Also humans: If we eject the warp core behind us, we could use it like a mine and take out the persuing ship.
Yes and now we have no engine power and 1 hour of life support left before we suffocate. Everyone except the EMH who doesn't require oxygen.
Bajorans and humans fist bumping in front of an exploding warp core
Well why not join us on the journey? We got 57 years worth of content to choose from and a fanbase that is usually pretty accepting and open. Of course there are outliers, same with everything, but be hard pressed to find people on this instance who are negative as hell and actively supported by everyone else.
"The Federation is functionally the Human empire" has always been a far less interesting view than "The Federation is functionally the Vulcan empire"
Humans created the federation. The Vulcans had been around for hundreds of years just wondering around the quadrant not really doing anything other than antagonising the Andorians. Who, Humans managed to form an alliance with by not antagonising them, and claiming to be superior.
But why did the Vulcan join when their old antagonists are part of it? A pretty good answer is that they need to make sure humans don't ruin everything.
This isn't quite as cynical as it looks at first glance. They saw that humans could go either way. Keep them from turning too many stars into touruses, and they'll be capable of greatness.
Same with D&D, humans are like this because OMG we have short ass lifespans and I already hit middle age by 19 gotta go go go!!! Press the red button!
Shorter lived species than humans should be even more widespread and rapidly developing
Great, now I have "I am the very model of a scientist Salarian" stuck in my head
I think that you still need to live long enough to at least be able to learn stuff and explore that knowledge. Too short a life and all you have time for is eat fuck breed kill someone else on your way out.
I don't know much about Skaven though other than a dozen hours in Vermintide 2 and the player characters werent saying much other than "fuck rats" 😂
Humans being the new kids on the block with inferior technology is a pretty common thing. Babylon 5 had humans buy, trade, and negotiate for most of their tech and are barely more advanced than the average small independent world at the start of the show. Farscape had Earth as a backwater, uncontacted, pre-interstellar world and made humans unusually frail with poor eyesight compared to the other species. Even in Trek, humans are physiologically inferior to most everyone and ENT depicted our tech as being far behind everyone else.
The real advantage humanity is consistently depicted as having, regardless of setting, franchise, or even sci-fi vs fantasy, is that we develop new technology faster than just about anyone else. In sci-fi settings, we'll go from barely getting to Mars to colonizing the entire Orion Arm in a couple decades. In fantasy settings, we'll be first to develop firearms and rudimentary industrialization.
[off topic]
My headcanon is that every time a new race joins the Federation, they have the option of designing the Star Fleet uniform.
The Betazeds are responsible for the miniskirts.