A human was crying, their friend asked what was wrong. They'd heard all their lives of all the wild cruelties humans had done to each other, then found an ancient, archived, video of humans in the past acting in kindness. The video really made them smile.
-- Anon Guest
Humans don't always have good angles. The stories of them having murderous rampages against species that wronged them abound. Other stories... not so much. The stories of Human compassion, sharing, and daring for strangers are slower to move. Blood and guts, after all, is more of a visceral experience.
It's made Ships' Humans a lot quieter as a result. The softly-spoken ones have a reputation for being walking bombs. Harm their pack, and all bets were off. Humans knew this too.
They generally attempted friendly interactions first. Only after something attempted murder with determination did they retaliate. When a Human retaliated, they did so with a wide splash zone. Which was why it was such a shock to see one crying.
Human Des was in a corner, out of the way of foot traffic, watching something on his datareader.
Companion Yun, who had come to check on him, prepared for the worst. "Is it bad news? Family? Friends?"
Des sniffed and wiped his face. "No. It's..." A pause to evacuate his sinuses. "This is going around."
It was a collection of video feeds. From securicams, from eyecams, from people who happened to be recording other footage at the time. It was all about Humans being kind. A child who had lost their parental in an evacuation was standing in the rushing crowd until a Human scooped them up and took them to safety.
A team of burly, armoured space marines carefully destroyed a section of wall to extract a litter of tiny Skitty[1] kittens who were trapped there. Every single one of them cheered when they were re-united with their mother.
An adult human nearly harmed themselves catching a ball, only to turn and gift it to a small child also in the arena.
Children surprised a custodian for their birthday, on a planet where such work was undervalued.
People went out of their way to assist stranded vehicles, to rescue children, small animals, or complete strangers. Again and again, anyone with a pair of kind hands chose to help someone they didn't know.
"We're not monsters," managed Des. "This is going everywhere. They're showing everyone... we're not monsters."
Given that particular angle, Yun was prone to moist eye syndrome herself.
[1] Gengineered pest control based on Terran cats.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / huhulin]
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