Our attack was unfortunate by Ray_Dillinger | Humans are Space Orcs| HFY | TFOS1123

[@williambarnes5023]

"What... what are they doing?" "They call that 'drinking the star', sir." "What am I looking at?" "A magnetic field draws material from the star's core and fuses it into iron. Along the way up to the star's surface it picks up carbon, oxygen, tungsten, and titanium. That ring the flare passes through is the forge, which makes sure the mixture is properly alloyed and transformed. What comes out is a five mile thick continuous rod of obdurium feeding out into space in a steady stream." "But you can't work with obdurium. It's indestructible once it's cast." "Yeah? Well that one worker out there with the handheld beam weapon resembling a butter knife is casually slicing it into ingots before the others load it into their ships. So we're fucking wrong about that too." "What do they even need all that obdurium for anyways?" "They make tiny little cans to put their food and drinks in." "What." "Single units of food. Individually wrapped. In obdurium." "Are they forming some immense stockpile of food for something?" "No, no. That's just how they ship it to every household." "...every household... has the means to carve open obdurium?" "They don't even consider it a weapon of mass destruction. It just sits there next to their eating utensils in the drawer. Children use them." "Wouldn't that risk any child rupturing their habitat?" "Oh no, they don't armor their habitats with anything so weak as obdurium." "I don't feel so good." "Then let's not talk about what they DO consider a weapon of mass destruction." "It's going to literally destroy mass, isn't it?" "You're still thinking too small."

[@persivle9]

You should consider expanding this story and posting it to hfy subreddit you might get it read by our beloved narrator

[@ianhogben3472]

Seconded

[@CEBph5997]

@@persivle9 I third this notion.

[@talieclandestine9155]

I adore this. After all, it's a great way to kill a star about to super nova.

[@Crazylom]

What can be bigger that destroying mass? DESTROYING ENERGY OBVIOUSLY!

[@benlyon5118]

"Only one business in the galaxy gets you this rich." "War?" "What, no! Trade with the humans."

[@GoblinKnightLeo]

God that movie was so awful. Every single scene was broken.

[@eXpriest]

@@GoblinKnightLeo What movie?

[@GoblinKnightLeo]

@@eXpriest Ben Lyons comment was a joke about one of the stupidest scenes in _The Last Jedi._ The writing in that movie is indefensibly stupid, and the dialogue is no better.

[@samuelevans738]

@@GoblinKnightLeo out of context, the line is fine. In context... You don't want to hear it in context.

[@overfailed3639]

"War! You crazy? You don't go to war with humans! Or anyone who has that industrial capabilities really."

[@VimyGlide]

literally "Yeah, no, these guys could kill us all by accident, don't piss them off. Oh, also I quit. They're paying me full time."

[@AgroSquerril]

yup

[@henryrodgers7386]

Human: You wouldn't be tryin' to steal my property now, would you? Alien: Nossir! We're here to sell you crap! Human: Well, Hell, why didn't ya say so?! *MARGARET!!!* Put on the coffeepot! We got guests! - Western civilization in a nutshell, folks.

[@barelyasurvivor1257]

Henry, have a virtual cookie Your comment was Gold

[@blackcat09tails55]

Good crap can grow produce large, terrible crap can clutter your shelves,but it's your crap and you love it anyway,why else would you buy the crap in the first place,lol

[@rwberger6]

Speak softly but carry a big stick has been a winning strategy throughout human history. Make it more worthwhile to trade with you than attack you.

[@jamaicanewshub9582]

If it's like the Ozarks putting on a pot of coffee isn't good either

[@purplepedantry]

* Capitalist Societies in a nutshell

[@mrmastaofdesasta6994]

Other races: "We need to carefully plan our new settlements, so that we do not make our people live on unstable planets." Humans: "HEY, look I just built my house on this asteroid that flew by, goodbye, see you never!"

[@persivle9]

Really captures the pioneer spirit that all humans seem to have deep down

[@calsifer666]

I'm not even joking that I would absolutely do that in a heartbeat? Things not going to well? Fuck it I have nothing keeping me here, I'mma go plop my house on a rock and dig all day for ores.

[@TheMonkey747]

I would do this with many of my friends. "Give us what we pay for, and leave us alone." Edit spelling

[@alganhar1]

@@calsifer666 Its one hell of a way to get away from the In Laws, or that crazy ex!!

[@dimanarinull9122]

@@calsifer666 that sounds like Minecraft but IRL. as it appears, the kids do yearn for the mines...

[@JesseGolo]

We attacked them with enough force to end a planet. Fortunately, they didn't notice.

[@AgroSquerril]

:)

[@neuromancer8796]

notice me, Daddy!

[@robertbemis9800]

Humans fought a war with xenoes Human didn’t even notice HFY

[@AgroSquerril]

indeed

[@brucenorman8904]

It wasn't a war it was humans with their shopping carts picking up deposit bottles so they could go buy some hooch.

[@theuncalledfor]

"The only good news I can offer you is that we are not at war." (This is the best quote from the entire story IMO.)

[@dtkedtyjrtyj]

Maybe we _would_ have noticed if they hadn't disguised their ships as tasty morsels of raw materials. They have no one to blame but themselves.

[@kennethhummel4409]

Don’t shoot! These humans are apex consumer shoppers!!! We need the marketplace.

[@gmradio2436]

Humanity: Shut up and take our money. Aliens: We are not even. Humanity: We don't care. Aliens: Ok. Welcome to Galaxy Mart.

[@kennethhummel4409]

@@gmradio2436 I need 52 billion left handed 15MM widgets and one hyperdrive. What aisles do I find them on?

[@gmradio2436]

@@kennethhummel4409 Alien 1: aisle 1238, sir. Human: Alright. [Walks that way.] Alien 2: Boss, there is no aisle 1238, or those left hand do-hickies. Alien 1: There will be by the time he gets there.

[@kennethhummel4409]

@@gmradio2436 well it took me 2 days to walk to this aisle! I slept in your tube hotel on aisle 876 and ate a complimentary bowl of people chow. Can you help me load these widgets into my cart?

[@SiegeTF]

@@kennethhummel4409 Certainly, although there is a mandatory %15 gratuity which will be paid to the stocking staff if you didn't bring your own help.

[@SouthernersSax]

When you have population figures that make WH40K players say "That's a bit much, don't you think?"

[@AgroSquerril]

lol

[@theuncalledfor]

And yet, these numbers are realistic.

[@lqg4395]

Woah woah woah that sounds like some HERESY! Our glorious imperium has a genuine non-hyperbolic Million worlds, that a 1 followed by nine zeroes. Most of which have a population size in the tens of billions. That's not even counting AdMech, or (emperor preserve us) worlds like Cadia that aren't around anymore.

[@baldur3365]

To be fair the imperium of man goes through a few million every minute so

[@kieferkarpfen6897]

Terra has like serval 100 billion people.

[@scotteggert9820]

So basically what the scouts are saying is 'Don't Shoot them for gods sake They can wipe us out without noticing that they did it. But for the love of all things holy send in the merchants! We need their money!'

[@Crazylom]

Military and economy. What they have in common? NUMBERS RULE DARN IT!

[@donanthebarbarian5177]

If numbers don't rule your clearly not using big enough numbers!

[@Nevir202]

Not "they can" they already have, on three occasions. LOL

[@neuromancer8796]

CAPITALISM, is quite contagious

[@emjizone]

Resources more than money.

[@tedb.5707]

Imagine a small band of Neolithic warriors from deep in the jungles of the Amazon declaring war on the entire European Community. They'd be mistaken for a van-load of LARPing reenacters on their way to a Comic-Con, complete with authentic stone-tipped weapons, gut-stringed bows and log canoe. They'd likely win a prize for their dedication to staying in character and be sent on their way loaded down with swag.

[@AgroSquerril]

lol

[@barelyasurvivor1257]

Well we won the war. See all the tribute they paid us!

[@feldamar2]

I mean. That is KINDA the plot behind "The mouse that roared"

[@hanzzel6086]

​@@feldamar2 I loved that book.

[@khorns_dk]

The numbers and scale of things in this story would make Isaac Arthur proud

[@BgStalker]

is his name a combination of names of Isaac Asimov and Arthur Clarke? and the numbers are little bit off, but it's still good story imo ;) edit:spelling

[@citizen_grub4171]

@@BgStalker Ask his mother. She named him. Isaac is not a fictional character. He's a science communicator and futurist.

[@muninrob]

@@BgStalker If this is your kind of story, you might love Isaac's channel. Here you go kzbin.info/door/ZFipeZtQM5CKUjx6grh54g IMO that's one of the best Sci Fi world building & concept sources out there for HARD sci fi.

[@silvadelshaladin]

Yep I was about to comment ahh Isaac Arthur's view of the solar system in the year 7021.

[@henrypaleveda7760]

And Issac Asimov shriek

[@GoblinKnightLeo]

For a sense of scale, the Oort Cloud is so far away that _Voyager 1_ isn't expected to reach the inner edge of it for another 300 years.

[@oli3645]

Holy shit that is far away…

[@matthewbenton4767]

and with our population growth potential i do believe we can colonize it, but doing it pre ftl? no

[@GoblinKnightLeo]

@@matthewbenton4767 I mean, physically we can, but even assuming we develop VASMIR into something practical you'd still be looking at travel times of 10 years or longer.

[@brianbarber5401]

@@GoblinKnightLeo that’s assuming you’re trying to travel from here to there, instead of basically just continually expanding the populated area until you just reach there. With what was described in this story, there are no gaps to jump across, as habits would fill those spaces. Basically, we wouldn’t travel to the Oort Cloud, we’d breed our way to it.

[@thelaughinghyenas8465]

@@GoblinKnightLeo , If each generation spreads out three months of travel time at 2% of light speed, how many generations until they reach the Oort cloud?

[@Gaster601]

Imagine being vaporized inside your titan-class warship because some human space-hillbillies calls dibs on your camo.

[@Chokah]

"the greatest danger, is that they NOTICE YOU"...It'd be an elephant slapping a mosquito apparently.

[@struppi441]

More like a petawatt laser annihilating a bacterium lol

[@waynecampeau4566]

More like a Jupiter sized planet full of elephants sitting on you. :) Best move, be very polite and friendly.

[@RAGNAROK-rm8gq]

No it would be like the sun itself stepping on an ant

[@theuncalledfor]

The increasingly extreme responses here may convey the scale, but not the psychological feel of the event. In that way, it's more like a person spraying disinfectant on a counter top.

[@engmed4400]

More like an elephant accidentally stepping on a grape.

[@katamed5205]

I love the ending of this one. "I quit as soldier." signed very rich merchant across the galaxy the economically inclined hear the call HERE COMES THE MONEY!

[@Realitygetreal]

Kind of like the USA... "I quit as a soldier because I witnessed how much money politicians make off of War, so I am running for congress"

[@ShiroNekoDen]

Looks like a stellaris player went tall instead of wide XD

[@trazyntheinfinite9895]

Tall is just wide but tilted 90 degrees.

[@thatlass]

@@trazyntheinfinite9895 lmfao, for real.

[@alekjanowski9847]

@@trazyntheinfinite9895 With you name, and race of Necronthyr it makes it only better xD

[@____________838]

Let’s be honest, the Necrontyr were both wide and tall during the War In Heaven. But so were the Old Ones.

[@Crazylom]

Void Dwellers origin players:

[@ShinigamiSparda]

Before mission: “How could we be so utterly defeated? How powerful is their military?” After mission: “That wasn’t even their military. They wiped us all out by accident. Don’t attack them if you know what’s good for you. Also, I’m a CEO now and I quit the military. Don’t call me again unless you’re sending a resume.”

[@talinpeacy7222]

This has almost Cthulhu-esqe vibes from it. An old god who is so massive and powerful that even coordinated attacks against it have a chance of never being noticed simply because he might accidentally annilate the attackers before it can be recognized as such. A draw of power so great that wide swaths of people would be drawn to it's great and terrible power.

[@louishermann7676]

One thing I've noticed about our God myths is that as we've developed (humanity), we've attained more and more of the powers traditionally reserved for "the gods".

[@lornbaker1083]

@@louishermann7676 I have always held. If god/gods made man in its image. Then man is a god too. One of science, and one of hope. If not. Then we have already made our selves into those old gods. with those same things. science and hope.

[@Merilirem]

@@lornbaker1083 Science is merely an attempt at understanding. It is so basic that all magic, miracles, powers, everything that could possibly exist falls under its purview. Anything capable of scientific discovery with any will to do so would inevitably become a god or die trying. There is simply no other option available.

[@kylejohns2288]

One thing about science that a lot of people don’t seem to get is our universe is not infinite but very freaking close and in that situation almost anything will happen not can happen will happen another way to look at it is this if you have a room full of air particles the air particles are going to tend to be fairly evenly spaced but they move there is the possibility for every single particle of air to Pat into as tight of a space as they can possibly get completely on their own as you leave it long enough eventually it will happen mathematical it is 100% chance if you give it enough time that’s the same principle universe works on which is fucking terrifying

[@giarnovanzeijl399]

@@kylejohns2288 Actually it very well could be infinite, it just wouldn't mean a thing if we aren't.

[@ihtfp01]

Once we've gotten into space to stay, there's literally NO LIMITS to our expansion and no need for planets at all. I recall reading an article that pondered "what if we never find FTL" and the conclusions were similar to this story. Humans would spread across the galaxy in a million years or so, hopping from Oort type cloud to Oort type cloud. There IS hope for humanity, IF we get off this rock...

[@ClokworkGremlin]

That is exactly why some people are trying to ensure that we never do.

[@stevedixon921]

I want off this planet. And yes, we either get our species off this planet or die with it.

[@DepressedCrow]

hey! it may be a rock, but it's our rock.

[@davidtucker9498]

I doubt we will, but I hope we do.

[@matthewbenton4767]

@@davidtucker9498 most aero physicist said breaking mach was impossible, now mach 12 is doable

[@mrmastaofdesasta6994]

This is the most chaotic depiction of human civilization I have seen so far, and I love it

[@joshuafischer684]

And it happily permits me to be a hick farmer on a small asteroid, taking potshots at passing xenos with my laser-shotgun.

[@paulhartman5683]

And probably one of the more accurate!😂

[@robinchwan]

imagine opening up a shop on one of these highly populated places... your entire stock would be sold out within the day perhaps not even a day! would need a supply chain that constantly supply the shop at every waking moment.

[@rogermon3s141]

As is in major cities stores need stock every day- perhaps they are distributed so that one needs supplied every few days or just a few hours

[@garavonhoiwkenzoiber]

You'd need a similar business model like Amazon. No real physical shop for customers to come in and buy things, you wouldn't be able to stock the shelves quick enough. A website linked to hundreds, thousands, of warehouses manned by machines, items constantly coming in and going out. With billions of customers per second, you couldn't be richer by printing money.

[@Nevir202]

With numbers like this, you would arrange a shipment, and before it departed for system, the whole shipment would be sold out, and stock backordered for 5 years if even a fraction of a percentage of people were interested in the product lol.

[@leechowning8728]

Um, with the numbers I see here, the humans can drain the ENTIRE resource base of multi-stellar empires simply by buying them... ALL. Oh, you mean you still have ships? Would they make good mining ships? We need 5 million. Thank you.

[@Darqshadow]

​@leechowning8728 so we would Ferengi our way into control of the universe?

[@Candid1ify]

Simply not worth target for Military. However well worth getting into trade with.

[@bordenfleetwood5773]

It's rare that one of these stories makes me openly laugh. The scale of system operations is ludicrous, but within some futurists' projections, such as Isaac Arthur. If the rest of the galaxy is operating on Star Trek projections and tech, I could see this happening.

[@calsifer666]

I'm just going to say, all this story does is make me think of a quick side thing on the military ships being mistaken for asteroids. "Hey John" my crewmate said, gently jabbing me in the elbow with his own. "Take a look at this readout." I looked up from the book that I had kept with me since I joined this mining colony, one of the few things that still kept me sane. Some old story of a world war from an alien speices, one that caused a massive amount of hysteria as my eyes glanced at the screen. "Okay, so it's a bit more minerals than usual, what's up Tim?" "Welll, look there, that's helium, and a bit of nitrogen and oxygen. Among others that's...well...in humans..." "Yeah? Basic building blocks in us. The universe is chock full of them." "But in such a high concentration? All in one spot?" "..." I looked over the numbers again. Yeah, they were higher than usual. I gritted my teeth slightly, a small quirk I kept when I thought. "...You don't think we just slagged a colony or two, do you?" Again, I looked the screen over. My old lessons from highschool, some thirty years ago, didn't help me...then I noticed something odd. There wasn't any sort of warning in the system, no beacon, nothing that showed some kind of claim on it. Course, I also wanted to get back to reading the book again, even if I had read it...an uncountable amount of times. What can I say? It's my favorite book. "Nah, Tim, lookie there. The numbers there are a bit too high." I said, pointing at the screen to feign interest before turning back to my book. "...John, I think we gl-" "Look Tim. Are there any survivors?" Tim looked at me, mouth slightly agape. "...Well?" "...No, but-" "Then it never happened, right?" "But what if there we-" "To be bluntly honest, they looked like unclaimed asteroids, chances are we call up anyone else, they're unmarked, no beacons, nothing. Whoever was on those rocks, if there WERE anyone there and it's not just some surprisingly high numbers, they wern't good people. Smugglers, criminals, who knows what else. They didn't place any way for our scanners to tell they were there and honestly, way I see it? Whatever they were, if there were any, knew the risks of doing that in a well known mining zone. Now, let's just chalk it up to high minerals and count our blessings, whatever it is it's a couple thousand credits which means an early day for us." "...If you say so John..." And at that, we chalked it up to just mineral rich rocks, ignoring and pretending that there was no life in space... Least not in that little mining camp inside of our ship's range, except other miners trying to do their job.

[@tmhw111]

👍

[@Realitygetreal]

Somewhat reminiscent of How Europeans looked at North America in the 1500's..

[@Badbadgerboy]

A drop of poison in an Ocean. A bee stinging the earth. A nickel in scrooge's bank

[@gmradio2436]

Scrooge might notice that last one.

[@henrypaleveda7760]

@@gmradio2436 but he wouldn't complain

[@gmradio2436]

@@henrypaleveda7760 True.

[@dinrael4781]

What are you talking about? He will most definitely complain. That's a whole nickel!

[@lucielm]

@@dinrael4781 he will be happy. If it was phrased "A nickel FROM Scrooge's money bin" then it would be anger.

[@dkbros1592]

Yo this infrastructure in this story resembles hive city's of warhammer 40k

[@IronWarrior_69]

damn right

[@widdershins5383]

Hive cities are gonna be the future lol gotta build up, not out

[@Zedstein]

I would argue this is much more colossal than anything in Warhammer 40k. An imperial hive world has 100 billion people in a hive, x20 hives on the typical high end said the wiki. That's only 2 trillion people. You grab like 3 small bodies from this story and you've already matched them.

[@alexzanderm7802]

@@Zedstein To be fair I think thats an average system. I would imagine that the Imperiums HOME system is far more densely populated, or at least was at some point. (A certain massive WAAAGH!!! may be responsible for that no longer being the case)

[@magos_dalunawolf8166]

Indeed

[@brenb7249]

This story seems tailor made for Isaac Arthur's channel.

[@GoblinKnightLeo]

This would actually be a nightmare for me to try to live in. I'd live in my ship rather than try to live in what amounts to a bacterial culture. Imagine how effective a bioweapon would be with population densities this high. I'd end up a small-time day trader living on one of the Oort cloud colonies.

[@Jeff55369]

Counter measures would have had to have been developed to deal with such things. A simple natural cold would kill millions of people in those asteroid cities.

[@maximsavage]

Presumably, their medical technology is such that our current-day diseases are no longer a threat. Maybe they've exterminated most diseases through genetic engineering or nanite shots. Nothing like this exists today, of course, but in purely theoretical terms, it could exist in the future.

[@talinpeacy7222]

Actually, we're in the early stages of research into nullifying many types of sickness genetically. We honestly just need enough economic incentive to ensure someone bothers to pick it up and mass produce it. I could foresee plenty of business organizations putting a stop to that due to how lucrative medical bills are though.

[@Jeff55369]

@@talinpeacy7222 And billionaires who think the earth is overpopulated.

[@kriegsmanjaeger5545]

The problem with developing a bioweapon is humanity's adaptability, and seeing as they have no test subjects... They're more likely to just straight up fail.

[@kinexxona06]

This is what stellaris players would call: building or playing EXTREMELY TALL style. It feels like humanity doing a one system challenge.

[@craftysmithkeith3653]

Unintentionally absolutely terrifying

[@AgroSquerril]

yarp

[@ClokworkGremlin]

"Take a journey with me... through the unfathomable." -Solar Sands

[@louishermann7676]

Amazing! I see the influence of Issac Arthur's work in here. An almost completely populated star system, that's a perspective you don't see a lot.

[@louishermann7676]

From the OP on the reddit thread, regarding SFIA: "Heck yeah. Everybody ought to listen to Isaac Arthur, he's awesome. As a sci-fi geek and space fan, he doesn't surprise me very often, but he does good discussions of things, and every so often something I absolutely hadn't heard of or considered. Most of my ideas of a 'fully inhabited' solar system and what it would mean were mine from way back, but Isaac's description of the 'stellaser,' as well as several other technologies I could have used here but didn't, was the first time I'd heard of it."

[@sovietpowersupereme6231]

Humans when aliens attack with their combined military power "Must've been the wind."

[@theuncalledfor]

Alternatively... >aliens: attack with their combined military power >humans: "Oohh, skittles! NOM NOM NOM"

[@imjang2430]

I love how this story portrays us as some kind of horde type civilisation, or sumthin', like overwhelmin' with numbers. QUANTITY OVER QUALITY!

[@AgroSquerril]

FOR THE HORDE! :)

[@sentientbackpack8191]

I mean... humans ARE space orcs

[@edzejandehaan9265]

On a planetary scale we already are...

[@samuelevans738]

@@sentientbackpack8191 no-no no-no no-no... Humans are space-space SKAVEN.

[@samuelevans738]

Bringing DOOOOOOOOOOOOM! Wherever we-we bring our-our armies... Or-or our moneys. Lots-lots of moneys.

[@TheMonkey747]

'Terran Humans find an asteroid in another star/deep space system with a human inhabitant 'clan'. This human 'clan' is descended from some Terran settlers that were out in the Oort cloud, but got flung into Boo-Foo-Nowhere.'

[@Aras14]

It was mentioned, that several human settlements are in other galaxies. I wonder how far they spread.

[@mrmaxwell346]

In the andromeda galaxy: DEAR GOD THERE IN THE WALLS

[@theuncalledfor]

This seems to be a no-FTL setting, so there wouldn't be humans in other galaxies yet, simply because of the travel times involved. They likely have the tech, but there has not been enough time to physically reach another galaxy yet. Probably ships on the way there, though.

[@Snipergoat1]

@@theuncalledfor Presumably the aliens had something as there was no mention of these attacks or scouting probes being life long operations, perhaps they are extraordinarily long lived and a 100 year mission would be like a 6 month deployment to their thinking.

[@KroMagnum4]

And thus Denebian Merchant Marine Service begins.

[@hogfry]

Aliens: "so tell us something about yourselves." Humanity: "ok, so... Basically we like to fu(k..."

[@engmed4400]

I mean, we do have to play to our strengths...🤣

[@nuru666]

That is THE BEST "I quit" letter I have ever read XD

[@reighniz4488]

I laughed at this far more than I probably should have.

[@calvingreene90]

We need to arm like hell to make sure that their explorers notice we are here and have claims. --- Denebian Constancy

[@talinpeacy7222]

And this, the birth of the mining navies comes to pass.

[@lyromata]

Brilliant. I love his move from scout to trader. It was a great way to end the story.

[@Nachtschicht1]

So in this story humanity basically converted the whole solar system into a mega-version of Kowloon walled city...

[@damienmccuinn1956]

>Alien attacks Earth >*Quiet* >*Banjo's begin to play*

[@njnjco]

The best thing about this story is that it could actually happen. This is a realistic depiction of what the future could look like.

[@georgea5991]

And this is a pretty accurate view of what a moderately developed K2 civilization could become. Everything in this story is within the realm of possibility (barring, of course, any unrealistic amount of heat energy produced by so many people being crowded together).

[@SpiritWolf1966]

I enjoy all of Agro Squirrel Narrates videos

[@dantreadwell7421]

The second part reminds me of some of the Man-Kin wars from Known Space. Specifically the bit about using propulsion lasers as weapons.

[@muninrob]

"A reaction drive's efficiency as a weapon is in direct proportion to its efficiency as a drive."

[@johncochran8497]

Well, when you look at it closely, EVERY weapon out there is merely a tool that concentrates energy. Either in area, time, or both. Even something as primitive as a sword or rock. For instance, a sword concentrates energy is area and time. It takes a significant fraction of a second to accelerate a sword using one's muscles and all of that energy is then released upon contact in a few milliseconds, hence the concentration in time. And all of that energy is concentrated over the area of the sharp edge, hence the concentration in area. A laser also concentrates energy. So does a bomb. An example of the difference energy concentration makes, look at a rifle or pistol. Due to Newton's laws, the energy imparted upon the shooter of a firearm matches the energy imported to the bullet being fired. And in fact, the energy imparted to the shooter is actually GREATER than the energy imported to the target of the shooter. Yet, the shooter is quite unlikely to be injured, while the target is likely to be fatally injured. Why? Well, the mass of the pistol or rifle is rather large. Additionally, the area supported by the shooter is also large. This means that the energy is imparted to the shooter over a relatively large area, and over a relatively large amount of time. Whereas the target hit by the bullet has that energy released over a short time and small area.

[@prisonerofthehighway1059]

An alien invasion fleet approaches the Sol system. Humanity: WOOHOO! Free $hit!!!

[@klasandersson7522]

I absolutly LOVE this story, I keep coming back to it again and again!!! And the narration is spot on, bravo good sir!

[@66Lynnie]

Me too 😊

[@ARockRaider]

You aren't the only one! "Humans are space orks"? No, humans are a space fungus!

[@SovietImperator]

This isn’t just playing tall this is playing skyscraper

[@TheJasonBorn]

I like that one. Oops, that was an attack, we thought it was just strangely mineral rich asteroids, so we deconstructed them as per the norm and sold off the minerals collected for profit like usual.

[@Mglue3]

The sheer amount of trade inbound to the sol system would mean their trade partners wouldn't want a war either. By any means necessary.

[@AgroSquerril]

indeed

[@ClokworkGremlin]

"Effectively bottomless consumer market." The ratio of the human population in this story to the current one is approximately equal to the ratio of the current human population to you. Squared. It would be physically impossible to ever manufacture enough goods to satisfy the market. You wouldn't even care about bootlegs and piracy, since they wouldn't have any effect on your sales.

[@matthewbenton4767]

@@ClokworkGremlin if you make it, it will sell, then be marked up and sold again

[@TheGelatinousSnake]

Biggest limit will be phosphorus. Every living thing needs it in their DNA. Air and water are great, but we can find that stuff everywhere.. phosphorus though will be more limited.

[@somuchfacepalm9733]

Fission reactors? I mean all that industry is gonna require a lot of power.

[@Jeff55369]

@@somuchfacepalm9733 Fusion would likely be required to have a society like the one described in the story.

[@TheGelatinousSnake]

@@somuchfacepalm9733 no... Fission is plenty easy. Fusion, we have a giant fusion reacter called Sol. Earths orbit is over 148.5 Milion km long. Even if we build 3,600,000 O'Neil Cylinders, they can have over 20km of space between them and have no one blocking their Fusion Solar power. As long as we aren't leaving, energy is not a problem.

[@ClokworkGremlin]

@@Jeff55369 That's certainly what I assumed was powering the gigantic radiator array on Orcus.

[@Drave_Jr.]

They've probably mastered atomic alcehemy at this point.

[@Mr.Grinns]

I bet the fleet admiral reading that report probably was like "damn, i gotta invest into trading"

[@snake57]

Just found this channel. I am officially addicted.

[@Cadiangrunt99]

This was one of my games of Stellaris I could shit out fleets instantly and it didn't slow me down XD

[@m.h.6470]

So basically the spy took one look at the Sol system and said "F that, I'm gonna be a merchant instead."

[@phillipk4196]

good ol murphy saw them tryimg to be clever and said: "hold my Law!"

[@theuncalledfor]

Actually, everything went very well for the aliens. Not being noticed was the best possible outcome.

[@Devin_Stromgren]

As someone who believes that no man should be able to see his neighbors house without the assistance of optics, I find these population densities, horrifying.

[@RealArcalian]

You'd live on your own out in the Oort Cloud somewhere, you'd be fine.

[@Gilhelmi]

The Oort Cloud does sound quite nice. I also enjoy Pedawatt lasers and the idea of just drifting out into the endless void.

[@ryanstewart2289]

Alien: "How did you fend off our attack?" Humans: "We were attacked?"

[@peterciurea7771]

Interesting story. Might be an answer to the Fermi paradox and a sad prediction of our future: any being that figures out how to live outside it's world, self supporting, would invariably colonize/infest their galaxy.And we see no such activity, so it still has not happened....and it likely won't happen with us.

[@samuelevans738]

Either that, or we just haven't noticed it yet. Hard to observe extraterrestrials when we're essentially looking at billions of years in the past.

[@kriegsmanjaeger5545]

Everything we currently see is millions upon millions of years old, by the time we get a civilizations radio transmissions they're probably extinct.

[@tripplebarrelfinn4380]

Yes and no, the milky way is 170k - 200k in diameter. So an entire civilization could have develop space travel, colonized other solar systems and died out since the first appereance of the homo sapiens and we would just get to see the first pictures.

[@alganhar1]

Humanities radio wave bubble is a 100 Light Year bubble. But even that is misleading, the radio wave bubble that MIGHT be detectable Light Years away is at most 70 Light Years. If a civilisation 200 Light Years away started broadcasting 150 years ago we would not detect them for AT LEAST 50 years. That is assuming the initial parts of the bubble have not attenuated to a point we cannot feasibly pick them up from the background radiation. The Fermi Paradox is nonsensical because it does not take into account size and time. The reason why we have not detected sentient, technological life out in the Galaxy boils down to a very simple answer. They are not CLOSE ENOUGH to detect....

[@Wearyman]

Aliens use: Space fleet... It's ineffective. Humans use: Capitalism... It's Super Effective! Humans WIN

[@cliffwarden5934]

This puts a smile on my face every time I play it for someone.

[@blueeyeswhitedragon9839]

Absolutely entertaining story...thank you for the needed uplift.

[@MrGoesBoom]

Except for the fact they don't seem to mind xeno's I would think this was Warhammer

[@SuperGamefreak18]

Actually could have been still warhammer if a zeno is deemed useful the imperium will tolerate them

[@donanthebarbarian5177]

@@SuperGamefreak18 could also be Warhammer before any xenos managed to harm humanity in Sol... I mean so far nothing has attempted to provoke us and succeeded in attracting our attention... Humanity due to our bloody past will attempt to be friendly until such a time as something tries to threaten us and gets noticed. Hell of the things attempting to attack us are as non threatening a group as this group was were to announce themselves to all of humanity we may notice their attack but not take them seriously, especially if they were a small fluffy race like say sentient Chipmunks. Our collective reaction to something like them would be "Aww!! They're so cute! Thinking they're galaxy conquering empire with such a small fleet and such adorable bodies! I want to cuddle them!"

[@MegaCyrik]

Now a borg cube entered the outer rim on one side, above a colony of a few millions.. while a tyranid super hive fleet entered from the opposite side of the rim of a small colony of a few billions.. a few month went on while the fantastic tales reaching earth got more and more ridiculous and was in the beginning seen by the politicians as a competition among miners of who could make up the most fantastic or absurd story.

[@RealArcalian]

Greetings, Mentlegent! For the Rhythm that is Algo I've actually had this liked for some time, but it was from before I started watching your channel regularly, so I never commented. But I really enjoy it.

[@astrithaurelia]

entry in the Dictionary of this universe: "Humanity: Literal space cancer! they infest anything they can reach!"

[@unknownbeing2089]

Wow this sounds like something that could actually happen if we survive the next coming decade or two Ps Cuz earths going to be on 🔥 either by us or by nature

[@darthslackus499]

Imagine your military might were so pathetic that the enemy unknowingly and successfully fended off your attacks. LOL

[@misterbitey2107]

I feel like this entire story is a parody of what the average sci-fi writer thinks a space faring civilization would look like and comparing it to what actual human colonization would end up looking like. It's not even in the same ballpark.

[@barelyasurvivor1257]

We can sell them 10 trillion cases of soda or food product's every cycle, and not even be anywhere near saturating the market. or even scratching it Send merchants quick

[@kashkara_8943]

For the algorithmic Joy

[@kriegsmanguard7326]

Another great story, for the algorithm!

[@AgroSquerril]

glad you enjoyed , For the algorithm

[@harrygrimley4352]

Loved this. Thanks for sharing this with us

[@nickbarker9712]

Galactic council backing away slowly hoping the psychotic apes dont notice

[@victortahlor4038]

Thank you for the reading

[@willgallatin2802]

Quite the homage to Steel Sky.

[@equinsuocha8905]

Sounds like he’s describing the Sol System of the Imperium of Man lol

[@theuncalledfor]

Nah, WH40K is small compared to this story.

[@ianharrison5758]

@@theuncalledfor a sentence I’ve never thought I’d read and agree with. This is the scale 40k tries to achieve but fails bc no one in GW seems to understand numbers scaling past the trillions.

[@macpurdy]

This would be the Sol System during the Dark Age of Technology from 40k.

[@seanbarker4610]

Michael Myers sees humans like pokemon, gotta catch them all! Lol

[@SilverMKI]

Finally a proper scale of population and inhabitation of a well developed solar system.

[@discusmaximus]

For the Algorithm, For the Author(s), For the Narrator, Agro Squirrel !

[@Amoth_oth_ras_shash]

for some reason this story made me think on omnicron.... andas it makes a doomsday speach...its cut of short by the humans not fleeing from it...but rushing to it starting to hack at its surface and stick flags down XD

[@martialme84]

This was actually very thoughtful and very well written. I immensely enjoyed reading this. Far too many of these are very, very, very, very poorly and shoddily and carelessly done.

[@guardianofthetoasters2323]

This... This is the scale I always wanted 40k to have but would never will be. I mean it's a galactic empire, it should have quintillions of guardsman not just billions if the hive cities pops could double in just years

[@ianharrison5758]

I always think of 40k numbers on this scale. I do not care that GW is ran by corporate neckbeards that can’t scale numbers for shit, I add 1-3 0s to the figures of everything they reference

[@kieferkarpfen6897]

The imperium has 500 to 600 Trillion people in their military.

[@alexandermathieson4774]

Outstanding, absolutely brilliant.

[@thomaskline5164]

LOVE it, kind of reminds me of Report of planet 3. LOL

[@carlfromtheoc1788]

Quantity has a quality of its own.

[@samuelevans738]

Ikkit claw agrees.

[@timobrien2813]

Josef Stalin when referring to arms "Quantity has a quality of its own". Good story, thank you. UKUK

[@StonedDragons]

One thing, stellasar is short for stellar laser, so pronouncing it like that made me cringe a little each time. Otherwise really enjoyed the story, I for once have no complaints about the scale of things here.

[@Shinobubu]

An old earth saying. Don't play in traffic. You might get vaporized by a stellaser sending a cruise ship full of fat consumers across the star system

[@Bannedchan]

You intend to build colonies? Yes Where? Yes

[@anathardayaldar]

Vizir: Approximately a trillion. Emperor: The humans have a total population of a trillion? Vizir: No, my lord. They populate a trillion star systems, each one with an average population of a hundred trillion.

[@leeschulken8744]

Much as i hate to bring some reasonable-ness into this.... I'm fairly sure that by the time we get a population in the system as large as they are talking about we'll have long been using Teleportation to transport data packets at.... what i'm fairly positive is FTL speed. Something related to making use of quantum entaglement and the spin of an atom since that responds immediately and not at light speed.

[@wholeeyschmoley580]

way WAY 2DEEP bruh....

[@donanthebarbarian5177]

Well we might be able to do so in this story but sure to the sheer quantity of data being sent to and from everywhere it might be impossible to connect every inhabited place to every other inhabited place at quantum speeds and in that case why bother? Because if you can't do that even limiting it to local government communications only wouldn't be all that helpful... In which case listed communications would be the only real way to communicate. I'm assuming quantum, subspace, hyperspace and I'm undirected lightspeed communications all share the issue of bandwidth/overlapping signals causing interference once you hit that level of density in a given system.

[@mfree80286]

@@donanthebarbarian5177 Quantum entanglement shouldn't suffer any interference issues as the entangled quanta are only entangled as a pair. Bandwidth could be iffy, depends on how a change is created and detected and whether it's worth the effort/resources to parallel "channels" for byte depth. I don't think you can entangle at a distance though, so you better hope your comm gear has backup pairs and never gets damaged. Lose a pair and it's gone forever.

[@Jeff55369]

If you want to be reasonable about science fiction, you'd have to come to terms that our civilization would never reach the point of being space faring. Human societies fracture far too easily, and then devolve into bloodshed. We'll likely never survive to the point we have a self-sustainable colony on another body.

[@ianharrison5758]

@@mfree80286 once you observe an entangled particles, they aren’t entangled anymore. That phenomenon wouldn’t be useful for FTL. Short of finding some form of subspace to use, or somehow managing to harness Hubble expansion, it is so unlikely that FTL anything exists within the laws of physics that we’re just as likely to discover that the magic of the Harry Potter series is real as we are to making functional FTL drives. The speed of light isn’t just light speed, it’s the speed of causality itself. It’s the speed of information, of cause and effect. The only things moving “FTL” are galaxy’s outside the observable universe and they aren’t moving FTL themselves, they are just so far away that Hubble expansion means new space will appear between us and them faster than the light from them could cross to give us any information about them. We won’t be able to travel or communicate FTL by any conventional means because all of them are so energy intensive that even if you could get TOO light speed(anything with mass can’t) that the energy cost of slowing down would make it to where you’d need infinite energy x2. The only hope I, and most Astrophysicists have for FTL anything is bypassing light speed, not “moving” faster than it. How that would be possible is still a mystery but since quantum entanglement does exist, we know something is weird about things at that small of scale that might make things like a “jump” through the quantum foam possible, or more likely, since conventional macro scale physics go fuck themselves at a quantum level, so I’m more inclined towards dark energy/matter and Hubble expansion being our ticket to FTL. Dark energy and matter, if we can contain and use it, probably won’t be a great fuel source since it would be like fueling an engine with a shadow, in the case of dark energy, or something so volatile that any connection with matter is a suicide pact and using that as fuel is just dumb. However, there is so much we don’t know about them that they very well could have properties we could exploit that may allow us to find a loophole in conventional matter based movement. It’s theorized that dark energy and/or matter are what’s causing Hubble expansion, which is what’s making space to just appear out of “nowhere” and causing the universe to expand. We don’t know how this works or where the space comes from, or how we might be able to harness the energy of space itself, but those are mysteries I can’t solve and they leave the possibility of a sci fi future with FTL just a little below being flat out impossible. Though i wouldn’t trust the idea of using the energy of the fabric of space time bc that’s how we end up with false vacuum decay and hit end Task on the universe

[@abbyjohnson1702]

I guess we finally figured out how to appropriately distribute adequate resources at some point.

[@noneofyourbuisness1679]

Something, something "when elephants fight, the grass suffers".

[@code.name.sasquatch]

Defense of the Human System in a nutshell: "I wanna mine that...oh, it exploded. I wanna mine that....oh, it exploded. I wanna mine that....oh, it exploded. I wanna mine that...oh, it exploded." 😂😂😂😂

[@alexs5814]

LOOOOL!! we didn't even notice them^^ this is hilarious.

[@russellperry9902]

Good story , good reading, good algorithm

[@lunaphoenix1785]

I love how we're not so much space orcs, as we are space cockroaches... also these comments are hilarious