Is there a Goldilocks lifespan that humans conveniently meet between too short and too long?
I suppose the alternative would be a fiction setting where humans are actually an outlier for inferiority and pretty much everyone else is more developed and has a more advanced civilization.
Humans being the new kids on the block with inferior technology is a pretty common thing. Babylon 5 had humans buy, trade, and negotiate for most of their tech and are barely more advanced than the average small independent world at the start of the show. Farscape had Earth as a backwater, uncontacted, pre-interstellar world and made humans unusually frail with poor eyesight compared to the other species. Even in Trek, humans are physiologically inferior to most everyone and ENT depicted our tech as being far behind everyone else.
The real advantage humanity is consistently depicted as having, regardless of setting, franchise, or even sci-fi vs fantasy, is that we develop new technology faster than just about anyone else. In sci-fi settings, we’ll go from barely getting to Mars to colonizing the entire Orion Arm in a couple decades. In fantasy settings, we’ll be first to develop firearms and rudimentary industrialization.
I credit Stargate for one novelty: it showed humans being mostly primitive compared to the greys, but the greys never thought about firing projectiles out of gas-powered cylinders, so they said that was interesting and effective.
Is there a Goldilocks lifespan that humans conveniently meet between too short and too long?
I suppose the alternative would be a fiction setting where humans are actually an outlier for inferiority and pretty much everyone else is more developed and has a more advanced civilization.
Humans being the new kids on the block with inferior technology is a pretty common thing. Babylon 5 had humans buy, trade, and negotiate for most of their tech and are barely more advanced than the average small independent world at the start of the show. Farscape had Earth as a backwater, uncontacted, pre-interstellar world and made humans unusually frail with poor eyesight compared to the other species. Even in Trek, humans are physiologically inferior to most everyone and ENT depicted our tech as being far behind everyone else.
The real advantage humanity is consistently depicted as having, regardless of setting, franchise, or even sci-fi vs fantasy, is that we develop new technology faster than just about anyone else. In sci-fi settings, we’ll go from barely getting to Mars to colonizing the entire Orion Arm in a couple decades. In fantasy settings, we’ll be first to develop firearms and rudimentary industrialization.
I credit Stargate for one novelty: it showed humans being mostly primitive compared to the greys, but the greys never thought about firing projectiles out of gas-powered cylinders, so they said that was interesting and effective.
“You blow up one sun, and everybody thinks you can walk on water.”
Most of the time scrappy underdog humans pull ahead and look more awesome in fiction with their inferior tech.