History Main / HumansThroughAlienEyes

* ''StrangeJourney'' has the demons deeply confused and not exactly pleased with humanity. Mitra is conducting experiments on them (with conclusions like "It seems humans require something called 'blood' to survive"), and demon negotiations frequently require you to explain or justify humanity's actions.

** Nocturne, a similarly eldritch being with the equally cheery title ''the Living Nightmare'', finds life as we know it - including humans, and especially summoners - to be disgusting and offensive, and goes out of his way to annihilate as much of it as possible.

** The [[OurElvesAreBetter Eldar]] think we're unsubtle childish thugs with limited intelligence and no appreciation for [[EverythingTryingToKillYou the dangers of]] [[CrapsackWorld the galaxy we live in]][[hottip:*:for the record, we totally do]].

* An variation occurs in ''ComicBook/{{Watchmen}}''. Part of Doctor Manhattan's subplot deals with his humanity slowly fading as a result of his new status as an omnipotent, non-linear entity. As such, he fails to understand why Laurie would be upset by his working in the lab while simultaneously in bed with her and later when he teleports them both to Mars, he's initially confused when she suddenly starts choking, having honestly forgotten that humans can't survival without a suitable atmosphere and ''need'' to breathe in order to survive.

* An variation occurs in ''ComicBook/{{Watchmen}}''. Part of Doctor Manhattan's subplot deals with his humanity slowly fading as a result of his new status as an omnipotent, non-linear entity; failing to understand why Laurie would be upset by his working in the lab while simultaneously in bed with her, as well as teleporting them both to Mars and becoming confused why she's suddenly choking, having honestly forgotten that humans can't survival without a suitable atmosphere and tend to need to ''breathe''.

* An variation occurs in ''ComicBook/{{Watchmen}}''. Part of Doctor Manhattan's subplot is humanity slowly fading as a result of his new status as an omnipotent, non-linear entity; failing to understand why Laurie would be upset by his working in the lab while simultaneously in bed with her, as well as teleporting them both to Mars and becoming confused why she's suddenly choking, having honestly forgotten that humans can't survival without a suitable atmosphere and tend to need to ''breathe''.

** Another look at the ValuesDissonance between acceptable military tactics is highlighted in the third game. During the Tuchanka arc, Shepard is aghast that after the blatant warcrime of releasing the genophage against the krogan, the turian military compounded it by having no problem with leaving a giant bomb buried on Tuchanka, while Garrus admits that while he thinks it went too far, it made sense to have an insurance policy in case the krogan decided to get "uppity" again. Similarly, during the Rannoch arc, Tali is shocked when Garrus cavalierly suggests orbital bombardment to flush out the geth groundside, that he wants to recover her homeworld by rendering part of it ''uninhabitable''.

** The turians in general take duty very seriously, and conscription on their homeworld, marking the beginning of adulthood as well as citizenship, is universal. When the Alliance liberates Shanxi from turian occupation, the turians are surprised that a species that hasn't even expanded enough to have made any previous first-contact is able to turn them back at all. When the First Contact War is settled diplomatically and things cool off a little, the turians are ''more'' surprised to learn that only 3% of eligible humans of military age, actually ''choose'' to serve in the Alliance, since turian military service is ''mandatory'' between the ages of 15 and 30 before becoming part of the reserve forces; meaning there is no such thing as a turian civilian. Similarly, they regard bombarding houses [[ColonyDrop from orbit]] to flush out defenders as a legitimate tactic and can't understand why humans regard the Shanxi invasion as unnecessarily brutal.
** Shepard and Garrus in the third game lampshade that after the blatant warcrime of releasing the genophage against the krogan, it figures that the turian military would have had no problem with leaving a giant bomb buried on Tuchanka, in case they ever decided to get "uppity" again.

** Shepard and Garrus in the third game lampshade that after the blatant warcrime of releasing the genophage against the krogran, it figures that the turian military would have had no problem with leaving a giant bomb buried on Tuchanka in case the krogan ever decided to get "uppity" again.

** The turians in general take duty very seriously, and conscription on their homeworld, marking the beginning of adulthood as well as citizenship, is universal. When the Alliance liberates Shanxi from turian occupation, the turians are surprised that a species that hasn't even expanded enough to have made any previous first-contact is able to turn them back at all. When the First Contact War is settled diplomatically and things cool off a little, the turians are ''more'' surprised to learn that only 3% of eligible humans of military age, actually ''choose'' to serve in the Alliance, since turian military service is ''mandatory'' between the ages of 15 and 30. There's also the fact that since there's no such thing as a turian civilian, they regard bombarding houses [[ColonyDrop from orbit]] to flush out defenders as a legitimate tactic and can't understand why humans regard the Shanxi invasion as brutal.

** The turians in general take duty very seriously, and conscription on their homeworld, marking the beginning of adulthood as well as citizenship, is universal. When the Alliance liberates Shanxi from turian occupation, the turians are surprised that a species that hasn't even expanded enough to have made any previous first-contact is able to turn them back at all. When the First Contact War is settled diplomatically and things cool off a little, the turians are ''more'' surprised to learn that only 3% of humans serve in the military. There's also the fact that since there's no such thing as a turian civilian, they regard bombarding houses from orbit to flush out defenders as a legitimate tactic and can't understand why humans regard the Shanxi invasion as brutal.

* [[http://archiveofourown.org/works/526471 Mistranslation]] is an interesting ''[[Webcomic/Homestuck Homestuck]] piece describing the humans views on love and hatred from the perspective of the Alternian Empire.

* Though not an alien per se, Sebastian from ''Manga/BlackButler'' has a chapter dedicated entirely to his view of humans. While he doesn't find them unattractive physically (judging by the fact that [[spoiler: he sleeps with a couple]]), he finds most wants and desire to be trivial and their very personalities abhorrent most of the time and finds [[KindHeartedCatLover kitties to be more pleasurable to be around]], explaining to the viewers that there is nothing in Hell half as cute as a cat.

** ''Iceworld'' is told from the point of view of aliens who find Earth be be dangerously cold.

* The alien species in AlastairReynolds ' "RevelationSpace" trilogy are mostly extinct, but one character, while studying a species whose ability to exchange body parts makes them seem disturbingly fluid to her, realizes that the "Scuttlers" might well have seen humanity's unchanging nature (or that of other aliens lacking their ability) as a kind of living death. [[spoiler:The Scuttlers' isolation, which bought them some time before the Inhibitors attacked them, suggests she may have been right.]]

* The MassEffect fic [[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7278544/1/First_Contact First Contact]] presents [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin a first contact scenario]] where an asari exploration vessel discovers Earth in 2034. It is basically fueled by this trope.

** The [[OurElvesAreBetter Eldar]] think we're unsubtle childish thugs with limited intelligence and no appreciation for [[EverythingTryingToKillYou the dangers of]] [[CrapsackWorld the galaxy we live in]].

* RobertSheckley's short story ''Specialist'' is about a spaceship crewed by extremely specialised aliens (to the point that all but a few crewmembers ''are'' parts of the ship, being natural engines, turbines, and walls) who are stranded in space after the accidental death of the Pusher, a creature whose race possess the ability to accelerate ships to many times the speed of light, and have to find a replacement in order to get back to civilised space. They find a planet populated by primitive Pushers who have never made contact with other civilisations and thus ''never learned to Push'' - bereft of their true, wonderful purpose, they have instead turned into a civilisation of generalists, filling the void in their hearts by building ugly metal things and making bloody war upon each other. They manage to talk a lone Pusher into coming aboard, and soar off to safety when he realizes that he had always been able to Push. It's implied that when the galactic union makes contact with the primitive planet, the realization of their true purpose will bring lasting peace and prosperity. No guesses for who the Pushers are.

* FanFic/{{Article2}} is about a human spaceship crashing into Equestria. The story is told from the perspective of the Equestrians

* In ''StrangerInAStrangeLand'', the twist is that the alien is actually ''human.'' He was abandoned on Mars as a baby and raised by Martians. Upon coming to Earth as an adult, he finds other humans incomprehensible.

* In Harrison's ''The Stainless Steel Rat Saves The Galaxy'', the Rat has to deal with an alien confederation hell-bent on exterminating humanity, because all the ''decent'' people in the galaxy are utterly squicked out with a disgusting race of creepios who have dry unscaly skin, no tentacles, no healthy exudation of slime, only two eyes.... it is held to be a kindness to exterminate this hideous deformed species.

* The beginning of ''The Ghost Brigades'' by JohnScalzi has a scientist trying to escape a military base which is under attack by aliens. He's captured by one, and being a xenobiologist starts describing the "ugly hominid", concluding with his final thought as he's drugged to unconsciousness: "[=F---ing=] humans..."

** Hamilton's later novel ''Pandora's Star'' features a sequence in which the ''vivisection'' of two humans is described from the point of view of their alien captor.

* Older than you might think: The part of Literature/GulliversTravels where he visits the Houyhnhnms (horse-like beings) has heavy elements of this. At the end, when Gulliver goes back to England again, [[StockholmSyndrome he himself has started to view humanity with the same disgust as the Houyhnhnms]].

* Several {{Halo}} novels show the war from the Covenant perspective, using this trope often.
* ''Literature/TheHobbit'', by Creator/JRRTolkien, begins with a description of {{Hobbits}} and how big, clumsy, and scary humans appear to them. Aragorn changes Frodo's opinion about the Big Folk, whom he had previously seen as varying between stupid and nice and stupid and mean.
* Tolkien's unfinished work ''The Notion Club Papers''. At one point a character experimenting with astral projection techniques (which allow him to travel through time and space and see other planets) comes across a place where what seems like a giant anthill spreads across the countryside, polluting and ruining it. He's shocked to realise he's actually seeing the (sped-up) history of Oxford.

* This is one of the main themes of David Brin's ''Literature/{{Uplift}}'' series. Not only are the aliens actually alien, they've been civilized for longer than humanity has walked upright. Everything you could ever want to know can be looked up in libraries -- which leads to cultural clashes; for instance, few alien languages even have a word for "change".

* Voltaire wrote a story much in this fashion, titled Micromégas, effectively make this trope OlderThanRadio.

* Creator/AEVanVogt's short story "Literature/The Monster" (also titled "Resurrection"), [[http://variety-sf.blogspot.com/2008/03/e-van-vogt-monster-aka-resurrection.html summarized here]] and available [[http://pastebin.com/pHLcpLcn here]] (TXT, 6.6k words) is told exclusively from the viewpoint of a member of an expansionist race who arrive to the third planet in a yellow dwarf system and find remnants of a strange civilization. Yes, you guessed it, humans are dead in the story, wiped out by an "atomic storm" from space. However, the aliens manage to revive several members of this species, only to realize that they possess strange powers, including teleportation. Fearing that the human, whom they've been unable to kill, might learn their technology and use it to revive the rest of humanity and learn their FTL method and homeworld coordinates, the ship's crew chooses to fly [[HurlItIntoTheSun into the Sun]]. Moments before the ship is destroyed, the protagonist realizes that the ugly teleporting alien has learned all their secrets in the first several minutes and was just messing with them after that.

* Planet Roswell in ''WesternAnimation/BuzzLightyearOfStarCommand'' is a planet whose civilization and culture roughly reflects the United States in the 1950s. When Buzz (an Earthling) and his crew crash land there, the locals treat them with a combination of fear, fascination, and curiosity--especially fear in the case of the government.