1y ago

Any sci-fi with aliens where humans are not the less advanced race?

What the title says, I'm tired of the trope where humans are the least advanced in the universe.

I'd like to read something different where we're the more advanced ones (not necessarily the most advanced). As an example I quite enjoyed the Ender's Game sequels and the angle of us being the more advanced ones was quite interesting.

Do you have any recommendations?

199 comments

This is a driving factor in a majority of Star Trek fiction.
- Also > Hard to Be a God - by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky
  Anton a man from a future human utopia in undercover mission on an alien planet that is populated by human beings whose society has not advanced beyond the Middle Ages.
- Never really was into Star Trek, unfortunately.
  
  I'd watch star trek if i can skip the old ones. I'm sorry die hard star trek fans but the cgi in those times is just way too terrible for me. I'm sure i can maybe skip to the new ones and just spoil the older shows for myself to get the jist though.
  Edit: wait are we talking books or movies/shows? I come from the (everything) fediverse section my bad

Foundation or Dune pop immediately into my mind. Asimov has an interesting view of humanity. As does Herbert. No aliens really in those books though. Honor Harrington series is also about humanity’s dominance in space. Edit thanks saintwacko for the correction lol
- Interestingly, the trend in 1940s SF was for humans to always be superior to aliens; John W. Campbell, the editor for Astounding, particularly liked this view. Asimov hated this trend, so that's why the Foundation series has no aliens in it; as a result he could sell the stories to Campbell without having to write about the inferiority of aliens. It's also why Asimov wrote a lot of three-law robot stories at this time, as he didn't mind writing humans to be superior to robots.
- Honor* Harrington
- Forgive me if I am uninformed, as it has been a while since I read Dune and I never read the complete series, but that universe doesn't have aliens in it, does it?
  Does Foundation have any either? I've only watched the series on Apple TV (which I know is very divergent from the books) but it also seems to involve mainly humans and their creations than anything else.
  
  No, you are correct. Both series are in the Humans are the only sentient space civ camp.
  
  Well, there are the giant sand worms.
- I've read both and while I agree both series are great (though Dune gets really weird in the later books), this is not what I'm after. I'll check out Honor Harrington (I assume that's what you meant, Hunter found me some tennis dude.
  
  The Honor Harrington series actually has some interesting tech disparities, besides being pretty good/exciting military science fiction.
  In the first book, there are Bronze-Age-ish aboriginals.
  In the second book, you see several human polities. Harrington interacts with less technologically/culturally developed groups of humans, and there are frictions and opportunities coming from the more advanced polity.
  Harrington's polity generally remains the most technologically advanced group. There's later interaction with human polities who had thought they were the top dog, in terms of military power.
  Just to note, it's a big series that gets somewhat too sprawling in the later books. The earlier books are Age of Sail (IN SPACE!!!) adventures, which transforms into a wide-ranging interstellar war driven by technology change. Weber's analogy is sailing ships - steam ironclads - Dreadnaught battleships - WW2 radar directed gunnery / aircraft carriers. Not everyone is at the same tech level.

The Bobiverse is a fun read. Highly recommend
- I came here specifically hoping this series was already mentioned.
- It's fun but on the second re-read I can't help but notice how first-person perspective is extremely overused and the overall writing style could use some refinement.
  
  Yeah it's not great writing but it's fun so I'm cool with it. Fourth book should not have happened though.
- Although they did meet one race more advanced.
- I loved this series. Very entertaining and kept me engaged wanting more.
- Counterpoint: it's dreadful and I gave up in the middle of the first book.
  It's certainly well regarded though so worth a look for yourself, op.

Stargate SG-1 has a VERY interesting premise. Humans start from 0 and we see them gradually learning new technology and making alliances (Plus, the original cast is just stellar)
- I'm in the middle of a 5th (or so) rewatch!
  
  Richard Dean Anderson is a national treasure! :D

Not sure if this is what you are looking for.
Iain M Banks Culture books centre around The Culture a human civ (but not earth humans) who are one of the most advanced civs in a milky way with tens of thousands of sentient races at various level of development.
- Came here to suggest the culture series. First thing that popped into my mind while reading the question.
  Ursula K. Le Guin's books in the Hainish Cycle might also fit the bill.
- Sounds interesting, will check it out. Thank you!
  
  Reading some of your other replies I think you will enjoy, The Culture. Banks created a galaxy that really feels lived in and the interactions of the civs at various tech levels works really well.
- The Algebraist is an excellent standalone Banks book.
  Humans finally make it out into the galactic community only to find humans are already there and that the galaxy is crawling with life of incredibly diverse kinds literally everywhere.
  It's one of his best.

Project Hail Mary (by Andy Weir, who wrote The Martian as well)
- Chiming in to agree with this one.
  It's definitely a... Nah, go read it for yourself, there are enough spoilers here already XD
  Anyone somehow reading this comment without seeing the thread it's in, go read 'project hail Mary'.
- I mean the aliens are literal microbes so that's a pretty clear W for humans lol
  
  !Seriously, if you haven't read the book don't unspoil the next section!<
  !Eridians are technologically superior in some regards to humans, but less scientifically advanced by FAR lol!<
- Hope the film will be good too 🙂

The Culture series, Iain M banks.
Humana are part of the culture (although it is AI dominated) which is considered one of the most advanced groups in the setting.
- Came to recommend this. In Ian M Banks' Culture series, the main "Culture" are quite advanced, indeed with post-scarcity living and guardian AIs possible. We see "The Culture" working to subtly recruit less advanced civilizations and modernize them.
- Thanks!
  
  Seconding, thirding and fourthing the Culture novels. One for each time I read the series.

Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein. Though it is a very militaristic point of view that explores interesting societal topics as well as successes and failures of historical human governments. If you liked the training and world building of Ender’s Game, you might like this one.
- Another along those lines is John Scalzi's Old Man's War. Humans are at about the same technological level as the other races in that series.
- On a side note, I love both the book and the movie for totally different reasons.
  There is only one movie. Maybe 1 movie, one animated series, and a game
  
  And that game is the RTS game Starship Troopers: Terran Ascendency.
  
  I agree! The movie is one of my favorite “good bad” movies. I haven’t seen the other 2 movies however, or the animation.

Star Trek sort of fits this. Sort of.
- No it doesn't. In enterprise it's very clear humans are the junior species in space. Humans are also physically weaker than just about every other space faring species in the series.
  
  Yes, it does. There are many episodes where the Enterprise crew are observing a less advanced race. It is the reason they have the Prime Directive in the first place.
  
  Enterprise isn't exactly a representative sampling of star trek.
  In TNG the only reoccurring villains that are more advanced than humans are the Q and the Borg. The iconians were super advanced, but are long dead. There are random space babies/sentient nebulas but most species are behind the federation in tech. Even the romulans aren't more advanced, just focused on war.
  If you ever wonder how advanced humanity is in star trek, remember that Q is a reoccurring villain. Q has complete control of space, time and reality. The federation is so advanced God is an antagonist.
  
  In Enterprise definitely, but even then the crew would occasionally come across a "lesser" species and then debate about what to do about them.
  In TNG era shows most of the other species encountered were portrayed as equal or lesser to humans/federation. Voyager plays with this a little bit since that crew of mostly humans, while almost always more advanced than the people they encounter, they are a lone federation ship with zero support, which knocks down their capabilities a bit.
  There's a great throwaway line by Seven of Nine in voyager where the kazon weren't even worth the Borg's time to assimilate, but they were the main antagonist to Voyager those first few seasons because there were so many of them
  
  Baring most of new trek, all of the species rock and suck in their own ways. Humans are extremely powerful in their own ways. So while they might not be the Mary sues of the universe they certainly aren't light-years behind their opponents. If anything the federation, led by humanity, are in the position they are in due to the technology

Farscape (tv show) is a great example of this. Sabacians are basically human cousins that developed outside earth and are nearly identical in appearance and even genetically compatible to humans. They are also one of the most dominant races of the universe and often the antagonists on that show. I loved Farscape.
- If memory serves, wasn't it explained that Sabacians were humans with slightly altered DNA? They were altered to be more aggressive and more warrior like? I thought I remember hearing that during my 5rh rewatch. Or was it my 6th or 7th?
  
  Yes, I think you are right. What kills me is that with modern day effects it would be much easier to create a show like this again. It was wild with its creativity in a way that is rare today.
- The Ancients in Stargate were also humans.

The Three Body Problem - Humans and aliens engage in a technological arms race for survival. There are times where the humans are a weaker feeble species, but there are also times where humans one up the aliens in ways they couldn't have forseen. It's a great back and forth that puts humanity on a path for stellar exploration and survival all in one moment.
- I tried to like that book but the writing style just didn't click, I gave up after a few chapters.

You may enjoy "A Call to Arms" by Alan Dean Foster (The Damned Series)
The short of it, humans are an uncontacted race in the path of an alien empire "The Amplitur" that is co-opting all of the galaxy. So the resistance forces, (aka "The Weave") decide they might as well reach out to us, since having unassimilated allies is now far more important than their first-contact rules.
Foster takes the basic premise that humans are unlike any other animal on earth, and so by that same token unlike any other species in the galaxy. This means our abilities in creativity, adaptation, survival and our predilection for violence (something every other civilized race evolved to avoid at all costs) all become keystones of how The Weave accept us as members of their alliance.
- Bummer, my library does not have an eBook
- Also his short story "With Friends Like These" fits the bill.

The Mote in God's Eye by Larry Niven is exactly what you want
- Definitely check this one out, OP. It's fantastic.
  "A Fire Upon the Deep" and "A Deepness in the Sky", both by Vernor Vinge, are great too.
  
  There's also "Children of the Sky", which focuses on the humans on the Tines world.
- The Mote in God’s Eye by Larry Niven is exactly what you want
  I think you meant written by Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven.

Umm, Alien?

Ender's Game may fit this, but the sequel Speaker for the Dead definitely does. Not to give away too many details, but it's basically about a space anthropologist making second contact with an alien race still confined to its own planet. I'd say the first book has humans and aliens more or less at parity, but in the second the humans are more technologically advanced. Both are more meditations on otherness more than anything.
- Yep, that's where my inspiration for such sub-genre is from! I even mentioned it in the post.
  
  Oops, my bad I did not read carefully enough haha. Still amazing!

I absolutely adore Peter F Hamilton’s Void books in his Commonwealth saga. The earlier books in the commonwealth saga feature a weaker humanity but in the void series humanity is at the top of the food chain.
- Thanks, will check it out!

Proxima by Stephen Baxter
The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett & Stephen Baxter
Mission of Gravity by Hal Clement

Avatar?

Project Hail Mary
- Just finished reading this. Excellent book!

Stagate comes to mind (we're not the LEST advanced, at least) but that's not a book.
- Among other things, I find Statgate an interesting exploration of how we might advance by finding and co-opting others’ technology (or being given it in some cases ie the Asgard) rather than developing it organically ourselves.
  But one area that’s not explored, sadly, is how that technology would change earth geopolitics. The US Air Force gets to the point of having actual starships but everything is directed outward toward alien enemies. In reality this kind of edge would change our world on the ground too.
  If we gain technology through others, we will make big leaps very quickly and that has the potential to be extremely disruptive. I wish they had explored this more. Perhaps a case where earth terrorists get hold of some Asgard tech, or a government hostile to the US makes an alliance with the Ori or something.

Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky. While humans are not the most advanced species in the galaxy, the books deal with the interaction between humans and vastly inferior (but absolutely fascinating) alien races.
- The main race in A Fire Upon the Deep is the one I most adore using as a sales pitch for scifi.
  I'm going to read that again when I'm soon done with chewing through the Man-Kzin Wars books.
- I read that series a while ago. I second it as a suggestion. It was a really fascinating read.
- A Deepness in the Sky shares the award of books I couldn't finish along with Atlas Shrugged.
  
  Why, if I may ask? I had trouble keeping reading about halfway through, when I learned about the antagonist's character and methods (too brutal even for a fiction book, and he became one of my most hated fictional characters ever), but I also heard of people who aren't too fond of spiders and had to put the book down. In that case, Tchaikovsky's Children of Time wouldn't be for them, either.

The books of The Commonwealth Saga, by Peter F. Hamilton, have humans in the mix. They are neither the most advanced, nor the least, and the balance changes over the course of the books
- Excellent series. I've listened to it on audio books a couple of times and am currently going through it again with my wife. It's taking forever though because she only listens in 30 minute chunks or so.
  Gore Bernelli (sp?) is possibly my favorite character in literature.
- Definitely the series I was going to recommend as well. Especially when you get to the void Trilogies and the stuff that Kasimir does.

I’m as antiReddit as the next person, but r/HFY is exactly that. My favorite from that sub was the series Billy Bob Space Trucker. Highly recommend.
- If we're talking HFY there there's this opus here
  https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/33726/first-contact
  
  Came here to say this. Nothing else even comes close. And if you want to stay away from reddit, Ralts has self-published it as Behold: Humanity! You can get in for Kindle or in dead tree form on Amazon.
  Edit: Apologies Bob, I didn't see your link was for Royal Road instead of reddit.
  
  I found this post a few days ago.
  I'm now on chapter 78 and accelerating.
  Thank you.
  
  Surely Deathworlders is the defining HFY story?
- You can find (and support) Space Paladin's The Nature of Predators on Patreon
- I'm still reading Deathworlders. Gets a bit repetitive and a little... furry at times but overall it's been a fun read.

C J Cherry - Foreigner series. Humans more advanced but only a small community stuck on an alien planet, and may not understand the natives as well as they think (and vice versa )
- Another vote for this series. Cherryh's books are some of my favorites!
- Sounds intriguing, thanks!
  
  It's an excellent series. CJ Cherry is one of my favourite SF authors

The Revelation Space series humans are pretty techy. We are Bob also.

I think these stories are good. Best part is these are series so if you dig them, there's a longer road to travel.
Old Man's War John Scalzi
Lazarus War Jaime Sawyer
The Lost Fleet Jack Campbell
- +1
  Came here to talk about Old Man’s War and specifically the scene where the humans have a battle with an alien race who is much smaller, so they literally walk through their cities kicking buildings over while the alien weapons bounce off their armor.
  There are also much more advanced aliens in that book, but humans aren’t the least advanced at all.
- surprised i had to scroll down so far to find Old Man's War. definitely worth a read.

A classic: Downbelow Station by C.J. Cherryh. In it, the planet known to humans as Pell’s World is populated by the gentle, sentient but technologically naive Hisa. The Hisa are exploited by humans as a manual labor force. Some humans decry this exploitation and work to establish a more compassionate, cooperative relationship with the Hisa.
- Will check it out, thanks!
  
  Lest I give the impression that the book is entirely about human/hisa relations, it’s not.
  That’s one of three intertwined plot threads, the other two being interstellar war among humans and the politics and logistics of running a space station overwhelmed by refugees of the war.

How about The Road Not Taken by Harry Turtledove, kind of?
- I'll check it out, thanks!

A lot of the aliens encountered in Rick and Morty are quite dumb. Then again so are most of the humans. It’s a tossup.

The book series We are legion (we are bob). They encounter two or three less advanced races. Great series, I just finished the fourth book.
- I was about to suggest this one too! I just finished the second book and am really enjoying the series so far.

Stanislav lem has a couple books about it.

Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K Le Guin
Humanity sends an envoy to a planet which is in the industrial era
- Technically, most of the beings in the Hainish Cycle are humans that were lost colonies from Hain, some of whom, like the inhabitants of Gethen, were genetically engineered. The only aliens are The Shing and they're more powerful than humans.
- Nice, sounds intriguing! Will check it out.

HFY fare is a coin toss.
The Jenkinsverse rapidly goes from humans being assumed nonsentient (because our planet is a deathtrap) to cheating our asses off with galactic-standard technology. For example: teleportation is possible, but only between pre-set endpoints, and with a lengthy charge-up. So humans crammed obscenely large capacitors into standard hulls and instantly bip between microsatellites. Our ships have no staying power, but they're absolutely infuriating to fight.
Our main problem is being 99% confined to one vulnerable rock.

James Cameron's Avatar comes to mind

Avatar

The following book settings/series should work.
The Expanse
Alien
Altered Carbon
Warhammer 40,000
- I love the Altered Carbon book series. Each book has its own very different story where even the main character is in a different body, on a different planet, dealing with different kinds of people. The first book is very cyberpunk detective noir.
  The first season of the Netflix series captured that aesthetic very well. My only critique was how they mish-mashed some stuff from all three books and added a new character at the final antagonist. The second season is not good. The whole series also changed the ideology and back story of this revolutionary group and the main character's relation to them.
  Read the books. They are a blast.
- 40K doesn't really fit. While humanity isn't the least advanced civilization in that universe, it's also far from technological dominance (especially considering 10 000 years of stagnation following Horus' Hoolabooga). I mean, even the vagina faced fish are more advanced than the Imperium!
  
  It took me way to long to figure out you were talking a out the Tau. I have never heard them described like that and will never be able to look at them the same again.
- I think The Expanse, while an amazing series that should be read anyway, doesn't fit the bill of "humans are more advanced than the aliens", since the Protomolecule and everything created by the Romans are essentially in the "tech as high level magic" category. Humans can't even understand the technology, often saying things like, the Protomolecule just changed the laws of physics.
- I don't see how The Expanse fits this brief in anyway. Could you explain? To me The Expanse is humans butting up against some alien tech which squarely falls into the realms of being an outside-context problem.
  By the epilogue chapter in the last book you could maybe argue they've finally mastered it. But even then we only see a snapshot.
  
  To me, the alien tech was abandoned and only really significant as fuel for what the true story is. There is no humans versus aliens as a main story best until the very end, and even then humans have the upper hand. The main story beat throughout is human versus human, even in the epilogue we find out that the conflicts continued.

I have seen some recommending Star Trek but you should know that the humans there have about as much in common with modern humanity as the other races. I wouldn't count it even though I love Star Trek and watched all of it.

The video game X3. Of the races in the game, two of them are human. One is the Argon, descendants of a group of humans flung across the galaxy hundreds of years ago and developed into their own little niche. And then the actual Terrans, who somehow managed to develop technology much more advanced than the Commonwealth (what the collection of Argon, Split, Paranid and Teladi are called, since they mostly all work together peacefully) without even having the ability for warp travel, only making contact with the rest of populated space because of a disaster that linked one of their catapults with the network of ancient gates that have been the primary means of exploration.
While they have better shielding, faster thrusters, and devastating weaponry, they are completely lacking in economy, having control of just a single star system against factions that have control of most of known space. The game's actual economy ends up reflecting this quite hard, and the terrans are usually bankrupt super quickly unless you mod the game to give them some support.

"Songs of a Distant Earth" by Arthur C. Clarke
- has an element of that with the alien sea creatures I guess, but as I recall, that book is more just about the interaction between a human stl starship and a less advanced human colony
  
  True, it's just what came to mind. And it's a really good book.

Uplift novels. Been years since I read them. All I remember is humans uplifting other species to sentience. Guess it is time for a reread.
Edit, clearly I remember wrong how this one went. Sorry
- The uplift series? We're the primitive ones because we weren't uplifted like the rest and dont have full access to the library?
  Maybe it changes later, it got really slow in the middle and I've stalled out.
  
  It gets even worse later actually, because they encounter some much older races that regard the ones in the "main" galactic civilization with the library and all to be basically children at best. Tho I do recall some tidbit that reveals that our CGI and general image manipulation and similar entertainment technology had become about as advanced as the library has even before first contact, so humans weren't less advanced in that one mostly insignificant area.

Some episodes of Star Trek
- I’d argue most episodes of Star Trek.
- "We are far from home."

There are quite a few series where humans are on about the same level as most of the other aliens except for one specific race that's way more advanced but driven by some weird internal logic that keeps them from lording it over everyone - John Scalzi's "Old Man's War" and Adrian Tchaikovsky's "Architects" e.g.
- Basically everything by Adrian Tchaikovsky But specifically Children of Time series. Humans are essentially the "ancient" alien race. It's a unique spin on it.
- Thanks, will check it out.

In Strata Humans are basically god level advanced.
All humans are immortal and they terraform planets, and entire star systems, on an industrial scale.

!hfy@lemmy.world
- Oh damn, I didn't know there was an hfy on lemmy. Sadly it doesn't look like my instance is mirroring it properly though; not sure why. Might be due to the ongoing csam attack.
- For some reason it looks empty on my instance. Subscribed anyway, it will probably solve itself over time. Thanks!

Stargate, earth humans are not the least advanced, but there are humans on other planets that are less advanced.

star wars
district 9
plus others as have been mentioned.
- Thanks, will check District 9!

Considering I'm in my umpteenth play through; I feel like Mass Effect fits into this. Humans and other aliens are more or less on the same technological level.
There's a little more depth to it but it's something you can find out more while playing. There's also some comics about it.
- ME is one of my absolute favourite SF. It just happens to be a game ;-)

The short story Three worlds collide (read for free at https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/HawFh7RvDM4RyoJ2d/three-worlds-collide-0-8 ) has humanity at the middle of an interspecies first-contact triangle with a more and a less advanced race.

well, since humans haven't mastered interstellar travel, aliens would by definition by the more advanced race were they do appear in or around earth first, and vice versa i.e. star trek when humans visit planet bound aliens first
- hypothetically, I could see a rare case where a very advanced but very slow growing civilization, that has the technical capacity for interstellar travel (and indeed has far exceeded that level of technology) but for some reason simply never or rarely ever actually bothered with it, has their homeworld visited by a species that has mastered interstellar travel but only recently so. Or alternatively, a species for which interstellar travel is unusually easy, like some kind of hypothetical spaceborne organism that becomes intelligent but possesses no or only primitive technology, but can slowly move between stars without need for a ship, meeting an advanced but not yet interstellar planetary species. Some sci-fi has "space whales" or space amoebas or some other similar type of life, these would be what happens if such creatures got to whatever the rough equivalent of the stone age would be for such a thing.
- Well, it could be that the tech tree for intersteller travel is a road not taken by humans

Mike Resnick’s Birthright is an anthology series going through a future where humanity is the dominant species in a very filled galaxy. He has many other books that fit somewhere in the timeline, like Purgatory, Inferno and
- Thanks, will check it out.

The "sentenced to war" series. I'm only 2 books in but the humans have like a 50 - 1 casualty rate against the aliens due to the aliens tech
- That sounds like the opposite of what I'm asking?
  
  Ooh I miss explained that it's 50 humans for 1 alien

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