章 17: For Humans, Everything Is A Weapon; Even The Floor.

By Calaban

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"Look, Trigabifitty, it's impossible to enforce the 'no weapons allowed' protocol with the Humans"

"I know it may seem insurmountable, Boombeebummafloop, but this is about the safety and well-being of the other residents of this habitation station, I am fairly certain what with a bit of careful formatting and regulation, we-"

"Ah, so thats it. You just don't understand, nor have seen it yet. Those Humans, the Xenoanthropologist experts say, are 'class 11 Tool Users, with an always active subconscious plan and contingency Id, with Fight or Fight instincts honed on Earth, their Class 11 Hellworld'- I know, that's a rather lot of class 11's. Still, it gets the point across pretty clearly. For them, literally everything is a weapon."

"Oh, come on, not everything. What about a spoon-"

"Oh, by the Darkstar! Don't remind me! Oh, I can never look at those eating implements the same ever again! I get uncomfortable just holding one while I eat, now acutely aware of its.. um.. concave rigitity, and ability to underleverage... uh, things with surprisingly large amounts of force."

"That sounds.. um.. horrifying. So OK then, no more metal-eating utensils, with fragile wood extract it should be-"

"Oh, Ick! What are you trying to do to me!? The splintered shank wounds of a shattered and retied splinter stuck through the throaxial vesicle of that poor, poor Buffon that picked that fight... I still don't think they got all the slivers out.."

"Oh, my word. Fine then, utensils. No tables or chairs, they can eat with their hands on pillows and cushions that we prov- what? seriously?! why are you wincing like that?"

"It's a joke that still makes me twitch. They say 'Wet polyester very strong, never break', not 'piss rag snap necks' "

"Oh for the love of the Teal Star! Now you're just making things up!"

"I really wish I was, Trigabifitty. But you get my point. 'no weapons allowed' is simply not enforceable with them"

"Then we just take everything away! They can live in an empty, smooth hab space, where they cannot possibly have any weapon- "

"They would still have the floor."

"The.. floor? OK, now how could they possibly use the floor as a weapon?!"

"Ooh, we actually have a recording of an incident from the other day, hold on..."

The video was from a barren cargo bay transfer tube, where a Human was backed into a flush corner by a large, brutish Boobbitty warrior, who apparently took offense with the giggling, drunk Human for some reason. The proud warrior species gestured and provoked the Human, seeming to feel confident in its dense carapace armor covering every part, every joint of its fearsome genetic design. He also thought he caught the Human in a place where he would have no weapons available. He was wrong.

As the Boobitty warrior rushed in and grappled the Human, they struggled for a bit, gripped arm in arm, and after the Boobitty smashed his 3rd limb down and broke the human's nose, the Human got a serious sober look for a moment, and they both stumbled and fell over to the ground. Hard.

The Human got up, wiped the blood from his nose, and walked away. The Boobitty Warrior. Was dead. Investigations judged it self defense, and an accidental fatality, but privately, secretly; everyone knew.

They didn't just fall. The Human tripped the warrior, then leveraged his body mass to overcenter the fall rotation, and the first part of the Boobity warrior to strike the ground was the back of his head, while the Human, during the fall, managed to get a forearm braced on the warrior's forehead, adding all of his mass to that moment of initial impact as well. It was a sickening combination of mass, rotational conservation, timing, leverage, and violent intent.

"Oh.. oh my."

"Look, I've been trying to tell you. Everything. Literally everything, is a weapon for them. I cannot pretend to understand how hellish their primitive evolution must have been to have honed their tool use to this degree."

"But.. then how? How are we to control the Humans, if this is the case and everyone is at constant risk?"

"Well, it seems obvious, doesn't it? Just chill with them. Appeal to their higher minds, their sense of humor if we can manage it. They do, after all, Come in Peace."

"Well, that doesn't seem very reassuring at all, if-"

"Oh, I don't think you get the deeper meaning of 'Peaceful'. Let me see if I can remember it. Now, I'm just paraphrasing here, but; "There is a difference between a Peaceful Man and a Harmless Man. A harmless man could not hurt you even if he tried. A Peaceful man can absolutely ruin you, but chooses not to."

"I.. I still don't see how that makes anything- "

"It points out how they don't really want to be jerks. That they could always have a weapon at hand has always been a certainty, but they don't want to go looking for a fight. When you calm down a bit from the shock and horror of them, it is actually a gizzardwarming fact their um.. heart thingys are in the right place... I think that is how they say it."

"Well, I am certainly never going to get within 1000 centispans of one of those monsters"

"Oh, haven't you heard? High Command has decided Humans would make fantastic Station Security forces. We are going to be the bosses of dozens of them, very soon."

"No! You simply must be pulling my tentacle! I think I'm going to be ill..."

"Oh, come on! They are alright. They grow on you a bit, once you get to know them. They are actually kind of fun and clever- always down for a laughing good time. I am still trying to master their "Dark Humor", but I think one of their sayings kind of applies here: "If ya can't beat them, then BEAT them!"

"You really not helping to make it any better"

"I know. But it's kind of funny though, right? I mean I can almost get the humor."