Humans are odd, introduced into the Galactic community only about 110 of their years ago they have already made themselves one of the most important species in the Galaxy. From a biological standpoint they are a fairly standard with tolerances for heat and cold, pressures and vacuum within the midrange for most species. They are not exceptionally strong nor do they possess weapons or strategies more effective than anything else that other species have produced.
Humans are from almost any standpoint average, and just another species amongst the hundreds within the Galactic community. But the humans possess one ability which make them unique. Assimilation is what makes them amazing, and an invaluable species on the political stage of the Galaxy.
Before Humanity showed up the interaction between different species was terse, wars were common enough and any attempts to form alliances or federations of any sort fell apart. The different species of the Galaxy were to set in their ways, to determined that the way they did things the only correct way. To pigheaded to see that together the different species of the Galaxy could accomplish those things every space fairing culture had been dreaming of but none could complete.
A Galactic wormhole system, a Dyson sphere, an energy harvester around a black hole. Most species dreamed of these things and many more. But as a whole the Galaxy was stagnant, and had been for nearly ten generations of my species. Everyone in the galaxy was content in their little corner of space never to know the grandeur of what we could accomplish together.
The Humans arrived on my planet like many other had before, in a small exploratory ship preaching peace and partnership. We let them land simply to make sure they would not bother us again in the future.
Instead of swaggering military bravado, or pretentious religious preachers the first Humans my species encountered were a family, and dedicated to not the exploration of space but of other cultures.
We scoffed at first thinking this simply a more elaborate ruse, a foolish newborns attempt to bring us around to their way of thinking. We were proven wrong, and for the first time as a species we are glad that we were.
The humans did not do much for the first dozen Sols on our planet except watch us, not as one would look at prey or something inferior like a lab experiment but as one would look at a companion.
The children especially were the most interesting, small little things barely larger than one of my feet. The curiosity in their eyes and the eagerness inside their souls was not something that could be staged or manufactured. Their gazes and questions were disconcerting to the people they asked, for the small Humans did not spout what their elders taught they instead asked why we did things our way.
After watching us for a time the humans tentatively began to interact with us, at first with only the disgruntled handlers watching them, but soon they were roaming the cities of our world. Gone were the simple garments they had worn on their ship, replaced with the traditional robes of my species.
The males painted their limbs as a man in my culture would, showing the profession they had taken and how many children they had.
For ten years they remained on our planet, their children growing up on the dirt of my world. It took us a long time to realize we had accomplished what we had tried to do so many generations ago. We had taught another species how to act, what was right and what was wrong.
It had not been on our initiative though and it had not been intentional on our part. The Humans had sought us out and changed themselves.
We were stunned, to think that a species would give up what was most important to them to interact with us to throw away their very culture.
The Humans laughed at this, and said that our cultures were not very different at all. They had wanted to learn about ours to take the knowledge home to their own, to enhance their own culture. They explained that texts or other mediums of knowledge were not enough, they had to experience our culture themselves to understand it.
For the first time we were curious, what type of culture, what type of world would spawn a creature like the Humans? They invited us to travel back to their home world with them or at least the older Humans did, the small ones now grown chose to stay on my world claiming that it was their home.
I joined the Humans on their ship and traveled with them to their home world. When we arrived the Humans did not stop acting like they were from my world, they continued to wear my cultures clothes and act as if they were on my planet.
Their fellow humans did not reject them instead they embraced them, they embraced me.
They did not demand that I change, they demanded that I change them. They demanded to know anything they could about my culture and my world.
I soon discovered that I was not the only alien on this strange planet, hundreds of other species more than I had ever seen were gathered on the Human’s home world. The Humans themselves were as diverse as the aliens, a human dressed in the garb of the violent Frankelin, a human tattooed to match the Yaun next to her, a human enduring the pain of spikes in his feet as the Tuiln religion required.
All of the humans were different form one another, yet they did not clash. They complimented one another and fed off of the differences, they did not try to change one another. I later learned that humans adored originality, every different idea or practice in an alien culture was just another to add to their own.
I stood with the humans from my world and watched as they all gathered, every different human in large conference area.
The humans sat down and began to discuss bringing our cultures together, and forming a better Galaxy for all.
I looked around for the first time feeling some sense of comradery with the other older species of the Galaxy. From what I could interpret they were as stunned as I was, we had all dreamed of this but had given up on it as an impossible dream. Now this new species, young and strange was doing it alone trying to bring us all together.
The humans argued amongst themselves, they fought, the representatives of the different cultures did not budge on issues important to the worlds that had adopted them. For some time I feared that this attempt would fail like all the others, but even at their worst the Humans eventually found a balance they found a way to accept the differences.
Now 100 of their years later that dream is realized, it is sad that Humans have such a short life span few were able to see what they created.
The Humans are the most important species in the galaxy, they assimilate into every culture. From the violent warrior clans on the darkest worlds to the monks seeking enlightenment in the sky ships. The Humans are the glue and the buffer, they understand our cultures and have taught us all that we need not change.
We need not change, but they have taught us all how to be a little more Human.