History HumansAreSpecial / Literature

* ''Literature/LilithsBrood'': The alien Oankali, masters of genetic engineering, are fascinated by humanity and want to absorb our genes primarily because we have an incredible ability called ''cancer'', which if replicated opens up avenues for [[HealingFactor rapid cellular regeneration]] beyond anything they've ever seen. The secondary reason they've taken an interest is that humanity is the first other species they've encountered to have sentience... but in combination with our genetically ingrained "hierarchical behavior", something they also lack, the Oankali believe it's InYourNatureToDestroyYourselves, and so believe rendering us extinct by breeding us into themselves is a kinder fate than allowing us to rebuild and blow ourselves up in a nuclear war a [[AfterTheEnd second time]].

* In Creator/WenSpencer's ''Endless Blue'', humans are the only ones who communicate with all the alien species. When Mikhail comments on this, Paige points out that his ship has a name, and is called "she" -- none of the aliens antromorphize -- which is what makes it possible for humans to handle all sorts of aliens.

** In ''Literature/SoLongAndThanksForAllTheFish'', when Arthur complains about the sparse entry, Ford explains that he actually wrote a lot about Earth, which someone else then promptly edited down to "mostly harmless". In fact, his sole contribution had been the "mostly." He was then stranded for 15 years with relatively little else to do Later, the ''Guide'' received an update, and suddenly all of Ford's extensive notes were there. Since he knew the planet had been destroyed some years earlier, this told him something weird was happening -- which, Ford being Ford, he wanted to witness ''immediately''.

** "Literature/HomoSol": The humans of Earth are the only intelligent humans in the galaxy known to [[HumanityIsInsane violate Kraut's Law, allowing large groups of humans to be panicked]]. The two hundred and eighty-eight HumanoidAliens of the galaxy estimate that they are a thousand years ahead of Earth in technology and science. One of their soldiers estimates that this makes them just about able [[HumansAreWarriors to fight Earth to a draw]]. If they delay for two hundred years, [[HumansAdvanceSwiftly we will surpass their technology]] and war would become a CurbStompBattle.

* ''Literature/{{Manifold}}'': Humans are the first sapient race in the universe, with their descendants, the godlike Downstreamers, rectifying this condition by travelling back in time and spreading various human and archaic human species across the multiverse.

* This is the entire premise behind the Creator/ArthurCClarke short "[[http://www.baenebooks.com/chapters/0743498747/0743498747___1.htm Rescue Party]]".
** It's told entirely from the ''alien'' point of view. They are trying to save humanity from a disaster only to find out that humans have already saved themselves. It was published in 1946. Back then the most advanced rocket was the German V-2 and the number of electronic computers in the world could be counted on one hand.
** Subverted at the end, however.

* "Literature/TheyreMadeOfMeat" is ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin. Two alien explorers discuss the human race and are appalled over the fact that humanity is the only sentient species in the known universe who are entirely corporeal. They compare humanity to two other races - one which starts out as corporeal being before they AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence and another that has a corporeal body and a brain made of electron plasma. This terrifies and disgusts them enough that they erase all knowledge of humanity and break their vows to contact all sentient life.

** Dr. Asimov's primary reason for wanting to [[AvertedTrope avert this trope]] was that Creator/JohnWCampbell seemed to hold the view that humans were (or should be) automatically superior in some way to any other species they encountered, and this extended from his belief in racial superiority. Dr Asimov (ethnically Jewish) didn't want to debate the subject with Campbell, so tended to [[AbsentAliens avoid using aliens]] in his work.

** ''Literature/TheEarlyAsimov'': In the afterword to "Literature/HomoSol", Dr Asimov said Campbell loved the story because [[InvokedTrope it made humans unique]] without suggesting we're inherently more intelligent or morally superior.

* Out of left field, ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles''. It turns out that many of the magical creatures from the Dresdenverse are incredibly set in their ways -- that's one of the downsides of being immortal or even incredibly old. Humans constantly reinvent ourselves, making our True Names harder to pin down and use against us, making us more adaptable, and fueling our ingenuity. We were scary en masse with pitchforks and torches — now we have guns, planes, and nukes. For a species that was once essentially deer to be hunted, the fact that we're pointing considerable calibers of weapons (including the wizards, especially the eponymous Dresden) back at them in such a short period of time is both unique and impressive. Naturally, the Vampire Court uses these advances against the wizards via their thralls; refer to [[CrapsackWorld Dresdenverse]]. Similarly, wizards who stay aware of the advances made by "vanilla" mortals can use those advances against ancient foes who aren't aware of them or haven't internalized how quickly the mortal world has changed around them. A Warden once lured a nearly unkillable ancient horror intent on eating him to a US Government nuclear testing site in Nevada in the 1950s... and then gated himself to another dimension, leaving the unwitting abomination at ground zero.

*** Of course, intellectually, humans are downright pitiful. They can't be peaceful, suck at medicine, and are pretty much dedicated combatants. Everybody else is better at something, except for combat. Of course, that lasts right up until humans develop psionic abilities—which is later somewhat subverted, as it turns out that the Lepar, a stupid, plodding race, is resistant to telepathy.

* ''Literature/TortallUniverse'': In ''The Realms of the Gods'', last book of ''Literature/TheImmortals'', it's revealed that Mortals[[note]]humans and non-mythical animals[[/note]] are Special and able to do things that gods and Immortals — mythical things like dragons — can't, like resist the effects of Chaos vents. This is because mortals are half-Chaos by nature.

--->'''Ax''': (muttering darkly) Humans. You do things too quickly. We Andalites may wind up wishing we had left you for the Yeerks.\\
'''Rachel''': So far, you Andalites [[LampshadeHanging pretty much have left us to the Yeerks]].

--->"Humans have fought thousands of wars. Thousands! We as a race have fought a mere handful. They run straight into the bullets, Visser Three, again and again. Did you know that? They attack against insane odds. They defend what can’t be defended. Outnumbered, outgunned, surrounded, hopeless, they will still fight, fight, fight till they are each and every one dead. Something you might know if you stopped posturing long enough to learn something!"

* ''Literature/BackstabbedInABackwaterDungeon'' has humans as the only race that can get magical Gifts and from which spawn powerful "masters" (what those are has yet to be revealed in the translated portion), but that hardly helps because these are rare and the rest of the races treat humans as "inferiors" that are routinely abused because it's known that they can't fight back.
* Her other series, Literature/{{Everworld}}, shows humans (as well as other non-magical humanoids like dwarves and elves) are different from the gods because they have the ability to change. Gods can’t change their nature whatsoever and are locked to behave in a certain way. The BigBad of the series even acknowledges that the most dangerous being in Everworld isn't a god. It's Merlin.
* Creator/IsaacAsimov
** Dr Asimov's primary reason for wanting to [[AvertedTrope avert this trope]] was that Creator/JohnWCampbell seemed to hold the view that humans were (or should be) automatically superior in some way to any other species they encountered, and this extended from his belief in racial superiority. Dr Asimov (ethnically Jewish) didn't want to debate the subject with Campbell, so tended to [[AbsentAliens avoid using aliens]] in his work.
--->I sometimes got the uncomfortable notion however, that this attitude reflected Campbell's feelings on the smaller, Earth scale. He seemed to me to accept the natural superiority of Americans over non-Americans, and he seemed automatically to assume the picture of an American as one who was of northwest European origin.\\
-- '''Isaac Asimov''', in the afterword to ''Homo Sol'' in ''The Early Asimov'', explaining why he was uncomfortable with Campbell's Humans Are Special attitude. [[note]] In this afterword he also mentions his future attempts to avoid conflict with Campbell by the aforementioned method of removing aliens from the picture, bringing up the ''Foundation'' series as an example.[[/note]]

** "{{Literature/Hostess}}": Out of five known sapient species, only humans stop growing after reaching maturity. Only humans dream while they sleep. Only humans develop missing persons. Only humans die from old age. Dr Tholan assumes these facts must be linked, and comes to Earth to investigate the connections. He believes it is because a sixth intelligence also exists, one that evolved on Earth alongside humanity, as EnergyBeings that feed on mental activity (dreams are a symptom of their feeding). Mr Smollett tells his wife that they are symbiotic, not parasitic, but [[ConvictionByCounterfactualClue his evidence doesn't support his reasoning]].
** "Literature/WhatIsThisThingCalledLove": One [[FantasticAnthropologist alien researcher]] is trying to convince his boss that Earth animals have bisexual reproduction and this is a problem due to the way that recombination hastens evolutionary biology compared to asexual reproduction.
* Creator/FredSaberhagen's ''Berserkers'' also has the capacity for violence as Earth Descended humanity's most useful trait.
** The introduction to the collection ''Berserker'' has an alien specifically state that the human propensity for war is the only reason there is still any life anywhere in the known universe. The Berserkers were the product of a similar, but apparently less wise, species and no other race is capable of stopping them.

* Similarly to the Foster version above, Creator/TanyaHuff's ''Literature/ConfederationOfValor'' novels have humans as one of the few species in the galaxy with the mindset capable of withstanding the rigors of combat. Only a partial example since while we may have been the first there are three other species just as capable as us, the Taykan, the Krai and in the first book the recently contact Ssilsvis. Though according to the H'san our discovery of ''cheese'' is just as noteworthy.
* The Creator/PennAndTeller book ''Cruel Tricks for Dear Friends'' included a bonus short story involving a group of aliens who put humanity on trial, feeling that a Class-A inhabitable planet like Earth shouldn't be wasted on a Class-ZZ redundant species like humanity. The main character is challenged to come up with a single unique property of humanity, not present in any other species, that deserves to be preserved. What finally convinces the aliens? [[spoiler:Predictably, magic tricks.]] The story was made into a 45 minute short called "Invisible Thread".

* In Creator/TerryPratchett's ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'', humanity's capacity for boredom, hallucination, and irrationality makes them "special". These traits are not quite unique, being shared with dwarfs and trolls, but are lacking in the more powerful entities like the Auditors and multi-tentacled creatures from the Dungeon Dimensions and such. Pratchett treats human behaviour as fairly infectious too, for better or worse.
** This theme is echoed in ''Literature/GoodOmens''. Humans can be kinder than angels and eviler than demons, much to the surprise of both, and at least one demon and angel like human inventions so much, they get serious doubts about the Apocalypse. The Apocalypse is then thwarted by [[spoiler: the sheer plebian humanity of the young Antichrist coming to dominate his Satanic genes.]]

** All other races suffer from MedievalStasis. They evolve and progress at a staggeringly slow pace. When the Freds scouted Earth they arrived at the end of the Middle Ages, saw a Catholic-dominated world armed with swords, and made centuries of invasion plans based on humanity remaining at this stage of development for thousands of years. They never could have anticipated mankind having nuclear weapons and early space-flight within six hundred years.
* Out of left field, ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles''. It turns out that many of the magical creatures from the Dresdenverse are incredibly set in their ways — that's one of the downsides of being immortal or even incredibly old. Humans constantly reinvent ourselves, making our True Names harder to pin down and use against us, making us more adaptable, and fueling our ingenuity. We were scary en masse with pitchforks and torches — now we have guns, planes, and nukes. For a species that was once essentially deer to be hunted, the fact that we're pointing considerable calibers of weapons (including the wizards, especially the eponymous Dresden) back at them in such a short period of time is both unique and impressive. Naturally, the Vampire Court uses these advances against the wizards via their thralls; refer to [[CrapsackWorld Dresdenverse]]. Similarly, wizards who stay aware of the advances made by "vanilla" mortals can use those advances against ancient foes who aren't aware of them or haven't internalized how quickly the mortal world has changed around them. A Warden once lured a nearly unkillable ancient horror intent on eating him to a US Government nuclear testing site in Nevada in the 1950's... and then gated himself to another dimension, leaving the unwitting abomination at ground zero.
** Invoked by counterexample with Arianna Ortega. Harry Dresden faces her in a WizardDuel that doesn't let her use some of her natural advantages - and, even knowing that, she still tries to use her normal tactics against Harry, and doesn't learn from her mistakes.
--->'''Arianna''' But... you're cattle.\\
'''Harry''' Moo.
** Humans also seem to be special in that only ''their'' awareness and/or belief in Nevernever entities — fairies, gods, demons, shen, whatever — seems to bolster those entities' power in the physical world. In the short story "Backup", Thomas freely tells Bob about the Oblivion War, because Bob isn't a mortal and his knowledge of an entity's existence won't help that entity connect to Earthly reality at all.
** Humans are the only terrestrial creatures with a soul; even other sentient Earth beings don't get one. They are also notable as the only creatures with truly free will, as just about every other creature either cannot act against their nature (i.e. Fae) or if they do they are changed dramatically (i.e. angels falling).

* {{Downplayed}} in the ''Literature/EarthCentAmbassador'' novels. Humans are the new kids on the block and only made it to space because of help from the BenevolentAI Stryx, which leads to them being [[FantasticRacism discriminated against]] by a group of species called the Natural League. Roughly the only valuable trade goods Earth produces are workers and [[KlingonsLoveShakespeare kitchen appliances]]. What makes humans special is their proficiency at ''gaming'', of all things (pro gaming competitions regularly turn into an InternationalShowdownByProxy with Natural League species).

* The Creator/StrugatskyBrothers (ok, one of the Strugatsky Brothers) novel ''The Expedition into Inferno'' plays this straight. Humans are special for a lot of reasons, almost to the degree of being superior, but their ability to be [[OneManArmy One Man Armies]] despite appearing to be {{Technical Pacifist}}s really separates them from the pack. As [[TheAtoner The Two-Headed Yule]] phrases it: Do not bother a lion when he's eating, do not wake an elephant when he's sleeping, and ''never, ever,'' mess with humans."

%%* This trope gets played in a minor key in Creator/RobertAHeinlein's juvenile novel ''Literature/HaveSpacesuitWillTravel'' [[spoiler:(See HumanityOnTrial for a description of the denouement)]].

* In ''The Secret Visitors'' by James White, Earth is the only planet in the entire galaxy with axial tilt, changing seasons, and interestingly varied scenery. Human art and music is renowned and envied for its variety and emotional resonance. Also, when the human characters start visiting other planets, it turns out that [[spoiler:humans are remarkable for their fortitude in the face of physical danger, and a human doctor is considered a miracle worker -- galactic society has long been geared toward ''prevention'' of illness and injury, so most people find the mere prospect of injury horrifying, and in the rare cases of actual injury occurring nobody has any idea what to do]].
* In Creator/RobertAHeinlein's ''Literature/StarshipTroopers'' it is the fact we don't leave people behind. Ironically the bugs' special trait (aside from hive mind) is the fact that their prisoners don't die in captivity (unlike what happens to those humans capture).
* Played with in the ''Franchise/{{Star Wars|Expanded Universe}}'' EU, humans are nothing particularly special biologically, but they are far and away the most numerous species in the galaxy (populations of trillions, as compared to billions, or even millions for some other species).
* The Terry Bisson short story "They're Made of Meat" is ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin. Two alien explorers discuss the human race and are appalled over the fact that humanity is the only sentient species in the known universe who are entirely corporeal. They compare humanity to two other races - one which starts out as corporeal being before they AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence and another that has a corporeal body and a brain made of electron plasma. This terrifies and disgusts them enough that they erase all knowledge of humanity and break their vows to contact all sentient life.

* This is revealed to be the case in ''Scales of Empire'' by Kylie Chan. After we learn that the dragons have multimillennial lifespans, FTL travel, can breed with anything and have incredible psychic powers, it turns out that Earth's large moon and the resultant increased relevance of sight mean that we have less acute senses of smell and taste than other species... meaning that ''potatoes'' instantly become a valuable trade artefact because they have subtle flavours that humans can't perceive, and spices are a debilitating weapon on both dragons and the {{Jerkass}} aliens known as cats (and in the latter's case, tear gas is potentially lethal). [[spoiler:To the point where humanity is able to more or less instantly demand an end to the dragons' habit of breeding other species out of existence and have a reasonable chance of compliance; only humans can handle chilli safely, and that gives us an edge.]]

* In ''Literature/{{Micromegas}}'', one of the (to them) microscopic human philosophers the alien giants encounter advocates his belief in the view of Creator/ThomasAquinas that the Earth, stars and universe were all created by God specifically for humanity. This causes the aforementioned giants to fall into tumults of laughter, causing the philosophers' tiny boat to fall from one of the giants' fingernail into the other's pocket.

* In ''Literature{{Micromegas}}'', one of the (to them) microscopic human philosophers the alien giants encounter advocates his belief in the view of Aquinas's 'Literature/SummaTheologica'' that the Earth, stars and universe were all created by God specifically for humanity. This causes the aforementioned giants to fall into tumults of laughter, causing the philosophers' tiny boat to fall from one of the giants' fingernail into the other's pocket.