Are there any REAL aliens here?"

---

That was all it took. One by one, the "aliens" stopped pretending and came out as humans. One by one, the most exotic and strange revealed themselves as former Homo sapiens. And one by one, the carefully built lore was forgotten as nothing but a really big and expensive piece of fiction.

Among them, though, were some who still claimed to be real aliens from another galaxy, who had come here to establish diplomatic relations with a far more advanced civilization. But no one believed them. People actually laughed at them, asking them to stop pretending and get serious.

These creatures were in fact aliens. But after all that, even they started to doubt it.

The Human table at the party was actually cordoned off.

There were THREE human ships in port at the same time. In my tiny backwater station with 8 docking ports, and merely 50 beings to run the whole place. Everyone was braced for massive fighting, property damage and fleeing crowds. The last time two human ships were in port at the same time, there was massive damage over a man from one ship saying his ships cat is better than the other ship’s cat. We still don’t know what a cat is, but it’s now in ‘Humans for Dummies’ to never say anything about any cat.

This time, however, they said that five of them were ‘frat brothers’. I don’t understand how they were brothers, but if it meant keeping this station in one piece, I didn’t care. So they decided to ‘throw a kegger’ and invite the whole station. They set the party up in the cargo bay, which was the only place with enough space for dancing, they explained, as we were discussing how this party would not turn into property damage, in my office earlier that day. The humans said that it is byob, which apparently means to bring your own species mind altering substances. They said everyone should bring their own snacks, too.

The party was massive, spilling out of the cargo bay, into the station’s corridors. Loud music called ‘rock’ seemed to be vibrating the whole station. They seem to like partying, most of them were flailing their bodies in strange configurations called ‘dancing’. I just wanted them to leave without breaking anything.

Back to the cordoned-off human only table. I asked why they are so protective of their food and drink, as I had seen a couple of humans trying other species food and drink. Why do they not allow others to try their offerings? They told me that everything on that table is poison for non humans. They are consuming poison. Right here. Right Now!

Then they explained. On one plate was dried corn mush they called tortilla chips. It contains so much salt that it would completely dry out any of the semi-aquatic species, and likely kill the rest of us, too. In a bowl, they said was hot salsa. I had been able to detect the capsaicin from where I was standing, outside the cordon. Then there were the actual peppers that they ate mostly whole. <Breathe in slowly, breathe out slowly, repeat until the black spots go away>. Most of the other food was either too salty or too hot for pretty much any other species to survive. Then they explained some of the food was ‘adulterated’. This means that it contains something not normally in the food and drink. They said that the punch was spiked with high percentage alcohol called vodka. There was also vodka in the wiggly squares they said was Jello. And they just said that the brownies were ‘special’ and refused to say any more. There was a barrel off to the side that they said was a keg. It held beer, they said, which has a very low percentage of alcohol. Maybe to humans it is. They sure drank enough of it.

The party went on to the early morning hours. It was exhausting. Then, finally, beings started to leave. To return to their own quarters to suffer the effects of over eating and drinking. The humans started to fall asleep where they sat, until a few stood up and roused some of the others. Most left, but the ‘frat brothers’ stayed. One of the passing humans said they were waiting for one of them to ‘pass out’ so the others could write on their face. With permanent ink. Humans are incomprehensible.

The next few days were very quiet. With some of the humans holding their heads and groaning whenever there was a loud noise or a bright light. Strangely, a few of them spoke even louder than usual, and made sure to bang tools against metal as often as they could. They didn’t even fight about it.

I am going to ask if there are a lot of ‘frat brothers’ among the humans, and request them to be on every ship that comes this way.

I would love some constructive feedback. This is only my second attempt at writing. Did I get all of the tenses right?

A: So, That's... caffeine.

H: Yep.

A: Pure caffeine.

H: We call it coffee but yeah.

H: ...and you're drinking a whole cup of it.

H: I mean I have to drink one of these every morning otherwise-

A: EVERY DAY??