History Main / HumansAreSurvivors

* The humans in [[Videogame/XCOMEnemyUnknown XCOM: Enemy Unknown]]. Aliens have landed on Earth, and are abducting citizens and razing entire cities. Every nation's military is no match. In a last ditch effort, nations from around the world pool all their funding and technology into "The XCOM Project", a secretive Paramilitary organization dedicated to combating the aliens. Even with the absolute best humanity has to offer, they are severely outmatched. The aliens can take large barrages of gunfire, all while tearing through XCOM's body armor as if it were paper. In addition to being outnumbered, the humans are outgunned as well. Countless aliens keep landing, tearing apart more and more of the world. They can bend minds and kill soldiers with just a thought, and yet the humans of XCOM hang on. After managing to kill enough aliens and steal enough tech, XCOM begins reverse-engineering alien tech and supplying their soldiers with gear that can make their soldiers survive even the aliens' deadly plasma guns. The soldiers that keep surviving missions become tougher and tougher, stronger and more determined, until your elite soldiers can survive the deadliest weapons the aliens can throw at you, even powering through alien mind control and lethal wounds though sheer will and determination.

* {{Discussed}} in ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse,'' when [[spoiler:[[ALighterShadeOfBlack Blue Diamond]]]] comes to Earth to [[spoiler:mourn [[PredecessorVillain Pink Diamond]]]] and meets [[NonActionGuy Greg]].
-->"How curious. I am impressed by humanity's ability to survive in the wild. What a strange planet...where else would a being as fragile as a human live...while [[spoiler:[[NotSoInvincibleAfterAll a being as powerful as a Diamond perish]]]]?"

* The Terrans in ''StarCraft'' are the descendants of a small group of refugees from earth's death camps who crashed into a bunch of planets after missing their intended destination by some 15 years in warp and later proceeded to fight at least one nuclear war amongst themselves. In the games themselves several of their colonies are infested by a HordeOfAlienLocusts and/or sterilized by ScaryDogmaticAliens, and yet they continue to not only hold out against both species and internal strife but to prosper.
* In the ''{{Metro 2033}}'' series (both [[Literature/{{Metro2033}} the two]] [[Literature/{{Metro2034}} books]] and [[VideoGame/{{Metro2033}} the two]] [[VideoGame/MetroLastLight video games]]), even after the apocalypse, even when you don't count [[OneManArmy Artyom]], humans are still the toughest and most badass species around. They eat shrimps[[note]]armored arthropods at the top of the food chain, a conclusion made with some careful observation and knowledge of ecology - nothing else eats them, even the mutated giant {{bear|sAreBadNews}}, who killed a big one but didn't eat it, an act that can only be surmised as territorial dispute[[/note]] with beer, kill demons[[note]]apex flying predators that compete with Librarians for prey and Shrimps for territory[[/note]], on a regular basis, and can slaughter nosalises and watchmen with [[KnifeNut knives and nothing else]] with some effort. It's reflected in-game, too: [[http://metrovideogame.wikia.com/wiki/Arena the combat analysis on this page]] shows how humans excel in all kinds of face-off, even when outnumbered, and don't suffer at all from ConservationOfNinjutsu like the other competitors[[note]]watchmen, nosalises and male shrimps[[/note]] often do - in fact, a quartet of humans can only consistently be matched by [[MirrorMatch four other humans]] or the PlayerCharacter.

->''Homo sapiens. What an inventive, invincible species. It's only a few million years since they've crawled up out of the mud and learned to walk. Puny, defenceless bipeds. They've survived flood, famine and plague. They've survived cosmic wars and holocausts, and now here they are amongst the stars, waiting to begin a new life, ready to outsit eternity. They're indomitable. Indomitable! ''

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* The population of the [[EverythingTryingToKillYou aptly named "death worlds"]] in ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}''. Due to natural (and sometimes not-quite-natural) selection, these planets are basically breeding grounds for [[{{Badass}} Badasses]], who fill the ranks of the most renown Imperial Guard regiments as well as Space Marine chapters.

* The humans in ''Videogame/{{XCOMEnemyUnknown}}. Aliens have landed on Earth, and are abducting citizens and razing entire cities. Every nation's military is no match. In a last ditch effort, nations from around the world pool all their funding and technology into "The XCOM Project", a secretive Paramilitary organization dedicated to combating the aliens. Even with the absolute best humanity has to offer, they are severely outmatched. The aliens can take large barrages of gunfire, all while tearing through XCOM's body armor as if it were paper. In addition to being outnumbered, the humans are outgunned as well. Countless aliens keep landing, tearing apart more and more of the world. They can bend minds and kill soldiers with just a thought, and yet the humans of XCOM hang on. After managing to kill enough aliens and steal enough tech, XCOM begins reverse-engineering alien tech and supplying their soldiers with gear that can make their soldiers survive even the aliens' deadly plasma guns. The soldiers that keep surviving missions become tougher and tougher, stronger and more determined, until your elite soldiers can survive the deadliest weapons the aliens can throw at you, even powering through alien mind control and lethal wounds though sheer will and determination.

* ''Franchise/{{Predator}}'': According to ExpandedUniverse and WordOfGod, the titular alien hunters enjoy hunting humans because, despite our inferior physiology and technology, we're ingenious survivors and we're not bound by rigid codes of honour; basically WeakButSkilled plus CombatPragmatist. In expanded material, they especially value two different species as prey: "Pyode Amedha", which is "Soft Meat" and refers to us, and "Kainde Amedha", which means "Hard Meat" and refers to the [[Franchise/{{Alien}} Xenomorphs]]. In other words, a race of super-strong, armed-to-the-teeth {{Proud Warrior Race Guy}}s have arguments about whether or not we're more entertaining quarry than a race of LightningBruiser bug monsters with acid for blood. Makes you proud in a weird way, doesn't it?

* This a major theme in ''Film/PacificRim''. As soon as it's made clear that no one is safe from the {{Kaiju}}s, humans create the [[HumongousMecha Jaegers]] to defend themselves and they prove incredibly effective. The only reason Kaijus are still a threat is because stronger versions of them keep appearing after increasingly shorter intervals. Midway through the movie, it's revealed that [[spoiler:the Kaijus are beings enginereed to actively destroy humanity]] but humans do such a good job at surviving that they manage to [[spoiler:kill their creators]]. Ironically, the attacks started because humans [[spoiler:inadvertedly facilitated the invasion of Earth by polluting the atmosphere]].

* This a major theme in ''Film/PacificRim''. As soon as it's made clear that no one is safe from the {{Kaiju}}s, humans create the [[HumongousMecha Jaegers]] to defend themselves and they prove incredibly effective. The only reason Kaijus are still a threat is because stronger versions of them keep appearing after increasingly shorter intervals. Midway through the movie, it's revealed that [[spoiler:the Kaijus are beings enginereed to actively destroy humanity]] but humans do such a good job at surviving that they manage to [[spoiler:kill the their creators]]. Ironically, the attacks started because humans [[spoiler:inadvertedly helped the Kaijus' creators invade Earth by polluting the atmosphere]].

* ''Series/{{Firefly}}''. Like ''WesternAnimation/TitanAE'', we take to the stars.

* The population of the aptly named "death worlds" in ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}''. Due to natural (and sometimes not-quite-natural) selection, these planets are basically breeding grounds for [[{{Badass}} Badasses]], who fill the ranks of the most renown Imperial Guard regiments as well as Space Marine chapters.

* The population of the aptly named "death worlds" in ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}''. Due to natural (and sometimes not-quite-natural) selection, these planets are basically breeding grounds for [{{Badass}} Badasses], who fill the ranks of the most renown Imperial Guard regiments as well as Space Marine chapters.

* The population of the aptly named "death worlds" in Warhammer40000. Due to natural (and sometimes not-quite-natural) selection, these planets are basically breeding grounds for [{{Badass}} Badasses], who fill the ranks of the most renown Imperial Guard regiments as well as Space Marine chapters.

-->-- '''[[DoctorWho The Doctor]]''', ''[[{{Recap/DoctorWhoS12E2TheArkInSpace}} The Ark in Space]]''

* ''DungeonsAndDragons'' 4th Edition uses this trope as part of its (successful) attempt to take humans from being simply TheMario to being HumansAreSpecial, and it crops up all over the game's human-specific support material. In fact, it would not be far off base to wager that a full third or more of human specific feats, as well as the racial paragon path, are devoted to setting up human beings as hyper-adaptable, survival {{Determinator}}s, either (read: usually) by adding bonuses to saving throws, or occasionally more directly by adding HP or defense bonuses. Seriously, some of the humans' most iconic feats have names like: Human Perseverance, Die Hard, Human Resolve, Frantic Recovery, Don't Count Me Out...you get the idea.

* The ''UFOAfterBlank'' series is built on this. [[TheGreys The Reticulans]] launched a global DepopulationBomb that wiped out the vast majority of humankind. But the small percentage that survived were ''pissed'' and motivated to both survive and seek out bloody vengeance, [[HumansAdvanceSwiftly and went from a few scattered survivors to a technologically-advanced global military force]] [[HumansAreWarriors able to match the Reticulans' superior technology through prying it from their corpses, figuring out how it worked, and turning it back against the enemy]]. Depending on the ending of the first game, the humans either destroy the Reticulan forces or fight them to a standstill until the Reticulans agree to build a space station to house the surviving population.

* In ''Fanfic/{{Renegade}}'' (a ''Franchise/MassEffect/[=/=]CommandAndConquer'' FusionFic), mankind survived living on a planet where, thanks to the Scrin and their GreenRocks, [[DeathWorld the ground was trying to eat them.]] Naturally, this coupled with [[HumansAreWarriors humans constantly being at war]] made humanity [[HadToBeSharp even tougher]]. Even the [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy krogan]] respect humans.

* In ''Literature/TheBooksOfEmber'', humanity manages to survive both above and below ground.

* ''TheCityOfEmber'': Humanity manages to survive both above and below ground.

** There are huge problems about space travel that we don't yet have technology to even adress. We can send someone past Pluto but have no idea if such a trip is survivable.

* ''Franchise/{{Predator}}'': According to ExpandedUniverse and WordOfGod, the titular alien hunters enjoy hunting humans because, despite our inferior physiology and technology, we're ingenious survivors and we're not bound by rigid codes of honour; basically WeakButSkilled plus CombatPragmatist. In expanded material, they especially value two different species as prey: "Pyode Amedah", which is "Soft Meat" and refers to us, and "Kainde Amedah", which means "Hard Meat" and refers to the [[Franchise/{{Alien}} Xenomorphs]]. In other words, a race of super-strong, armed-to-the-teeth {{Proud Warrior Race Guy}}s have arguments about whether or not we're more entertaining quarry than a race of LightningBruiser bug monsters with acid for blood. Makes you proud in a weird way, doesn't it?