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Fan Fiction
Humans were helpless-looking things with no magic, with no fangs or talons, no scales or fiery breath, no monstrous strength, no hooves, horns, or wings, nothing but soft helpless monkey things. Soft helpless monkey things who leveled their own cities with a push of a button when they got angry enough.
— Sunset Shimmer, The Great Alicorn Hunt
I am a Man of Misrayim, and there is no landing I cannot walk away from!
— Jeb after crashing into the Angel of Death, Left Beyond
Film - Live-Action
Humans. They are not the cowering wretches we were promised! They stand. They are unruly, and therefore cannot be ruled. To challenge them is to court death.
— The Other, The Avengers
A single inescapable fact is that humanity united with infinitely greater purpose in pursuit of war than they ever did in pursuit of peace.
Welcome to Earth. (punch)
I've never believed in the End Times. We are mankind. Our footprints are on the moon. When the last trumpet sounds and the Beast rises from the pit — we will kill it.
— Marshall Pentecost, Pacific Rim
I don't know what goes through a Kaiju's head. I'd like to think we surprised it. It had come expecting these helpless, frail, little apes, and it found that we had done something big. I'd like to think it wondered where we had found the nerve. And when it bled, I'd like to think it was scared. I'd like to think its raw animal instincts told it to run away and crawl back into its hole. I know one thing for sure... it felt pain. And half of what hurt it — maybe more — was that mouse of a girl from Pittsburgh. The message was clear — we are far bigger than we look and when the dust cleared, the whole world knew it.
— Pacific Rim: Tales From Year Zero
You know what you are. What you're made of. War is in your blood. Don't fight it. You didn't kill for your country. You killed for yourself. God's never gonna make that go away. When you're pushed, killing's as easy as breathing.
— John Rambo, Rambo (2008)
Literature
It will be called the Battle of the Somme. It will begin on a date that will be called July 1, 1916. In this charge, on the first day twenty-thousand men will die. Twenty-five thousand more will be wounded. But most will survive, and charge again another day.
Belisarius shook his head. "How-?"
We do not know. We do not fully understand humans, even the Great Ones. But you will do it. You will do it again and again and again. And you will survive, again and again and again. We do not know how. But you will.
Belisarius shook his head. "How-?"
We do not know. We do not fully understand humans, even the Great Ones. But you will do it. You will do it again and again and again. And you will survive, again and again and again. We do not know how. But you will.
To us, the Carmpan watchers, the withdrawn seers and touchers of minds, it appeared that you had carried the crushing weight of war through all your history knowing that it would at last be needed, that this hour would strike when nothing less awful would serve.
When the hour struck and our enemy came without warning, you were ready with swarming battle-fleets. You were dispersed and dug in on scores of planets, and heavily armed. Because you were, some of you and some of us are now alive.
When the hour struck and our enemy came without warning, you were ready with swarming battle-fleets. You were dispersed and dug in on scores of planets, and heavily armed. Because you were, some of you and some of us are now alive.
War endures. War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner.
The ship's staggering through the airspace, weaving and wobbling, and part of that might have been evasive maneuvers but I don't care how alien this bird is, you can tell it's wounded. It might as well be skywriting HOLY SHIT I'M FUCKED in black smoke.
And here comes the mofo that's kicked its ass and it's one of ours, it's a goddamned Apache. A 64D, I think, not even bleeding-edge. I mean, this is a flying saucer we're talking about - built by creatures from another fucking solar system - and it's getting its ass handed to it by a bunch of apes in a ten-year-old helicopter. Fuck yeah.
And here comes the mofo that's kicked its ass and it's one of ours, it's a goddamned Apache. A 64D, I think, not even bleeding-edge. I mean, this is a flying saucer we're talking about - built by creatures from another fucking solar system - and it's getting its ass handed to it by a bunch of apes in a ten-year-old helicopter. Fuck yeah.
The report was succinct, technical, efficient and impossible. A chain of orbital defense satellites destroyed, a ground installation smashed, a Hunter Broodship destroyed, several thousand Hunters killed. High-Value Target neutralized, intelligence recovered and critical infrastructure destroyed. The Crzlrfek system completely neutralized as an Alliance base of operations.
Cost: Two humans wounded.
Cost: Two humans wounded.
Mankind has had ten thousand years experience of warfare and if he must fight he has no excuse for not fighting well.
They recognized that in man they had an enemy who might prove formidable. There were all these marvels, like the distance pictures, there were the great cities at the height of their glory and power. And there were other things, too. Men had already begun to build ships that would take them across the emptiness. They had nothing like the ships of the Masters, but they had started and were learning fast. And they had weapons. One of these, from what he said, was of the nature of the iron eggs Beanpole had found in the Tunnel below the great-city; but as much more powerful as a bull compared to an ant. With one of these giant eggs, the Master told me, an area of land many miles in circumference could be scorched and blasted—one of the great-cities themselves completely obliterated.
Live-Action TV
The humans, I think, knew they were doomed. But where another race would surrender to despair, the humans fought back with even greater strength. They made the Minbari fight for every inch of space. In all my life, I have never seen anything like it; they would weep, they would pray, they would say goodbye to their loved ones... and then throw themselves, without fear or hesitation, at the very face of death itself. Never surrendering.
No one who saw them fighting against the inevitable could help but be moved to tears by their courage... their stubborn nobility. When they ran out of ships, they used guns. When they ran out of guns, they used... knives, and sticks, and bare hands. They were... magnificent.
I only hope that when it is my time that I may die with half as much dignity as I saw in their eyes in the end. They did this for two years. They never ran out of courage... but in the end, they ran out of time.
No one who saw them fighting against the inevitable could help but be moved to tears by their courage... their stubborn nobility. When they ran out of ships, they used guns. When they ran out of guns, they used... knives, and sticks, and bare hands. They were... magnificent.
I only hope that when it is my time that I may die with half as much dignity as I saw in their eyes in the end. They did this for two years. They never ran out of courage... but in the end, they ran out of time.
— Londo Mollari, Babylon 5
Attention, all troops. The Sontarans might think of us as primitive, as does every passing species with an axe to grind. They make a mockery of our weapons, our soldiers, our ideals. But no more. From this point on, it stops. From this point on, the people of Earth fight back, and we show them. We show the warriors of Sontar what the human race can do.
— Colonel Mace, Doctor Who, "The Poison Sky"
Quark: Maybe, but I still don't want you anywhere near them. Let me tell you something about humans, nephew. They're a wonderful, friendly people as long as their bellies are full and their holosuites are working. But take away their creature comforts, deprive them of food, sleep, sonic showers, put their lives in jeopardy over an extended period of time. And those same friendly, intelligent, wonderful people will become as nasty and as violent as the most bloodthirsty Klingon. You don't believe me? Look at those faces. Look in their eyes. You know I'm right, don't you? Well? Aren't you going to say something?
Nog: I feel sorry for the Jem'Hadar.
Nog: I feel sorry for the Jem'Hadar.
Tabletop Games
That's the difference between us. We Elves fight because we must; you Humans do so because you like it.
— Gilathel, Kithband Warrior, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay
I have walked through valleys of sin and oceans of night. I have looked daemons and traitors in their eyes. I have heard the whispers of dark things that wanted my soul. And never once have I encountered anything that has struck the fear into me that a Xenos would feel if it ever truly understood the resolve of the Human Race.
— Daenyathos, "Reliquerae Tactica," Warhammer 40,000
Humans were a bad enemy to fight - which also made them a good enemy, for orks made little distinction between the two concepts. No matter how many humans were killed, there were always more to take their place, shiploads of them brimming with vengeance. Humans were like a weed, like a disease, almost impossible to cleanse from a world. For a greenskin that made them something more than an enemy, for a fight against a favoured enemy was a joyous thing. Orks loved going to war with humans, because defeating the humans meant something.
Farsight spooled through the latest footage from Via'mesh'la. The tau's stranglehold on the war zone had been broken by an infantry charge. Not by Space Marines, but by simple gue'la infantry. Some of them had made it to close quarters, despite the overlapping fire lanes of the cadre defending the ridge.
Stony-faced, Farsight watched drone footage of human troopers charging through a killing field of pulse rifle fire and orbital bombardments. Their rough, barking orders were becoming familiar sounds to him, the simple war cries those of a backwards tribe grown impossibly numerous. Perhaps one in six of the human attackers survived to gain the ridge. Those who made it through set about themselves with their primitive spear-like rifles as if gripped by a rabid frenzy, stabbing and slashing to wreak absolute ruin on the fire warriors behind the tidewall.
What a waste, thought Farsight. After the harrowing ten-year crusade against the orks of Arkunasha, his personal cadre trained in close-quarters doctrine every dawn, but the rest of the tau military still considered it a distraction from the true art of war. At Via'mesh'la they had paid the price.
Stony-faced, Farsight watched drone footage of human troopers charging through a killing field of pulse rifle fire and orbital bombardments. Their rough, barking orders were becoming familiar sounds to him, the simple war cries those of a backwards tribe grown impossibly numerous. Perhaps one in six of the human attackers survived to gain the ridge. Those who made it through set about themselves with their primitive spear-like rifles as if gripped by a rabid frenzy, stabbing and slashing to wreak absolute ruin on the fire warriors behind the tidewall.
What a waste, thought Farsight. After the harrowing ten-year crusade against the orks of Arkunasha, his personal cadre trained in close-quarters doctrine every dawn, but the rest of the tau military still considered it a distraction from the true art of war. At Via'mesh'la they had paid the price.
Video Games
Indigenous population aligned into two major factions. These factions continued combat operations between them even as they were threatened with extinction by our initial attack. Indigenous population warlike to the extreme - once Threshold construction is complete and gateway is open, entire indigenous population must be cleansed from the surface of the planet.
— Scrin intel, Command & Conquer: Tiberium Wars
This was our world, our solar system. We were here first. And no matter what the Darkness brings, we will be here at the dawn.
— Grimoire: Humanity, Destiny
Vendetta: Do you believe this present cycle can deliver retribution?
Javik: They have earned the right to try.
Javik: They have earned the right to try.
Humans are weak and disgusting little creatures who love to fight.
— Clancy, right before he fights Ryu Hayabusa, Ninja Gaiden
Vertigo: The sentient presence attempted an aerial assault on the Hierarchy base a few minutes ago.
Mirabel: What do you mean, 'attempted'?
Vertigo: Casualties are projected at 85%.
Mirabel: ... They die bravely.
Web Comics
Humans are amazingly strong for their size. The one time I tried mugging one, that girl had me face down and crying uncle in less than ten seconds. Then she took her candy back, got back on her tricycle, and went and told her mom on me.
— Sam, Freefall
Because your physical form is utterly incapable of damaging a human body in any way, while even a four-year-old child could render you unconscious in mere seconds.
— A human general to Vexxarr
Vexxarr: A whole holiday of disguise and deceitnote ... truly these hu-mons are a formidable race. Every one of their so-called "holidays" are actually exercises in deception and warfare. Christmas: a thinly-veiled exercise in obfuscation and forensic cryptology. Easter: infiltration and recovery. New Year's Eve: a form of globally coordinated mass ordnance deployment.
Minionbot: What about Valentine's Day?
Vexxarr: Ah yes, Valentine's Day... psychological warfare.
Minionbot: What about Valentine's Day?
Vexxarr: Ah yes, Valentine's Day... psychological warfare.
— Vexxarr
Web Original
Meyer thinks that humans are limited to two types of weapons: guns and slow-moving bombs. Oh, Meyer. You silly, silly bitch. There is one thing that we humans have been consistently good at since we first picked up a rock and looked speculatively at that turtle hiding smugly inside of its shell:
We're really, really good at figuring out how to kill things.
We're really, really good at figuring out how to kill things.
— Das Sporking on the epilogue of Breaking Dawn
Cell: Come on, buddy. You can't be serious! With your power level? You're no android, you're no Namekian, and you're certainly no Super Saiyan! You're just human.
Tienshinhan: Well you know what? F*CK power levels! F*CK Super Saiyans! And FUCK! YOU! SHIN... KIKOHO!
Cell: Oh, that's adorab- (gets hit and driven into the ground) -SHIIIIIIIT!
Tienshinhan: Well you know what? F*CK power levels! F*CK Super Saiyans! And FUCK! YOU! SHIN... KIKOHO!
Cell: Oh, that's adorab- (gets hit and driven into the ground) -SHIIIIIIIT!
Human beings are scary. We breathe a corrosive gas, drink one of the most potent solvents. Our preferred method of hunting was persistence hunting, where we chased animals until their body simply gave up and died. We can eat just about anything we find, which means that we don't need to stop for food when chasing our prey. If we can't find food, that's fine. Our body will simply begin to eat itself so that we don't have to stop chasing our prey. We walk upright, we sweat, we don't have much body hair, which allows us to radiate away our body heat. This means that excessive time or extreme environment won't stop our hunts. If the animal fights back against us, we can take massive damage to our extremities and lose half our blood and still live. Our entire existence is owed to persistence, endurance, and determination. When we put ourselves to a task, it gets done, period. And this instinct is still affecting us today.
332 BC: Alexander the Great hits a stalemate with the fortified island city of Tyre. Instead of going back defeated, he builds a kilometer long bridge in order to raze the city.
49 BC: Julius Caesar, after defeating the Gauls and invading Britain, turns a political fight into a civil war by invading Italy with only a single legion. He eventually becomes dictator starting a world superpower whose engineering feats are only recently being broken.
1804 AD: A charismatic French general declares himself Emperor and sets off to conquer much of mainland Europe. He is captured, exiled, and then escapes. The soldiers sent to recapture him instead lay down their arms and join him.
1961 AD: One man decides that we will go to the moon, despite much of the technology to do so not even existing yet. Just eight years later, two humans stand on the surface of the moon and look back upon the Earth.
200 years ago, we didn't have railroads. 100 years ago, we didn't have airplanes. 50 years ago, we didn't have spaceflight. 25 years ago we didn't have the Internet. We've already inherited the Earth and soon we WILL inherit the stars and anyone or anything that stands in our way will be eliminated one way or another.
332 BC: Alexander the Great hits a stalemate with the fortified island city of Tyre. Instead of going back defeated, he builds a kilometer long bridge in order to raze the city.
49 BC: Julius Caesar, after defeating the Gauls and invading Britain, turns a political fight into a civil war by invading Italy with only a single legion. He eventually becomes dictator starting a world superpower whose engineering feats are only recently being broken.
1804 AD: A charismatic French general declares himself Emperor and sets off to conquer much of mainland Europe. He is captured, exiled, and then escapes. The soldiers sent to recapture him instead lay down their arms and join him.
1961 AD: One man decides that we will go to the moon, despite much of the technology to do so not even existing yet. Just eight years later, two humans stand on the surface of the moon and look back upon the Earth.
200 years ago, we didn't have railroads. 100 years ago, we didn't have airplanes. 50 years ago, we didn't have spaceflight. 25 years ago we didn't have the Internet. We've already inherited the Earth and soon we WILL inherit the stars and anyone or anything that stands in our way will be eliminated one way or another.
Any violence committed by a machine?
A glitch, an anomaly, a programming error.
Any violence committed by a man?
Perfectly natural.
A glitch, an anomaly, a programming error.
Any violence committed by a man?
Perfectly natural.
— SsethTzeentach's video description on SYNTHETIK
In Nineteen Eighty-Four, Orwell described his society’s future as "a boot stamping on a human face, forever." Urobuchi likely sees that same image, but in his view, there is something almost beautiful in that. It is not the boot trampling down that really matters – it is the human rising up, ever-struggling, defiant forever. Humanity’s irrational, emotional hope is its greatest strength, and no system of regulated virtue could ever shatter that.
Six thousand years, ten thousand wars, one hundred thousand battles, one hundred million heroes.
— A succinct summary of human history, the Internet
I was born without claws, without fangs, without scales; so I forged them in fire and crafted them of steel.
—Popular internet image with unknown source.
Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil, for I'm the baddest motherfucker in the valley!
— Various, shamelessly ripping off The Bible
We poison our air and water to weed out the weak! We detonate fission bombs in our only biosphere! We Nailed our God to a stick! Don't fuck with the human race!
— Anonymous Imageboard poster
Real Life
Much as the bleeding hearts may dislike the fact, war and its culture form an integral part of human history and human life and are likely to do so for all future to come.
— The Culture of War, by Martin van Crevald
MAN HAS NO SHARP TEETH, like the lion; no great claws, like the bear, he cannot run as swiftly as the leopard; he carries no poison like the snake...
Yet this poor animal, man, with no fur to cover him, no fangs to tear with, no claws to scratch with, is master of the earth. The lion runs from him. The bull blind with fury, comes to him - and is dragged away by mules to the butcher shop. The elephant, the rhinocerous, even the snorting buffalo, at last have got mans measure, and, when they scent him, hurry to their hiding places.
For man despite his weaknesses, has two weapons which other creatures do not have: he has the insight which teaches him to use sticks, stones, and metals as his claws and teeth and that most efficient of machines, the hand, which does all the bidding of his mind, to turn stick, flint, and leather thong into weapons which will strike down even King Wolf himself...
And from man's pride in the weapons that give him power has grown his art. In the dawn time, the earliest painters put pictures on their cavern walls showing man, with his spears and arrows, hunting the creatures to their doom. Still latter, songs were made to celebrate the sword, the chariot, the high-masted ship of war. No warrior-lord would go into the dark without his weapons, whether they were laid beside him in the grave, or carved in stone upon his tomb in a quiet country church...
Dare we say even that our sports and pastimes are free from conflict and death? Boxing, wrestling, fencing, archery, hunting, fishing-even football-are all reminders of man's desire to conquer, his need to stay alive against all the opponents the world has to set before him. Whether he is out in the deer stands or lonely beside the stream, or in tribes and packs struggling to gain possession of an oval ball that once was the head of a king, man is a fighter; and this book is meant to spy on him, down through the centuries, as he goes about his fundamental occupation of proving his mastery against all comers.
Yet this poor animal, man, with no fur to cover him, no fangs to tear with, no claws to scratch with, is master of the earth. The lion runs from him. The bull blind with fury, comes to him - and is dragged away by mules to the butcher shop. The elephant, the rhinocerous, even the snorting buffalo, at last have got mans measure, and, when they scent him, hurry to their hiding places.
For man despite his weaknesses, has two weapons which other creatures do not have: he has the insight which teaches him to use sticks, stones, and metals as his claws and teeth and that most efficient of machines, the hand, which does all the bidding of his mind, to turn stick, flint, and leather thong into weapons which will strike down even King Wolf himself...
And from man's pride in the weapons that give him power has grown his art. In the dawn time, the earliest painters put pictures on their cavern walls showing man, with his spears and arrows, hunting the creatures to their doom. Still latter, songs were made to celebrate the sword, the chariot, the high-masted ship of war. No warrior-lord would go into the dark without his weapons, whether they were laid beside him in the grave, or carved in stone upon his tomb in a quiet country church...
Dare we say even that our sports and pastimes are free from conflict and death? Boxing, wrestling, fencing, archery, hunting, fishing-even football-are all reminders of man's desire to conquer, his need to stay alive against all the opponents the world has to set before him. Whether he is out in the deer stands or lonely beside the stream, or in tribes and packs struggling to gain possession of an oval ball that once was the head of a king, man is a fighter; and this book is meant to spy on him, down through the centuries, as he goes about his fundamental occupation of proving his mastery against all comers.
— Fighting Men: How Men Have Fought Through the Ages by Henry Treece and Ewart Oakeshaft
Though we live in space-age times, we still have stone-age minds. We are competitive and territorial and violent, just like our simian ancestors. There are people who insist this isn't so, who insist that they could never kill anyone, but they invariably add a telling caveat: "Unless, of course, a person tried to harm someone I love." So the resource of violence is in everyone; all that changes is our view of the justification.
— Gavin De Becker, "The Gift Of Fear"
War is the father and king of all: some he has made gods, and some men; some slaves and some free.
— Heraclitus
Animals flee this hell; the hardest stones cannot bear it for long; only man endures.
