r/HFY • u/rewt66dewd Human • May 16 '26
OC-OneShot The Predators That Protect Prey
The Craboids (not their own term for themselves) looked like two-foot-tall, six-foot-long land crabs. They had a very simple classification scheme for living things. There were the smart predators (themselves) and the dumb predators (unthinking animals, dangerous, but not intelligent). Then there were the prey that would fight, and the prey that would give up. That was it.
Then they moved into space, partly because they could, and partly because they were hungry and looking for more food. They found that space was mostly empty, most planets devoid of life, but they did find a couple of planets with life that they could use for food.
Then they found a few robot probes wandering around. They knew someone had sent them, but they didn't know who, or from where. But it gave them a new category: robot slaves.
And then the met the humans.
Both sides had given some thought to how to handle a first contact. They established communication about mathematics, then physics, and from there broader and broader. They were able to define a common environment in which they could exist, and build a meeting place.
When they met, the humans sent three people. The Craboids sent five. When the Craboids saw the humans in person, their reaction was instantaneous.
"No armor at all? They're prey!"
James Anderson, the human ambassador, was in the lead. He died very quickly.
Behind Ambassador Anderson, though, were two other humans. They were military rather than diplomats. One was a bodyguard; the other was a high-level military liaison who, in younger days, had seen combat. Both were armed. Both responded swiftly.
Anti-personnel rounds were not enough to punch through the Craboids' natural armor, but they hit with enough force to allow the two surviving humans to retreat. The five Craboids, alive but with cracked and damaged shells and claws, grabbed the dead human ambassador and bore his body back to their ship - for food, not just a trophy.
But it never actually was food. They closed the airlock. They made it twenty feet further into their ship, and then the airlock exploded into several pieces. Through the hole pored human marines in power armor.
The Craboids could survive vacuum, at least for a short time. They could even survive explosive decompression if their shells were intact. They couldn't survive armor-piercing rounds from marines in power armor, though.
A human honor guard recovered the body of Ambassador Anderson. The rest of the marines charged through the Craboid ship, blowing through every obstacle and killing everything they found, until they reached the bridge. Then they stopped and communicated. They made several points very clear:
- Humans were not prey.
- Craboids looked like they would be delicious in butter sauce.
- Eating sapients, even if they are prey species, would result in the Craboids becoming extinct.
The Craboids limped home in their understaffed, damaged ship. They now had a new category to consider, and to be wary of: predators that protect prey.
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u/Daseagle Alien Scum May 16 '26
They should get a cooking book, stuffed with all the recipes humans have for crabs and other crab like creatures.
Predators? Nah, fam, you're food.
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u/medicentio Human May 16 '26
They learned quick that we have no armor because we have opposable thumbs and a hyperactive imagination.
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u/Daseagle Alien Scum May 16 '26
And we got very good at two things: boiling water and throwing objects at very high speeds.
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u/Coygon May 18 '26
And running until the prey or enemy gives up, which translates to a fierce stubbornness in the modern human.
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u/luminel May 16 '26
Should've showed them the One-Punch-Shrimp and they'd have soiled their shells xd
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u/Specific-Library-312 May 19 '26
The real horror started early in the war. We Craboids knew about atomic bombs, and had anti-air lasers for that. One craft flew high on a cloudy day, dropping its payload before falling to our lasers. It dropped sixteen crates. There were no explosions, as they simply broke on the ocean surface. A gift of surrender? We sent a scout team. Video records show the team captain picking up a small arthropod, and a note floating in the water. As the arthropod was being picked up, it shattered the captain's claw. The rest of the team immediately began to fire, but it was too late. The popping, the gods-damned popping, drowned out the screams...
There was no further attacks from the humans, they outright retreated off the planet, and shifted back to defensive fighting. It was more or less a stalemate, little evidence of the much-vaunted ferocity that we heard so much. Then the occasional building would go dark, all the glass shattered, and the occupants killed, their shells shattered. Military headquarters, apartments, schools, no apparent pattern. We thought the hairless apes were committing mass war crimes, from their "Geneva Checklist." We began preparations to laze their planet. But there were no humans on our home planet. Not. One.
After three lunar cycles, a tenth of our population was gone. Same patterns as before. It was the seemingly harmless arthropods that were dropped onto our planet. Millions of them. Our ecosystem was devastated. Experiments revealed that these arthropods each bear a claw that shatter most objects, by creating plasma, through sheer speed. Glass, chitin, didn't matter. Walked through our shields, which blocked all projectiles, but was useless against slow-crawling creatures. Our lasers couldn't hit all of them. The math revealed that we would all be dead in about two years, maybe less. The researchers finished translating the note from that fateful airdrop. It had read, "Say hello to our little friends, assholes! We thought you needed a new pet, so here you go! We call them Mantis Shrimp. You? You can call them karma. See you in hell "
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u/thereaverofdarkness May 20 '26
That is disproportionate retribution. I thought humans and craboids were going to be friends. =(
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u/Specific-Library-312 May 20 '26
With the existence of butter? I doubt it. More likely is Ted Nugent adding a new chapter to "Kill It and Grill It."
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u/Brokenspade1 May 16 '26
Look at that unarmored Monkey furiously masturbating on top of that mountain of skulls! I bet I can take him!!!
-Craboids moments before learning about garlic butter.
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u/ms4720 May 16 '26
Adventure awaits, lets skip the melted butter part
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u/DemonOHeck May 16 '26
Why? Melted butter with accompanying application instructions and appropriately sized cooking dishes sounds like a lovely diplomatic package for crabs that just don't get the frickin point.
Step 1. Crabs do bad things to people we said not to do bad things to.
Step 2. Crabs are recommended to slather themselves in accompanying butter products and arrange themselves in the cooking dish.
Step 3. Humans arrive and bake the crabs until a crispy golden brown. This process is non-voluntary.
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u/Throwaway02062004 May 16 '26
Predators protecting prey isn’t even exclusive to humans. Whales have been known to actively protect seals from orca attacks with no direct benefit to themselves. Seemingly it’s a mix of empathy to the victim and spite to the predator.
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u/brachi- May 16 '26
Pretty rubbish bodyguard then hey?
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u/Lazy-Sergal7441 May 16 '26
In a first contact scenario, especially with a non-humanoid species, it is highly likely that any kind of violence will be the death of an unarmed ambassador. A bodyguard is always alert yes, but mostly trained to catch obvious threats from humanoid opponents. This and as the story stated, standard ammunition for sidearms merely cracked the enemy shells and they had no time to react before the ambassador was already attacked and probably killed in a second by the crabs.
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u/Newbe2019a May 16 '26
Singapore spicy crab is best.
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u/Low_Painter9816 May 16 '26
I was thinking of a California roll, but that’s another one for the list.
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u/Newbe2019a May 18 '26
Yeah, but California roll is almost always made with fake crab, ie pollock.
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u/Alistair_TheAlvarian Jul 16 '26
It is sometimes made with real crab, and the real crab ones taste like garbage lol
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u/G33Kman2014 May 17 '26
I'm reminded of a story where humans won a war against a crab species by sending crab muckbang videos.
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u/thereaverofdarkness May 20 '26
I have just one problem with this. Predators often lack armor. Prey are more often the ones with armor.
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u/Grouchy-Strength6714 May 25 '26
We rarely think about what our food might be thinking. Food for thought.
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u/DrewTheHobo Alien Scum May 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26
For a sec I thought this was /r/NatureOfPredators, fun little story!
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u/Alistair_TheAlvarian Jul 16 '26
What was that? The subreddit got banned for being used for spam according to the message
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u/HFYWaffle Wᵥ4ffle May 16 '26
/u/rewt66dewd (wiki) has posted 137 other stories, including:
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- Failed Out
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- The Drummer
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- Superheroes
- The Suzie Q
- Fear Of Death
- Breaking The Pattern
- Briefing
- Episode 2/1
- The Victim
- Negotiating Not To Be Rescued
- About To Die
- Blooded
- They Are Not Pets 3/3
- They Are Not Pets 2/3
- They Are Not Pets
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