If you are a star trek fan you have heard them a bunch of times.

"Blah blah blah blah like a tarcasian razorbeast"

Cycling through all of trek for the millionth time, just finished Ds9 and started Voyager again. Every time i go through each series I appreciate characters and actors in different ways. Tim Russ!

Title: "Humans are Weird: I Have the Data"

https://preview.redd.it/nv17gantxch61.jpg?width=2040&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=41f8589015d02d3f476dbca368382ecf4fdbfcd5

Genre: SciFi/Comedy

Word count: ~60K

Short Story Anthology

Excerpt

Humans are Weird – Inanimate Objects

“Quilx’tch, can you aid me?”

Quilx’tch glanced over at his superior as he entered the room. The chief cultural anthropologist was crouched over the main data screen in their office. Quilx’tch balanced the vials in his manipulators and rotated uneasily.

“Can it wait a moment, Tca’kct?” he replied. “I need to place the sample from the Hellbats in the refrigerator.”

“Make sure you place them in the sample refrigerator,” Tca’kct reminded him sternly. “But yes, that will be acceptable.”

Quilx’tch rotated and hurried to put the nutrient samples in the racks of the refrigeration unit. He made sure their labels were clearly visible and scurried back to where Tca’kct was flicking various symbols across the visual display screen. Quilx’tch aligned his primary eyes with the screen and tilted his abdomen to the side thoughtfully.

“Is this one of those human word puzzles?” he asked.

Tca’kct let out a chitter of irritation and swept a primary manipulator across the control surface, realigning the letters in the orderly rows the humans preferred.

“Betty,” Quilx’tch read. “A common derivate of a human name, female, I believe.”

“Yes, yes,” Tca’kct said. “I am aware of that. However, the base command transport has no sex so far as I know.”

Quilx’tch let his secondary eyes take in the stressed commander. Had he been getting sufficient nutrients lately? In lieu of a proper field medic, it was Quilx’tch’s task to ensure the base crew maintained their health.

“Oh, swarm,” Tca’kct snapped his mandibles at Quilx’tch. “Do stop thinking so loudly. I am fine.”

“You know your inappropriate use of that term has the humans thinking we are telepathic,” Quilx’tch reprimanded him.

“I take zero responsibility for what humans think,” Tca’kct said. “Now this,” he waved at the offending female name, “this is exactly why Mechanic Steve has named the command transport Betty.”

Quilx’tch felt his joints loosen with relief. “Oh, yes, they do that,” he said. “The transports that drop off the humans are in fact listed by their ‘names’ rather than their identification numbers in the files for the foodstuffs.”

I watched my first TAS episode (Yesteryear) and basically Spock is erased from the timeline. In his place is an Andorian first officer. Then I remembered how cool that one ENT episode was, The Andorian Incident.

Villain-wise, the films have had two probes (1, 4), two humans (2, 12), one Borg (8), one Vulcan (5), two Romulans/Remans (10, 11), one original species (9), and three Klingons (3, 6, and 7).

Would you like to see them take a chance? Who would you like to see? Who's possible? The Ferengi? The Cardassians?

So, I've been playing a lot of Stellaris lately, and one thing I like to do is play a "mosaic" game where most if not all the empires in the game are from various different Sci-Fi franchises. I usually play as the Federation (which due to the limitations of the game and the mod I use at least initially is all-human). And one thing I've found is that every game I play, almost without fail, I end up forming a Federation (as an in-game concept it means an integrated alliance) with the Asari from Mass Effect. The only time it doesn't happen is if the Asari are on the other end of the galaxy and/or I or them get steamrolled by somebody like the Daleks early on.

And I got to thinking: the Asari would make great Federation members. They more-or-less founded Mass Effect's closest equivalent to the Federation (the Council), they've got lifespans that equal or exceed that of a Trill symbiont, and, oh right, their way of reproduction heavily incentivizes getting along VERY well with other species.

So then I got to thinking... what other non-Star Trek species would make good Federation member? What ones could end up being like somebody like the Klingons (allies, but not members) or the Ferengi (neutral power)? And aside from the obvious (the Daleks, Zerg, and basically every 1950s movie alien aside from maybe Klaatu are NEVER getting along with the Federation) who'd end up as enemies?

I would like to see the Predator species make an appearance, with the universal translator we could learn a lot more about them, how they got to where they are, and see them take on the klingons

Title: "Humans are Weird: I Have the Data"

https://preview.redd.it/vr13h20svqi61.jpg?width=2040&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8450e9cf0df2978b71114b72dd75a4e7986c93c5

Genre: SciFi/Comedy

Word count: ~60K

Short Story Anthology

Excerpt

Humans are Weird – Fairy Rings

“And why did you bring me up here, Eight Clicks?” Quilx’tch demanded as he peeped his primary eye set over the edge of the sensory array. “Way up here?”

“You have more experience observing humans than I do,” said the young Winged who had lured him up here. “I require your observations on an odd behavior pattern.”

“Unless they are eating or not eating something, there is not much I can offer,” Quilx’tch said as he secured his grip on the surface with all eight of his appendages. “Please stop making the air currents worse!”

“There,” Eight Clicks landed beside Quilx’tch and focused his binocular vision on a patch of ground far, far below them.

Quilx’tch took in the scene and tried to note anything different. However, the patch of ground indicated by the Winged was indistinguishable from all the others to the nutritional anthropologist. “I see no humans… and therefore no human behavior to comment on!” Quilx’tch snapped out.

“But you do see the fungal growth?” Eight Clicks asked eagerly.

“What fungal growth?” Quilx’tch demanded, edging away from his mammalian companion.

“Oh, right,” Eight Clicks muttered. “You Trisk have poor vision.”

“Our vision is perfectly adapted to our preferred habitat,” Quilx’tch snapped out. “Our pattern recognition at reasonable distances—”

“Yes, yes,” Eight Clicks rudely cut him off. “There is a fungal growth. That Hexamartin species is fruiting, and it formed a surface visible pattern. Here.” He projected an image of what Quilx’tch assumed was the ground below. A ring of the fungal fruiting bodies had indeed sprung up.

“Are the humans eating them?” Quilx’tch asked, curious now.

“No, they are poisonous, I think,” Eight Clicks said. “But how can I, ah! Like this!” The Winged shifted the projection so that it overlaid the reality that Quilx’tch was seeing below him. The ring was indicated by a cluster of blue dots against the dusky orange of the ground cover. “Now just wait until the shift for lunch ends,” Eight Clicks instructed.

Quilx’tch was rather interested now, so he waited as instructed. The tonal alarm sounded for the end of the lunch cycle

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I Just Published the edited versions of the shortsI've been working on! The book includes 25% never before seen material and of course no typos!

Here is a little sample and the link to the free audio narration of this chapter!

Humans Are Weird – I Said I Liked It

Original Post: https://youtu.be/htgXRN4a8kA Audio Narration with Quilx'tch Animation

“Greetings and salutations, Friend Dodge!” Quilx’tch called out as six of his legs scampered over the main countertop of the cafeteria.

Survey Core Ranger Mack Dodge turned to look at him, and Quilx’tch clutched his tablet to his abdomen tightly. He was no expert in human physiology, but Friend Dodge did not look good. The skin under his twin eyes was sagging in a way that would indicate the terminal stage of a rather horrific infection in one of Quilx’tch’s people. The broad span of Friend Dodge’s shoulders slumped several degrees down from the usual square he held them in. This made climbing his back to perch on them rather awkward. Quilx’tch did not know the proper protocol for asking humans to square their shoulders. Furthermore, Friend Dodge’s mouth was twisted into that odd expression – humans’ creepily flexible mandible coverings were so hard to read – was it a grimace?

“Friend Dodge!” Quilx’tch called out in shock. “Are you capable of keeping your eyes open?” Even a new-molted fellow like Quilx’tch knew that humans needed to keep the fleshy coverings on their eyes closed for a good portion of their rest cycles. At the moment, Friend Dodge’s were barely half-open and twitching spasmodically.

“Hey, Quick,” Friend Dodge slurred out, his cavernous mouth opening in a great gasp to draw in air. “Mostly, I guess.”

Quilx’tch tried to make sense of this as he approached the human and kept pace with him. “Are you ill, Friend Dodge?” Quilx’tch asked as they reached the section of the cafeteria bar dedicated to the human’s heated drinks.

“Ill?” Friend Dodge replied. “Nah, just up too late last night. Didn’t get to bed till o’dark thirty.”

Quilx’tch paused and tapped his hindmost leg thoughtfully against the countertop. “I am not familiar with that temporal designation, Friend Dodge,” he finally confessed.

“Eh.”

I watched Season 1 of TOS for the first time, and something I noticed the most...there's barely any aliens introduced. We had an ep for the Romulans, the Gorn, whatever the salt creature was, those weird gorilla creatures in the ep Spock and the shuttle was stranded on the planet, whatever the people in the Landru episode was and of course most memorable the Talosians....but besides that most episodes don't feature aliens.

Most eps deal with either sci-fi problems, humans on colonies, or time travel or problems on the ship (transporter accident or the disease that made Sulu become a fencer, etc), women who come to the ship, or jury trials or psychic humans.

I don't know if this changes in Season 2 but there barely make any contact with alien species in this season...the first of the entire franchise.

The Expanse takes place in the 24th century, the same time as much of the Star Trek series. That made me wonder, how would the humans of The Expanse universe react if they encountered intelligent alien species after the creation of the Ring Gate?

Basically, everything is the same until they start exploring the wormholes.

Instead of the planet Ilus, the first human explorers find Vulcan, where they encounter the aliens known as the Vulcans.

The other wormholes introduce humans to the Andorians, the Cardassians, the Breen, the Ferengi, the Romulans, the Klingons, the Orions, the Kelpiens and dozens of others.

What happens in this scenario?

In two decades, when the Dominion arrives, does this Federation-less area of space stand a chance?

Personally voyager ranks pretty high on my list, I haven’t seen all the shows (I’m watching them now) but I don’t think voyager deserves low spots some people give it.

They have their strengths and weaknesses, sure, but they would all average at around 100 on an IQ test. Few would score higher on average.

Notable exceptions are the Q, the borg collective on its best days, maybe the Zakdorn

Shouldn't there be a bunch of hyper intelligent races that just scoff at humanity?

Edit: yeah after reading the thread I think, even more so now, that humanity should be getting steamrolled but they're just not.

Re-watched the opener of Season 4 ENT, and it got me thinking... the Nazis were super accepting of aliens. Why? Nazis were all about purifying humanity, having only Aryans, etc. Yet, they were locking arms with grey aliens with red eyes. They didn't seem to fear the alien's technology... they were embracing them. Now maybe it was just a means to an end, and they were planning to turn on the aliens once they got their tech.

Then you have Voyager with that secret nazi bunker on Voyager set up by the Hirogen. Again, Nazis had no problem with Hirogen. Now granted, these were holo-Nazis, and maybe they were programmed to not care about aliens, like how holograms generally are programmed to ignore external / out of place things like communicator badges, Geordi's VISOR, etc.

I'll admit, I enjoyed seeing King Arthur team up with Gint to take down Thomas Jefferson and Robespierre in the Monarchism vs Republicanism experiment, but seeing John Stuart Mill smash in Immanuel Kant's head with a boulder leaves me no closer to understanding Deontology vs Utilitarianism.

Maybe instead of making them fight, we should use the knowledge it takes to recreate these historical personalities to understand their viewpoints, or at least talk to them and have them explain them to us. Anyone else feel this way?

I'm catching up on my reading of the Star Trek novels and I've been buying omini of several titles together in one book.

Are there any other ones you know about besides these. I'm looking for books that contain a entire series:

Twist of Fate

Captain's Table

Day of Honor

Double Helix

Invasion

These Haunted Seas

Vulcan's Soul

DS9: Millenium Trilogy

Mere Anarchy

Imzadi Forever

Rihannsu ( + Empty Chair sold separately)

The Q Continuum

The Janus Gate

Star Trek: Odyssey

New Frontier (books 1 to 4)