Two great generals meet in the outer reaches of space. One intends to force the other into surrender through threats. He is not human. He will fail.
The alien general, a true lovecraftian horror, leered down at the human. The human was a woman. She spoke for all of humanity.
"Your kind has fought hard. But you will fall. Surrender and you shall merely become a slave race. In time you might become accepted into our society as beloved pets. My offer is generous. Yield." Words that had been spoken many times. Often they were accepted gratefully.
The woman knew the threat was real and had seen the brutality and deadly efficiency of the enemy firsthand. Humans feared them greatly. The aliens would come to wish that was not true. She knew that humanity, like a great beast, was most dangerous when it was scared. Fear could compel even the most complacent and peace-loving human to commit acts that any other species would see as barbaric. Overkill, even. Humans became masters of their home world not through diplomacy and careful advances in technology, but by outright eliminating that which they feared. Humans were the only known species to be the only space-faring creature on their birth world. The rest of the galactic community saw it as a weakness. We were alone with no other species to aid us or divide labor with according to our gifts. The only species from the other worlds that understood what our sole mastery signified. They were our neighbors; the closest community to our home world. They fled. They knew. This fool of a general was about to find out.
"I would say that our forces have been nearly equal over the course of this war would you agree?" She smiled. She was pleased be the one to make the out-worlders understand humanity.
"You fight well. Our warriors fear and respect your own. You are outnumbered. Three of ours for every one of yours would be an accurate assessment." From the writhing of his tentacles, she surmised he was pleased and proud of this statement of strength.
"You would be correct in that estimate. But only as our forces stand now." She grinned. She was enjoying this.
"What do you mean, scum?"
"At present, only 3% of all humans choose to enlist in the military. You may not understand what I mean, so I shall explain. In your society there is no division between civilians and military. All of your species serve in what my kind would call the military. When you go to war, all of you go to war. My kind is different. Only 3 out of every 100 choose to fight. The rest choose to pursue other interests. Even in times of our greatest peril, we have never committed more than a third of our population to military operations. Now, you have made your final mistake. You have scared us. We fear annihilation. Even now, the governing body of our home world is choosing to send humanity to war. All of us. You have woken the sleeping giant and you will pay with your lives." She openly grinned, baring her teeth in the loosest facsimile of a smile.
He had frozen. All movement of tentacles and limbs had stopped.
The leaders of his kind also watched through his many eyes, they too had frozen. She did not lie. She had not lied….Slowly at first, but with increasing urgency a thought rose to the surface of their collective consciousness. "They are the War Hounds of the Gods!" Unknown to humanity, the rest of the galactic community was aware that nearly all of the known great sentient races had been seeded by what were commonly called the Gods. The first great race of the galaxy. They were long gone, but their children remained and each was believed to have a purpose. Until now they had thought all the roles were accounted for. Humans were assumed to be a spontaneous race untouched by the Gods hands. The species of which the alien general was a member of had, until now been assumed to be the warriors, the war hounds of the gods. But now before them was a species that found war to be so trivial as to limit the number of their combatants to a dismally small percentage of their population. Roused to true, all-out war they would be unstoppable. They must be the true War Hounds… mustn't they? If they were not… If they were not part of the Gods plan, then the cosmos would burn before their fury.