Humans are insane. “Well of course,” you say, “This has be said before.” And I realize this. There have been studies done, entire books written about it. They cover topics from the way they fight, to their “extreme sports,” even their music. But I have recently discovered something that everyone seems to have missed.
I was on Earth for a vacation. While there I sampled many of the uniquely human things, many of which are rarely found elsewhere in the galaxy. One of the things that I did was go to a Human airshow. An airshow is a unique thing. Other species use their space craft for display, but it is usually for specific ceremonies or shows of force. Humans, however, do it for entertainment. Airshows date back to pre-contact days, and haven’t changed much since. And when you go to one, you see something found nowhere else in the galaxy: Airplanes.
As you may be aware, humanity never discovered anti-gravity, they were given it. Other species experimented with using aerodynamics to help them fly, but they usually discover anti-gravity and abandon all previous attempts. Humans, however, discovered how to fly, and, in typical human fashion, went in every direction with it. From that first experiment where they realized it was possible, to huge transports that can carry several human tanks (pre-contact tanks, those things were tiny compared to what they have now), and everything in between. (Have you ever wondered why human space craft are usually wing shaped, or have wings? They still don’t quite trust anti-grav)
At an airshow you get to see a good selection of these aircraft. Though there usually isn’t anything bigger than a large fighter jet, the one I attended had some larger craft on the ground for you to view. However, it was the aerial acrobatics that were the main attraction. The pilots did maneuvers I didn’t think were possible without anti-grav, and they didn’t even have any installed as backup! While this alone might seem insane enough, what happened next was even more impressive.
The last jets so far had shot off into the distance, and for a moment, there was silence. Then, a sound. Slowly building, it grew louder and louder. It is hard to put the sound into words, especially if you don’t know the source. The closest sound that I can think of is thunder, but even that doesn’t do it justice. Then they appeared. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Helicopters. Let me try to explain a helicopter. Take an airplane. Now, take off the wings. Next, take a bunch of smaller wings and attach them to the top of the craft. Now have those wings spin in circles very fast. This is essentially a helicopter. But there’s more insanity! First, there has to be another propeller so that the craft stays balanced and doesn’t spin out of control. (I’ve seen videos of that happening, it’s not a pretty sight) Secondly, there is no real backup if the propellers fail. With a normal airplane, you can at least try to glide to safety. Unless you are extremely lucky, this is impossible in a helicopter. And they didn’t have anti-grav. Who but a human could have come up with this? Who but a human would get into such a thing? And there were around a dozen of them flying over our heads.
And these were not regular helicopters, they were military helicopters. Because, being humans, if they can stick a gun on it, they will. And they are intimidating. Not only is there a human machine with a gun (or several) on it, which is intimidating by itself, but the noise they made! In this age of stealth it is often forgotten how purely terrifying noise can be. I later spoke to another tourist, and she gave it a description that I think fits it perfectly:
Thunder from Hell.