What the title says, I’m tired of the trope where humans are the least advanced in the universe.
I’d like to read something different where we’re the more advanced ones (not necessarily the most advanced). As an example I quite enjoyed the Ender’s Game sequels and the angle of us being the more advanced ones was quite interesting.
Do you have any recommendations?
This is a driving factor in a majority of Star Trek fiction.
Also > Hard to Be a God - by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky
Anton a man from a future human utopia in undercover mission on an alien planet that is populated by human beings whose society has not advanced beyond the Middle Ages.
Never really was into Star Trek, unfortunately.
I’d watch star trek if i can skip the old ones. I’m sorry die hard star trek fans but the cgi in those times is just way too terrible for me. I’m sure i can maybe skip to the new ones and just spoil the older shows for myself to get the jist though.
Edit: wait are we talking books or movies/shows? I come from the (everything) fediverse section my bad
the cgi in those times is just way too terrible
In their defense, it was pretty hard to do good Computer-Generated Imagery without computers… 😉
Ye you got a point 😆
You can watch Star Trek: Strange New Worlds easily without watching the old ones (I only watched a few episodes of the older ones when I was young).
I also recommend The Orville if you’re into Seth MacFarlane’s type of comedyHonestly I recommend it even if you aren’t into his comedy. It’s a bit thick in the first half of the first season, but it becomes a decent sci-fi show in general past that point.
The Orville was the best new trek until strange new worlds
I love the Orville! Reminds me of farscape.
The post was about books, but I realize I should’ve mentioned it in the title. But hey, I’m not one to turn down a good sci-fi show or a movie!
Foundation or Dune pop immediately into my mind. Asimov has an interesting view of humanity. As does Herbert. No aliens really in those books though. Honor Harrington series is also about humanity’s dominance in space. Edit thanks saintwacko for the correction lol
Interestingly, the trend in 1940s SF was for humans to always be superior to aliens; John W. Campbell, the editor for Astounding, particularly liked this view. Asimov hated this trend, so that’s why the Foundation series has no aliens in it; as a result he could sell the stories to Campbell without having to write about the inferiority of aliens. It’s also why Asimov wrote a lot of three-law robot stories at this time, as he didn’t mind writing humans to be superior to robots.
Honor* Harrington
I’ve read both and while I agree both series are great (though Dune gets really weird in the later books), this is not what I’m after. I’ll check out Honor Harrington (I assume that’s what you meant, Hunter found me some tennis dude.
Forgive me if I am uninformed, as it has been a while since I read Dune and I never read the complete series, but that universe doesn’t have aliens in it, does it?
Does Foundation have any either? I’ve only watched the series on Apple TV (which I know is very divergent from the books) but it also seems to involve mainly humans and their creations than anything else.
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The Bobiverse is a fun read. Highly recommend
It’s fun but on the second re-read I can’t help but notice how first-person perspective is extremely overused and the overall writing style could use some refinement.
Yeah it’s not great writing but it’s fun so I’m cool with it. Fourth book should not have happened though.
The one with the space river megastructure? I really liked that one actually, kinda reminded me of Ringworld with the whole “exploring an alien megastructure whose inhabitants don’t know how to build such things anymore” sorta plot.
Yeah I didn’t hate the premise, it just felt rushed and incomplete. It’s kind of like I went to a lunch place where I’ve had a lot of good meals but today I got a basket of cold fries with too little salt.
Shit, there’s a 4th? I only listened to 3 then unsubbed from audible.
I might have been in a bad mood when I read it, but I just remember it as not as good as the originals. I think it was just rushed out.
Wasn’t tracking there was a fourth. Third seemed like a logical conclusion.
Although they did meet one race more advanced.
I loved this series. Very entertaining and kept me engaged wanting more.
Counterpoint: it’s dreadful and I gave up in the middle of the first book.
It’s certainly well regarded though so worth a look for yourself, op.
Stargate SG-1 has a VERY interesting premise. Humans start from 0 and we see them gradually learning new technology and making alliances (Plus, the original cast is just stellar)
I’m in the middle of a 5th (or so) rewatch!
Richard Dean Anderson is a national treasure! :D
Definitely! While I still enjoyed the Ori saga, it definitely wasn’t the same without O’Neill.
I think he’s Canadian.
Edit: I’m wrong. Now why did I think that?
SG-1 was largely filmed in Canada. It’s why a lot of planets look like wilderness near Vancouver. (And quarries, in classic Doctor Who fashion.)
In the back half of the series you can really hear it creeping into RDA’s accent.
He filmed Macgyver there before Stargate too so the dude had TONS of time in van
The Culture series, Iain M banks.
Humana are part of the culture (although it is AI dominated) which is considered one of the most advanced groups in the setting.
Came to recommend this. In Ian M Banks’ Culture series, the main “Culture” are quite advanced, indeed with post-scarcity living and guardian AIs possible. We see “The Culture” working to subtly recruit less advanced civilizations and modernize them.
Thanks!
Star Trek sort of fits this. Sort of.
No it doesn’t. In enterprise it’s very clear humans are the junior species in space. Humans are also physically weaker than just about every other space faring species in the series.
Yes, it does. There are many episodes where the Enterprise crew are observing a less advanced race. It is the reason they have the Prime Directive in the first place.
Enterprise isn’t exactly a representative sampling of star trek.
In TNG the only reoccurring villains that are more advanced than humans are the Q and the Borg. The iconians were super advanced, but are long dead. There are random space babies/sentient nebulas but most species are behind the federation in tech. Even the romulans aren’t more advanced, just focused on war.
If you ever wonder how advanced humanity is in star trek, remember that Q is a reoccurring villain. Q has complete control of space, time and reality. The federation is so advanced God is an antagonist.
In Enterprise definitely, but even then the crew would occasionally come across a “lesser” species and then debate about what to do about them.
In TNG era shows most of the other species encountered were portrayed as equal or lesser to humans/federation. Voyager plays with this a little bit since that crew of mostly humans, while almost always more advanced than the people they encounter, they are a lone federation ship with zero support, which knocks down their capabilities a bit.
There’s a great throwaway line by Seven of Nine in voyager where the kazon weren’t even worth the Borg’s time to assimilate, but they were the main antagonist to Voyager those first few seasons because there were so many of them
Baring most of new trek, all of the species rock and suck in their own ways. Humans are extremely powerful in their own ways. So while they might not be the Mary sues of the universe they certainly aren’t light-years behind their opponents. If anything the federation, led by humanity, are in the position they are in due to the technology
Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein. Though it is a very militaristic point of view that explores interesting societal topics as well as successes and failures of historical human governments. If you liked the training and world building of Ender’s Game, you might like this one.
Another along those lines is John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War. Humans are at about the same technological level as the other races in that series.
On a side note, I love both the book and the movie for totally different reasons.
There is only one movie. Maybe 1 movie, one animated series, and a game
And that game is the RTS game Starship Troopers: Terran Ascendency.
I agree! The movie is one of my favorite “good bad” movies. I haven’t seen the other 2 movies however, or the animation.
The Mote in God’s Eye by Larry Niven is exactly what you want
Definitely check this one out, OP. It’s fantastic.
“A Fire Upon the Deep” and “A Deepness in the Sky”, both by Vernor Vinge, are great too.
The Mote in God’s Eye by Larry Niven is exactly what you want
I think you meant written by Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven.
Umm, Alien?
I absolutely adore Peter F Hamilton’s Void books in his Commonwealth saga. The earlier books in the commonwealth saga feature a weaker humanity but in the void series humanity is at the top of the food chain.
Thanks, will check it out!
Farscape (tv show) is a great example of this. Sabacians are basically human cousins that developed outside earth and are nearly identical in appearance and even genetically compatible to humans. They are also one of the most dominant races of the universe and often the antagonists on that show. I loved Farscape.
The Ancients in Stargate were also humans.
You may enjoy “A Call to Arms” by Alan Dean Foster (The Damned Series)
The short of it, humans are an uncontacted race in the path of an alien empire “The Amplitur” that is co-opting all of the galaxy. So the resistance forces, (aka “The Weave”) decide they might as well reach out to us, since having unassimilated allies is now far more important than their first-contact rules.
Foster takes the basic premise that humans are unlike any other animal on earth, and so by that same token unlike any other species in the galaxy. This means our abilities in creativity, adaptation, survival and our predilection for violence (something every other civilized race evolved to avoid at all costs) all become keystones of how The Weave accept us as members of their alliance.
Bummer, my library does not have an eBook
Ender’s Game may fit this, but the sequel Speaker for the Dead definitely does. Not to give away too many details, but it’s basically about a space anthropologist making second contact with an alien race still confined to its own planet. I’d say the first book has humans and aliens more or less at parity, but in the second the humans are more technologically advanced. Both are more meditations on otherness more than anything.
Yep, that’s where my inspiration for such sub-genre is from! I even mentioned it in the post.
Oops, my bad I did not read carefully enough haha. Still amazing!
Project Hail Mary
Just finished reading this. Excellent book!
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