Sci fi/fantasy setting

Don't the Salarians in Mass Effect live to roughly 40 and the Quarians 80's, where humans now live to like 120-150 range?
Even then Humans aren't the old wise race because in Mass Effect 1 they've only been involved in galactic affairs for 30 years, which makes it a bit ridiculous that they're pushing so hard to be in the council when they've basically just shown up.

>short lifespans
One of the most long-lived complex species on Earth.
>fragile
Can literally survive losing a limb or disembowelment while a fracture usually kills other animals.
>no supernatural abilities
Neither does everyone else.
>have to work hard to get what they want
Being able to work hard is a virtue by itself. Other animals are unable to think in abstract terms that would motivate them to do things such as fighting to the death.

The true hero of Avatar.

Because humans are a baseline, they're the mirror we hold up to all other races. We have no outstanding attributes in that case, so we look to something else to make them a powerhouse among larger than life races. This then is usually our industriousness and want for legacy.

Because having a clearly superior species instead of different ones with different talents alludes to racism, the thing that cowards avoid like the plague and would never tackle in such a manner.
These type of people are the same ones that deny any differences between breeds of dog, can you imagine if they presented sentient beings as having different characteristics?
That shit terrifies them.

our entire species being a walking contradiction
fits however.

user you keep comparing to life as-is on earth. In a hard sci-fi setting you would have some merit but OP was clearly referring to soft sci-fi. being able to survive losing a limb (only after immediate medical treatment btw) means nothing when the hivemind comes knocking on your door

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What was the reason for wanting the resource in that again? What did it do?

Potential for sex with aliens

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In star wars, Rodians have relatively short lifespans.

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Can anyone else not look at this imagine and think of Detroit?

Hard sci-fi has hiveminds too, like the arachnids from Starship Troopers (the ones from the book, the movie ones are just dumb animals).
The narrator leaves it up to the reader to decide if decentralized intelligence is superior to that or not.

>elves are [...] now stand ins for niggers
never seen a single instance of this desu

Depends on the species, humans are underestimated a lot as animals. Even before weapons and significant technology we were still apex predators. We're strong and fast, strong jaws and superior skeletal system and really good senses in most cases.

>human male space guy
>soldier, default settings
Yep. It’s gamer time.

>sci-fi fantasy setting
>parasitic race/hivemind
Stop doing this shit

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Dragon Age elves are essentially "we wuz kangz nigga"

Why can't we have a good parasitic race?

some other options for humans
>humans are space techies. they learn fast but are otherwise dumb, they'll master the use of a brand new tech system in mere months where most other species would take years. but only the absolute geniuses among them would even begin to understand how it works, much less how to improve it
or
>human's are space orcs, unusally resiliant and long lived. watching one perform surgery or fly a ship is liking watching a baby try to drive a car, but goddamn if they can't take a beating. they can survive for whole minutes under water, be comfortable in (relatively) extreme temperatures and even survive losing multiple limbs. basically unkillable
or
>humans are space bards. every species keeps a record of their history and is capable of thinking through hypotheticals, but humans have this weird obsession with fake (or "fictional") stories. they'll bond over retellings of events that didn't happen, and actually feel emotional connection to beings that don't even exist. it's weird but as a result they're able to form strong attachments with races that are nothing like them, able to care about the history of planets they've never even been to. weird, friendly hippies, good for moral and entertainment but not much else
or
>humans are a swarm. they breed exceptionally quickly and don't need any special requirements to do so; a few dozen of them can form a huge colony in mere decades, consuming the resources around them like a plague. this is partly due to their versatility. most races naturally seperate breeding members from other functions (soldiers, farmers, leaders etc.), but every human, no matter their role, is capable of spawning more of the little pests

I mean, if late I’ve thought humans would be great for Space!Dwarf stand-ins.

>We fucking love our recreational poisons
>Endurance hunters who make up for their lack of speed with relentlessness
>Hairy
>We’re really big into our institutions (clans/kingdoms) and grudges.
>Prone to greed and materialism

And then for setting specific ones you can tack on:
>Humans build shit that’s not the prettiest or fastest, or even necessarily the most powerful but definitely rugged and long lasting
>Earth turns out to be a relatively high gravity world for sapient life and we end up shorter than most other aliens.
>also have a surprisingly decent life span.

Now enjoy impressing tall, lightweight, space elf girls with your human strength, coarse facial hair, and laser axe.

>Egyptian elves
Imagine.

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Our greatest trait aside from our intelligence is our ability to sweat all over our bodies, since this allows us to have much more endurance than other animals.

in real humans aren't strong, aren't particularly good at diplomacy and probably aren't all that scientifically advantaged.

Humans are bards

>Why is this always the case?
fantasy and sci fi writers are usually misanthropes, that's why

I love that shit though, why wouldn't you want aliens that are actually alien?

>wall of cope

these guys are my favourite ayyys
sorry not sorry

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>no supernatural abilities
what if sight is a supernatural ability? or hearing? if a sentient race evolved from a species that mostly used something like temperature variation to navigate their world, they might not even have sight or hearing. say they instead they evolved a little cluster of nerves they can change the temperature of at will, and even from across a room others can sense the variation with such precision that they can communicate with it perfectly well
>being in a room full of humans is bizarre, their temperature remains completely still but they insist they're "talking" somehow.
>absorbing light into your brain to "see" surfaces sounds made up, as does communicating using vibrations in the air too small for anything other than machinary to detect
>do not try to hide from a human! even if you change your temperature to perfectly match your surroundings, they'll be able to detect and track you with ease! they say our whole species is "bright purple and loud as fuck", whatever that means!

It’s starting to look like we might end up being that in real life.

Maybe that’s why I’m not a great sci/fant author myself: I still have too much faith in humanity.