Human (Quental view)

(The creatures I'm writing about belong in he same world as the planets cryolith, Behemoth, Cauldron, etc., hopefully for a future mod.  To make things a bit more interesting, I'll try and describe the three species involved from each other's point of view, although the "Human" perspective will be the most basic.)

First Sights

When our scouting groups first met, the humans at first appeared to be one of the many large creatures found throughout the system.  On Cauldron and Cryolith, our hunters attempted to capture them, while on Phobis Terra they were ignored in favor of other targets.  The humans appeared to be easy targets, with brown or grey clothing, and brown to tan skin, that never matched surroundings, and not very good senses.  However, the hunters soon discovered that the humans were dangerous enemies, with many weapons and traps to use against us.  Later, the humans found ways to blend into the landscape as well, using special clothing, and proved a dangerous target for our soldiers as well, and human scouting groups were a favorite target for soldiers trying to prove themselves.

A few groups of scouts did not attack humans, and found most humans willing to avoid fights as well.  Eventually, sounders and thinkers found ways to communicate, and other forms of contact were established.

Shape

While many creatures on our world cannot adapt themselves as we do, we were greatly surprised to find that almost no creatures on the worlds of this system could do so either, including humans.  Almost all humans are between the size of a laborer and a scout, and are shaped in a similar way.  Human skin is colored different shades of brown or tan, usually slightly red, and cannot be changed to match surroundings.  This human body is quite flexible and humans train themselves to increase physical abilities when needed, but it cannot be adjusted beyond this to fill the roles needed of it.

Technology

While humans cannot adapt their own bodies to fill roles nearly as well as we can, they can adapt to roles through tool use and practice, and in tool use they far outshine us.  While we mostly use simple, carefully crafted devices, humans build enormous collections of complex, finely developed tools for any tasks they may encounter.  A single human, with some training and the correct tools, is capable of filling almost any physical work or combat role needed, and multiple humans working together are even more flexible, with large scale machines allowing astounding feats.

Even human construction of technology that we use is usually of higher quality, and the humans learn to create much more of it.  Human builders seem able to build knowledge very effectively, and spot connections and patterns that our builders would miss, and this knowledge allows the humans ot refine their building processes.

The humans also show a surprising ability to understand how the world works, with science being an important part of all human societies we have encountered.  The human scientists are constantly testing the world, recording information, and spotting new connections, providing much knowledge that the humans can turn to their advantage.  Human scientists have even been able to tell us things about ourselves that we did not know.

Dominance

Unlike many creatures, humans cannot directly sense status, leading to a lot of frictions within their societies.  They do not have any strong pheromones as signals, instead releasing a large number of weaker smells that the humans do not sense directly.  Humans themselves say that some of the more dominant among them create "testosterone", we have not been able ot smell this apart from some scientific samples or human waste.  Body language among humans is similarly confused, with more dominant ones using certain gestures and poses more than others, but most humans are still unaware of this. 

Human dominance confusion allows for numerous conflicts in human society when other systems break down.  Unorganized humans will waste time and resources, and in some groups injure or kill each other, to determine who will be in charge.  These divisions are often encouraged or supported by outsiders to gain advantages within a particular society or group; when done with a society, simple determinations of dominance become deadly wars.

Fortunately for human societies, humans themselves have invented a number of outside systems to avoid these problems, based on large collections of rules that most agree or are forced to follow.  As with technology, human legal system allow societies to react much more easily than simple dominance hierarchies would, and these system allow strong organization among the people included.

Human systems are not all alike: some use a lot of central control, similar to a hive, while some disperse control into smaller groups.  Humans also seem to switch between permanent control by a few dominant officials, and allowing less dominant members to rotate high level ones.  Most difficult to understand about human systems is the tendency for different types of control, and different amounts of central control, to be used for different areas of society, often leaving some function of society to be run by a bewildering amount of smaller units, with very specific and almost impossible to understand divisions between functions.  Trade and production, in particular, are commonly left to subunits the humans call "businesses", apart from some roles that central rulers wish to control.

Humans themselves disagree on how exactly on how to arrange societies, using reasons that only make sense to other humans.  Despite all these complications, often lamented as "red tape" or "disorganization", human societies have proven highly adaptable and effective at organization.

Conflict

Wars among humans are almost all over either dominance and/or resources.  Humans themselves recognize a greater variety of reasons for wars, usually involving different subgroups within human society, but as when not at war, we have great difficulty understanding the differences.

Wars for domination between humans are sometimes far more deadly than equivalent wars among us.  Because any human can become a soldier with the right tools, and some teaching or practice, human groups that wish to fight can raise large armies.  Human wars also seem to arouse strong emotions that make it even harder to recognize dominance between groups, so human groups often fight even when they have little chance of winning, and sometimes extra violence is used to to terrorize non-fighting enemies to try and encourage acceptance of a loss, although the target humans often continue fighting afterwards.  However, the actual intensity of human conflict varies greatly, based on expectations and rules that only some of the humans involved can understand.

Wars between humans and us are also far more deadly than wars within our species.  Humans themselves are often quite violent in wars, attacking non-soldiers during invasions.  Our own soldiers must be more deadly than usual, watching out for apparent non-fighters who may be hiding weapons or hunting groups the humans call "guerillas".  Humans, despite their tendencies to kill non-fighters, often maintain distinctions between "combatants" and "civilians" that we do not notice, and get extremely angry at the killing of "civilians", further stretching out wars.  The lack of ability to sense dominance also stretches out wars, as humans will often try to end wars when victory has not yet been established, or keep fighting after they have little chance of winning.

When humans fight, they bring their full technological and building skills to the war.  Though humans cannot mutate their bodies for war, they can build tools that compete on even terms with almost any adaptation we invent.  Human soldiers are not as tough or strong as our soldiers, but build body armor, camouflage clothing, and powerful weapons.  As we have developed adaptation for larger soldier types, such as diggers and spit throwers, humans have responded with cars, tanks, and even farther shooting, large guns.  Less well equipped humans are still dangerous, through their abilities to improvise ambushes and traps.  Humans seem to have more trouble in unfamiliar or rough terrain, where they cannot use their technologies as effectively, and require some time to gain an understanding of the environment they will be in.