What is objectively better?

What is objectively better?
HFY or humanity is underpowered?

i say, both are stupid if they are only enforced by themselves. also a political OP image for further bait.

...

/pol/ please go

To answer the question, a good setting is what matters. It doesn't matter how Humanity is because I want to follow a cool and interesting story, usually following a small group of people as they struggle IN SPACE.

>confusing national socialism with social darwinism in an internationalist context

...

i said the image was bait but you still bit.
why is Veeky Forums so retarded?

For settings that do something with humans besides making them the "normal flavor" I prefer a lean towards *ahem* "HFY". That is to say, I prefer settings that claim that the current age is the Age of Man for either better or worse. Not humans winning always forever, but something happened in the past where the old ruling races are unseated and by luck or direct action the human race is a/the driving force in the world.

seems good enough. nice to see that there are non-contrarian fa/tg/uys

>posts bait
>is asspained when people react to it

>when you believe the strongest always prevail

When did Hitler say that?

Germany won Czechoslovakia, though.

Humanity is fucked but puts up a fight

Humans share a lot of the same psychological quirks as other spacefaring civilizations, only with minor differences which can be traced back to evolutionary preferences inherent to each species' home planet.

Like, humans are considered to be way into the concept of brotherhood and unity because they depended on their communities to survive, while other species are less into communal living because they evolved to each be individually powerful enough to take care of themselves and see community only as a tool to mate/exchange information/trade/times of emergency.

That's what I prefer.

>ask a question
>lol i don't agree with the premise of my own question though
kill yourself

>humanity colonizes space
>atomized, isolated, initially-small communities exposed to drastically different environments and a good bit of radiation
>somehow they stay more or less identical to 20th c. Earth humans genetically
>also they share a common culture and language
All shit.

Aliens could be a lot weirder than you're giving them credit for. For instance they could have no theory of mind at all, as solitary as some octopi or spiders. And humanity isn't likely to be more brotherly than haplodiploid species.

It all depends on context.

HFY can be fun if it is done well.

Hell, Star Trek is HFY. Think about it. It is HFY as fuck.

Kind of. When you think about it, the Federation is extremely repressive, and almost an analogue of the Soviet Union. It focuses on humans, but the Federation isn't great.

I have to say, I sort of prefer to accentuate humanity's rapid development and adaption in regards to technology in games as their defining trait. I know it's kind of generic, but I like it anyway.

Humans may not be the most advanced race, but their tech is often the best in its class in era. For example, one race of aliens made a plasma rifle, and they have a very standardized design and pattern that virtually everyone in their race is familiar with. Humans finally get around to developing their own a century later, but theirs has improved cohesion over range, dissipates far more heat, and contains a longer lasting charge than an alien design. Yeah, they might've taken longer to figure out how to get there, but the sum of all previously failed attempts has taught them more about refining the end result than the early success of an alien race.

This is usually driven by a human's need to overcome adversity and challenge and partially by a simple competitive nature of thinking to themselves, "Yeah, that Ilioth trooper over their thinks he's so cool running around with his little plasma gun, well I'll show him who's boss, I'll make something even more badass." So in balance, humans have advantageous traits that make them unique and able to compete with other races even if they have the drawback of poor cohesion within their groups and political entities and have had much less time for development compared to others.

No.

Way to prove me wrong, user

I like how Star Trek does HFY.

The thing that sets humans apart from thr other species is its youth and inexperience - in a positive sense. Less solidified societal strata holding them back.

Humans make excellent warriors that can bear the emotional and ethical weight of war.
But it does come with a downside. Keep humans in a warzone too long, and they will start to succumb to their primitive monkey instincts, they become bitter, vengeful. A danger to their enemies and themselves. They start acting irrational, emotional.

Both are self-indulgent masturbation.

Star Trek has had so many different writers of such disparate talent and beliefs over the decades that I doubt it can take a single defined stance on anything it ever tackled.

>label it as bait
>people still can't help falling for it

Underpowered is always better.

However this is misleading underpowered humans can (and often do in fiction) come as HFY anyway.

But still you have room for having totally lame, shitty humanity or something still worthy in spite being one of weakest.

Any premise can be executed well. People tend to judge one of the two poorly for ideological reasons, not because they are actually qualitatively different.

Generally speaking HFY is just Ethno-Nationalism in space. If you have a problem with it on Earth, you'll have a problem with it in space.

Humanity-as-shit is a more self-flagellating and nihilistic genre. It appeals to a certain kind of person but as the above, it is repulsive to others who find the premise dehumanizing.

I like it when Humans are just different. Whether that means they're considered to be the physically strongest race (which is an interesting take on it and one I do like to explore) or the more "diplomatically" inclined race (ala Galactic Civ) I like it when Humanity has clear strengths and weaknesses and isn't the middle of the road race.

...

In my setting humanity's best trait was their smarts as opposed to superpowered monsters.
Some of the monsters were intelligent, a few even hella smart too, but humans managed to outsmart them in a breakthrough - they spliced themselves with monsters and gained the power they needed to dominate the world.

But the changes were hereditary and the pure humans slid back down to underpowered, on the same tier as the weakest monsters (i.e. foot-long rat) and hybrids of thin bloodlines (i.e. catgirl with just the ears and no powers), while the powerful hybrids are kings of the world.
The heritage of humanity being the original is practically forgotten and they are referred to as "bloodless", thought to be just further degeneration of monstermen genes.

Twist for HFY is possible if one those fuckers suddenly invents pokeballs.

Kind of like humans themselves, eh?

I think that user gave your statement about as much effort as was required.

Tell me.more about your setting. I'm actually interested.

Humanity is alone, "aliens" are simply humans with different points of view, and everyone comes together to fight the BBEG Robots that are unable to compromise or coexist.

Humanity is a jack of all trade, but a master of none. They aren't as strong as dwarves, nor as graceful as elves, or as magically inclined as gnomes. But they're adaptable and put up one hell of a fight.

"A jack of all trades and a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one."

Humanity are the precursors.
They no longer exist because they died out. Of various things. Zombie apocalypse, nanoplague, machine uprising, transcendence into 8 dimensional beings of pure fuck, you name it, it happened.
End result is, between all that, there's no humans left, but a lot of things humans made. Aliens brought to intelligence. Robots of various degrees of hostility. Catgirls. Grappler ships.

You can even have a book that uses both themes simultaniously.

Forgot the name, but I remember reading a scifi book about mankind exterminating a primitive alien species in typical HFY fashion through planetary bombardment despite protests from scientists, only to have humanity discover that there are countless alien civilizations far more powerful than mankind being silent in the dark, only reacting to genocidal destruction, as sensors detect entire armadas of near-lightspeed missiles racing towards Earth and its colonies, with the obvious outcome that mankind ironically will go extinct to the same method humanity used on the aliens a fes chapters back.

That is probably our actual position in life. The first lifeforms. We will be the Cthulhu's laddie.

Welll there's not much as it's actually a pretty fresh WIP.

Basically I'm spooning a little of chinese fantasy (xianxia) novels into concept.
Being born with the blood of a higher tier monster or a higher percentage of the blood is higher potential, but you still need to work to git gud.

I.e.
Thinblood mouse, small cat and monster lion hybrids are pretty much just humans with funny ears and tails. There's no meaningful difference in base strength between one another and the pure human. They all can work progress to bring out more strength and powers. Or they can do non-monster ways, i.e. more regular weapon usage. Pure humans can only do the weapon path; or some rare ones rediscover the merging techniques.

With slightly stronger bloodline, all three are born better - small general strength and reflexes increase for all, better senses, natural weapons. Mouse and cat are more nimble and agile while lion is more brute force, but they're still on the same balance, and they can increase the same.
With significantly stronger blood, they all grow generally better, but the minor monster hybrids hit the limit on in-born power while the lion has more to go (but there are also superior variants of fast&nimble to keep pace with brute force mobs).

Here's where the arrogant attitudes start showing up - the thicker bloodlined hybrids look down on the thinner; and the better foundation monsters look down at simpler ones.
But if you've got skills and training, you very much can show up the "born better" crowd.
Most people don't though, and as the better-bred ones can train too, so they generally are true in their arrogance.

But an underdog starting from a lower place and then getting OP is the standard plotline.

And of course it's not just regular animals and their hugened variants, there's all sorts of elemental empowerments, and more besides, and then some more unnatural things too. Po-ke-mon!

Technically they fought in the spanish civil war and the invasion of Czechoslovakia.
But here I am, hoping for historical accuracy on Veeky Forums.