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Kind: captions
Language: en-GB

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This is a notice from the Interstellar Safety
Council.

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Your starship will soon enter an area of space
where humans have previously been found. We

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understand that there are rumours and myths
about this species. It's true that humans

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are extremely dangerous, but we believe that
the best way to deal with them is to be aware

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of the facts.

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The human world, unlike all other known planets,
works on a principle they call Survival of

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the Fittest. For billions of years, from the
time life first appeared, their world has

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changed not by co-operation, but by brutal,
violent competition.

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Humans are powered by three things.

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First, humans grow, repair and fuel themselves
by consuming and digesting other life forms,

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including macroscopic life and, in many cases,
life forms capable of reaction and distress.

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Their intake point contains exoskeletal protrusions
designed to crush, tear and rip almost any

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organic material. Humans will not generally
consume other sentient life. Historically,

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though, they have not always been able to
identify sentient life as such in time to

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A human once ate a flying machine.

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Humans are symbiotic creatures. Around 2%
of their mass is made of organisms that aid

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their digestion, but many of which could kill
them if allowed to contact other parts of

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their internal structure. Humans, everything
that they produce, and everything on their

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planet, is covered in uncountable numbers
of these creatures, just one of which would

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be enough to catastrophically end life on
many of our worlds.

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Unlike most species, human sensory organs
are adapted for a wide variety of terrestrial

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environments. They can identify threats and
prey by detecting disruptions in the atmosphere,

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using some electromagnetic frequencies, and
using chemical detection. Astonishingly, they

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are immune to all but the strongest magnetic
fields and all known halting problem attacks.

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Humans have the ability to perform multiple
tasks at once. Their many parts can operate

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automatically without their central mind being
consciously aware of it. Most humans are able

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to concentrate on more than one complicated
task at the same time. As a result, they do

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not need to pause to think between actions
or to contemplate their next move in physical

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combat.

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Human recreation includes physical violence,
mental competition, deliberate disruption

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of their thought processes, and in some cases
deliberately placing themselves into potentially

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lethal situations.

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Humans do have weaknesses.

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The second thing that powers them is oxygen.
Not electricity, not light from their star.

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Oxygen. Highly flammable, highly corrosive,
oxygen. Without it, they are incapacitated

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They are, therefore, only capable of operating
in a limited number of terrestrial environments.

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They are also extremely susceptible to ionising
radiation, gravitational forces, and temperature

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changes. Their space travel thus requires
extensive, complicated, fragile life support

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arrangements. This is their weak point, and
the correct time to attack: once they land

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on an oxygen-bearing planet, it is theirs
and they will win.

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And they will win because their most startling
capability is one of self-delusion. The third

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thing that powers them is hope. Humans are
not a rational species. They do not have an

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intrinsic grasp of statistics or probabilities.
If they did, their history would be very different.

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They would have followed more sensible approaches
to space travel than putting their oxygenated

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bodies into pressurised metal boxes and throwing
themselves off their planet's surface. Humans

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are irrational, messy, contradictory and sometimes
self-defeating. They act against each others'

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interests, and compete viciously and brutally
for limited resources. Instead of acting as

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one, they form complicated tribes that fight
between each other. But humans also possess

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a high capacity for aspiration, kinship, compassion,
and a ridiculous tolerance of adversity.

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For this reason, they are extremely dangerous
and likely to take over a significant part

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of the galaxy in a very short time.

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Avoid if at all possible.

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