Humanity was a recent addition to the galactic community. Just under seven years had passed since first contact was made between us and the Galactic Council. Our Faster Than Light capabilities were inefficient but improving. Our military tactics were standard, though our space combat doctrine was underdeveloped. In almost all ways, us humans were a perfectly average species, and we were quickly and peacefully invited to join the Galactic Council as a junior member. Despite all this, just a few short weeks ago, the human invasion had started.
I was standing behind a lowered curtain, dressed to kill. There were three of us, standing in formation. The air was thick with anxiety, and Jae-hee was fiddling with the pack at his waist off to my left. A voice came in over the earpiece I had in.
“Showtime in less than a minute. Good luck.” The voice was compressed to the point I couldn’t tell who it was. From beyond the curtain I could hear the show’s host talking.
“You know them, you love them, and for the first time ever you can see them live. Here for their first Galactic Extranet appearance, preforming their number one hit song “Baby, I Love You” please give it up for Velvet Sound!” The curtain dropped and the lights turned on above us. The screams of the crowd were deafening. But we were professionals, not even a wince at the noise. Nor did we miss a beat as the music came on. The next four minutes were a blur of singing and dancing and cheering fans. At one point, when I wasn’t near the front, I noticed disapproving glares from parents. Same as it ever was, I suppose. Before I knew it, the song was over and we were taking our bows. The easy part was done. A performance was a performance, even if the crowd were a bunch of aliens. The hard part would be the album signing that we had to do in 25 minutes.
While humans were physically average, and technologically underdeveloped, there was no species in the galaxy with as rich and diverse a culture. Not that the galaxy took notice at first, such an unremarkable species was easy to ignore, especially as accessing human media was difficult. That all changed three months ago when, after years of hard work translating books and movies, integrating programs, and securing broadcasting rights across galactic space, the Human Internet was finally integrated into the Galactic Extranet. At first, there was little change, a few aliens checked out what we humans had to offer out of curiosity. But it quickly grew from that. Word spread around the galaxy that the Humans were making music unlike anything they had heard before, hypnotic melodies and radically new chord progressions. Stories longer and more complicated than what had been written before. Provocative dances and otherworldly clothing. A revolution was coming to galactic media, and it was coming fast. I’d like to say it started in earnest when Velvet Sound released our second album.
Our debut had been a huge success back on Earth, and soon Jae-hee, Victor and I were household names to humans. A pretty simple pop boyband, but one that had avoided the overt sci-fi theming that had taken over human media since first contact. “Authentically human” we were called. And to a galaxy beginning to obsess over human music, that was the best thing to be.
Our security guard was leading us to the signing location. He was a Logodron, meaning he was tall, hairy, and grey. Large ears, good for listening for threats. Looked a bit like a koala, if a koala was 6’9 and built like a truck. Hard to tell how he was feeling about his position escorting a human boyband, Logodron faces weren’t physically expressive like ours. Instead they communicated through pheromones and subvocalizations lower than the natural human hearing range. They still appreciated human music however, if the Logodron I could see waiting in line were anything to go by. The actual hall we would be spending the next two hours in was… honestly quite boring. While humans did tend to be a bit more architecturally bold than other species, there was really only so many ways you could make a big empty room and lay out some tables and fences in it. Interior design was frankly the only creative pursuit where human styles weren’t more developed or numerous than the alien alternatives.
I honestly felt bad for the security here, especially the ones that come from species with more sensitive hearing. The moment we took our seats for the event, an ear piercing scream went out. Even a few years of experience back in human space hadn’t prepared us for this. I looked at Victor, and we shared a pained smile and winced. One of the species, I’m not sure which, had screeched at a pitch so unnaturally high as to literally feel like it was piercing our ears. After that however, the actual event ran smoothly. After all, we in the band had been coached extensively in the weeks leading up to our trip to Capitol Station. Close to 60 species living on the station, though human music would probably only appeal to half of them. Regardless though, we had to learn proper English transliterations of 60 languages. Where to look, and how to respectfully shake hands or the equivalent. Signs of happiness, sadness, or offence. It was exhausting, and we had been running on maybe two hours of sleep up to the night before our performance, but it paid off. What somehow no one had anticipated was the fact that our fans could and would do the same research on human customs and behavior. This led to some awkwardness, although nothing that couldn’t be laughed off. The occasional handshake or high five mix-up that occurred when species had different numbers and configurations of limbs. In one case I went to do a customary bow for a Mwelah fan. The Mwelah were a quadrupedal race, reminiscent of a sheep. Unlike sheep however, they had four long, dexterous tails that they used to manipulate tools. As I went to bow however, my head hit something solid. Looking up, the Mwelah had in their tails a prosthetic human arm that they were holding out to me.
The highlight, however, were the fans that attempted to flirt with us. This was nothing particularly new, and we were briefed on some of the courtship displays of the species we would probably be encountering. And much like with handshakes, some fans learned human courtship displays in turn. What most stood out to me was when a Vrishu fan made her move on Victor. Vrishu were remarkably human in appearance, save for the presence for two extra pairs of arms, blue skin, and six eyes arranged in a crescent across their forehead. This one particular Vrishu had been getting her album signed by Victor, and was just about to move on to get it signed by Jae-hee, when she stopped and asked a simple question: “Did it hurt?” now, this was concerning and confusing. She hadn’t seemed to take any action to hurt us, but maybe she had accidentally done something we hadn’t noticed. “Did what hurt?” Victor replied, trying to hide his confusion. What followed was the first and only time I’ve seen a Vrishu take on a shit-eating grin as she answered, “When you fell from heaven.” She proceeded to wink with all three of the eyes on her left side. At the same time. It took everything in me to not burst out laughing right then and there. Not out of any maliciousness, but from the sheer absurdity of the life I had found myself living.
Like I said, aside from some awkward cross-species moments the album signing went off well. Almost all the fans were respectful, and we for our part were excited to meet them. Notably less excited and respectful however, were the protestors waiting outside the event. While most of the galaxy was enthralled by humanity, the explosive success was triggering just as explosive a backlash, and as the vanguard of the human cultural moment, we were the target of the vitriol. The objectors to human culture were a varied bunch. Some identified the possibility of long-term human cultural dominance as a threat to their own cultures. Some of the more militant or scholarly species viewed human culture as a corrupting influence on the youth, being seen alternatively as a moral corruption or intellectual corruption. The moralists felt that humanity’s romanticization of sex, drugs, and individualism would create a generation of selfish psychopaths. The intellectuals felt that human culture numbed the brain and would create a generation wanting to pursue the “useless” arts instead of going into the more valuable sciences. Whatever the reasons however, this small minority of people certainly didn’t seem so small when they were united, and a few hundred of them were blocking our way to the car that would take us to the hotel. We kept smiles on our faces as they held signs decrying us as “simple apes” and held our heads high as they called for us to be thrown into either the army, jail, or the vacuum of space. As soon as the doors to the car were shut however, I felt a tear trickle down my face. Finally, after a days’ worth of stresses, of awkward moments, and of vicious threats, I allowed myself to relax out of my public persona. I took a shuddering breath, and looked up as I felt two hands on my shoulders. Victor and Jae-hee were looking at me with watery smiles, no doubt feeling the same way. We had made it through the first day of our galactic debut. The opening salvo of the human invasion had been fired, the first of many that would follow in the coming years as the other species started to dig further and further into human culture. For me, Victor, and Jae-hee though, there was little time to think on matters like that. By the time we had arrived at the hotel, our manager had called a meeting to start preparing us for an interview the next morning.
This was originally posted onto r/HFY